“Quiet for a second,” Sarah told the assistant as she met him at the fence. “He’s still a bit skittish. Let Jareth finish feeding him and he’ll be right along.” There was a pause before she asked, “The Triumvirate sent the scrolls I take it?”
“Yes milady,” Deverell confirmed. He lifted a sack at his side. “They’ve only just arrived this morning. Would you like to have a look?”
For a long moment, she considered it, and finally concluded it would be best if she were to wait for Jareth. Still she couldn’t seem to resist them as she continued to stare. “Did you bring this morning’s entire post with you?” she asked.
“No miss. This is only the batch of scrolls sent by the Triumvirate.”
“Only the scrolls?” she questioned, amazed that what she thought would be a simple piece or two of parchment required a sack.
“Yes miss,” Deverell continued. “There are five scrolls in total and several of them have been packaged in silver tubes for protection during travel I imagine.”
“Packaged?”
“Have a feel,” he offered her the sack. “Weighty bits they are.”
“I see,” Sarah acknowledged as she hoisted the bag briefly before returning it Deverell’s side. “Why so many?”
“I’ve no idea. I thought it best I bring them straight to Jareth, I mean his majesty.”
“It’s alright Deverell, you may refer to me the same in front of Sarah as you do when we’re in private,” the king said when he joined them, an arm folding around the mortal as he kissed her cheek. “Now there’s a sack full of scrolls you have to show me.” His hand started in the direction of the bag causing Sarah to look at him in awe. “Fey hearing, love.” For a second she’d forgotten about his extraordinary senses.
“Yes, Jareth, five scrolls, all sent from the Triumvirate and delivered this morning.”
“Some in traveling packages, silver tubes,” Sarah added.
Her anticipation made him smile. “They’re probably concerned with us taking them Aboveground Sarah, that’s all. Relax, let me look at these.” Deverell handed him the bag and then offered his arms as support while the king dug through. He pulled out one of the silver encased scrolls. There was an engraving on the side which read: Mr. and Mrs. Robert Williams. The next was a loose scroll he would take to his mother, a trick Jareth had not yet figured out how to perform. The third scroll, he passed to Sarah as he said, “This is for you to complete regarding your plans to improve the Underground.” As her eyes busily studied the parchment, Jareth withdrew the last two scrolls and replaced the two he had been holding. There was another encased tube engraved with the name: Ms. Williams, which Jareth assumed was another piece for Sarah and the remaining scroll was instructions from the Triumvirate.
Jareth:
In so much as you and the mortal have expressed your desire to unite, we respectfully request you obtain parental consent as indicated by three of the four enclosed scrolls. The forth scroll is for Ms. Williams, so she might outline for us her ideas on improving the kingdom and better express her desire to be queen.
The enclosed scroll addressed to the Leanan Sidhe, should be consented to by her spirit and if necessary executed by a reputable eye witness. Reputable meaning one of us, Deverell or some other fey as we see fit. Your mortal and your goblins are not suitable witnesses.
The remaining enclosed scrolls have been sealed in containers for protection during your transport to the Aboveground. One is to be signed by Sarah’s father and his wife, her legal guardian, consenting not only to the union, but to the mortal’s decision to remain Underground. These documents will give her full emancipation and remove all rights of the aforementioned parents. Likewise a duplicative scroll has been crafted for Ms. Williams’ mother. To the best of the knowledge in the realm, Ms. Williams’ mother has not remarried and there is no legal guardianship on her maternal side. If we’re incorrect please advise immediately as these documents are time sensitive.
You will be given a combined total of two weeks to obtain the signatures and complete the scrolls. While we allot a week for each individual, you are welcome to complete negotiations with one family more quickly and use the additional time to negotiate with the remaining one, as may prove useful when one considers you have but one parent and Sarah has three; however, no more than two weeks can be provide and pleas or petitions for extension will not be heard. We have been generous.
Should you have questions or concerns regarding processing these scrolls you’re welcomed and encouraged to contact us. We sincerely wish you the best in this endeavor.
Very truly yours,
The Gavel, the Cleric and the Sage
Jareth’s eyes reread the line, ‘Likewise a duplicative scroll has been crafted for Ms. Williams’ mother’ several times. “What is it?” Sarah asked, finished reviewing her scroll and suddenly more interested in the look on his face. “Jareth, what is it?”
Spinning the silver tube in his hand, he showed her the engraving. When she reached for it, he caught her hand, “Sarah they want you to get a signature from your mother.”
“Karen? You mean Karen and my dad,” Sarah screwed up her face. “Don’t you?”“Well yes, Karen and your father, but they want your mother’s also.”
Letting her arms fall to her sides, she yelped, “I don’t even know where my mother is?” Disappointed, her shoulders slumped and her view was nothing but grass and dirt.
“We can find her,” Jareth tried to calm her fears. “Whatever you’re worrying over, there’s no cause. There are spells, I can use my crystals, I promise you, whatever it takes we’ll find her and we’ll maker her sign this scroll.”
