Chapter Twenty-Six: The Beginning

Time is a funny thing. It slows down when we wish it would speed up and speeds up when we wish it would slow down, but the best thing about time is that it never stops moving forward.

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"Hoggle!" The boy called into the dark, tufts of dark brown hair sticking up around his head while longer strands dangled around his chin and shoulders. "Hoooooggle!" He squinted his mis-matched, gray and brown eyes into the black shadows between the trees. "Hoggle?" His pointed eyebrows lifted at the sound of shifting bushes. "Hoggle?" He braced one hand against the nearest tree and gulped down the lump in his throat.

"Prince Robert!" A small wad of orange and white fur exploded out of the shadows and soared over the boy's head. "What are thee doing at this time of night?"

Robert stopped screaming, uncovered his head, and straightened up, brushing off his black frock cloak, which hung loosely over a white silk tunic and sturdy tan breeches. He cleared his throat and spoke as regally as a 12-year-old boy can speak, "I have decided to leave the Labyrinth."

The fox knight gasped. "But, my prince! What of thine parents?"

"Ha!" Robert barked, "them? They don't know I'm gone. And they won't," he jabbed a finger at the small creature, "will they?"

"Erm," the little orange animal made a timid suggestion, "won't they notice thine empty room in the morning?"

Robert pouted and turned away from the fox knight, his shiny heavy boots tramping on through the forest, "I don't care if they know I'm gone. The point is, I'm leaving."

"May I ask why?" Sir Didymus followed the Goblin Prince, hopping and running through the undergrowth.

"Sure," Robert sneered. "You can always ask anything."

"Then, why are thou leaving the Labyrinth?"

"Because there's more to life than secrets and tricks and mazes and goblins and babies and even magic. I'm tired of all this. It's boring. I've solved the Labyrinth like a hundred times all by myself. I've seen everything there is to see here. I want something new. Something different. I want to explore where Mom came from."

"Has thou asked thine parents?" Sir Didymus huffed at Robert's kneecaps.

"Yes." The boy answered in an exasperated tone as his lean frame continued to move fluidly amongst the shadows. "They said I couldn't go for more than a week at a time, and I could only visit once a year. It's not fair, Didymus. I want more than just this big stupid Labyrinth."

A dull tremor shook the ground beneath them. "Be careful with thine words, my prince." Sir Didymus warned, "the Labyrinth is anything but stupid."

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Author's note: And thus begins the next installment! I expect this to be the last one (trilogies are nicely rounded things), but then again, I also expected the first eight chapters of "The Walls Crumble and Fall" to be the only one. (shrug) eh, we'll see what happens. Anyhow, the next one will be called "The Voice and the Lady", and it's coming soon, so keep your eyes open!

PS – sorry this was so long in coming. Expect further delays. I'm in the process of doing paperwork and getting set up at a new job and while I'm still getting sorted out, it's going to be especially hard to find time to write, but I promise to do my best. ^_~