Disclaimer: I do not own the Labyrinth or the characters in it, nor do I make any profit from this story in anyway.
Title: In Dreams, I Await Your Hand
Chapter Four:
The Jousting tournament was set up rather simply. A high bench was erected with a tan cloth canopy, its back to the front of the inner castle; it was the seat of nobility for the Goblin King. Benches on either side were for special guests of honor, such as official dignitaries and their close friends. Sir Didymus had a seat at this section since he was the coordinator of the event.
On the opposite side were many four large consecutive rows of seating, each one higher than the next. The benches were crude, driven together not by bolt or machine but by the practiced hands of Goblins with hammers and nails. It was painted a dark green to best stand against drinks and food stains, and some of the rows were slightly crooked. These seats were for the general public, meaning anyone wanting to see goblin guards bash each other with wooden lances were welcome. The back end of the benches faced the inside of the outer city gate so that crowds could easily enter and leave.
Between the king's reservation and the Goblin's stadium seating was a long wooden fence. This would be the area of opposition where two guards would charge at each other from opposite ends and make contact in the middle.
The air buzzed with expectations and excitement.
Goblins and Inhabitants of the Labyrinth flocked into the inner Goblin City, scrambling and even haggling over rickety wooden benches. It was a dry day and warm breezes swirled brown shiny dirt around the feet of everyone. Taller Goblins shouted out there wares of greasy drumsticks and dribbling wooden cups of warm ale while near the end of the benches smaller goblins ran about taking bets for opposing teams.
Bright flags with an emblem of a white owl flapped overhead, while even more creatures joined in from the city gates. Sounds collected into a deafening roar as goblin children laughed and hooted, neighbors gossiped, and older goblins harassed anything looking female.
Suddenly, little bodies of armor and spiked helmets rose from the castle towers. They raised ridiculously long curvy trumpets to their mouth guards and let out a series of long deep horn blasts. There was a hush among the crowd.
Fireys began popping out of nowhere and started cart wheeling parallel to the benches. They jumped and landed at strategic spots, standing before tall iron lanterns filled with bowls of oil. The crowd looked toward the king's canopy.
The Goblin King appeared above his seat, majestically descending like a beautiful but menacing angel. For one second he was in midair, suspended with his arms extended, his long legs pointing to the ground, the next he was in front of his seat shaded under tan cloth. His black cape billowed slightly from his movement and rippled as he arrogantly tossed his head at the crowd, causing long blond strands of hair to sway. He swept one arm in a long arc as a signal.
The fireys saw their cue and each one raised long fingered hairy hands to their mouths, took a deep breath, and blew. A fierce blaze of fire shot out and ignited the lanterns all round the arena. The crowd went wild! They shouted, hooted, and stamped their feet, and caused many goblins to drop food and drink.
Sir Didymus now stood at his seat, holding a bright red flag ready.
A rhythmic sound of beats was heard emerging from the bowels of the castle; the sounds have become louder with each second. Soon two dozen goblin guards on bug eyed dragons appeared and separated into lines at opposite ends of the wooden fence, each holding a wooden lance strapped to one of their arms, and attached to their waists was a broad sword. The crowd was even louder than before. Little goblin children waved small hand flags, which were either black or white, representing the opposing teams.
Sir Didymus waited until the first two contestants were ready, raised the red flag (which was almost bigger than himself) and with a triumphant cry shouted, "Let the games begin!"
There was a thunder of dragon feet that hit the ground, clouds of dust were raised, and then the anticipated contact of wood that had splintered against metal breast plates.
The crowd stared wide eyed at the scene, trying to discern from the clouds of dust which was the victor, and inevitably, who won the first bet. Even the Goblin King looked amused. He leaned a little forward from his chair and actually smiled. The contestants were dizzy, and at first glance it looked to be a stalemate. Suddenly the goblin with the white band around his arm fell from the side of his saddle with a loud thud. The crowd was even louder than ever! The black goblin won! There were shouts of joy and wails of anger as losing betters ripped their tickets.
Sir Didymus laughed! It was exactly what everyone needed – a good display of bravery, guts, and good old fashioned sword play! He took hold of his cap and waved it over his head, nearly dropping his red flag, as he commended the black goblin's victory.
So into the sport was Sir Didymus that he never thought to look at his majesty once. If he did he would have noticed the king suddenly fidgeting, as if confused or bothered.
The Goblin King felt it. Something was not right. Amidst the loud roars of the crowd he felt a strange connection to something…or was it someone? A feeling similar to the fuzzy distortion of just waking up seized his mind, to the point that he nearly swayed over the side of his chair. A confusing jumble of sounds in his head mixed with the cheering crowd around him.
A strange screeching sound… Metal crashing…A scream…painful whimpering…
SARAH!
His eyes opened wide in horror, his hand fumbled to conjure a crystal, as he wildly hoped against his suspicions, at what his every instinct told him.
