Chapter Text
Jareth sits on the couch in the living room. It’s quaint, seldomly decorated, but just enough spunk to not look completely soulless.
He’s fiddling with his dulcimer, lightly plucking the strings he fills the air with sweet melodic tones.
On the wall above the mantle, there’s a photo of a brute minotaur standing tall with a smaller minotaur child on his shoulders.
The child has a bright smile with her arms raised high above her head, and the father below is smiling too, you can clearly tell where the child’s resemblance comes from.
The photo looks dated, with creases in the center from being folded and unfolded over the years. But despite its age it's carefully framed above the mantle. It stands alone, with no other picture or decoration to accompany it.
In the other room, Azzlore sits at the kitchen table writing down in his notebook. His pen scratches the paper rapidly, but every few moments or so he gets thrown off balance by the sounds of the dulcimer coming from the living room.
After about the fourth time his thoughts were interrupted, Azzlore gets an idea.
He places his pen on the table and tears a small piece of paper out of the book and begins to ball it up in his fingers. His chair scrapes against the ground as he pushes off from the table, and he rises from his seat. With the tiny paper ball pinched in between his fingers, he saunters towards the threshold of the living room.
Azzlore is standing in the doorway to the living room, and just before he assumes his position, he hears Jareth’s voice from the living room, “You know I can hear you.”
For a moment Azzlore stops in his tracks, but then he swiftly throws his hands behind his back attempting to save some face.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he murmurs.
Jareth sets down his dulcimer and turns his head around to meet Azzlore’s eye. While draping his arm across the back of the couch he lets out a wry laugh, “You were going to try and pelt me with that paper ball you have behind your back.”
Azzlore dramatically clutches his chest with his right hand while still holding the paper ball in his left, “I would do no such thing!”
Jareth squints a little, and he turns his body back to normal to continue playing, “Mhm, sure.”
Once Jareth had turned around, Azzlore took the paper ball from behind his back and lobbed it at his head. He had put enough weight behind the throw that it made it to Jareth, but instead of hitting him in the back of the head like he intended, it missed and landed just a few feet in front of the couch.
Jareth sees the paper ball laying in front of him and chuckles, “You’re a terrible shot.”
Azzlore scoffs, “I am not!”
“Are too.”
Azzlore crosses his arms in front of his chest, “What do you know about shooting anyway?”
Jareth turns his body around again to look at Azzlore now, his face looking unfazed by it all, “Oh I don’t know. Maybe because I hunt for a living?”
Azzlore lets out an awkward laugh, “Oh yeah, right.”
He’s at a loss for words for a moment before he uncrosses his arms, “You’re not the only one who knows how to shoot though.”
“Yeah, but apparently I’m the only one in this room who knows how to not miss.”
Azzlore’s face drops and he feels the heat start to accumulate in his cheeks.
“Hey, take that back!”
Jareth throws his hands in the air, “I would but the evidence of your incompetence is lying five feet in front of me.”
Azzlore begins to uncross his arms and starts to ball his fists, “You’re gonna regret saying that.”
He walks closer to Jareth and raises his fist high to try and take a swing on him, but before he can, he feels a hand from behind grab it.
From behind, it was the brute minotaur from the photo. His face is slightly more aged since that photo was taken, some wrinkles were starting to form, and the roots of his hair starting to gray.
“Now do you really think that’s a good idea?”
The minotaur grabbed tightly onto Azzlore’s fist. When Azzlore tried to break free, he only gripped harder.
Azzlore turns away from Jareth to look the minotaur in the eye.
“Aw c’mon Cyrus. Just let me have one swing.”
Cyrus lets out a booming laugh that nearly shakes the room, “Not gonna happen, cowpoke. Let it go.”
Azzlore looks at Cyrus, and then looks at Jareth, and then looks back at Cyrus, and lowers his fist.
Cyrus loosens his grip and wipes his hand on his shirt, “Good choice kid.”
Azzlore walks away with his head hung low, he can’t help but mutter to himself,
“Stupid hotshot thinks he’s a better shooter than me…”
Over his shoulder he can hear Cyrus’ gruff voice, “I heard that!”