"Scuffle?" The long suffering Prime-minister Scuttle, had just finished going through the motions with another devastated personage who had failed the Labyrinth when Jareth called his name – and the contender had just lost their child. It had only been a young girl, too young to be a mother really, but a mother nonetheless, the infant had wailed and wailed till she could stand it no longer, as it is with all infants, and the child had been wished away in a fit of fury. She'd tried, she'd regretted the words, regretted them more than all other folly in her life, but she couldn't win, never even got pass the riddlers, and had just curled up and cried and cried in the shadowy gloom of the Oubliette. Scuttle had went to her and offered her the choice – leave the child and you will be returned with enough sorrow and regret to last a lifetime or offer yourself and the child will be returned. She chose as all do – keep the child, release me from this nightmare. None realise the true imprisonment comes from a lengthy life back in the realm of normality – a life consumed with wretched guilt is no life at all. The babe was a cheery child despite it's past circumstance and made a similarly happy Goblin – capering madly about the throne room with the other young ones chasing the chickens and chewing on the straw. It's life was happier there, happier than life would ever be with the bleak bars of the crib back home.
"Yes Oh glorious one," Scuttle skittered close to the points of Jareth's boots, dangerously close. But no kick came, that in itself unnerved Scuttle.
"I have a task for you Scuttle, if you accomplish it to any degree of skill or majesty you will be greatly rewarded, if not you my trust in the fact that you will be stripped of your rank, your wealth and your of above-average comfort hovel and be thrown into the darkest, dingiest most haunted Oubliette the Labyrinth contains. Am I making the magnitude of your task clear?" Fervent nodding. "So I will now inform you of your task, I am going to call court, and you my vertically challenged head if state will be behind the preparations."
Scuttle very nearly ran to the window to throw himself onto the cobbles below, a fate better than trying to manage the glitz and the glamour of a pseudo Fae court. Few could remember Jareth's last ball but Scuttle could, just vaguely, it had been just before the girl had consumed Jareth taken his absolute attention and energy. There had been endless weeks of planning, the rooms all had to be made up, freshened and convincingly disguised to re-assume their past splendour, the Goblins would be kicked out of the throne room, whimpering and clawing by the door till in vain hope of re-entry. The parties went on for days at a time, none resting for sleep, endless platters of luxuries entered, bare carcasses returned, roast Quack birds was devoured in their dozens and Elfin Wines were consumed like common bog water. It was said, at that last party, an ambassador from the Fae court, ate so much that he died, he died from over-eating. Of course this had been of great amusement to Jareth, his band of courtiers and fawning female companions.
But Scuttle held himself back. Deep breaths – control – party planners. After closing his eyes and crossing his stubby fingers behind his back, he affirmed his agreement. He could handle it, or at least he hoped to the plethora of Scrabblescruff Gods he could.
Jareth was in a dangerously elated mood. His first action was to grant a pardon to all prisoners, clearing the Oubliette's, and freeing a certain Dwarf going by the name of 'Hoggle' in the process. Hoggle proved to be apt in the area of pest control, and so was granted the position of royal gardener and he would occasionally snip absently away at the hedge garden and proved to be amazingly skilled at bringing the Labyrinth's Fata Morsus population (more commonly known as 'biting faeries') close to extinction In return he was granted use of a cottage and an allowance for food and materials – in this time, life for Hoggle was good, in his little ramshackle thatch cottage with it's dilapidated smoking chimney, badly kept wilderness of a vegetable garden and rat infested interior.
His next move was to wander the twists and precarious turns of the Labyrinth itself, something he had never ventured to do before, heels clicking and cape billowing. He issued a series of barking instructions to all it's guardian's he came across. There is a girl coming he would say, and you must do anything you can to distract her from her task, switch and confuse, disorientate and bemuse. I do not care what methods you make use of, any will do, as long as none of your methods harm or endanger her. If she reaches the castle – I will ensure you will dearly wish you never set eyes on my visage. He had a particularly long and infuriating converse with the guardian of the bridge leading past the Bog of Eternal Stench, which resulted in the bizarre fox like creation being flung into the bog, only to land gracefully on an overhanging tree branch and compliment his majesty on his artful arm thrust.
