Chapter 1: Origins

Fae existence is truly a most peculiar thing, my dear. We are far more than humans, yet far less. We were here (there, everywhere) before them and will be long after they are gone (from the circles of this world and beyond). We disdain them, yet desire them.

More than that, indeed. We need them.

And we will do anything (within rules and without) to get them.

To keep them.

Wishes and words, dawdles and dances, children and changelings…

Ah, changelings… Oh yes.

And that's where I and all my freaky darlings, all so great and small come in. Literally.

Let me tell you a tale, my dear. Once upon a time…

… when time had no meaning…(Well, I won't tell you how long, precisely. Don't you know it's rude to ask?)

… I was the first changeling.

*The Erl King and the Elven Queen have been known by many names. Oberon and Titania, Herne and Mab, Annwyn and Arianrhod, Gwn Ap Nudd and Eostre. None of these are real, of course. Their true names are known only to themselves and to each other.

When the son was born to them, in the crystallized, timeless hour of twilight when the sun seems to vanish beneath the ground, it seemed that the earth screamed with a strange power and was yet silent. And they were afraid, fearing their own son as though he had been formed from cold iron.

The fae are very fond of children. And of perfection.

So they did what fae parents do. They took their imperfectly terrifying child and left him with a human family, stealing away the nice, perfect little unguarded human infant in exchange. For that was their way and it has been so ever since.

And of course, the humans did what human parents do. They screamed at finding a strange, silent sharp-toothed infant in the place of their own babe whom they had left outside of the bedroom, cursing him because of his colicky cries.

**And they pricked the strange one with pins and ignored him when his silence broke and he began to wail from pain. And when he licked at the blood and the wounds healed and vanished, they took him down to the river and held him under the icy water and ignored his bubbling, gasping complaints. And when he did not drown, they set him out on the hillside, naked and cold and ignored him when he wept from loneliness and hunger. And when he did not freeze or starve they took him inside and put him inside the hot bread-oven with two eggshells full of water held in his hands. For it was their way and it has been so ever since.

They did not ignore him when he sprang screeching and fully grown from the oven, holding not eggshells but two crystals, and he laughed with a fey and terrible anger. And he said that although he had barely lived a day by the time of either world, he could see much that had been and much that would be. And dashed the crystals upon the hearth and vanished in a whirl of glittering fragments, not up the chimney but down into the ground where humans should not delve unless dead.

And he took the not-so-perfect-after-all human babe back from his parents and kept it. And they were unwanted together, along with all the other children who came after, lost and unguarded and unwanted by careless-tongued humans.

For that is the way and it has been so ever since.

At least, that is what people believe.

So mote it be, my dear Sarah, for don't you see? It is belief that sustains my people, human belief. Your kind, with all your insecurities and jealousies and most of all, your ridiculous religions, should know that it is far easier to believe in other people than in yourself. If people believe in you, don't you feel as if you could do anything? Stand on the shoulders of giants, move mountains with your bare hands, change the course of rivers with a song, alter the very reality you rely on for sanity? Why do you think the ones you call gods so desperately want to be worshipped and demand that you only believe in them?

When all of your kind believed in my people, it was we who were gods. Whatever names they called us, whatever shapes they gave us, it was us.

As for myself, I left my own calling cards. After all, you must give as you take. You were hardly the only human to be offered your dreams in a crystal ball, but you were one of the rare few to turn them down. Not many can resist the temptation to learn of things that were, that are and that have not yet come to pass. That particular form of fortune-telling is what you might call a consolation prize for those who chose to run the Labyrinth and failed it. Generous of me, wouldn't you say, O Best Beloved? But it's hardly my fault that they later chose to associate it what your kind call 'evil'. Humph. Really, what use would I have for human souls?***

No, you certainly were not the first to wish and run, but you were the first in quite a long time. As belief faded from your world, that little red book was a link I had created, just to allow a trickle of belief to be sustained between your kind and myself. No publishing, no print, and only one copy. My single scripture.

And you believed, Sarah mine, in both your heart and your head. How unconsciously devoted you were, that I came to watch you read my scripture in that park! And when you called on me… Oh, it had been so long since I had been called… And by such a bratty little acolyte. Rather disappointing, really. I quite resented you at first, you were quite tedious in that way. I had hoped for something more refreshing after so long.

But later… oh, later…

With all your stories, you should have known not to eat food from a fae realm. Of all the things you encountered in the Labyrinth, that should have kept you bound. Yet you then astonished me on two counts.

By all accounts, you should have remained enthralled within that dream for all eternity, your mortal body crystallized in timeless sleep, dancing forever with some faceless Prince Charming****. You should have been utterly submissive to the pattern I had woven. Yet instead, you pulled me into your dream. Unconsciously yet purposefully, you sought me out and danced with me. Really, my dear, I was quite flattered. I have never played that part before, and quite thought that you viewed me only as a villain.

And then…

A thing unheard of.

