Jareth was brooding. And what was worse, was that he was brooding on the throne. When alone in his room, it was bad, but not as bad as when he had Goblin was within range of his steel-capped toe. It was estimated that during this period of brooding, Jareth mortally injured forty-two Goblins who were far too idiotic to ignore Jareth's constant barking warnings.
Predictably, Jareth was looking into the crystal, as his magician muttered and occasionally delivered incantations causing Goblins self-combust in the background. He had grown tired recently, it was many the night that he would not succumb to sleep, and spent hours pacing the labyrinthine halls of his squalid castle. His tiredness frightened him, it reminded him of his age. His awesome incomparable age. He was still young by Fae standards, and was still youthful in appearance and manner. But looking at this girl, this young, fascinating, beautiful girl, it reminded him how short her time was, just how short a time it would take for her to wither and die. It all made him want to cry out in frustration for the futility of it all.
It was at this point in Jareth's thought processes that a small, mud-encrusted Goblin crawled an inch to near, and promptly received a smart kick that sent him flying at aero-dynamically defying speed across the room. This action resulted in the remaining gaggle of inebriated Goblins bursting into inane laughter. The result of this was for Jareth to scream at them to quieten or be sentenced to sixty-seven years suspended over the Bog of Eternal Stench. As you can imagine, silence fast descended over the throne room.
It was after this that Jareth took it upon himself to go riding. He had always enjoyed riding, and with help from Sophia, had become rather accomplished as a rider, it was said he had ridden many a horse to death or lameness. He had vast expansive stables, that were attended on by various misfits who inhabited the Goblin City, dwarfs, trolls, Jareth could of sworn he saw an energetic pixie there at some point as well. Most of those 'working' in the stables, had last seen Jareth two years before, and as a result they had taken to being rather negligent...of their duties. If fact after an investigation into the following occurrence, it was found that the employees had been involved with some rather...questionable...substances...
At the stables all was well, the employees were all sat merrily down, and doing no work whatsoever. They were in fact singing popular Goblinian chants that usually featured two words 'drink' and mischief.' The one being recited at the time was extremely popular, indeed, many considered it to be an integral part of Goblinian culture, here is a stanza particularly evocative of the daily life of an inhabitant of the Goblin city:
And so we drank, drank, drank!
And we sank! Sank! Sank!
Into the hay of the glorious Jareth's throne room!
It continues like this for forty more verses, each usually being a slight variation of the previous verse. As you can imagine, Goblins have only a minute potion (of their already peanut sized) brains devoted to imagination and creativity.
"What in the name of the Gods is going on here!" Jareth stormed over to who was clearly the head of the stables (for his appearance was slightly less squalid than that of the rest of the rabble.) He was comfortably posed with his arm around Jareth's best mare, deeply engrossed in a deep theological conversation.
"Y' know there's problems with this system – it's the problem of a monarchy that mean what we need is a democratically elected state." He burped contentedly, and proceeded to scream shrilly upon taking notice of Jareth's grim stare. "Oh shit! Oh bugger!" He bent down and began kissing Jareth's feet, slobbering over the newly polished leather, "your esteemed, holiness! If words could described how disgusted and simply flabbergasted I am at the negligence of my lazy good for nothing underlings!" He rose up and hollered frantically at the others, who were all still dozing, "Get to work you good for nothing sods! I'll have you all whipped for this!" That got their notice. They began mumbling and grumbling at their superior, mentioning the dreaded term 'trade unions,' and promptly began to throw themselves at Jareth's feet as they came to take notcie of his presence. The sight of Jareth with a face akin to thunder was enough to sober up even the most drunken of Goblins.
"So? I want an explanation, whatever you're name is! Tell me your name you disgusting boil!" The last comment was not unwarranted. The dwarf was a particularly hideous creation of nature, endowed with ample boils and flaking skin, he had the general appearance of a distortion in a trick mirror.