Tears balanced precariously on the edge of her eyelids as her focus left the scroll and ascended to the king’s face, “I don’t want to see my mother Jareth. Don’t you see?” Handing back the scroll she had been holding, her feet began to carry her back to the castle. “I don’t want to know where she is.” Halfway down the hill, the king’s acute hearing picked up one final cry, “I don’t care where she is.”
***** ***** *****
Face down on their bed, Sarah wailed. Jareth was quick to land at her side once he passed off the scrolls to Deverell for safe keeping. “Sarah, darling, what’s wrong?” he soothed.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” her muffled reply came from a small crack between the duvet and the inside of her elbow.
His gloves fell to her shoulders, “Sarah, oh Sarah, there’s nothing you can’t talk to me about.” She rolled onto her left side, looking at him through swimming eyes. “I know I’ve given you reason not to trust me, not to confide in me, but I mean to make that right. I mean to be as honest with you as I hope you will find yourself able to be with me.
She sat up, folding her legs underneath herself, the backs of her hands sliding over her cheeks pushing away cried tears. “It’s not about trusting you. I trust you. I love you,” she smiled at him brightly compelling him join her on the mattress. His head was at her right side as Jareth rested his hot lips against the tightened skin covering her knee. Gloved hands rubbed her thighs while he spooned around her, offering her comfort and a safe environment where she could express whatever it was locked inside her. “I love you,” she repeated combing through his long blond hair, new tears already beginning to gather in her eyes. When he looked back at her the way he did she knew she’d made the right decision, not just in asking to stay, but in coming back. Even though it had meant waiting the fifteen years until she was ready, able to accept him and all he was, all he had to offer. In her wildest schoolgirl fantasy she couldn’t have possible appreciated his world back then, not at fifteen, probably not even at twenty when she was just getting her first taste of freedom. At twenty five it may have been possible, but she was busy then trying to put away her childish reminders of youth and forge on into some brave new adulthood. Fantasy novels segued way to biographies and rag dolls turned to collectible porcelain figurines. But now at thirty, she wanted life to be an allegory contrivance to make the world seem less egocentric. ‘Reconnecting with him now was exactly the way it was supposed to be,’ she thought as she traced her fingers from his temple to his chin.
Stilling her hand he kissed the tips of each of her fingers. “And I love you, Sarah,” he confessed placing her palm over his heart. “I could take a wooden lance through my chest and live,” the king sad with inordinate seriousness. “What beats beneath this cage of bone and wrap of flesh, beats for you, not for me.”
Laughing she wiped away those fresh tears. Showing herself to him was nothing to fear, quite the contrary, it seemed the more of herself she showed him, the more he was able to nourish all her attributes and repair the faults which years of pain had left in her. With him she had found pride, she had found self worth and leaned to trust. More than trust, for trust often rode the coattails of love into a benevolent heart. Trust was a beginning, one that for Sarah led to things like hurt and disappointment, but Jareth excelled the expectations she had for him. “You really want to know, don’t you?” she asked, still gazing at him as though it were the first time they had ever set eyes upon one another.
“I want to know everything about you, the good and the bad. I want to undo every hurt you’ve ever felt, reinforce every fondness, but only at your pace, love, only when you’re ready for me to know.”
Slinking down beside him, Sarah’s legs twisted with the king’s and their arms folded over one another. Her long fingers walking over his lips. “Kiss me,” she requested. He obliged with all the tenderness he could feel, anxious to convey them to the woman in his arms, hopeful she was feeling everything he couldn’t find the words for. When her lips parted to accept his advance, her warm breath filled him. Salt from her tears, seasoned her mouth, he could taste it.
Jareth knew there was great heartache inside of her, a pain she was ready to let go of. Though he ached for her, he broke their kiss tenderly. Their foreheads pressed together, Sarah’s cheeks resting in his palms, he whispered to her, “What were you about to tell me, love?”
“I turn a child again whenever I so much as think of her. I’m that same prepubescent whelp I was the day she left, worse.” Her sentences came slowly, gapping pauses between them as she went on recounting her youth. “I regress right back to the days right after they fell out of love. Isn’t that a ridiculous concept for me to try and explain to you, falling out of love. When they tried to justify it, that’s what they said. ‘Mommy and daddy have fallen out of love. It happens sometimes, grown ups just grow apart. It’s got nothing to do with you. You must understand, we still love you, we just don’t love one another.’ Well I didn’t understand. If they were grown up already, why did they need to grow anymore? And if they had too, why apart, why not together? How did you suddenly fall out of fourteen years of being in love and why wasn’t anybody fighting to fall back in? Hell, I tried to push them back in, but it backfired, made them hate each other more. I’d spend nights at my girlfriends’ houses, in their perfectly nuclear families, thinking if they had time alone without the pressure of being parents they’d be able to be lovers.”
