109. No Cheating!

GOBLIN CITY, THE LABYRINTH

Jareth stalked into the throne room, cape fluttering behind him, to find a raucous scene in progress, which was remarkably unusual, as it had apparently begun without him present. The goblin court seemed to have gathered around an enormous cake, several tiers tall and frosted in a variety of neon-bright colors.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked.

The goblins parted like the sea around an isthmus: an isthmus that led directly up to Pinkie Pie, putting her in full view of the Goblin King. "Pinkie Pie made us a cake!" one of the goblins cried happily.

"Did she, now…" Jareth was intrigued. He hadn't been aware he had been gone long enough for someone to make a cake of that size. It was an impressive dessert indeed, or at least it looked that way. He wouldn't know exactly how impressive it was until he'd tasted it.

As if Pinkie Pie could read his mind, she offered him up a plate with a hunk of cake and a fork upon it: "Wanna try a slice?"

Jareth accepted it, roughly cutting a bite-sized piece out of the cake with the fork and scooping it into his mouth. It was absolutely delicious. "Well made," he said with a professional nod. "In fact, I doubt I've had better."

Pinkie nearly gasped with pride before remembering that she'd gotten this compliment from her captor, and she was still quite angry at him for said capture. She swallowed the gasp and told him, "Well, obligatory thank-you!"

"I don't suppose your friends appreciate your culinary talents all that much," Jareth remarked. "After all, if they had, they wouldn't have sent you here."

"They didn't SEND ME HERE!" Pinkie nearly screeched in contempt. "YOU did that ON YOUR OWN!"

"Think of it this way," Jareth told her. "I now have a reason to keep you around instead of throwing you away once your friends fail to come claim you. So long as your pastries continue to be this enjoyable."

"My friends are NOT gonna fail," Pinkie emphasized, "and I am NOT gonna stay here forever! You know what? Just for that, I'M GONNA BURN ALL MY CAKES ON PURPOSE SO THEY JUST TASTE BURNED AND GROSS!"

Jareth just laughed at this and moved out of the room.

"Does he ever get on any of your nerves?" Pinkie asked the rest of the goblins at large.

"We're not supposed to say bad things about him," one of the goblins replied. "He knows when we do."

"But we do it anyway," another pointed out, "and yes, he does."

...

THE STONE MAZE, THE LABYRINTH

Twilight and Richard wandered for some time through the stone maze. At first, they were silent, but after some time, Twilight felt it best to try and strike up a conversation. "So," she began, "you had some kind of otherworldly experience when you were younger, too?"
"Yeah," Richard replied. "When I was a kid, I – "

The sound of two other voices approaching alerted the pair that it was probably best to be silent. "It's someone else," Richard whispered.

"You think it's more goblins?" Twilight asked.

"I don't know," Richard answered. "We should be ready."

Braced to fire off whatever magic was needed should the situation turn ugly, Twilight forged ahead down the path with Richard trailing close behind.

Around the corner, two figures turned into view, and one of the voices could now be heard with clarity in its pronounced Southern drawl: "…Startin' to think we've been goin' in circles for the past hour!" Applejack complained.

"Well, don't look at me!" Hoggle huffed. "If we try and mark where we've been, the goblins will just get rid of it, or turn it around to make us go the wrong way!"

"Applejack?" Twilight greeted cautiously. "Hoggle?"

"Twilight!" Applejack cried happily. "An' Richard!"

"Looks like our way didn't end up being faster than yours at all," Twilight groaned.

"Still, at least we're together now," Applejack pointed out, "and that's somethin'. What happened to y'all in that worm house, anyway?"

"Got time for a long story?" Twilight asked.

They did. The four proceeded through the stone maze, trying to memorize which turns they'd taken and which they'd yet to take, as Twilight and Richard regaled Applejack and Hoggle with an account of the spider village.

"You've got some talent for stories," Hoggle pointed out when Twilight concluded.

