"Well? Did I not warn you that things had changed?"

Sarah had not noticed Jareth leaning nonchalantly against a withered tree, but seeing him now robbed her of breath. Gone was his relaxed look, replaced with the imposing black armor she had last seen in their first encounter. His cape pooled down his shoulders and snapped in the breeze, catching stray leaves in its fabric grasp, and his sickle-shaped pendant hung loose on his neck, glinting in the pale light of day. Despite his posture, he still held himself as if coiled, and ready to strike at any moment, and she could not help but shiver as she rose to her feet. This was the Goblin King that she couldn't escape for seven years, the one that haunted the back of her mind during her waking hours. Here he was something dangerous, a nightmare made flesh and bone.

Perhaps conscious of her eyes upon him, he gave no indication that something was amiss, except to quirk an eyebrow at her as he awaited her shaky response. She took several deep breaths to quell her panic, and drew out a question from her jumbled thoughts. "What just... happened back there, with the mirror?"

"I thought that was fairly obvious: you said the right words and let us through. I merely gave the mirror a...push, so to speak. Although why you chose to direct us to the very beginning of the Labyrinth is beyond me."

"Ah right, because I obviously would have known how to change destination via mirror travel. It's not like I do this every day." She folded her arms as she grumbled, "Besides, you're the one who can teleport and fly places—getting to where you want to go should be a piece of cake."

"Not everything is 'a piece of cake,' my dear," Jareth smugly noted, turning her own phrase against her. "Especially not seven years later. You'll find that things are a bit different around here. A bit more..." Surprisingly, he ceased speaking to focus on a stray brittle leaf from the tree. A frown crossed his face as he rolled it gently between his fingers, watching as it ground to dust and floated to the ground below.

"It does look different," she conceded after a moment of silence between them. Her eyes alighted once more on the castle in the distance. "It feels different too, I guess. Almost as if something is missing."

"The magic is leaving the Underground—all that is left now is the shell, a skeleton of what once was here before you made your choice." The Goblin King glared at her momentarily, as if she were somehow to blame. "Soon, even that too will fade."

"You realize I didn't want to destroy your kingdom, right? I just wanted my brother back."

"All actions have consequences, precious."

Sarah threw up her hands with an exasperated sigh. "I was sixteen! I could only think about not being grounded for making my brother disappear, not my environmental impact on a magical kingdom." She pushed aside her trembling inner voice screaming at her to back down. "Look, I get it; you don't want me here because I ruined all your fun, and I really don't want to be back here. We made a deal though, and I intend to stick to my end of the bargain, then we can go our separate ways."

Sarah marched up to Jareth, ignoring the fact that she only came up to his chest as she squared her shoulders and met him with her own piercing gaze.

"I'm not here as some conquering hero," she muttered, "and I'm not here to be the villain. I'm here to save my friends, and you can either work with me or let me do it by myself. If you're so keen on making sure this place sticks around, then help me."

A year of working with children had led to Sarah perfecting what many called her "teacher voice," a tone that, while not loud, commanded attention through intensity. Among students, it was a powerful way of enforcing herself; among Goblin Kings, it seemed to produce the same effect.

He stared down at her in silence, before drawing out a long sigh. "Very well," he said, no ounce of poise lost in his words, "although you placing us here, as far as possible from our goal, does strike me as suspicious."

"It wasn't intentional, I just..." Something had nagged at the back of Sarah's mind from the moment of returning to the Labyrinth, something that slipped fishlike through her thoughts when she tried to grasp at it. Why choose the start of the maze? She had said the right words, but whatever she said never included being here. No, she said something else—she had wished for something else. Gazing out at the maze, the lingering memory of her dream roared to the surface of her thoughts, and the revelation struck her with sudden clarity.

Her dream had somehow become reality.

