A.N.: I swear I used a random fortune cookie generator for Mulder's cookie. How fitting is that?

The poem Jareth quotes is "The Foxes" by A. A. Milne (of "Winnie the Pooh" fame).

...

Dana Scully had a distinctly queasy feeling roiling in the pit of her stomach. Just perfect. Here she was trying to live and work in the real, logical world, and owls had to come swooping into her hotel room and crystals had to go popping up on her dresser. Just peachy.

Mulder had walked cautiously up to the crystal orb on the undisturbed dresser, his eyes shining his distinct interest. "What was it Trent said?" he murmured. "Turn it and it will show you your dreams? Let's find out..." Without any sense of caution, he picked up the surprisingly heavy, warm object; no sooner had he done so, but a smooth tenor voice filled the room, as if coming from a full set of stereo speakers Scully could not for the life of her locate.

"You know," the voice almost boomed, irritation very obvious in its speech. "It's extremely poor manners to go shouting a man's title every which way – in public, no less. Should you like it if I cried your name from every hillock in the Underground?" Scully knew now what Trent had meant when he said the man spoke in a strange way – for it was most definitely a man's voice, highlighted by a lilt that would have most closely been called and English accent, but that didn't quite fit the bill. It was clear this sourceless apparition had the ability to be quite dulcet and melodic, but the clear annoyance that colored his tones ruined that effect. "Fox Mulder, Fox Mulder, Fox Mulder!"

"Mulder-!" Scully began, startled. Whoever had sent this recording – for she decided that's what it was, and she was going to confirm that as soon as she found the speakers – knew more about them than she felt comfortable with. Her partner just waved her concern off, eyes still fixed with a hungry look on the crystal he was holding.

"Do not," the disembodied voice was continuing, "call upon me unless you intend to finish what is started. I will find you tonight – I suggest you improve your manners when I do." And with that, the speaking stopped, and an unnatural quiet filled the ruined hotel room.

The spell was broken by Fox's heady, bizarrely jubilant laughter. "Yes!" he shouted, tossing the crystal into the air and catching it with one hand in his triumph. "It worked, Scully!"

"What worked! What in the hell is going on!"

"Just had to drag His Royal Snobbishness out of hiding and I irritated him enough to show himself."

"Oh, great, Mulder." Scully put her hands on her hips and just looked at him. "You tell me we're dealing with magical, inter-dimensional beings and then you go and piss them off!"

"It's why you love me, Scully," he assured her while still wearing that stupid grin. He crossed the room and tweaked her chin with his free hand. "Let's lock the stuff in my room, tell the hotel staff what happened to yours, and go eat, huh?"

"My appetite is severely reduced right now."

"You'll feel better when we get some food!" her partner assured her, looping her arm with his own and pulling her along. "You don't want to meet a king on an empty stomach, do you?" Really, Scully considered, she had no desire to meet a king at all.

…

In the end, the federal agents went with neither Thai nor Italian food for dinner, finding a nearby Chinese restaurant that was little more than a hole in the wall. Scully could only pick at her dim sum, a combination of nerves and jumbled thoughts, but Mulder tucked into the orange chicken with great enthusiasm. "Come on, Scully," he tried to reassure her. "We're that much closer to getting answers, that has to make you happy."

"I'd be happier if we knew more about what we were up against."

"I could always lend you that book."

"Thanks, but I think I'll stick to the more standard profiles," she replied dryly, popping a bite of egg foo young into her mouth. "But Goblin King and faeries; I don't get the connection."

"Well, if I'm right-" he lifted his hand to stop the beginning of her comment, "-and I know, it's a big if – but if I am, then the ruler of the Goblin Kingdom is this sort of humanoid magical being. A faerie, the Sidhe in Celtic mythology."

"Okay..." Scully drawled, dribbling soy sauce over her rice. "And what is an ancient Irish being doing in Fredericksburg, Virginia? Or mid-town Manhattan, for that matter."

"Well..." Mulder grinned at her, reaching his hand down onto the bench next to him and picking up the large, round crystal. "I'm hoping we'll both find out tonight."

"Mulder, you brought that with us to dinner?"

"Are you kidding? I'm not letting this out of my sight!"

"Great," the woman sighed, getting out her wallet to pay. "It can be our nightlight while we go over the Ahmed information in your room."

"Hey, you don't need to be upset," Fox smiled at her in his mildly disarming way as he handed her a fortune cookie. "The staff promised they'd have it all fixed up by midnight."

