| Jareth
was bored. Ruling over these simple-minded
little creatures had become an uninteresting
and very tiresome chore. Their minds
had become so accustomed to their simple
forms, that there was not much left
of them to control. This once lovely
city had become wild and unkempt. Chickens
and cats without owners ran loose around
the city, sniffing garbage left by careless
homeowners. It was becoming as bad as
the junkyard beyond the city doors.
Jareth watched all of the goblins performing cleaning
chores within his throne room with disgust, and his eyes came
across one that turned his tide of thought. In a corner of
the room sat a goblin female, whose countenance interested
him upon occasion. She even intermittently caused him a feeling
of amusement. Her name was Sooty, for she was covered in
the dust from the coals that she carried daily to each of
the fireplaces of the castle.
Unlike the other goblins,
her face was not completely disformed and barren of a smile...in
fact, it was a kindly face, one of peace and understanding.
It often perplexed him, for how could one bear such a countenance
in this hellish place?
He did not hear the words she spoke
as she combed a young goblin child's
hair...
"The mood has come upon him again, my child.
Do not disturb him."
He smiled at the young girl she was tending to. Also
another lovely part of his kingdom...she offered him amusement
daily as he gazed at her innocent face. She was an enigma,
a fluke creation of the heavens...even her life was a wonder
to him.
A sharp pain went down his spine, and he pulled his
mind away from his examination of the goblin to concentrate
again on problems at hand.
He looked to his right at the covered painting that
took over a large portion of the wall. The subject of the
painting was not visible, but he thought upon it often, knowing
by now each detail present upon the canvas. He swallowed
with difficulty...something was at work.
The plan...his mind constantly went back to the plan...
A plan concocted to do something to improve his current standing.
Anything was an acceptable action, but nothing was everything
else unworthy of acceptance. The boredom, the constant buzzing
of flies as they fed off the carcasses of boiled chickens,
the sound of ill-tuned banjos as numbskulls eased their own
boredom by playing them. It was a sorry sight that had to
be remedied.
And the burning in his chest had grown... a desire to have
something that was not his, a desire
that had not been satiated for several
upon several years; it had come over
him again, and he longed to quench
it. She was only a part of it. At
least, having her as his own was only
a fraction of his driving force. He
thought he could do without her if
it weren't for the wonderful pout
she gave when he put an obstacle before
her. That little pout of frustration,
that feeling of mistreatment she claimed
each time she puckered her lips.
He loved to torture her, just to see
her poke her chin up in the air in
that haughty way she had, in order
to tell him that he wasn't phasing
her in the least. He remembered gazing
into her eyes long ago, seeing the
flames his spark had ignited within
her teenage emotions, and tingling
at the thought of making her become
so fraught with indecision that even
her pout and haughty chin could do
nothing to remedy her feelings.
Torturing her, offering cruelty was an unnecessary
cure for his viral boredom, but it was a very large part of
his plan. He had been torturing her for some time now, without
her knowledge, and all to gain an end. Weakening, she had
watched things fly by that she had viewed as sacred, and then,
in a puff of anxiety, he would take away her memory of the
loss. Piece by piece she became a small refuge of memory,
all the more easy to control for his own purposes. She would
be the one to renew his power, and then he would allow her
to share it, as a beautiful example of his will.
He swallowed with difficulty.
A tremendous feeling of fear and
uncertainty came over him. His control
was slipping in a situation of no
worries. He knew his plan would work,
and everything was going so well...
it was not the plan that inspired
this feeling, but he was unsure of
the true source...
He doubled over in pain, but quickly recovered, managing
to slip past the gaze of the few goblins in the room as he
ran into the hallway. Something gargantuan and beautiful
fluttered in his mind and eluded him, replacing itself, and
almost covering itself with the anger and disdain. He pulled
himself alongside the wall, bracing himself with the stone
structure as he moaned, not in pain, but in remorse.
The magic was rebelling again, but why would it rebel now?
Had he not been thinking about the
plan for some time now? Why would
it suddenly agree to his scheme?
What did it want from him?
He clutched his amulet to his chest and spat, "I
have control over myself...I have control over her...I will
have control over you."
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