"I may have had a little bit of water out of Mimir's Well," Twilight bragged. "In other words, I've got a bit of a silver tongue."

"And plenty modest, I see," Hoggle teased.

"Hey!" Twilight snapped. Regaining composure, she inquired, "So what happened to you two while we were doing that?"
"Not much," Applejack confessed. "When we split up from Sarah, that path took us right into this part, and we've been tryin' to find our way ever since."

"Why did Sarah think she could talk to Jareth in the first place?" Twilight asked. "I feel like we're missing a big part of the story about those two."

"Well…it's something like this," Hoggle explained. "All those years ago, when Jareth took Sarah's brother away, he became a little…obsessed with her while watching her go through the maze. Thought maybe she was the right person to become his Goblin Queen, he did! Though he had a fine way of showing it. Half the time, he'd be coming up with something new in the Labyrinth to impress her, something out of one of her fancies, and half the time, he'd be coming up with things to destroy her or lead her off track! And…" He sighed sheepishly. "I was one of those things."

"You were one of the bad guys, weren't you?" Richard asked.

"Not sure it's as simple as all that," Applejack broke in.

"Oh, it is," Hoggle confirmed. "I was one of the bad guys through and through. I had a contract with Jareth back then. I was to do his dirty work. Whatever he asked, be it spraying down doxies or bringing Sarah back to the beginning of the Labyrinth to mix her up. I even gave her a peach with a sleeping spell laced in it so she'd get trapped in one of Jareth's dreams. And in exchange for all this, Jareth didn't make my life as bad as he could have. I couldn't tell you what drove him to hire me in the first place. It's not as though I'm special among dwarves. But as soon as he had me in his grip, it was do this, do that, or you'll be thrown in the Bog of Eternal Stench! But after Sarah came along…she was the first true friend I ever had. She made me want to break my contract with Jareth, and I did…and once she left, Jareth never even bothered with me once! It's like he didn't care. He'd just given up! Sarah shook him up good, she did! Though that's the way of it whenever humans come into the Goblin King's territory."

"What's THAT mean?" Twilight asked.

"You think he was the first Goblin King to be smitten with a human?" Hoggle posed. "No, the Goblin King before him fell for one that came looking for her sister, and the Goblin King before that fell for one that came looking for her mother, and the Goblin Queen before him fell for one that came looking for his son. And every so often, those humans fall back, the fools. Some of them even stayed. It's why Jareth looks all like he does instead of like the other goblins. He's got goodness knows how much human in his bloodline!"

"I'd been wondering about that," Twilight admitted. "But when those other humans stayed, what happened to the people they came looking for?"

"Some of the more gracious kings and queens sent them back home," Hoggle explained. "Or, sometimes, they'd just become as much a part of the Labyrinth as I am. And in the worst case, sometimes, they'd just get…thrown aside, if you know what I mean."

"I think I do," Twilight said solemnly. "But you're saying that there are people somewhere in this Labyrinth who were hostages of the other goblin royals long ago?"

"You bet there are," Hoggle replied grimly. "And more than just humans. It's a bigger world than any of you would think. All sorts are hiding in all corners. Sometimes one can't even remember which of us were supposed to be here from the beginning and which of us ended up being brought here by goblins, or had our families brought here by goblins."

All Twilight could think to say to that was "Wow."

At last, one of their turns proved fruitful. Through a gap in the stone wall, a square of sorts was visible, boxed in by stone. Across from the entry gap was a pair of doors, tall and angular, wrought of black iron. Standing in front of the left-hand door was what appeared to be a sentry: with two spindly legs covered in red stockings and a goatlike head helmeted in red peeking out on top, most of his body was covered by a squarish wooden shield carved with a diamond pattern, half scarlet. The right-hand door was guarded by a similar creature, though his clothing and shield sported blue, and the shield's pattern was circular in nature.