"Hoggle sir, Hoggle Littlebroke of the Dwarf -"
"Alright, alright I do not wish for a family history. Higgle?"
"Yes sir?" Hoggle looked alert, and extremely hopeful, raising his eyes expectantly up to Jareth, using the general stance of a neglected kitten, despite lacking any of the charm.
"I would like for you to saddle my horse, I will be going riding, I trust that you have not extended your negligence to the creatures themselves?"Jareth almost knew the answer before he asked the question. He was looking forward to delivering the punishment, it had been long since any crime of any seriousness had been carried out, and Jareth always distributed punishment with great relish.
Hoggle paled and began stuttering, before he lost all remaining composure, "we let them all go sir, I don't care what you do to me now, so I'll tell you bout it. They all looked beautiful, galloping off to the sunset, it was like that book y' know sir 'Bleak Beauty,' ah yes, those were the days, you should have been there sir" He patted the remaining mare on the nose, who snorted with appreciation for the gesture, "I'll be off now then sir," he began whistling nonchalantly and began to stride off into the distance. He stopped mid-step as Jareth ordered him to halt.
"What can I do for you good sir," he giggled. No one was sure if the giggle was a result of nervousness or madness.
"You, my dear Hogwash" he crouched down, as if preparing to lecture to a young child, "can be taken to the Oubliette!" The last words were blared in Hoggle's ear. As Jareth cried out for non-existent guards, the remaining offenders quickly (and wisely) took it upon themselves to offer their services, and dragged Hoggle off to the Oubliette, all the way he begged for mercy, begged for pity, for he seemed to of regained some appreciation of reality. All feared the oubliette, it was nearly as bad as the Bog, but one could be left in an oubliette for a far greater time, you see, those in the oubliettes are forgotten, always forgotten, and left to die a long and painful death. The pity never came, as Jareth had long since stalked off to the if hills at the boundaries of his kingdom. He had long since forgotten the hideous little dwarf.
Jareth stood atop the hill, hands in pockets, thinking. This was the place of confrontation, where all contenders to the Labyrinth came first before beginning their challenge. It depressed him to be here, this was the place of the wails and the rejections of what most clearly existed. He got that more than you would think, the place had driven many a man mad through the bizarreness of it all. The Labyrinth stretched out before him, expansive and gleaming with a kind of ethereal paleness. He never ceased to be in awe of it, it was one of the few things he had any respect for, excepting himself.
He longed to fully explore it one day, but it was forbidden, and he would be a fool to try. Only a handful had manoeuvred their way through, and it took days and days to conquer. Jareth feared he would grow tired of the challenge after a while entrapped within it's walls. A Goblin came scampering up the hills and tenuously tapped his boot, quivering like the last remaining leaf on a long-dead tree, "Your supremeness?" The voice was a high pitched squeak, rather like that of a mouse.
"Yes...?"
"Your magikcan told me he down it, he finished potion!" the little creature nearly exploded from the effort of delivering such a plethora of inaccurate grammar. But Jareth did not care for inaccurate grammar, no, now things could really begin. Jareth strode down the hills, whistling a little tune, despite the vast majority of his horses being released by negligent stable hands, he was happy, he would be with Sarah soon, in the flesh.
Thanks again lovely reviewers!
Irresistable Maleria - Aww, thankyou very much. That's lovely of you to say it's like Python, it's one of my favouite shows! I did kind of model the story on that kind of humour, so it's nice that it's showing!
DanikaLareyna - Glad you're continuing to enjoy it, I thought it would be interesting to give the story the kind of polar opposite genres of humour and tragedy ;). I've sent you a copy of this in the mail, it would be great if you could see if you could find any grammar faults, don't worry if you don't have any time though. If you get chance to look at it and notice anything, I'll re-upload a new version of the chapter. Sorry I've posted it before you've probably got chance to look, I'm eager to get it up and out of the way!
All reviews are greatly appreciated, and all reviewers will be wrote back to.
Enjoy this chapter!