The Brooding Monarch

Jareth watch the wine spin around in his glass as he rolled the stem of the wineglass back and forth between his gloved fingers. Lazily, he looked up to where his retainers had lapsed back into the centuries old argument of whether or not chickens should be outlawed or made the the national bird. The high goblin retainers would only make such suggestions to the others because they loved to watch the elves and nymphs twitch and occasionally foam at the mouth at the thought of having a black chicken as an emblem of the Goblin nation.

Jareth never bothered to intervene in these squabbles for he knew his goblin retainers would never go through with it. If only because they'd never be able to eat the birds again. At times it was amusing that the elves and nymphs never thought of this. Jareth briefly mulled the thought of what kind of image it would paint of his people if they did make the chicken the national bird but didn't outlaw the cooking and consumption of it before his thoughts quickly turned back to his lamentations from before his fool retainers had distracted him.

Sarah. What was he going to do with her? He'd played his game too well. She'd been too young to understand when she'd run the Labyrinth as a girl. He'd played the villain as her Trial had demanded but he'd thought as she'd grown, as she'd learned of the rules, laws and ways of the Underground that she'd see what he'd done and what he'd meant as she'd gotten older. Yet she was just as oblivious as when she was a child! He'd played cat and mouse, hunter and prey, hints here, clues there yet she saw it all as sarcasm and playful banter. Yes, he'd flat out denied things at times but on occasion he'd been quite truthful with the infuriating little minx.

Not for the first time, he cursed his goblin senses. His sense of smell especially. He knew she was attracted to him but the quick mind he so admired her for, would halt and smother those emotions and her scent would shift from attraction to scents she had around Hoggle or Ditymus. Jareth had come to equate the smell of sun-kissed peaches, vanilla and old books with kinship and compassion because that was how Sarah smelled when she was happy and around her friends. Though she'd always smelled of peaches, it was why he'd chosen that fruit to enchant in the first place when she'd run the Labyrinth. He'd played with different ideas of what her attraction smelt like but it was always too fleeting to really tack it down as one scent or another.

A smirk graced his face as he toyed with the thought of telling her what his nose had told him before his attention snapped to the main doors of the throne room. The doors had been thrown open to allow a flock of brightly colored retainers to enter. They parted as they neared his throne to reveal the current bane of Jareth existence. If it wasn't for the fool before him, Jareth could have been straight with Sarah from the very beginning. Sarah would not have believed him in the beginning anymore than she did now but he could have openly courted her from the start instead of placing himself in the friend zone. Jareth smiled and laughed a little under his breath, He was spending far too much time with Sarah. He was using her terminologies and slowly adopting other manners of "modern" human speech.

"You dare laugh at me!"

"Iain, your odious taste in clothing for you and your court is truly an eyesore-"

"How dare- Stand and bow to your King!"

"You forget yourself Iain. You are not my king, Iain. I answer to neither the Seelie nor the Unseelie, as you well know. Though considered by most as Unseelie, I, my people and my nation are independent of both courts. I and I alone, command the Labyrinth. I have no need for your court or the other. I take children human and fae alike, from Above and Below as I see fit. Now, to what do I owe your presence in my throne room?... Stop your growling, Iain. You may think or may have even been told by your retainers that it is intimidating but the high pitched whining tone of it grates on the ears."

"...I went to court an estimable lady but she has stated that she would need your permission to be courted as she is one of your subjects. I demand you force her to comply."

"Demand? Iain, you can demand that I move the stars until your lungs give out and the answer would still be no…" Jareth leered at the red-headed imbecile before him, "ask me nicely."

"...May I have your permission, Jareth, to court one of your subjects?" Jareth tried not to laugh as Iain spit out his name as if it was the most disgusting insult Iain knew.

"If you could commit to your laughably little brain and memory that your growling is so very annoying, I might consider it... Seriously, stop it."

"Jareth-" Iain growled it out like an insult again and this time Jareth couldn't help but laugh, smirking at what analogy Sarah might have made up about the situation. Iain was like a Shih tzu challenging a wolf. A red haired fluff ball with a big bow in its hair that thought it could take on a wolf that lived for the hunt, had fought things twenty times the little Shih tzu size and won. Jareth silently wished for the fool's sake that he'd been exaggerating about the bow. Seriously, why did anyone let the idiot dress this way? It was a mockery of 1700s French fashion. He doubted even the women of that time wore such a mixture of color and bows of varying sizes. It was an affront to Jareth's good taste and modern knowledge of fashion to think that a powdered wig might have greatly improved the outfit.

"Go then, quite frankly I'm surprised you even came to ask. I'd have left her sight then returned as if I'd gone to get permission, not actually gone and gotten it."

"I am not you, Jareth. I actually care about honesty, honor and dignity."

"Indeed... Get out."

Iain left with his retainers in tow, the throne room doors banging closed behind him in what Jareth could only guess as Iain believing it made for a dramatic exit. Jareth's retainers began to bicker again as if Iain had never interrupted them while Jareth settled back into his throne for a long and tedious night. Some twenty minutes later, Sarah appeared out of no where, kneeling in his lap. She took hold of the collar of Jareth's tunic and shook him rather violently for one of her slight build. When she screamed in his face, everyone save a shocked Jareth, clapped their hands over their sensitive ears.

"You were to tell him no you, idiot!"