"Was this here before?" Twilight wondered out loud as she, Applejack, Richard, and Hoggle stepped into the square. "I feel like we took this path already."

"Can't be!" the red sentry announced in a thick Scottish accent. "There's no path behind you to take!"

"What the – " Applejack whirled to see that the gap in the wall was gone, now replaced by stone. They were boxed in.

"Oh, great," Hoggle sighed. "Jareth's guards. Can't ever pick a simple one who just swordfights. It's always these talkative nuisances. Probably has something to do with riddles, too!"

"And what's wrong with riddles?" Though the voice came from the blue sentry, it was not from the head that looked out over his shield. A second head, identical to the first, was peering out, upside-down, from the bottom of the shield. "Though if I were you, I'd be worrying less about riddles and more about the doors!" The three heads that had revealed themselves so far laughed in unison.

"They're your only way out, after all!" the red sentry's second head – for he too had an upside-down one – said somewhat proudly.

"One of them leads directly to the castle!" the blue sentry's second head explained. "And the other leads to…"

"BA-BA-BA-BOOOOM!" the blue sentry's first head exclaimed to make it more dramatic, proving in the process that all four heads between the two of them had the exact same accent.

"Must you always?" the red sentry's second head sighed. "The words 'certain death' are dramatic enough without you doing that!"

"Well, now you've gone and spoiled that the other one leads to certain death!" the blue sentry's second head moaned.

"Wait a minute," Applejack recalled. "Hoggle and I had plenty of time to look over Sarah's notes. She had to deal with these guys. And she wrote down how!"

Hoggle withdrew the notepad, flipping to the correct page.

In the meantime, Twilight stepped forward. "So how do we know which door is which?"

"Twelve coins it's a riddle," Hoggle muttered as he kept leafing through the notepad.

"How are we supposed to know?" the red sentry's second head asked sarcastically. "You'll have to ask one of THEM." He looked up at the two uppermost heads. "Problem for you is, you can only ask ONE!" All four heads broke out into laughter again. "And if you choose the WRONG one, then for you, it's…CURTAINS." Now all four heads gave a simultaneous, deep "OOOOOOOHHHH."

"Does this mean we owe you twelve coins?" Richard asked Hoggle.

"So how does this work?" Twilight asked.

"One of them always tells the truth!" the blue sentry's second head announced. "And one of them always lies!"

"The truth-teller would be me," the blue sentry's first head bragged.

"Is not!" the red sentry's first head snapped. "It's me! You're the one who's a liar!"

"Not me!" the blue sentry's first head shot back. "YOU'RE the liar!"

"No, YOU'RE a liar!"

"I am not! I am a truther!"

"That's not even a word!"

"Okay, OKAY!" Twilight interrupted. "I think I can figure this out. So when we first came in here, YOU…" She pointed to the red sentry's first head. "…said there wasn't a path behind us, so you…wait. That might not mean anything, because the paths change around so much. There might be a path. There might not. BOTH might be right. Okay, so it comes down to the question about the door. Hmmm…so if I ask you, then…"

"I've found it!" Hoggle announced, holding up the notepad. "The door we take is – "

"Hold on there," Applejack told him.

"But I know the answer!" Hoggle argued.

"But Twilight's figurin' it out," Applejack sighed, "and she's gonna wanna see this through. Just humor her."

"If I ask you, then I have no way of knowing if you'd be telling the truth or not," Twilight went on. "So the question has to do with the other sentry. Hang on. If I asked you if the other sentry would tell me this door was the one to the castle, and you were telling the truth, you'd say yes, he would, and because he's a liar, that means it's the other door. But if you were the liar, you'd say no, he wouldn't, but he has to tell the truth, so he would say it was, and it would be, so now I'm asking you…would he say THIS was the door that led right to the castle?" Twilight extended a hoof to point at the red sentry's door.

The red sentry's two heads disappeared behind the shield for a moment to converse. When they emerged, the first head told her, "Yes!"

