Disclaimer: I regret to say that I do not own any of the characters from Jim Hensons wonderful work, Labyrinth, although I and many others delight in drawing on his genius as we are inspired to expand on this wonderful story.

This story is rated M because it will, eventually, earn that rating. Disclaimers and trigger warnings will appear on chapters as necessary.

Warning: Mild Torture/Violence Ahead.

A/N - This chapter is a combination of what used to be the first three chapters. I realized that they were, individually, too short to make decent chapters on their own, so I decided to combine them. I hope you all stick around to the conclusion!

~LiteraryRhapsody

He knew the moment that she became aware of his presence in the doorway. Their eyes met and he felt the connection, like a small bolt of lightning that went straight to his heart. He hadn't wanted things to go this far. Jareth would much rather have avoided this final battle of wills between himself and this strong minded young mortal. She just kept pushing! Never beaten, always goading him on. It was as if she relished him in the role of the villain and he was helpless to refuse her. Although, in his arrogance, he claimed that he would move the stars for no one, he would for her. For this girl, he would move heaven and earth to win a single smile. He mentally prepared himself to match wits with this infuriating female. He would have her, to think anything else would be admitting defeat. And defeat, for the spoiled and arrogant King, was simply inconceivable. Slowly he emerged from the shadow of the doorway, his eyes never leaving her face. He paused, and waited for her to make the opening salvo in the final battle of their private little war.

"Give me the child..."

As they sparred with each other, trading verbal ripostés as neatly as a pair of fencers, they were unaware that they had attracted an audience. From the blackness, a being of darkness and hate watched them with more interest than it had shown in anything since that day, eons ago, when it had been locked away to languish in it's dark prison.

At first he had howled out threats and promises of swift and terrible punishment for those who dared to imprison him. Then, he raged against the walls of the prison itself, until he grew to accept the fact of his physical captivity. Eventually, he had discovered the flaw in his prison. The old ones had obviously been unaware of it, or thought it too minute to be of any consequence.

On the far wall of his subterranean prison was an uncut gemstone. It had taken many years and a great deal of effort, but he had managed to wrest the stone from the wall. Another millennia passed while he cut and polished the stone, using nothing but his teeth, nails, and the rocks around him.

When he was finished, a vibrant, glowing emerald sat in his clawed hand. Gradually, he learned to use the gemstone to focus his attention on the world that had forgotten him. He saw that the old ones had long since perished, leaving many of their creations behind to rule the world in their place. He learned that the world he had known was no more. Instead of the single unified world that had defeated him, there was now division. The Fae and their ilk, elder creations of the old ones, now dwelled in a place that they called the Underground, along with magical creatures of all kinds. The humans, youngest and most chaotic of the old ones spawn, were left to populate the Aboveground.

At first, he merely watched, learning all that he could of the various races that the old ones had made after he was locked away and forgotten. Slowly, he attempted to influence the things he saw through the emerald. His first attempts were faltering, and met with failure more often than success. Gradually, he gained skill. As he did, the havoc he was able to wreak on the unsuspecting children of the old ones was very satisfying.

As his influence grew, he began to formulate a plan. A plan that would finally free him from this hated prison once and for all. He waited for the right moment, the right beings to put his plan into motion. He watched the birth of the Fae king and centuries later, that of the mortal girl. He saw their connection to each other the moment she was born and knew that they were the ones. They were his ticket to freedom. All he had to do was manipulate the right people, push events in just the right direction, plant the right ideas at the right time.

As he watched their meeting in the Underground, he silently cheered the girl on as she resisted the king. He needed them apart, their connection was important, but their separation was vital at this stage.

"...Kingdom as great..." she whispered, turning away and Jareth felt a wild surge of hope, although he carefully schooled his face so as to show little emotion. Perhaps she would not continue. Perhaps she was not such a slave to the words written in that stupid book. "Damn," she said. " I can never remember that line."

Jareth held up the crystal in his hand. "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." He was begging now. Pleading with her, not to crush him. Trying to keep her from leaving the Underground, the Labyrinth, and leaving him utterly broken.

"My kingdom is great... my kingdom is great..."

