What with new cases and everything else, she didn't see Jareth again until the middle of the week. Sarah had come home late and sat down just to rest before making dinner, only to wake up to someone tugging her hair. She blinked muzzily, and looked up into the face of the tiny goblin that had leapt to her shoulder on her first foray into Umardelin as its queen.
"Wakey-wakey, yer queeniness!" it chirped. This particular goblin looked like a combination of squirrel, miniature monkey, and bird – that last might've just been the nose, which was decidedly beaky. A long nose necessitated the long tufted tail, for balance. It perched on her shoulder and tugged gently at her hair once again. "Kingy sez youse should come down an' see 'im. You comin'?"
There were things she needed to ask him … and since time ran differently, she'd get more sleep Underground. "I'll come," she said, and got up. The goblin bounced onto the back of the sofa and scampered down to her room; the mirror was the easiest way to slip back and forth. By the time Sarah got into the room, the goblin was perched on the mirror frame.
Sarah noticed that it was watching her with lively curiosity, and felt a little odd thinking of what she knew was a sentient creature as 'it'. "What's your name?" she asked.
The goblin froze. "Me, yer royalestness?" it squeaked.
"Yes," Sarah replied. "You're not in trouble. I just want to know what I should call you."
"Neesk, yer majestickiness," it said, and bowed.
"Thank you for coming to get me, Neesk," Sarah replied. "And 'Queen Sarai' will do."
A touch of the key at her neck, and Neesk jumped back to her shoulder as the room around them changed. Now she was in her suite at the castle, and the reflection in the mirror was her apartment. Sarah went to the door and opened it for Neesk, still riding her shoulder, and when it – he? – didn't jump down, she shrugged lightly. "I need to change clothes, and I'd like privacy," she said. "Let the king know I'm here, please."
"Sure, yer highn– I mean, Queen Sarai!" Neesk jumped down and bounded away.
Sarah chose a simple gown of impossibly soft wool, dyed in ombre blues, and went to find Jareth. He met her on the stairs and enfolded her in his embrace. She could feel, now, the energy pouring into her from him, from the Labyrinth itself, and she welcomed it. It was rest and ease and strength and health, and she bowed her head to his collar with a sigh of relief.
"Sweetling, come to me when you are weary," Jareth said, nuzzling the crown of her head. "Umardelin is a spring from which you can draw to renew yourself. I promise I shall not make too many demands upon your time." She could feel his smile against her hair.
"Now that I'm not exhausted, I might make demands on yours," she teased, tipping her face up for a kiss. Jareth beamed at her in open delight, and she knew again that her choice had been right. This was home – he was home, weird as that thought was.
"Come, I arranged for us to dine," he said, and Sarah let herself be swept away to another sumptuous feast. If she hadn't come down here, she would've forgotten to eat again, something she did more often than she should when she was that tired. If not for that, she might protest the richness of the food, but as it was, she didn't think she was in any danger of getting overweight. I just can't eat like this all the time, she reminded herself, and helped herself to a second serving of roast.
Jareth ate more lightly, but smiled at her indulgence. She mock-glared at him, and muttered, "Shut up. It's been a long day."
"I said nothing, Sarai. Nor would I. It is good to see you remembering to take care of yourself. There have been times when I worried about your tendency to forget to eat."
The worst had been in college, when she'd just been juggling too many things at once, and sometimes her roommates had had to pester her to eat. Sometimes she'd just been too damned tired to make dinner, planning to grab coffee and a pastry the next morning. And like as not, forget the pastry. It wasn't healthy, and Sarah knew it, but she just got so damned busy sometimes. "Yeah, well, I can't always pig out when I'm here," she teased. "I don't want to go over-indulging too often."
"As if your weight concerns me, beyond the worry that you may become too thin," Jareth scoffed. "If you ever reach the point where we have to reinforce the floors, I'll consider it an issue. But I highly doubt that. You tend to fret away too much of what you take in."
That earned him a smile, for knowing her so well. It was strange to realize how much he knew of her little habits, when most of their relationship had just been dreams. "Watch it about that reinforcing the floors thing," she said with a chuckle.
"How are Allison and young Lucy?" he asked, to redirect her.
