(Untitled)

[labyrinthking]

In the aftermath of the dark tide, Jareth has much to do in order to set the labyrinth to rights. There were walls to raise, puzzles to plan, rooms to find where they had been shuffled away to nowhere. That said, even the master of the maze must rest from time to time, as he is doing now.

Comments

[vicioussweetie]

Ali sighed, staring at the door, and then knocked again. However reasonably certain she was that she could just sneak in and surprise him, it wouldn't be fair to Jareth to take such liberties with his home when she won't even let him into hers. So she knocks, again, and hopes someone hears her this time, while half her mind is already drifting away to other times and places.

[labyrinthking]

"So be it. Speak not of your children, then, but of those others in your home and heart. Is it not right that I should know of my peers in your regard?"

[vicioussweetie]

"Very well. The short woman with black hair is my wife, Sasha. The blue-haired woman is Sel, one of my very best friends. She's a musician, and the one who keeps trying to convince me I can sing. The very tall blond woman is Samus. She doesn't live with us. She and the cats don't get along very well."

[labyrinthking]

The thing with the cats tugs at his curiosity, but all things in time. "Tell me more of your wife. I have no desire to make an enemy of she with whom I share your heart."

[vicioussweetie]

She'd been hoping he'd take the cat bait--or catnip.

"She's very private," she answers after a moment, having paused to mull over his casual assumption he's got a place in her heart, "some would say secretive. She's very smart, and far too patient with me, and a great lover of movies."

[labyrinthking]

Yes, when in doubt, act like you've already won. "How did you meet?"

[vicioussweetie]

It's a tactic with which she's very familiar... she's just not used to people using it on her.

"She found me," she explains (sort-of), "as soon as she could."

[labyrinthking]

That's a puzzling way to phrase it, and it gives him pause. If she's quick, she can retake control of the conversation while he's mulling it over.

[vicioussweetie]

"My turn," she announces, taking full advantage of his pause. "What do you do when you're not busy being king? Or distressing damsels?"

[labyrinthking]

"'Not being king?'" He echoes. "But I am always king. How can one not be what one is?"

[vicioussweetie]

"But you aren't always giving orders and decrees," she clarifies. "What do you do to relax, or for fun, or as a hobby?"

[labyrinthking]

"Well, before you arrived, I was contemplating a bath," he replies, a note of invitation in his voice. "But I do enjoy a book now and again. I should be pleased to find one I've not already read. The one you gave me was intriguing, to be sure--thank you." He has already read all the books in the labyrinth, after all.

[vicioussweetie]

Ali hears the note, and smiles a touch. "I'm glad you liked it. Perhaps I shall have to bring you more." And, she's thinking, she'll have to introduce him to movies. "But for now, I would hate to keep you from your bath."

[labyrinthking]

"It need not interrupt," he points out. "And as the turn is once again mine, how did you come to rule your realm?"

[vicioussweetie]

Ali gives him a slightly questioning look, since she has no idea where the bath is at the moment.

"Promotion. The last Duke was an idiot, and treated people terribly. It was believed I would do a better job."

[labyrinthking]

"Did you rule something less, before?" He's intrigued by this idea of promotion among nobility.