A one shot. YES, I'm terrible..I can't stop writing them! This is just a lull until I get up the forth chapter on THU. And I'm addicted to the sweet sweet loving of the fanfic bot..REVIEWS! MY LOVELIES, COME TO ME!! MUA HA HA HA!!

No, I don't own Labrynith. I wish I did. I own none of the characters. (Although Jareth would be nice.) I wasn't alive at the time period when it was made. I worship it. cowers Please don't sue me..

Smoke and Toadstools.

A mouse hunted for the cast-off crumbs and seeds deposited along the trail by passerby. Its small belly was already full and satiated, but fall was upon it and he needed a fine layer of fat to make it through. He was a plump little fellow already, and he set himself on his hind legs to diligently wipe his whiskers clean. In the middle of this ritual, he sat bolt upright and dove for a bush, but was too slow, too slow. A slight rustling sound and a snap of talons later, the limp rodent was borne upwards in the beak of a cream colored moon-faced owl.

The owl swooped up to the thick lower branches of an oak and easily pinned the mouse down with one foot, tearing off strips of meat with its beak hungrily, confident that no predator would challenge its right to feed. Soon, the mouse was entirely consumed, and slid down its feathered gullet without resistance. Later, the bones and fur would be regurgitated in a wad of half-digested pellets, and cast aside. Such was the way with owls.

The bird disgruntledly ruffled its feathers, and then gave a low call into the empty night. Its flat, creamy face turned almost all the way around, black eyes wide, then it stepped off the branch and collected its wings, rising effortlessly above the trees and heading out of the park towards a grouping of suburban houses, lights off for the night. There was no moon in the black sky, so this was the night for predators and the fey.

Wheeling over a house no different than any other, the owl furled its wings and dropped, flitting with phenomenal grace through a cracked open window, feather tips barely brushing the sides.

The sudden change from the shadowy star-washed and electric landscape to this inky and dim hole was such a change that the bird went momentarily blind, but its vision quickly adjusted and scanned the room.

But the owl vanished with a twist of perception, and a slim young man with wild hair dropped neatly to the floor without a sound. He chuckled lowly, an amused predatory smile crossing his pale lips, and straightened to his feet with the casual grace of a panther. Idly, dismissively, he rolled a delicate glass sphere up his sleeve and out of sight. Jareth, the Goblin King.

Truly he carried himself as royalty, the barely masked arrogance in his mismatched eyes, the self-assured roll to his walk. But there was a more hardened wariness to his stance now, the mark of one who has been fighting long and adapted to its way. The Goblin King had risked much to make the visit this month, on the dark of the moon, but if he watched his back and kept to the shadows, he could make it back to his Castle before his enemies could track his approach.

He kept his collar high on his throat, almost unnaturally, and wiped the back of his hand across his insipid lips hurriedly. The mouse had just been to tide him over, to try and quell his rising nervousness as of late, though any minion of his would swiftly find itself fixed in the Bog of Eternal Stench for suggesting it.

But the moon was shielded, and his power in this world was strong now. The delicate threads of balance were all that much easily tripped, his control tighter than a spider's snare. And now, with the trouble around his borders in the Fae lands, it was best to keep an eye on the one mortal his aggressors would not scruple to harm if they thought it would wound him. Which, he thought with a razor fair smile, it would.

He slid casually to the edge of the bed where she still slept, and looked down with the critical eye of a jeweler. She was pale still, and thin, not much changed from a year ago when she had entered his labyrinth. The second mortal to have done that for several centuries. He cracked a grin, a strand of spiked hair falling into his eyes, but it was a tired grin, more forced than anything. The world had pressed him hard, and the strain was showing. It had been most excellent fun to take her brother away, he remembered. The fey court had buzzed for weeks about the sweet young mortal he had coerced to the festival. The Countess of Flies was still snidely remarking on how much he had paid to replace the mirror the girl had shattered in her frenzy to escape, but no matter. It had been of no account.

Still, he never tired of watching through his crystals, or crossing worlds and coming here, to her quarters, to watch the girl sleep, and he would a sing a little in hopes that it might calm her. Simple songs really, to make him feel at ease and if his duty was filled, but laced with suggestions to sleep and be still, to never mind the change in presence surrounding her.

Jareth glanced with amusement at her much faded shelf of bears, sans Lancelot. He swiftly turned a few to face the wall, a mischievous act merely to change the room and make it seem as if someone had been here, even if they were unknown. He snorted; no doubt the girl would think the bears had done it.

Laughing again, but lowly and not to disturb, he wondered why, as old as she was, why the girl still indulged in such childish fancies. But no..He slyly uprooted a new U2 tape from beneath a carelessly thrown T-shirt. Irish. Fitting.

Light as a flitting wren, he turned and sat on the bed where she slept and fell onto his back like a limp noodle, folding his arms behind his head and idly strengthening the spell over the room to sleep and be still, without batting an eyelash. The aura of pure power hummed around him. So much he had used as of late, in his efforts to blind, and confuse the enemies on the borders of his Goblin Lands, so much energy. Consequently, much of his time and being were spent in his upper chambers, creating sphere after sphere of illusion and trickery, his mastery after all, to send out into their eyes to change their pace, their direction. And so far, it had worked, but his body was being to lag, and excess power leaked out no matter how he shielded himself. Ah well, the spell had been worth it to night, above all he did Not want the girl to wake up and find him here in her quarters like some teenaged mortal porn freak.

His smile faded on his clean-angled slightly cruel face, as he thought on it, and a hand came up to absently slide over his chin. Not that that wouldn't be interesting of course.

Jareth's attention snapped to the young mortal as she stirred sleepily, her eyes just, just on the verge of opening, foggy with sleep and relaxation. His long muscles tensed, and his arms came up protectively, a crystal sphere peeking from between his fingers.

Before, before her eyes could open in shock and disbelief, before she could scream, or yell her surprise, before the sight of him barely registered on her pale face, a shadowy, moon-faced owl slipped out the window and pumped off into the night, into darkness.