Author's Note: The characters of Jareth, Sarah, Toby, Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, etc. belong to the wonderful Jim Henson company, and I claim no rights to them. The goblins are another story, but any resemblance to any real goblins, living or (while improbable) dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional... except for Shove, because he wouldn't leave me alone until I put him in the story.
Jareth pushed away from her, drawing himself up to his full height, and turning the force of his gaze on their audience. " And just what do you think you're doing?" he asked them, and the goblins chuckled. He reached down and grabbed the nearest one by the collar of its ragged shirt and hauled it up to eye level. His voice was low and dangerous, "You think this is funny?" It nodded enthusiastically, and the rest of the goblins burst into wild cackles of laughter. With a snarl, he tossed the goblin to the floor and turned back to the others, his mouth set in an angry line.
"Hey!" Sarah said, and picked up the little goblin that he'd tossed aside. They might be ugly, and not always very bright, and they might be indestructible (almost), but that was no excuse. If there was one thing that she refused to tolerate from both students and goblins, it was physical violence. She dusted him off as well as she could, considering that he seemed to be naturally dusty, and sat him down. "Are you alright?" She asked, and the goblin, a look of awe on his face, gazed up at her and nodded.
The others had all stopped laughing and were staring at her as well. Even Jareth was contemplating her somewhat oddly. "You didn't have to do that," he said. "They don't mind."
"How do you know?" she said.
"Well?" he looked at the goblins, expectantly, but they were all watching Sarah with something akin to reverence. She stood up straight, and pulled her robe tight around her. He might be their King, but they were respectful to her, they called her Lady, and she would not allow him to ill treat them in her house, no matter if his kisses made her knees weak. She looked around at all of them, their small wizened faces, and big eyes and imagined centuries spent living in a castle teeming with them. She imagined their small, dirty, crooked city, and their fondness for nasty pranks. She thought of Hoggle's words, about how goblins came to be made, and realized that these were just children. Like the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, they'd never grown up, they'd just become more of what they were.
Jareth frowned at her again, his eyes narrow, then turned back to them. "Go home," he told them. "We will talk about this later." The goblins didn't move. They still were watching Sarah carefully, as if she were about to do something fascinating and dangerous, like sticking her head in a lion's mouth. She could tell that he was furious, but that he was trying hard to control it.
"Please," she said to the goblins, and they gaped at her, "please go home. I know this is funny for you all, but it's embarrassing me, and making His Majesty angry. Please, it would be best if you went back now." The goblins looked ashamed of themselves.
"We did not mean to embarrass," said one of the bigger goblins. The others all nodded their agreement.
"We will go, Lady," said another, and some of them started to vanish, bowing to her before they went. Some of them nudged others, and they picked up all the popcorn that had spilled on the floor, and straightened up clumsily, and then bowed to her and vanished until only Shove was left, sitting near her foot. He crawled up her robe, and she picked him up and held him so she could look into his tiny, wrinkled face.
"Lady is kind," he said. "King not the only one who give gifts. Goblins have magic, too. Goblins love Lady, gave her gift, long ago, for kindness. She sees, she does." He crawled up her arm, to her shoulder, and reached out and touched her eyelid. Then he said, "Lady see truth."
And it was as if a bright, bright light were turned on in her mind's eye. As if it were unfolding before her, like a movie, she saw a land run wild with magic. Chaos ruled it, and it was death to any and all mortals who ventured near it. Then the goblins came, and because they were creatures of magic as wild and untamed as the land, they turned it into their playground, making danger into fun, and death into thrills. They carved out a city, at the summit of this land, but they were still wild, and nothing could contain them.
Then she was somewhere else, somewhere where the magic ran old and deep and slow, and beautiful people, with fair faces and flowing hair and exotically beautiful clothing were all assembled before two thrones, one white and one black. Both were occupied, but she could not make out any features of the two who sat there, they were glowing so brightly with magic. The crowd parted, and a male and female stood forth. The male was tall and pale, with wild dark hair and pale eyes, the pupils huge and penetrating, he wore dark clothing, much like Jareth's. Beside him stood a pale woman, with long flowing blonde hair, and the bluest eyes she'd ever seen, garbed in light blue. Both of them were so beautiful it almost hurt to look at them, and although they stood so that they were not touching, there was a bond between them that was almost palpable. They reached the foot of the dais, on with the thrones stood, and then parted to stand before their respective rulers, revealing someone who had been following just behind them. He was a boy, almost a man, and his eyes did not match. His hair was blonde as his mother's, but wild like his father's, and his mouth was wary. He was beautiful, and yet strangely apart from those around him, as though he belonged to neither one nor the other, but was a little bit of everything. He bowed before the thrones, and then stood still while the creatures who sat upon the Light and Dark thrones said something. She could not hear their words, but she knew the import of them never the less. The boy had shown an aptitude for handling the goblins. He was of noble blood on both sides, but he could never inherit anything within either kingdom, for neither side trusted him. He was exceptionally clever, and had shown a certain temperament and a natural ability with wild magic that led both Courts to agree for once on something: that he should be sent to the Goblin Kingdom, and there he would be made King. He would bring the goblins to heel, and reclaim the magic of their land. And he would personally set rules for the stealing of mortal children by goblins. It might have seemed like a reward, if it weren't for the look on the boys face. He knew, even then, that he would go alone.
