A/N: Second attempt at a Fanfic- hated my first but I am still working on it off site- this time a Jarah! Hope it grabs the imagination :3 We all know the balls are crystal, not glass, but Toby has the limelight in this chapter.

The clock's ticking was the only sound that penetrated the utter silence of the house, echoing up from it's place on the wall in the hall downstairs. Outside, the trees that lined their home rustled quietly in the wind, thrown into relief by the moonlight overhead and a solitary lamppost across the road. Not a car was to be seen. Inside, everyone was asleep. Or at least at first glance, that was how it looked.
If one drew closer to the door beside the stairs however and pressed their ear against it they would have heard the faint clicking noise and huffs of frustration coming from within. A 12 year old Toby was very much awake and playing his gameboy in his shorts with a look of constip- of intense concentration on his face, playing by the little light of the streetlamp outside that broke through the gap in the curtains he'd made. A moment passed and he swore colourfully under his breath before throwing the console at the pile of laundry in the corner and then himself onto his back dramatically, stirring up the musty and cloying smell of unwashed boy from his bed sheets. He had lost, again. Sarah could beat the levels so easily when she came over to see him but he could barely make it through the first 6 before he got stuck. It was so annoying. She made everything look easy. And never gave up.
He rolled over and shut his eyes with another huff, letting out a small belch as he did so. Without realising it, he was carried off into the realm of dreams mere minutes later and peace once more swept through the house hold.
Across the darkened landing a door sat ajar, showing a sliver of shelves holding an old music box, a blond figurine, an ornamental peach. A layer of dust had settled over everything inside the room since it had lost it's occupant a few years prior despite Karen's attempt to keep it at bay with her cleaning. Sarah hadn't taken all of her things with her when she'd moved out and had even told Karen to give the stuff on the shelves away to Charity, but the woman couldn't bring herself to do so. They spoke of the teenage girl so enraptured by fantasy and fiction that she had actually believed for some time that the story in her little red book was real. The girl who was on the brink of growing into the respectful young woman she had come to understand and love in recent years. Not to mention Toby flat out refused to let anything in her room be moved past cleaning lest 'someone' get upset. It had been such a relief when Sarah had finally let go of all the... the silliness clouding her teenage mind and had grown up and left for University.

Behind a dust cover at the back of the room, a golden framed mirror sat atop a vanity table. And while no eyes were awake to see it, it began to glow.

The room was hazy, the edges blurring and jumping away from him as he tried to focus on them in a means to see where he was. The room was lit by a soft, warm glow but he couldn't pinpoint the source of the light or which direction it was coming from no matter what he tried; spinning around quickly only served to further disorientate him. Toby's heart began to pick up it's pace as he swallowed thickly, his mind clouded in confusion. This wasn't his room. This wasn't even in his house. Nothing stayed still when his eyes tried to look at it so the room was constantly moving around him like he was on a fast-spinning carousel, and he could see no way to get off.

That was a strange thought. He could see flickers of gold and colour just like that but no sooner had he seen them than they danced away again to toy in his peripheral vision. A clock was ticking somewhere around him, sounding so loud and erratic that he pressed his hands over his ears to block it out. Muffled laughter and squealing giggles entered his head without using his ears seemingly in spite of this making his shit his eyes. Through his fingers the ticking was getting louder, now laced with the chiming of a far off bell. Behind his eyelids he saw... bubbles? Flitting about as if on a breeze. They held pictures in them of impossible things and places, laughter ringing from some and sobbing from others as they passed by.
Toby's eyes flew open and he staggered forward in an effort to get away... but the ground seemed to have disappeared when he'd reopened his eyes... he was falling...

He hit sand coloured flagstones and fell forward onto his hands and knees. Sweat was running off him in rivulets and into his eyes even as it ran down his back. Nausea churned his stomach and he clamped a hand over it to stop himself being sick as he slowly raised his eyes to take in his new surroundings.
A cold breeze blew in from his left and ran its chilly fingers through his hair and over his face as he tried to stand up, but his knees gave out. It was then that he realised he was shaking... and that he was being watched.

There is no explanation that can exactly capture the feeling of someone's eyes intently focused on you. The naked feeling that pins you to the spot so that all thoughts of fleeing... flee. And you know you can't hide from it. The figure finally pushed off from the tree and sauntered slowly out of its shadow in which he had been hiding. A setting sun's rays threw colour to him and Toby took in the white blond hair that sat so regally yet jauntily around the stranger's face, framing his sharp features and pulling attention to the dark, mismatched eyes that watched him. The man was not smiling. His mouth was set into a tight line which hid his lips. His walk was careful yet full of danger, his hands clasped behind his back almost nonchalantly though knuckles were pressed taught against the leather of his gloves. His black boots kicked up dust from the dirt track they were on causing Toby to finally break eye contact shield his eyes from the oncoming grit.

