Author's Note: This one and the next chapter are very long because of the amount of Underground lore that I needed to put. It will be relevant, so please bear with me and forgive me this once. They will get shorter and we're about to move to phase two of our story.

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The morning was cold and clear. Toby, of course, felt it even worse. He'd woken up, alone and forlorn, and the only evidence he had to show for the events of the night before were a tongue that felt like a dry sponge and a head the size of the Sahara desert.

Finally levering himself out of bed, he spent the next hour in the bathroom, alternately dunking his head in a bath of cold water and sipping weakly from a glass of the same stuff. For the rest of the morning he resigned himself to pacing the room slowly, taking the courage to change into a clean shirt and jeans. He was just looked around for a place to put his discarded clothes when a goblin came scurrying in. Being used to it by then, Toby only nodded his thanks as the little servant whisked the bundle away and disappeared back out the door. A few minutes later, the same goblin came scurrying back, carrying food

"Excuse me, what's the time?" Toby asked.

The goblin pointed hesitantly to a large clock on the wall and disappeared when Toby turned to look at it. The thirteen hour clock seemed to think it was eleven o' clock in the morning. Seeing as how Toby's stomach decided food was absolute poison, he stepped as far away from the toast and jam as it was possible to go. Even the pitcher of orange juice seemed to glare at him with evil intention. Once the threat of complete inner-upheaval was stopped, Toby went back to his depressed meanderings.

And there could only be one reason why he was depressed and very, very angry- his gracious host who had managed to pour a bottle of wine down his throat before attempting to seduce him the night before.

So it would have been a matter of some suspicion to have heard the conversation that Jareth had in his room about his bond mate, and to see the half-goblin leave directly after through the Labyrinth with a smug look on his face. Hoggle, however, was completely unaware of the part he was to play, though less than happy to be interrupted in his work.

"Hoggle," Jareth called, strolling impatiently to the Labyrinth's gatekeeper.

Instantly the dwarf jumped a good few feet into the air and dropped his spray-can, whirling around with his heart pounding in his ears.

It irked his King no end that this most favoured of errand-runners feared him even after almost two thousand years in his employ. But as the Goblin King would also have frowned at any evidence of Hoggle developing a backbone, he ignored his own duplicity and agreed simply to be annoyed. "Hoggle, I have a job for you."

"Yes, Your Majesty?" Hoggle asked warily. He knew Jareth's jobs. Handing over tainted peaches to innocent girls was one of the easy ones.

"No doubt you have heard of my bond mate," Jareth answered calmly, leaning leisurely against the wall of his Labyrinth, fingers sifting negligently through a thorny scrub that climbed the stone beside him, "You will go to him this morning and you will engage his interest. Talk to him of the Labyrinth; tell him of everything a boy his age might naturally be interested in. In short, Hogwib-"

"Hoggle!"

"Yes- in short, Hogbrain, you will seek his friendship."

Watery blue eyes blinked in surprise, almost popping out of the large head they were set in as Hoggle digested that fact. "But you said I wasn't to have any friends," he reminded his King.

Jareth smiled as if bestowing a great honour. "In this case, you may forget that," he proclaimed magnanimously, "I want you to gain his confidence and you will do it. Or I will know the reason why." He made to leave, but an irritating bout of obvious throat-clearing occurred behind him and he turned with a sigh to find out what the objections would be.

"I won't do nothing to harm him, your Majesty," Hoggle warned, "I saids so before, and I's saying it again- I won't cause no one no harm!"

Jarteh laughed as if there was the most delicious irony attached to that defiance. As indeed there was, though he would not tell the dwarf so. "Hoggle, I think you will want to become this child's friend," he chuckled, "His sister would certainly appreciate your intervention."

"My what, now?"

"Your involvement," Jareth growled, his irritation showing in a heated flash, "Think you Sarah Williams will like knowing you refused to befriend her brother? Or do you really not know who sits in my Castle?"

"Sarah's here?" Hoggle almost fell over in shock.

"No, you stupid dwarf, her brother is! Toby and I share a bond, and I command you as your King and the possessor of your sorry little life to go to him now and gain his trust!"

The shower of glitter took Hoggle completely unaware, but he'd heard that note in Jareth's voice before. And it had spelled trouble for weeks after, so he hurriedly took to his heels through the Labyrinth. Normally, only Jareth himself could navigate the Labyrinth without a care, but Hoggle as the gatekeeper had been gifted with a token of the King's favour and so the Labyrinth let him pass unmolested, only teasing him with a few wrong turns or hidden pits when it was in a bad mood. But even without the crystal that he clutched tight in his hand Hoggle would have taken this path. For not only was Jareth mad enough to be spitting fire- literally, should the mood so seize him- but Toby Williams was in that Castle, the child he had helped save from becoming another property of the Goblin King. And he longed to talk to someone of the one friend he had ever had in his whole life, even if it was to the King's bond mate.

