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It could be worse.
Or at least that was what Zargothrax told himself.
Being frozen in ice for ten centuries -- cold, unable to move or breathe, and handed around by random knights -- kinda took the cake in terms of a shitty weekend.
The stares he got used to quickly. He couldn't reply, of course, but he saw that people were still afraid of him. They knew how dangerous he was, how powerful, and any and all lax behavior by the guards was swiftly punished, much to his delight. He didn’t get to see much of it, but the stories alone - spoken by guards who clearly thought he did not hear them - were a pleasant change in his bleak, rarely changing daily routine.
What he never got used to was the stasis. Frozen, his body had no need for bodily functions such as breathing, eating, or even defecating. Before, he would have greeted such circumstances enthusiastically, did they take up too much time of his day he could spend otherwise.
But when it truly did happen, it wasn't pleasant.
He'd breathed in the liquid ice as he'd fallen, the shock of impact having made him gasp. The ice had crept into his lungs in his futile struggle to reach the surface before it was too late, a stiff, cold goo filling his chest. And with that, he had lived, his breath perpetually stuck in his throat -- the feeling of suffocating, without either the relief of drawing air or perishing, scraping at his mind every second of his days.
His muscles begged for movement, for the simple act of stretching, for the relief of walking around.
And gods knew he would have sacrificed everything for potato gratin and a beer.
He never got used to the not-quite-liquid encasing him, scraping his skin and creeping into every tiny crevice of his body.
He never got used to the cold, either, and it nearly drove him mad.
(As mad as a necromancer who'd raised an army of undead unicorns could become.)
But, it could be worse! After centuries of frozen slumber, he was finally free at last, free to move around, free to breathe and eat and be more than a consciousness trapped in eternal stillness.
And after a few weeks of alternating between running around on unsteady legs that ached for being used again and soaking in a bath so hot even a dragon would have blushed (and ignoring the burns it left on his skin), Zargothrax was ready for revenge.
The plan was long-since made, ten centuries providing him with more than enough time to scheme and gather all the fragments he needed, except for one: the crystal key. Once stored in a shrine near the legendary volcano Schiehallion, it had been stolen centuries ago, following the goblins as they ventured into galaxies far away. With his trusty chaos wizards keeping the Questlords of Inverness busy – those fuckers he'd take on personally some day, that was for sure – Zargothrax was free to travel unhindered to the so-called Darkstorm Galaxy, the current capital of non-terrestrial goblins.
Negotiations hadn't taken long, as Zargothrax – or rather, his reputation – was still on amicable terms with the goblins, even though his last contact to their kind had been just as long ago as his unworthy end in the pool of ice.
Even better, current goblin etiquette considered dinner necessary to conclude a contract, and to that, Zargothrax surely wouldn't say no. The goblin king – whose name Zargothrax couldn't pronounce, since his goblonic was hopelessly outdated at this point – liked talking even more than the sorcerer did, and in this specific case, Zargothrax didn't mind, as it left him more time to eat.
He only ever spoke up when a story painted him less grand than he truly was, which of course needed immediate correction. The few goblins that protested their king being interrupted were swiftly disposed of, with a variety of creative spells Zargothrax had been itching to try out on living subjects.
All in all, things were good.
That was.... until the last course was served.
Jellied eel, he knew. It was popular down on Earth, especially in the south.
It wasn't that he disliked it. He was less than picky after his long imprisonment, enjoying even things he had previously scorned just for the simple fact of being able to consume it.
But the second the cold, soft jelly touched his lips, something was wrong.
The sorcerer gagged, hastily washing down the spoonful of eel with his drink.
The room had gone icy. He felt sweat gather on his forehead in droplets, his chest feeling tight and hot even though his skin had broken into goosebumps.
He couldn't breathe anymore.
If he hadn't checked everything he ate with the vast variety of methods a sorcerer of his skill had at his disposal, he would have suspected poison.
But he knew it was not.
He listened to the Goblin King ramble on, glad his hood and glasses were obscuring his features while he tried to uphold his dignity.