Then, through the rapidly clearing fog of his mind, the boy finally noticed that the cacophony of noise had ceased. And as he opened his eyes again, he realised the figure had stopped as well. Slowly dragging his eyes forward again with every nerve screaming at him, he immediately focused on the feet now standing barely a foot away from his face. There was a stick of sorts poking out of the top of one of his boots. 'They have a heel on them... why is he wearing ladies boots?' He thought idly even as his eyes wandered north... then they froze on the amulet around the man's neck. 'I've seen that before. Where have I seen that? How do I know that thing?!'

The stranger moved his foot slightly and cleared his throat, the sound snapping him sharply from his thoughts. When Toby's eyes rose again they met with a guarded expression mingled with a flicker of disbelief marring the man's features... and... pain? Even as he blinked and looked back it was gone, replaced with an unyielding, cold mask. He swallowed thickly. The blond sighed force-calmly through his nose, his eyes clenching shut for a moment as a gloved hand detached from the other and came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. The previous confusion come back to Toby ten fold and he pushed himself back... and succeeded in falling onto his ass rather than finding his feet. His hair flopped into his face and he pushed it back quickly in case the tall figure tried anything. He didn't... though he did slowly sink onto his haunches to get a better look at him.

Toby frowned and looked around him quickly before looking back again with a defiant, childish look that clearly spoke of his contempt at being stared at. Who did this guy think he was looking down at him like this? This time the stranger's mouth twitched and curled up on one side briefly, his eyes lowering but for a moment. His burning gaze landed on his wrist. Toby looked down too with a hint of fear but saw only the bracelet that Sarah had made him a year or two back when she'd stayed for a weekend to look after him while their folks were out of town. Gold and blue braided thread with a clear, crackle effect bead securing it together. He'd made her a blue and silver one the same day with a fawn coloured feather stuck in it but somehow they'd lost it. Or at least Sarah had said it had been lost. He'd never seen it since anyway.

The gloved hand reached out but paused an inch above it... then snatched back as if it'd been burned. The figure's expression looked pained... vulnerable even before he turned away from him and brought the hand to press against his mouth. Then through clenched fingers the figure spoke.

"Am I never to be free from these damned nightmares?" The man hissed, glaring at nothing in particular.

He glanced back at Toby, then the bracelet, then away again. The sun's fading beams lit the man up from behind in scarlet, violets and gold and he turned his gaze toward it as his nostrils flared, leaving Toby with a rising feeling of apprehension bubbling in his gut. Only one of the man's pupils had shrank in the dying light. A barely audible snarl curled the rather strange person's top lip and he shot his gaze back to Toby's as his other hand also appeared clenched in a tight fist.

"Forever cursed to live these harrowing dreams for one mistake?"

His hand flashed to his boot and came back with a riding crop which he directed threateningly towards the point between Toby's eyes, making them cross as they tried to focus on the crop's tip.

"Well, you cretin?! I demand to know who is sending you to breech through the deepest recesses of my mind! This crime is akin to treason by the laws of this land!"

His eyes were wide, livid with anger. The separate dilations of the man's eyes was starting to get to the boy even before his gaze dropped slightly to the snarl of the man's mouth, his teeth glinting like the flash of a knife. Toby's mouth ran dry. Unconsciously, he wiped his now sweating palms on his jeans.

"Wh-who are you? And which land are you on about?" He asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

The petulance and stubbornness that rose to the occasion around his family so swiftly had abandoned him, leaving him to tremble like a freshly shot arrow that had met it's mark in a tree. The stranger growled and rose off his haunches and back onto his feet fluidly as a hand shot forward and grabbed Toby by the front of his shirt. The back of his jeans left the ground by a couple of inches but for all the difference it made he could have been suspended above a chasm.

"The King of the Goblins, fool. And land? The one you are currently standing in, creature! From the edges of the Labyrinth to beyond the Goblin city. Look to the Horizons and you will see the sprawling scenes of the land I hold. Now,"

He yanked him up from the ground with sudden force and speed that sent him staggering when he was released. A 'glass' ball had appeared in the blond's hand and was steadily filling with an ominous coloured smoke that flickered and sparked against its confining edge. Toby stared at it with terrified eyes as he held onto his shirt with one hand and backed away, stumbling,

"I believe I demanded an answer from you. What are you and what are you doing here? Who sent you?!"

Toby's heart was pounding in his ears. He just wanted to go home, to be free of this place and this clearly deranged psycho. His throat constricted further as he continued watching the ball transfixed.

"I... I... I'm Toby Williams. I'm just having a bad dream because I ate all those chips before bed and you're not real and I'm going to wake up in my room in a m-minute.."

