Disclaimer in haiku form:

No. This is not mine,

It belongs to Jim Henson.

Haiku's are hard. Leaf.


Prologue: Stuff you have to read for the story to make sense, despite the lack of J/S

Sarah pulled out another Kleenex and passed it to the girl opposite her desk, who snatched it up and dabbed her hawk-like eyes daintily.

"It's just... terrible, y'know? Life hates me," she honked her nose in a less dainty fashion.

Sarah nodded sympathetically, tapping a few things into the ancient keyboard on her desk. She got things like this ALL the time. Just last month a dryad had been sprayed with pesticide in Holland Park. That had been a troubling week to say the least.

"Do you want to share? I could look into it and see if the department can get you anything," Sarah attempted to ask professionally, trying not to remember the sickly green that woman had been when she'd come into the office. Then again, she was a tree spirit. She was probably meant to be green.

The girl raked her hand through her fine, blonde hair that probably hadn't been washed in months but still mimicked a shampoo commercial to perfection and nodded.

"It all started this week. I've been living in a flat with another fae, in the centre of London. It's been great. Heater's broken but the place is cheap, not exactly a silver palace but... I manage. Anyway, my room-mate, well, we're in a similar situation. We're both monarchs who have been evicted from our Kingdom and we're both really good looking... So I just assumed... I MEAN REALLY IT SHOULD BE THE TELEVISION'S FAULT!" She exclaimed, flinging her arms wide in an expression that asked, 'Why me God?'

Sarah was beginning to wonder the same thing. She hated it when that new reception lady handed over dramatic ex-monarchs for her to deal with. This bed isn't big enough. There aren't any servants to do my house work. What do you mean I can't drug people to get in their pants? She swore she must have done something to offend that Mandy lady in the past life, the way she gave her all the mundane jobs, and the list just went on and on and on! She'd rather take on a tree spirit that was tetchy about not being given organic manure any day of the week than a princess who watched to much Bold and the Beautiful.

"After all," she sniffed, "it was you people told me to watch the stuff so I would know how to act around the stupid mortals," she sniffed again, twisting her tissue in her hands. "Hot people always get together on the television! But it didn't work out... and now..."

Sarah got ready for the water works. Or potentially acid works. A little known and not so fun fact about the fae. Yes... some could cry acid. It bought a whole new level of dull danger to the job when you had to duck behind the desk to avoid getting your skin melted off every other day.

"And now he hates me!"

Sarah blinked. At least there had been no acid. She hadn't bought her umbrella into work today so it would have been a bit of a problem. Shifting that thought aside, was she getting what this girl had said right? He'd turned her down. No... that couldn't be it. This girl was drop dead gorgeous. Maybe they'd just slept together and now he found it too awkward to live with her. Still, she should ask just to be certain.

"He turned you down?"

The girl let out a wail.

Sarah seriously doubted this. The girl opposite her looked about her age. Maybe twenty-two, twenty-five at most, with a ridiculous mass of curling, buttercup blonde hair. Freckles sprayed across her luminescent skin. Even though it was the start of winter, she was wearing only a blouse and a tiny pair of shorts. Probably because she knew it made her legs look good rather than the fact she was struggling to buy new clothes. She'd basically walked out of a fashion magazine. "Or a fairy tale," Sarah grumbled, tapping another few things into her prehistoric computer.

The girl let out another screeching wail and buried her face in her hands.

"I've been kicked out! I've spent the past week living in a cardboard box out behind Costa's. He told the landlady I tried to sexually assault him! Just last night, the barista put all their recycling in my box. I had to sleep in a puddle of luke-warm mocha. All because he gets all uppity and says you can't force a person into a relationship by wishing."

Sarah's hands paused over the keyboard, "Is that all you did?"

The girl gnawed her lip, before smiling nervously, "I may have gone a little further."

Sarah tried not to roll her eyes as the girl huffed and tossed her head, flicking her tissue onto the desk. Sarah tried to hide a shudder after it left a glittery smear when she twitched it off her desk with a pen. She'd probably have to get the biohazard guys in later to pick that up for her.

Chris twisted a strand of hair anxiously. "O.K. Let me get some facts straight. I didn't know that mortals considered it sexual assault! In my kingdom, it would have been casual flirting and technically we're both fae so rules work a little differently."

"You sexually assaulted him?" Sarah said flatly. "Time to call the cops methinks," the little voice in the back of her head muttered. Sarah eyed the girl's rather long finger nails, "or y'know," the voice continued, "maybe not the cops but those people that fetch feral animals and stick them in the back of padded vans."

"NO! I- Yes... Maybe? Please! I've only been here a couple of months! It's my first offence. REALLY! And I didn't give any of the fae world away. Please don't send me back home! I'll be handed over to the Republic and they'll chop off my head for the whole world to see. Please... I, I can't go back."