He couldn’t just leave. This was important.
He had the chaos wizards, yes, but he couldn’t risk offending the Goblin King. He needed him, and more importantly, the crystal key.
The second bite was even worse than the first one. He could feel every single inch the goopy substance traveled down his throat. It was a miracle he kept it in at all.
Why couldn't he breathe ? It was as if a ring of steel had wrapped around his chest and was drawing ever tighter.
Zargothrax nearly landed face-first in the plate when the goblin king cheerfully slapped his shoulder.
"Ah, I see even a man of wisdom like you is impressed, yes? We don't have eels up here, of course, except the acid eals over on Theta Five, but our recreation is quite faithful to Earth, am I right?"
"Quite," Zargothrax muttered. "How'd you... manage?" It was hard even getting the words out.
His fingers around the tool that could most likely be called a fork-knife (knork?) had gone numb, his hands shaking so much he was worried he'd drop it despite his white-knuckled grip.
Even worse, his magic was running rampant, the carefully constructed reigns of his mind suddenly going brittle. A spider-like creature that only had vague resemblance to a goblin skittering by went up in flame, without Zargothrax having willed a spell to happen.
"I heard the liquid ice was transported to Triton," the goblin king said. Zargothrax must have missed the moment the Goblin King had changed topics. "An impressive feat of the knights. We've not been able to recreate the ice at all, though it seems like a useful tool."
Liquid ice.
Zargothrax took a deep breath, which didn't feel like it entered his lungs at all, and began to talk.
Talking was something he could just do , even when he felt like his chest was still filled with the dreadful cold substance; even when he couldn't focus his gaze, too afraid that if he shifted around too much, he'd just fall over, his sense of balance lost in the rapid flashes of cold and heat surging through his body.
So he talked, and talked, and talked.
He may or may not have repeated a few points, but it didn't matter. He just talked as long as he could, until something small and furry nabbed the rests of his dessert and vanished with it, saving him from having to finish it. He had no idea what he spoke about, leaving that part to the fragment of his mind that wasn't frantically trying to figure out what was wrong with him.
He told them of his takeover of Dundee, and imprisoning the princess. A grand moment indeed. He told of his battle, of the evil tricks Angus the first had used to finally defeat him when even an army had not been enough to kill him – naturally, for he was Zargothrax, bane of Cowdenbeath, scourge of Auchtermuchty-
-and currently having a panic attack.
When the table was cleared, he repeated one more story before amicably offering to continue with more grand histories of his conquest, now that the official part of the meeting was over.
The goblin king declined politely, and then, suddenly, Zargothrax was out of the palace and back on Earth. How and when he'd opened the portal that glowed behind him, he had no idea, but the sudden change in gravity sent him to the floor at once.
He just laid there for a moment, head spinning and gasping for breath that still would not come. He was shivering from the cold, though the tunic under his robe was soaked with sweat.
Zargothrax heaved himself to his knees, then his feet, staggering out of his lab. He was glad the living area in his tower was all on the same level, for he wasn't sure if he could have managed stairs right now.
He staggered into his bedroom, where the temperature was slightly more bearable, and collapsed on the pile of blankets he called bed, shaking so badly he could not even wrap them around his person.
Even the rough blankets – rougher than blankets had any right to be, but the only thing he could currently tolerate – felt gooey, as if they'd swallow him if his attention lapsed for the smallest of moments.
In his fogged mind, there was only one clear thought.
You will pay for this.
In that moment, Zargothrax tore up his grand plans.
He'd wanted to use the gateway to channel galactic power into his being, making him ascend to godhood, but that prospect had lost its draw. What did an eternal rule mean if he couldn't enjoy it?
No. He'd destroy Fife. He'd have Kor-Virliath rip the entire empire apart, every single planet and moon, every single knight that had laughed at him in his miserable, cold prison. He'd make them feel the same torment he had gone through.
And he'd start with Angus McFife the Thirteenth.
The thought of revenge was the last thing he remembered before blissful oblivion overtook the dark sorcerer and finally, at long last, brought him calm.