He encountered the Wise Man deep in the heart of the maddeningly intricate structure, whose appearance was complete with raving bird head poking out precariously from his withered skull. The Wise Man was interchangeable as the royal family's holy man, having crowned all kings in living memory, and christened them all to boot. Including all of Jareth's numerous siblings who were bestowed with the rather long and complicated list of names as follows, Lasander, Olga, Tatyana, Maria, Anastasia, Alexandra, Alyss, Irina, Xenia, Nina, Marina, Angelina, Valeriya and finally Jareth himself . As you may be guessing, there was something of a vogue for Russian names at the time. He was slightly senile, and tended to speak entirely in quotes from an ancient volume of classical poetry some contender to the Labyrinth had discarded an age ago. Jareth spoke a few words to him, out of etiquette and marginal respect for his incomparable age and made to leave until the figure began speaking in a strange tongue – he was actually speaking something that included no syntactical parallelism or intricate metaphor.
"You – you're him aren't you? The Goblin King?" The wonderment and shock with which he said it was utterly convincing, if Jareth had not known the man from birth, he would of entered into the 'you-have-wished-away-a-child' speech from habit.
"Are you insinuating I appear to you as something other than my self? Titania the fairy Queen perhaps?" Jareth was not in the mood for jest, well, jest from anyone but himself that is.
"A girl, I see you chasing after a girl. Wait!" He paused, screwing his eyes shut in withered concentration as Jareth's leather boots tapped with growing impatience at his derangement, "a human girl!" Jareth's head turned with a flash, riveted to his words "Oh Jareth, you can't do that, it's not allowed, when you were crowned you swore an oath never to break the ancient laws on conduct, and you know full and well what you are planning is an absolute violation of at least seven of them." Bugger. He had to retain that ounce of rationality, why couldn't he remember what day of the week it was periodically, or the name of his childhood friend, like normal sufferers of near-total memory loss.
"King's break laws. That is our purpose. To challenge and change." Jareth was not prepared to justify his plans, his plans were his own – no outsiders were to meddle with him and Sarah.
"Not those laws you - you young scally wag! My grand-father dictated those laws, the only laws to override the power of the Goblin King, and you will abide by them Jareth," the elder looked on through withered aged eyes, as if too tired to chide another time.
"Thatz vite Boz!" The bizarre bird head spouted a torrent of vaguely exotically tinged insults, to which Jareth seized the impertinent around it's elongated neck, forcing a faint 'Aye Curuumba!' to emit from it's flapping beak.
"If either you, or your ludicrous sentient fowl, dare challenge my plans, actions or views ever again, either in my hearing or from it. I will ensure that you will be silenced. I shall remind you one more time that I am all seeing, all knowing. You are an old man now, Wise-man, so easy to topple, it would be best for you to comply with my will. I am leaving now and I will hear no more words from you!"
"Silly Boy..." The wise man ambled off to his leather bound book of poetry flicking through the splintered and crackling pages to seek his favourite title, reading the same line over and over again until it was retained irrevocably in his memory:
"Stone walls do not a prison make or iron bars a cage"
- Scrabblescruff – The Goblinian religion. It involves hitting oneself over the head with a plank of wood until unconscious each night at seven (it was in fact a government ploy to stop night-time drunken disorder.) As you can imagine, despite superficial participation, the royal family do not live by this bizarre practice.
- This is excluding patronymics, full imperial titles and dimunitives. Trust me, to list them all would double the word count.
Phew, that's done, only about 3 more chapters to go now I'm guessing. There will be two stories in between this and the (main) sequel, one I've already written and one half finished, as you can guess I'm a bit ahead of myself.
Anyway, on to my great reviewers!
Notwritten – Thanks for your review, I'm glad your enjoying it, and hope you like this chapter.
Utratturi – Thanks for your review, it's nice to have a new reviewer! I'm glad your enjoying it, hopefully this chapter should be good for those who like the humour bits, as I've purposely included more humour after the relative humourless tone of the last chapter.
Please, please review if you have anything to say about my story! All reviews are greatly appreciated!
Should be updating again soon, chow!
EXTRA DISCLAIMER: Oh yes, the poem the quote is taken from is called To Althea, From Prison and is by Richard Lovelace, no idea who it belongs to, but it's certainly not to me.