"Alli insists that I saved Lucy somehow, and I can't get her to refute it," Sarah said. The first time she'd seen the girl afterwards, Alli had hugged her tight for several minutes, muttering tearful thank-yous all the while. "At least I managed to get her to agree not to mention it. She's being a model sister, now. And Lucy's fine. It was just another day, to her. Kids that age have imaginary adventures all the time."
"More older sisters ought to have their siblings kidnapped. It tends to bring about an improvement in temper," Jareth opined, and Sarah kicked him under the table. Gently, though, and he laughed.
"There was something I wanted to ask you about," she said, as their plates were cleared away and a cake brought in. "There are fae Aboveground, too. What do you know about them?"
That gave him pause, and he looked at her for a long moment. "What makes you state it so?"
So she told him about the green-haired girl. Jareth sat with his chin in his hands, a scowl of concentration on his face. "Hmm. It could be a threat, but I would have expected something more dramatic. Perhaps it was mere curiosity, wondering why a human bore such a powerful fae talisman.
"There are fae who choose to live Above, yes. Mostly the young, the weak, or the dispossessed. None of them are a match for me, which is likely why I have never encountered them. But then, they have no strong ties to the Underground, and can move more freely in your world than I."
He took her hand and kissed it. "Forgive me, Sarah. I have been remiss. I should have cloaked the key to the kingdom from fae sight as well as human. I had no idea that any of my kind would live in so thoroughly human a city as New York. We are normally drawn to places where we can touch the life-pulse of nature."
"There's Central Park," she reminded him. "It's wild enough that there are coyotes moving in. And it's all right. Just shield it now."
"The girl who spoke to you knows you wear it," he replied. "She and her set will see that it is shielded, and therefore know you either have the magic to do that, or know someone who does. Be careful, Sarah. And if they approach you again, touch the key and speak my name. I shall make an impression they will not soon forget."
"You're so cute when you're protective," Sarah teased. "This is the man who almost killed me with pitfalls when I was fifteen, being all nervous now."
Jareth did not rise to the bait. "If they took you prisoner, they could tap into Umardelin's power with the key. It might well kill them for such presumption, but they may not know that. And they may believe they can hold you hostage against me. A horde of goblins would change their minds swiftly."
"I really don't think it was a threat, Jareth," Sarah said, surprised to find herself defending the strange fae. She had developed a good sense of character in her career, though, and that slim girl had seemed almost exaggeratedly polite.
"Still. We fae are selfish. Trust nothing another fae offers you, for surely it will benefit them more than you. For that reason, I am not comfortable that these urban fae know you."
Sarah couldn't help tweaking him a little on that. "So should I be wary of your offers? Or are you the one altruistic fae in all the world?"
Jareth grinned. "Ah, my Sarah, I am clearly getting the better end of our deal. I have you, and my curse is broken. Whereas you have only magic, a kingdom, and a devastatingly handsome king who adores you."
"Woe is me," she said in deadpan tones, and they shared a laugh that ended in a kiss.
Once they drew away, Jareth spoke again, in a curiously hesitant tone. "There is something I needed to discuss with you as well. We have a great deal of planning ahead of us. I know you are in no hurry, but certain things must be settled, and soon. Your coronation is among them."
"Jareth, I am not quite ready to put on a crown and rule," she protested. "It hasn't even been a week yet!"
"Then we need to do something else, to make certain the word gets out amongst the fae that you are here to stay," he told her. "I would propose we host a ball, or more correctly, you host it. Call it the Champion's Ball, for you are the only one to defeat the Labyrinth twice. The kings and queens will not come, but we will have curious guests enough, and they will take tales back to their elders. It will buy us some time to plan your coronation. Speaking of which, we will not need to plan that alone. My parents will help us."
For a long moment, Sarah could only blink. "This is really going to happen, isn't it?"
"Yes," he said simply.
She let out a sigh and put her head down on the table, resisting the urge to bang her forehead against the solid wood. "Jareth, until last week the biggest thing I had to worry about was making sure my brother doesn't decide to run away and join an artists' commune or something. And now I have to be Queen. I need to get a handle on it. And your parents … holy God. I never really thought about meeting your family. This is already making my head hurt."
Jareth rubbed the back of her neck, but kept silent. Sarah sighed again. "I could've handled this better at eighteen."
"Yes, well, neither of us was quite ready then," Jareth said.
"Yeah. Ironic, that," she muttered, blushing a little.