Jareth waited in dreadful suspense, afraid to say anything. Almost afraid to move, lest he shift the delicate balance too far in her direction and she utter that one line that would undo everything he had worked for. All his plans and all his dreams could come to fruition in this moment, or they could be irrevocably shattered. He felt the unaccustomed sensation of tears pricking his eyes as he waited. She was so beautiful, so amazing and strong… And then she looked up at him, and he knew. It was over. He had gambled and lost, for the first time since he had come to his throne. Almost in wonder she spoke the words.

"You have no power over me."

The laughter of the dark being echoed off the walls of his prison. So it began!

You have no power over me.

No power over me.

No power over me.

No power...

"No!" Jareth bolted awake, with the scream still on his lips and the echo of sinister laughter in his ears. He was dripping with sweat, as he always was when he was visited by this old nightmare.

Why? he thought bitterly, why must I relive this every few nights? Why can I not put these feelings behind me? Jareth moved to sit on the edge of the bed. As the sweat on his body began to dry, he shivered. It was over six years since that fateful night when Sarah Williams beat his game and slipped through his grasp. Six long years since his heart was ripped from his chest.

Jareth was a changed man. No longer did he take joy in being the all powerful Goblin King. He no longer sat in his throne room, surrounded by carousing goblins. He appeared more and more rarely at gathering in the Underground kingdoms. His temper grew ever more uncertain and distant, and even those who had previously counted him among their friends tended to avoid him. Instead, he took to locking himself in his private chambers and brooding over his crystals. Crystals that, more often than not, contained images of Sarah. He endlessly replayed their interactions in his mind, looking for the place where he had gone wrong. Trying to figure out why she had rejected him, what he could have done differently. More often than not, he left his duties undone, both those duties as King and those as caretaker of the Labyrinth began to slip. His kingdom began to crumble beneath him and the Labyrinth slowly started falling into disrepair despite its magic.

Tongues began to wag and the rumor mill ground on about Jareth, the Goblin King. Rumor had it that he was pining away with unrequited love. Rumor did not know that half of it. Indeed, he had very carefully hidden Sarah's existence away, altering the memories of all but a few of his subjects. He needed no interference from the High Council.

Jareth moved from his bed to the window that overlooked the city and thought back once again, over everything that had happened.

He had first become aware of Sarah on her twelfth birthday. He was not entirely sure what drew his notice to her as he flew through the park in the Aboveground, the same park where she liked to practice her plays. Once he saw her however, he quickly realized that this was no ordinary mortal girl. For one thing she was beautiful, and something about her was almost, magnetic. He spied several faery creatures in the park and almost all of them seemed to be watching the young girl intently. He could see that she was as oblivious to their attention as she was to him. She was graceful and confident as she play acted for her shaggy dog. He might still have dismissed her, despite the pull she exerted on him, until he noticed the small, red leather volume on the park bench with her other things. The book blazed with the magic of the Labyrinth.

He almost fell out of the tree he had been perched in when he saw it. It was impossible that she could be in possession of this book. This book spoke of him and his realm in a very detailed manner. He would have sworn that all copies of this book had been destroyed or locked away for safekeeping years ago. How then, had she gotten it? He was relieved, but puzzled, to find that the contents of the book seemed to have somehow been altered into a play, a fairy tale, that she was rehearsing. It was now a book about how he and his goblins took wished away children from the mortal realm and brought them to the Underground. It told a story of how a young princess wished away her baby brother in a moment of pique, and then heroically ran the Labyrinth in order to get him back. She seemed to understand the book in a way that very, very few mortals would have been able to in that day and age. Magic, fantasy, and fairy tales were largely discounted and openly disbelieved by almost all mortals above the age of ten. Jareth had found it charming that her faith in such things was so strong. Particularly her absolute certainty that he himself existed.

As he watched her grow over the next few years, he perceived that her life was not exactly a happy one. Jareth saw that there was no love lost between Sarah and her stepmother. Through his crystals, he learned that her father was too caught up in his new wife, and later his new son, to spare much time for his daughter. Especially a daughter that reminded him so much of his first wife. Although Richard Williams loved his daughter, she was too like her mother. Jareth could see that Sarah was a painful reminder of what he had lost.

