Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth or any of its characters. Only the OCs are mine.
Author's note:So, I recently fell face-first into this fandom about two months ago after a moment of obligatory nostalgia from watching the new trailer for The Dark Crystal, and was truly shocked, shocked, at how active Labyrinth fandom still is. I thought I might offer a slightly AU modern fic, only in that if I put it in the movies original timeline that would make this fic take place in about 2003. Thing is, looking back on that time I can't help but think that the early 2000s were somehow more innocent and violent and naive all at once. It's not a cultural mindset I'm interested in indulging. So we're just going to shift forward a bit and blame it on time traveling goblins.
Currently not beta-ed. I'm sure I'm going use one here and I'm not sure how long this fic will be. For now I'm just going to throw it together and see what happens.
Enjoy.
Prologue: The Oak Grove
Damp leaves slid and smeared under shapeless leather slippers. She righted herself before losing her balance. Wiping a strand of long copper hair from her eyes, she shifted the child. Its weight was beginning to strain her arms. It was still daylight, but the thick fog made navigating the small copse near impossible. But what would it matter if she could see? She did not know this part of the forest. No one did. None had dared to disturb the old grandfather oak in generations. At least, none that lived to speak of it.
Her mother's mother told her stories, pasted on from her own mother's mother, of the white robed healers who once knew the secrets of these trees. But their kind had long since been slain by foreign warbands from the continent. They marched fervently, shouting of strength of their dead god and iron swords. Now, even they had abandoned the island, leaving the survivors with little more than the ruins of their war-forts and naught to eat. Too many fields had been sacked this past year. Too many seed caches plundered.
She had no standing in her home. Just an adaltrach, a stolen wife. Not even her husband's first. Taken by him and his clan brothers three summers before, after they had harvested the flax and found too much had grown for their own women to spin. Eventually, as was liable to happen in the presence of men, her belly grew and in her sixteenth autumn she birthed a son,
Not long after, the foreigners began coming to their shores. And these lean times grew leaner, so did her confidence in her husband's clan to feed her.
The fog parted and she saw it. The oak breathed power. It was surrounded by rings of mushrooms. White and red. Black and green. Some she knew to be poisonous. Others she'd never seen. The air was light and warm. Puffs of pollen danced in the air. Flowers of greater size and color than she'd seen in her young life crowded the forest floor. She took great care to step only in the grass.
Her arms tightened around the child. He was not yet a year old. She could not bear to give him a name, uncertain if he would ever become so.
The great gnarled roots of the tree were poised as if they would lift themselves out of the dirt. They held fast. Multicolored beetles scrambled out from under the crevices as she drew closer. Gently, she placed the child at the edge of the roots, and carefully stepped back. She sunk to her knees, the rich green grass likely staining her homespun skirts.
"Please…" Hot tears stung her eyes. Boney fingers tangled into the fabric of her dress. "Please take this child. He's not been baptised, nor been bled by Woden's war-priests. His father was cut down by thieves. He belongs to no one but me. And I can't feed him. I may not last the winter myself, but my son surely won't." She lifted her head, beseeching the tree and all within who might hear. "Whatever becomes of him…" Her breath hitched. "...let him be taken by the fairies. Let him have a full belly and warm bed. Just let him live."
Shakily, she stood and fled the sacred grove. She did not see the mismatched eyes glaring at her from the high branches. She did not know the contempt they could hold for a trespassing mortal. She did not know how little those eyes cared...until they saw her tears. Red skinned and ugly, he thought, these creatures should take more time to control their emotions. It was not pleasant to look upon. And to think, their were those among his people who thought their kind fair.
That, he thought fiercely, shall never be me.
Silent feet slipped from oak branches, landing gracefully on the mossy ground.
"Hmm." spoke a contemplative voice. "What am I to do with you?"
He kneeled at the sleeping child, tilting his head as he took in it's palid appearance.
"You're a half-starved young thing, aren't you?" He let out a long defeated sigh. "Very well. I suppose I can be generous." He held up a finger warningly. "Just. This. Once." A delicate tap on the child's nose.
Lifting the child into his arms, he leapt back into the branches and retreated to his realm.
There was a particular form of chaos that was unique to a goblin's hovel. They were ravious little creatures that delighted in food, ale, and sex. Their homes were warm and their larders were bursting. In a goblin home, every night was a feast.
A roast pig was turning on a spit. Oils crackling as they dripped on coals below. A round green-skinned mother beat at the ball of dough on her table. Her children had been shooed outside a moment before and were now splashing about in the mud. She was not looking forward to the laundry.
"What am I to do wit 'im?" It was a piercing accusation. Hardly proprietous, given whom she was speaking to. "Them things live a knife's edge from death. Ain't natural how easily they drop."
