Just a fairytale...

Queen Sarah had ruled alone for more than a millennium, an undying white owl her only companion. Goblins came and went with their little goblindern following in their tottering footsteps, having their own, and so on. They had myths about her, which she of course knew about but never deigned to falsify or give truth to. They concerned her origins as the Owl Queen of the Goblin Kingdom.

She had been a runner in some of them, in one variation she was the cast-out princess of a far-away land, and in another she was the daughter of the mythical Goblin King and reigned in his absence. The myth of the cast-out princess was the most popular and well known. Her vengeful younger brother had usurped her crown, locked her family away forever, and had thrown her to the winds. Her lover, whom she had sent away just before things had fallen apart, was reported killed by her brother's guards. Her broken heart had carried her to the Goblin Kingdom, wandering through the dangerous Labyrinth as though it were a child's game. Compared to her inner sorrow, goblin mothers would tell their goblindern, the Labyrinth was nothing.

But what about the owl, the little ones would ask, and there was only one myth about the owl: the owl was the spirit of Queen Sarah's lover (for she always had one, no matter the myth), who had found her even as he was at death's door. He had said to her, to calm her and give comfort, "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I, I will be your slave," and then when she had promised him this, yet reminding him that he had no power over her actions, she turned him into an owl to save his life.

But what no one knew was that all tales have a kernel of truth to them.

Some Ladyhawk influence here, and a healthy dose of Grimm Brothers.

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