The girl clutched her hands together eyes glimmering with tears. Sarah sighed, she was going to regret this. She hastily tapped another few notes into the faithful old windows, letting it hum for a bit.

"I'll see what I can do."

The transformation was instant.

"Oh thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!" She squealed, jumping around the small cubical in a way that made Sarah dizzy just looking at her.

"Okay, well sit down and I'll just have to ask your name."

The mood dropped faster than when a dog realises it's in the car to go to the vets.

"I can't do that."

"Then I can't help you," said Sarah, folding her hands in her lap decisively.

Taking a deep breath, the girl plopped back into her chair, twisting a long strand of hair between her fingers.

"Mynameiskrystalmoon," she mumbled quickly.

"What?" Sarah asked jerking her head. "I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat it for me?"

"My name..." she took another deep breath, "is Krystal Moon. With a K. Moon."

Sarah bit her lip to try and hold in a smile but ended up snorting instead. What was her middle name? Wait, she wouldn't even try to figure it out.

"Your name is Krystal Moon?"

This started the wailing again.

"I KNOW! It's dreadful. I sound like some horny, pubescent elf named me. Why couldn't my parents have chosen something tasteful like Charabella or Eleline?"

Sarah let a cheeky grin slip. Yeah, Charabella was so much better.

"Can't you just change it?"

Krystal's lips trembled.

"I have to keep it the same in case my parents make it over the border. I don't want them left in the mortal world without a contact. They'd get hit by a truck in the first ten minutes."

Sarah clucked kindly. Another common occurrence in her job. Fae that hadn't seen England since Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, Queen Elizabeth the first that is. Fae road kill was pretty hard to explain. The office were so thankful they could now use the excuse, "We're so sorry. They're not right in the head. They were just trying to catch Pokémon."

"Last here in the Middle Ages? Don't worry, we get that a lot. I'll just put you down in the records as Chris, so when people look, they'll think your name is Christine or something."

The newly anointed Chris clapped her perfect little hands together.

"Thank-you so, so, so much! If there's anything I can do to repay you! Anything at all, just ask!"

Sarah groaned and rolled a crick out her neck. She'd been working too long in this cramped little cubical and once she'd finished her nine hour shift it was back to the grungy, little apartment with a chain smoking roomie and a landlord who was constantly threatening to raise the rent because her 'surprise' little pets kept messing things up for her.

"Any chance you know a place where a poorly payed government worker could find a place to live in the city? Preferably someplace that doesn't mind goblins chewing through the electrical wires every other month."

Chris' eyes lit up.

"I know just the place! You can move into my old apartment and I can move into yours! It'll be like wife swap but with apartments!"

Sarah mulled over the thought. Aside from the fact that it was obvious she watched too much television, the fae had made it pretty clear before that she'd been used to sleeping in ditches so really her cruddy apartment was a step up from that. TWO steps up even.

"My apartment's probably even further from the Silver Palace then yours."

The Fae sagged with relief "That's fine, I don't care."

"What about your room-mate? Won't he mind?"

"What? No! He'll love ya!"

Sarah shifted uncomfortably in the office chair. Usually when a fae used the word love it involved orgies. Lots of them.

"Well, as long as he's not got grabby hands or anything..."

Chris let out a delicate, tinkling laugh. "I wish! I've never seen him with a girl since I've been there and the landlady says she's never seen anyone floating about. No, he's the perfect gentleman. Or gay. But perfectly gay," she sighed wistfully, bronze eyes shining. "Perfectly perfect..."

Sarah shuffled some papers loudly on her desk, "Great, alright then! When can I meet this guy?"

"He's coming to Costa's next Wednesday to talk about getting some of my stuff from the apartment. I could introduce the two of you then."

Sarah felt a grin tug at her lips, while Chris scribbled down the address, "Perfect."

The fae started twirling her hair between her fingers again, "Yeah, he is."

It was drizzling outside, but Sarah had quickly learnt that it was, in fact, always drizzling in Britain. Except WaIes. It was always pouring in Wales. The gentle sunlight that was shown in all the best episodes of Midsomer Murders was in fact a lie.

Not that Sarah really cared. She kind of liked the idea of rain.

Tugging on a green turtle neck, Sarah thought about the points leading up to this moment. In Sarah's mind, she'd had her brief encounter with the Labyrinth about seven years ago. It seemed like from that moment on a whole new world had been revealed to her.

Sarah would see goblins peeking at her from behind the sugar. On her way to school, she would catch tiny, blue-green women splashing about in the duck pond out of the corner of her eye. One time, Sarah had walked into a sign post after seeing what appeared to be a red scaled dragon curled around a petrol station.

