Mireia and the Goblins

Mireia had gotten no further with the globe. It was perfectly clear, perfectly round, and perfectly ordinary. It made pretty colors when she held it up to the light, but other than that, there was no change in its appearance at all. She had been trying to look in on Michael like the Goblin King has obviously been doing. Around her, the goblins ignored her. Some napped, or squabbled over unknown goblin things. Sometimes a few would leave or a few more would enter. Each time Mireia looked up anxiously to see if it was an imposing figure in elegant clothes and spiky hair.

At some point she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew she was jerked awake. Someone was poking her in the back. She sat up and turned groggily around. As far as she could tell, the creature standing there was some sort of very old goblin. It was thoroughly wrinkled, even by goblin standards, and it was holding a small pointy object that looked to Mireia like an oversized chop stick. It nudged her again in the chest, and said, "Move." In a surprisingly British accent. Mireia found it was quite hard to be intimidated by a chop stick.

"Why?" she asked, batting away the stick.

"This is MY spot," it said quite clearly.

"Your king didn't seem to mind that I was here," she retorted.

"Pah!" it hissed. "Jareth won't mind anything very much longer...he'll...." and the rest was lost in an indecipherable mumble. This sounded decidedly cryptic to Mireia. On the other hand, she had no personal reasons to up hold Jareth's authority, given that she would be one of his goblins herself shortly, if she did not come up with something to do about it first. She found herself curious about the unquestionably disrespectful tone of voice. What did the King do with rebellious goblins?

"How come?" she asked, not moving from her spot.

"How come what?" it asked, trying to yank its stick from her grasp.

"How come he won't mind anything much any longer?" she replied.

"Because he won't be here for much longer," the thing said.

"Where will he be?" she asked, tightening her hold on the stick.

"Nowhere!" it said and heaved. Mireia let go and watched as the goblin flew backwards. She understood why Jareth liked kicking them when he was frustrated. It was quite comic to watch it fall with a shriek to the foot of the throne. It did not get a chance to retaliate, because at that moment, Jareth came striding in.

He was magnificent now in purple and black velvet with spiky bits sticking out in contrast to his hair. He stepped heedlessly over the prone goblin.

"Ah, Mireia," he said, smiling in her direction in a way she couldn't quite read.

"Yes?" she said cautiously.

"Your brother has been captured by some of my subjects, and he only has eight hours left." He paused to give her a grave look, smile gone, his eyes appearing strangely fierce. "Would you like to surrender for him? I'll give you only one chance, just as I gave him." The smile returned and widened to form a generous, persuasive look. "At your word, he could be back at home this instant. Give me the command, and I will end this nonsense now."

This news and offer gave Mireia pause. Michael was captured, and Mireia didn't kid herself that whatever had captured him probably wasn't something pleasant. And he was her little brother. Shouldn't she bravely send him away in exchange for herself? On the other hand, Michael would be furious and sad. He'd have to live with the knowledge that she'd given herself up to save him, and Mireia suspected that that knowledge would be terrible to bare.

"He would, of course, not remember any of this," Jareth continued, as if reading her thoughts--perhaps he had. "At home once more, he would not remember having a sister, just as your parents will not remember having a daughter. They will go on with their lives, and you will stay here."

This caused another struggle to break out with in Mireia. It was a horrible, deep, instinctive struggle. It reminded her of the few times when she'd been very angry with her parents or her brother and spitefully wished she was dead just so they would feel bad about it. Now she wasn't angry, but she had a cold weight in her stomach that told her she very much did not want her family to forget about her as if she'd never existed. But how could she leave Michael to imprisonment and perhaps injury or death when she had the power to send him home at least? She wasn't in any immediate danger--becoming a goblin was a notion that still horrified her--but she'd be alive.

Jareth was still watching her closely as she dithered. Either way the decision was unacceptable to her, and the Goblin King watching her in a sharp-eyed manner wasn't helping. He did not demand an answer, or try and rush her decision with words--he simply stood and watched intently, something that was proving more effective than anything he could have said. The same arguments for both sides cycled through her head again and again, still giving her no resolve for one path or the other. She wondered if she was a coward, and at the same time knew that even if she was, she simple couldn't do it--she couldn't give her brother up, and couldn't surrender herself, either.

She was still pondering her terrible choice when the large flag stones underfoot gave an ominous rumble. Jareth took his gaze off of her and whipped around to see what was causing it. The goblins sat up and stirred from all their different hiding places around the throne. The rude one with the chop-stick stood up and grinned nastily at me, as if to say "See!"

"An earthquake?" Mireia asked, not sure if she was actually expecting an answer. The goblins tittered and Jareth did not condescend to reply. Instead, he took two steps forward where he suddenly became a large white owl and glided quickly into the sky.

Mireia looked around at the tittering goblins, knowing that she didn't have time to savor the relief of not having to make her decision. The ground rumbled slightly again, and this seemed to aggravate the goblins. Chopstick (as she'd dubbed him in her thoughts) leapt onto the throne and started to wave his weapon around trying to direct the confused swarm of goblins. More seemed to be rushing into the room by the second. They did not look very friendly--and weak or not, with this many of them, she could at least be caught in a stampede, if they could hurt her no other way. She crept behind the throne and then began edging her way along the wall towards the rough doorway that she'd seen Jareth disappear through before.

Chopstick seemed to be stirring up the crowd. Her own pun made her wince, even as she tried to slip out of what was unquestionably the first ever Goblin revolutionary meeting. She could hear unfamiliar British-accented epitaphs being chanted in many different little groups all around the room. Trying to slide past one group of particularly dirty looking fellows, she caught the distinct words "Down with the King!" That cheer was picked up by others and soon the whole room was shouting it at the top of their English-Goblin accented lungs.

Mireia reached the archway and took a deep, bracing breath. Whereas Jareth wasn't precisely her favorite king, she didn't think she'd like the new leadership any better. She realized, while she was dashing in and out of the shadows down the hallway, that although Jareth was very definitely ruthless and dangerous, he had a certain fairness--he had rules that he ordered his business by. Mireia was willing to bet quite a lot that the goblins had no such order.

As she reached the end of the hallway, she was faced with two doors. Facing the fact that she didn't know where she was or where she was going, she picked the left one for no other reason than that she was left-handed. Grasping the handle firmly, she pulled the heavy wooden thing open and stepped through quickly. She turned around to look out at the room and stopped abruptly. Before her lay the Room of Stairs, where the girl in the book had had her final show down with Jareth. The door swung shut behind her with an awful finality before she could even think about turning back.