"Oh, we were both quite ready to have a lover who equaled our passion," Jareth said, smirking. "My sweet, sweet Sarah. You were and are and always will be such a delight."
Keeping her face buried in her folded arms, Sarah shot back, "Yeah, you weren't half bad yourself, Your Majesty."
"I would prove that I am far from 'not half bad', but we ought to discuss the things we're avoiding," Jareth sighed. "My family, and yours. My parents are on their way here, and will arrive in a fortnight or so. Perhaps not in time for the Champion's Ball, but for your coronation, certainly."
Sarah sat bolt upright and stared at him. "They're already on their way?! Shit, Jareth!"
"Relax. My mother will adore you. My father is still trying to convince me to leave Umardelin and come home. I am counting on you to help me show him what this place can be, and that it is more than just a curse."
"Well, about that." She sighed, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, knowing he wasn't going to enjoy her next suggestion. The entire castle had a distinctly bachelor air of neglect about it. Their own quarters were well maintained, of course, but the rest … it was the realm of goblins. "If you want to impress your father, we need to get this place cleaned up. And we have to do something about that throne room."
"What of it?" Jareth bristled. "I can set the goblins to cleaning all the corridors and rooms, but what of my throne room?"
"Jareth, it's a sty," Sarah said in some exasperation. "Chicken feathers, discarded goblin clothes, and half-eaten food everywhere. We have to let the goblins be goblins, I know, but that can't be your official throne room. There's a vulture nesting in your crown!"
"Mathilda has nested there for a hundred and sixty years!" Jareth protested.
"Jareth, seriously?" Sarah asked. "Because that shows your respect and dedication to your kingdom."
He huffed. "Honestly, that crown doesn't fit. We may as well let her have it, and design a new one."
Seeing his stubbornness, Sarah sighed. "You know what, that's a good idea. We'll design a new throne room, too. Call it the official audience chamber. The goblins and the damn vulture can have their audience room."
"Speak not so of Mathilda," Jareth scolded.
"It's a vulture," Sarah argued.
"She is a vulture, yes, and quite a bit your senior. A little respect is due. Besides, she is better company than the goblins, many days. And her presence ensures that the half-eaten food you mentioned doesn't go to waste. Nor do any rats the goblins miss."
Sarah just rested her head in her hands. "Okay, you can keep your man cave, all right? But we're gonna have to refit something fancier for highborn guests."
"I can see the sense in that," he said. "The castle tends to reconfigure itself to runners. It should not be any trouble to arrange such a room. I suppose you want marble floors and alabaster columns and lovely tapestries?"
She let another sigh escape her. "Let's put it this way. If you had the choice of what you'd want – what you'd want, Jareth, if you weren't in a kingdom of goblins – what would you pick?"
A long pause, and he finally admitted, "I … no longer know. I have been here too long, Sarah. I know what will please the highborn. And I will be certain to choose colors that flatter us both."
"I don't care what will please them, I care what will please us first. So I guess you'd better start thinking about what will make you happy." She smiled at him then. "This is our kingdom. I draw the line at unswept floors and nesting carrion birds, but as long as it's presentable, figure out what you want and we'll go from there. As you said, we're not leaving. Might as well be comfortable."
Jareth grinned, and tousled her hair. "I am minded to set emeralds in my crown, Sarai. To echo the fire in your eyes. From there, we can sort out the rest."
She shrugged. "I guess we're both gonna have to figure this out. I've never done anything like this, and I get the feeling you've been forced to survive Umardelin more than rule it. So it'll be new for both of us."
"So it shall," Jareth said. "I will commission tapestries commemorating your runs. And some of my own deeds, and those of the goblins that are fit to display."
"Don't make over-much of me," she chided.
"Why not? It is you who broke the curse. Besides, you want me to surround myself with things that make me happy. You make me happy."
She kissed his cheek for that. "Yeah, but I'm also the girl from Haverstraw who wished her brother away when I was fifteen. I'm not perfect."
"Nor am I. Everyone knows I was cursed to rule here, and why. We can hide ourselves away in shame, or stand proud of who we've become and how we've transcended our mistakes. And I, for one, am damned proud of you."
"All right, all right, I'm convinced," she said at last. "But I get final approval on the tapestry designs, okay?"
"As you wish," Jareth told her. "Now, when are you taking me to meet your family?"