Jareth’s hand made soft soothing circles on the small of her back, “Their divorce was not the result of your not being able to keep them together.”
As if she had never heard him speak, Sarah went on. “Of course I didn’t think of them as lovers then, but I knew, I knew they had a tenderness between them, something visible. The pictures of them when they were in college together, they were so carefree looking. Daddy conceded to audition for one of their productions and found himself playing Nick Bottom opposite her Titania in the NYU production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. During a scene in the wood when they were to meet in Titania’s bower, daddy leaned in to kiss her and whispered in to her ear that he wished to marry her and as she took his hand, she found waiting in his palm a solitaire round cut diamond engagement ring. Mother was smitten with him after that, I remember her telling me about it. I remember how they’d cook together and sing or the way they would kiss as they passed in the hall. When I was ten, Mr. Everett, my mother’s college drama teacher called and told her the class had chosen to do Pirates of Penzance. Then he asked if she’d consider playing Ruth, an older nurse maid who cared for an apprentice, Frederick, to the Pirate King.”
“And this Pirate King, is he a fearsome type who might care to challenge me?” Jareth asked her softly.
Never failing to evoke a smile, Jareth’s comment seemed to shake Sarah from her reverie. “No,” she told him. “The Pirate King could never challenge you. He’s just some made up character in a play, You’re real.” Her hands pawed as if she needed to make certain of that fact.
“He’s the one isn’t he, this Pirate King, he’s the one who took your mother away.”
Tears poured out of her eyes in place of her acknowledging he was correct. “Even Mr. Everett remarked at how much make up they need to get mother looking the part. The Pirate King was an alumni from NYU as well only he was ten or so years behind my mother. His name was Patrick. During the production, mother was asked not to wear her wedding ring so as to better fit the role and when Patrick showed an interest in her, she lied about her age. ‘Harmless flirtation’, I heard her shouting at my father one night not long after the show closed. She left that night. By the time I was twelve, mom and Patrick were the hottest on-stage/off-stage couple to hit Broadway and daddy had met Karen. In the begin she’d visit now and again, bringing some trinket with her when she came. Music boxes, marionettes, playbills, I had them all. I had everything a girl could want, but for a mother. I followed her career, saved clippings, tried to pretend it didn’t matter, that there was nothing motherly about her. She wanted to be my friend, asked me to call her Linda, because it was ‘trendier’ than mom. I suppose you can say I literally got my acting talent from my mother.”
“You know,” Jareth interrupted, “we’ve more in common than I thought.”
“How’s that?”
“Our mothers both passed us off to someone else.”
Sarah rolled onto her back and peered up at the ceiling. “Only you’ve got Arulan and I’ve got Karen,” she sighed.
“It’s not my place to say, but do you think part of the problem with Karen might be that you were never able to accept her as a mother because you were never able to give up on Linda after she gave up on you?” Full time king, part time psychologist, Sarah looked at him slack-jawed. “I’m not trying to be judgmental, love. Look at Arulan and I, ours is not the model step-relationship either. I understand what it’s like to not be able to deny a parent Sarah, believe me I do.”
“I was 23 the last time I saw her.”
“Karen?”
“No, my mother.”
“Your graduation?” he asked harmlessly.
Turning away from him, Sarah explained, “No, auditions. We were both trying out for the part of Rizzo in a production of Grease. After I got the part, she never spoke to me again.”
Coming up behind her, Jareth pulled her tightly into his arms, “Jealousy Sarah, it was all out of jealousy.”
“A mother shouldn’t be jealous of her child,” she said as she rolled over to bury her head into his neck. “I never asked her to be jealous of me. I just wanted her to still love me, like she said she did when she left.”
Smoothing her hair he reassured her, “She couldn’t love you darling. She didn’t even love herself.” When her torrents wore down to a mild whimper, he went on, “You’re old enough to realize now that what she did was wrong, smart enough to know you didn’t provoke it and when we go Aboveground, you’ll face her with all the grit you had when you faced me. Your back stiff, your chin solid, you’ll look her right in the eyes and let her know she has no power over you, not any longer.”
***** ***** *****
“Where’s Sarah?” Jareth popped his head into the office to ask Deverell.
“I haven’t seen her...no wait,” he lifted his eyes from whatever document was holding his attention. “Come to think of it, she was here earlier this morning. She asked a bunch of questions, said she was going to see Arulan and left.”
The king went to find his servant. “Arulan, is Sarah with you?”
“No.”
“Did you see her today?” he asked, not pleased by her response.
“I did. She asked a bunch of questions, said she was going to see the kitchen staff and then left.”
“Then I shall go and see them,” Jareth roared.
Arulan, who had been fixing flowers in a vase, wiped her hands on her apron, “Won’t do you any good. I saw her leave them too, went downstairs, probably to see Dalkeil.
Jareth found Dalkeil, “I don’t suppose you know where she is either?” he asked when he saw the room empty.
