So I've recently re-read the novelization of Labyrinth, and decided this needed to be done. If you've not read it, the book delves a lot deeper into Jareth's mind, though the source of his obsession with Sarah is still unclear. *Background: Sarah's mother was a stage actress (you can see hints of that in her room in the movie) who got into a relationship with one of her co-stars, Jeremy, whom Sarah idolizes. Sarah's goal in life is to be like her mother; successful, beautiful, and in love. She clings alternately between the times when her parents were happy together, and the small snippets of her mother's new life that she gets to see on their rare but happy visits together. It isn't until the end of the story that she realizes her mother abandoned her for a pretty new life, and only then does she begin to cope with her obsession with theatricality and her hatred for her step-mother and father.

Jareth is dealing with his boredom of his subjects and his rule, and despairs of his increasing age-apparently the more he's called upon to take children, the better his youth maintains. He seems to hope to kill two birds with one stone in the case of Sarah and Toby: have some fresh blood in the Goblin gene pool, and have a companion to keep him from being so lonely.

But how the hell did he come to even know of Sarah?

Starting the Story

He'd taken a baby girl from her exhausted mother's breast only an hour past. The woman hadn't even struggled; just looked at his goblins as though she couldn't really see them, as though she were simply too tired and too grateful for the reprieve in the baby's wails to even try. Human women are a blessing, he thought to himself, grinning from his seat in his palace as the crystal twisted once in the air-twice, thrice- and was gone, taking the image of the now-sleeping woman with it. Already he could feel the effects of her "sacrifice" taking form on him: the lines across his forehead smoothening, the tightness of his mouth lessening, the color in what hair he could see set at his shoulders lightening. Breathing a sigh of relief, he leaned back in his throne and waited for the Goblins to return with the squalling girl so that he could do the magic needed and get it done with properly.

Of course, the baby herself wasn't naturally a wailer. That had been an issue at first. How was he supposed to get a parent to beg him to take their spawn if they weren't complaining or sobbing uncontrollably? Quiet children always afforded themselves the "loving parents", but as soon as those babies became whiny, the loving parents became tenser than a piano string. And twice as easy to pluck to my tune. The ones that didn't cry naturally had to be watched longer. They had to be kept awake by a group of his smarter, more discreet goblins, to induce crankiness. They had to be prodded with sharp, unseen fingers to create pain. In the case of this particular girl, they even had to be drugged with magic to cry. Those sort took the most out of him, but in the end they made the best Goblins. And if the effects of the magic never quite wore off, and left him with over-dramatic, sullen creatures, then so be it.

"A most foul and traumatizing abduction, your horribleness." said one of the few stay-behind court goblins, mistaking his pensive silence for a wish for praise. Jareth inclined his head in the ghastly little thing's direction as though the praise meant nothing, but in truth didn't hear him at all; nor, indeed, did he notice the other goblins trooping in with the new baby. He was too busy hearing the woman, muttering in her sleep. "Give me the child..." He sat a little straighter. No. Those words had been lost to time and fiction. She couldn't know them. It was a coincidence. Any second now her sleep-talk would cease, and all would be well again. His fingers curled around the knobs on his throne's armrest and he sat ram-rod straight, focusing with his entire being on this woman, willing her not to say it.

"Give me the child. Through-through dangers untold..." she murmured rolling over in her sleep, arm flung over her lovely, pale face. Jareth's jaw clenched and he leaned forward, cursing the conditions of his rule. He couldn't just kill the woman to stop her spell: taking the child with her consent had been a binding deal. She got his protection, and he got her baby. Even if she took the kid back with the Words of Power, she was still untouchable to the Goblin King. And, by the Law of the Thing, so was her child.

"and hardships unnumbered..." Someone else was manipulating the woman into saying this. Jareth would bet his favorite boots it was the Ones, the Ones who put him in charge. Well. Made him be in charge.

The baby girl was staring quizzically at him from across the room, tufts of black hair sitting atop her pale little head and olive green eyes roving over the face of the man who sat gripping his throne for dear life as her mother undid his power. It was a rare occasion that anybody knew the words, told as they were through myth and folklore, but they weren't called Words of Power for nothing. They would be his end, as they had been his beginning.

