Author's Note: Sarah is referred to as Sarah, but is also referred to as a 'he'. This is because I want to impress it on people that Sarah really is a man at this current point of time.
Author's Note2: There is a new word used here- anyone reading any of my other works know that I use made up words- and I am not going to explain it here. It will be explained in another chapter.
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"Did you sleep well, Sarah?"
"Sam."
"Sarah," Jareth said firmly, "Your name is Sarah and it shall remain Sarah."
"Whatever you like," the Peshawa sighed, sitting down. There was a tense lack of noise and Sarah looked up, catching Jareth's patient enquiry. "Oh," he said belatedly, "I slept well, thank you."
Jareth moved again and nodded, "Good. Do you have any particular plans for your stay here?"
It was a singularly cool question. Sarah swallowed and put his spoon down as his appetite dissipated. "Not really. I just wanted to get away from there." He continued to shift uncomfortably for a few minutes. "Look, I'm sorry if I inconvenienced you yesterday. I'm a little… confused, and I thought…"
"That I had answers?"
Green eyes slipped up. "Yeah. Something like that."
The Goblin King sighed and shook his head. "Sarah, you already have all the answers to any question that concerns you. What more do you need to know?"
"What happened? How is all of this possible?" Sarah leaned forward, green eyes wide as if to see the answers in his face, "I don't know any of this stuff. How is it possible for you… you know."
"No. I don't."
"Um, to be related to me in any way?"
Jareth smirked. "The biological process of fathering a child is quite unimaginatively simple," he chuckled, "I had sex."
Sarah flushed and sat back, now uncomfortable with the entire topic of conversation. He had been asking in a figurative manner. Now Jareth was just being nasty and crude, putting him off without really saying more than what he already knew. "Forget it," he muttered, getting to his feet, "I'm going for a walk."
"Sit down."
"I'm going for a walk," Sarah said louder. He turned to go, stalking to the door and reaching for the handle.
"I said- sit down!" The shout was enough to make the young man flinch. He turned around and levelled a defiant stare at his supposed father, defiance laced with uncertainty.
Jareth was still in his chair, his eyes down turned to the steaming cup he cradled in both hands, but from the set of his shoulders and the set on his jaw, this studied indifference masked an actual violence. The Goblin King was not about to be dictated to by his own daughter. And a peshawa at that! This was what came of stealing her away from her birth father. Robert had a lot to answer for.
"If you want answers," he advised slowly, "I will tell you anything you want. But you need to ask the right questions. Do we have a deal?"
Sarah shifted from foot to foot. "Okay." Hesitating for the barest hint of a second, he walked obligingly back to his seat at the table and sat down. "Is it true that I'm a Peshawa?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"You show all the signs of being a Peshawa. Not every magical race changes sex every three months," Jareth shrugged, "In fact, very few do. That narrows the possibilities. More importantly, you were borne of a Peshawa."
"But I thought Peshawa took the shape of other races that it mated with," Sarah pleaded, "See? I don't understand this. How can I be Peshawa if you're fae?"
Jareth took a deep breath and put the cup down. He leaned back and fixed a bored eye on his daughter. "Peshawa are a complex race, Sarah. Only the iiga clan are so submissive. At the other end of the scale is the opi clan, who are dominating. An iigawa- or a male of the iiga clan- was given to me. He bore my child. The child was you. By rights you should be fae. But you left the Underground and my presence in particular and the only parental influence left to you was Robert. Therefore you are a Peshawa."
"Did Dad know this?"
"I assume he did."
"Did you know this?"
"I did."
"And you let me be taken?" Suppressed fury in that normally soft voice.
"No." Jareth smiled a little. "I did everything I could to find you. But the world is a large place and the Peshawa are a race known for being chameleons. They can blend in anywhere, becoming just one of the dominant races wherever they are."
"Then how am I not mortal?"
"I said parental influence," Jareth snapped, "Can't you hear?"
"Sorry! I only asked."
The Goblin King shook his head and rose to his feet. He beckoned his daughter silently to follow him. He had something to show him, something that he thought he ought to be made aware of. So he took him up to the very top of the castle, where the wind whipped at their hair and their clothing. Jareth took Sarah's arm and pointed to the panorama spread out before them.
"This entire dimension," Jareth said in his ear, "Is mine. I rule it. When I leave this place, it was to go to you. Until Robert took you."
Sarah's jaw dropped. He was meant to be a Princess? Or Prince, depending on what month of the year it was. "You're joking, right?"
"No."
"Is- is this why you took Toby?"
Jareth let go of his arm and walked to the other side, looking out at another splendid view. "No," he called back, "You wished him away and I took him."
