THE CONCLUSION
“Your majesty, I’m very sorry to disturb you, but sire, the engraver is here and he insists you approve of his work before he leaves.”
Jareth hung his head. The engraver Arulan spoke of had come to make the plaque which would attach to the base of the urn designed to hold Bagheera’s ashes. Once full, the urn would be brought to the king’s office, and placed on a ledge round the top of the room which set just below the molding and held urns filled with the ashes of other horses killed in battle. “I see,” Jareth took a deep breath. “Let’s not waste the entire day on this. Where may I find the engraver?”
“He’s in your office sire,” Arulan curtsied and started away.
Heavy footfalls carried him on to the office door. It felt a bit odd entering a room in his home designed for him all the while, knowing someone else would be waiting on other side. Slowly he opened the door to see the engraver sitting in one of the leather wingbacks, waiting patiently with his legs crossed. “Your majesty,” he stood to address the king and bowed to him in respect. Jareth acknowledged his sentiment and then joined him in the sitting area. “I hope you will be pleased.” From the table the engraver lifted a velvet pouch and from it’s depths withdrew a rectangular gold plaque. With his sleeve, he polished the face before asking, “It is a fitting epitaph, is it not?”
Bagheera the Brave
First Stallion to Jareth, King of the Goblins
Among the servants to the king and a king among stallions
Deceased in battle
Jareth looked over the finally chiseled words. ‘How is it that an entire life could so easily be condensed into only a few lines, even if they were poetic,’ he thought. Suddenly every principle he’d been taught about words being powerful and important was brought into question. Nothing was on the plaque that spoke of his horse’s honor, of the brave way he faced his death as he had faced every day of his life. Nothing of the foes he had defeated, or the enemies he’d outdone, just the immortalization of the one who’d brought him down. No chronicle of his deeds, both great and small, simplistic and harrowing, done without objection or delay. No registry of his contributions, to the king and to the kingdom, of which he had been as much a part as any of the upright beasts who lived there. “It’s a fine plaque,” the king concurred. “I’ll have Arulan take you to my assistant,” Jareth was suddenly reminded that it would not be Turgomon, “who will see you’re paid your wage.” Jareth tugged the braided cord to summon the elf. His thoughts spreading elsewhere as he did. ‘Would Turgomon’s life be so casually summarized?’ A life which had a great meaning, no only to Jareth, but to so many.
Led away by Jareth’s servant, the engraver went to collect his coppers leaving Jareth behind with the plaque. “Among the servants to the king,” he read aloud. “And a king among stallions,” he lowered his head. “A king you were. Goodbye dear friend. There shall never be another who will fill even half your shoes.” As he rose to leave, Arulan returned just outside the door.
“Your grace, I know you weren’t expecting this today, but it would seem as if miss Arianna has decided not to continue with the display of her husband’s body.” Arulan began to weep. “I’m sorry, sire.”
“It is what it is,” he said plainly.
The elf came to his side and fought the urge to take the king, whose grief reduced him to an overgrown boy, into her arms and mother him as she had when he was an infant. “The services are to be held at one o’clock your majesty, one o’clock today.”
“Today?” he asked. “Today. Today it is then. The burial grounds, I assume. Just because a fey doesn’t live up to his title doesn’t mean they take it from him.”
“Yes, your majesty. The royal burial grounds. Chataigne and Cymeron have been hitched to the coach for the trip. Will the lady Sarah be joining you?”
A tiny smile curled his lips, “On such a day as this, it seems wrong to feel as happy as I do inside.”
“Happy sire, you look anything but happy.”
“Do not let my looks deceive you dear woman. As much as I am overcome with the losses this kingdom has felt, a part of me which has grieved for so long, grew alive last night and at the most inappropriate times I find myself wearing this boyish grin as my feet prepare to skim the floor in flights of fancy I’ve not often flown.”
An inappropriate smile of her own spread over Arulan’s lips as she asked, “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“Something, I need to tell you everything.” His hand clasped her waist as he swung her around himself, her bright eyes shining down on him. “Arulan, you were right, right to force me to tell her how I felt, right to force me to believe.” Her toes touched down and Jareth pulled her to him, his chin resting on her head. “Sarah has decided to tell me she loves me, loves me truly.”
Tears fell freely from her eyes as she pulled herself away to look up at him. Arulan thought about saying something sincere, some weighted comment to add permanence to the moment, but decide there was enough, if not too much sincerity in the air today. “It took you hearing it when the rest of us knew all this time, you stubborn, arrogant, fool.”
“Is that anyway to talk to your son?” Jareth asked.
Sobs shook her whole body as she collapsed against him and in that moment, Arulan understood what a difference hearing the words made.
