StakeMeSpike04 - This one is for you, thanks for review number 200 (or thereabouts)

"Jareth, I wish that you would take this child away... right now."

He stood in the throne room of his castle, holding the babe in his arms. The downy blanket covering the child was lumpy with the uneven placement of the feather stuffing inside.

Jareth.

He had taken the child. There had been no choice. Fae names were a compulsion, there was no denying them.

Now he was back in the Labyrinth, holding the babe loosely, as if it were a wild thing that would not hesitate to destroy him should he give it a chance. It would not get that opportunity though; there was nothing left of him to destroy, there was nothing left of Jareth.

Jareth was just a name to be commanded and controlled, he would give it up, shrug it off forever. He would be the Goblin King only, master of the Labyrinth, villain, child stealer and adversary. Perhaps there had been another once; someone called Jareth, but no longer. That being had known hope, it had dreamed, it had seen a future which would never be, but that was all destroyed now and so only the memory of a name remained.

Not for her though, never for her. That memory was picked clean the moment she made a wish filled with forgetting to salve her conscience of its true purpose.

Serra. Her name was ashes in his mouth.

He still felt the tug of her ring, a bond which would last until forever. Half magic, half belief, and now only he was aware of it. To her it would always be an imagined thing, she did not wear it on her own finger, she would only feel the subtle pull of it in her mind. She would have no knowledge of what that silent pull was.

He was not angry, or sad, or anything. Like emotions washed clean, he was a grey nothingness… no, not nothingness, a Goblin King.

What was a Goblin King though? What did it do? How did it feel?

He looked down at the baby in his hands which was happily sucking on its fingers.

Was this the Goblin King? Taker of children, nightmare. To what end, what purpose?

"Jareth."

The name set his teeth on edge; he shuddered at the sound of it. Why was it being spoken? It didn't exist anymore, he had abolished it.

"Jareth."

"WHAT!?" He roared, setting the child off screaming. Kael stood before him, not the strong fae he once had been, wizened, crooked. It had been this way since they had come to this accursed place, everything twisted and broken under his influence.

He glared at his oldest companion, a bright look of madness in his eyes. "Never use that name again." He warned. "Forget it. That person no longer exists, he is dead, murdered." He laughed ironically, wondering if he was the killer or if it had been the soft creature he had always longed for. "Never speak it again or you will be murdered too."

Kael looked him over with worry as the child continued to cry in his arms. "Why is there a human child here?"

"This?" asked the Goblin King, glancing down at the babe. "Why, it's a present, a reward for all of my hard work. Not a child at all, actually, give it a day, a week, it will become something else, just as you all have. A goblin perhaps, something that scuttles and hides in the shadows. The Labyrinth, I, will twist it until it is unrecognisable."

"You're clearly not well," the old man frowned. "Jareth, what has-"

The Goblin King wrapped one hand around the elderly faes throat in seconds, balancing the babe in his other. "You are bad at taking instructions, it seems. I am the Goblin King. I have given you a command, wise man, that other name is to be forgotten, try to stay true to your own in obeying me. No one is to speak that name ever again, on pain of death."

The old man gurgled and nodded as he clutched at the hand around his throat.

"Better," said the Goblin King. "We have an understanding then." He gave the child on his arm a distasteful look and proffered it to the wise man. "Take this, I tire of it. Put it somewhere out of my sight and hearing, feed it to something, I don't much care. Just take care of it."

As he handed the child over, the wise man wrapped it carefully in its feathered quilt again. "What is the child's name?" he asked.

The Goblin King paused. "It has no name, none of us do anymore." With that he marched from the throne room. He could feel the cold beginnings of his fury and held them in check. What was there to be angry about? He was king; there was nothing he couldn't have. He had everything, didn't he?

He stormed across the gardens, watching them wilt around him as he walked, and came to a stop at the archway between worlds. This was the passage, the way to pass from one realm to another, and he stared it down as if he could command it with the sheer force of his will. He stepped through the arch to the other side and then back again, running his hand across the stone which formed the curve. He stretched his magic across the space, feeling the rush of air that preceded it. He strained as he tried again to cross a barrier that only led him further into the gardens, feeling not only the seal placed over it, but the subtle pull of his ring.

