"Give me the child…."

How many nights had this particular memory haunted him? His thin and wiry frame tossed in the massive bed once again; the moonlight streaming through the high windows highlighting the sweat shining at his brow and the tangle of his wild fair hair.

"For my kingdom is as great as yours….."

A great tremor ran the length of his form; the jagged movements akin to a seizure as the motions of memory and night terror combined wracked him body and soul.

"You have no power over me….."

Finally, mercifully, he shouted himself awake.

He rose from his prone position so fast, he became dizzy and disoriented for a moment. The memory of what had occurred so long ago between his Mother and Father swimming in a haze in his terrorized mind so much so that he swore for a moment that their figured were discernable in the shadows of his bedchamber.

"Troubled night milord?" A soft voice inquired conversationally from the darkness; a shadow actually detaching itself from the many gathered around his desk across the room before taking the shape of a crow blacker than night.

Jareth squinted at the foot of his bed; his mismatched eyes making out the faintest outline of his loyal friend.

"Hephaestion. Will I never be extended the curtesy of having my nightmares in peace?" he chided halfheartedly, reaching for the ever-present carafe on his night table.

"Just as soon as I get an uninterrupted nights reading in you will," his feathered friend replied cheekily, fluttering over to perch on the Goblin King's knee and dip his beak into his chalice to enjoy a peck of sweet wine.

"Oh, by all means," Jareth sighed, gesturing to his wine exasperatedly as Hephaestion clicked his beak in appreciation.

"A fine vintage to pair with your insomnia, eh?" the crow asked, ignoring his momentary annoyance as he finally took a sip of the wine himself.

"As fine as any. What are you reading over at this hour anyhow?" Jareth asked, gesturing for the lamps to light themselves once again.

"Nothing to worry your fine shining head over. Southwest wall expansion and the like; dull work to be done. You know that Grimhilda will have her yarn in a twist if she spots your lights on again at this hour; she'll be in here with half the apothecary." Hephaestion warned him pointedly.

Jareth gave him a look as he took another long sip of wine, the liquid staining his lips a dark berry hue.

"What's the good of being King of anything if you can't even wake and sleep as you please? You and Grimhilda should enjoy a few weeks of lavatory duty; it would give you both an entirely different perspective." The King said dryly, swishing the wine in his glass and striding to throw open the balcony doors and let in the cool night air. His nightmares often made him feel stifled and trapped; a feeling he loathed much more than his friends' concerns for him.

Hephaestion croaked a short laugh, fluttering over to land lightly on Jareth's shoulder.

"Imagining me with a toilet brush in my beak? Can't imagine the scrubbing could get very far," the two old friends stared at one another stoically before erupting in a fit of laughter.

Jareth took another sip of wine before placing the chalice on the railing of the balcony, gesturing for his friend to have some more as he looked out over the vast lands that lay beyond the castle

The old crow studied his friend from his peripheral vision; noticing the slump in his shoulders and the frown that graced his normally carefree brow. A chill breeze picked up from the east, blowing Hephaestion's feathers wildly about the frill of his neck and causing Jareth to straighten to his full height with a look of barely concealed fury in his eyes.

The Goblin King conjured a large crystal within the palm of his dexterous hand, twirling and flicking it at a pace that would be impossible for a mere humans' eyes to keep up with as he searched every nook and cranny of his vast labyrinth until he paused the movements with a growl of irritation when he finally found what he sought.

With a shower of silver sparks, he sent the crystal forth fast enough to leave a comet-like tail in its wake as it traveled to the area of the labyrinth from which the wind had emanated.

"My Lord, you shall only bate her ire. The Witch Jadis will come as she said she would; you know how your Mother is when she doesn't get her way." The crow warned his companion, his sharp eyes following the trail of the crystal as it hit it's mark in the distance.

"I'll not see the lives of my people and the very land we stand upon usurped by that icy hag! I'll have her head if it comes to that; hers and that pompous ass who sired me." Jareth seethed, sending another volley of the crystalline orbs into the distance until the wind ceased and all was silent; as though nothing had transpired.

"Has Thranduil even admitted to knowledge of her latest plans?" Hephaestion queried, knowing that the elven king was self-serving at the best of times, and he would give little concern for what he considered a bastard son that was charged with the protection of the Underground of his kingdom.

He wasn't gifted with enough foresight to realize that if Jadis conquered the Goblin Kingdom and incapacitated their Son, that she would move to conquer the land above with the added assistance of the powers she could drain from Jareth; albeit momentarily.

"Of course not. He assured me that he had the confidence that I could handle the matter on my own; we both know that that's diplomatic-ease for fuck off," The Goblin King sighed, conjuring a sphere merely to smash it beneath his fist; relishing the very momentary sting before his magic healed his hand.

Hephaestion dipped his head in sympathy for his friend and King; wishing that he could offer more than companionable silence.

Meanwhile, in a decidedly different world, a young woman struggled with a heap of large trash bags that were piled onto a table in the social services office she worked in. They had a deadline to get all of the items sorted and placed in the right areas for needy clients to go through them and take what they needed, but it was slow going with the office seemingly terminally understaffed and lack of space in their outdated center. It didn't help that she had been saddled with a bum leg early on in life; causing her to hobble around with the help of a cane wherever she went.

