"To fear...to love..." Sarah absently caressed her own lips. Was that possible? To love a person you feared?

After years and years, the Goblin King's last words had never left her. During her marital vows, during sex, during her baby brother's funeral, during the surgery that had her fallopian tubes tied off, during her mother's big movie premiere, during the best and worst times of her life thus far.

Fear him. Love him. Do as he says and he will be your slave. Those eyes of blue and brown mocked her, fed her, saw her. She scoffed, and threw down the novel she's been attempting to read. On the other half of the mattress, Matthew stirred.

"Mmm...honey?" he groaned, adjusting his pillow with a lazy arm. "You okay?"

She felt like screaming no, that she hadn't been okay since they'd married, but remained silent. He wouldn't care, she predicted. Strained awkward moments later, he was asleep again. Sleep. Eternal sleep.

Her mind leapt to Toby, her sweet angel. At age 13, he'd been taken away from a world of pain and leukemia in his sleep. Such a tragedy had broken up the Williamses, as expected. Sarah doubted that Karen and George Williams were awake at this hour, as her thoughts drifted to them. Middle-age had taken its toll on George long ago, and salt-and-pepper hair was nearly gone. His large green eyes (Sarah's own eyes) constantly shone with age and that worry that overtook him. How was she? Had she heard from her mother Linda lately? How was Matthew?

These questions didn't make Sarah uncomfortable, per se. When they were asked, her lips would become ever-so-heavy and impossible to budge. She was fine, no, and he was plain old Matthew.

Sarah gingerly lifted the flowered bedcover off herself and tossed it onto her slumbering husband, who snorted. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up.

It was at this hour that the Goblin King with the strange eyes had taken Toby those 12 years ago, she mused as she stared at the face of Matthew's favorite grandfather clock. Did he really exist? she'd always wondered. Did the labyrinth even exist?

Hoggle, her goblin friend she'd made on her journey to save her brother, had stopped visiting promptly after her 18th birthday. She'd assumed he'd always been a figment of her imagination and that was that. Simplicity was her preferred reality, whch ultimately was her downfall. Sarah had no proof that any of her adventure had actually occurred, which saddened her. The entire ordeal was a large fraction of memories of her brother, and she wasn't quite sure if they were real. Shoving her bare feet into a plain pair of house slippers, she padded around the apartment with no intention of doing anything but slipping into the nightly shadows and remembering.

The plea came in the hoarsest of whispers, so small that Jareth's hypersensitive hearing almost missed it. The request itself was far enough from trivial for him to consider. The idea of such a thing intrigued the Goblin King, to say the least. He considered it in his throne room, a place of pandemonium and disorder. Why he used it to meditate over his most important decisions was a mystery to his subjects, but Jareth had to have his reasons.

Indeed he did.

His favorite riding crop tapped against his knee-high boots as he lounged in the impressive raised stone jutting from the floor. He hummed a little, recalling his failure to gain an heir 15 seasons ago. "Toby," he muttered with a slight arrogant smile. The meddling girl who'd won at his game had managed to save the youngling briefly. A mortal's disease had brought him back quite a few moon phases ago.

Toby was a special case, Jareth would readily admit. An angel of the Underground, in fact. Few humans visited the kingdom. Very few came to stay permanently after death. It was a matter of the ability to see things that weren't exactly there. In normal circumstances, for example, a mortal had trouble seeing the labyrinth and Jareth's glorious castle for more than a handful of hours. With people like Sarah and Toby...well, the possibilities were limitless.

At any rate, if the girl this plea had come from had the same capability as Toby, perhaps he'd have a progenator for his heir. Potentially a mate and wife. This idea was rather fascinating, as it was rare for a king of the goblins to actually produce an heir. Most kidnapped a human youngling for that. He rubbed his chin. Maybe...his bloodline would continue on throughout the ages...Hmmm...

"Yer majesty! Yer majesty!" A small hooknosed goblin slid to a halt in front of his chair where he lay, obviously in a frizzy.

"What is it?" he asked exasperatedly. These ugly hounds were always in need of his help. Honestly, over every menial thing...

"The Queen of the Fairies is 'ere to see yeh!" The goblin squeeked.

He groaned inwardly, and sat up. "I'll be with Slatia in a moment," he snapped, and brushed his breeches off. He then left the room with a whish of billowing capes. The look of despair on his face spoke volumes as he strode down a corridor.

