Wayward 3/?

Warning: Scenes of domestic violence in this one. If it upsets you, you 
shouldn't read this.


Darkness. Where was he? The stench in the air was unbearable. He blinked a 
few times to clear his eyesight. The room was dark, with a bare dirt floor. 
A cold hearth stood in one corner. There were a few cooking implements and 
some bedding scattered on the floor. He climbed to his feet slowly. His 
head hurt and he put out a hand to grasp a chair to steady himself. His 
hand passed through it and he toppled to the floor. He sat up, astonished. 
What was going on? Before he could get his bearings, the crude wooden door 
swung open, spilling sickly sunlight into the gloom. A tall man entered the 
room, dragging a woman in after him by the hair. She was screaming and 
pleading.

"Shut up!" The tall man slapped her hard across the face. She stopped 
screaming and whimpered. From his spot on the floor, Jareth saw a dirty 
child with blond hair standing in the open doorway. His blue eyes were wide 
with fear.

"What did you think you were doing? You're *my* wife. I won't have you 
whoring around with the entire village!"

"I didn't I swear!" She cried, tears leaving clean streaks on her dirty 
face. "I didn't do anything."

"Don't lie to me!"

"I'm not!"

"Quiet!"

"Ma!" Cried the little boy in the doorway. He ran across the floor and 
grabbed onto her skirts. The tall man dragged the woman across the room to 
the chair Jareth was sitting behind. The couldn't see him. With a cry he 
realized that these events weren't happening. They were his memories. What 
he was seeing had taken place more than a decade before. The little boy was 
himself.
	Meanwhile, the man, his real father he supposed, had forced his 
mother down into the chair. He pulled something from behind his back. It 
gleamed coldly in the wane light from the doorway. It was a large hunting 
knife.

"No!" The scream tore itself from Jareth's throat unbidden. Time seemed to 
slow down. With the sickening sound of rendering flesh, his father sliced 
through his mother's throat with one strong swipe, almost severing her 
head. Blood bubbled and poured from the wound, his father let go of his 
mother's hair, and her head slumped forward dumbly. The child that was him 
started wailing. 

"Da! What did you do? Mama!"

His father turned and left the house, closing the door behind him without a 
second glance at his dead wife or bawling son. The child clutched to the 
woman's bloodied dress. 

Alone in the stinking darkness Jareth, the child and the man, wept.

----

He heard a noise and lifted his head. He was still in the room, still 
locked in his memories. How much time had passed? The air was full of the 
saccharine sweet odder of rotting flesh. The little boy was still clinging
to the dead woman's skirts, now stiff with dried blood. Every once and 
awhile, he let out a hoarse sob. He had no tears left to cry. The woman's 
face was bloated and mottled. Flies swarmed, attracted to her decomposing 
body. Rats scurried in the corners.
	Suddenly, a flash of blue light filled the room, and the Goblin 
King appeared. He made a disgusted face, no doubt owing to the smell that 
filled the room, and looked at the little boy.

"Poor wretch." There was no feeling in the statement, no sympathy for the 
boy's predicament.  The boy turned and looked at the king, trembling and 
clutching the soiled dress tighter.

"Here now. Boy, I want you to come with me."

"But what about Mama? Where's Da?

"Mommy's dead, son. And your Da isn't coming back for you. But if you come 
with me, I'll take you away from all this. To a place where nothing ever 
hurts again. Wouldn't that be nice?"

The boy released his grip on the dress and looked up at him. "You'll make 
it all better?"

"Of course. Come here." Jareth watched as the child version of himself 
walked over to the Goblin King. The king bent down and picked the boy up. 
"Now then, what's your name?"

"Jareth."

"Well, Jareth, you're going to be my little boy from now on. How do you 
like that?"

"What's you're name?"

"Inquisitive, aren't we? My name is Lars and I'm the Goblin King."

"What's a Goblin King?"

"I take children like yourself, Jareth. Children no one wants. I'm going to 
take you back to my castle. Won't that be nice?"

"No! Don't go with him....he's tricking you Jareth!" But it was no use. He 
was a ghost here. Nothing he said or did could change the past. 
	For one heartstopping moment, just before they vanished, the child 
looked him straight in the eye.