His hand trembled as the orb blazed, and then revealed a car with a brutal side impact. Black rubber marks reached out from under the tires in straight lines as if to angrily show where the car was. The car adjacent to it had a crumpled front hood; its driver, a young man in his twenties, shakily stepped out, then as if in a panic, ran to the other car to open the driver door.
Nonononononononono
The door swung open. The Goblin King gasped.
She was unconscious. The impact so severe that her glasses were nearly knocked off, it hanged precariously over the top of her mouth, the piece that curved over the ear, caught in her graying hair. A line of red trailed down her mouth as if she had drastically misapplied her lipstick.
The young man cursed and grabbed his cell phone from his pants pocket, dialing 911.
The goblin crowd cheered again as another point was won for the black team. Suddenly the Goblin King could not stand the distracting noise around him; he stood and screamed his outrage!
"SILENCE!"
Everyone was stunned. One of the goblin guards who had started the run down the gauntlet was so shocked that he jerked his reins with the result that both guard and dragon steed fell over.
The Goblin King did not care. His entire focus was on the frail woman in the damaged car.
Without fear of reproach, both Hoggle and Sir Didymus ran to the King's side. They pushed their way forward and peered in the depths of the orb in time to see paramedics gently lift Sarah from the wreckage.
"No," breathed Hoggle.
It was as if everyone were frozen. Even the dumbest goblin understood that when the King wanted quiet, that it would be on pain of death to disobey. It was strange and somewhat eerie how everyone hushed, eyes of all shapes and sizes riveted on the face of their stricken monarch.
Obediently they all stood, not understanding, but feeling the magnitude of that moment. Everyone there felt it in their bones, what happened today would decide the fate of their lives.
Sir Didymus, Hoggle, and the King stared for hours, watching Sarah. They saw her taken into the ambulance, driven to a hospital, saw the bandages and plastic devices that covered her, forcing her to stay alive a little longer. They saw her wheeled into a white room, hooked up to a metal box with a jumping red line, tubes of liquid forced into her thin arms. Her family quickly entered the little room, clinging to each other, grasping her hand…
The Goblin King could feel whatever it was that connected him to her, his Sarah, become fainter and fainter, until it was nothing more substantial than a dim heartbeat.
Flits of images fell behind his eyes like a waterfall of photographs. Sarah with her ridiculous straw hat and the stray blue ribbon, her daughter's first loose tooth, her son being born, holding hands with her husband in a small park, flushing away a pet goldfish, it went on and on, a momentary blur of a lifetime.
Are these your thoughts Sarah?
The king's breath left him harsh and erratic, as he battled emotions he felt to unprepared to fight.
The lines on the screen next to her, he knew to correspond with her heart beat, jumped up less consistently, its intervals became longer and longer.
One last image came into his mind causing his whole body to tremble and pain to flair within his eyes.
It was a picture of him, garbed in white, holding a crystal out to her before a starry sky. It was her strongest impression of him. No! The Goblin King tried to capture that image with his mind, tried to hold it, the only part of himself that she kept. It sputtered like a dying candle and faded away from his reach.
The lines on the box had become an ominous straight line. Her family wailed.
No.
The king's chest rose and fell with fierce angry inhalations. Energy crackled and leaped from his skin. Sir Didymus and Hoggle stepped back from the sheer power of the Goblin King.
NO!
The Goblin King roared like something beyond beast and man. The ground shook and split underneath all the platforms. The crowd panicked, feeling the air sizzle and crack all around. A few dragon beasts threw off their riders and fled the castle, knocking bystanders as they too ran for the exits.
The Goblin King pulled his arm back and flung the crystal at the ground, it shattered in an explosion that reflected his rage, his despair. The flames in the lanterns burst five feet in the air, splitting the bowls with loud cracks!
With an anguished cry the king jumped and in midair changed before everyone into his owl form, and winged madly into the sky, toward the highest tower.
"Stop him!" cried Sir Didymus.
Hoggle was holding his head after being knocked off the platform, trying to recover from what happened.
"W-what? Are you kidding me? Did you just see what happened?"
They could barely hear each other as everyone was still screaming and trying to rush out of the kingdom.
"Stop him!" Sir Didymus said as loud as he could that Hoggle may hear over the din. He leaped onto the one dragon steed that did not run away and pulled the reins to show the beast that its rider knew what he was doing. The beast reared, and set off in the direction the fox urged, toward the tower.
"We must go after him," he repeated over his shoulder to an increasingly smaller Hoggle, "the King is going to destroy the labyrinth!"
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a/n: Hi, this is my first action scene, and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I hope I didn't bore everyone with the jousting scene, but I thought it would be an interesting personal challenge to show that in a world without television, there are some forms of large scale entertainment. The scene with Jareth losing it may seem out of character, I'm not exactly sure, but I can't picture him just calmly accepting Sarah's…you know, demise. He just seems like someone who would interfere, don't you think? Again, if you don't like, tell me, I will consider rewriting. Thank you.