Jareth might have questioned where she was going, or muttered a snide comment, but Sarah paid him no mind. Instead, she moved towards the Labyrinth with rising fear. Everything was deja vu, every step and every brush against dead or dying branches, as she felt herself be drawn through the twists and turns down the hill. Her pace picked up into a jog, and then a run, and suddenly she felt as if she was fifteen and racing against the clock, vainly searching this time not for a brother she neglected, but for a friend instead. Don't tell me I'm too late, Sarah thought, I told him I was coming, I promised, please don't let me be late. Let it be a dream, let me still be dreaming.

Skidding around a corner and nearly losing her footing on a patch of frosted grass, Sarah gave a wordless cry at the familiar sight of the small pond and the crumbling walls that made up the entrance to the Labyrinth. The pond was nearly devoid of water, with only a few scattered puddles lining the cracked muddy pond bottom. Withered tufts of grass grew haphazardly around the space in front of two large doors, which had long since come off their rusted hinges. There was no fluttering of fairy wings this time, nor puffs of smoke as Hoggle annihilated the fairy race. None of her surroundings mattered much at the moment, none of it drew her eye or evoked surprise.

All she could see was the hunched-over form in front of the doors. A very familiar, short form.

"Hoggle!"

The little dwarf raised his head, steadying himself against the splintered wood. He was older than she remembered him, with a few more warts on his face and with less hair on his bald head. He dropped his can with a clatter, slumped over in wide-eyed shock, his mouth wordlessly forming her name. As she drew closer, he began to tremble. "You...you came back. You're actually you, you're actually here." With what could have been a sob, or a cry of pain, he stumbled forward into Sarah, who barely had time to catch him from falling to the ground.

"I'm really here, Hoggle." She held him close and noticed how cold and frail her old friend was. "I should have called for you and Sir Didymus and Ludo. I had no idea, I'm sor—"

"You didn't know," Hoggle wheezed as he cut her off, "you've nothin' to be sorry about. It ain't your fault, Sarah." His eyes widened as he asked, "How did you get here? Don't tell me that rat of a Goblin King dragged you down here. I'll kick him straight to the Bog...well, eventually."

Despite the seriousness of the moment, she couldn't help but laugh at his attempt at protecting her- a quality not lost after seven years. "Well, he didn't drag me here, but he did ask me to help stop everyone from..." Her voice trailed off, but the thought of her friend's end hung unspoken between them. She spoke again, softer and solemnly this time. "Hoggle, you need help."

"Can't be helped. I've already resigned myself to fading away, there's nothing anyone can do. This sort of thing is happening to everyone. It's my turn now, I suppose."

"There has to be a way to help," Sarah cried, biting back her frustration as she looked around and saw the Goblin King nowhere in sight. "Maybe Jareth can—"

Hoggle's hand closed around her wrist, cutting off her words. "His Majesty has bigger things to worry about than an old dwarf. The entire Labyrinth needs him to keep the Underground alive." His clouded eyes began to lose focus. "I am glad I got to see ye one last time, Sarah."

He grew colder in her lap as his breathing became ragged, and Sarah drew him closer to her in an attempt to provide him warmth. It was all she could do to help him, a meager gesture considering all he had done for her in her time of need. If she was somehow still dreaming, the dream had become a nightmare before her very eyes. She could not contain the choked sob that burst from her throat, or the flood of emotions that followed its expulsion.

Behind her came the sound of footsteps, heavy on the frosted grass. Sarah turned to peer up at Jareth looming over her. On his face was the same expression she saw earlier, when he had crumpled dying leaves into dust before his eyes. He spoke not a word to her, his attention fixed upon Hoggle's pale figure. The only sound, for what felt like an eternity, was that of her dying companion.

Then, breaking the stillness, Sarah held up Hoggle to the Goblin King, unable to look away as her hands shook ever so slightly. "Please."

She did not have to clarify, nor did Jareth ask her to. Hoggle groaned as Jareth gently took him, reminding Sarah of how he had held Toby seven years prior. That memory alone nearly sent her careening away from the armored man, but she stayed still. She could feel something heavy in the air as Jareth looked to the dwarf, something akin to the pressure before an oncoming storm. The sensation briefly pushed back the chill, making her shiver involuntarily as her hair stood on end.

