The Moon Mad King

By Whiteinfinity21

Disclaimer- I don't own the movie the Labyrinth


Prologue

The story so far…

The first part of the Moonlight Saga told of how the Champion of the Labyrinth grew restless and fed up with her boring, magicless mortal life. It described how she became totally consumed by moon madness and fled the Aboveground to the Lunar lands with the Moon Clan. For roughly four years, Sarah lived with the group of moon children in the Lunar Lands still without her moon name.

Then one night, Sarah totally became consumed with the moon madness on the night of the full moon and in a brilliant flash of moonlight, vanished from sight. The champion of the Labyrinth had a face-to-face meeting with the moon goddess herself where she was given her moon name, Luna, and an important task by Selene. After her meeting with Selene, Sarah, briefly returned to the Lunar Lands where she made her goodbyes to the clan of moon children she had been living with before she fell to the Underground.

Prior to her arrival magical energy had been building up in the Goblin Kingdom, causing the inhabitants of the Labyrinth to become rather restless and irritable, especially the Goblin King. Sarah's arrival that faithful night caused the energy to mysteriously dissipate, making the citizens and their king assume that things would be returning to normal.

Sarah's antics and mischief-making during the two weeks leading up to the next full moon turned that assumption on its head as the Moon Child merrily spread her brand of chaos across the Labyrinth. Many who had become the recipient of one Sarah's unwanted "gifts" tried in vain to stop her, but no one could catch the elusive prankster. Even the Goblin King himself did not escape the reach of the Moon Child.

Rumors ran rampant across the Goblin Kingdom after their monarch had seemingly disappeared into mid-air after he went out in search of the mischief-maker. Some said that he had been kidnapped by a past lover and locked in a dungeon until the Goblin King agreed to marry her while others thought that he had run away. Many followers of the Golden Chicken thought that he had retreated to an isolated area to contemplate the greatness of the Golden Fowl, but the citizens with even a semi-rational head on their shoulders dismissed such rumors as being pure rubbish.

Some thought that he might have been killed by brigands or political enemies while others thought that he had run off with the siren-harpy hybrid to have mad Fiery sex. Only a select few who had actually met the Moon Child had any real idea about what had befallen their absent monarch. Hoggle and Sir Didymus greatly suspected that the King had discovered Sarah somewhere in the forests within the Labyrinth on the night of the full moon and somehow, had vanished from the Underground entirely.

Everyone in the Labyrinth had their suspicions about what had happened to the Goblin King, some more correct than others. The only one who didn't have a clue about what was going on was one lost, lonely boy about eight years of age. Toby, spoiled and petulant like his older sister used to be, had wandered around in the Labyrinth for days, learning many valuable lessons in the process, before he had stumbled upon an aging knight that lived in the Bog of Eternal Stench.

The kingdom was thrown into confusion and turmoil after the King had not reappeared on the date he was supposed to return. Rioting and chaos was threatening to break out when Jareth and Sarah had returned, without anyone to see their less than grand entrance, in the throne room. The Goblin King putting his kingdom above his personal needs had spent the next twenty-six hours running around his kingdom averting the brewing crisis that his absence had caused.

It was because he was king and had all those responsibilities that Jareth had for all those years been unable to answer or even hear the moon's call. It had taken Sarah's presence in the Labyrinth to allow Selene to get past the wards around his dreams and finally let him dream of the full crystal moon.

Without an heir, the Goblin King never would have been able to answer the moon's call and he would have spent the rest of his life aching for something that he could never define. Sarah's purpose in the Underground was threefold. The main objective was to guide Selene's wayward child, the Goblin King out of all people, back to her. But to be able to do so, the King had to have an heir.

Here was where Toby entered the picture. Brother of the champion of the Labyrinth and the Goblin King's heart, the restless youth had wished himself away to the goblins, finally being able to get past the magic that was preventing him from returning with Demeter's help.

Since Sarah had won him back after wishing him away as a babe, until the moon goddess intervened, Toby had been placed beyond the reach of not only the Goblin King, but the entire Underground forever. But that didn't mean that other forces out there that were not part of the Underground couldn't contact the boy, as Demeter had doubtlessly proved.

Toby's rather untraditional arrival in the Labyrinth had solved many problems for many people rather nicely. For the Goblin Kingdom, Toby represented the future of the realm, a safeguard should anything, heaven forbid, ever happen to the current Goblin King. For Jareth, his dreams and hopes all rested on the young lad or more correctly the fact that he would eventually succeed him once the prince came of age, leaving Jareth to be able to fully pursue his destiny (and more importantly Sarah) under the crystal moon.

To Sarah, her younger brother was a confidant with which she could talk to about her old life and her birth world, a role that none of her other friends (however well loved they were to Sarah) could fulfill. And of course to Toby, coming to the Underground was an escape from his closed-minded family and a very longed for wish-come-true.

Now as the second part of the Moonlight Saga unfolds, Jareth finds out that the mantle of kingship rests more heavily on his shoulders as each year passes. Being the Goblin King had lost all appeal to Jareth after his brief foray with Sarah into the Lunar Lands where they became heart-mates and passionate lovers. But until Prince Tobias comes of age and takes over the Goblin Throne, Jareth is unable to join his lover except on the night of the full moon. Jareth's newly emerging nature and desires as a Moon Child conflict with the responsibility that comes with his crown.

As the years slowly pass by, young Prince Tobias grows and flourishes in his role as Jareth's Heir. He gains mastery over the Labyrinth as his studies progress while the current Goblin King becomes more and more distant from the people around him, preferring to stare at the moon, longing for Sarah's touch, instead of attending his duties.

This is the tale of how Jareth slowly becomes completely moon mad as he impatiently awaits the day when he can finally join Sarah under the moonlight for the rest of their eternity.

This is the tale of the Moon Mad King.