He saw that Sarah had few friends, preferring instead to spend time with her dog, her books, and her costumes. Jareth watched as she invented elaborate fantasy tales, most of which centered around the Fae and the Underground. No matter how many new stories she invented, her favorite remained the story in which a heroic princess saved a baby from the evil Goblin King. That slim red volume went with her everywhere. Several times, Jareth considered removing the book from her possession, but always put it off. It did not seem to be giving her any harmful information and he was unwilling to reveal himself to her, even for something so important as that book. The High Council would have him dragged in to explain himself if he revealed himself to a mortal who had NOT summoned him. Rules were rules, after all. It certainly wasn't something that he could trust to his goblins either. They had a habit of bungling every task he set them to. So Jareth contented himself with simply watching, either through his crystals or in the form of the barn owl.

At first he told himself he was just keeping an eye on the book, waiting for a chance to get it back. Because, he reasoned, it was too dangerous for him to leave it in the hands of a mortal girl. She might learn too much! After a while though, he had to be honest enough with himself to admit that that excuse was wearing a bit thin. He could, in all honesty, have removed the book from her room while she slept on any number of nights. He watched her because he enjoyed watching her. She intrigued him. There was something about her that was unlike all of the other girls in the mortal realm. Something that set her apart. He noticed that other Fae creatures took more than a passing interest in the little girl as well. She seemed to be constantly surrounded by goblins, fairies, nixies, corrigans, dryads and even some of the darker Fae. She was, or course, oblivious to it all. Still, he couldn't seem to stay away.

Then came that night, the night she wished away her half brother Toby. He finally had a chance to go to her. After watching her for three years he thought that he knew her well. He was well acquainted with her stubborn streak and with her pride. He knew her loneliness and her struggles with her stepmother. He knew her wish that her father cared more about her. All in all, he thought he knew her very well.

"Oh how wrong I was," he groaned to himself, closing his eyes briefly against the pain that was as fresh as it had been six years ago. He was learning to work with the pain, or at least around it, during the day. At night, though, it always came back along with the dream, gnawing a hole in his chest as surely as his Dream Hounds chewed bones.

He went to her to fulfill her wish, and his duties as the Goblin King. He was intimidating and condescending, as befit his role, but also much much kinder than he usually was to those mortals who summoned him. He knew it hadn't seemed that way to her. He had appeared harsh and cruel, but that was the way the story portrayed him, it was what she had expected of him, so he fulfilled that expectation. He went to her, fully predicting that he could subdue her stubborn spirit and make her love him. He expected to easily wrap her in his spell. Somehow she had twisted it around until she was the one that had him wrapped up neatly, right around her slender fingers. By the time they had their final meeting in that strangely fractured room the Labyrinth created in his palace, he was hopelessly lost to her, and she viewed him as the enemy.

Angrily, Jareth turned from the window, fighting to keep from lashing out and breaking something as his thoughts whirled in a familiar pattern. Where did I go wrong? How did I get myself into this mess? He walked over to a side table where several decanters and glasses stood. With hands that shook, he poured himself a drink and then, with a strangled sound that was more a sob than anything, Jareth sank down on the couch in front of the fire, and hung his head. Since she had left his realm, he had only been able to get brief glimpses of her in his crystals. Nothing more concrete was available to him for some reason. Little snatches that did nothing but enflame him and leave him unfulfilled. He alternated between despair and rage at this. How dare she hide from him! All he could see were small scenes, which he set to playing over and over in his crystals, looking for some way to get her back, some way to heal his heart. Some way to return the other half of his soul to where she belonged. At his side.

Unseen by the Goblin King, silvery black eyes had watched his every move from the shadows in the corner. As Jareth sat, brooding on his couch, a tiny shadow separated itself from the larger ones that inhabited the corner, and slipped out the window. The shadow sped away into the night. It was late for a meeting.

The dank cavern dripped with water. It ran down the walls and dripped from the stalactites into the quiet pools on the floor. Every plink echoed hollowly throughout the cave system. There were no other sounds. Chiara shivered in the dank chill. Her small wings fluttered as she hovered next to the pool that was the appointed meeting place. She was glad that she didn't have to set foot on the slimy looking ground.