And as for Toby- to whom wandering around began to lose its charm, as did feeling angry and injured- he wondered soberly if he could call on Jareth to ask him for something to do. Of course, with the constant fluctuations he'd observed in the events of just one night, Toby wondered which persona he'd get. He was rather afraid it would be one of the less nice versions of the Goblin King than he could safely tolerate even though his head had decided to shrink back to the right size and stop pounding like a drum.

So he welcomed a tap at the door with a pleasure so acute he was ready to kiss whoever it was... unless it was Jareth, obviously. "Yeah?"

"Toby?" Hoggle put his head around the door. "I, er, I'm Hoggle. Don't think you knows me, but I, uh, used to know your sister when..."

Toby visibly deflated. "Hi, Hoggle. Come in."

Hoggle smiled hesitantly and trotted in, looking sourly around the room. "So, what're you doing inside on a pretty day like this?"

"I'm just wandering around. Don't want to get in anyone's way out there so I thought I'd stay in. Do some thinking."

"Oh. Well, I was just in the neighbourhood and I thought, you know, if you wasn't doing nothing, I could show you around." Hoggle looked like he wished he didn't have to say any of this. "You know, so you can look around and such."

"Okay. It'll be nice to actually see the Labyrinth," Toby sighed, "Come on, Hoggle. You lead, I'll follow."

The two walked out, right smack into a goblin who fell over and frowned. "You're going out? Where?"

"And what business is it of yours?" Hoggle huffed, "Toby ain't a prisoner, now, is he."

"King Jareth will want to know," the goblin reprimanded. He didn't even get to finish his speech, because Toby had swanned past with the muttered comment that Jareth could damn well go screw himself. The goblin shook his big head in shocked scandal, trotting off to faithfully relay the message.

Hoggle, though, found the sentiment to be admirable. Frightening, but admirable. "Cor! You sure told that nosy where to go."

"Yeah well," Toby growled, looking like the head thundercloud in a rainstorm, "Jareth has some nerve trying to keep me locked in my room! That wasn't the deal and I'll bet he knows it! He's just a spoilt brat with nothing else to do!"

Hoggle stayed silent. He was willing to do this for Sarah's sake, but Hoggle was getting the distinct feeling that Toby was unhinged. Nobody, but nobody, spoke to or of the Goblin King like that! It was just asking to be thrown into the Bog of Eternal Stench! Even Sarah hadn't written Jareth off as nothing but a spoilt brat.

"Have I offended you?" Toby asked with a worried frown.

"Huh? What?"

"You look like you're upset about something," Toby pointed out, "Was it something I said? Or did?"

"Nah! I was just thinking about what you said about Jareth."

Toby's jaw tightened. "The guy needs to get the crystal out of his ass and the chip off his shoulder!"

Hoggle looked around fearfully and decided it was a relief to see the castle door up ahead. "Come on. There's the door. We just pushes it open and... Here we are. Ah! Now isn't this better than some stuffy old room? All the lovely fresh air! Oh, don't touch the fairies!"

"I know. They bite. Sarah told me about them. She used to tell me a lot about this place when I was a child. And then it wasn't important any more, to her at least."

Hoggle flounced off to the right, beckoning Toby after him. "Can't say I blame her," the dwarf commented, "Nothing but bad memories for her here, what with that Jareth trying to stop her solving the Labyrinth."

Toby was more preoccupied with the scenery to really listen but caught the basic gist of the grumble. "Maybe you're right," he said absently, "Jareth can be a real jerk. Lovely garden, though."

Hoggle made some appropriate comment and left Toby in peace to look around. They were in a garden of sorts, and one filled with some rather unusual flowers. There were the usual roses and lavender and other bright, shiny, earth flowers. But then there were other kinds- flowers that glowed and glittered with speckles and spots and unearthly hues of silver. One bush even had bright orange flowers with tiger stripes.

"They looks okay, I guess," Hoggle commented, noting the smile of delight on Toby's face.

"Okay? Hoggle, these are cool," Toby sighed, "Look at them!"

"I am!" Hoggle insisted as he scratched his head.

Toby didn't hear the watchful approach until Hoggle stiffened next to him. And then he looked up to a thin smile and a knowing gaze. Jareth gave him a mock gesture of greeting and continued to lean his shoulder against a tree, legs crossed at the ankles and a vicious-looking riding crop tapping gently against his thigh. Toby cleared his throat and quickly looked uninterested in anything remotely dealing with flowers. From long experience, flowers were poofy things to like and if there was one person he needed to defend his sexuality in front of, it was this quirky Goblin King. So he stuffed his hands in his pockets and curled his lips convincingly.