“And by she I only suppose you mean Sarah?” The Goblin King nodded, this little game beginning to anger him. “Well I had seen her, just before lunch. She asked me a bunch of questions, said she was going to see Gribbin and then went to the barn with a picnic basket she got from the kitchen staff.”
Worry began to consume him. After they spent most of the night discussing Sarah’s relationship with her biological mother and the many ways it was similar to his relationship with Leanan Sidhe, the two of them slept through breakfast. When Jareth woke up she was not next to him in bed. His instinct told him to find her immediately, but not wanting to seem too controlling, he busied himself with other things until lunch. When she didn’t show up for lunch, he kept calm in front of the staff, trying to appear aloof, as if her being missing from the dinner table was completely expected, but it was now drawing close to the evening meal and she was still no where to be found. He’d tried the office first, assuming she’d gotten her nose stuck in one of his books and followed the trail that Deverell had begun from him to the barn. As he approached, Jareth could see Gribbin grooming the animals, but he saw no raven haired mortal by his side or anywhere near for that matter. “Gribbin,” he called impatiently from a few yards away. “Was Sarah by here?”
“Aye, my grace, and so she were,” he replied. “Had a bunch of questions for me.”
Rolling his eyes, Jareth asked, “Did she say where she was going?”
“Matter of fact she did, now if I can remember,” he scratched his head. “Something about the dwarves, Hoggle or Mason, can’t remember exactly which one.”
Pivoting on his heels, Jareth turned to head toward the door to the Labyrinth. “Hoggle or Mason. Can’t remember exactly which one. Bunch of questions. Bunch of bull,” he spouted randomly as he stomped along the grass to the sandy edge of the Labyrinth.
“Thank both of you very much for your time.” The king had no trouble recognizing the escapee when he heard her voice from the edge of a fountain off to the far right. “And Hoggle, you’ll remember to have Drema fill that out and bring it back to me.”
Tucking the paper into a pouch hung from his waistband, Hoggle mumbled, “I gots it, I gots it. I’ll bring it back to the castle likes you said.”
“And Mason, I gave you two didn’t I?” Sarah fumbled with the papers on her lap, “One for Didymus and one for Ludo.”
“Yes, miss, but what about Winston and Jena?” Mason asked.
“Oh, I was hoping to get to them myself, but it’s getting so late”
Jareth’s stern voice interrupted, “It certainly is.” Sarah hadn’t seen him look so angry in quite a while.
“Say not another word, miss. Shall be my pleasure to deliver those as well.”
Hoggle snatched the two additional sheets out of Sarah’s hand as she leaned over to hand them to Mason. “Pass ‘em on my ways home. I can handle it.”
“So this is what you’ve been doing all day,” the king said, sitting beside her on the fountain wall and looking at a few of the papers she’d set down close by.
“Yes,” Sarah replied taking her papers from Jareth’s hand, leaving him with a shocked look upon his face.
“Don’t the two of you have things you can be doing?” he snapped at the dwarves. Mason plodded away, into the Labyrinth. Hoggle stood up and kissed Sarah’s cheek before he left, taking advantage of Sarah’s closed eyes to shoot Jareth a nasty look.
When they were both through the door, Sarah turned to the king, “That was mean.”
“You disappear all day, not so much as a note and suddenly I’m mean?”
“It’s not their fault I forgot to leave a note,” Sarah gathered up her things and started back to the castle.
“Well it’s not for lack of you having paper,” he pointed out as he caught up with her. “Going to tell me what you’ve got there?”
“No,” she saw how hurt Jareth appeared and quickly added, “this is just research. When I’ve got it all finalized, I’ll discuss it with you.”
“Discuss what with me?”
“You’ll see.”
“Why can’t I see now?” the king behaved like an impetuous child.
“Because,” Sarah said sternly.
Jareth pulled her to him, her work stuck between their chests, “Not even for a kiss?” His lips covered hers and she returned his tender affection.
“Not even for a kiss,” she said as they parted.
“I see, so everyone else in the entire kingdom has given you there opinion on something and you don’t care to have mine?”
“Not everyone in the kingdom. There were too many goblins, many of whom were incoherent, so I took just a sampling of the more well spoken ones.”
“Of course,” he said gruffly.
“I do want your opinion, Jareth, but I don’t want you to do my work for me. I’ve got to come up with a plan for bettering the Underground and whatever I decide to make my plan has got to come from me. When it does, before I propose it to the Triumvirate, I want your opinion, but until then I have to do this on my own.” Proudly, Sarah stood before him, all her work in the crook of one arm, the other hand placed protectively on top.
“Of course,” the king said more sweetly this time, smiling at the woman she continued to evolve into, happy for these moments when he could witness it.
***** ***** *****
In bed, Sarah waited for the king. Normally he was by her side at 10:30, sometimes earlier if he had romantic plans for them. But this night it was nearly quarter past eleven and no Jareth. She riffled through the questionnaires she’d completed earlier, but found it difficult to concentrate as she debated between his being angry at her for disappearing and his being hurt by her not sharing her research with him. By 11:40 she’d had enough. Her feet fell into the slippers waiting at her bedside and she wrapped inside a robe, determined to find the man she should have had to look no further than the next pillow for.