Then he screamed.

He fell to his knees screaming, ripping at his hair and hearing his own voice break under the force of his despair. He could feel waves of cold rolling over him, icing up the ground around him as he clutched his head in his hands. The shrieks he made gathered, opaque in the cold air, crystallising and shattering around him. Their shards coiled into dark, pointed things which burrowed into the earth and spread like a sickness around him.

It didn't matter if his eyes were open or closed, he could see her. That dark haired girl, her eyes alive with secrets. She was laughing in the sunshine somewhere far away from the shadows of this place. She always would be.

He tried to grasp for even the memory of her, a glimpse in a crystal, a unknown feeling. It was all soured. Now there was only her mouth speaking a name which no longer existed, commanding, taking his last thread of decency. Everything that he had given up was discarded in vain; all he had sacrificed was for naught. He would never have that dream again.

As he screamed anew he felt the tears on his cheeks frost over as he fell to the ground, wondering if he would ever be able to get up again. Not knowing why he should even try, until finally the gathering darkness swept over him like a blanket, and he slept.

He did not know how long he slept for. Long enough to dull the edge of his rage and despair so that he could continue to breathe in and out, could stand, walk; and so walk he did. He wandered through the Labyrinth and they were strangers to one another. The Labyrinth was dead. Everything was blackened and scorched; the earth was barren, buildings stood empty.

He looked for company but found none, but he could sense that he was not alone in the desolation. With deliberate steps he made his way back to the castle, not knowing why he was drawn to do so. Was it because he was the king? More likely it was because there was nowhere else to go, nowhere to belong, and nothing to belong to.

The goblins still thrived, an army of them skittering about his feet as he entered his chambers. There he found his bed and slept again, ignoring the gnarled faces which had followed and watched him.

They were still there when he woke again, bright, beady eyes intent on his progress through the castle. Although the dark place seemed solemn and foreboding they skipped and sang, giggling to themselves and whispering as they went. He wasn't quite sure what to make of them. Sometimes he trod on them, sometimes he kicked them in his haste, but nothing seemed to upset them. It was only after he took his seat in the throne room for the first time that he finally heard them speak aloud to him.

"King!" yelled one.

"Kingy king!" yelled a second. Then the room was a roar of voices calling out to him and proclaiming him the ruler of the castle.

He gave them an amused smile, one he hadn't known he still had in him, and wondered what it was exactly they wanted from him.

Time passed like that. Some days were slow, some quicker. The goblins were his constant companions, always seemingly waiting for him when he woke, following him right up until he was closing his bedroom door on them at night.

There was little change to the constancy of his routine in the years that followed. Sometimes he would read, on rare occasions he would read aloud to the troop, but it would usually put them to sleep. He watched as they played games, refusing to partake. They were always very simple competitions, and someone always cheated or forgot the rules. On very rare occasions he would talk to them, telling them about some of the things that had happened to him before and since he become king of the Labyrinth. He doubted that they understood the complexity of it, but if he said 'king' then it would be chorused back at him with excitement, so he unconsciously found ways to slip it into the telling as often as possible. As time passed he began to heal a little bit, and so too did the Labyrinth.

Until one day, as he was telling his story, there was a new word for the goblins.

"Serra!" shouted a little goblin.

The Goblin King stopped, unnerved. He didn't know quite what to do. A part of him was furious, awash with dark memories of the past. Another, smaller part of him, was not. That part hesitated, this was a new word for the goblins, and somehow he couldn't quite bring himself to discourage them.

The new word persisted until he became used to hearing it and it no longer seemed to grate on him as it once had.

It was not the end of their learning. As years passed more discoveries were made.

"Pretty!"

The goblins loved this new word; everything was pretty to them after that. The Goblin King leered at their antics as they ran about the room declaring everything in it pretty. He was quite enjoying their slow growth.