Her king towered above her in the small kitchen, his lean form somewhat hunched as he casually rested a shoulder against the door frame. It was rather amazing he fit at all. His arms were crossed and his shoulders were draped in a shroud of tattered black silks.
Them spiders have been weaving for 'im again, she thought. Don't know why he likes 'em so much. Could make better cloth in me sleep! Might be he's too polite to refuse 'em, likely.
"Suckle him at your breast." The was an implied 'obviously' in his haughty tone.
"You want me ta do wot?"
His face contorted into a somewhat condescending mask of impatience.
"A child needs milk. Your brood seems fat enough. Clearly you have more than enough to satisfy them."
Her eyes darted over to the wicker basket on the floor. The young life it held uneased her more than she was willing to admit. Mortals were well known to be violent and dangerous creatures. Civilized people had laws. Codes of conduct that were built from the fabric of reality itself. A word must match an action. It was a sacred unity that formed existence. Those humans...they'd found a way to crack that connection. They could violate nature and lie.
Her watched her reaction, rolling his eyes.
"It is an infant. What harm could it possibly do to you?" He knelt at the basket in front of the fire, removing a single glove and holding out a finger for the boy to grasp.
"An infant monster." She rebutted. "It will grow. It will forge iron and poison me whole family!"
The boy gummed at her king's finger tip. Her king smiled warmly.
"Why would he do such a thing...if you are the only family he will ever know."
She sniffed, knowing the truth of his words.
"Me youngest isn't weaned yet." The old mother tried again. "I can't spare the milk."
Her king lifted his head slowly, his eyes narrowed.
"I know exactly how old each of your child are. If you haven't started her on a bit of bread by now, your not fit to be anyone's mother." He held up a gloved finger. "You'll not deceive me with your half-truths."
She silently watch her king interact with the manling. He conjured a bit string, dangling it above the child in play.
"Begging your pardon sire, but why'd you be caring for such a wild thing in the first place? Why does he matter to you?"
The king did not look up.
"Because I am a fool." He spoke softly. "Be a dear and be foolish with me, with you? Your sovereign commands it."
A long resigned exhale escaped her lungs. She looked over to the fire. It would need more wood soon. She'd have to send her sons out to the shed to fetch more. Truely, she loved her children. One more really couldn't hurt.
"...I suppose. But if he starts causing' mischief, you'll be taken 'im back and I don't much care where he goes."
Her king gave her a small grin.
"I sincerely doubt there's little you could not handle, my lady."
The goblin woman harrumphed at the honorific.
"I ain't no lady, and I don't take kindly ta be called one."
With a hand on his chest, the king bowed forward in apology as much as his crouched position allowed.
"So, he'll be needing a name, then?"
"It would appear so. I was given none, and if he knows of his true name, he is unlikely to share it with us for some time."
"How about 'Pot'?"
"'Pot'?" The king answered incredulously, his eyes scrunched up in distaste. "You cannot name a child 'Pot'. I forbid it!"
"Why not? Isn't that what they do, then? Given' their children simple names for simple things. So the 'fairy's don't steal them away'? As if we'd have a use for such things." The old mother grumbled. "If he's going to be staying 'ere, it's best to try and not separated him too much from his own heritage. It'll confuse him!"
"Even so!" the king answered sternly.
"Right then, 'ow about Unger?"
"That is a terrible name."
"Me great-uncle's name was Ungar!"
"And what sort of man was he?"
She thought about it for a moment.
"A right bastard, now that I think of it. No, that's no name to give to an innocent babe.
"You're not particularly good at this, are you?"
She shrugged.
"Me husband always took care of the naming. What would you call 'im, then?"
Her king quieted, still dangling the string above the boy. She watched, wondering if he was looking into the future, perhaps glimpsing who the child might one day be. Better to give an accurate name, and Fae of his caliber were usually more sensitive about such things.
Long moments past. Or rather, she assumed they did. The fire flickered more slowly. Her king and the boy hardly moved. The old woman snorted, busying herself in the kitchen while her king slowed time to think.
"Take your time, I suppose." She spoke more to herself than him.
"Darach." he said at last. "Call him Darach, for the oak tree he was given to us under." The king reach out long fingers to tuck a bit of blanket around the kid's neck. "For the moment he became one of us."
"Right, then." She leaned out her kitchen widow. "Boys! Bring in more wood for the hog. And come and meet your new brother. You two! I told you ta stay out of the mud!"
A/N: My random OTP of the week is the Goblin King as depicted by Lixxle (any of her fics, really) and Natalie Winn AKA Contra Points. I know Real Person Shipping is not always considered entirely kosher, but just think about it. They would be a power couple for the ages!