Down the hall she went, descended the stairs and walked to the kitchen, figuring he may be snacking since she was informed at dinner it had been the king’s first meal of the day. No Jareth. Perhaps the training room for a late night work-out. No Jareth. The music room, tapping out some haunting melody. No Jareth. The office for a bit of last minute work, one of the sitting rooms for a brandy, perhaps the terrace taking in the clear night sky, but she found him in none of those locales. Back to the bedroom, Sarah plodded, mad thoughts running loose in her mind. They had just begun to embark on what promised to be an exciting life, a warm and affectionate love. Terror swept over her when she thought she might have lost him again. The door to their chamber flew open and there was no one inside to greet her. Tears ran like torrents from her eyes as she began to cry.
Between sobs, she heard the faint pang of guitar strings through the open window. Rushing to the sill she nearly toppled out, there was indeed music in the air. Running back to the terrace Sarah threw open the French doors and stepped outside. Her eyes looked over the edge and below she could see the Goblin King strumming away, familiar words leaving his lips as his music filled the space between them. “I’ll place the stars within your eyes.”
“Jareth,” she called, unable to choke back her tears.
Elegantly his hands let loose the crooning instrument as he stepped away from and around it. The piece levitated in the air, strings continued to vibrate, the melody to play as if he had never stopped strumming. “Jump,” he told her. “Go on and jump, I’ll catch you.” Hesitantly she grabbed the rail, “You trust me don’t you?” Without thinking she threw her leg over the rail and perched on the edge, bringing the remaining leg around with its mate.
‘It was only the second story,’ she reasoned as she looked down into his waiting arms briefly, before shoving off the terrace and letting herself fall. At first it was rushed, the wind whipping her hair, making it sting her face as her weight cut through the air, but then rather quickly it changed. The wind grew warm and gentle, delicately turning her so she was no longer splayed face down, but turned onto her back, a slight curve at her knees and another at her hips.
Falling had turned to floating as Jareth voice rose above the rushing air, “I’ll be there for you as the world falls down.” As if on cue, she settled into his arms, her hands reaching instinctively to go around his neck. She clung to him, feeling his hair caress her shoulder as he bent to nuzzle her neck. “Are you crying?” he asked when his lips met moisture on her cheeks.
Not wishing to tell him what she had actually been thinking and what those thoughts had caused her to do, Sarah replied, “I guess falling from two stories up is a bit more amazing than I originally thought.
“And do you cry each time you are amazed?” he asked skeptically.
“Were that I did, I would cry each time I looked at you,” Sarah answered. Setting her feet on the cobblestones, Jareth leaned to kiss her, his mouth hung open just a fraction from hers, their breath meeting and exchanging as they barely touched causing their connection to spark with electricity. For a long collection of moments the kiss went on deepening as it did. When at last they separated, Sarah finally noticed what Jareth had been at while he was missing from their bed. All around her, his garden was alight with tiny fairies, a wrought iron table and chairs placed in the path of the moon’s light. The guitar not the only instrument come alive with no maestro to work it. “What is all this?” she asked, pleased by what she saw.
“Sarah, my love,” Jareth took her by the hand and led her to one of the chairs. It was then she noticed the bucket of champagne on the table and the two flutes. “The other evening you expressed to me some concern as to our love lives becoming patterned and boring.” His black gloves blending in the neck of the bottle as he filled their glasses. Bent before her, the king offered her the drink, “I should not want our lives to become any more boring or ordinary outside the bed chamber. It would please me to think I could keep you surprised for all eternity.”
There was such truth in his eyes, such conviction. He wasn’t trying to court her, to woo her, to get her to give him his way. In sincere a way as he had when he offered her dreams to her, Jareth pledged this to her now. Even in the most extraordinary place in existence, he would find ways to make their world, their lives, even more extraordinary. If ever she believed a man existed who could do just that, it was this man.
The night around them seemed perpetually warm and the fairies which danced about giving them light never grew tired, not even as the two found themselves reaching the bottom of the champagne bottle. Jareth took the glass from her hand and lifted her against his chest. His free arm slid around her waist as he began to dance with her among the flowers. Turn after turn, he spun his mortal, her thin silk robe feeling more and more like a full, shimmering ball gown. Leaving go of her hand, Jareth slid his glove up her arm, filling his fingers with her rich black hair. “Do you still love me?” he asked.
“What a silly thing to ask.”
“Not the answer I was looking for.”
“Jareth, what’s got you asking me such foolish things, on such a perfect night as you’ve devised?”
‘Listen to her,’ he thought as she spoke to him. ‘Not here a couple of months and already speaking like she had been all her days.’ But, then she was an actress. “Such great lengths you take to avoid my question, that it makes me wonder all the more.”
