Disclaimer: Labyrinth is the property of Labyrinth Enterprises, and her characters and images are borrowed with gratitude. I'd like to extend special thanks to David Bowie, for endowing the Goblin King not only with his handsome features, but also with the charismatic persona and voice that have made Jareth the subject of so many websites and stories. The lyrics quoted herein are David Bowie's, also copyrighted by Labyrinth Enterprises, and are reproduced with thanks.
I hope that you enjoy the story.
Cheers!
Ya Nefer Ma'at
January, 2002.
PS: In August 2012, I reposted this as a series of chapters, rather than one long file. I also tidied up the paragraph structure and did some other editorial corrections. The changes are only cosmetic. Cheers, Ya Nefer Ma'at
Queen of the Goblins
by Ya Nefer Ma'at
Chapter 1:
Aidan raced down the empty highway, slicing smoothly through the silver moonlight on his motorcycle. The forest bracketed him, giving the path a magical aspect, with the full moon hanging over the ribbon of the road stretching before him. Aidan felt euphoric, one with the wolves he knew to be hidden in the trees. As he lifted his handsome face to the moon, he wanted to howl, voicing his pleasure that he was coming home to his Sarah.
A flicker of movement caught his eye. A deer darted onto the road too suddenly for him to avoid a collision. Time seemed to stretch as he hit the beautiful animal. The impact threw Aidan into the night air. The sensation of flying was oddly familiar, as if it was quite natural for Aidan to take to wings silvered with moonlight. When the road raced up to meet him, Aidan heard his scream as if it ripped free of someone else's throat.
The harsh shriek of the crash drew the Goblin King's head up sharply, despite the separation between the world of mortals and his kingdom. Next to hit him was a raw wave of agony as he felt the man's injuries. It took all of Jareth's control to stop Aidan's scream from escaping his tightly clenched teeth. Once his magic had distanced him from the hurt, he smoothly flew from the balcony of his throne room, gliding as an owl across the boundary between the two worlds. He came to the ground beside the dying, first touching the heaving side of the deer. The animal looked at him with glazed eyes, too deep to respond to his gentle magic: Jareth thinned his lips and released the wounded deer into death. When he knelt beside Aidan, touching his pale face, he was tempted to do the same. The mortal dipped in and out of consciousness. Jareth cradled the dying man, easing his pain. He studied how well Aidan mimicked the Goblin King's beauty. Aidan had the King's strong, handsome features, overlaid with a delicate elegance, features which Jareth's magic had enhanced to make the mortal even more his echo. Sarah couldn't have helped but love the man, just as the Goblin King had planned when he saw to it that Aidan crossed Sarah's path.
Aidan roused under Jareth's touch, focusing with effort on Jareth. A radiant smile spread slowly over Aidan's face. "You're... real. I... I knew... no dream..."
"Of course I'm real, Aidan."
"Take... c-care of..."
"I will. Rest quietly, my mortal shadow. You've served me well."
Blood flowed in an ever-widening pool from Aidan's body, until his breathing failed and his heart became silent. The Goblin King closed the dead mortal's sky blue eyes.
Standing silently over the dead man, Jareth looked at the shadows extending along the road. He himself did not cast a shadow, despite the intensity of the moon's face. "Heel.", the Goblin King commanded, snapping his fingers. Immediately, Aidan's shadow rolled away from his body and knelt beside Jareth, dark face raised adoringly. Jareth lightly touched the dark head, stroking along the shadow of Aidan's short hair before posing his hand in readiness. The dark form promptly turned to smoke, condensing into a crystal on Jareth's fingertips. Jareth idly rolled the crystal over his glove, then dropped it neatly at his feet. He lightly rested the sole of his boot on the crystal before sending it unrolling across the silent road. When Jareth turned and raised his face to the moonlight, his shadow, with its majestic cape and full corona of hair, stretched out behind him.
Jareth considered his next action. He was tempted to try to go to Sarah, to tell her of her husband's death, but he knew she would irrationally hold him responsible. He shook his head at the thought. Besides, she might want to see the body. Looking at Aidan's broken form, Jareth had no desire for Sarah to remember Aidan like this. It would be hard enough when she saw her late husband without the mantle of Jareth's magic over him. Jareth briefly wondered if Sarah would even recognize Aidan. And so, he would have to be satisfied with spying on her, witnessing her in her last moments of ignorant happiness. With owl's wings, and dipping between the two worlds, he covered the miles as if they were inches, alighting outside Sarah's window.
Careful not to be seen, Jareth watched Sarah. She was alternately staring out the window, in the hope of seeing Aidan arrive, and dancing through the house. Jareth could see that she had set the stage for romance. He wished he could be with her, could offer her such comfort that Aidan's death would be but a cold whisper on the edge of her emotions. He shifted, frustrated that he could not face her without her invitation, and so could not hold her, shield her from the sorrow soon to collapse her fragile reality. He was also frustrated that Sarah would most likely fight him, irrespective of his kindness or the purity of his intentions. Even years after their first encounter, Sarah still unconsciously blamed him for everything that she perceived as unfair.
