Don't you *love* it when I lie?
:) I do it so well, after all.
Thanks for the "welcome back" wishes - and for them, I have a New Year's pressie in return. I lopped this off the end of a short fic I'm writing for a friend; this ending no longer fit, but it was hard to let it go. So here it is: an end without a beginning.
The End
So, now our tale is over and done. And it ends, as all things do - but with “happily ever after”?
“Ever after” is certain, but the whole really depends on what you mean by “happily.”
Perhaps it is not said often, in a fairy tale, but happy for some can be sad for others. And not just the sisters turned to statues, the stepmother given red-hot shoes, the wolf eviscerated. No: the mermaid dances on knives and dies, silent, in the sea. Tin Soldier, Velveteen Rabbit - one leaps, and one is thrown away - but both are meant for the fire, for the sake of those they love.
And those are only three that we know. Perhaps Beauty thought the Prince a pallid afterimage of her Beast - perhaps Aurora held the spindle close, in her sleep, and wept to be awakened from her dreams.
Perhaps Rumpelstiltskin had a greater claim on the babe, on the Queen, than could be done away with words alone.
But these are stories for another time, and beside the point - namely: Pleasure can be pain, joy can be sorrow, and contentment can be despair.
The Goblin King has known these: anger, and pain, and, though he will never admit it, heartrending sorrow. When he grieved, he did not weep or moan; instead, he screamed. The scream had always been fitting, since he has turned so many times that, more often than not, he is not sure whether he is man or owl. The owl’s shriek froze the blood of any creature who heard it; but the man only ever screamed in an oubliette, where he could leave both echo and memory behind.
When the Goblin King despaired, he cut across the sky like lightning, not caring whether he flew or fell. Sometimes he ran through the Labyrinth, spitting and snarling, tearing at the walls until his blood spattered on the stones, black in the moonlight. More often than not, he thinks his teeth a beak and his fingers talons - and he knows that he has beak and talon enough to take the eyes of any creature unlucky enough to cross him.
The Labyrinth gave the King eyes in plenty. He never saw where they grew, and how, but he was sated more quickly with each that he clawed free of its stem and devoured. Goblins and dwarves, satyrs and fairies, and all their fellows, hid from his screams and kept their own eyes safe. Thus was the Labyrinth kind to all its creations.
Now, though, far more often than not, the Goblin King is happy. And Labyrinth is content, to hear him laugh and sing.
He coasts on eddies and thermals, chirping, with giddy swoops and turns. He gathers rocks and flowers, twigs and eyes, and brings them back to his nest, to his mate. Sometimes he is sane enough to speak to her, to wrap his cloak around her, to comfort her. More often than not, though, he can only croon in his throat while he traces the lines of her body, pale in the moonlight, with his stare and with his talons, while he licks away her tears and kisses her face, her mouth, her eyes …
Her eyes have stars in them. They are like nothing else in the Labyrinth; like no jewel or crystal he has ever seen. He could gaze into her eyes forever - and they have forever, and he sings this to her when the sun sets. She wakes to his song, or to his kisses, or to both, and if he wraps his wings around her and loves her, the night’s hunt will be all the more intoxicating to him.
The Goblin King is content with his mate. When day breaks, he folds himself close to her, over her heart, to sleep with the thrum of her blood beneath his ear. If he is not yet drowsy, he braids his feathers into her dark hair, and strings the most delicate bones from his nest around her throat. He looks out at the rising sun, and calls to it.
What does the owl say? Who-who - Who.
Who?
And if Jareth understands what echoes through the tower at dawn, he whispers back:
“Sarah - my love - my love.”