He looked around him for a way to wake himself up, turning his back on him and subsequently missed the look that crossed the 'king's' face.

"This is just a really bad nightmare, which for some horrible reason has a man with too-tight trousers on."

He was promptly grabbed by the shoulder- gentler this time- and spun around to face the man again... who was so close he could see his pale reflection in his iris'. The ice blue gaze that held his this time was calculating and intent to the point Toby felt that his stomach was about to drop out of him and through the ground. This was it. He was about to die.

"...How can it be when I haven't lowered the wards in years..."

The man cleared his throat again. His breath smelled vaguely of apples and wine. The disgusting smell of vinegar gave it away.

"...Tell me then, Toby, do you know someone by the name of S-... of Sa..."

He paused, briefly closing his eyes as he collected his bearings.

"...by the name of Sa-rah?"

Toby scoffed and rolled his eyes. Typical. Even in his nightmares there were guys after his sister, why couldn't they go bother her instead? His fear was momentarily forgotten. Clearing his throat, he delivered his readied spiel before the stranger could attempt to interrupt.

"Ugh, yes. Yes, She's my sister. No, she's not looking to date. Because she's really focused on school. She's studying Drama. No she doesn't need a Study Partner. Etc. Etc. She's really weird I know."

He recited his usual monologue - that she'd made him memorise whenever some guy came randomly asking about her - in a clearly bored voice. When he looked back at the blond it was to see him looking very amused, his head tilted slightly to the side.

"Like really weird, apparently when she was younger she used to practise plays with the dog."
He frowned.
"What? Now why are you staring at me?!"

The man let out a half hearted laugh and straightened up.

"This is... impossible. It has been many years, Toby." His gravelly baritone wasn't familiar. It wasn't. "You were but a sorely spoiled infant last time we met in a situation born of chance and fate the same. My name is Jareth."

Instead of receiving the awe-filled reaction he had clearly been expecting, he got something else.
Toby snorted.

"I've never met you in my life, sir. You're wrong."

The track they were on was growing darker by the minute and he huddled into himself to stave of the worst of the cold, his gaze dropping to the ground where he kicked at a stone. It hit the boot of the weirdo lying to him. Jareth's brows rose.

"Oh, I daresay I'm not. I looked after you for 17 hours and 14 minutes while your sister ran my Labyrinth. Hard to forget such a promising child."

Jareth momentarily looked down to his boot and toed the stone away from him with a look of contempt. His mind was buzzing. This was entirely impossible.

A shred of memory swept into the adolescent's mind of a horrible striped baby-grow covering stubby legs and trying to eat something pointy and weird. He looked back at the amulet questioningly. Then he blushed as he saw a few scratches at it's base.

"N-no, you're wrong. My mom says Sarah made it all up as a bedtime story to get me to sleep. Sarah says so too. You're lying."

Jareth's face became pinched as if he'd been slapped and his mouth thinned into a line again as his back straightened. His tone was exasperated.

"I am not a liar Toby. As for the woman you call a mother-"

"Don't you speak about my Mom! Sarah said it was all a lie too, you hear! A laughable, made up children's story meant only to stop my tantrums!"

Jareth looked like he'd been slapped. But underneath that he looked... angry. His fingers unfurled and curled a couple of times as he came to pace around the spot the boy stood on, his arms crossed across his chest with the crop poking out by his elbow from his other hand. Nostrils flared, blond wisps caressed his jawline as the breeze picked up and he set his fiery gaze on the back of Toby's skull.

"She never showed you the book I left her? The toys I pushed her way? The music box I convinced her father to buy her? The damned figurine he got her from a 'garage sale' for her 13th birthday?" He asked quietly.

The words were heavy, each one dropping like a stone weight as his chest began to heave. Toby laughed.

"You mean the toys she gave me that she said she didn't like?"
He rolled his eyes again.
"The music box has sat on her shelf since... as long as I can remember. The weird doll thing that looks like you as well. And a... a fake peach which sits on top of her stupid red book. She left it all when she moved out and told Mom to get rid of it."

Jareth paused... then resumed his preoccupied walk. His fingers came up to rest on his chin thoughtfully as he glared at the stars now appearing in the dusky sky.

"And did she?"

A noise that seems partial to prepubescent boys emitted from Toby and he shook his head with an expression that told him he thought he was stupid. The bushes nearby rustled.

"No? I wouldn't let her. I like them, they remind me of my sister when she wasn't so... adulty. When she was fun."

He looked down at the ground and kicked at a sorry looking weed. "Do you remember the story she used to tell you?" He was then asked. He thought about it - letting out a burp as he did so, unapologetically- then shook his head.

"Not really. She stopped reading it to me before I turned 6. Why?"

Jareth walked away from him a little, the wind picking up drastically as he did so.