"That woman..." He sighed, and entered his bedroom to change his ensemble. The cape was a bit too seductive for a meeting with her, and a change of blouse was in order. He chose a creamy peasant blouse, and mused over its similarity to Sarah's blouse the first time they'd met.

Slatia was a bit...friendly with Jareth each time they met together, and frightened him to an extent. She was a fae, the same as his people, but he was never in a comfortable way around her at all. But because of their high positions of power, he was under obligation to meet with her whenever a crisis occurred, or really any time she felt like it. The whimsical little tart...

"Jareth!"

"Slatia my dear, how are you?" he drawled, hooking elbows with her and crossing the courtyard just outside the castle's walls.

The fairy looked absolutely delighted, and sort of...like a youngling, really. Her long silver hair was up in an elegant bun, complimented by a glamorous emerald brooch. Her velvet dress that delicately slid on the floor behind her steps was of a lovely deep maroon. It matched her glowing orbs commonly referred to as eyes.

"Oh, the usual," she bubbled. "Marigold is quite the dear and has begun her lessons! She can already recite the alphabet!"

Memory told him that Marigold was her only youngling. The Goblin King's bottom lip curled with distaste, which he hurriedly covered up with a leather-gloved hand and faked a yawn. "Ah, I see," he murmured. "That's wonderful." Memory also whispered of the time Marigold had trampled upon his rose garden just outside these walls. Delightful little child...

"It's a miracle, is what her instructor has told me. Ever since King Oklas died..." Slatia trailed off, and brought her other arm to cling to his, as if frightened. He frowned at the gesture, and inconspicuously caused several huts in the goblin village to collapse.

"Allow me again to offer my sympathies at your loss, " he said smoothly. The passing of the King of Fairies had been a big-to-do several seasons ago, at the Battle of Casail, one of the bordering nations in the east. How he'd rued the day!

Slatia nodded as she attempted to intently gaze into his eyes. Jareth wouldn't allow it, shifting his mismatched eyes to watch a bird soar through the golden sky. It's plumage was quite an impressive display of rouge and orange, with its long-feathered tail leaving a trail of fire. A phoenix, he mused.

"Excuse me, madam," a polite voice said firmly. "I need to speak to his majesty in private."

Jareth jerked his head around to see Toby lazily picking the seeds off of a dandelion as he slouched against a tall oak. The boy was small. Only about 5"1 and 100 pounds at the most, he certainly did not project the image of a powerful force to be reckoned with.

"Oh, poo. Tobyyyyy," she purred. "You're so cute! Look how much your hair has curled!" Indeed it had. The teenager's thick mane of blonde hair had spun into hundreds of gold rings framing his face.

The youngling smiled, and hopped up to come bounding over. "You're too kind, Queen Slatia." He offered her his hand, and she obliged by placing her own in it. He brought the fae's digits to his lips, and placed a gentle kiss upon them. She giggled. Jareth watched this placidly, with calculating eyes.

"I mean what I said, Miss, " Toby insisted. "But I will only take your king for a few minutes. Then he's yours."

"Alright, " Slatia agreed with a pat on his head. "I'll be in the corridor if you need me!" And with that she sauntered away from the courtyard, leaving the two males to eachother.

Jareth spoke first. "You've become quite the Casanova."

"Learned it from the best, chief."

"What exactly did you want, my friend?" This kind of playful banter was common between them, but the king sensed a feeling of anxiety within the boy.

Toby grasped the older man's gloved hand in his own. An intimate sort of gesture. "I need to know if you plan to answer that girl's plea," he said gravely, staring into the mismatched eyes with his own blue orbs.

The king raised a quizical eyebrow. "Ah, would it be bad if I chose to do so?" he questioned, massaging the boy's hand with his fingers. "She has asked me to take her. To 'take her from her hellish nightmare,' I believe her words were." Toby's eyes squinted, and he reached up to pat a hand onto the king's moon-like blonde head.

"You know better than I that she wasn't...right with that pleading," he said sternly for a 13 year old. "She was under the influence of bad stuff." Jareth looked innocent. "You can't just take her from the Aboveground because of a thing like that!"

Ah, how this youngling was wise, Jareth thought bemusedly. "Alright, my pet. I shall consider your case." The golden sky was fading with the night; into a blackness that he knew his surrogate youngling despised. "For now, we're due to step inside for a visit with dear Slatia, are we not?"