Chapter 2: The Visit
UPDATED
The blazing sun hung high over a nearly endless twisted labyrinth. In the center was a familiar city of goblins. There was something different this time then from when it was last seen 17 years ago. There was no longer a carefree foolish air to the place. The foolishness that goblins would naturally bring was replaced with a more stern sense of structure. The amount of guards had greatly increased and every goblin still clumsily went about their business, but with a sense of watchfulness that was never there before.
Overlooking the humdrum city was a grand castle. Found in the large open window, to the throne room, sat the Goblin King, Jareth. He leaned against one knee while the other was thrown carelessly over the edge of the windowsill. He sat there gazing over the city thinking about how dull his life had become. His right hand appeared to have a mind of its own for it was repetitively twirling and juggling four crystal orbs. He looked down at his goblins and a frown crept on his face. He hated forcing them to act against their nature, but certain new laws had recently been put into place. Jareth despised these laws. The Fae Court had put them into place to protect the Underground from the misuse of magic, particularly Jareth's misuse of magic.
17 years ago the Goblin King did something very foolish. He had twisted time and space just to play a game with a simple human. Magic was used to alter time so severely that it had weakened the gateway between the human world and the Underground. Some humans from aboveground were now able to send themselves to the Underground without the regulation of the Court, and this frightened them. The majority of the Fae Court hated the idea of humans coming and learning the secrets of magic. Humans, to the Fae, just corrupted magic. They couldn't possibly understand the consequences. Jareth hated this belief for he knew that humans could understand and control magic, without any sign of corruption. Sarah, the simple human, was one such being that he strongly believed was pure enough to control magic. He had always been fond of her and the Court knew. Because of this the Court paid extra attention to Jareth. They did not want any humans to come to the Underground and started to enforce laws that punished any Underground citizens who harbored them.
Behind Jareth was the throne room. It was uncharacteristically empty and silent, although evidence of goblins recently being there was still present. The silence came to an abrupt halt when a tall lanky goblin, dressed in finer clothing that did not suit any other normal goblin, came crashing in through large wooden doors. He tumbled to the floor in front of the King. Trying to catch his breath the goblin harshly exclaimed, "Sire! There you are. I've been in search of you." He paused as if he had a thought, which Jareth thought unlikely, "You haven't been Aboveground? Have you, Sire?"
Jareth didn't even turn to acknowledge the goblin, "Now Lokal, where else would you think I would be, if not watching over what is my responsibility?" A grin formed on his face.
Lokal looked even more perplexed, "Uh… Okay, so you've been here… The whole time? I guess this makes sense," he reached to scratch his head, "I think…"
"Now what are you doing here exactly? Besides being an annoyance," aggravation was clearly present in Jareth's voice, as he turned to face the awkward goblin. The crystal orbs disintegrated from his hands.
Lokal took a step back, in fear, as his master turned to face him. He offered his explanation in nearly a whisper, "Well Sire, there is a visitor. She has been in the gardens for quite a while. But you must have known, for you've obviously been here."
Heat was rose behind Jareth's voice as he spoke, "Of course I knew he was here."
Lokal tried to correct his master, "She."
Jerath, taken aback from being caught of his slip up, "She, can wait however long I wish her to wait."
"But Sire, she is her majesty Arnves," the goblin meekly interjected, not wanting to anger his master any further.
"I will see to her shortly," Jareth sat down in his throne as another crystal orb appeared in his hand. With his free hand he waved off the goblin, "Now leave." Lokal quickly bowed and scurried out of the throne room leaving his master to gaze into the crystal.
Through the orb appeared a tall and graceful Fae. She seemed to glow in the sunlight. There was no doubt that she was royalty. She ruled over the Kingdom just south of the Labyrinth. Her golden hair rolled down her back ending just below her hips. Her skin was a rich tone of honey that was complimented by her pale cream dress. The dress trailed behind her. The velvet of the gown almost had an iridescent quality. Arnves looked around impatiently, and finally decided to sit down on a nearby stone bench. She sat there under a large twisted tree with her head cupped in her slender fingers. She let out a gentle sigh, "Seriously Jareth how long must I wait?" And with that came a breeze and Jareth appeared in a shower of shimmer before her.
"Now I wouldn't let the beautiful Arnves wait too long," Jareth spoke with a smirk. He walked toward the annoyed Queen. She motioned for him to take a seat next to her. He sat, keeping a small distance between them.
Arnves' turquoise eyes turned to meet his. "You have kept me waiting," she gently spoke. "I've been here for the better part of the morning, so yes it has been a long time for me to wait. I find it strange for you not to realize I was here. I thought that the keeper of the Labyrinth knew all that happened within its walls. Unless of course you were far enough away, like let us say Aboveground?" a gentle smile appeared across her face.
Jareth's own smirk disappeared, "I knew you were here. I just had other matters to attend to."
Arnves let out a playful chuckle, "Oh please Jareth I am no fool and don't make the mistake in thinking so. What simple goblin disaster was there that could keep you away from my beauty? The only explanation is that you were up above." She rested her hand on his thigh.
Jareth gently brushed her hand aside, "You are not the only beautiful thing in my life, Arnves. I can resist your temptation if I so choose." A sly smile returned to his face.
Arnves frowned at the thought, "you find that silly human more beautiful than me." Arnves' frown disappeared just as quickly as it came as she rose from her seat to inspect a nearby flower, "This little bout of insanity of yours can be easily remedied, I can inform the Court of your treacherous ways. Like how you have been paying a certain human visits recently, I do believe it is against the law not only to go aboveground but to put your whole kingdom in jeopardy." She reaches up and plucked the flower from its vine and gave it a closer look.
