Disclaimer: Tragically I do not own Sarah, the Labyrinth, the Underground, or Jareth (...'s delicious package, I mean pants), or anything else that appeared in the film. I'm fairly convinced that I have unwittingly inherited a couple of goblins, who may or may not be featured in this story, but I refuse to take responsibility for them until they apologize for getting me into this mess.

Prologue

"History" tended to be a somewhat loose and confusing term where goblins were concerned. Given the difficulty with which most goblins learned to read and write, Jareth was sometimes surprised that they took the time to record anything at all. And tonight, not for the first time, he took a moment to think dark thoughts about sorts of events that goblins found important, and their notoriously poor grasp of grammar and the passage of time in general.

The Goblin King sprawled in his chair, surrounded on all sides by precarious piles of the dusty volumes that filled his study. His mismatched eyes seemed to almost glow in his pale face, lit by a ring of torches that guttered lazily around the circular study—apparently of their own accord, since there was no wind to disturb them. He moved very little, but now and then he would snarl in disgust at the book he held, toss it aside, and snatch another from the pile. Somehow the cast-off books never quite seemed to strike the floor. Instead they landed without fail on this pile or that, and the stacks of books leaned dangerously but never toppled; like many places in the Labyrinth, the laws of nature and probability seemed to have lost their grip on the study and its contents. Perhaps they had finally just given up.

Trying to find the scant amount of useful information buried in goblin histories invariably gave Jareth a roaring headache. This one had moved in several hours ago and refused to be placated by the several generous glasses of of faerie wine Jareth had sent its way. Faerie wine was widely known for its ability to clear the mind rather than muddle—but also for the other side effects, which depended on the stars under which the wine was racked, the weather on the day one drank it, the birth date and gender of the brewer, and innumerable other factors that nobody really understood except faeries and that Jareth cared absolutely nothing about. This bottle had made his fingertips tingle and leave traces of silver dust on everything he touched, but it had done nothing at all for the headache.

A tentative knock came on the door of his study. Extremely tentative. There were stories of what happened to goblins who disturbed Jareth in his private rooms, none firsthand. Slowly, as if this disturbance had reminded gravity that it had a job to do, one of the piles of books toppled to one side, disgorging a tiny cloud of dust into the air and disturbing a pixie that was trying to pull out a page from the bottom-most book. It squeaked an unintelligible tirade of pixie epithets and flitted up the wall into the rafters where it perched, shaking its tiny fist down at the Goblin King.

Jareth narrowed his eyes at the interruption, but he was surprisingly relieved to have an excuse to put aside his studies and allow a visitor.

He immediately wished he hadn't. The small, dirty goblin that stumbled into the study, already wringing his tail in his grubby hands, took one look at the Goblin King and burst into tears. Jareth raised an eyebrow slightly, taken aback. Several seconds of goblin howling passed before he was able to find something suitable to say. Words of solace did not come naturally to him. "Come now," he ventured in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "Whatever is the matter with you…" he searched momentarily for a name, "…Ixpix?"

"It was dark and scary and Snurf and Pikpitz got eaten and I've lost her, Your Majesty!" wailed the goblin. "Just Bog me now and get it over with!" His twisted tail began to jerk feebly as if trying to escape the wringing it was receiving, while Ixpix rocked back and forth making a high-pitched keening.

The commotion began to attract movement outside the cracked door, which quickly filled with the shadowy shapes of curious goblins falling over themselves trying to catch a look at the excitement without drawing attention. Jareth sneered pointedly into the darkness and there was a brief flurry of thumping and scraping and goblins hissing, "That's the Bogging look, run!" in fear that they might be sucked into whatever punishment was about to be meted out. Somebody pulled the heavy door shut with a deep bang that echoed down the castle halls.

Ixpix was still in tears. Jareth rested his forehead on a couple of fingers and sighed down at the little goblin, who appeared to believe he deserved to be Bogged and, moreover, that such punishment was somehow more desirable than the alternative. Another time, the Goblin King might actually have been touched to think that his disciplinary efforts had been taken so closely to heart, but at the moment he only wanted the crying to stop.

"Ixpix." Jareth's mild utterance stopped the wailing cold. The goblin hiccuped miserably into the sudden silence, staring up with wide, fearful eyes. "I assure you I shall Bog you immediately if the situation warrants it. Now. What precisely do you mean by eaten?" There were very few things in the Underground that could stomach a goblin, and he was not entirely certain he wanted to hear about any of them wandering around in the Labyrinth; there was an extremely serious difference between eaten and tasted and promptly regurgitated. "And who," he added, not convinced he wanted to hear the answer, "have you lost?"

It was probably a chicken. Some of the handier goblins, meaning the ones who were slightly less prone to accidentally disintegrating things or setting them on fire, had recently taken to building chicken-chariots—ostensibly for racing, although it was difficult to tell. The resident Labyrinth chickens had proved to be violent objectors to the idea of harnesses, and indeed to organized sport in general. Though, really, calling goblin sport 'organized' was an insult to uncontrolled riots and freak events of severe weather.

"K-King..." The goblin clearly didn't want to say. His eyes drifted across the room, avoiding looking directly at the Goblin King.

Jareth's frown deepened. Goblins tended to forget themselves and call him that only when they had done something very wrong. Much worse than anything to do with chickens. "Well? Out with it, Ixpix!" he snapped.

"The…the Lady, K-King. S…S…Sarah!" Ixpix bawled, screwing up his face and holding his tail tight in preparation for being dumped in the Bog.

Jareth went very still, more still than was natural for anything mortal. Goblins were not terribly adept at deciphering facial expressions, and this was a trick he had found very effective in communicating his mood without having to breathe a single word. Behind him, the torches stopped flickering, the golden light of the flames suddenly seeming to go a little gray. The temperature in the room immediately dropped several degrees. When the Goblin King went still, the Labyrinth listened.

His words, enunciated very clearly, hung like frost on the air. "What...do you mean…you lost her?"

The little goblin did not seem to quite know what to do with this question. He gulped, then stopped rocking side to side and began to tremble violently instead, looking around as if hoping to find a good answer. Ixpix had been quite prepared for yelling, or Bogging, possibly yelling while Bogging if he was extremely fortunate. This still, dangerous King was even more frightening.

"Well?" demanded the Goblin King, sweeping his arm angrily across the top of the chairside table as he stood up. A silver goblet clattered loudly to the stone floor and rolled to one side, making a puddle of the last of the faerie wine.

Ixpix was shaking so hard he could barely speak. "W…well, Ki—Your M-Majesty, you told us to w-watch her. K…keep her s-safe. And we did, we did just what...what you said, every day, but…then he came and stole her!"

Jareth crouched down and put a gloved finger under the goblin's trembling chin, pushing up until Ixpix was forced to look him right in the eye. The torches were now almost completely extinguished, but there was a light in the room that had nothing to do with any fire. It was coming from Jareth, from his silvery fingertips and luminous, furious eyes. The goblin blanched visibly, fumbling in such confusion that he lost hold of his tail, which dropped limply to the floor. When Jareth spoke his voice was taut and left no part of his anger to the imagination: "Stop sniveling and listen to me very carefully. I want you to start at the beginning, and I want you to be very careful not to leave anything out. Anything. Do you understand?"

The goblin nodded and made a petrified effort to get himself under control.

"Now tell me," instructed the Goblin King, "exactly what happened."

Author's Note: And here ends our terribly mysterious prologue in which I offer you no clues whatsoever to what has befallen our heroine. Tune in next time for a (slight) jump back in time! Please review if you have a moment, it's completely what makes posting all this craziness worth it.