"King pretty!" screeched one of them.

"Yes," he agreed with a smirk. "Well done."

They all turned to him with adoring eyes, excited by what they instantly recognised as a compliment. They might be stupid, but there was a certain keen intelligence to them sometimes.

Another daring goblin stepped up proudly. "Serra pretty!" it called.

The room went cold.

He tried to regulate his breathing. They only knew three words, it was the obvious progression of things. They were simply looking for more praise from him. He ground his teeth, trying to contain the boiling anger that simmered just beneath the surface. This was the one place he belonged, these were his subjects, he must be patient.

One of the goblins tugged his sleeve. "Serra pretty?"

His nostrils flared as he summoned a crystal, hurling it across the room to shatter into thousands of pieces against the wall. After that they were all silent again, looking up at him reproachfully. The fun of their new word had been ruined.

He soon realised, however, that they were stubborn in their stupidity. The days that followed were no better despite his warning.

"Serra pretty?" asked a little goblin who had clambered up onto the arm of his throne, hoping for praise. It continued to stare at him with inquisitive eyes.

Defeated, he fell back in the chair, covering his face with his hand. There would be no end to this; their vocabulary was too confined to let this go so easily. "See for yourself," he finally growled, giving in to them. At least three of them ducked when he summoned another crystal, but this time, instead of destroying it, he tossed it to the floor where they could gather around it.

He hadn't planned to look himself. Yet somehow listening to their combined gasps and giggles was worse than not looking. Uncovering his eyes for a moment he glanced down into the face of the lovely girl who was smiling to herself with barely contained joy.

Her story unfolded before him. There had been a second child. The king had died shortly before the birth of the little girl and left Serra was alone and bereft. She had clung to the girl child in her loneliness, and this time a bond had formed between them. Love. The Goblin King knew what he saw there, she had finally found love. The thing that she had denied him, telling him she would find it long before he ever did, and it was true, she had.

He started to laugh then, hysterically, and the goblin watched on with curious eyes.

"Oh, ding dong the king is dead" he spat. Perhaps without that she never would have found that fleeting emotion, he preferred the thought of her chained to her enthralled husband for her entire life.

"King?" called the goblins as one.

"Get out of my way you imbeciles," he roared, flinging them aside. He stormed to his room, nearly tearing the door from its hinges as he slammed it shut. He sealed it with magic just to ensure that none of them could sneak in.

She had found happiness and now all he wanted to do was rip it from her hands, but this was the one thing he could not do. She was long dead now; the crystal had contained nothing but a shadow of her memory. If only he could have taken that child from her, watched as she suffered when everything important was ripped from her. Every day he heard the hum of wishes in that vein, parents wishing away children, but she had never done so a second time, he was sure of that. It was only now that he realised he was desperate for a vengeance that would forever be denied to him. Thwarted by the brevity of human life and her command against him to do no harm.

He did not leave the bedroom chamber for days after that, eaten up by his own anger and regret. The only thing which kept the goblins out was the bespelled room. He could hear them outside for the first few days, calling to him. Their chorus of 'king' repeated over and over again until he had to block his ears with a pillow. By the third day they had picked up their newest word, the one he had left them with at their last parting.

"Dead," they wailed. "King dead!"

He had no idea of whether or not they even knew what the word meant. Days later, when it started to be accompanied by the sounds of the bawling and hysteria, he suspected they might. It was only then that he finally relented and opened the door.

"I'm not dead," he drawled tiredly. It was all very well to spell them intosilence when he was awake, but if the spell wore off while he was sleeping they soon saw to it that the slumber wouldn't last. It was only when he looked down into their wet snivelling faces that he began to laugh, exhausted and half out of his wits.

"King," they moaned as one, each of them pushing one another away for a chance to clutch onto his leg in turn. They were ridiculous, but he couldn't help but find it funny that they seemed to have become so attached to him.

"Okay, okay," he muttered. "King's here. What am I going to do with you lot?"