***** ***** *****
As had become tradition with the appointment of the first king, a royal burial grounds lie between the foothills of the mountains and the meadow where the battle had taken place. The Underground’s first king would lay his two sons to rest together for all eternity in the cold earth, together with a stone that paid tribute to the Leanan Sidhe. The former queen’s epitaph included a mention of her mortal husband, although it refused to announce his heritage in stone. When it had been first decided to disallow Ian’s body to be buried in the royal burial grounds, despite the fact that he was king, it had been in hopes that by doing so, they would make it easier for history to forget a mortal had sat upon the throne. But as it had always been, omission was just another admission of guilt.
Jareth and Sarah, both tastefully dressed in formal black attire, rode in the coach toward the gathering. Respectfully, her arm fed through the king’s as they crossed the meadow. Arianna greeted the king as he stepped out of the coach. Jareth offered his condolences despite the former queen’s not seeming terrible distraught. Turning to help Sarah from the coach, Jareth saw a great number of the fey looking on at the mortal. Hurriedly he took them to their place in the crowd. From the foothills a bagpiper let out a low note and within seconds a team of players joined in and as the couple looked on, their senses absorbed the sound of Amazing Grace as it rode over the wind. Darien’s body, housed inside a simple casket, was brought in on an open coach and left at a stone alter.
Arianna stood behind her husband, “As was Darien’s wish, there will be no eulogy given in his name, instead we shall proceed to his site and end the rite as quickly as possible. I would like to thank those of you who came to attend today’s ceremony.”
“That’s it?” Tiberon cried from the crowd. “That’s how you intend to bury my father.” Throughout the small crowd tiny gasps passed from the lesser in the know. It suited the representative to make a scene. Jareth did his best to ignore him as he detailed how it was he had come to be thought of as Gumlain’s son when in reality he had been the one who should have held the throne instead of Leanan Sidhe, and “would hold it still today.” he finished his elaborate speech with his eyes focused on Jareth and Sarah intently.
In a display of unprecedented patience, unprecedented for Jareth at least, the Goblin King kept his eyes on the casket. Mercifully, Arianna cued the pipers to play and the crowd filed into their coaches and formed a processional to Darien’s site, to the right hand of the site reserved for Oberon. As he had when it was Corwyn’s time, Oberon stood beside the Cleric, who delivered as moving a prayer as he could, given he still harbored a deep resentment for their unwittingly involving him in their scheme. When the Cleric finished and Darien’s body was set into the ground, Oberon tossed on a handful of dirt. The others in attendance were invited to do the same. As soon as Jareth and Sarah had participated in the ritual, they loaded into the coach and headed back to the castle, thankful no one had decided to initiate any melodrama that would cheapen the loss of life.
***** ***** *****
Immediately when the king returned home, Sarah noticed his change in demeanor. Sat on the edge of the bed, looking as grim as she had ever seen him, Jareth refused to meet her stare. Wrapping her long fingers around his shoulders, Sarah began to massage him. Only then did she realize the true depth of his tension. It was impossible to determine one knot from the next as it was more of a continuous rigidity across the king’s full width. His gloves covered her hands, stilling their attempt to bring him some relief. He didn’t want relief, didn’t feel as if he deserved it. What was a neck ache compared to the pain he’d caused Turgomon’s family, the sacrifice he’d asked of Bagheera, and the fury he’d ignited in Tiberon. “What is it I have done in this worthless life of mine to deserve you?” he asked her.
“Worthless?” Sarah slid her arms down his chest until she was able to rest her cheek upon his shoulder. “Worthless is not a word I would you to describe you.”
“If you knew my heart, you’d see the blackness in it.”
Sarah’s legs encircled the waist of the king as she set her bottom squarely into his lap. “I know your heart,” her palm slipped inside his open shirt and spread over a spot on the left side of his chest. “This is a heart that continued to love a stubborn little girl who was too young to understand your world. This is a heart that sung an insolent child to sleep, who rocked him and fed him while in your keeping. A heart that forgave a mortal for ruining his realm, one which was able to hold on to love when it was unrequited and hidden beneath fear. This is a heart that has saved ten times the lives it has taken. It has beat in compassion, bleed in sorrow and shattered in pain. It is the heart of a king.”
Abruptly he stopped Sarah’s hands from roaming over him, “It is the heart of a monster. I have taken a life Sarah. Not slain a dragon, or some beast. Not saved a maiden or some full hearty child who doesn’t know the dangers of the Labyrinth. I have taken a life, my own grandfather’s life. I’m finally the monster they’ve always believed me to be.”