"I suggest you read that 'stupid red book' when you get the chance. You might find something in it that'll change your outlook on things."

Toby glowered back at him, repressing the urge to stick out his tongue or swear at him as he knew his next door neighbour Chris would have done.

"What if I-"

"That concludes our meeting. Should we ever meet again, I hope you are less ignorant. Run along back to your bed, Toby. Even Princes need their beauty sleep."

The colour was running out of the scene around him, the details of Jareth fading faster than the sun behind him.

"And even Princes need to do their homework. Read the book Toby. Till next time..."

A ball had appeared in his hand once more, though it reflected more light than any glass that the boy had ever seen before. Flashing like a smile, it was thrown up in the air where it hung for a moment... before hurtling towards the ground like a bullet. When it smashed, Toby woke up in his own bed to see his mother bustling about his room and moaning about the smell. Subtly, he lifted the covers to check what he was wearing and sighed in relief.

It had been a dream. He was at home where he was supposed to be. No mad blond men were trying to interrogate him here. He smiled. Karen paused and looked at him suspiciously before leaving with a comment about breakfast getting cold while he slept his life away in his bed. Instead of getting up he stretched and got comfortable again. Breakfast would still be there by the time he went downstairs. Then he rolled over towards his bedside unit with plans of going back to sleep...and froze. Resting upon the clutter covering it's surface lay a small 'glass' ball containing a single piece of red and white striped material.

Jareth tuned back into reality with a small start. His head was resting against the stone arch of a window he'd been previously surveying his Labyrinth at, his hair caught behind his pointed ear. The labyrinth was falling into ruin with each passing year without a runner. Sarah had spelled one of his last... no child seemed to believe in the magic of it anymore. Of him, anymore. She had taken so much from him when she so cruelly spurned him and his offer. His Kingdom had suffered for it, as had he. As had his place in the higher council of the Fae and subsequently his reputation. What was the use of being held on a pedestal for being merciless and firm with his subjects, almost miraculous with his magical skill... when he was now disregarded in every other aspect. Possible betrothals had fallen through when they began to question why the Mortal had turned him down so carelessly, why he hadn't managed to woo a young girl who should have been swept off his own feet.

For years he'd questioned it too. The Labyrinth had been left to fall into disrepair and the Goblins were hard tasked to keep it from crumbling altogether. His once weekly Open Council where the heads of the Goblin clans would come to plea before him for a solution to their woes had turned into monthly.
He still sorted everything though. Usually before the Elders sent their grunts running up to the foreboding castle to throw themselves upon his mercy.

And now he was questioning whether his senses were taking leave of him. To imagine he had seen one of the Williams' spawn in his lands mere hours before, practically grovelling in fear before bouncing back with adolescent confidence upon his questioning. It was impossible. More than that, it was highly improbable. He had heard Sarah's last words to the portal he had given her- what she thought of as her mirror- so clearly he'd been half expecting her to be standing before him when the words rang out.

No, she had forgotten. Grown up and given up everything he'd given her. But perhaps not everything he'd imparted to her... she was still the young woman who had left his realm to atone for her sins and patch things up with her family. Or at least had been last time he'd caught glimpse of her... before she'd enshrouded her mirror with a look of uncomfortable distrust.

Toby, his once potential heir, had no idea who he was. The child he was so willing to take in, give title's and power to, was oblivious to the existence of this land and his once possible heritage. And it was all Her doing. He was truly mad if he thought he'd managed to bridge that gap and ensnare the young man's imagination while he slept to speak to him.

The High Council would have the case of privacy breach to contend with when they next congregated. He was not going to stand for someone so boldly breaking through the wards of his mind into his darkest shames and exploiting them. His piercing gaze lifted to look at the gates that had opened to an ignorant girl mere years before, then he rose to his feet with an air of purpose. Turning on his heel, his poets shirt billowing slightly in the morning breeze, Jareth swept back down the grand sweeping corridor towards his study.

A cluster of shaking goblins poked their heads out of the nook they'd dived in to avoid their liege's passing. The smallest one with a purple tinge to it's bloated face looked up at their leader 'Hirp' with a trembling lip.

"Kingie looks mad.." He whispered.

Red eyes swivelled down to the vulnerable orange ones below them and a small nod bobbed at him. "Yesss... but he is mistaken. I saw the boy, too!" Hirp rasped back softly, following Jareth's departure with great interest.

A grunt came from his left as he accidentally elbowed the goblin who's back he was on and then an obnoxiously bellowing sneeze.

"Wot did you say?" He asked loudly, his congested sounding voice ringing out along the otherwise quiet hall.
The entire group rounded on him with glowering eyes.
"Shhht!"

A/N: It's been a while since I've written like this. R&R please 3