When Jareth was born, the powers that be must of had great fun with him, as they tended to see 'interesting cases' as being akin to particularly challenging recipes in Delia Smith cooking books. A tragic romance there, a fatal passion here, a dab of melancholy, and just a slight whiff of possessiveness, and then there you have it, a bona-fide Jareth. All in a days work for a supernatural deity who has to deal with cases that went into the filing cabinet under the label of 'tragic and somewhat depressing, possibly evil???'

Jareth was born, youngest son of Wurbler the Unworthy, Lord of the outer reaches, the Goblin realm, Overseer of the Dukedum of the Bogland Marsh, etc. etc. and he thought he'd got it made. Youngest sons are rarely expected to do anything in royalty, their lives mainly involve being conscripted into some form of military training, where everyone cowers to them and the resulting effect is that a job in the military involves having a 'jolly good time!' then there's the mistresses. It's an unwritten law that all younger princes are expected to take on mistresses, usually around half a dozen until they reach the grand old age of 35 and are expected to create a kind of back up force of legitimate offspring unless the rest of the royal family are killed by small pox or some other such horrendous disease.

Jareth had an older brother, and twelve sisters, and his father had yet to clock up a few millennia of reign before he became post life (so to speak) so Jareth's future seemed pretty sound. Until the great plague of the year 7,789,689 that is.

The first to go was roughly half the populace of the goblin city, from where the plauge was believed to of originated from a atrociously disgusting hankie dropped by Flage, the goblin street cleaner. The royalty and nobility all stayed barricaded in their looming gloomy turrets and towers, taking an excess of snuff and adding an extra application of ground peacock skull to prevent one's flesh from becoming an unbecoming shade of violet. Except Jareth that is, who was currently on a (Prolonged) tour of his cousin Sophia's 'land where people like horses very much,' simply because everyone was at a loss for what to do with him, and if left unoccupied for more than 5 hours he would begin to write and sometimes recite poetry, which of course, would never do at all, as Jareth's rhyming scheme at the age of two thousand three hundred and forty-seven had failed to progress beyond 'cat' and 'mat.'

Cousin Sophia, whilst jolly and almost achingly happy, had a fixation with horses. A very serious fixation with horses. She had ordered all the paintings of the great goblin masters, Dashe and Ranbe Dofur, to be taken down and thrown into the stables whilst her own works, of a 'fine stallion rearing in the sun', of 'a mare with two foals in a grassy meadow' and 'horses that look like unicorns but it's only a trick of the light.' She also introduced a law that resulted in members of the cabinet bringing their horses along to meetings, and events of state (galas and charity events, you know the like), as you can imagine this led to a great deal of confusion.

Jareth meanwhile, whilst constantly being badgered by Sophia to take up Stablery as a hobby, had other things on his mind, being blissfully unaware of events at home (telecommunications were non-existent) had found another interest - spying. Whilst wandering aimlessly around the west wing of Sophia's luxuriant winter palace (most of the rooms were equipt with hay instead of bare flagstones, incredible!) he had came upon a mad old pixie - or what might be better described as a mad and extremely high pixie as he was constantly giggling uncontrollably in between drafts of a from of prehistoric LSD.

"What do you seek my son..." meaningful pause, a sigh reeking of several centuries of solvent abuse made a pleasant entrance in Jareth's nose.

"Nothing you hideous old bat, who on earth do YOU happen to be?"

"I'm daddy o cool, my son, come take a seat next to me," he stroked what appeared to be a moth eaten cushion that lay limply besides him.

"No you disgusting old goat, do something interesting or I'm likely to kick you with my brand spanking new riding boots," Jareth tensed his toes eagerly, he's been waiting for an opportunity to test them out...

"Do something you say?" He took another puff that wafted unpleasantly around Jareth's carefully arranged hair, hair arranged in such a way that it looked incredibly untidy.

"How about this for something!" He fumbled in his trenchcoat pocket and drew out a sphere, it glittered and shone, the Labyrinth had no mirrors, the closest you got to seeing your reflection was in the bog of eternal stench on a clear day. He spun it around in his hands for several minutes, occasionally rolling it around his back, for show, until Jareth got to the stage of offering money for the possession of it.

"Now yer talking me son!" His eyes glittered, "gimme! gimme! gimme!" Jareth dropped his purse in the old man's hand, who eagerly seized it, he happily trundled away, leaving Jareth with a very pretty ball that appeared to have no pratcical use whatsoever. However it was a pretty bauble, and it delighted him, so it went into his coat pocket along with various other shiny pieces of paraphenelia picked up throughout his life.

It was the day after this...event...that Jareth received a letter, from the Goblin Prime Minister, Jareth knew it was from that particular odious little creep because of the green slime that had apparently been used to seal the envelope.

Although Jareth struggled with the hideous spelling errors and the constant mise-use of words, he read as follows:

-----------------------------------------------------

Deer , King Jereth Lard of the outer reaches, the Goblin relm, Overseer of the Dukedum of the Bogland Marsh, etc. etc

As yu may of herd a gret crises has befellen the Gublin City. Luts of peple died. Yur furver, bruver and sevan unmorried sesters are dead. Sorry about that.

Yu ar now king, and it wud be very nice if u cum back to rul us. Please.

All my luv.

Roem Baaba, priministir

-----------------------------------------------------

This was the first time Jareth had experienced grief. The first time he had experienced guilt. And the first time he had experienced such atrocious spelling.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So that's the first chapter, I hope you enjoyed it, reviews would be great if you have the time! I was inspired after receiving the 20th anniversary edition of Goblins of the Labyrinth, and some of the Goblin names used here are taken directly from the book.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing apart from the idea for this story and the text that has made an appearance, the rest belongs to the Henson company, or is it George Lucas...?