tw: war, violent crime, drug use notes: un-beta'd, but once this is done I'll clean it up & un-anon & post, so sorry for stupid mistakes (I should be asleep right now; might be some embarrassing typos I didn't catch)
It was a custom of Sherlock’s, when he was younger, to sit beside his father’s throne and watch his – well, their, as his father sometimes reminded him, as they were all of them royalty – subjects make their cases. It was dull, mostly, but Sherlock’s observations amused his father, and at that age he fancied himself something of a jester. Whatever goblin or Sidhe or human it was before them would finish talking and then Sherlock would stand and whisper into his father’s ear what he had deduced.
This did not change for a very long time.
Both Mycroft and Sherlock went with their parents to the Sidhe Court on feast days. It was, at that time, a celebration, as the Sidhe royalty would gather their families and eat, but it was also something of a competition amongst them, to display their power, dress in their fineries, showcase their children. Sherlock’s father, as the King of the Labyrinth, was, as in all things, contrary, and while he did bring all of his children, all of his children were Mycroft and Sherlock, and while they dressed in their fineries, their fineries swooshed a fair bit more than anyone else’s.
“It throws them off,” Sherlock’s father had once told him as they sat down. “I’ve always found it advantageous to be found somewhat mad, here. They all think I’m exactly what they fear most.”
Sherlock had leaned in and said, “The man in front of us will attempt to poison you at some point during the evening, likely during the fourth course.”
“Why do you think that?”
“That’s the King of the Water’s third son. He rarely wears jewelry besides the traditional necklaces and headwear but he’s wearing a ring that he keeps forgetting about; his fingers move strangely, see? The ring is gaudy. It’s a real gemstone but it’s very poor quality, very dark, why would a man of his station, here, wear a ring of poor quality? It has poison in it.. Probably a powder poison which he could stir into your soup…He’s the third son and thusly in line to inherit very little unless there is some…redistribution of control. The King of the Water has made very unsubtle bids to upset what tenuous stability there is between the Queen of the Sun and the King of the Sky, but I suspect largely as a distraction. Should you fall, there will be far more chaos and far more opportunity.”
Sherlock had been, by his mother’s reckoning (although time passes strangely in the Labyrinth, and it is hard to know these things,) thirteen years old, and he did not know it then, but he had just started a war.
After the fourth course, when Jareth, King of the Labyrinth, found powdered Nightmare Weed in his soup, things were never the same.
+
The Labyrinth felt it when the first foreign armies rose and the Labyrinth waited. Its King fought and snarled and spat, but war came, and there was no stopping it. The Labyrinth felt foreign feet upon its skin and the Labyrinth tricked and snared and lied, and there was no stopping it.
FILL: scenes from a book no one wrote -- tw below -- 1/?
notes: un-beta'd, but once this is done I'll clean it up & un-anon & post, so sorry for stupid mistakes (I should be asleep right now; might be some embarrassing typos I didn't catch)
It was a custom of Sherlock’s, when he was younger, to sit beside his father’s throne and watch his – well, their, as his father sometimes reminded him, as they were all of them royalty – subjects make their cases. It was dull, mostly, but Sherlock’s observations amused his father, and at that age he fancied himself something of a jester. Whatever goblin or Sidhe or human it was before them would finish talking and then Sherlock would stand and whisper into his father’s ear what he had deduced.
This did not change for a very long time.
Both Mycroft and Sherlock went with their parents to the Sidhe Court on feast days. It was, at that time, a celebration, as the Sidhe royalty would gather their families and eat, but it was also something of a competition amongst them, to display their power, dress in their fineries, showcase their children. Sherlock’s father, as the King of the Labyrinth, was, as in all things, contrary, and while he did bring all of his children, all of his children were Mycroft and Sherlock, and while they dressed in their fineries, their fineries swooshed a fair bit more than anyone else’s.
“It throws them off,” Sherlock’s father had once told him as they sat down. “I’ve always found it advantageous to be found somewhat mad, here. They all think I’m exactly what they fear most.”
Sherlock had leaned in and said, “The man in front of us will attempt to poison you at some point during the evening, likely during the fourth course.”
“Why do you think that?”
“That’s the King of the Water’s third son. He rarely wears jewelry besides the traditional necklaces and headwear but he’s wearing a ring that he keeps forgetting about; his fingers move strangely, see? The ring is gaudy. It’s a real gemstone but it’s very poor quality, very dark, why would a man of his station, here, wear a ring of poor quality? It has poison in it.. Probably a powder poison which he could stir into your soup…He’s the third son and thusly in line to inherit very little unless there is some…redistribution of control. The King of the Water has made very unsubtle bids to upset what tenuous stability there is between the Queen of the Sun and the King of the Sky, but I suspect largely as a distraction. Should you fall, there will be far more chaos and far more opportunity.”
Sherlock had been, by his mother’s reckoning (although time passes strangely in the Labyrinth, and it is hard to know these things,) thirteen years old, and he did not know it then, but he had just started a war.
After the fourth course, when Jareth, King of the Labyrinth, found powdered Nightmare Weed in his soup, things were never the same.
+
The Labyrinth felt it when the first foreign armies rose and the Labyrinth waited. Its King fought and snarled and spat, but war came, and there was no stopping it. The Labyrinth felt foreign feet upon its skin and the Labyrinth tricked and snared and lied, and there was no stopping it.