"Then it's the OTHER DOOR!" Twilight exclaimed proudly, pointing now to the right-hand door.

Hoggle looked down at the notes, double checking: Sarah had written "Take the right door (guarded by blue guard)."

Now the sentries' four heads had erupted into raucous cheering, accompanied by thumping of twelve long-fingered hands (six per sentry) upon the wooden shields. "Smart one, you are!" the blue sentry's second head exclaimed.

"Oh, it was really pretty easy once you thought about it," Twilight told him. "Now, if you don't mind…"

As the sentry moved out of the way, Twilight eased the door open via magic, revealing a narrow hallway.

"WAIT!" Hoggle cried, reading over Sarah's notes. "I thought there was one here, and she wrote it down! I was right and there is, and it was the very one where I found her!"

"The very what?" Applejack asked.

"The oubliette!" Hoggle announced.

"Oubliette?" Richard repeated. "As in…place you get thrown to be forgotten forever, like in 'La Reine Margot'?"

"As in a dungeon Jareth designed so you can't get out of it unless you know the secret way," Hoggle clarified. "And only I know the secret way. So don't fall into it! It's about three paces down that hallway!"

Twilight nodded. "Got it."

She surveyed the floor in front of her. It appeared to be solid. "Verdimillious," she whispered, and suddenly the outline of a trap door appeared before her. "Gotcha." She envisioned a magenta barrier covering the trap, making safe passage to the other side, and it came into being. Gingerly, Twilight walked over it. "Hurry!" she called back. "I don't know how long I can hold this!"

Hoggle was the first to barge into the hall and across the bridge. Applejack and Richard were practically side by side as they began crossing.

"What was that other rule?" the blue sentry's second head mused. "We did most of the other ones. One sentry lies, one tells the truth, you can only ask one…what was rule number four!"

"I think it was 'no magic,'" the red sentry's first head answered.

"That's right!" the blue sentry's second head crowed. "No magic!"

Whether or not that was the actual fourth rule would never be known, as it is unknown to this day whether the red sentry's upper head was the one who always spoke the truth or always lied. But in any case, it sounded convincing enough for the blue sentry's second head, and the sentry's center-right hand snapped its fingers. Twilight's barrier disappeared while Applejack and Richard were only halfway across, and as the stone gave way beneath them, the pair fell into blackness far below.

"APPLEJACK!" Twilight cried. "RICHARD!"

"Damn it!" Hoggle ran to the edge of the pit. "I'll have to go after them! I'm the only one who can get them out of there, after all!"

"I'm going with you," Twilight insisted. "They're my friends, and – "

"You'll do no such thing!" Hoggle snapped. "You'll keep going and try to get to the castle quicker than we can! Unless you want Jareth to keep your pink friend forever and ever until she becomes part of the Labyrinth!"

After weighing the options in her mind, Twilight nodded. "Okay," she said at last, somewhat defeated. "I'll keep going. But promise you'll bring them back safe."

"Can't promise that for sure," Hoggle told her, "but I'll be damned if I don't try!"

He leapt into the pit then, leaving Twilight alone to turn and walk through the rest of the hallway.

...

GOBLIN CITY, THE LABYRINTH

Jareth was pleased to see Sarah making her escape in the depths of the crystal sphere. Had she actually succumbed to the mace-wielding monster, his respect for her might have lessened. He had only expected her to be successful. It was how she was.

But that posed another problem: he hadn't lost any respect for her. There, again, was that danger. Had he told her the truth when he'd made his claim that she had no power over him?

It hardly mattered, for at that moment, she was taking refuge in the Great Clock. On its own, that was hardly noteworthy. But the sphere revealed that the companions Sarah had entered the Labyrinth with had also made it to the Great Clock, and they had found exactly the wrong clock.

It wasn't a matter of if they would make the fatal mistake. It was a matter of when. And Jareth was in charge of dealing the blow when they did.