"I don't get how a barn owl could have caused so much damage," she sighed, dropping a twenty onto the waiting bill. "It was like a small army of hellions were intent on tearing that room apart."

"Hellions, or-" Mulder took a sip of his tea.

"Please don't say it, Mulder," Scully begged with two small fingers to her pale temple.

"Goblins?"

"And you said it anyway."

"I guess it's about time we got to work!" Mulder purred with a stretch of his arms, breaking his cookie in half with his hand. "But first, our fortunes."

Even dour Dana had to smile for that a little. "Right, important things first." She carefully chewed the egg-white shell of the small cookie before gently unfolding the tiny slip of paper. Scully tilted her head, her soft, red hair falling forward. "...huh."

"What is it?" Mulder leaned over the table at her curiously.

"Nothing, mine's just weird."

"Well, what does it say?"

"It says..." Scully hesitated and then shrugged. They were just words on a scrap of paper. "It says go out the door and make two lefts."

"Huh. Well," and Mulder beamed at her. "Mine says, 'Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you.'"

"How adorable." She smiled gently back at him.

"...in bed." Scully rolled her eyes. "Well, shall we go out the door and take two lefts?"

"I'd rather just go back to the hotel room."

"Scully," Mulder scolded her, gently pulling her to her feet by the elbow. "Where has your sense of adventure gone? Let's go see what fortune might await us!"

The fortune that awaited them, out the door and with two left turns, was an alleyway next to the restaurant, where cans full of garbage and glass bottles were waiting to be picked up by the sanitation crew. Among this debris, a fat New York rat scurried by. Scully sighed and adjusted her jacket against the early chill of fall. "This seems about right for where my fortune would take us, yup," she agreed with a nod of her head. "Satisfied, Mulder?"

He smirked slightly and rolled his shoulders. "I guess so. Well, let's get back to the-"

There was a sudden screech that alerted them to another's presence; it was difficult to tell if it was the rat that made that scream, or the silently flying bird that had suddenly swooped down upon it. Both Scully and Mulder jumped slightly in surprise, leastwise because the bird was an owl. A tawny colored owl with a death-mask face and a strange pair of glittering eyes as it made short work of the rat.

Just an owl in the city, Scully tried mightily to rationalize to herself. With territory reduction due to urban development, owls in city settings are going to become more common occurrence-

Scully's rationality was cut tragically short by the cloud of glitter, the rippling that began in front of the pair in the alleyway, like a heat vent were suddenly letting off steam, only without any evidence of that happening at all. She briefly had to steady herself against Mulder's arm as the cloud gave way to...

To a man, standing there – tall, but not as tall as Mulder (who had not flinched since the owl went in for the kill). He had a shock of blond hair that looked almost white in the low light of the alley, a black and ratty cloak hung about his shoulders and a pair of flashing eyes in the darkness. He stepped toward them, and revealed a long leg that was covered with a black boot and closely fitted leather pants; he leaned forward, and a gaunt, sharp face betrayed even sharper teeth in an expression that was somewhere between a leer and a grin.

"Ah!" he at last spoke, a little like a crow. "How pleasant to see you so obligingly followed my directions!" There was not a doubt about it: it was the exact same voice that had greeted them from the crystal orb. Scully noticed Mulder still held it in the palm of his hand, and his fingers tightened around it. The stranger looked over Mulder with an odd pair of eyes; Scully could see one pupil was much more heavily dilated than the other, giving him the appearance of mismatched eyes, but she was fairly certain they were both blue. With an air of superiority, the excessively odd man at last smirked. "Fox Mulder, is it? Yes, I thought as much." With no more warning than that, he turned on his booted heel and began reciting.

"Once upon a time there were three little foxes

Who didn't wear stockings, and they didn't wear sockses,

But they all had handkerchiefs to blow their noses,

And they kept their handkerchiefs in cardboard boxes."

The smug smile became a strange, white grin in the twilight, and he swept past Mulder with no more notice than that to take Scully's hand (she noted he wore black leather gloves, despite the fact the weather absolutely did not require them) and kiss it gallantly. "And this must be the radiant Dana Scully. Enchanté, my dear. I'm afraid I have no poems off-hand for lovely girls named Dana."

"You're him, aren't you?" Mulder asked seriously, crossing his arms over his chest, hazel eyes narrowed. "You're the Goblin King."

