Chapter 1: Watching Sarah.

I used to wing aboveground fairly often. Goblins don't need a lot of looking after--just an occasional check in to make sure they haven't destroyed anything important. Mostly it's the Labyrinth that need maintenance, and that I can do without constantly having to be on patrol. In fact, sometimes it's better if I don't watch it all the time. It changes constantly and if I let it go for a bit, it will create some very worthy challenges, puzzles and traps all on it's own.

Anyway, I was visiting--in owl form, of course--various places aboveground. They're fascinatingly different from the underground. Nothing sparkles for instance, and the dangers are all either so much simpler, or so much more horrific and clever that I can't even contemplate using them.

I've explored a lot of the aboveground over time, but it is the natural places I keep going back too. Especially the places that humans like to visit. And so it was that I was perched dozing in a tree when I heard my name shouted out. I snapped awake and almost lost my footing. Then I focused in on the source.

A generally pretty, slightly intense little girl was running beneath my tree. She seemed to be enacting some sort of drama. I would have watched even had I not heard my name a few seconds past. That just lent her an extra curiosity. So I watched as she cavorted around the trees and the open spaces in the park.

It became apparent that she was performing some sort of tale pertaining to the Labyrinth. This wasn't entirely unfeasible. The Labyrinth has been around for many years--so far back that humans couldn't possibly remember it fully. But they had visited it many times over the years and some had brought back their tales and told them to others. This one sounded to be standard fairy tale stock. In fact, I would guess it was a mix of many different Labyrinth tales that had joined together over the years, for only pieces of it rang true to me.

She, of course, was the impassioned heroine who was downtrodden, had an evil stepmother and an even more evil stepbrother. The book she read out of described me rather well, I was amused to find. I was even more amused when she announced that I had fallen in love with her.

It was the ending, however, that shook me to the core--and assured that I would continue to watch her. The words that she practiced over and over again, her small face solemn with concentration, were more than just pretty dialogue. In fact, it wasn't such good dialogue, and from my standpoint was very vaudeville flamboyant. But what stood behind the words was truth--and power. I knew then that there was more to this than I'd thought. Either some power was hidden in her--which seemed unlikely at the time--or power was in that book. For where could either she or the book have gotten the skill to speak words in such a way to make them true?

Humans, as a rule, don't take much notice of the power of their words. Consequently, over time their words have gotten less powerful, or rather, people have lost the ability to use their words as they should be used. Sarah had, for some reason, gotten some of that back.

So I came to observe her the next day, and the next. I could see that she was dreadfully unhappy, though I had a hard time seeing what about. In my travels, I had seen poor and starving children with more happiness than her--less imagination perhaps, but still more happiness. More of the story came out in her play acting. The roles the characters in the book took on--and even some additional characters were added, I'd bet--illustrated her own life. She cast herself, as I said, as the miss-treated step daughter, her father as unfeeling and caught up in himself (though the latter fault, she never seemed to recognize in herself) and her stepmother as quite as wicked as the best of them.

I had no experience with teenage girls. At first, I believed her tales and thought it a pity that she was trapped in such an untenable position. I thought that if she ever called me, I would come and help her, after all.

Following her every day, however, taught me differently. I eventually came to see that her stepmother was not the ogress that I had been imagining--she was just an ordinary woman, who, I might add, had even less experience dealing with teenagers than I had. And her father, though oblivious, seemed to genuinely care for her. He was simply baffled and didn't know how to gage her emotions.

And the baby--Toby--was in the midst of it all. A sister who had convinced herself she hated him for taking the attention that should have been hers. A mother that was caught up trying to placate the sister and the father both. And a father who stood helpless in the middle. I truly thought Toby would have been better off with me at that point.

I watched her, and I learned about her dreams. When the opportunity came to gift them to her--and perhaps make her grateful enough to fall in love with me--I took it. I played both the Prince and the Villain, and I flatter myself that I did them well. But I have always been a better villain. Prince Charming is a hollow shell of good looks and self sacrificing heroism. I cannot make myself into something that I'm not. And the illusion would only last for as long as I was willing to use it.