Two years later: disclaimer
I failed to mention: Jadis as Jareth's mother comes from Pika-la-cynique on Deviantart. She's created a gorgeous comic where Jareth and Sarah live in a meta-apartment with their roommates (Phantom of the Opera) and full of fandoms. I mean, full. It's awesome. You should be reading it.
Jareth regrets this so much. He can't imagine what evil he has done to merit this.
His mother and his wife are getting along.
Jadis and Sarah.
She Who Held Narnia in a Hundred Years' Winter and She Who Trashed Goblin City and His Heart in Less than Thirteen Hours.
It's a nightmare.
"That insufferable need for constant adoration and attention of his comes from his father. If you give in just once, he'll never stop. That's basically how the entire courtship went."
"Yeah, that sounds familiar." Sarah gives him a pointed look.
His face is still frozen in shocked horror.
"Adoration is hardly as important as fear though. You'd be amazed at what people will do when properly motivated."
"Like overthrow a Goblin village," she says pointedly.
"Or swear fealty of their entire species to you. That is real power. Better than love."
"Well, I wouldn't be too sure about that."
Mother twists her lips into that chipped ice smile. "You're very young. You don't know any better. Live a little longer, dear, then we'll talk of love and fear."
For a moment, Sarah does that annoyed look just before she gets mule headed stubborn. Precious doesn't like being dismissed, and Jareth feels a swell of hope.
But then, Mother asks, "Instead, would you like to hear about when my horrid little boy was bested by an English baker?"
"He wasn't a baker, Mother, he lived on Baker Street," he says, finding his voice to defend himself. "And he did not best me."
"You truly live in your own world if you believe that. "
"Besides," He waves a hand and gives Sarah a look. "I don't think anyone wants to hear about that."
"Oh, yeah, I kinda do," says his treacherous wife. "Is this guy still alive? I might want to meet him."
Honestly, if he didn't absolutely love (and fear, just a little) that woman, he'd toss her in the Bog. But then, her insolence and defiance were two of the things that drew him to her in the first place.
"I'm sure I can arrange something."
"Mother, please, let it go."
"We are talking, sweetling," His mother says. "Hush."
Sarah is smiling, delighted, mentally taking notes, scheming against him. Jadis is looking at her, calculating, suddenly realizing the perfection of the opportunity in front of her.
A shudder runs through him. His wife and his mother are becoming allies.
He is doomed.
Sitting cross-legged in their crowded hiding place, Toby tries to find the others, scrying through a crystal ball, but everything is just a smear of colors and vague shapes. Jason glares at him. Alice watches the shadows beyond the vines. It won't work, and he doesn't know what to do.
He's tried everything he knows which isn't much and a couple of things he made up. Jareth's instructions have never been entirely clear.
"Just," the Goblin King flaps a hand vaguely, confused by his confusion, "do it."
He has tried that, willing and doing and telling the Pendant to Help, but it just...doesn't. Legs folded on the floor and crystal cupped in his hands, Toby confesses, "Yeah. I got nothing."
Toby flinches when Jason steps forward, probably to punch him, but Alice asks, "Now what?"
Rising to his feet, he tosses the crystal over his shoulder, which vanishes before it shatters, declaring, "We look for the others while avoiding the clowns, the minotaurs, fairies, Fierys, and whatever else the Labyrinth tries to throw at us."
Jason looks at him for a long moment.
"You suck," he says with feeling. He still looks like he wants to beat Toby who is trying to look like he's not purposely keeping Alice between them.
All in all, they manage to fail completely in under ten minutes.
Alice literally trips over a dismembered Fiery leg and shrieks. That draws all of their attention, of course.
He's seen the Fierys in their normal mood, playful and precociously psychotic. He's never seen them full on rabid, foaming at the mouth, and have their teeth always been that pointy?
"Stay behind me!"
Why did I say that?
He feels the others huddle behind him. It's a nice feeling, having people trust him like that (although he's pretty sure Jason just wants him as a meat shield). It's also really, really terrifying.