The Goblin King paid her no mind, and she watched as he conjured a crystal out of nothing and winced slightly as he rolled it across his fingers. His eyes looked to be glowing in the crystal's reflection, and a strange breeze ruffled his cape in the otherwise-still air. As quickly as it had appeared, the crystal dropped from his grasp, exploding in a cloud of glitter over a gasping Hoggle as the air felt cold once more, and the pressure abated. Magic, Sarah realized, that was actual, real magic.

Magic, it seemed, had a price. While Jareth had been better than he had been in her apartment, he now looked absolutely exhausted. His skin was paler than Hoggle's and there were bags under his eyes, giving him a weathered look. She noticed that his gloved hands shook too as he handed her back her friend, who appeared to sleep soundly now that whatever magic had set in.

"Is he...are you...?"

With a groan, the Goblin King leaned against the broken door next to Sarah, barely able to support himself from sliding to the ground. "Fine. Hogwash has...extra time. Not a cure but..." There it was again, the same look of concern and despondence as he answered her. "...but it's the best I can do." He leaned his head back against the wood, and closed his eyes with a groan.

Sarah looked down at Hoggle, at a loss for words for a moment as she let Jareth catch his breath. Finally, she whispered out, "Thank you."

This made him open his eyes, as if the thanks were something he was never expecting to hear. "You're welcome. We have a deal, as you reminded me, and I'm not one to break my word." He winced, however. "It may be the last magic I can do for some time."

The Goblin Castle loomed in the distance, and Sarah knew from experience that it was possible to get there within the span of the day. However, Jareth's pale complexion looked worse by the minute, and a part of her wondered if he'd be able to make it even a small distance on his own. She had no idea if she could support him and Hoggle for such a distance, especially if they ran into the same trials and traps that plagued her prior experience.

"Lady Sarah!"

Perhaps she was hallucinating, but Sarah swore she heard someone call out her name, accompanied by the sound of far-off barking. There was nothing around that she could surmise as the source of the exclamation until she heard the sound of rapid running and crunching leaves. Suddenly, from around the corner of a wall came a shaggy sheepdog, one that reminded her of her childhood dog, Merlin. Upon the canine's back sat a small fox, clothed in a myriad of colorful fabrics and a floppy hat. His whiskers were raised in surprise as his mount let out a cacophony of woofs. As he drew closer she could see that the fuzzy figure, apart from some extra grey around his muzzle, was immediately recognizable. "Sir Didymus! Ambrosius!"

Sir Didymus, brave knight of the Underground, brought Ambrosius to a halt in front of the group. "Oh, my dear lady," he cried as Ambrosius snuffled happily at her feet, "'Tis wonderful to see thy lovely face again!" Upon spying Hoggle, his expression grew grim. "I was coming to see Master Hoggle when I heard thy voice. It seems thou knows of his grim condition."

"He looks better than when I saw him," Sarah replied as she repositioned Hoggle in her arms to hopefully make him more comfortable. "What happened to him? Has he been like this for long?"

From beside her, Jareth let out a weak chuckle. "It is as I told you: everything is fading away, much like Hogswitch here."

Sir Didymus jumped at the sound of his monarch's voice, and quickly gave a bow. "Your Majesty! A thousand pardons for not seeing thou—"

"I'll make an exception for the lack of decorum," Jareth interrupted, "since I lack the energy to bog anyone." He tilted his head at that moment, eyes focusing off into the distance at something Sarah could not see. "Ah. There she is." He staggered to his feet with the knight at his side to softly encourage him, and Sarah carefully did the same with Hoggle in her arms. Motion out of the corner of her eye caught her attention before she could ask for an explanation of who Jareth referred to.