...

Pinkie Pie's exploration of the immense castle continued. Knowing what she did about Jareth's spatial manipulation, she realized she wouldn't have been surprised if it just went on forever, always offering up new rooms to discover and new hallways to practically get lost in: a labyrinth within a Labyrinth.

One room was bare of furniture, but an entire wall was just an immense mirror, floor to ceiling. Pinkie Pie regarded it with curiosity. "Soooooo," she asked, "are you like a funhouse mirror?" She waved, and her reflection waved back, undistorted. "Are you a magic mirror?" She wondered out loud, and made several goofy faces; surely a magic mirror wouldn't have put up with that and would have made some comment. "Or are you one of those haunted mirrors?" After a moment's hesitation, she tried out an ancient Equestrian superstition: "OLDEN PONY OLDEN PONY OLDEN PONY!" But after three chants of the monster's name, the fabled Olden Pony did not emerge from the mirror, seeking bloody vengeance for her rusty horseshoe.

"Now, if you're just an ordinary mirror," Pinkie went on, "then I must look really silly talking to you. But I look silly ALL the time, so it's no problem!" She laughed then. "Y'know, me…I'm starting to like this place. Not enough that I actually wanna stay forever. But it's fun, and the other goblins are pretty nice to me, all things considered. Jareth's still, well, JARETH. And I'm NOT gonna let him trick me the way Loki did! Though I do appreciate that he actually told me he was holding me prisoner. That's a little nicer than Loki, in a weird, mean way."

After a pause, she sighed deeply, and so did her reflection. "Say, me…" she asked. "Do you ever think you're confident that you know something, say, that your best friend didn't really mean the awful thing she said, and you tell everypony else that you know she didn't mean it, but deep down, you're kinda wondering if maybe she did mean it, and even though you KNOW that's silly, at the same time, you're here talking to an ordinary mirror, which she would never do ever, and neither would any of the other four except maybe Rarity, and you're being way sillier and louder than them in general and you're starting to realize that maybe, juuuuust maybe, that's not a good thing to them? So really, when you said all confidently that you KNEW they wanted to come get you back, there was some part of you that, and this is gonna sound like a REAL laugh, thought maybe they'd be happier if they didn't find you after all?"

Her reflection didn't answer. It wasn't a magic mirror. Just an ordinary mirror, as was probably to be expected in a room in a castle that belonged to a vain king who appreciated any opportunity to look at himself.

"…Me neither," Pinkie told the reflection before bouncing off, though with a little less spring in her step than usual.

...

THE GREAT CLOCK, THE LABYRINTH

Sarah only needed a few moments to take in her new surroundings. A few moments were all she had before a chorus of "SARAH!" sounded from the middle of the room. Bastian, Helena, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash barreled toward her.

"How'd you get HERE?" Rainbow Dash asked as Bastian and Sarah exchanged a quick hug of greeting.

"I ran into Jareth," Sarah answered.

"I don't suppose he listened to you like a rational person," Helena commented.

"No." Sarah shook her head. "We're in the same place we were before."

"Maybe," Bastian told her. "Maybe not."

"What does that mean?" Sarah asked quizzically.

"We found something rather interesting here," Rarity told her. "You see, this enormous contraption handles all the flow of time in the Labyrinth with one clock or another. There just so happens to be one clock that's a little more familiar than the others."

"It'll make more sense once you see it," Rainbow Dash beckoned, trotting back toward the singular find. "C'mon!"

Once the group was gathered around the clock, Bastian explained, "It's the only clock with thirteen hours on it. The only one we found, anyway."

"It must have something to do with our particular quest, mustn't it?" Rarity proposed.

Sarah turned around to see Horatius slowly passing by. "Hey!" she called out. "Why does this clock have thirteen hours and none of the others?"

"That clock," Horatius answered, "is the clock that marks the time of the challenge Jareth has issued the travelers from outside this world: from the time he informed them of their journey to the time when they must have found their missing friend or be forced to give her up forever. It has been such for every challenge issued."

