Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Jim Henson Productions or the Labyrinth or Mr. David Bowie's very fine self.
Part Four:
Jareth left the room with his usual ground-eating stride. The doors swung silently shut behind him locking themselves in his wake. Taking himself into his private quarters deep with in the castle proper he brooded over what to do with the woman. The challenge for the child could not take place until she woke at the very least. Her poor physical condition would make beating her at even the easiest path through the labyrinth less of a challenge and more a foregone conclusion.
It had been some time since he had had a decent opponent… the boredom of ruling or rather mis-ruling his peculiar subjects was stultifying. They could be herded but not really lead except by fear and their entertainment value was limited to the unsophisticated. Not that Jareth despised unsophisticated amusements; unsophisticated amusement was what got him stuck here in the first place. But gradually carving a haven of sanity in a chaotic world had caused him to treasure every meter of ground stolen from the howling wilderness that surrounded them.
Wild magic was neither good nor bad merely untamed and undirected. The Labyrinth sat like a gate on a dam keeping the chaos from infecting the ordered worlds of the fae and human alike. When he was sent here there was naught but the castle and the maze. The maze directed the flow of magic into the ordered realms forcing it to assume a configuration that wouldn't disrupt the status quo. Every once in awhile a swirl of mischief managed to escape and swept through the sluice and past the gatekeeper to keep things interesting for the ordered spheres. It was one of these that killed the last guardian and brought about Jareth's exile to take his place.
Jareth had been a young fae, in his first hundred years, still inexperienced in the ways of the mortal world. His desire for freedom outstripped his capacity to handle what unrestricted access to the world could show him. But being a willful child he would escape into the great wide world when ever he could do so. One spring day, when the morning had decked the grass with dew and the sun was as gentle as golden wine, Jareth came from under-hill escaping his tutors and caretakers looking for amusement as a arrow seeks a target.
He rode on a great grey stallion and he was dressed in blue riches of silk velvet and fine leather. His face was young and unmarked by the sorrows of a world that could be bitterly unfair. As he rode the wind of his passage lifted the pale blonde hair off his neck and caused it to float in the sweet air. He was beautiful in a fashion, which causes the heart to break in one and seethe with jealousy in another. Unfortunately he was to meet the latter rather than the former.
As he rode, he came on a coach, gilt, polished, and well sprung. He waved in friendly cheer as he passed it and went on to an Inn somewhat down the road where the ale was rich and the wenches friendly. The Inn was somewhat used to the presence of the fae in the area and welcomed the fairy coin which though strange-fashioned was still of natural gold.
Jareth was seated on a bench with a sweet girl on his knee and ale in his hand when the coach pulled into the inn's yard. Stealing a kiss from the woman kept all his attention as the occupant exited the coach and entered the building. When he looked up his face flushed with pleasure and his pale blue eyes sparkling with mischief he found himself being scrutinized by a man garbed in clerical black with a scowl on his unappealing countenance that would frighten all but the bold or reckless. The now scarlet-faced wench slipped off his knee and went to serve the new come customer. With a sniff of distain the priest deigned to accept rabbit pie, fresh crusty bread, and sweet cider for his lunch and took a seat at the table closest to the door and furthest from the other patrons of the inn whom he seemed consider beneath him.
The priest summoned Jareth to him with an impetuous gesture and having obviously taken Jareth for a young nobleman began to immediately castigate him for keeping low company and less scruples. Jareth having escaped one set of tutors was reluctant to be forced to listen to the scathing tongue of the priest and stood to leave. The priest standing as well grabbed his arm in a claw like grip to detain him fully intent on finishing spewing his poisonous flow. Jerking his arm from the man's grip, Jareth, narrowed his eyes and growled impatiently at the man. The man eyes widening suddenly on something he suddenly saw or read in Jareth's face back peddled and fell over his chair his head hit the hard edge of the stone fireplace behind him and cracking it like an egg.
The sparse fellow patrons of the inn who had been watching the exchange went silent in shock as the priest went over backwards and as he failed to rise came to stand in a semi circle around the fallen mortal and the shocked fae. The serving wench shoving through the circle knelt at the priest's side and looked up at him in horror.
"Oh, my lord, you have killed him!"
At once an outcry arose and he was seized by strong hands of the men that surrounded him. In his shock and surprise he failed to use his young magic before he was thrown into the dank stone cellar room of the inn to await the arrival of the magistrate. The fine stallion he had rode in on turned to smoke and a wisp of grass with the onset of the night. Locked away by cold iron and his own still weak magic, he lay in the dirty hole unfound and unfindable by his parents and their worried retainers. After three days in the dark, the wild magic carried on a the wings of a careless zephyr came close enough to be grasped, called by his desperation and his own wild fear. The slender strand of magic wild and untamed threaded it's way into his inky confines and was bright to his fae eyes in the mortal dark. He reached out with both hands, gasping it and pulled.