“And you would let yourself be seen through their eyes? Eyes that have judged and cast aspersions on you from the moment you were conceived?” Grabbing his face, Sarah tilted his chin up so he could see the seriousness with which she spoke. “If only you could see yourself the way I see you. There was a time I looked at you and saw the monster of which you speak. A time when I envisioned you as some terrifying and cruel creature, whose compassion was a vagrant with no heart to call a home. I questioned your motive. I questioned your honesty and all because I didn’t realize you were actually trying, in the only way you knew how, to love me.”
Having closed his eyes when Sarah made reference to his heartlessness, the king now slowly peeled back his eye lids a question in there which made a slow journey to his lips. As his arms folded over her hips and up her spine, he asked in almost terminal desperation, “And now, Sarah, what do you see me as now?”
Electricity shot to her extremities as the combination of his greedy touch and wanton stare forced her physical passion into words. “What don’t I see you as? You are my fact and my fiction. You’re reality and fantasy. Condemned to take babies in the night, but compelled to teach a lesson in return. Assigned to care for creatures no one else wants yet, despite what you might say, you care for and protect them as fiercely as you would a babe. I see a fey, a fey who is loyal and devoted to the truth. A king who is admired and respected by his subjects. A man who has a heart the size of a giant overflowing with love to give and who wants nothing more than to be loved in return.” Sarah’s face sunk closer and closer to the Goblin King, until her lips entwined with his. His grip on her tightened and she sighed heavily as their bodies pressed together.
Breaking their bond, Sarah smoothed back Jareth’s hair. “I know I will not be the first to love you,” she said sadly. “But if you will allow me,” her delicate fingers traced the chiseled features of his face, “I shall be the first to love you for the fey you are and not just for the fact that you are king.”
For a long moment he focused on her eyes. Reflected back at him was the love he had waited his life to find. In painful slowness, his hand left the small of her back and cupped the left side of her face. “And you,” he began. “I have loved you well before now, but this time and from henceforth I shall love you like the legend that you are here in my world. Pulling her to him, Jareth captured her lips, kissing her slowly and lovingly at first, as if connecting with her too quickly would shatter the moment. In seconds her mouth responded to him more eagerly and they deepened the kiss.
Their love making until now had spanned a good deal of the spectrum. They had been together madly, in a flurry of passion that left little time for exploring each other. They had been together out of anxiousness, a greedy need for satisfaction achieved by succumbing to a physical attraction. Jareth had taken her beyond elementary sex by giving her a taste of bondage the night his crystal secured her to the bed, but this time, despite not being their first was different. As they came together, it seemed to happen in slow motion, every touch, every kiss another piece in the puzzle they’d been putting together for the last fifteen years.
Jareth’s hands roamed her lower back, cascading over her bottom, while her hands filled with his hair, across the back of his neck and down the sharp V of his open shirt. The cool white cotton of Sarah’s dress clung to her moistening thighs. The king reach beneath her skirt, his sheathed fingers creating a friction along her legs that fanned the flames between them. Sarah let out a tiny moan when he grabbed her hips from beneath her dress and pulled her closer. His lips left her mouth. Tongue flicking, he made his way along her throat to the swell of her breasts at the neckline of the cotton dress. No more crusty poultice on those bare shoulders, he saw the scar, all that would remain of her brush with death, and kissed the tender flesh. His right hand left the cover of her dress and rose to her chest. His eyes intent as he watched his fingers dance over her skin, noticing the heavy breaths the mortal drew.
Stopping his wandering hand, Sarah caught him by the wrist with one hand as the other held his fingers straight as she manipulated his touch to include her neck and her face. The cold leather touched her lips and triggered a realization she had yet to make. Although sensation coursed through even the furthest reaches of her body, she had been as close to death as she had ever come. Suddenly, it wasn’t good enough just to feel, but she thirsted to feel alive. The course leather against her skin felt like a wall of stone between her and Jareth. She had been patient up until now, but this simply wouldn’t do. Her lips parted slightly and she slipped the tip of Jareth’s pointer finger between her teeth. Delicately, while keeping contact with his eyes for any glint of anger or hesitation, she pulled back on the glove. Repeating the process on each of the other fingers on that hand and finally with the thumb. Working it loose with her series of tugs, Sarah finally spit the covering to the floor. Jareth didn’t stop her, he didn’t want to.
