Jareth sat atop a ridiculously large throne, he felt dwarfed by it, quite literally, as it was 15 feet high. He was not in a particularly good mood, as, according to Goblin tradition, his father had just been buried before his coronation ceremony, and part of the process had been for the Goblins to perform a ceremony atop the coffin, which involved whacking each other on the head, until at least one of them became unconscious.

The royal family where sat high on a dais, with Jareth on a kind of mini-dais on top of the main dais, quite simply to make him look impressive. The ceremony was 15 hours long and involved him meeting delegates from the various provinces of the kingdom and kicking them (with his brand new riding boots) off the dais down a 20 feet drop, this was generally anticipated as the most enjoyable part of the ceremony by the general Goblin population. At the end of it, Jareth was extremely tired and after a further 6 hours of banqueting and people in general sucking up to him as the all powerful leader of the Goblin state - he retired to bed.

He thought a while, about many things, about what his father had done, what he would do and more importantly why they did it. It was at this point that seemingly endless hours of tutors desperately shaking him in an effort to try and MAKE HIM UNDERSTAND seemed to gain some use, he remembered the story of how his descendants had first gained the throne...

Once upon a time there lived a young fae, who's hearts desire had been to have a kingdom of his own, not be ruled over by some sparkly faery tart who spent all her time lounging beds of flowers worrying whether her hair looked any good for her latest apparition to pair of doomed lovers number 457. And so he began a quest, to find a land which had no apparent leader or an incredibly weak one who he could overthrow with the minimum of hassle. And so he discovered the Goblin Kingdom, it was really a rancid stinking hovel of a place, but it was better than nothing, and it had a castle, that with several hundred years work may be passable to some kind of delegation as being the home of some monarch of very little importance on the larger scale of things. And so, he'd been recognised formally as a leader and was very happy lounging on his throne and getting a annual income for being a self-appointed royal.

So, to put it simply, Jareth was only Goblin King because his ancestor happened to be particularly power hungry, lazy and aside from living in a castle had no ambition whatsoever. Which gave him a good start in effect, he had very little to live up to in lieu of family history.

Jareth woke up. It was a bright sunny morning. The birds were singing, the sound of Goblins shooting at the birds reverberated reassuringly through the castle. His first day as Goblin King, he decided needed to be remarkable and forceful, so when he got to HIS throne room, he got quite a shock. His prime-minsister was there, carefully arranging a bevy of foreign beauties in a line, all of whom were gabbling to each other, quick and sharp like sparrows, he didn't notice Jareth's presence until Jareth shouted:

"What in HELL is going on!"

"Oh, just sorting out your bride your serenity..." he muttered absent-mindedly, gazing at the vision of the parade of pouting princesses lined up before him.

"MY WHAT!!!!!!!!!"

What followed was not pleasant but it involved several of the princesses getting their ankles sprained, which, as the (new) prime-minister would later comment, was not very good for foreign relations. Jareth spent most of his tirade rattling the prime-minister and giving him a long lecture on how, when he wanted to get married, he'd go out, find a girl, and marry her. Simple. It was demeaning for a prime-minister to even attempt such a thing, and so the prime-minister was consequently sentenced to death by bog, not a particularly pleasant sentence, I can tell you...

The years that followed Jareth really made his own, quite literally, he sacked all his court, he found them all depressing and his job even more so. I mean, kidnapping babies? It wasn't really what he had envisioned as a future career, but the stupid fools of humans kept on wishing their babes away, he would confront them with the laws etc. etc. give them 13 hours, go and sit in his throne room, get bored, then confront them AGAIN at the end of the 13 hours with the choice - you stay and get turned into a Goblin, or the child does, as you can imagine the former option was not incredibly popular, in fact nobody had ever taken it.

This meant human-kind connoted selfishness and other such negatives to Jareth. It wasn't that he set out to hold them in utter disdain, it was just that those who ventured into the Labyrinth were far too often from the shadowy depths of humanity – nasty, spineless people who would trade their own grand-mother for a flashy car.

But then, a few millennia into Jareth's reign, everything slowed down, a wished away child became increasingly sporadic, and in fact each case became increasingly interesting, as even a baby's wails are better than the puerile nonsense Goblins spout. Each time he the contenders grew more intriguing, with their tales to tell of the latest innovations in the human world, the latest fashion, the latest fancies, though they were still all the same at the heart of it all, selfish and hard, even if the mask changed the soul beneath remained grotesquely consistent.

But then Sarah came. And changed everything...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reviewers

Danika – Thank you very much for your review, I've taken your comments into account and proof read it so hopefully it should make more sense now. Hope you (and everyone else for that matter) enjoy the latest chapter!

Please leave reviews, they help me improve!