[ a minute's peace ungranted ]

When one's duty is to rule over a kingdom full of energetic, meddlesome miscreants, a minute's peace is a true blessing. Sixty seconds can feel like forever - particularly if one rewinds time.

Unfortunately, Jareth the Goblin King did not get a minute's peace. For the past two hours, he had been trying his very best to stop his subjects from making such a racket; Skimp and Krak, always together, were singing at the top of their lungs in a key so out-of-tune that, in some parallel universe, it might have actually been in tune; Squee was guzzling goblin ale by the barrell; Gnark, a dusty-blue goblin with a viking-like hat, was chasing the black chickens that littered the throne room; and countless other goblins were everywhere, running and dashing and screaming their little heads off. Eventually, Jareth began to resort to...well, threats.

"The last one to stand still and silence themselves shall be tipped headfirst into the bog." His voice was calm, but held just as much authority and demand as it would have had he been shouting. Predictably, every single goblin froze, but the last one to silence and still was a poor little creature whose name had either not been given to him, or remained unknown. Some goblins were unfortunate in that Jareth did not see fit to give them names. He smiled tightly at the creature. "Bog." And it was gone.

"Lady Sierra wouldn't bog!"
"Or Lady Chime!"
"King bad!"
"Bog."
All three goblins disappeared.

The king left the throneroom out of sheer boredom, disappearing and re-appearing in the gardens by a large stone fountain. He sighed heavily, looking into the water at his own glorious reflection, face expressionless. But his thoughts were quickly interrupted by a sparkling creature by his right ear, which he turned his head to look at. It tittered. Jareth smiled dryly.
"Bite me, and I'll bite you back," he said smoothly, offering the small thing that pointy canine smile of his. It huffed at him, then shrilly chattered out something the king barely understood - the only words he caught were 'Hoggle' and 'something to tell you'.

Sure enough, Hoggle did have something to tell him, as it turned out. And so ten minutes later, the dwarf was waddling hurriedly up to him, offering a clumsy bow which Jareth simply ignored. The king's mismatched eyes watched with disinterest. "Yes, Hogwart?"
"Hoggle!" The dwarf frowned indignantly, momentarily forgetting the dilemna at hand, it seemed, in order to let pride overcome him for a second.
"I don't have all day."
"...Right, well, y'see...thing is, Sierra's in trouble."
"Isn't she always? Jeremy, is it?" Although the king sounded unfazed, he was genuinely concerned - just not worried. Yet.

An hour later, the king of the goblins was pacing back and forth in the throneroom, having banned all goblins from it for a minimum of three hours. His face twitched angrily every now and then, gloved hands running through long hair agitatedly, heeled boots thudding on the stone floor. How dare he put her in that position!

And how dare he threaten his kingdom!

Jareth's defences were excellent; magical as well as militant. But goblins, against dragons? There was little chance of success there. He would have to rely on tactic and his knowledge of the other kingdoms - and their rulers' magical ability, for not all had any.
The High King would not let this happen, surely?

If he had to, Jareth would go to him. In doing so it was likely that he himself would get into some sort of trouble, but no matter how much the king hated Jareth he could not, by Underground law, allow Prince Jeremy to attack the kingdom of goblins - particularly for such an unjust reason.

The Goblin King sat on his throne, fingers to his lips, and tried to think.

How to rid himself and Sierra of this irritating plague that called itself Jeremy?