The otherworldly man sighed, laying his free hand against his cheek. "A question I never truly grow tired of hearing. I do have that honor. The goblins come with the honor," and he nodded his head back toward the darkness of the alleyway. At that, dozens of little eyes opened in the shadows, and the flash of sharp teeth could be clearly distinguished among the chittering noise of bone-chilling giggles. Scully felt very sure those were not rats.

"Well, we have some questions for you, Mr. Goblin King," Mulder began, sliding the crystal into a pocket of his coat and retrieving a notepad and pen instead.

The Goblin King had straightened, but had yet to release Scully's hand from his grip, and she began to tug gently against him. His strange eyes flashed dangerously in the half-light. "I believe I instructed you to work on your manners, Agent Mulder, did I not?"

Mulder grinned back, seeming to be in his element here. "I don't think the U.S. Government affords fairytale creatures diplomatic immunity."

"What I am afforded," the stranger hissed, releasing Scully's hand at last so he could more effectively try to loom over Mulder, "and what I take are two entirely different things. Your mortal restrictions mean less than nothing to me."

The King's attempt at looming was thwarted by the fact that Mulder possessed a full two inches over him in height, and the agent stepped fearlessly forward so that his eyes most definitely had to look down to meet his opponent's. He also had the audacity to smile all the while. "We're here about Courtney Breckinridge and Benedict Pierce."

The strange fey creature stepped back again to more fully take in his two opponents, a gloved finger pressed thoughtfully against his thin lips. "...you are no relations of theirs, I am quite sure. You do not know them."

"No," Scully agreed. "We've never seen them before."

"Then how is it you know of these two when my magic erases their memory from all who have met them?"

"We haven't met them," Mulder explained, pulling a manilla file from his briefcase. "But the federal government has documents that should prove their existence."

The Goblin King snatched the file from Fox's hand with a cold sneer, looking everything over with greedy eyes before his lip curled in disgust. "I might have known..." He tossed the folder unceremoniously back at Mulder. "This modern mortal fetish for record keeping strains even my considerable magic. Removing their school and doctor records was taxing enough. I see I shall have to be more thorough in the future when it comes to erasing the notion of their very existence."

"Where are the two children," Scully demanded seriously of him.

The King merely straightened his gloves around his wrists. "In the Underground, of course."

"The Underground?"

The fey sighed and rolled his eyes. "This world that you find so utterly cozy, this is the Aboveground. My world is connected to yours – not literally underground, naturally, it's just the old name for it. We are connected on different planes of existence."

"You need to return them."

"I don't need to do anything," and he snarled slightly at her now, where most of his ire had been reserved for her partner. "You two seem to think I have appeared here to do your bidding. I assure you most emphatically, that is not the case."

"Then why are you here?"

"I am here to assuage my curiosity – to see who has been shouting my titles all over the Aboveground." He cast a sidelong glare at Mulder here. "And also I am here on...personal business."

"And just what is this 'personal business?'"

"It is personal," and he smiled with pointed teeth.

"Look, Mr. Goblin King-" Mulder sighed, pulling up a trash bin to make an impromptu seat.

The unnatural man's upper lip twitched. "I think you do this just to vex me. An unwise move, I do warn you."

"-we're really trying to understand where you're coming from on this, we are."

"We are?" Scully interjected with a raised red brow.

"However," Mulder was continuing as though the interruptions had not happened. "We're only a couple of hapless mortals in the Aboveground, and you're an immortal being of magic; try bending down to our level for a second."

The Goblin King burst into barking laughter at that, gloved hands at his narrow, bony hips. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Little Fox. Very well. What is it you wish to have clarified for your simple minds?"

"Tell us exactly what happened when Trent Breckinridge and Serena Pierce wished away their siblings."

"I should think you already know that," the King slurred, picking non-existent pieces of dust from off his immaculate-yet-tattered cape. "It is an old magic that binds your world to mine, from the days when their borders were not so clear. Each Kingdom in the Underground has its place, the same as yours. My place is the sovereign domain of dreams and things that are wished away. When the right words are spoken, I am duty bound to appear."

"What's the purpose of stealing children?" Scully asked, gently pushing her partner over so she might join him on top of the garbage bin.

"I just told you," the Fey Lord growled with narrowed eyes. "I steal nothing. I take what is freely offered to me."

"The children are not legal guardians of their siblings, what they say should have no bearing on what you do."

The Goblin King rolled his eyes. "I believe I also just finished saying that your mortal laws mean very little to me." Around him in the darkness, there was an eery giggling of high-pitched voices. "Do you want this lesson or don't you? Now, as I was saying..." he purred, pushing back locks of his wild hair. "It is traditional to offer something in exchange for the child."