You woke up. You broke the dream.

You were not the first to wish a child away. You will not be the last to run the Labyrinth.

But Sarah, oh Sarah, you are the only mortal to ever break the enchantment of fae food. That will never be seen again, by any order of time or space.

It is something utterly new…

And the thing the fae love the most is novelty.

And so you caught my heart in your hands. You held my dreams, though you knew it not.

My one, my only, my Sarah. You rule my mind, my thoughts are all of you. And as for your mind…

"I need you. All of you."

They are mine, Sarah, know you not? Although you defeated me, the Labyrinth and all within its world are mine as long as it is believed. And you who saw it all and see it still through the looking glass, you are the last believer, the last link I have to your world. You are the only one. As long as you believe, I will endure in my role. You who unknowingly still allow me to enter your world and to respond to wishes… you are my catalyst.

You may have broken the dream, but a part of you still bound by your own belief. To my world. To me.

Truly, I thank you, beloved. Tell me, what would you like as a reward?

I would offer you a crown. To be queen of my world, as you are of my heart.

It is you who holds the power to make this choice. You must come to me, as you forbade me to come to you, but only to hover around you.

Be mine, as I am yours. We will have an eternity for you to believe in. Indeed, you already have eternity, thanks to my peach*****. Happily ever after.

Come back Sarah. Come back, so that I can come back to you.

Author's Notes

If you've bothered to read this far, you're probably aware that this rambling shambles is an attempt to give Jareth something resembling a backstory. I was intrigued, since he's not portrayed as anything resembling the other goblins in the film, yet he is still the Goblin King. He might be some 'higher' type of goblin, but he is generally viewed as a breed of Fae along the lines of the Tuatha De Danaan, so I was swinging more with that concept, whilst his goblins are all transformed, wished away children (as opposed to Pwca, a goblinesque type of faerie). It also tied in nicely with the intriguing idea that Faeries are basically actual old gods diminished by a lack of belief.

*I'm well aware that some of the names I've used for Jareth's parents aren't compatible either as roles OR as pairings, but they worked for the images in my head. Please, no one start flipping out about mythological characters being in their proper places and stories. I DO know where each of them originally feature, I'm just borrowing them to set up couples who work by virtue of certain powers.

Erl King - Character of German mythological poetry who haunted forests and stole/killed children.

Elven Queen - general term.

Oberon -Shakespeare's Faerie King and Titania's consort. Usually portrayed as the 'darker', more goblinesque one of the couple. (Often assigned 'Summer Court' alongside Ttania versus Mab.)

Titania - Shakespeare's Faerie Queen and Oberon's consort. Usually portrayed as more the flowery and 'fairy-ish' one of the couple. (Often assigned as 'Summer Court' versus Mab.)

Herne - Minor Medievial English incarnation of the Horned God (eg: Cernunnos/Pan). Supposedly based from a royal huntsman who hanged himself from an oak tree in a London park. Often associated with the 'Wild Hunt' concept. No actual partner in legend.

Mab - Another Faerie of Shakespeare - Midwife and queen of dreams and possession. No actual partner in legend. (Often assigned as Queen of the 'Winter Court' versus Titania.)

Annwyn - Oldest known Welsh Celtic Lord of the underworld/afterlife. Keeps 'hounds of the wild winds', and so often assiciated with storms and the 'Wild Hunt' concept. No actual partner in legend.

Arianrhod - Welsh Celtic celestial goddess; Lady of the Silver Wheel, mother of Lleu Llaw Gyffes. No actual partner in legend.

Gwn Ap Nudd - Second known Welsh Celtic Lord of the underworld/afterlife (apparently a successor or later incarnation of Annwyn). No actual partner in legend.

Eostre - Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility. Associated with hares. Origin of 'Easter'. No actual partner in legend.

**References here to traditional methods of getting rid of changelings. The basic idea was that if you neglected or hurt them, they would flee or be taken back by their parents. Or you could make them laugh by setting water to boil in an eggshell.

***Just an idea for what might have been given to those who failed the Labyrinth or who chose their dreams instead. It made me think of crystal-ball gazing, so I decided that those people received a crystal from Jareth and the ability to See in it, but because it is a kind of Dream Magic, that is why it is such an imprecise, whimsical form of Sight. Also, fortune-telling was often associated with the Devil and Jareth's mask did have horns... And people seem so determined to mistake 'difference' for 'evil'...

****A new take on how the food of Fairyland or the Underworld binds you and makes you unable to leave - you are trapped in a dream-spell. No, I don't think Jareth was in love with Sarah at the beginning, since she was so bratty, but he was intrigued by her belief and valued it. Later, she so astonished him that he loved her for amazing him like that. He's so bored these days, surrounded by childish goblins and with no believers or runners for years, that he adores this new-ness she has brought him.

*****In Chinese legend, the gods ate peaches from Xi Wangmu's heavenly garden to maintain their immortality.