"-to take back the child you have stolen..." Of course this was all unnecessary She only had to say 'Give me the child. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great' for the last bit to work and the Revocation to be sent. Unsure of what to do with her, the goblin holding the baby brought her over to the King, who glared down at her once, but then stopped. The little girl was beautiful, in her own way, much as her damnable mother was. It would be a pity when she was ripped back to her world. "We would've had so much fun, you and I." Jareth informed her sadly, twisting one of her soft little black curls around his finger gently and chucking her under the chin. She gurgled in delight. The Goblins of course had no idea what was going on. They couldn't hear the woman, because she wasn't conscious and therefore not technically on the same plane of reality as them, couldn't see her in their mind's eye. But Jareth's and the Words' power extended into all the planes. And operated on every level.

"For my will is as...as..." the woman stuttered in her sleep and her brow furrowed. As though she could hear her mother in Jareth's head, the baby girl perked up at once, reaching up for the Goblin King's head with a dazzling smile on her face. Jareth stared at her for one second-only one- before shooting up from his throne and roaring, "The mother is Revoking her! Get off to her world, stop the human!" Immediately all of the Goblins were racing around in a whirl of panic, scrambling to stop the last few words. "Anyone who harms the mother will be subject to my wrath!" he shouted after them as they fled, albeit begrudgingly. He was required to punish those who hurt the lady now, which would put a strain on the others' loyalty. Better just to command her safety ahead of time.

Only the goblin who held the baby stayed, cowering behind the girl as though she would protect him. Snorting, Jareth reached out and plucked the child away from the creature, tucking her gingerly into the crook of his elbow as the Goblin shot off after his brethren and Jareth sat back on his throne. "She can't have you back." the King muttered to the girl, who squinted at him through a smile. Maybe he would keep this one, he thought to himself. It was clear that she would be gorgeous as a woman- made more so by being a Queen.

The idea struck him like lightning. He could give her to some other family to raise- a human family to rear her as he wished, but to leave her in his command- and then come for her as a dashing King to whisk her off to a grand palace. He'd banish the goblins from the court, so that she wouldn't scare, and fill it instead with enslaved fairies, or pleasanter looking things.

She would be surrounded by beauty and light and love, and give him the strength and resilience to go on ruling these loathsome creatures. In her eyes he would be a benevolent King, selfless to rule over such gross masses, and handsome for his station and his attention to her.

And him. He would be with her as well, this baby who would be his Queen. She could very easily be his salvation; the salve for the lonely burn in his soul, the company he so desperately craved. She would be the final fulfillment to the contract between him and the Ones, and seal his immortality- and her own- forever.

They could be happy.

Only the words of her damnable mother could have ripped him out of his fantasy world, and he held the girl tightly to him as the woman said the final words; "-strong as yours...and my...my kingdom as great." Jareth's face twisted in pain as his imaginary world with him and the baby shattered into a million pieces. The girl began to disappear from his warm arms, much to both of their displeasure. "No! Come back! Stop her!" he screamed to the empty room: "You have no power over me."

So that was that. His Goblins halted in their frenzied and entirely inefficient trek to the woman, and returned slowly to the throne room, where their King sat.

Jareth was drained. He felt older than he had been before, looking in his mind's eye at the baby girl and her mother, who was just beginning to stir sleepily. The woman- Linda, her name was, or Lisa- woke entirely and began to cry with her child. "Oh I'm sorry my love. I had the worst dream- I should never have said such terrible things, oh forgive me my baby, my girl." Jareth rolled his eyes as the woman sobbed and clutched her displeased child to her breast. As though that could ease the abandonment both the girl and the King were feeling.

"We are... so sorry your most merciful terribleness-" one of the Goblins attempted to say, but he was silenced by a single, fatal glare from the King. "Everyone. OUT." Jareth yelled, and at once the room was empty again, leaving him to sit in his miserable thinking stew.

He couldn't touch the girl now. Unless she consented herself, of her own free will, she would never be under his control. But she could love me, he thought, struck again with a new vision of the future. If he could just get the girl to love him... then that would be the same, wouldn't it? If she chose to stay... yes. It could work. If she came to him of her own free will, and chose him over her life with that mewling actress of a mother, then he could have her forever. And he would finally be free.

In the crystal bubbles floating about the room, the woman kept sobbing apologies to the gradually quieting baby.

"Oh forgive me, my baby. My darling, my Sarah."

Whatcha think? Let me know, lovelies.

-ACP-