The minutes seemed to stretch out forever as she waited for her master to appear. Chiara flitted about, holding a tiny lantern up as she peered down side passages. The flickering lights caused by her swinging lantern mader her dark skin disappear and then appear against the darkness that surrounded , her large pointed ears caught the sound of footsteps approaching the cavern. To her bat-like ears, the footsteps of the man she served sounded loudly in the nearly complete silence of the cave.

Quickly, the Nyxie darted back toward the pool at the center of the cavern and placed her small lantern in a niche, conveniently carved by untold ages of drips, on a stalagmite at the side of the pool. Then she waited, nervously rubbing her pointed fingers over her scalp, for the Fae who employed her. He wasn't someone that she wanted to cross, ever.

She was silent as she watched the light from a much stronger lantern steadily approach. The shadows danced from wall to wall as the lantern swung with every step the man took. Chiara's silvery eyes narrowed as she watched him approach. Like all Fae, he was slender and graceful as he picked his careful way across the rubble strewn cave floor. He wore his usual dark clothes and a black cloak that covered him from head to foot. She had never seen him in anything else. His boots made surprisingly little sound as she watched him wind his way between the pools.

The man stopped several feet from the Nyxie and set his lantern down on a boulder. As the light from his much larger lantern washed over her, Chiara had an almost unbearable urge to disappear back into the shadows. She quivered in anxiety but ruthlessly quashed the very natural impulse to hide, both from the light and from the Fae that stood before her. Nyxies were creatures of the night who were far more comfortable in the shadows. Light made their eyes sting and smart. A cruel smile spread across the face hidden in the deep hood as he welcomed her discomfort. He paused for a moment to savor the fear that he could sense rolling off the small faery in waves. Then, he raised his slender, white hands up to grasp the sides of his hood and lowered it. Chiara saw just a brief glimpse of his feathery dark hair and piercing blue eyes before she bowed low before him.

"My Lord."

The fae sneered down at her but said nothing. She dared not move from her posture of reverence until he spoke. Past experience had taught her to speak only when spoken to, and to make herself as unobtrusive as possible while in his presence.

"So. I see that the lesson in humility I was forced to administer last time has been remembered." His rich baritone voice washed over her, causing Chiara to shudder inwardly. The evil undertones in that voice were impossible to miss, despite its beauty.

Only when he finished speaking did Chiara dare straighten from her bow, however, she was careful not to raise her eyes higher than the clasp on his cloak. "Yes, my Lord." She kept her voice even and respectful despite the deep fear that gripped her.

The dark haired man was silent for a moment. It seemed to Chiara that he was almost waiting for her to do something wrong, simply for the enjoyment of punishing her. She well remembered the punishment she received last time.

Chiara screamed, her voice a high pitched shrill as she was engulfed in a crystal. Shot through with swirls of black and red that vied for dominance, the crystal surrounded her and cut off any means of escape.. Vicious magical hands, made of the same swirling evil as the crystal, grabbed her gossamer wings and twisted them cruelly. She was sure that this time he would cripple her. Frantically she attempted to use her own small magic to combat his, but it was futile.

"Please!" She screamed in agony. "Great Lord... have mercy. Please!"

His only reply was a chilling laughter and an escalation in the severity of her punishment. His magic burned her as she struggled within the crystal, her small screams echoing back from distant caverns.

She was on the edge of losing consciousness when he finally spoke. His voice was flat and completely without emotion. Chillingly, he had gone from maniacal laughter to deadpan in an instant.

"The next time we meet, I expect that you will show me the respect I deserve. I own you...slave." She suddenly dropped to the ground as his magic released her. The last thing she heard before she blacked out was the sound of his boots hitting the ground as he left the cavern.

With a discernable effort that clearly pleased her master, she wrenched her thoughts back to the present. The dark haired Fae smiled knowingly at the tiny figure before him and raised his hand slightly, as though he were going to conjure up another crystal to inflict yet more torture on her. Releasing a gasp, Chiara cowered slightly and fluttered even closer to the floor than she had been initially. The man laughed, revealing teeth that appeared to be more like fangs than normal Fae teeth.

