babble horde

Sarah was pleased to have caught up with Jareth in the dining hall. Their schedules didn’t always line up, so it was nice when they could share meals together.

As she looked around the room she noticed a group of goblins gathered at another table and one of them was using a novelty straw. Not a bendy straw, but one of the brightly coloured tubes that had been bent into a looping knot, was next to impossible to clean and guaranteed to start cultivating interesting mould spores if used longer than a week. She was certain she’d seen another goblin with a different novelty straw recently.

Sarah turned back to Jareth. “That’s going to be a health hazard if he keeps using that thing.” She jerked her head towards the table of goblins.

Jareth dismissed the concern with a wave of his hand. “Goblins have hardy digestive systems, and I fully expect one of them will eat the straw before any contaminants have a chance to ferment.”

“Where are they coming from?” Sarah frowned. It wasn’t the only novelty item she had seen recently. A while back she’d seen a sticky wall crawler toy thrown against a wall, which had only flip flopped itself a couple of times before another goblin ate it.

“Things wished away to the junkyard?” Jareth shrugged. “Or the goblins have been making their own raids Above.”

Sarah didn’t suppose it mattered, aside from the curiosity of knowing why such a temporally diverse array of objects were making their way Underground. Some were long lived, others faddish, some she didn’t recognise and guessed they were older, and some she knew were banned when she was a child. It seemed the items of ephemera were as diverse as the uses the goblins found for them.

While some items were eaten, she’d seen both metal and plastic slinkys being used as ornamentation. The magnetic gyroscopic wheels seemed to mesmerise the goblins. They were too short to use the yoyos as intended without shortening the strings, but had cheerfully adapted them as weapons. The same for clackers, which now dangled from several goblin belts.

Sarah supposed that they could have found a cache of old carnival novelties buried in a warehouse and wondered if anyone would notice it was missing and if they would be confused about lint covered, half sucked jawbreakers and shiny rocks being left as payment.

“It’s not causing any issues, so I’ll leave them to their venture.” Jareth tilted his head in thought. “They do occasionally find something useful in their travels. There’s an extraordinarily mucky swan shaped pedal boat that the goblins use to aerate the bog.”

Sarah fought the urge to vomit and pushed her plate away. “I did not need to know that the bog had to be aerated.” It smelled bad enough when the water wasn’t being churned up.

Jareth speared a slice of roast meat from Sarah’s plate and ate it with a grin. “That’s why it’s a punishment detail.”

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labyfic — drabble #247: roasted
Part of the Balance!verse