"Raven? Where the hell do these go?" Her co-worker Emily huffed as she balanced an overflowing box of books.

"Down. Before you give yourself a hernia! Where did Marty go?" Raven asked, looking around for their often-errant maintenance guy.

"Mr. Seward? Have you seen Marty?" Raven asked as their manager passed by them with a cup of coffee and the type of vacant expression one wore when they were deliberately trying to block out everything around them.

"Hm? Oh, on lunch I believe. Why?" He asked, oblivious to the overflowing box at Emily's feet.

"Well, we sort of need help with a few thousand pounds of book donations." Emily replied, looking as though she were stating the obvious.

"Books? What on earth are we supposed to do with them? Poor people don't read!" Mr. Seward scoffed with a roll of his watery eyes.

Not for the first time, Raven bit her tongue, reminding herself that she had bills to pay and needed this job.

"Why would you think that?" Emily asked bluntly, never one to hold back what she was thinking.

Raven wished she had Emily's bravado.

"Of course they don't! If they read, then they would educate themselves and obtain decent-paying jobs and therefore wouldn't be poor. Toss them in the trash. We don't have space for them as it is." Mr. Seward replied dismissively.

"Can I look through them before you toss them? In case there are any good ones?" Raven asked hopefully.

"Yes of course. Be sure to do it on your break though." He said with a shrug, heading back towards his office

"Ugh! Can you believe that fucker?" Emily hissed, hands on her hips.

"Um, yes? You know how it is around here," Raven whispered, checking behind Emily to make sure that their managers door was shut.

"Pfft. I don't give a shit if he hears me. My Wife is always up my ass to quit this job anyways and finish my degree. Ya know, so I can get one of those decent-paying jobs Mr. Fuck-face was talking about." She shrugged, nudging the box closer to Raven with her foot so she could have a better look at the tomes within.

"Yeah I know, but some of us aren't so lucky. I don't have a Maureen at home to help with my bills," Raven sighed.

"Girl, you need to get out there and find someone to sweep you of your feet and get you the hell out of here." Emily said with a wink.

"Oh sure, because gimpy with a cane is every mans dream. I got 'em lined up around the corner beating down my door, ask anyone." Raven replied sarcastically.

"Don't be so pessimistic. My mom says there's someone for everyone; after all, Mr. Seward and his wife have been together for what? Two millennia? Whenever the first brontosaurus appeared," Emily quipped, causing Raven to stifle a chortle.

A couple of hours later, after going through a dozen giant trash bags full of clothing Raven could take no more.

"I'm clocking for break," She informed no one in particular as she slowly limped her way over to the punch card station.

Disappearing only momentarily to fetch a mug of substandard coffee from their tiny kitchenette, she returned to her worktable to begin going through the books her boss was determined to dispose of. Many of them were young children's books and self-help titles that she definitely wasn't interested in; though a few looked like interesting enough mystery titles, and she couldn't resist rescuing an ancient and tattered Agatha Christie novel that she had read at least four times but couldn't bear to see it trashed. Just as she was about to return the titles she wasn't taking to the box; a sliver of red caught her eye. Apparently a slimmer tome had gotten wedged under one of the box flaps at the bottom and she nearly overlooked it.

"What do we have here?" She murmured to herself absently as she freed the slim tome and turned it over, thinking that it might be a journal of some sort. However, scrawled across the cover in gilded gold was the title "Labyrinth" in old English gothic. She opened the cover, expecting to see the authors name and the copywrite information, but there was nothing except a title page. Flipping through its pages, she discovered the rest was just the story along with some interesting and very well-done illustrations that looked almost as if they were drawn by hand.

"Well, I am definitely taking you home with me," Raven muttered, sliding the book straight into her bag without hesitation.

For the rest of her shift, Raven caught herself glancing frequently at the clock in uncharacteristic impatience. She couldn't explain it, but she was itching to return home and inspect the Labyrinth book more thoroughly.

When she had discarded her final empty trash bag and hung up the lumpy sweater jacket it had contained, she made her way over and punched out.

"Heya Rave, need a ride home?" Marty asked as he came around the corner, as though he had been waiting for her there.

"Er, no. I'm good. I have to run an errand on the way home." She lied easily, knowing that the creepy janitor was only trying to work his way into her pants. He had a reputation for trying to sleaze around with the younger women that worked or volunteered at the center, and she had been spurning his advanced stoically for the entire year and some change that she had been working there.

"Are you sure? I'll take you anywhere you need to go," Marty said with a wink and a grin.

"Yeah, no. I'm good. I'll see you around," She replied, readjusting her cane and slinging her bag more securely around her.

She limped over to the door while checking her phone for her Uber, thanking her lucky stars that it was pulling up so she wouldn't have to stand around with Marty trying to make cheap small-talk with her in the interim.

Raven opened the door of a shiny black car with tinted windows and climbed in, not giving the driver a second look.

"Raven Mankiller?" The driver asked, verifying her ride.