"Such as their dreams," Mulder interjected, but the King didn't seem to mind this, for he nodded.

"Yes. Their dreams." He gave a kind of smile that made Scully feel uneasy as she sat on the garbage can. "They almost always accept."

"What happens to the children who are wished away?"

"Oh, many things," he continued in a very bored vein. "Depending on the age or disposition, I often adopt them out to fey families. Being so long-lived, my kind does not produce at the rapid rate yours does. We cherish our children," and he fixed the pair with a look of such undisguised disgust, a charge leveled against the unworthy parents of the whole human race, that they both had to squirm under the heavy gaze. "Anything else?"

"There's another child missing," Scully replied quietly. "Here, in the city. Anwer Ahmed."

"Ah yes, little Anwer." The Goblin King was smiling slyly at this recollection, and the woman burned to know why. "He is Underground as well."

"Did he wish his little brother away?"

"Indeed he did. But young Anwer is from a proud people, a people who still believe in the Goblin Kingdom – it's such a pity so few do, I was once far too busy to bother having this conversation with mortals, you know. He knew his mistake, he was repentant. He would not take his dreams."

"So what did you do?" Scully demanded, ire growing hot behind her blue eyes. "Kill him?"

The King looked affronted, taken aback, and his temper flared. "I warn you, woman, you are growing less charming by the moment."

"Then what did you do?"

"Those who will not accept their dreams," he continued, fairly spitting while the goblins around him hissed their displeasure in Scully's direction, "are given a chance to win back the child they have lost – they must run my Labyrinth. Now, don't ask me to explain that. It will take far too long, you won't understand it, and I am growing increasingly bored of this discussion."

"Why isn't Anwer forgotten like the others?" Mulder at last asked, far calmer than his partner. "Why make them forgotten to everyone but their siblings?"

The frightening fey man smiled that terrible smile again, showing a mouth full of pointed teeth. "Selfishness has its cost, Little Fox, I'm sure you know that. I grant the wishers their dreams, yes, and I make it so the children were never known in the Aboveground. Or nearly so..." he sniffed theatrically. "But I make sure they have to live with the knowledge of what their vapid little dreams cost them. Now, as to the young Anwer, as you were inquiring, he was given the opportunity to run my Labyrinth. He had thirteen hours, more than generous on my part – and he failed. The always do." His mouth suddenly twitched. "Well. Almost always. He is stuck in the Fiery Forest as we speak, I am still deciding what I shall do with him." Thus saying, he examined the fingers of his gloves critically, reinforcing how bored he was.

"But he isn't forgotten," Scully reminded, and the Goblin King smiled again.

"No, he isn't. He must live knowing that a few careless words cost him his younger brother, and his failure has caused this pain to his family and everyone he loves. No more than a fitting punishment, wouldn't you say?"

"I'd say you're positively sick," Scully almost shouted, jumping to her feet. "And you're going to give those children back."

"Am I?" He smiled at her and leaned forward. "Who will make me, dearest, most darling Dana? Or do you intend to entice me?" And his eyes wandered down to the modest cut of her suit, letting a gloved finger trail along the high neckline.

"We have a proposition for you," Mulder interrupted, also standing and pulling Scully back slightly from the King's fingers.

The fey sighed. "Oh, do you now?" It was just as much news to Scully, but she tried to school her expression to keep that information from showing.

Mulder just nodded, and Scully nodded as well; Mulder was a bit crazy, but he was always dependable. She trusted her partner absolutely. "That's right. A little wager."

A shiver ran through the Goblin King at that, and there were softly murmured "ohs," of appreciation from the audience of eyes in the darkened background. "Mulder," Scully whispered, leaning in to the man as she watched the shudders run through the King, "What in the heck is going on?"

"Faeries love games, Scully. He can't possibly say no, it's like offering a coke fiend crack."

"Don't tell me you got this from that book!" she hissed as the fey's strange eyes seemed to briefly glaze over.

"Hey, have I been wrong yet?" Well, what could she say to that?

The Goblin King leaned very close to them on rather unsteady feet, licking his lips the way a hungry predator licks its chops. "What sort of wager?" he inquired with a dry throat.

"A game," Mulder grinned, standing tall with arms crossed over his narrow chest. "You pick the rules, I'll pick the prize."

"And what is that prize?" The King stood so close that shafts of his blond hair almost touched the agent's face. "That I may know a proper game to assign to it."