Sarah took his face into her hands, covering it with soft, quick kisses. “I do still love you, as much as I did the first time I told you, perhaps more.”
“And it is still your wish to remain here, in my world, by my side?”
“Yes, Jareth, yes,” she said devoutly as her face burrowed into his neck, her breath making his spine tingle. “Every moment of the day when I can’t touch you, can’t feel your body pressed to mine is agony.”
He remained stiff, unwavering as her hands gathered his shirt front to either side of the opening which revealed his pale chest and with a quick tug tore it open to his waist, allowing her hands to roam inside. “It’s been two full days now since we’ve gotten the letter from the Triumvirate Sarah.” She kissed over his exposed skin, “Only twelve days remain and we’ve four signatures to obtain. If you love me as you say you do, you’ll leave with me tomorrow and all this research you’re hiding behind can wait until we get back.”
“Give me one more day,” Sarah pleaded.
A great sigh came from the king, “For what?”
“To finish what I’ve begun and to prepare to see them again.” Stepping back, she held his hands, “One more day and,” she added raising an eyebrow, “one more night.”
Helpless to the power she held over him, Jareth followed her out of the garden, over the patio and into the music room. Sarah used her magic to light the torches on the wall. In the corner, Jareth’s harp played, the strings plucked by invisible fingers. With a gentle shove, the mortal sat the king, backward at his piano bench, “What are you doing?” he asked with a knowing smirk.
Standing a yard away, Sarah began to undo the tie on her robe. Salmon colored silk pooled on the sterile white floor, revealing the chemise she wore beneath. The straps, spaghetti thin and the bodice fitting to her voluptuous upper body. A ribbon of embroidery dividing the fluent fabric from the sheer skirt which though less pliable, was opaque enough for Jareth to appreciate the outline of her waist and the sway of he hips as she strode toward him, “Proving I love you.”
“Making love is not proving love,” he pointed out as she neared him, gathering her skirt in her hands.
“Not normally, but tell me, tell me when we’re together, you don’t know we were meant for one another? You can’t. Because you know the same thing I know. This is more than love, it is completion. When two people love as deeply as this, making love is the natural way of showing it.”
‘If only you knew how deeply I feel it,’ he thought as he removed his gloves using his magic to free himself of his remaining constraints, in time for her to slip her thighs over his, as she sat facing him in his lap. Cupping the king’s face, she lifted his lips to her own, kissing him long and deep, attempting to convey all of her emotions in that solitary action. As the Goblin King leaned against the key guard of the piano accepting her advance, he folded one arm around her waist, the free hand spinning a pyramid of crystals in the palm. Tipping the spheres toward the floor, they rolled out of his hand and tinkled as they made contact with the marble tiles. When their ballad stopped a handsome array of pillows heaped on the floor at the foot of the stool. Jareth’s second hand slipped over Sarah’s hip and guided her gently to the cushions below. Sighing, she stretched out her arms feeling the different swatches of silk, velvet, leather and chenille which enveloped her. The king’s tender hands slid beneath the hem of her gown, revealing her glory for his eyes to drink in. Sarah’s skin was as alive with sensation from the combination of rich fabrics that caressed her, as her body was alive with her lover’s touch. The melody of their satisfaction sang in tune with enchanted chorus Jareth’s magic had arranged.
***** ***** *****
When morning’s light revealed itself, Jareth and Sarah were wound safely together in the nest of pillows they’d used as a bed, a sleek sable throw for their cover. The king looked down lovingly at the mortal in his arms. He knew from the amount of light in the music room there was little time to get them back to their chamber before Arulan arrived with their breakfast. It crossed his mind to wake her and then the thought fled, for to disturb something so perfect was like clouding the sky with soot. Rather than that, he used his magic to transport them to bed, bringing with them the sable throw, so when Sarah finally did wake, she would have a reminder of the evening they had shared. Slipping out from beneath her, Jareth continued to let her doze as he dressed. When he was looking just so, as usual, he left their chamber, his love still lost to dream.
He stopped in the kitchen first to grab a pastry and some juice and to notify Arulan that Sarah was still sleeping and it might be a good idea to bring breakfast to her a bit later. “Mercy,” the elf cried out when he told her, “she isn’t unwell again is she?”
“Not at all,” he told her a telltale grin manipulating his mouth. “Tired. These last few days have been much for her to digest and having to return Aboveground is an entirely new pressure she’s not come to terms with. The Supreme One knows I’m not thrilled with having to face Leanan Sidhe, not after all these years.”
“And hers is the only permission they’re requiring of you?” Arulan asked, her voice quivering with tears her stubborn jaw refused to allow her eyes to cry.
Jareth took her beneath his arm, “Perhaps they knew, as I know, that your permission was to obvious to insult by putting on paper, mother.” The elf stopped all she was busily doing in the kitchen at his remark. “Would it please you if I were to call you mother?” he asked at her uncertain look.