"Very good, little one. What have you to report to me this time?"

In halting tones she began her report: All was as it had been for the past several years. No one seemed to know anything of what had happened to the one who had defeated the Labyrinth. Chiara had heard that some rumors claimed it was a young girl. Others said that a little boy named Toby had run the Labyrinth, and that he had been very young. The Goblin King continued to display the odd behavior that had started when he had been defeated. The gossips among the servants speculated that he was in love, but as no young women visited the Castle beyond the Goblin City, and the King himself rarely left his rooms unless directly needed, the Nyxie didn't put much stock in that particular rumor. No one unusual came to see him, although his mother had been to see him about a month ago. They had gone riding for the afternoon and Chiara had been unable to keep pace with the horses. Her master grunted in disapproval of that, so she hurried on. The Goblin King still spent an inordinate amount of time staring into crystals when he was not engaged in the business of running the kingdom, which he was finally getting back to doing again after his mother visited.

"What does he see?" The dark man interrupted her to ask.

"I... I don't know, my Lord. I am never able to get close enough to see." The admission was difficult to make. Her very life could be riding on the information she brought him and her master was decidedly not a forgiving man. She unconsciously flinched away from his gaze.

His eyes narrowed. "Perhaps you have outgrown your usefulness to me. Do I need to find a more effective spy?" Chiara's eyes widened in fear and he chuckled. "Hm. No. You are still useful. Even though you cannot tell me anything new about Jareth." The way he said the Goblin King's name was as though that name was the worst curse in any tongue the Nyxie had ever heard, especially considering she had once heard an Orc wax poetic about his hate for his clan chief. Orcish was a terrible tongue to listen to, full of snarling and spit, but it lacked the sheer malevolence that this man injected into those two syllables.

Not for the first time, Chiara bemoaned the fact that she had been careless enough to fall into this man's power. She waited quietly, listening to the water dripping and the harsh breathing of her master. She knew if she stepped out of line at this moment, it would be last thing she ever did.

He considered the information she had brought him for some time and weighed it against her shortcomings. The darkness, always her friend before, seemed to press against Chiara as though it intended to smother her. Finally, his cold blue eyes fell on her once again, and she was relieved to see that he was at least marginally in control of his temper.

"Continue." he stated tersely.

"He still has nightmares, my Lord, and this time I witnessed him openly crying while alone in his room at night." She waited while he absorbed that piece of news. It was the best piece of information she had to give him this time. She was sure that her master would be pleased to hear that the Goblin King was suffering. She was correct in her assessment. When he gestured for her to continue, he had a vindictive smile on his face. The flickering light of his lantern cast eerie shadows across his face, making the smile seem all the more sinister.

Emboldened by the reception of her previous bit of news, Chiara became slightly careless with her words. "He mumbled something about being wrong."

As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted saying anything. She had meant to hold on to that information until she was sure that she had it right. Even her clever ears had barely caught half of that mumbled statement from the Goblin King, and it was so unusually out of character for the arrogant Fae, that she knew her master was sure to question her further about it. Unfortunately, she didn't have any other information to give. Mistakes like that could cost her a wing. But, what's said is said, and there was no going back now. While she was far from certain about what exactly she had heard the Goblin King say, she was not going to risk earning herself another punishment by confessing to anything else that remotely resembled a failure. She hoped that her small mistake would go unnoticed.

Her heart stuttered and her breath caught in her throat when her innocuous statement caused his eyebrows to rise quizzically. Much like the Goblin King's, she thought inanely, as her thoughts began to scatter in fear.

"Wrong about what, I wonder?"

She quickly collected herself. Not daring to add anything else, lest she dig herself even deeper into this unexpected hole, she simply shook her head and shrugged wordlessly. He dismissed her response with a wave of his hand and began to pace back and forth within the small circle of light cast by the lamp. He stepped over the larger rocks while kicking several smaller stones out of his way. They bounced off into the darkness, rolling and clattering through the puddles, until they came to a rest somewhere out in the darkness of the caves. After several minutes of this pacing, his temper got the better of him.

"Damn him!"

Chiara jumped at his outburst but kept silent.