There was a single, vertical white line in the air a few feet away, rising from the dirt to roughly her height as it shimmered before her. As she watched, a new line shot out of the old at the top, creating a right angle, almost as if someone had drawn an upside-down L from out of nowhere. After a moment, the horizontal line's movement ceased, and a second vertical line swooped downward to touch the ground. The space in between the unfinished rectangle wavered, and morphed into a white light. She recognized it as some sort of doorway, but its appearance did not faze Jareth or Sir Didymus.

"Did you call upon her, Sire? "Sir Didymus said.

"No, but she knows. Head through, and let her know I return with one in need."

Sir Didymus gave another bow, stepping forward and motioning to his sheepdog to follow through. Ambrosius barked happily and Sarah saw a familiar red volume had ended up peeking out of a compartment in his saddlebag. With so much changed, it was a small relief to have the consistent presence of her book nearby. Before she could comment on it, Ambrosius and Didymus walked into the light and disappeared.

"Go on," Jareth said, "no danger lies on the other side."

Still, she hesitated. "Where does it go?"

"Someplace familiar." He made an attempt to smile despite his condition. "You were never one for caution, precious. I almost miss your stubbornness."

She rolled her eyes, muttering "still not your precious" under her breath as she stepped forward towards and through the doorway.

The sensation of going from here to there felt jolting, like an electric shock in an ice-cold bath. It was not unpleasant, but different, unexpected, and unanticipated. Sun became shadow, frost became warmth, and the outside world of the Underground became the throne room of Jareth's castle as Sarah blinked the blinding light from her eyes. Candles and torches littered the space, casting a flickering light that danced against the stone walls and illuminated the leering stone goblin heads. The same light also revealed dozens of goblins, lining the walls and strewn across the feathered-covered floor. Some were paler than others, and some barely stood on their own, supported by one or two other goblins or peering up from the pit in the middle of the room where they lay piled against each other. All of them stared at her in silence, as if their own eyes could not believe what they were seeing, as if they were turned to stone to match the heads above them. She had never heard the goblins so silent before, nor had she seen them so still.

Sarah nearly concluded time had stopped altogether, until Sir Didymus cleared his throat and caught her attention. He stood a little further away from her, and as her eyes alighted on his comforting form, they drifted to the person who stood beside him.

A woman stood at Sir Didymus' side, a woman who—much to Sarah's shock—appeared absolutely human. From outward appearances she could have been a little older than Sarah, with rich red hair that curled around her shoulders and neck. Her clothing, however, confused the image, as she was dressed in an embroidered pink dress like a character in a period piece, or a perfect porcelain doll. The only flaw to be seen was a smudge of chalk upon her cheek, which rested like war paint on her face. Combined with her folded arms and the piercing gleam in her eyes, she made for a very imposing figure. Something about her stance felt familiar, however, although there was nothing to provide the kickstart needed to give her clarity. This was the "she" Jareth had mentioned? What was she to him—a runner, perhaps, who had fallen for his drugged dreams? One who had accepted his desire to be feared and loved?

As if well aware of the attention she was under, the mysterious woman spoke, her voice reminiscent of birds in flight as they dipped and weaved upon the air. "You look terrible."

Sarah heard a wheeze of a laugh from behind her, and turned to see Jareth lounged in his throne, his legs hanging over one of the arms as he put on a grin that was more pain than pleasure. " I feel terrible, but your doorway saved me from a far worse outcome. Magic needed to be done. She would only come if I helped her friends, ergo..." He gestured vaguely at Sarah and Hoggle, as if their presence was plenty of justification.

"Yet, it cost you." The woman looked from Jareth to Sarah again, her expression softening slightly. "Something tells me," she murmured, "that this may have been worth the cost."

She took a step forward towards Sarah, who took a step back and instinctively cradled Hoggle closer. This woman may have been a pretty young thing, but nothing in the Labyrinth was ever what it seemed. However, her proximity did make one thing abundantly clear. "You're human," Sarah blurted out, and then winced at her lack of tact.