If he had a sword, then he could fight. If he had a chicken or a goblin, he could throw it, use it as a distraction and run. (The Fierys wouldn't eat them; chickens and goblins fight to win.) He takes stock of what he does have: a half a stick of gum, a number of ready-to-be-apparated crystal balls, the Pendant...
...he is an idiot.
Fierys are simple (stupid), but they recognise the Pendant around his neck and feel its aura. They won't hurt him.
He really hopes they won't hurt him.
Toby grabs at the Pendant and holds it up so they can get a good look.
"You see this? You! Put your eyes back in your head and have a good look. This means that I am in charge of you, and I command you to leave us, or suffer the consequences!"
Please please please oh please.
They look at Toby, look at each other, then look at the Runners.
"She tells us who we hunt, little morsel."
"And She says you're fair game. "
Then they laugh, high and hysterical, very much like hyenas, and start circling. Alice starts crying again but makes a fist. Swearing, Jason picks up a stick and gives it to Alice then takes off his belt, striking it against the ground and making the buckle jagged. He doesn't even look at Toby.
Absently, Toby takes note of that and resolves not to get caught alone with the violent, vengeful, larger-than-him boy.
"Ludo!" Toby calls.
The Fierys jump right over him, one hooking Alice's sweater, knocking her on her rear. With a terrified scream, Alice swings the stick like an amateur but lands a hit hard enough to knock a Fierys' head off. Jason strikes out with the belt, making the Fierys hiss and growl and spit at him. He doesn't see the one behind him. Toby does, tackling it to the ground.
"Sir Didymus!" Toby shouts.
The Fiery fights him, limbs and joints twists in impossible, sickening ways. Toby keeps as tight a hold as he can but feels his grip weakening and hears everyone yelling.
"Help!" He shrieks at the top of his lungs.
He hears a hollow thud, and the Fiery is suddenly limp in his grasp. Toby looks up a short ways and sags with relief. He almost starts crying (only a little, he's not a total baby).
"Hoggle! It's you!"
"I know perfectly well it's me. Who else would I be, I'd like to know?" He grumps, swings his club again, and a Fiery loses its jaw. "I don't know who in their right mind would want to be me."
Normally, Hoggle is a bumbling coward. But Sarah has a magic about her that can turn a surly, cowardly, self-serving troll into a grumpy, grumbling, irritable hero of a sort, and Sarah would so hate if her little brother were eaten. She might yell, or worse cry. He'd rather go up against Jareth in all his resplendent wrath than face that.
Hoggle keeps mumbling about people thinking he's other people when he's not, he's Hoggle, H-O-G-something or other, and it's not a hard name at all, swatting at Fierys all the while. He beats at them enough that Toby and the other Runners can fight back too, and soon they send the rest running.
Hoggle is still muttering to himself when the last one chases his head around the corner.
"Hoggle. Hoggle!" Toby says.
"What?" The troll snaps at him. Toby isn't offended. Rude is one of Hoggle's defining personality traits.
"I'm glad you showed up, Hoggle. Really."
"Oh. Well. That's fine then. It's good I did. You lot weren't doin' too good."
"Will you stay with us, please?" Alice asked. "Please?"
"Yeah, man, we could use you," Jason agrees, shaking his hand out. "This kid is useless."
"Well, he is technically nobility..." Hoggle mumbles, like it's a matter of course.
Toby is standing right here, but he's not going to be petty about it since everyone almost died. It's still annoying though.
"Will you, Hoggle? Please?" He asks.
"Well, all right. So long as none of you kiss me. Last time someone kissed me, I nearly got Bogged."
He smiles, dropping a hand on Hoggle's shoulder. "We'll try to restrain ourselves. Now, we need to find the others."
"Oh, I know where they are."
"Where?" A trio of voices burst out.
Hoggle frowns at them. "Don't do that. And, at the beginning."
This part has been done for the longest. It's the next bit that I've been finding tricky.