His hands were neither ugly nor scarred as he had joked, in fact they were as beautiful as everything else about the Goblin King was. She put his palm flat to hers and could see easily, his was not only a larger hand, but from it grew long tapered fingers and from the end of each of those a perfectly manicured nail that was neither claw-like nor chewed at. In fact, his nails were almost of perfectly equal length. Jareth closed his eyes as she continued to look at and feel his hand in hers. His breathing steady, almost as if he were trying not to think about what she was doing. Bringing his palm to her cheek, Sarah donned a content smile. It wasn’t a vision she was having per say, but she knew that she had felt this touch before and guessed it must have been while she was unconscious. Nuzzled in his touch she felt a contentedness she had never known. Jareth’s eyes snapped open when he felt her tears against his fingers. “Why are you crying?” he asked.
“There was a time,” she said, “when I thought I’d never know what it was like to feel these hands upon me.”
“’Tis a time which has come to pass,” he announced as he produced his other hand and removed it’s covering as well. Both hand exposed, the second as lovely as the first. Jareth undid the buttons at the front of her bodice. There were only a few, enough to close the area between her neckline and the slightly elevated waistline. When he had finished with the last one, he peeled back the fabric. Sarah watched his face, an appreciation in his eyes as if he was seeing her for the first time. As his bare hands moved to support her exposed breasts, she caught herself holding her breath. Against his palms, Jareth felt Sarah’s nipples harden at his touch. Once erected, he allowed his fingers to run over them, which only further stimulate her. His heightened fey sense made it feel as if he was touching fire, but it was a burn that left him feeling warm inside rather than searing his flesh. Massaging her gently, he watched as her eyes closed and her head rolled back. It was simple to see, she was focused on nothing but his touch. His right hand left her breast and returned to her thigh beneath the dress. In surprise, Sarah’s eyes fluttered open at his touch, his flesh hot against hers. Jareth watched her closely, if her look told him this was not the kind of touch she desired he would back away, regardless of what he wanted.
A disapproving look never came. In torturous deliberateness he climbed the gentle roll of her thigh. When the tips of his fingers met with the wetness she had already begun to drip, he rolled them together over the slippery liquid, the devilish sneer Sarah had grown to love rushing over his lips. He stroked her firmly along the outside front of her sex a few times before allowing a finger to slide between her drenched folds. Though the king had taken many a lover, his need for them had been nothing more than physical and temporary. He’d never cared to dismiss his gloves and allow himself to feel them as closely as he felt Sarah now. It was nearly overwhelming as he thought, ‘This is what the mortals must feel like when they are exposed to our magic.’ An intense emotion consumed him and his feelings for her transcended love and settled into a total oneness in which the raspy breath she drew fed his lungs.
His heart was full of guilt over the pain he had caused Turgomon’s family and the regret he felt for killing his grandfather. He didn’t want to feel the pain, didn’t want the guilt. He wanted to make someone happy, if he was still capable of it. He wanted to take all that felt miserable in him and exchange it for pleasure, but not to keep for himself, to give away, to give to Sarah. Slipping a finger inside her, he marveled as he felt the blood rushing through her, causing the tiny capillaries around his touch to pulse. When his second finger joined the first, Sarah’s upper body fell against him. Taking her nipple between his uneven teeth, Jareth rolled the small nub over the peaks and valleys of his grin while stroking her steadily, his thumb pressing against her bud and massaging in a small circle. Feeling her insides begin to quake, he knew she was not far from achieving her pleasure. Were he going for longevity, he’d have backed off right then, but he didn’t care. If they were together a minute or a day, were they merely intimate or were they to make love was of little consequence. He only wanted her to take pleasure in him. Speeding up his movements, Jareth began suckling her nipple. Moaning in delight Sarah collapsed against him as the waves of her orgasm crashed against his touch. It was enough to send him falling back against the bed, Sarah splayed above him. He had felt all that she had.
Jareth rose his hands the length of her perfect body and brought the cotton dress with him. His touch tingled her flesh and her flesh fed his touch. With gentility he removed her clothing and lay her on her side next to him. Caressing the curves of her body, taking his time. Sarah begun to work at his clothing, but grew frustrated at having to pull and tug in combat with the mattress. Sensing her irritation, Jareth sat up. From behind him Sarah peeled off his jacket and undid his vest. Undoing the low buttons of his shirt, her hands slid inside lightly kissing his skin and pulling the shirt tail loose from his waistband. Her nails glided over his back, making him alert. Her touch was magic to him. Most had expected so much of him and his experience, having a woman who knew him was exhilarating. Jareth felt her leave the bed and eyed her as she stood gloriously nude before him. Sinking to her knees she removed his boots, rose from between his knees, captured his shoulders with her hands and then allowed her fingers to troll down his arms until she had him standing with her. Then she backed away. Her ebony hair flowing over her shoulders, just long enough to obscure part of her breasts. She was exquisite. Hypnotized by her, Jareth approached Sarah, wrapped his arms around her and held to him. Her nails went back to raking his back and he purred into her throat as he nibbled along her neck.