"Did you know who I was?" Sarah shouted after him. It felt as if the wind had begun to blow harder, as if to deliberately steal his words away.
"Of course. You have Robert's eyes. And I could feel the magic in you."
"I don't have magic!"
"Every Peshawa has magic," Jareth told her, "The ability to blend in, remember? The minute you drew yourself to my attention I knew everything about you."
Sarah had the feeling that he didn't like the implications of that statement. Jareth knew everything about her? She certainly didn't like that! "Why didn't you tell me?" Something else occurred to her. "You sang a love song to me! Eugh! What were you thinking?"
Jareth laughed and the wind tore the sound away so that it somehow sounded louder than it really was. "A song is a song, Lannon," he soothed her, "Did you expect me to stand there and leave you to the mercy of that rabble?"
"Is that why you danced with me?"
Jareth looked at his daughter and for the briefest of moments he pictured her as she looked as a female. She was happier in that form, and he could imagine how confusing it was for a human to change sex every three months. But such was the lot of a Peshawa. And he hadn't exactly danced with her just because he wanted to protect her. "Why else," he said flippantly.
Sarah's face didn't change. She didn't expect any finer feelings from him. How could she? The only time she had met him, he'd tricked her again and again. And he professed to have done that knowing who she was. No father would do that to someone they really cared about, would they?
Jareth had had enough. He held out his hand and took the young man back inside. He took him down to his room. Sarah was about the same size and the same height as the Goblin King, and Jareth had never negated the fact that he was not the paternal sort. "Those clothes are uacceptable," he said sharply, "If you are going to stay with me, you will dress appropriately. Now let me see."
He looked him over, dark hair with green eyes, pale complexioned and slim. Not unpromising. He studied him for a long moment and then nodded briskly.
"Here," he said, snapping his fingers and holding out his hand.
Sarah was surprised when the chest flew open and a shirt came floating out. He took it from Jareth's hands and looked it over. It was simple enough- white, large, open necked. But not in the style of Jareth's get-up. This was less revealing.
Jareth didn't wait for him to react but flicked his fingers again and a pair of breeches came to his hands. He plucked them out of the air and looked them over. Sarah's hips were narrow, but still slender enough. He shrugged and handed them over. "Try those. We can have new ones made."
"New? But I'm only here for two weeks," Sarah protested, "Really! I won't go out that much. I don't need any new clothes."
"I told you- you will dress appropriately," Jareth ordered, "Robert may have let you be mortal but you aren't in the mortal realm any more and you will behave as my daughter. Here." He shoved a pair of boots at him for good measure. "Go in there and change."
Sarah was left with no choice. He could tell that. Jareth gave the impression that he didn't even consider the possibility of his doing something different. And really, was there any reason for a shouting match on his first day back in the Underground? He had at least allowed him to return, and he supposed in his own way Jareth was trying to relate to him in some way. It wasn't either of their faults that neither of them really had anything in common. Sarah meekly went into the small room Jareth had pointed him to and shut the door.
It seemed to be a dressing room of sorts. It had a counter running down one side, and a steel-rod rack on the other. The mirror took an entire wall- from floor to ceiling, from side to side. The fourth side had the door. Various boxes and bottles stood haphazardly scattered around the room. From what Sarah remembered, the fae males used quite as much make-up as the females. That probably meant that Jareth would have to keep some of it around.
Not that Sarah was looking for make-up. He didn't wear it even in his female form! So Sarah dressed and carefully didn't look in the mirror until he was done. The breeches were a little too snug on the hips, but they were cut to be looser than Jareth's usual outfits and so they weren't too bad. The shirt was fine. Sarah wondered if the shirt wasn't more feminine than masculine. It looked somewhat androgynous in that way. The boots went on perfectly.
By the time Sarah left the dressing room, Jareth had vanished. He waited for a few minutes, unsure as to where the Goblin King had gone, but Jareth didn't return.
So Sarah took the opportunity to look around. It seemed a simple enough bedroom. Clearly with electricity because their were glass lamps to read by and the bed itself seemed to be a little crude until one realized that it had been carved from one single piece of wood. It said a lot about the trees in the Underground to think that one could grow that big.
Sarah left the room feeling uncomfortable but a little more settled. At least he was getting a sense of who his other father was.
It was a shock, yes, but then Sarah had been getting used to it since the night Robert had returned and sensed the Goblin King's recent presence in his house. There had been trouble. Robert had told 'her' back then. And Sarah had used the rest of the years from that night to the time he reached his majority to wrap his mind around the concept. Only now was he beginning to understand.