She should have instead been thanking him. Unknown to her, the Goblin King had been her unfailing champion. She had 'won' the first engagement, but he had sworn, even as he stood among the ruins of his plans, that victory in the war would ultimately be his. At that point, his vision of 'victory' was to have Sarah cowering before him, begging the great King of the Goblins for his attention, enslaved by his smile. Time had eased the Goblin King's hurt, and he had become aware of deeper emotions regarding the girl. At first, the recognition that he loved a mortal horrified him. In answering the question of how Sarah had managed to solve his labyrinth and rescue her brother, the answer to his emotions had also been found: his Sarah wasn't mortal after all. She was a changeling, as he discovered, and of noble blood. In fact, an entirely suitable bride for a king.
He had often gone to Sarah, in the guise of an owl, watching her as she grew up, making the turbulent transition from child to adult. He had hoped for a time when she would call him back to her, but instead, she had first been arrogant with her victory over him.
Unaware of how she hurt him, she had replayed their interaction, using 'You have no power over me.' as her watch-words. He had swallowed the hurt then, as he did each time she had thrown rocks at him in the form of an owl. As she grew up, her childish jubilation had been replaced with hormone-laden fantasies– Jareth blushed even now– and interest in the boys around her. It galled him that she unwittingly sought him in her choice of beaus.
Despite her unconscious preoccupation with him, she would either stare balefully at or actively attack any owl she saw. In her continuing mistrust of owls, she kept Jareth beyond stone's throw, all the while seeking a mortal equivalent of the breath-taking Goblin King.
'Everything I do, I do for you.'
Bowing to her unspoken command, Jareth had swallowed his impatience and created Aidan, a mortal version of the King's majesty. Jareth's puppet had swept Sarah from her feet, captivating her so thoroughly that he became the center of her existence. It was difficult to accept that mortal hands were touching her, and mortal lips kissing her, but Jareth took comfort in the knowledge that he was Aidan. Aidan had quickly become but a waking dream for the Goblin King, a substream of his consciousness. Deep down, Jareth knew that the mortal would cease to exist if Jareth forgot to think of him, so little human remained of the boy once Jareth had created in him his image.
And so, through Aidan, the Goblin King was with Sarah, across the magic binding their two realities. Sarah had never realized that Aidan, breath-taking, magical Aidan, was the Goblin King, who still haunted her dreams. Hence, it was Jareth who had danced her through a 'fairy-book' courtship and who married her, all with the sweetest romance a girl could desire. Jareth frowned, wondering if he had run out of time. Whether she was ready or not, he would soon come to bring home his bride.
Sarah stared desolately at a portrait of Aidan, sitting prominently above the fireplace. She was huddled in a blanket on the couch. Beside her was a photograph of she and Aidan from the school production in which they had met. Sarah had been one of the secondary characters, while Aidan, multi-talented so-and-so that he was, the lead singer and actor. Sarah had always marveled that someone as amazing as Aidan had chosen to fall in love with her, when surely he could have had his pick of all the girls at the school. They had been inseparable thereafter, and had wed as quickly as was legally possible. Even the quick rise to fame that Aidan had enjoyed shortly after their marriage, with its attendant swarms of talented, breath-taking beauties, had not challenged Aidan's devotion to his Sarah, as Sarah had secretly feared it would.
The room was a mess, dusty and disordered, but Sarah didn't notice. Since Aidan's death, since she had seen his casket lowered into the cold ground, she had been sleeping most of the time. The whole affair seemed unreal. Even now, Sarah was not sure that Aidan was really gone. The man she had buried was surely not her Aidan; he didn't even look right, though everyone else acted like it was him. She'd thought that she'd long since cried herself dry, but fresh tears blurred Aidan's image. When she stood up, faintness swayed through her. Dimly, she wondered when she had last ate. Not that it mattered, nothing mattered, without Aidan. She found she was staring out an open window, still half-blinded by tears. "Oh husband," she sobbed, "if only you were with me. Please, please, make this horror end. Please, take me home. All I want is to be with you again..."
Through her tears, she didn't see the owl perched beyond the window, nor did she recognize that, when she surrendered to the dizziness, strong arms caught her. Jareth easily picked Sarah up, shocked at her slight weight and the thinness of her face. He was aware, and concerned, that she hadn't been eating, but hadn't realized how quickly fasting had affected her. "Your wish is my command, my Lady." he smiled, stepping across the boundary between the two worlds and into an exquisite guestroom in his castle. He tenderly settled Sarah into the bed, singing to her as he smoothed her long hair away from her face. Under his gentle touch, his magic worked to restore Sarah's lost strength. He smiled softly, murmuring, "You haven't even realized yet, have you, you precious thing?" Once she was deep in a peaceful sleep, he reluctantly withdrew.