Jareth let out a low laugh. "I beg of you not to insult my poor garden," he remarked.

"Are they yours?"

Hoggle miserably wished he could disappear, but he had his orders. He reasoned that it was safest to be away from His Highness when he spoke in 'just that tone'. Not to mention Toby was hitting a forced cheerfulness that spoke of trouble.

"Everything here is mine," Jareth said flippantly, "Everything contained in this world depends on my indulgence."

Toby knew what that hand was really caressing as it snaked up to and over the handle of the riding crop. After all, he'd felt it in intimate places last night. "You can't control everything," he snapped, "It's impossible."

Jareth afforded him a feral smirk. "On the contrary, my Toby. Everything that seems impossible isn't. And everything that is possible is frequently of no interest to me whatsoever."

"Er, look at this flower, Toby," Hoggle said hurriedly, tugging on a sleeve and pointing to an unusual bloom. It was velvety white and small, the whole nestled in thick dark green foliage. The smell was heavenly, reminding Toby of lemon and something young and sweet and unspoiled.

"What is it?"

Jareth grabbed Hoggle's ear and shook hard, growling low in his throat in an irrational rage- "Get out of my sight, you abhorrent little toad! And pick your way to the outer walls with care. I may yet decide not to spare you." Hoggle scampered away, one last look at Toby as he left, loping along on bandy legs.

"You cruel monster," Toby gasped, eyes wide and angry, "How dared you!"

"I dare because I can, because I hold the power to dare in the palm of my hand. I am as I am, Toby; don't mistake that matter."

"Yeah, I'm getting that! Look, all he did was try to distract us from hissing at each by showing me a new kind of flower. What's wrong with that?"

There were two things wrong with it that Jareth knew of. One was that Hoggle had dared to take Toby's attention from him. The other- "Those flowers are of a special kind and our friend the dwarf pointed them out for a reason."

Toby looked at the flowers. He longed to touch them but they didn't seem any more special than that.

"My grandmother planted this garden over eight centuries ago as a wedding gift to the woman my father finally decided to marry. This plant is the only one my mother had a hand in growing; this one is the only one with an- an essence of her spirit. Hoggle wanted me to remember whose presence I was in. The fool forgot whose temper I have in the first place!"

"Oh." Well, Toby could understand that a little. Not much, but he could sort of see where things were coming from. Okay, so that didn't condone Jareth's viciousness. "What's it called?"

Jareth ignored the question and suddenly pricked up his ears as he heard a call from the Aboveground. "Forgive me," he excused indolently, "I am summoned." He vanished, leaving nothing but a swirling shimmer of glitter in the sunlit air.

Toby stared morosely at the spot so recently vacated and seriously considered pouting in his room for around a week. He could always intersperse it with bouts of hysterics just for a change every couple of hours or so. But then Hoggle was back, patting his arm and telling him not to take on so.

"It's just his way, Toby," Hoggle comforted, "He don't mean it!"

"Why the hell does everyone let him get away with it?" Toby burst out, "He treats everyone like trash! Couldn't you, you know, revolt or something?"

Hoggle looked shocked and then burst out laughing, actually clutching his tummy as the hilarity of it all built up. "The goblins? Revolt?" he chuckled, "Now that would be funny! I'd give my jewels to see that, I would! Oh no. We can't revolt."

"Why not?"

"We likes our King," Hoggle said with a solemn nod of his big head.

Toby digested that thought. "I've lost my hearing," he reasoned at last, "You just said you like Jareth?"

"I said we likes our King," Hoggle corrected, "Not to be confused with Jareth. They's two different people usually. Jareth, now, is a rat and I've always said so. But he's a dangerous rat so I wouldn't go telling him that! The Goblin King is a right pig but he keeps the Kingdom in shape. Managing the Labyrinth ain't no joke, you know, and he keeps it hisself! Puts everything in order and has time to keep friendly with the other Kingdoms around us."

For the first time since his arrival, Toby looked avidly interested, flopping down in the grass and drinking in everything Hoggle said with softly parted lips. "There are other Kingdoms?"

"Course there are! There's a whole world around here. Bet the Kings know more about it than us but there's places we haven't even discovered yet. Why the Fairy Kingdom lies that-a-ways and the Lawless Kingdom lies right outside the Labyrinth gates. Uh, that's the Kingdom which don't have no King, so to speak. They gots their Queen killed in the Great Battle and the whole Kingdom just collapsed. King Aiden, Jareth's grandfather, sent the dragons there to get rid of 'em. Only those dragons and a few outlaws live there now."

"How wonderful! I mean, how terrible! For the Kingdom, I mean. But what's this Great Battle? Is it like a World War?"

Hoggle looked confused. "World War?"