The light changed, and she saw the Goblin Kingdom once again, only now there was a castle, beyond the Goblin City, and at the top of one of its' many towers, the boy, now a man, stood. His eyes took in the chaos of the land, and where his gaze fell, order came. It was a shifting, ephemeral order, prone to moving around if he did not bully it into place, but it obeyed him as it would have obeyed no other. The land became an ever changing maze, and he reached far and wide, into the dreams of mortals to fill it with dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, and the Labyrinth came to heel. The goblins were another matter, and she saw him sitting on his throne, and the goblins came to him, and he judged and ruled, and as the years passed they came to a grudging respect for him, and he in turn viewed them as less of an obligation and more as an annoyance.
There were children, who the goblins stole, and she saw him confront mothers and sisters and brothers and fathers, and they all turned away, and forgot their children, or they attempted the maze, but were turned aside when their own lives were threatened. He collected them, and took them to fae parents who cried with joy over their mortal children, and sometimes, when the baby was damaged, and even the fae wouldn't want it, he gave it to the goblins who raised it as their own, and as time passed, the mortal child became more and more like the goblins until it was one, too. And the King of the Goblins stood alone, at the window of his tower, and grew more and more cold and lonely.
And then she saw him listening to his crystals, and watching them more often, as if he had found something in them that fascinated him beyond compare, and one day, as if he could bear it no longer, he shrugged his shoulders and became a white owl, and flew away to the lands of the mortals, to watch a lovely young girl, in a princess costume, play out her favorite fairy tale in a park for a dog. What was more, it was his tale, his story, and no one had truly believed in him for so long that he'd almost forgotten what it was like, to be near a mortal. She was young, so very young, and she did not understand that the story she read was only half of the truth, but she knew him, and loved him in the way that young girls often love villains. And he loved her in return, for her belief, for her beauty, for her wistful spirit. Day after day, he would come to hear her practice in the park, and night after night, he would watch her dreams in his crystals.
And he decided to give her a gift, a small gift, that he felt she might appreciate. He gave her the words to call on the goblins, if she ever needed them for help. The goblins sensed this gift, and sensed this mortal girl, and knew that there was something special about her, for her to have captivated their king so, and when one night, sick of listening to her little brother scream, she wished she knew what to say, the goblins told her. It had been a long time for them, too, for the world was filling up with iron, and there wasn't much belief left to sustain them. But her words woke them up, and they did what goblins do best, and because he had long ago set the rules under which the goblins could steal a baby, he had to answer. Because he was bound by the rules, he had to become what she most wanted, and most feared.
She saw that he had not meant to come to her so soon, that he knew how young she was, but that he was still fascinated by her. And as she stood up to him, as no other mortal had done, as she fought her way through the Labyrinth, winning over it's denizens and forging alliances with the unlikeliest of creatures, he found himself captivated by her. She watched him watch her, and felt his immortal heart begin to beat again, a little faster, and then the panic, when he realized that she might just do what no one had ever done. And when she reached the heart of the Labyrinth, which was his heart, and she spoke the words that confirmed that he had no hold upon her, he was heartbroken and dismayed to find that he had finally found someone who could match him, step for step, and who yet rejected him, even so.
The King fell into despair, after she had gone, and the goblins began to run free again. They had given her the gift of being able to see them, even in the lands of above ground, and both the goblins and their King watched her constantly as she grew older, until there was not a soul in the Underground who did not know her name, not a goblin that had not peeked in on her just once, hoping that she would speak to it, or smile at it. And the King wished away the time, waiting, and hoping, that someday she would call on him again, and he could redeem himself in her eyes.
When she blinked, her vision cleared, and Shove was gone, and only Jareth remained, watching her closely and frowning.
Author's Note: More to come, but I'll be away for a bit, for the holidays. Will add more when I have time, but I wanted to get this out. This was an odd chapter to write, because it's her seeing things from his point of view, which was difficult to convey. Hopefully I haven't botched it too badly. Happy Holidays, everyone, and don't forget, there's still a ball to go. :) Thanks to all my reviewers for their encouragement.