The woman only chuckled, seemingly not insulted or confused by her outburst. "And you are Sarah Williams," she replied with a warm smile. "I've heard much about you. I can promise that no hard will come to you and your friends while you are here. He does, however, need to rest, and I can make sure Sir Didymus finds him a place to do so comfortably."

After hesitating, Sarah reluctantly passed Hoggle to the woman, noting how she effortlessly took him into a position like that of a small child, despite his unwieldy size. The woman bent to whisper in Sir Didymus' ear, who nodded at her quiet words. The entire court, Goblin King included, watched as she placed Hoggle on Ambrosius' back, and as the dog was led away by the knight.

"He'll get a good meal when he awakens," the woman mused to Sarah as they watched the sheepdog ferry the dwarf down the hall. "Once he awakens, I can let you know so you can visit him."

Sarah had no idea what to say, but knew politeness tended to be the best course of action for such situations. "Thank you."

"But of course. I know how important friends can be down here in the Underground." Once more the woman looked toward Jareth's direction, her brow furrowing in concern. "You too should rest and regain what power you can. The Labyrinth will still stand even if you give a moment to yourself."

"Normally I'd argue with you," said the ailing Goblin King, "but as usual, you are correct. First, however, I believe introductions are in order." He rose with grace from his throne, a motion Sarah suspected was one he perfected long ago. For a moment, she could forget his pain and see him as she did earlier, as the proud and pompous king of the Labyrinth, manipulator of wishes and perpetrator of trickery.

Then, an epiphany. Jareth's familiarity with this woman extended to his language, and from their conversations so far, it sounded less like the relationship of lovers and more like...

"This," Jareth spoke as he moved past Sarah to place a hand on the woman's shoulder, "is Maria Tyton, She of the Unvanquished Heart, member of the Goblin Rebellion, Runner of the Labyrinth, Defeater of the Owl King...and my mother." Patting her shoulder, the man meandered out of the room, and the eyes of his subjects followed him until he left their view.

Maria sighed with a shake of her head, sending red curls flying. "I think," she said as she caught Sarah's open-mouthed state of shock, "we have a lot that needs to be discussed. I'd offer tea, but something tells me we may need wine for this conversation."

Wordlessly, Sarah nodded and fell into step beside Jareth's mother, who nodded to the goblins around them and made for the door of the throne room. She caught the eye of a goblin near the door, whose yellow eyes widened at her attention. The round, stout figure gave a small bow, and she could've sworn he muttered the word "Lady" in reverence. The sound of shuffling behind her made her turn her neck and catch a glimpse of all the goblins bowing, even those who were barely able to stand. All of them stared at her, not with malice, but with something close to worship, or maybe even fear. She swallowed at the sight, and their murmurings of her name continued to echo in her ear as she rounded the corner and left the throne room altogether.

The trope of Jareth having a mother is one that many have done before me, but as far as I can tell, few have incorporated Maria, the main character from the comic series Labyrinth: Coronation. The entire 12-part series is such a fascinating prequel to the film, and I love the ending because...well, I won't give it away, but it offers me a great deal of flexibility. I'll be delving into her character in a bit more detail in the next chapter, so no need to worry if you're not familiar with her or the comic she stems from. Explanations will come, and our adventure will begin in earnest- these early chapters I consider to be the setup needed to get all of our cast in place for what will come to pass. Will other characters from the prequel make appearances? Perhaps.

Thank you to the readers and reviewers thus far who have enjoyed the adventure, and a special thanks to Tune4Toons, who beta'd this chapter for me. She was one of the first individuals I met on this site in 2011, and her guidance and advice led me to become a better writer.

I wanted to post something before the end of what has been a very tumultuous year, and I look forward to continuing this fanfic into 2020, and hopefully garner more readership along the way. I'm gearing up to write my masters thesis, so I'm unsure when I'll get the next update out. But mark my words, it WILL be out.

Until next time.