"You know- the entire country wants to fight for the sake of their people, not just the army but even the ordinary people in the streets. And the entire world is at war and people are dropping bombs left, right and centre and there's blood and chaos everywhere!"

Hoggle looked saddened by the description. "Yup, we hads ourselves a World War all right. We dwarfs used to live in the Lawless Kingdom. It used to be the Little Kingdom, 'cause it was so small and especially for all the little folks who weren't no goblin or fairy. We dwarfs- and them pixies and elves- we used to live there. Then the war happened when the Fairies invaded. King Aiden refused to help us even though Queen Jubilee promised him anythin' he wanted so we tried to do it alone. But elvish magic ain't nothin' against fairies and we lost. Queen Jubilee was beheaded. Then King Aiden attacked as well."

"That sucks! What a bastard!"

"It was a nice Kingdom," Hoggle excused, "Never seen it myself, but my old Gran used to talk about it. Said it hads beauty like you never seen before."

Toby leaned in closer, absorbing a fascinating history of bloodshed like it was all a fairytale in itself. "So what happened then? Did King Aiden lose the battle to restore your Kingdom?"

"Restore nothing! He wanted the Kingdom for himself! Just didn't want to do the dirty work. So he waited for the fairies to kill half of us off and attacked to finish the job his way. He almost had it too, 'cepting the Fairy Queen came to join her husband and together they had enough magicks to beat him hollow. King Aiden got the Earthstone then. It's a jewel, like, and it made him stronger so he won this time. It went on and on. Fairies and goblins got poorer and poorer. There were people dying and nothing would grow and still those old fools kept fighting."

"But how did it end?"

"End? Why, they fought so long they destroyed the entire Kingdom! Nobody wanted it no more so they left it be and went home to save their own Kingdoms. King Aiden got one spark of goodness in his whole life and he said we Littlers could come and live in the Goblin City if we wanted. We didn't want to, but we hads nowhere else to go. So here I am, a dwarf in the Goblin City."

Toby took a deep breath and looked sympathetic. Poor Hoggle! No wonder he hated Jareth. "Wow," he said at last, "That would be crappy. I guess the Goblin Kings aren't very nice."

Hoggle shrugged. "Come on. I'll take you down to the Goblin City. There's people there dying to see you. You's famous, you know, you and Sarah."

"We are?" Toby knew about Sarah, but himself? What had he done?

"Yeah. No one else escaped the Labyrinth without the Goblin King's permission," Hoggle pointed out, "You're the first baby to be getting away. All that lot in the castle didn't, you know."

Toby shook his head in a daze, but got to his feet. Wait! There was just one last question- "Hoggle, why did Jareth get angry when you showed me those white flowers?"

"Aw, it weren't important!" Blue eyes pleaded. "Oh all right! But don't tell him I told you! Them were planted by Jareth's mother. Named them after him, she did. They don't grow nowhere else but here."

Oh. So that explained it.

In the castle, Jareth stared at the crystal in his hand as he watched approvingly. Hoggle wasn't the most intelligent of people, but the dwarf was doing very well so far. Perhaps Toby should get to meet Sir Didymus and Ludo too? Perhaps...

"Your plan is working, my friend," he said to the figure behind him.

Dark hair fell over broad shoulders in much the way that Jareth's own hair did. But the being said nothing, merely chuckling lightly in his mind as he answered the compliment with an extravagant bow.

Jareth laughed back and then popped the crystal, walking over to glance at the toddler asleep in the being's arms. "Take warning from me and heed yourself," he teased, "bonding with children is never easy. And the heavens know I would have given my Kingdom to have the bond broken when I first found out."

"And now?"

Jareth considered the question in all seriousness. "Now I'm not so sure," he admitted finally, "It is time I settled. I may take a wife for heirs and keep Toby as my lover; it has certainly been done before. He interests me, that child. And the taste of something sweetly innocent is surprisingly enticing. I cannot lie and say he does not have a way about him. His sister was just such a one, but far too easy to bend. Toby, I think, will not easily relinquish his hold on the light."

"And you were ever of the darkness, Jareth?" A light laugh accompanied the words as the sleeping toddler was rocked gently in strong arms. "You take your heritage too much to heart."

"Be that as it may, I believe I will attempt this in a civilized manner for now," the Goblin King decided. Turning back to the crystal floating behind him, his mouth curled at the edges, lids falling half shut. "This one won't make it in time," he chuckled, apparating to lead his newest victim astray himself.

Dark eyes glared at the sleeping toddler and quickly laid it aside, pulling an elaborately carved hand mirror from a pocket and murmuring a quick word to it. Instantly the shimmer of purplish-blue light glimmered over the polished surface before showing him a laughing youth talking animatedly with a crowd of avid goblins who questioned him on the strange customs and wares of the world Aboveground.