Undoing his breeches, she slipped her hands beneath his waistband and eased the leather over his hips. It took a little nudging as their closeness had gotten his skin dewy. Jareth stepped out of the discarded clothing and gently led Sarah back to the bed. First he sat, then slid to the middle of the bed and finally beckoned her to join him. Sarah knelt on the edge of their bed and then slowly crawled toward him. She let her head run into his stomach, the silk of her hair, caressing his skin. Leaning back on his hands he gave her full access to his mid-section. Kissing at his stomach evoked deep sighs from Jareth. Slowly working her way up his chest, pausing over each nipple to swirl her tongue over his taunt skin. His skin tasted sweet, like the honey wines she’d tasted while she had been Underground, as she made her way up his neck, her teeth nipping at his throat, her tongue dancing over his ear.
Reaching out his hands, Jareth locked onto Sarah’s thighs, pulling her legs around him, so they were sitting face to face. He kissed her hard, probing her mouth with his tongue, enthralled with the taste and the feel of her. She felt his eagerness hard between her folds and gave in to the strong urge she had to writhe against him. As her hips bucked spreading her lubrication along his stiffened member, Jareth bit along her neck, sucking and chewing on her thin skin. Jareth’s hands slid over her shoulders, along her back and cupped her bottom. Lifting her easily, he lowered her over his firm muscle. Sarah sighed as he penetrated her. Never had she been so ready to receive him and never had she felt so full. In her need she began to tighten her muscles as she rode the length of him. Jareth’s strong hands stilled her hips. He pecked at her lips, “There’s no hurry, love.” Holding her tight against him, Jareth began gently rocking her back and forth.
At first, Sarah just relaxed, trusting totally in her lover as he supported her back, but the longer he kept up the steady rocking, she could feel him glide in and out of her. His closeness brought her a great emotional elation and the friction was building a slow burn she knew would erupt as he continued to work against her. Continuing to alternate between her neck and her breast, Jareth’s mouth teased her flesh, bringing her a topical pleasure that finely complimented the sensations which filled her.
In a quick movement, Sarah tilted back the king’s head and in a husky whisper said, “I love you,” as she pulled him into an open mouth kiss, her tongue battling his as they rolled over one another. Jareth’s hips changed their rhythm, his movements more thrusting as he entered her slow and deep. Sarah moaned in delight. Resting back on his hands, the king continued to lift his hips while Sarah rode him. Her strong legs tightened as she slid up, her internal muscles clenching to hug him as she fell back down. The mortal’s nails raked over the king’s chest. Nearing her satisfaction, Sarah couldn’t resist the thought of throwing back her head. She caught her weight balancing on the king’s shaking knees. From his vantage point he could see himself entering her. Watching his stunning love as her neck filled with a flush, her breathing came in small bursts. From him she drew her complete pleasure. What they made together was more than sex, even beyond love, Sarah and Jareth completed one another, fit together like two halves of the same heart.
Easily he rolled her on to her side and then on to her back. Her legs fell to the mattress beneath them, but Jareth’s perfect hands folded her muscular limbs around his waist as he sunk himself into her again and again. “I love you,” he told her as their eyes locked. “I have loved you as long as I can remember. My life before you was no memory, it was only misery.”
Reaching for his hands, Sarah entwined her fingers with his. Green eyes conveyed the emotion she could not choose the words to describe. Pressed tightly against one another, locked in a needy kiss, both eager to feel alive, desperate for the other’s pleasure they moved in unison. As he plunged into her, she tightened her muscles and rose up to meet him. There timing exact, their union absolute, their pleasure building to tumultuous heights. Sarah’s legs spread to accept him as he drove himself into her the final time before finding his release while at the same time Sarah felt ever muscle in her body tighten and release. They fell together a tangled mess of limbs, the king still inside her as they came down from the heights they had taken each other to.
Content in his arms, Sarah drifted into dream. Jareth looked down at her, knowing now that love had more power than magic, that it made all of life appear different when it was pure. He couldn’t allow the Triumvirate to send her away. Not tomorrow, not in a couple of days, not ever. He was immortal and yet, nothing in his life had lasted forever, not his parents, not his horse, his assistant, not even his kingdom. They’d all left him at one time or another. The king had come to expected it, but Sarah was the one thing which had come back. She was the one thing he believed could last forever and he would do anything he could to make it so. His lips pressed into her coal black hair, his nose filling with her scent. His bare hands sweeping over her, deriving more pleasure from the feel of her than he had ever realized could come from a simple touch.
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