"It IS our clock!" Rainbow Dash cried.

"Be wary of your words," Horatius warned. "It is connected to your journey, but in and of itself, it is not yours."

"Wait," Sarah realized. "So if every clock here corresponds with the time…does that mean that if something happens to a clock, something happens to time too?"

"That it does," Horatius affirmed. "That is in fact why we use the clocks to keep the time. We use them to stabilize the flow when it becomes irregular."

"So if we turned the hands back on this clock," Sarah concluded, "we'd have more time to get to the center!"

"Though that is factually true," Horatius told her, "it is an incredible risk. To alter the flow of time could have dreadful consequences."

"Yeah, but this doesn't affect the way any other time passes, right?" Rainbow Dash clarified. "Just how much time we have left."

"That is true," Horatius said, "but all the same, it is an incredible risk. You were not meant to have more than thirteen hours of time."

"What's the worst that could happen?" Helena asked.

"I do not know," Horatius admitted.

"You mean you've been warning us that something bad's gonna happen, and you don't even know if it WILL?" Rainbow Dash complained.

"During all phases of our training as keepers," Horatius told her in an even tone, "we are told the importance of being sure time passes as it was intended to do. We must not alter it for any reason."

"That's NOT a reason why NOT to do it," Rainbow Dash growled, teeth clenched.

"Um…I don't think Twilight would want us to mess with anything about time," Fluttershy pointed out.

"Twilight…isn't…here," Rainbow Dash grunted. "I say we turn that hand back up to the thirteen and get a fresh start."

"I don't know…" Sarah looked at the clock curiously.

"I'm with Rainbow Dash," Helena told her. "We haven't yet been given a good reason why not."

"It seems like a creative solution, actually," Rarity realized. "Jareth's expecting us to get turned around in his mazes for thirteen hours. He wouldn't see it coming that we could actually give ourselves a better margin!"

"It's worth a try," Bastian contributed.

"After all, it isn't as though we're changing the past," Rarity added.

Sarah turned back to Horatius. "You really don't think we should?"
"I cannot say what will happen if you do," he told her. "The choice is yours. But I would advise against it."

Sarah looked back to the clock. The majority was ruling, and the majority agreed with her instinct. "I think we have to try SOMETHING." She reached up to the clock face, grasping the hour hand and turning it upward. It moved easily in her grip. Once it was in place, she moved the minute hand as well. There were at that moment exactly thirteen hours left before they had to reach Goblin City.

"It was that easy!" Sarah laughed.

The interior of the Great Clock darkened. Bells began to chime loudly, and the whirring of gears was audible. The keepers rushed back and forth to tend to the various clocks, most of which were spinning faster than usual. Alarms rang from some of the smaller devices.

"Oh no…" Fluttershy squeaked. "I knew it was a bad idea!"

Over the sounds of all this chaos, there boomed a voice that was unmistakably Jareth's: "CHEATING, are we?"

He didn't appear in the flesh. Instead, a translucent magical hologram of the Goblin King in all his finery appeared in the center of the Great Clock. The keepers stopped to acknowledge him only briefly before rushing to do damage control on the spasming clocks. "Thought it would be that easy, did you?" he mocked. "Why, Sarah. First thinking I'd let you run directly to the center, then thinking I would leave something as obvious as the clock of your time in a path you could take and expect I would let you use it against me."

"Not again…" Sarah gasped.

"Why don't you come here and say it yourself instead of sending your stupid illusion thing?" Rainbow Dash flitted up to the illusion's face, angrily shaking a hoof in his direction.

"Why waste the effort?" Jareth replied. "I'm only speaking to you now to inform you that there are consequences for cheating."

The illusion's hand flicked outward to the clock of thirteen hours. The hour hand shot downward. Now there were only six hours remaining.

"WHAT?" Rarity shrieked.