"I'll be the prize," Mulder replied with confidence, gesturing to himself. "You can take me to the Underground – instead of the kids."

Scully didn't need to roundly scold Mulder for his brazen decision making, the faerie practically did it for him; he leaned back and snorted loudly. "Someone has been spreading rumors about my predilections again. What on earth would I do with you, Agent Mulder? You're too old to be made a goblin, I certainly have no interest in you." The Goblin King's back straightened and he grinned with absolute glee, gaze flicking over to Scully. "Offer me Agent Scully."

"Excuse me?" Scully did not seem pleased, crossing her arms over her breast.

Mulder was no less pleased. "Scully's not on the table."

"How can you deny me one so delectable, my dearest Dana?" the King purred in a smooth voice, taking her hand and bringing her pale wrist up to his mouth. "You may think me a brute, I know, but I have always treated my women well. Besides, there are many kings in the Underground who would simply beg to have a mortal wife to lavish with affection and to bear their children..."

The woman quickly yanked her wrist away, looking about ready to pull out her firearm and finish what she should have started with an owl in her hotel room. "Thanks if I'm not interested in creating a bunch of goblin babies for you."

The fey's mouth pursed, his eyes twitched. "Ah, Dana. You are a woman of fierce beauty and fiercer intellect, I have no doubt our affair would be of the most volatile nature – but I'm afraid you misunderstand my offer. While I would be happy to introduce you to many eligible bachelors of the Underground, the crown of the Goblin Queen is already spoken for."

"And what does your wife think of you stealing babies?"

The Goblin King waved his hand dismissively with a sigh. "I'm an unmarried man as yet, most delicious Dana mine. But she would scold much as you do. Enough, children, you bore me." The man adjusted his cape along his shoulders and swept back his sterling mane of hair with one gloved hand. "Your offer is not good enough, Agent Mulder, so I shall create all the rules and name the prize myself."

"We didn't agree to tha-"

"You proposed the wager, will you back out now?" The King grinned at him with an eery smile. "No, I thought not. Now, I shall give to you both three riddles," and he held up three fingers on his left hand. "Three. You must solve them before the striking of the thirteenth hour, or the game is forfeit, and I claim my prize."

"Which is?" Mulder asked in reply; he didn't like the way this was turning out, but it was true that he had started it, and it was clear that the mystical man before him would not let it lie unfinished.

There was that awful grin again. "I shall ask a favor of you, someday in the future – don't ask me what, that is for me to decide when the time is right. You shall do this service for me without question. And I shall bind your oath with my magic so that you cannot go back upon your sacred word. Is that clear?"

"And when I win?"

"If you win."

"When I win, what will you give me?"

"Oh," the Goblin King sighed and went back to looking at his fingertips. "I suppose I could be persuaded to return little Anwer – don't ask me about the rest of the children," he warned, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "The bargains were not made with you, and they are already placed in homes far more worthy of them." The danger in his sharp face changed; he was smiling again, but it was with just as much peril as when he glared. "Unless you wish to drag them from the arms of the fey families who love and adore them. And if you do, do be my guest."

When no retort was immediately forthcoming from Mulder, Scully put her two cents in. "What's the thirteenth hour?"

The King was giving his smirking smile, but this one was a little less dangerous, a little more lecherous. "Another excellent question from the divine Dana."

"I get the alliteration already."

"In mortal terms, you might call it the witching hour. Since time runs so much differently here, we'll say it is the minute when midnight becomes one. Does that seem fair?"

"No," she said with her red lips slightly pursed. "But I don't think we're going to get a better deal than this."

"How right you are. Now, as I said, I do have some rather urgent and personal business to which I simply must attend. Your riddle will await you in the morning – so I bid you sleep well! I like my opponents alert and awake, so as to be the better challenge to me. Until the morrow, Little Fox." He bent over Scully's hand again, and this time let his lips linger far longer than was appropriate. "But call my name if you change your mind on company this evening, my sweet, and I shall be by your side."

"Don't get your hopes up, Goblin King."

"Most cruel beloved!" he gave an over-dramatic sigh. "I never do. Adieu, adieu." Smirking, he stepped back into the shadows, the sea of eyes swarming towards him with that awful, hair-raising chirping sound again, and he seemed to disappear into a puff of smoke or a vein of steam.

Scully rubbed the back of her hand against her suit trousers. "What just happened?"

"Well, Scully," Mulder smiled at her, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. "I think we just proved the existence of Goblin Kings."