Chapter I. The Legend.

The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change.

Scorpions, Wind of Change

The sun was slowly descending into shimmering silver clouds and casting its last light on the vast plains, lush woods and ancient walls of the Underground. It was a tranquil, serene evening. The kind of evening when you feel overwhelming love for everything and everyone. The Mother Nature seemed full of hope and happiness and trying to convey that mood with the help of the fountain of colours, painting panorama in all hues imaginable of gold, red and purple. Even slums, ruins and dumps seemed less harsh and desolate.

A warm breeze was gently ruffling the dark cloak of a man standing in the balcony of the Castle. His tall tense figure was leaning against the stone ledge, his face guarded by a hood, his gaze unwavering, focused on the horizon, as if trying to discern something in the clouds. He looked decidedly not enchanted by the changing evening colours and soft songs of the birds.

"Have you ever thought of arriving through the front gate or at least announcing your impending presence in some way?" a wry voice was heard behind his back.

"I don't do pleasantries". The dark figure slightly turned his head. "You must be aware of that".

"Oh, I am. Unfortunately, too well."

The dark cloaked man returned his gaze back to the horizon without any attempt to further the conversation.

"And I see that with the old age your manners are not improving". Impatiently taping a riding crop to the top of his boot, the Goblin King emerged from the shadows of the balcony arch.

"So, to what do I owe the unexpected honour of seeing you here?" he tried once again with the slight annoyance in his voice, when the other man showed no signs of explaining himself. "The view is certainly striking from up here, but I can hardly imagine that you came all the way just to admire the scenery".

The man slowly turned and eyed the Goblin King, who was standing in front of him in all his finery and glitter.

"Cocky and impatient as ever", he snarled, his posture expressing distaste at what he saw.

"Forgive me for offending your sensibilities", the Goblin King retorted with a hint of anger. "Why are you here? I don't remember issuing an invitation".

"I don't need your invitation, Goblin King. Don't ever forget that", the man's ice cold voice seemed to make the air around him freeze and shadows darken. Jareth shrugged his shoulders and made a move to return to his room. "Well then, enjoy the view or what the hell are you doing here", he threw over the shoulder.

"She was born", were the words, which made the Goblin King to stop in his tracks. He suddenly felt a horror of unavoidable doom creeping up his spine.

"How do you know that?" he asked with forced calmness. "You cannot go to the Above."

"I don't need to", the dark man answered, once again turning to the horizon. "I felt it… I feel changes in the pattern of magic", he added lifting his hand and tracing something, some invisible lines, in the air.

Jareth slowly strode to the balcony ledge and looked intently at the cloaked man. "It's just a legend, a prophecy which is neither clear, nor credible. Nobody remembers those ancient times any more", he reasoned. "The changes you feel can be somebody else's doing".

"I remember", the man's voice was without any emotion. "Like it happened yesterday".

"But how….", Jareth exclaimed in astonishment.

"I was there". The chilling answer made the Goblin King's hands to painfully tighten around the riding crop.

"How it is even possible?" Jareth did not want to give up hope which could spring only from the denial. "Even the creatures from the Dawn of the Ages were not that powerful. Even you are not that powerful!"

"But HE is", the voice of the dark man was rising. "HE has always been. By HIS sheer will HER wings were fluttering in the winds of the Above for thousands and thousands of years till they found their way to the right woman!" He was almost screaming the last words.

A heavy silence followed this uncharacteristic outburst, which once more confirmed to Jareth that there is most likely no hope of mistake left.

"HIS daughter is reborn… The first Tuatha Dé Danann born in the Above since the Dawn of the Ages", the man stated in calmer tone. "And we have to find her before HE does. You have to find her", added he gravely.

"The Fairy Queen…", the voice of the Goblin King trailed of.

The last sunlight had already faded and clouds near the horizon were no longer silver; they were deep purple and resembled huge demonic fingers threatening to grip the sky into the deathly hold. A strong wind started to rattle the Castle windows. A cold gust blew off the hood of the dark man's cloak revealing his ashy, wrinkled face and long, ragged grey hair. His countenance did not betray any emotion, only his pit black eyes seemed to exude a feverish glow while his hair danced wildly.

"What are you bringing?" whispered Jareth lifting his head defiantly to the increasing onslaught of the suddenly angry Nature.

Sarah was looking intently into her bathroom mirror. Her face, barely lit by a cold glow of the night light, had an eerie appearance – pale, surrounded by dark shadows, water dripping from her forehead down her nose and chin. She looked scared, though she did not want to acknowledge it.

Sarah shook her head and bent down to splash cold water onto her face. She repeated the same action over and over again. Finally, the feeling of helplessness and dread of something inexplicable but definitely horrible started to subside. Or rather to return into some distorted realm of subconsciousness, which is responsible for nightmares and hallucinations. She shook her head again as if this action was capable of clearing the ghostly fog which was still clouding her mind and eyes.

"I really should do that MRI scan", she told to herself. At her almost thirty years of age Sarah was rational and successful scientist. She was used to solve problems and seek answers by applying rigorous logic and state of the art scientific methods. She was brave and bold and not to the slightest prone to nightmares or panic attacks. And now she was quite certain that she woke up being as close to the panic attack as she could ever be.

Sarah closed her eyes briefly and a memory of her nightmares flashed in her mind. She was falling… swirling uncontrollably downwards like a shot bird. However, it was not the falling itself that Sarah had problem with, but an accompanying feeling of inevitable end, the acute awareness of something terrible which was going to happen not only to her, but to… everybody. She was sure that she was falling to her death and each time her whole being was flooded with regret, with loss of something unidentifiable but precious, with very clear sense of defeat. Everything she was fighting for was lost, damaged beyond repair. And every time she was desperately trying to remember what it was she was fighting for, what was she losing, but could not.

In the dream she was always semi-aware that this is not real. She was able to think, to reason with herself, even to try to look around with the hope to identify where she was, where she was falling to, but to no avail. She was swirling in the dark grey space with no boundaries, no evidence of sky or earth, the only clear thing was that she was falling downwards, not floating, but going down with increasing speed. And finally when she was embracing herself for inevitable impact with a hard surface, which should be somewhere, she was wide awake.

But tonight the dream was slightly different, and that difference made her wake up with a scream and a fast beating heart. This time the grey space was filled with sounds, the distant but rather clear sounds of suffering, of cries of pain and fear, rage and death. And it was something rumbling beneath her, an invisible but unstoppable force was distorting the grey space and leaving her with the anticipation that it will tear open any moment and unveil some horrifying scene beneath her.

And now she was looking in the mirror and forcing herself to forget this nightmare, convincing herself that she is not scared, that these nightmares mean nothing – they are products of exhausted mind and body, lack of proper rest and most likely recent head trauma. "Definitely the head trauma", she told herself with self-confidence. "I have to remember to ask Dr Hartwood for more tests, and MRI". She smiled to her image with forced cheerfulness. "Either this, or I'm going slightly mad", she sang-song Queen's lyrics.

Hi, hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I had the idea of this story for a very long time and finally mustered the courage to start posting it :). It would be wonderful to know what you think! This is my first fan-fic, and I am not a native English speaker, so I know that my writing is far from perfect, but I aspire to improve :).