Jareth remembered Sarah all threw her child hood, her mother would take her to the park and tell her stories of his kingdom. He would sometimes watch them.
" And the great goblin king had fallen in love with the girl, so he came in the guise of a great owl."
"I love the goblin king mommy"
Her mother would look at her with confusion and ask her why she would love the cruel king, and Sarah's answer was what made him fall for her, wait for her and her alone.
"Cause he's lonely and he needs to be loved."
"That he does, my princess."
At that time Sarah had only been two years old. He cared for her the way any would love a child. Some in the underground believed, even though he was childless and without mate, that he was born a father. Sarah kept coming even as she got older and he watched her grow. Sometimes she came to the park alone only with the dog that followed her everywhere.
"Come on Merlin we have to get to the goblin king's castle."
She and the puppy were just running around the park until she stopped suddenly and looked at his perch.
"I found you goblin king." Sarah said grinning looking strait at him.
He had been taken aback that she knew it was him. But then he realized that she couldn't, she didn't know he was real. So he decided to play her game with her.
She chased him around the park until she was red in the face. She sat down on the stone bench to catch her breath, when she pulled out a lunch box.
"Would the goblin king like to eat lunch with me?"
If he had been in his human form he would have smiled, instead he hooted.
She pulled a sandwich out as well as a peach and a sucker.
"Do owls like suckers like on the commercial" she handed him the sucker which he took in his beak.
Then she gave the sandwich to the puppy and took the peach for herself.
"I love peaches!" she blurted out after taking a bite.
After she finished her meal she left.
he knew that fate had played a cruel trick on him, he had fallen in love with a human child and a fae only gets to love one person.
He remembered a time when she had just turned five the day her mother and father separated.
She was running, her parents had been yelling at each other and her mother stormed out of the house after saying that she was leaving and never coming back.
Sarah ran into the park, she ran until she couldn't anymore. She went behind the tall hedges into the little nook under a shade tree. She curled up in a ball on the stone bench crying her eyes out, all the while she was clutching the book her mother had read to her so many times.
It had hurt him and angered him to think that someone had hurt her so deeply. It occurred to him to do the unthinkable. For a fae to show themselves to a human not bound to the underground was almost treason, but he didn't care he'd fix it later for now she needed him.
"Don't cry you precious thing" he whispered, as he appeared, it caused her to jump with a look of fear in her eyes.
"Calm down now, little, one no one's going to hurt you again." He said looking at the bruise on her wrist.
"Who are you?" her eyes still full of fresh tears
"Who does your heart tell you I am?"
"Goblin king?" she whispered before she shrugged her shoulders.
"I am the goblin king, but you know all about me don't you."
She nodded looking at the little red book before she shed a new wave of tears. He couldn't stand to see her cry like her world was ending, sat down on the bench beside her. She climbed up into his lap, and he held her.
He wondered if she as that trusting to all people or if it was him, mentally he cast a spell to protect her from any man that should wish her harm(later proving useful as what he considered harm including boys wanting to date her), as well as a charm that should she ever need him he would be there. He held her small form and began to sing (a song that he still regrets twisting to his heartbreak years after).
'The world turns on you my precious thing,'
'Leaves you tired and hungry'
'But for you anything is what I will do'
'Your eyes can care so much'
'Just as I care for you'
'I will move the stars for you'
'I live for your sunlight'
'Love for your heartbeat'
'I live within you'
On the final word he touched her nose and she hugged him.
He was her savior, he was there for her when the world had turned a blind eye to her tears. He was her comfort, her guardian, and her friend all in one. He had visited her many times in her child hood. Once when she was seven and her father remarried, again when she was ten and sick he healed her, again he came when she was fourteen her baby brother was born and so many other times when she needed someone but there was no one. Sometimes he would bring her to the underground and show her things that enchanted the mind of any small child but she learned so fast with all the curiosity of a child but some of the knowing and understanding beyond her years. She would question the reason for everything and understand when it was explained. Each time he came to her he had to take the memory of him being from her and when he came again returning it so she would still know him
In accord to fae law, the one group of laws that even he had to follow, if a fae were to fall in love with a human the human would have thirteen years until they would have to run the labyrinth. If they didn't run the labyrinth then they would remain mortal and the fae would be removed of their immortality and would die the day their love died. If they ran but didn't defeat the labyrinth, then they would have extraordinary long life but would still eventually die even as the fae lives and they would only have as much power as they did as a human. But if they ran and beat the labyrinth then they would turn into a fae with as much power as matched themselves.
When she was fifteen he tricked her into calling for him by wishing away her baby brother.
She had wandered the labyrinth for the last ten hours and now she was chasing him threw the Euchre room.
It was a difficult decision to make whether he could live with her having extended mortality by a few hundred years or her being a fae with gods' knows how much power.
He had to decide the later, he could never deal with losing something so precious as her.
So he let her fall to meet him.
"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way to the castle beyond the goblin city to take bake the child you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great.
He had laughed inwardly; she had declared herself his equal.
For a moment she couldn't think of what to say so he spoke instead.
"Sarah I have been generous up until now but I can be cruel.
She asked him what he had done that was generous and he had told her everything but not all of what he had done.
"All that I ask is for you to obey me, love me, fear me, do as I say and I will be your slave."
Then she spoke those cruel words that ripped out his heart,
"You have no power over me."
Barely two hours later he was watching her through one of his crystals his heart painful and empty as he saw her sitting on her bed just holding her head looking as if she were the one to have lost.
"I told him he had no power over me, but he had my heart all along, oh why do I realize things too late. I wish he was here now."
His heart had jumped and was soaring as high as he could fly. He teleported himself in to her room right beside her.
"That's all you needed to say my love." With that she jumped and hugged him as if he had never done anything wrong.
He smiled as he had held her, in three years she would be his forever that new little immortal.
He looked down at the woman beside him fondly when he finally remembered what he had been thinking about her for. He cringed he had forgotten that their 300th anniversary was tomorrow.
A/N so how'd you peoples like it this is my first laby fic so please review and constructive criticism and praise are always welcome.