Wayward 5/?

Why was it that happiness made him careless? He now considered it his fatal
flaw. All heroes had one, and allowing himself to forget the danger his 
adoptive father presented was certainly a fatal mistake. After he'd turned 
his back and walked away, he'd gone back to Earth, and back to his Elenora. 
They'd been married on a bright spring day, and seven months later their 
daughter Lorana had been born. She was in every aspect her mother's child, 
with bright coppery curls and a smile that charmed him every time. She was 
like the nymphs he'd seen as a child, airy and unreal. Words could not 
express the joy he had felt then. He'd never know such happiness. Life was 
simple, uncomplicated, and in the midst of it all, he never noticed the 
shadow that hung, like an executioner's blade, over his happy home.
	He remembered, even more clearly than all others, the day that, for 
all intents and purposes, his world had ended.
	It was late summer, a perfect day with just a hint of autumn 
creeping in around the edges to make it hazy and sweet. The three of them 
had brought a lunch out to a meadow still filled with fragrant wildflowers. 
Lorana was six years old, old enough to be allowed to chase butterflies and 
wander away by herself. Elenora warned her not to go too deep into the 
woods. "The Fey Folk live there." She'd warned her daughter with a warm 
smile that indicated she was only teasing. If only she'd known the evil 
that lurked in the woods that afternoon. But there was nothing amiss that 
day, except perhaps that the woods were unnaturally quiet and the world 
seemed to hold it's breath.
	In the absence of there child, he and Elenora talked quietly, 
reveling in the late summer day. Never had the world seemed so perfect, so 
at peace....

Without warning a gut-wrenching scream split the silence in two. They 
sprang to their feet as one and dashed to the woods, consumed with a 
parent's ability to instinctually feel when something has gone horribly 
wrong.  He reached the woods first, sucking in searing gulps of air. 
Elenora, at his side a moment later, shrieked and ran forward into the 
small clearing while his own mind fought desperately to comprehend the 
scene before him. Lorana was dead. Of that fact he was all too certain. Her 
neck was broken, he could plainly see white bone protruding through the 
skin. But all this was taken in with a dull eye. His mind had gone numb, 
and he reacted to late as a figure stepped out of the woods. With eerie 
detachment and an almost careless liquid grace the Goblin King flicked his 
wrist. Jareth tried to warn Elenora but no sound issued from his lips as 
she was enveloped in a blinding white light. For a split second, Jareth 
caught a glimpse of her skeleton as she and the body of Lorana burned away 
to ash. The after image was burned into his eyes, partially blinding him. 
	In the hushed silence of the forest, a low sound reached his ears, 
growing louder and more distinct as the seconds passed. His father was 
laughing at him. Jareth tore his injured eyes from the charred circle in 
the grass to find Lars leaning against a tree, regarding him with a bemused 
twinkle in his eye. Jareth's half-blinded eyes caused his adoptive father's 
dark green clothes and black hair blur into the surrounding back-drop so 
that he could only make out Lars' face and hands clearly. The Goblin King 
straightened up and walked towards his son, reverently stepping around the 
scorched circle of grass that held the ashes of his son's wife and daughter. 
He stood before Jareth and put one hand on his shoulder. "The Underground 
is yours now, my son. I christen you Jareth, King of the Goblins." He 
proclaimed, giving his son a deep mock bow. "The kingdom is yours!" 
Laughing gleefully, Lars vanished. 
Jareth never saw him again.