“Please me? It would elate me. I would sprout wings from joy,” she admitted. The large smile which crossed her thin pink lips gave way to a stiff look, not stern, but merely rigid with seriousness. “But Jareth, you have a mother and I ought not be accepting that title.”
“But you...” the king began to object.
“But I nothing,” Arulan insisted. “What I did, I did because it was an order from my queen. I cared for her child, as I would have done regardless of the level of involvement she chose to have with you. She was still your mother Jareth and she loved you in her own way.”
“So,” he said hurt by her words, “you never thought of me as your son?”
“Indeed, I have from the first time I held you I thought, ‘Woe that he were mine.’ What’s more I put everything I had into raising you. You were just like my own and there are no words for what I feel to know you too, think of me as your own mother. You know as well as I do words have a profound effect here and so to call me mother would be inappropriate.”
“And to call you one who is as my mother would be ineffective,” he chided.
Arulan handed him his pastry and kissed his cheek, “Then you shall call me as you always have and on occasion, such as this one, you may remind me of your feelings.” Jareth smiled back at her, his heart lifted by their mutual understanding. Arulan, touched by his sentiments, pleased at his new relationship with Sarah and moved by her own longings, failed to resist the temptation to reach for his golden locks and rustle them just a bit as she had done when he was much younger and several feet shorter.
As he had then, Jareth scorned the woman with his eyes and set about restoring his hair in it’s elaborate mane. Before he left the kitchen he told her he would be in the sitting room closest to his office if anyone were looking for him, but if it was Sarah who came looking, she should be asked to wait for him in his office until he came for her. Arulan agreed to his odd, yet detailed request. He was particularly cheerful with Sarah returned to him, she even thought she saw an uncharacteristic spring in his step as he danced away.
Opening the door to the sitting room he had described, Jareth raised his finger to his chin and looked about thoughtfully. The walls were cream colored with a high mahogany chair rail topped in a fine fabric border. Crown molding helped the ceiling blend into the tops of the walls. The sitting area had room for three and while there would be no way to tier the floors as they were in his own office, it would be easy to rearrange the wing back chairs to create a natural division. Jareth set about reorganizing what there was in the room. Turning the three chairs to semicircle before the fireplace, two small side tables between each one. The drink cart he left by the door. The larger table he moved into the center of the room.
Then for the heavy work. There were no walls to manipulate, no tampering to be done with the foundation of the castle, so he used magic to create a credenza and a desk, which he placed parallel to one another before the window Between the two a high back leather chair on casters. To either side a five shelve book case and around the table, four smaller chairs, all made of the same rich mahogany as the rail with gold trimmed green fabrics to blend with the border.
When it came to decoration, Jareth did very little, there would be time for that. He added a clock, grandfather of course and flirted with the idea of having it set for thirteen hours, but thought better of the idea a moment later. There had been several paintings on the walls, all of which he removed and above the fireplace a crest, which he removed as well. “Books,” he said as he gave the room his final survey. His office was one door down on the opposite side of the hall and still strewn across one of the tables there were all the volumes Sarah regularly read during her stay. At first he thought he may just copy them all so she would be left with her own library, but realized quickly this would give him the opportunity to visit her were he to find a certain volume he was looking for not in his collection. Carefully he gathered them up in a delicately balanced heap and carried them back to the room. It took two trips and filled most of the 10 shelves the two book cases offered.
‘Something more,’ he thought as he sat in the chair and attempted to mentally walk through his typical day. “A letter box,” he said first as he imagined himself reaching for the post. “And a desk lamp,” he leaned over the desk pretending to write, “for making journal entries.” As the king spoke the items he recited appeared in the room, each pristine and coordinated with the overall aura of the room. A mahogany wood box on the corner of the desk, a brass lamp with a stained glass shade. “A journal,” each item led to another as he continued to list, “and a quill, an ink well, a blotter, parchment.” Sitting back he let out a sigh, “If there’s anything else she’ll need, I can’t think of it.”
Mission completed, Jareth joined Deverell in his office, rather pleased with himself. “Good day,” he addressed his assistant.
“Good day, your majesty,” he replied. “Have you spoken with the lady Sarah about making those arrangements to go Aboveground.”
Nothing like ruining a perfectly wonderful moment with stark reality. “I have, and I have agreed to give her today to finish some elaborate research project she has begun. We will leave tomorrow and stay gone no more than ten day’s time. And you, have you made the necessary provisions for our trip?”
“For as much as I can anticipate what you might encounter while you’re there. I’ve had Arulan pack clothes for the both of you and the leather man has crafted two fine suitcases I’m sure will pass any mortal inspection. Lastly, I traded in some of your diamonds for currency. I still don’t see why they won’t let you use your magic.”
Jareth shrugged, “That makes two of us. I suppose they’re afraid I would use it to coerce Sarah’s parents into giving us their consent.”
“And you couldn’t as easily do that with money?” Deverell questioned, knowing what little he knew of mortals, was still enough to see they were slaves to their currency.