"But that's not fair!" Helena cried.

"We're really sorry!" Fluttershy said hastily. "We won't do it ever again! We promise!"

"It's already too late," Jareth told her. "You knew the rules of the game, and you broke them. Try to turn the clock back again, and you'll find yourself with only one hour to spare. Good luck explaining this to your companions."

"We ruined it for all of them…" Sarah mourned.

"Is it just me," Jareth taunted, "or is that clock moving slightly faster as well?"

"WHY?" Rainbow Dash yelled. "YOU ALREADY TURNED IT FORWARD! WHY DOES IT NEED TO BE FASTER?"

"So you remember who wrote the rules." Jareth broke into a wicked grin, and as the illusion of his body faded away, his laughter rang out against the walls of the Great Clock.

Horatius approached the group gently. "We are passing over a station where you can depart the Clock," he told them. "The other keepers and I can stabilize the clock of your time so that time passes normally once more. However, you will still have a mere six hours. To turn it back to where it was is too much, even for us. But we must be left to do our job without distraction, and you have little time to waste."

"I'm sorry," Sarah told him. "We should have listened to you."

"If you had," Horatius reassured her, "you would not have learned."

"I should've learned back down in the field," Sarah protested. "After all this time, I'm still taking things for granted!"

"You tried and ruled out solutions," Horatius told her. "Now you will know to try harder next time."

"It was all of our fault," Rainbow Dash added. "Everypony except Fluttershy. She was the only one who knew."

Fluttershy didn't reply. She didn't have any desire to so much as agree; it would have seemed like bragging, and circumstances were too dire for that.

"Go now." Horatius pointed toward the door.

"Thank you once again for letting us stay!" Rarity told Horatius as she set out at a gallop for the door. Rainbow Dash, Sarah, Bastian, Helena, and Fluttershy were close behind.

The door out of the Clock opened for them, leading them to what at first looked like a square platform of brown stone hovering in the air. Upon further survey, it turned out to be the top of an enormous stone cube. Several other cubes levitated in the air, forming a spaced-out stairway that led downward to the tree line of a great forest; a somewhat large building was positioned at the edge of it, with a single door set into its wall. The six hopped from cube to cube until they arrived at last on the ground.

The door in the wall opened up with a gleam of magenta magic. Twilight gingerly trotted out, getting a look at her surroundings.

"TWILIGHT!" Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash cried happily.

Then: "Wait a minute…" Rainbow Dash's brow furrowed. "What happened to everypony else? Where's Applejack?"

"And what about Richard?" Bastian added.

"We got separated," Twilight explained briefly. "Hoggle's looking after them. They fell into some kind of trap in the tunnel."

"The oubliette," Sarah realized.

"We tried to get around it with magic, but I guess that was cheating," Twilight sighed.

"We just had a lesson in not cheating ourselves," Sarah told her.

"What did you do?" Twilight asked.

"We tried to meddle with time and buy ourselves some more," Helena answered plainly.

At the mention of meddling with time, Twilight just gave the group a look of disappointed disbelief.

"I don't wanna say I told you so…" Fluttershy muttered.

...

Chapter 109:

· I've seen the headcanon around that Jareth was a human child who was kidnapped by a goblin king to be the next goblin king, and that's what he wanted Toby for. I've even had that headcanon. (Did that manga actually make it canon?) But in the end, I wanted to throw it out the window. I prefer Jareth as an actual goblin, and the reason why he looks so humanoid came quite easily to me when I thought about it.

· Basically, this exposition dump was a big ol' cluster of my Labyrinth headcanons.

· Blue sentry head #1 is the master of dramatic sound effects.

· I actually haven't read "La Reine Margot." I kind of just looked up books that referenced oubliettes. Maybe I should read it. Looks kinda cool.

· The mirror is just an ordinary mirror. The only foreshadowing in that scene was what Pinkie revealed is going on in her head.