Too big to be permitted to fail, Jareth thinks as he surveys the battlefield. Those still in the process of dying groan, but never for long; most of his soldier goblins carry a misericorde.
What fools they all were, to think it could ever end but thusly. He had little enough love for Oberon, but he does pity Titania, who had thought his Sarah a friend. He has learned better, in the centuries since they wed.
He finds Sarah staring at the bodies of the former King and Queen of Summer.
"Shall we end here, precious thing," he asks, "or will we take Winter, too?"
She turns, and smiles her cold, distant smile. The smile that reminds him of fear, and fire, and does not bring back nights spent with her head pillowed on his chest. But Jareth ignores it, instead reaching for her hand — and she keeps the talons gentle and curved away as she leans into his touch — and pulling her close.
He kisses her, and she is pliant beneath him. The world is spread before them like a beginning, but this, at least, at last, is an end.