One of the more aggrieved goblins would not let go of his foot, no matter how hard he shook it. As he walked down the corridor to the throne room, trying hard not to step on it quite as often as he seemed to, he heard it squeak out a question.

"Serra dead?"

He paused in the corridor, standing still for a long time before he could more forward again.

"Yes, she's dead," he said quietly.

All of the goblins nodded in agreement, solemn looks on their faces.

That was the end of the story he had to tell them, there was nothing more to share after that. He realised soon after that there really wasn't much to do inside of the castle, reading was only a good pastime when he truly needed a rest from the goblins, and usually he found that although their antics were tiring, they weren't overly annoying.

He started to walk the Labyrinth again; sometimes he found things growing in amongst dilapidated structures. From time to time he would come across creatures which weren't goblins in the ruins, once he even saw an old man with a bird on his head, which filled him with an odd sense of nostalgia.

The Labyrinth was alive, he could feel it stretched out around him, still hurting and deeply scarred, but alive. On days when it was raining he would watch the world outside in his crystals, the goblins especially enjoyed this. Sometimes, when he was alone, he would look backwards, watching Serra's life play out in its entirety after he had left it. She was gone from that world now, but pieces of her remained, the ring, and a book.

It was the first time in centuries that he had stepped from the Labyrinth and into the mortal realm when he went to seek that book out. It was the title that interested him, The Labyrinth.

He was not sure if she had written it as a story for her daughter or for other children. Perhaps she was simply compelled to do so by the remnants of the connection between them, an unconscious presence which would not be denied and fragments of memory lonf forgotten. It was a story of the Labyrinth, as he had suspected, and its enigmatic Goblin King. He was cast as the villain, wish granter, child stealer and eventually the defeated adversary. A familiar story, their story, almost.

The goblins loved it when he read it to them, it was the first time they had not fallen asleep during a book. They cheered each time the king made an appearance, booed when he was eventually beaten, and then harassed him until he read it again.

He started to watch the humans more closely after that, finding interest in them. He looked for the ones with the strongest wishes, observing them and their reasoning. He always came back to the parents wishing away their children. The mortal realm was often a tragic place, sometimes these wishes were innocent and sometimes they were not. There were beaten children, mistreated, starved and worse. The pattern was often there though, a connection between wish and violent action. He could look forward to see how it would eventuate, how a wished away child might one day suffer all of those terrible things.

It was one day, while he was looking forward at one such child, that one of the goblins pointed at the crystal reflection.

"King steal," it declared.

The Goblin King blinked, thinking for a moment that he was being accused of stealing his own crystal, he knew they were rather attached to them.

"King go steal," the goblin insisted.

He frowned, looking into his own crystal. "The infant?"

"Infant!" it yelled, triumphantly.

"Infant!" was the excited response from the others.

The Goblin King scratched his head. "No, I don't think so."

Some of them started jumping up and down, one of them ran to get their favourite book, The Labyrinth, and started waving it about. "King steal!" they insisted noisily. Clearly they had decided he needed to take on the role of their favourite villain since he was so obviously modelled for the part.

With a flick of his wrist he silenced them magically; there was no stopping them when they got like that. Once the book came out all bets were off. He closed his eyes to escape the accusation in theirs. In the palm of his hand he could still feel the solid presence of the crystal, waiting.

Ignoring his silenced audience he lifted an eyelid just a fraction, peering into it once more, curious. A wish would be made and, when it was not granted, there would be pain and eventually death. He frowned; humans were certainly a brutal race. Rubbing his mouth he looked down at the forcibly well-behaved goblins.

"Do you really think the infant will be better off here?"

One of the goblins opened its mouth, but when no sound came out it started nodding. Soon they were all nodding in unison.

He stood, pacing back and forwards, and glanced into the crystal once more. "Well, you are my subjects," he muttered, looking down into the pleading eyes of hundreds of goblins. Thoughtfully he removed the silencing spell, watching little grins break out on their faces.

"Fine then," he said. "I don't see why not."

It was a sad day when one of the little critters left the book behind on just such an outing, but it was the start of another story entirely for them all.