"That's me," Raven replied, opening her Facebook app to check out what she had missed throughout her day.

"Very good," The woman replied, pulling off into traffic smoothly.

Raven distracted herself with scrolling through a few amusing memes, losing track of her trip for a few moments until she felt a cold draft near her feet. Glancing up out of her window with a frown, she saw a few errant snow flurries drift past, seeming to pick up thicker within seconds.

"Are you cold? There's a blanket beside you should you need it," The driver said, turning a dial on the dashboard, putting the heat on.

Raven considered herself a pretty observant person; living alone in Chicago as a female with a disability you pretty much had to be if you wanted to survive; and yet, she could have sworn that the back seat had been empty when she had gotten into the car.

"Thanks, I should be good with the heat." She replied with a polite smile.

"Would you like any sweets? Or mineral water? There's a box on the floor with anything you might like," The driver told her, her ice-blue eyes looking at her piercingly from the rearview mirror.

"Thanks so much, but I'm good. I think I drank about a gallon of coffee at work today." Raven joked uneasily, the woman's eyes putting her off for a moment.

For some reason, Raven's refusal seemed to almost irritate the woman; her annoyance conveyed in the stiffness in her posture and her silence for the rest of the short trip to the small coach house she had inherited from her parents.

By the time the car pulled up short in her driveway, she couldn't wait to get out of the car and into the safety and comfort of her tiny home.

"Thank you," She blurted awkwardly as she clambered out of the car; the icy air outside somehow much warmer than the atmosphere in the vehicle she had gotten out of.

The car reversed and sped off with a protesting squeal of its tires without delay, leaving Raven to stare after it perplexed while digging out her keys.

Once inside, she locked and bolted the door behind her only to be met with a familiar pair of orange eyes.

"Hi Shadow! How's my handsome boy?" Raven asked, scratching her cat under his chin and dropping her keys into a silver dish on her entryway table.

Shadow trilled a purr softly, headbutting her hand and rubbing his silky ebony head against her affectionately.

"You just want to butter me up for some treats, huh? Yeah, momma knows all of your tricks." Raven teased him as he leapt off the entryway table and sauntered towards the kitchen a few steps before turning to look at her expectantly as though he wanted her to follow him.

She refilled his food dish and tossed him a few of his favorite temptations cat treats while pondering her own dinner indecisively.

She decided to just give up and order Chinese; the thought of that curious red book nagging at her brain nearly obsessively now, though honestly it was not the first time Raven had had the feeling when it came to new reading material.

After placing a quick order on her app, she snatched up her bag, her fingers finding the smooth satiny binding easily amongst the other dog-eared paperbacks she had rescued from being future landfill fodder.

The cover seemed to blaze an even deeper seductive red than she had recalled from earlier, the gilded golden lettering shining as though the letters were made of actual precious metal. Raven made her way to her favorite plush armchair and curled up; the promise of Chinese food long forgotten as she immersed herself in the tale.

Surprisingly, the tale started off with a heroine that caught her interest Immediately as she was no damsel in distress; but a woman of knowledge and bravery embarking on a quest to rescue her friend who had been snatched away by a sorceress and ensnared at the center of a labyrinth fraught with dangers and perils along the way. As the heroine fought her way through the maze, she met a handsome Goblin King who was also on a quest of his own to defeat the evil sorceress and save his kingdom and the labyrinth itself; a realm which she had taken from him and usurped for her own malicious devices.

Raven had gotten to a particularly entrancing and sensuous chapter of the adventure where the Goblin King realizes that he has fallen in love with the woman, and they were about to share their first kiss when her phone pinged to tell her that her delivery had arrived. She huffed in irritation at the untimely interruption and texted the driver to just leave to order on her porch; cold shrimp and chow Mein be damned!

An hour later, she read the last page and closed the book reverently with a sigh of longing; the story she had read leaving her in a spell of enchantment and yearning. She had fallen irrevocably for the handsome and roguish King Jareth; wishing wholeheartedly that she were the heroine in the book whom the author oddly enough had not even named. She finally retrieved her now cold dinner from the porch, not giving it a moments thought as she absently tucked it into the fridge for the night.

Raven splayed herself backwards onto her bed with a sigh, kicking her shoes off with another sigh; her mind completely lost to the adventure.

Shadow pounced onto the bed beside her, and she turned onto her side and cuddled him to her chest, enjoying the comfort of his tiny presence.

"I wish…" she murmured, feeling foolish for speaking the words aloud. How far had her sanity fled?

Nevertheless, she cleared her throat and gazed at the stars just visible beyond her window.

"I wish that the Goblin King would come and take me away right now," Raven said softly; gasping as she felt the room spin, her comfy familiar walls vanishing before her eyes in a swirl of wind and color.

()()()())(()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()))))))))))))()()()()()()()())()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()(()

A few thousand miles underground Jareth leapt to attention, nearly dislodging Hephaestion from his shoulder with the movements of his magic.

"It appears we have a visitor Sire," The crow announced needlessly as his labyrinth became alight with a tell-tale glow.

"Well fuck all," Jareth sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.