"There must be someone in that blasted kingdom that knows what's going on!" He stood silently for a time and then turned to the Nyxie. "I want you to go out into the Labyrinth itself and see if you can find any new information. Try that stupid dwarf he has stationed outside the entrance. If anything, that one would have seen the runner that defeated the Labyrinth when they entered."

"But what about watching King Jareth?" She ventured timidly.

"I'll find someone more useful." The dark man snapped in irritation. "You just do as you're told, and remember the price of failure as well as your , I will be forced to relieve you of your service to me."

Chiara gulped and bowed before him, her bow brought her so close to the slimy floor that she was nearly touching it. The smell of the rotting slime was almost overpowering, but she endured it. Anything was better than facing her master's wrath. She remained there, breathing in the nasty stench until he made a sound of annoyance that caused her to snap upright and look at him.

"Well, go!" He thundered.

Her sensitive ears bleeding slightly at the almost overpowering sound of his furious outburst, she turned, snatched up her small lantern, and fled back up the passage she entered by. She did not slow down until she exited the caves under the mountain and had fled into the shelter of the surrounding forest. Once under the cover of a deadfall, she felt reasonably safe enough to take stock of her surroundings. The Nyxie was shaking like a leaf when she peeked out to ensure that she had not been followed. Briefly, she considered running far, far away. It was no use. He had used her name and ancient dark magic to bind her to his service, and no matter how far or how long she ran, he would only find her and bring her back. She was sure the punishment would be far worse than anything she had yet experienced if she ever dared to defy him in such a manner. She set about cleaning the blood from her ears, spitting and hissing like a cat in pain and irritation all the while. With this task complete, she flitted away from the deadfall and sped south, back toward the Labyrinth and the Goblin Kingdom, to carry out her master's orders.

Back in the darkness of the caverns, her captor snapped his fingers and conjured a smoky crystal. Standing several feet from the pool where he always met his little spy, he smashed in on the floor and the cavern was suddenly filled with the cheerful light of a roaring bonfire. He moved to sit by the flames. The floor, which moments before had been covered with nasty slime, was now bare rock. He settled himself and stared into the flames while he considered the information the little Nyxie had brought to him. He gloated over the knowledge of Jareth's pain and his admission of failure. Perhaps the great Goblin King could finally be brought down a peg or two! The dark haired Fae indulged in a few minutes of daydreaming about that notion, his dark and twisted mind conjuring up several scenarios in which he saw himself turning this knowledge to his advantage to finally bring down his rival.

Eventually though, he brought his mind back to the business at hand. Of the various rumors that his little spy had heard, the most credible one was that a young girl had beaten the Labyrinth. Even that was preposterous, really. Grown men, Warriors, both mortal and Fae, had tried yet failed in that endeavor. He immediately dismissed the idea of a very small child running the Labyrinth, Jareth could be cruel, but he was no monster. The fae's perfectly sculpted lips twisted in contempt and he snarled. Jareth always had a weakness for children... and women... and, well, Jareth was simply weak in his opinion. He didn't deserve the throne. With considerable effort, the twisted fae calmed himself down and moved his train of thought back to the rumor of the small child running the Labyrinth. While the idea was ridiculous, it was quite curious that a name had been assigned to the child. The dark little faery had been very sure of the name. He mused, perhaps a little research along those lines could yield an answer. He made a mental note to inquire into the name and moved on.

What else had the little pest told him? Nightmares... Hm. Unusual, but nothing he could work with there. Perhaps if he knew what form they took... but it was unlikely someone as powerful as the Goblin King would leave his slumber unguarded. He highly doubted that Jareth would be susceptible to dream invasion or manipulation. The fae shifted slightly, annoyed at the discomfort of the hard ground. A flick of the wrist produced another crystal. He lobbed it at a nearby boulder which obligingly turned into a comfortable chair. Rising to his feet, the blue eyed Fae pulled the chair toward the fire and sprawled in it. He resumed his thoughts while he warmed his feet before the fire.