Not only had she been extremely afraid that the whole place would blow up, Sarah also had to explain to Karen how she'd gotten a black eye the week before prom.

She'd stayed in America until she had hit eighteen but after more than a couple of 'incidents' she had found that the British were generally more accepting of the excuse, "I'm sorry. I must have been off with the fairies."

So after doing a couple of University courses in Manchester for four years, she decided to stay. It wasn't until about a year ago when Sarah had picked a goblin up from oncoming traffic, when life had gotten interesting for her.

A woman, named Bea, had seen the little scenario and pulled her aside. She then told Sarah that she was from a 'special branch' in the government who dealt with the mystical side of things, keeping it from the public eye.

Six cups of coffee later, Bea had explained the fae world was having many issues with its democracy at the current time, not dissimilar to the French revolution, and hundreds of refugees were flooding to their world looking to start afresh.

No less than another four coffee meetings later Sarah had begun to work for the 'special branch'. Aside from the high probability that if she let slip to anyone that there were over a hundred magical beings living happily in London, then a strange man with no mouth would come and dislocate her knee caps for her, she was really enjoying the work. Over the past year she had helped various fae move into their new lives, found homes for centaurs and pixies and even helped prevent the end of the world once. That had been a tough week at the office. England leaving the EU made it that little bit harder as well. Some people not in the know would tell you it was because the government didn't want any more immigrants and it was true. But it wasn't the good people from Lebanon the government were trying to keep out.

Honestly with the rate of fae/human marriages going up just in attempts to get that sought after permanent residency card, it was no wonder Sarah's 'IN tray' was always over flowing.

Two years in America, plus four years in uni, add the previous year. Altogether, would make it logical if it were the early nineties, except it wasn't. It was at least two decades after that. Possibly more. A familiar dull ache settled in her chest. Her family didn't even know she was alive. She'd asked Bea to check the records and according to her Sarah William's had disappeared in 1988 but here she was now. New century, new millennia.

The files also said that there wasn't much investigation behind her disappearance and sudden reappearance. Just that she was known to be mentally unstable and had disappeared on a day like this. A Wednesday. The thought alone made her want to throw up. Sarah knew why, and if she had her way, she'd get those barstards for what they'd done to her.

Wednesday had been tea party day. It was burnt into her memory just like the cigarette burns in the carpet courtesy of her room-mate. It was the day she would steal biscuits from the kitchen and her friends would all come through the mirror and they would catch up, talk, play scrabble. Except one day, they just hadn't come. She'd waited by the mirror for hours. By the time the men came, her tea had been stone cold.

"Snap out of it," she told herself, looking sternly at a mirror. "It won't help you if your new potential flat mate thinks you're a mopey weirdo." She hastily dragged a brush through her hair shaking all bad thoughts from her mind. Good. Now she was presentable.

Pausing at the door, quickly grabbing an old burgundy scarf and an overcoat, she was going to need more warm clothes if the heater was broken.

Sarah arrived at the Costa's a good fifteen minutes early. She wanted to seem punctual. Chris appeared not long after wearing basically the same as the other day but with the addition of a pair of gum-boots. "Maybe she had an internal heater or something," Sarah thought, looking at her long, pale legs.

Sarah listened to Chris's woes as she flipped through an old book, nodding and making the odd agreeing noises at the right time, while sipping her drink.

The fae girl had just started to explain how she'd gotten a job at a local bakery when she let out an audible gasp. "It's him! He's here! He's come!"

Sarah lifted her head and nearly spat out her drink.

Goblin King.

"Okay," she told herself, "stay calm."

Goblin King! Her mind screamed. Goblin King! Goblin King! Goblin King!

"Sarah," Chris posed like a game show girl presenting a fabulous prize. "This is my ex-room-mate Jared Williams."

Several things happened all at once. The Goblin King, or Jared or whatever he was calling himself, leant forward to shake her hand, Sarah leapt backwards to avoid the Goblin King's extended hand, chair clattering deafeningly behind her, drink splattered all over the floor and long forgotten book.

"YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!" She yelled deafeningly, to his shocked frozen face.

There was absolute, heavy, painful silence as the whole cafe watched them nervously.

"Oh good!" Chris beamed, seemingly oblivious to the awkwardness of this situation. "You've met before."


A/N: Evening y'all. This is a little idea that's been buzzing around my mind for a little while now, so here I am, putting it out there.

Many, many, many thanks to my new beta.

Sarah being young in the modern day world will be vaguely explained after an interesting incident in an alleyway.

Pot brownies will be made for those who review. Joking. Don't settle for anything less than cocaine, as dear uncle Dave would have said back in the 70's.