The evening stars in The Underground were not like the one's Sarah was used to. They were bright and big, frothing and pulsing with energy, and held a strange glimmer that seemed surreal and artificial. Sarah tried not to be so transfixed by them as she seated herself carefully beside Jareth on a bench in the castle gardens. She didn't want him to think she was fascinated by his world, the world that had haunted her dreams all those years. But it was hard not to be overwhelmed by everything that surrounded her. The Underground was full of oddities that Sarah didn't understand—the strange fruits and flowers, the unique foods, the foreign Goblin customs she knew nothing about. Her mind flashed briefly back to the bracelet hidden in her room, and heat rose to her cheeks. She cautiously avoided Jareth's gaze as he glanced over at her.

"Well, precious," he said, looking away from her and out over the small pond that lie before them, glassy and smooth under the night sky. "You wanted a story, and I'm prepared to give you one."

Sarah could not ignore the pained look in his eyes, and for a moment, she regretted asking him to share this with him. She opened her mouth to tell him it was alright, that he didn't have to do this. But Jareth sensed her remorse and cut her off with a raised, gloved hand.

"How much do you know about dreams?" he asked her then, his voice quiet and soft.

"Dreams?" Sarah replied, perplexed.

"Do you understand where they come from, how they are woven and spun and delivered to dreamers, the ones whose imaginations are full of life and color and fantasy?"

"I-" she began. She trailed off, not understanding what he said. Dreams didn't come from anywhere. They were a collection of tangled images that your brain threw together while you were sleeping. Meaningless and without origin. Weren't they?

"How old do you think I am?" the goblin king suddenly asked her, switching topics. He was looking at her now, earnestly. It bothered her that she couldn't look away. She took in his features, the way his lips turned up on one side in a sly smile, the eyes, one blue and one brown, that were framed with delicate lines in his skin; his hair, bleached almost white, tinted with strips of color. She frowned as she assessed his face.

"Forty," she decided finally. "You look like a human in their forties."

He chuckled, his eyes glinting with delight. "Add a few hundred centuries, and you're spot on."

Sarah's eyes widened with alarm. Did his magic mask his age? Was this all some grand illusion, and in reality, he was a decrepit, aged creature? She shook her head, confused.

"As long as humans have fantasized, imagined, yearned, and told tales, I have gifted them their dreams," he said. His voice was hollow, as if he read from a script. "There are others like me. Each specializes in gifting a specific type of dream."

"What is your specialty?" Sarah found herself asking, still not entirely believing him.

"My dreams revolve around the fantastic," Jareth answered, smiling softly. "The dreams of other worlds, new realms, fairies and forests, maidens and romance. That is why I came to you, dear Sarah. Your entire life was submerged once in these stories, these truths you surrounded yourself with. I have never met another so steeped in fantasy than yourself."

Sarah swallowed and exhaled a shaking breath, trying to understand what he was telling her. "Are you a god?" she asked, her voice small.

"Not necessarily," he replied. "My powers are great, but they are not unlimited."

"What do people call you, then?"

"I have had many names. But the most common name I have been called is a Dream Weaver."

"Dream Weaver," Sarah repeated, feeling the word on her tongue. "But if there are others like you, where are they? Why are you here, surrounded by little goblins? It doesn't seem to fit your dream specialization."

"No," he responded somberly, "it doesn't." He sighed, a hint of frustration in the sound. "You must understand, Sarah, that I was never supposed to be here. My place is with my brothers and sisters, the other Dream Weavers. We sat in on the court of the gods, dined with entities too powerful to name. We did their bidding, served them, and in exchange they offered us luxury and beauty, and terrible power. But we all make mistakes."

"What happened?" Sarah asked tentatively, not liking the way his lips were turned down, how his eyes were drowning in a past she could not see.

"I fell in love."

Sarah was quiet for some time. She turned her face away from him and watched birds settling in on the still water. Love. Could Jareth even know what love truly was? There was a time, once, when he'd claimed to love her. But it hadn't been love. It had been possession, obsession, something twisted and broken that only looked like love. She frowned, her eyes welling with tears she wished he wasn't there to see. Sarah kept her eyes averted from him as she wiped them away bitterly. Why was she so upset? Perhaps she knew, deep down, that he was capable of real, true, pure love. Perhaps she knew that his manipulative games with her had ruined her own chances of ever finding love with someone in her own world. She was too guarded now, too angry, too fearful, to ever really have it. Knowing that he'd once felt it, and she never would, made her heart ache as if it were burning.

Jareth shot her a small, apologetic smile and she remembered why they were there. She cleared her throat and straightened up.

"How does love lead to ending up in a place like this?" Sarah asked him.

"It was against the will of the gods," he said simply, shrugging his shoulders. "Love would distract us from our duties, make us lazy and impotent. They laughed at my weakness. They wanted to teach me a lesson. And so, they plucked me from my gilded palace, my brothers and sisters, my sparkling world, and dropped me here, in this muddy, slovenly hell. And since I dispersed dreams of fantasy, they selected the most unattractive, irritating, and disgusting creatures that they could find from amongst my library of dreams—the goblins-and made them my mock subjects. My crown means nothing. It is only to humiliate me further—the weaver of dreams of romance and royalty, ruling over a heap of sloppy, unrefined creatures."

"But the labyrinth?" Sarah asked. "Where does that come in?"

"Ah, yes," Jareth sighed, "the labyrinth."

His voice was even more broken now, catching as he spoke. Sarah sensed that the story of the labyrinth was too painful for him to relate, and she regretted asking immediately.

"Another cruel punishment by the gods," he explained. "Because they wanted me trapped in my loneliness, they constructed the labyrinth around my castle. Souls call out to me, Sarah, as you know. They describe their deepest wishes, their wildest dreams. I hear them. Sometimes, I respond. There have been souls I thought I could love. I would listen intently to their pleas. At the opportune moment, I would make them a deal. Run the labyrinth, meet me in the castle at the center of the Goblin City, and they could have what they wished. If they made it through, I would offer them my heart, and to be sure, they all accepted." He looked at her pointedly, then continued. "But once they did, they would disappear, sent back to their beds with no memory of me or my offer of companionship. I suppose the gods worked that into my punishment. I always thought that perhaps they weren't truly meant for me, and that's why they vanished. But I think that the gods want me to be lonely."

"Do you think it's possible," Sarah began hesitantly, "that you don't actually love the mortals that visit your world? Do you think that maybe you're in love with the idea of love?"

Surprisingly, Jareth did not seem angered by her accusation. He lingered with the idea for a moment, and then lifted his eyebrows at her.

"The dreams I gift to mortals," he said, "their glitter and romance...they appeal to me like nothing I have ever experienced. Human love is such a strange concept. Even the gods don't truly understand it. Mortals are able to trust, to invest all of their soul with another. That is something eternal beings rarely experience. Before I felt such a love, I never thought it possible. And yet, there was a soul that called to mine. Perhaps all of the mortals that came after him were meaningless, mere diversions. Not including you, of course, precious," he said, eyeing her knowingly.

Sarah rolled her eyes but did not do so disdainfully. She weighed his words carefully before she responded. "Were there any others, after me?"

Jareth's reply was immediate. "No. I have stopped listening to the yearnings of mortals. And I've stopped weaving dreams."

She considered this for a moment before looking at him kindly, as if he were a friend. "Well, your majesty," she said. "I think it's time you started again."