"So you have only arrived to spy on me not just for the simple pleasure of my company?" Jareth quickly stood and walked toward the beauty. He embraced her from behind. Leaning over her shoulder he whispered in her ear, "You don't truly want to cause me trouble do you?" he inhaled the sent of her hair, " the Court is harsher then you can imagine."
She turned her head toward him, her eyes locked his lips, "I can imagine a lot, and don't worry my dear Jareth I will keep your recent escapades to myself as long as you don't tell my husband about this little tension we have between us."
He leaned closer, "and what tension are you talking about darling?"
"You truly are wonderful Jareth if only I could have gotten under your skin like that human has, now what do you say about a little picnic?"
~*~Meanwhile Aboveground~*~
Elsie slept curled amongst her comforter and sheets. Somehow her small frame found a way to consume the entire bed. She abruptly awoke to the sound of her parents' voices being carried up the stairway and into her room. Elsie lazily sat up to stretch. Her curiosity was taken over by the events downstairs. She slowly lifted herself out of bed and moved to take a seat at the top of the stairs. She listened to the action below curious as to why her father arrived so early.
Below Sarah was in the kitchen. She was in the middle of preparing breakfast. A man, with dark red hair, paced behind her, obviously upset with something. The man exclaimed while maintaining his pace, "I can't believe you let her get suspended AGAIN!"
Sarah angrily turned, leaving the waffles unattended in the iron, "What do you mean I let her? The school called to inform ME. I had no say in the matter. It's Elsie and her crazy stories about how the world is out to get her. She wouldn't even tell me her side of the story. It's kind of hard to be the cause of her problems, when she doesn't even acknowledge my existence! It's just as much your fault as is mine. This stupid divorce is causing her to act out not me!" She turned back to discover that the waffles began to smoke, causing an awful smell to fill the room.
The man stopped to respond, "So you're blaming the divorce, are you? Well guess what that was your idea! Not mine. You were the one that stopped caring. You were never there and now you aren't even there for our own daughter." He pulled the chair out from the table and sat down.
Sarah opened up the iron to scrape out the burnt waffle, "Ugh thanks to you, Darrin, this waffle's burnt."
"Seriously Sarah, you're going to blame the waffle on me too, it's you and your damn cooking," Darrin said as he rested his head atop his crossed arms, on the table. He was clearly frustrated. "I just came here to pick up Elsie. Can we just figure out what we are going to do about this situation and move on?" His head rested on the tabletop.
"Well you and you're crazy morning habits came and woke me up at 6 o-clock. You're the one that's four hours early," she turned to rest her hands on the tabletop. "Why on earth would you come at this hour anyway?"
Darrin looked up to respond, "I came because I was worried. The school called last night and I wanted to come to discuss this, and I knew, knowing you, it would take time." Darrin's head slammed back on top of the table.
"Well fine we've discussed it let me go get Elsie." Sarah got up and headed toward Elsie's room. She turned to face Darrin, "let me just go get her things."
Elsie appeared in the doorway completely dressed, "It's fine I'm packed. Lets go." Elsie flung her backpack over her shoulder and headed for the door.
Darrin stood to catch up with daughter, "Elsie are you sure you have everything? Don't you want to say goodbye to your mom?"
Without turning Elsie responded, "I'm fine, she'll be here when I come back on Monday." With that Elsie left to go sit in her father's car.
Darrin looked at Sarah with a frown. He reluctantly reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a ticket, "Here, I was going to take Elsie to that silly play she's been wanting to see, but I think you need bonding time more than me." He handed Sarah the ticket. "The show starts at 8 tonight. So I guess you should pick her up around 6:30 or something," his gaze fell to the ground as he left Sarah standing in the doorway.
Sarah stared out at the car leaving her driveway with the ticket still in hand, "Thank you, Darrin."
~*~ Later that day at Elsie's father's apartment ~*~
"WHAT I thought it was just going to you and me going to the play, not you, me and her!" Elsie was shocked to find out about her father's plan for family bonding time. "I wanted time away from mom. Why would you do that? I thought you hated her?" Elsie sat down on the couch in her father's tiny apartment. Boxes were still strewn all over the place for he was still in the process of unpacking.
Darrin took a seat next to his daughter, "I'm not going, it's just going to be you and your mother. And I don't hate her, we just don't love each other anymore." Darrin paused and said to himself, "She probably never loved me."
Elsie paid no attention to what her father said, "I'm not going; she doesn't care about me. She thinks I'm crazy. You know I heard from Uncle Toby that she claimed she went to a magical place underground and spoke with dwarves, trolls and even dogs! And she thinks I'm crazy! You can't make me go."
"Don't be a brat you're going and that's that. You're mother loves you. She just wants to make sure you're focused in school and that your head is on planet Earth. You are going to sit there and wait for your mother. She'll be here in 30 minutes." And with that he got up and headed down the hall.
Elsie remained seated, with her arms crossed, "you can't keep me here." She waited till her father was out of sight and left his apartment. Outside Elsie looked out into a tree across the street. She felt as if she was being watched. She shuttered and continued down the street not giving it a second thought. As she walked she reached into her pocket to reveal and red leather bound book with a gold embossed lettering that read The Labyrinth.
In the tree something did indeed watch her. A dark barn owl sat enjoying the fight that occurred inside. It quickly flew inside the apartment complex and as it landed the owl transformed into tall imposing man, with long dark auburn hair, and lifeless ice blue eyes, he was very handsome with fair porcelain skin. He sported a dark flowing floor length cape that appeared to be taking the light out his surroundings. He swiftly gilded toward the apartment the girl had exited, his leather boots echoed with each step he took. He rang the doorbell.