“It can be done.” Curiosity ruled his look as inquired, “Exactly how much mortal currency have you arranged for us?”
Deverell drummed his fingers on the desk, “Well, I wanted you to have enough to eat and to purchase a bed for each night. Then I got to thinking, if there is something I’ve forgotten, some unpredictable incidental for which none of us has accounted, I wanted you to be able to suffice.”
“How much?” Jareth asked more solidly.
“Seventy hundreds,” he admitted.
The king’s mouth hung, “Seven thousand dollars? For one ten day’s stay?” He laughed that it might relieve some of the tension flooding his assistant’s face. “Why on that kind of money, we shall stay at five star hotels and dine on room service.”
“Your majesty, I was only trying to be considerate. The trader said the mortal world could be expensive, especially the lands of New York.”
“The trader doesn’t get much business these days. Sounds as if he may have been happier to see you than you were to stumble upon him.” In time Deverell would come to learn that not every service provider in the Underground was honest. “It’s sufficient Deverell,” he commented refocusing on the topic at hand. “What you’ve procured for us will allow us to live nicely while we’re not in our home. Although, I don’t think we need to worry about anyone being bribed for such an amount. The more you deal with mortals, especially the kind capable of wishing away their children or abandoning them, the more you shall come to see their greed would only make them scoff at such a nominal fee.”
“‘Tis a fact I hope I never need to learn,” the young fey admitted, wagging his head from side to side.
“Were it a fact I could keep from you,” Jareth told him.
Neither of them heard the door open and close, but it was Sarah’s voice clear as a bell which asked, “And what fact is it you’ve such trouble hiding?”
His arms wound around her. “My love for you milady,” he said with a grin. “Such a fact is one I could never hide.” The king brushed her lips in a tender kiss. “Deverell,” Jareth called over his shoulder, never wavering his glance from Sarah’s bright green eyes, “I’ve something to show milady. Do you require my attention for anything further?”
“Even if I did, it does not take a wiseman to see yours is already otherwise occupied,” he noted. “Go on you two, tend to this business of yours and leave the worry to me, it is after all that which I am unpaid for.”
Jareth smiled as he led his love to the door. In Deverell he had chosen wisely. “And where were you when I woke up this morning?” she asked him.
“You’ll see,” he winked. “You’ll see and I think you’ll agree it was worth us having to be apart.” As the door closed behind them, Deverell grinned. He wondered many times over if he would ever find true love. In Burrgraff, they still used antiquated concepts like prearranged marriage, but now he was a citizen of the Underground, and as he was coming to learn, not only were things not always as they seemed, but anything was possible.
***** ***** *****
Before the door to what was now Sarah’s office, Jareth stood with his arm around his love, neither of them moving to turn the knob and peer inside. “Have you brought me here to see this door?” she asked. “Because it is a fine door, a door worthy of much admiration, but nothing so great to make it worth my not finding you beside me as morning met my eyes.”
“Not impressed with my door, you say. In that case,” he grasped the knob, turning it fully to the left, “I will have to hope you are better impressed with what lies inside.” He swung open the door and stepped in first so he could watch her reaction as it happened.
When first she crossed the threshold, she saw a sitting room, like any other in the castle, barring the color of the wood and the fabric on the walls. It was a bit more grand than the others, larger, with a fireplace, but not until she stepped completely inside, sweeping her eyes over the full scope of the room, did she realize what it was he had done. The desk and all it’s perfect amenities, the credenza, the book cases. Upon closer inspection, as she read over the spines of the books which filled the shelves, Sarah saw he’d gathered up all of her research, save what was still in their chambers. Her eyes lit like a child on Christmas morning, as if she had only just descended the stairs and taken in the wonder of the holiday.
“You did all this for me?” Sarah asked stunned.
“And I would do this and more ten times over for you. I would do all that you asked and require only your love in return,” as he fell to one bent knee, the king pledged his servitude. Sarah remained rigid and silent. As he stood Jareth slipped his arms about her waist and donned a look of concern.
On tiptoe she reached to kiss his lips, “My love,” she added, “comes at no cost to you, no monetary fee, no feudatory craftsmanship, only that you hold it in your heart as delicately as you hold me in your arms.”
“Always,” he promised her. “So, you like it?” Jareth asked as he pointed out to her the smaller things, adding, “I’ve left the decorating to you. Nothing in here really suited you anyway.”
“I love it,” she gushed. “Love it and love you for doing it. I’m going to get my notes from yesterday and make good use of the space you’ve given me.” That look of childlike innocence still bathed her face as she went running upstairs.
“I’ll have Arulan send Hoggle to your office when he brings your paperwork this afternoon,” he called as she flitted off.
“My office...my office,” he overheard her sing between chuckles.
“Speaking of which, I’ll be in my office if you need me.” Still distracted by her new office, Sarah called back an OK and merrily continued on her way.
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