Some of the servants in the castle thought the King was in love, did they? He snorted. "I should be so lucky!" He told the fire. He knew enough about the Goblin King to know that he would fiercely protect anything he viewed as his property, and that would include whatever woman he eventually claimed. No women visited the castle though. Was he in love with a servant girl? That thought brought a shout of laughter to the lips of this somberly dressed man. Wouldn't that be a scandal! Not that it was precisely forbidden, but it definitely was not looked on with great favor. He briefly considered this possibility but soon dismissed it with a small pang of regret. That little pest he sent to spy on the king could hardly have missed an event like that.

He mentally congratulated himself on securing such a useful little spy. She was even able to worm her way into the very bedchamber of the king! Too bad she never got him any useful information. He shifted in his chair, turning slightly so he could toss one leg over the arm. Rumors. Rumors generally had some basis in fact, even if it was only a sliver. His mind churned with all of the rumors as he meditated on what his little spy had told him. A runner had beaten the Labyrinth, an unheard of victory, but no one knew anything about this runner. He had heard of no transformation ceremony to turn a wished away human child into a denizen of the Underground. He supposed it could have been done quietly, but that would have been highly unusual. He had to conclude therefore, that the runner had indeed beaten the Labyrinth and reclaimed the child. Such a thing had not occurred in centuries, and yet the name of the runner was not celebrated. No runner had come forward to claim his or her accolades for the deed. Most unusual. Why go to the trouble of keeping the runner a secret? The dark man shot to his feet as a sudden burst of clarity came over him. Of course! Why did no one else see it?

He began to laugh and leap around the fire in an unrestrained display of glee. His laughter rose insanely to the ceiling and the man's blue eyes were suddenly tinged red as a dark power rose within them, unleashed by the triumph of the moment of realization.

Eventually the laughter died down to a demonic sounding chortle as he considered this new revelation in greater detail. Everyone assumed that Jareth had hushed the affair up to soothe his damaged pride. He was soothing his pride all right, but not because someone had finally beaten him at his own game. Jareth was in love with the runner! The man grinned wickedly. Since no Fae ladies had come forth to claim ownership for the deed, it must have been a mortal, an unusually strong and willful mortal, who beat the Labyrinth. Jareth was in love with a mortal! Since Jareth appeared to be so distraught and tried so hard to hush it up over the last six years, it seemed that the runner not only bested the Labyrinth, she must have also rejected the Goblin King!

"So Jareth, you finally lost your heart, to a mortal girl, and she rejected you. How deliciously idiotic of you, old boy! What I wouldn't give to have been there to watch as she threw your offer right back into your face."

The fire made no reply to his hissing comment but continued to burn cheerfully, holding the surrounding darkness at bay, as he looked at it. He began to plot. He would need more spies. The girl would have to be found.

"You thought to hide her away, Jareth?" His voice rose into the darkness of the ancient caverns. "I will find her, and when I do she will be mine! Everything will be mine. I will rise higher than you have ever dreamed of rising!" As he spoke his voice rose until he was shrieking into the blackness of the caves, yelling his defiance of the Goblin King, the High King, the council, of all that was orderly and good. "I will be the undisputed ruler of the Underground! I will come upon the puny mortals Above like a vengeful god and all shall worship at my feet!" This would be his moment, he would reshape the world to suit himself.

He stared silently into the fire as the echoes of his shouts slowly faded to silence. His jubilation was gone, replaced by cunning introspection. This would take planning. He needed confirmation of his suspicions. It wouldn't do to move too fast and reveal himself. He was a hunted man after all. So far, he had eluded all who sought him, but it would not do to trip just as the finish line came into sight. He brought his hand up to rub his chin.

The girl was the key. With her, he could become the prophesied ruler.

He sat back in his chair, tossing his leg over the arm once more as he stared into the fire. He remained for several hours, planning his next move. Finally, he smiled and rubbed his hands together before conjuring one final crystal. Rising from his seat, he tossed the crystal to the stone floor of the cavern. It was instantly plunged into darkness once more. The tiny wavering flame on the candle stub in his lantern cast a weak glow over the pool of water. He grinned in the returned darkness.

"The girl must be found."

Many thanks to everyone who originally commented on this content when it was three separate chapters. I value the input of all my readers and am grateful that you were all interested enough to leave a comment!