Prologue.
The flame guttered and spat like something animal.
Railing against the candlewick, it dislodged fat gobbets of wax which pulled away to begin their slow descent to the floor below.
The surrounding air was stolid and fleshly with the scent of tallow. And yet, as if almost to spite the numerous candelabras that clung to the stone walls – wrought and wicked as blackthorn – the great hall was more a study in shadow than light.
All the fire was without warmth. Nor did the hung tapestries with their bloody tableaus (of wolves overcoming elk, of men overcoming wolves, of stark-white-whales drawn from the depths and gutted on strange beaches) to do anything to alleviate the pervasive cold.
More than the thick rugs overlaying the flagstones, dark ice carpeted each and every surface.
The room itself was vast and high-ceilinged. At its back, two long wooden tables lined either side with benches lay bare save for a thick exterior layer of dust and rime. Above a short set of roughly hewn stairs (the centre of each step wan smooth by feet long-forgotten), the upper level was made greasy with smoke by the round firepit at its centre.
Against the surrounding walls, half-concealed in darkness, were seven high-backed wooden chairs. Seated in them and barely discernible, (barely men), were the ancient Norvyn lords.
All of them were of the same sickly pallor as the tallow candles which threw their sunken faces into stark relief.
All of them were blanketed by thick pelts of wolf and bear, seal and wildcat, which concealed twisted forms beneath. (After centuries at their posts, the lords' limbs were as blanched and brittle as driftwood, nonsenses of knotted bone).
All of them had oily beards threaded with ivory runes, inwoven with reindeer hide and peppered with tiny lemming teeth.
Their own teeth rotted, laced with skeins of the last stew they had ever tasted.
(Three-hundred years ago on that ill-starred day. The day the North had died).
Set directly behind the central firepit and screened by the smoke that curled from its embers was an immense figure. His throne seemed a mineral extension of the stone itself - dark and granite-struck, with armrests fashioned into the heads of snarling wolves.
The man – if he could even be called such – the Norvyn King, was no less severe. He was clad in seal skin britches and thick, fur-lined boots. His dark metal armour was crafted as a second skin, seamlessly breaking and reforming at his joints, inlaid with intricate looping designs. His tunic was a bruised slate blue, over which was fastened a loose leather jerkin. His cloak and its black fur mantle sat high on his shoulders, held in place by a heavy whale-bone clasp.
At first glance, the King appeared to be antlered. His crown, though, was just that. Startling and plunging, it speared high into the gloom.
The head that bore it may have once been beautiful. Tangled corvid locks, in places braided and beaded, were slicked back from a drawn, angular face. The Norvyn King's skin was dull and almost jaundiced, littered with small scars. His eyes were a dirty grey and preternaturally bright in the dim. When he bared his teeth in a rictus, three were capped with silver.
'The girl is gone. The girl who stole the fire is far and far from our Panar tundra, she is over the ice flows, through the seas of Svalfæn and beyond the border gone.' His lilting treatment of the words turned them almost to music.
Clapping scarred hands on his knees in mock exaggeration, he again addressed his silent audience.
'Though worry not, old friends. For I know where she is headed and to whom.
She will, of course, not succeed.
She will, of course, be returned to me.
In turn she will return magic to these plains.'
Allowing himself the momentary indulgence of punning thought, he turned through and returned to his own words like a necromancy, compelled by their similar sounding and forward pull.
A flock of tern I'd return overturned,
Spinned and spurned...
Such poesy wasted on ageless ears, the King sighed and slumped back in his throne, drumming blackened fingertips on the head of the carven wolf.
'Then again… of course, she might not do any of those things.' The voice that spoke was painfully hoarse from centuries of disuse, yet did enough to presently stir the other lords from their limbo, that heady purgatory between sleep and death. Six sets of eyes rolled with considerable effort towards the seventh who had spoken.
'Mad King,' it rasped, 'even you must know that the only way the North will rise is from her own ashes. Perhaps, finally, we may be allowed to burn.'
There was some quality of emotion behind these words, something so akin to truth, that for a moment, six sets of eyes flickered with recognition of a power long past.
Despite his deceptive levity, the Norvyn King's face darkened as he stood. 'Lord Barys,' (the name rolled off his tongue like dark water), 'I always did mistake your sedition for probity.
No longer.'
Quick as thought, the blade sung through the air and buried itself deep in the old man's neck.
He made no sound but the smallest of sighs. He bled from no wound but fell forward in his chair. In seconds, he had simply ceased to be. All that remained of Lord Barys, the seventh and strongest warden of the Norvyn Wastes of Panar, was a warped bundle of bones and hair.
The Mad King didn't bother retrieving his knife but strolled off into the darkness behind the throne humming gently.
In the hall, six sets of eyes glazed back over.
And the candles went out.
A.N.
***I'm back! With slight, imperceptible edits to this chapter. Whoops. My degree overtook my WIP but I stg I will try and make a better go of it this summer. Hopefully I can write a story rather than a series of sketches, though the attainability of that goal remains to be seen… But I can try! ***
If you have read this far – thank you! Although I have been an avid reader of Labyrinth FF for the last seven or so years, this is my first time ever seriously writing something. I normally hate OC pairings, Jareth and Sarah seem too iconic; however, I have had this story playing out in my head for a long time now. This will be, in many ways, an AU. I will be writing the key Labyrinth characters (Hoggle, Didymus, perhaps Ludo) in good time but my version of the kingdom has far outgrown what is seen in the film. It might be too expansive for some, and that is totally ok. I am very happy to take on criticism as this is also the first prose I have really written or (hopefully will have) committed to… ever. It feels like something I just have to do. Hopefully regular updates and I will attempt length-wise to keep it readable. This story will take its time. There will be world-building and quite a lot of OCs as this is my vision for the Labyrinth / the wider Underground. Eventual (possibly dark) Jareth romance...
I will be a kind of dysfunctional parent to this child so I'm just going to watch it grow and attempt to give it the sustenance it requires.
This chapter is very short (will likely be in two parts) and just a taster for what is to come – in other words I'm easing myself in.
There will be Labyrinth very soon. And Goblin King soon after that.
I hope the North King isn't too odd of a character – he is meant to be slightly unhinged for reasons to be revealed in due time. Hopefully he's giving somewhere between Mad Hatter-meets-Ramsay-Bolton at the moment. Also, I envision him as Aidan Turner with a more or less Irish-ish lilt.
((Fingers blackened because frostbite, if anyone noticed)).
(((Also, which you probably have noticed, I am in love with parenthesis. Particularly ( ) which are also called lunulae (little moons). No, I will not stop))).
If anyone has actually read this - apologies for the ramble. I look forward to updating and taking myself, my characters, and perhaps some of you on this journey.
More anon.