Disclaimer: Not my best work, but a bit of brain-spewing that certainly is not about a character of mine. Jareth belongs to
lots of nice important people who wouldn't sue a poor student like me since I acknowledge that this guy isn't mine,
and am making no profit.
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From somewhere beyond the realms of reality, past all the clutter of truth and now, is a land known to few. The Underground.
And at the very heart of the land, lay its mind and soul, a vast maze known as the Labyrinth.

The ruler within it sat at a desk, staring into a crystal, the room dimly lit by flickering candles. The King of the Goblins,
Jareth, was spinning the web he ruled for hundreds of years with, delicate strands fusing with time and thought. He often
laughed to himself, silently, a sound not to break the silence thought produced. So few mortals knew of him, and those that did
never truly. They thought he loved the girl, hated the girl, changed himself as she commanded, made the Labyrinth for her.
Words, only words, fragile things. Opaque as fog on a winter's day in the forest. Indeed, it was he that created the girl, led
her there, twisted her not maliciously, but simply as he did. Those who knew of his existence often doubted it, and certainly
didn't know the power he held, the task he had. They rationalized him, spoke of him, made up wild reasons for all he did,
assumptions, always. He was rather fond of it, for he often controlled these views.

Goblins were merely a hobby. He was what none had dreamt. He was the Spinner of Life and Death, the Weaver of Dreams
and Wishes. A lord over all, ruling with an iron fist, yet non knew it. His Labyrinth was to train, to hurt, to teach. The girl did
not wish herself to it, he brought her. He created her, her dreams which were in essence, her being. He wove her thoughts and
desires and fantasies as he did all who lived in mortal lands.

It was something he loved to do, his Labyrinth. Twist it, shape it, send subjects through it. It wasn't amusing as his work
though.

He loved to shift the odds. Throw people off their pedestals, and replace them, then knock them off. To build up hopes and
make some prosper to blind them. To throw many down as he once had been, and watch them climb up. Some he sent through
the Labyrinth, to truly see them. By controlling dreams, he controlled the soul. And he twisted, he straightened, he warped
and righted. Jareth corrected the wrong, then destroyed perfection.

If anyone knew, they might ask why. Jareth supposed if anyone ever did, he'd give one of his smiles, and say "That's the way
life's river flows." And he also had another task as he helped souls evolve and crushed them simultaneously. To find one who
would fall a hundred times, crack, but not shatter. One who would be at the pits of despair and hang on, yet not one who
could survive with a light heart. He knew why. Someday, he would be given a gift. The ability to leave his Labyrinth, the
dwarfes, the faeries, the goblins, and such. The ability to go where it never hurts again. Someday, Jareth would be gifted with
freedom from immortality, and be able to finally die.

To do so, he needed another. Another like him, someone else to command the world. Someone to take over, a new goblin
king, and once he found one strong enough, pained enough, he would take him or her as once he had been. To Jareth it seemed
a dream, but since he controlled them, it was only logical to happen someday. She still had the pontential, as did many others
he had watched, others he had sent through his Labyrinth.

So many saw him as a king like soft gold, easily molded. A man who sang and played with his Labyrinth and goblins all day,
warping minds out of spite. He didn't care one way or the other about the stories, though often created them, altered them,
brought them forth from minds, but still found it amusing no one truly knew who he was, what he was doing. So none truly had
the pontential yet to understand what drove him, perhaps that was good, for if people knew less would let themselves fall
prey to the way Jareth led them, that would bring them to the possibility of taking his place.

Somewhere in California, a girl shot herself, unable to deal with the stress she had been placed under. In Pennsylvania, a boy
watched his sister in a coma, his heart ripped out by her pale face. In Oregon, a young man came to despair and lost his
ability to care after loosing any chance of accomplishing the dream he had had for as long as he could remember. Jareth saw
them all, created them, gave and took away, stacked the odds then balanced them, and watched them. All perhaps would not
be ready in this life or the next to take up the burden of the King. But someday, he knew he would find one.