Luna quickly trotted through the Labyrinth, not being so fooled by finding the entrance or “invisible walls” having run it once before. She wasn't willing to let herself get into a gallop, though, lest she miss something important that would come in handy later, as such things would always happen in the Labyrinth. Even as she thought about her brilliance at remembering such details, she refused to let her guard down, ever suspicious that Jareth would not make it any less difficult a second time around.
After two or three hours, she had made what appeared to be relatively good progress, but looks were deceiving in the Labyrinth. The castle appeared to be right in front of her, but if she turned left then right, it would seem to be to somewhere else. Sometimes the Labyrinth would make her think that she had lost her senses.
It would have been better, had she not been accompanied by an unwanted companion, although sometimes, there were several, depending on the light.
Shadows make terrible travel-mates.
“Turn back,” they would say. “You don't need the filly.”
“Go back now,” said another. “Go live a quiet, happy life with your sister.”
“No,” Luna would tell them. “We need to get Twilight back.”
“But then you'll never have any time to yourself,” a shadow would say back. “Or with Celestia.”
“Go away!” Luna covered her ears, trying to block out their voices, but they were all inside her head. Nothing could make them go away.
That's the thing about shadows. They're like bad thoughts. They'll never stop following you around. You might forget about them after a while, but when they show themselves back again, you will never forget about them.
Luna tried to push the shadows out of her mind the best she could. Ignoring them was probably the best course of action, anyway. Unfortunately, it appeared that these shadows would not leave her mind until a distraction did it for her. She couldn't be, that lucky, could she?
As her chances would have it, she did run across a small band of arguing creatures, right as the shadows were at the peak of making Luna want to strangle a two dimensional figure. Describing the creatures would prove to be more of a challenge than solving their arguments, though. The tops of their heads only reached up to Luna's knees, and they had very leathery, wrinkly skin. Other than that, Luna was at a loss on their appearance.
“It's mine!”
“No, it's mine!”
“It's obviously mine.”
“No it's not, it's his!”
The Moon Princess was unlucky enough to have come across the creatures in some seemingly important debate on the ownership of something, although Luna could not see what it was. It was also just her luck that all four of them were blocking the way.
“Pardon Us,” she said, trying to be brief and get past the creatures as quickly as possible. The creatures ignored her, still enraptured in their debate.
“Excuse Us,” she said again, this time trying to walk through them, but that proved to be pointless.
“You could just fly over them,” one of the shadows told her. She ignored the shadows, well aware that this was probably a test of some sort.
“What seems to be the problem here?” Luna asked the creatures. The authority in her voice finally caught their attention. This was quickly followed by all four of them trying to explain the situation and justify their ownership of the object they were arguing over, at the same time.
“One At A Time!” Luna commanded, doing her best to not use the Royal Canterlot Voice. With the shadows getting on her nerves and these creatures being non-cooperative, Luna's tolerance level was quickly running thin.
“Well, excuse me!” said one of the creatures, and three of them went back to arguing over the object.
Luna had just about had it with these creatures, but one of them walked up nervously to her, and tried to explain the situation.
“Well, um, miss,” it began. “You see, Bogsnout there thinks that he ought to have the loose brick because he saw it first. Lintwax there thinks he ought to have it because he could use it to fix his chimney. And Dripwash thinks it should be his because it came off of his house.” After a moments hesitation, the creature chimed in its opinion. “I think that it should go to Lintwax.”
It was a puzzling situation, indeed. Luna may have even found the answer, if it weren't for the fact that the shadows decided to join in on the argument as well.
“It should definitely go to Dripwash, then.”
“No no no, it should go to Lintwax. He has the better reason.”
“Finder's Keeper's, I always say. Give it to Bogsnout.”
All the chatter, it was driving Luna mad. She tried being diplomatic with the shadows, saying “please, please stop this,” but that didn't work. In fact, it made things much, much worse.
“Ah, lighten up, Nightmare Moon,” one of the shadows said. That was the last straw.
“NEVER CALL US NIGHTMARE MOON!” Luna shouted with a Royal Canterlot Voice loud enough to be heard to kingdoms well beyond the Labyrinth. Unfortunately for her, she was not the only one with a final straw to be pulled.
“Did I not instruct you specifically never to use the Royal Canterlot Voice within my Labyrinth?” Luna spun around to face the Goblin King, who was looking royally angry, and rightfully so.
“What will you do to Us?” she asked, attempting to seem haughty. “Take some of our time away?”
“Oh no,” Jareth said with a smug attitude. “Much worse.” He produced a crystal, and with a few waves and a tap to Luna's horn, the crystal transformed itself, wrapping around the horn until it became a small, silver ring at the point where it begins to form out of the head.
“This will prevent you from using ANY magic at all, including levitation of yourself and other objects around you.” He began to fade away, leaving behind a residue of sparkles, but before he had completely disappeared he had one thing left to say.
“Good luck using your hooves.”
Then he was gone, and so were the creatures.