The shadowy figure melted back into his own realm, leaving behind the joyous couple. Eternal blackness left no part of his land untouched, having seeped into even the hearts of his subjects where hate grew deep towards the unsuspecting Goblin King. Not only had he, the Shadow King, watched over Sarah, but he'd protected her from the ghostly world of terrors. Like many children he had seen her mother leave them, but got her to find a love in fantasy, magic, and mystery. How was it possible that Jareth had swindled his way into her heart? How could she not see that something else, someone else had always been with her? "This will not be allowed to happen." The Shadow King hissed poisonously. "Your great trespass will not go unpunished Jareth."
After a well prepared dinner, Sarah hesitantly bid Jareth a good night and retrieved to her room upstairs. How could she be so lucky? Not only does she have an amazing man in love with her, but he wants to marry.
"Forever's not long at all…How right you are Jareth." Sarah mused under her breath with just a slight giggle. Gaining her composure, Sarah massaged her painfully overworked facial muscles. She could not stop smiling. The thought of seeing Jareth every morning, every night, sharing laughs, even arguing with him seemed to be right, internally her heart sat content at the future her mind created.
A small tap like knock rang out on Sarah's door. Knowing full well only one set of hands that could make that soft brush against her door, she stood and opened the door. "Hello, my little man." She knelt, lowering herself to eye level with young Toby. "Shouldn't you be in bed having adventurous dreams of pirates and sword fights?"
He rubbed is half-laden eyes. "There was a man. I didn't like him."
Sarah frowned thinking of who Toby could possibly be seeing in his room. "What did he look like?" The young face screwed up in hand concentration.
"Nothing. He looked like nothing."
"How could he possibly look like nothing? You saw him-"
"Black, fuzzy-nothing." He tried hard to clarify what he had seen for the dumbfounded Sarah.
"Like a shadow?" Sarah prodded.
"Like nothing." Toby answered firmly for such a small person.
A queasy feeling sprang up in Sarah's stomach, but she dismissed anything dangerous. Finally, concluding to talk with Jareth about this incident. She knew if Toby had seen something, then he saw something. With a smile Sarah picked up young Toby and carried him off to bed.
That night when all had gone to bed and night stole away the last remnants of daylight, Jareth reappeared in Sarah's room. Both were too excited to leave each other for too long, and seeing as how their wedding was no longer a long ways off, Jareth would come and sleep the night away with Sarah in his arms.
He sat on the edge of the bed head down, hands twined together. The golden sheen in his hair danced in the light from her vanities lamp. In the corner she changed into a set of black basketball shorts and one of Jareth's old and forgotten shirts. Sarah had especially asked that he bring her a shirt of his to wear at night, in case he could not be there. His smell was intoxicating, and unfortunately or not she had grown so accustom to his smell on her sheets, on her pillows, or better yet, rolling of his very body. She crawled onto the foot of the bed sitting behind him. Rubbing his knotted shoulders she furrowed her brow, Jareth is worried, and it was not a small matter.
"I take it those disturbances you mentioned on the border of your land were more complex than you thought?"
He jumped as her voice interrupted the trance her capable hands had put him in. Tensing even more, he let out a breath, letting everything drain out of him, the worry, the burden, the cares of all his people.
"The Shadow Lands have begun acting up again, and they are a very elusive people. I'm worried…Sarah, I'm worried that even my strength will not be enough to detour them from creating a war."
"I take it the Shadow King didn't respond to your letter?" Sarah didn't really need Jareth to answer, their minds were so intertwined by now, and they practically read each others thoughts.
"It's just I don't get why he'd want a war? We've had our difficulties in the past, but nothing to cause this amount of hostility. So far it's just the border, but if they moved in any farther, they will be destroyed." He hesitated running his hands over his beautifully tired face, "I'm a harsh King for many reasons. Does it mean that I like warfare? No. Do I try and bring this upon myself? No. I may seem prideful, and cruel, but it is always just."
"Come to bed. Let rest relax your mind, maybe something will come to you you've been refreshed."
He nodded in a sad defeated way, moving back to take his side of the bed. Sarah too moved towards the head of the bed finding her-self cradled in his immensely strong arms. An hour passed leaving no trail but the movement of the stars and the shining strength of the moon. Sarah's mind could not rest as she replayed Toby's story over and over in her mind like a broken record. The young voice saying, 'He looked like nothing. Nothing.'
"Nothing…" she whispered letting it trail off her tongue and into the air circulating in her room. "Jareth, are you still up?"
The smooth rustles of the night wind through the trees played softly in the background. The moon sitting in the sky was now full and robust with its silvery garb shown down into Sarah's other worldly pale room, illuminating all within.
Jareth's head moved up to rest on his propped up arm, his other hand holding steady around her waist.
"What's troubling you my darling girl?"
"Well…" she bit her lip trying to piece together what Toby had told her earlier that day. The fact that it was important held like a rock in the pit of her stomach. "Earlier today Toby told me something that I just can't seem to ignore. Tell me if I'm crazy Jareth, but Toby said he saw something in his room. When I asked what it was all he could tell me was that it was nothing, a black-fuzzy shadow of a man that he didn't like-it could only be described as sheer nothingness. Nothing."
Jareth's brow furrowed and his eyes darkened deeply. "It felt like nothing to him? A shadowy nothing…that's not good at all." His voice slowly caught a frenzied pace. Jareth quickly climbed out of bed. Sarah got out after him.
"Jareth what's going on? It's serious isn't it?"
"If it's who I think it is, yes, it's very serious. I need to talk to Toby now."
Together with Jareth leading up the way they tiptoed through the halls to the young boy's room. Silently, his hand moved to the door knob turning it to reveal the room. A small night light cast a dim glow to every corner of the space. Toby's eyes opened.
"Sarah?" Toby's head shifted towards the other figure, "Jareth?"
"Hello little tyke, your sister told me you had a visitor in your room the other night. You didn't like him?"
"No. He was…" Toby searched his small vocabulary for the words. "He was sad, nothing, dark, nothing…he was cold and…he scared me." The shake in the usually strong voice betrayed his usual sense of bravado.
"What did he do when he was in your room?"
"He came in through the window and then went through the door towards Sarah's room..."
Sarah shivered thinking of the horrible feeling she had had the day they announced their engagement. Shaking her head she inched towards Jareth, letting his presence calm her nerves.
"…after awhile he came back-I hid under my covers just peeking out. He stopped and…and looked at me. He stared at me. He was nothing."
Jareth usually steel blue eyes betrayed the sense of worry that he had over this young boy's stranger.
"The Shadow King reveals his hand too quickly, I think." He turned back towards Toby. "Thank you Toby, you've helped us greatly. Trust me when I say I will do my best to make sure you get no more visits from your shadowy nothing."
"Really?" The small voice clung to the hope of no more night time horrors trespassing into his innocent slumber. "You won't let the bad man won't come back?"
"No Toby, I won't let the bad man come back. You have my word. Now go to sleep little one." He moved his hand arching it over Toby's head and within seconds Toby was fast asleep and dead to the world around him. Taking his time Jareth stood and faced Sarah. She was struck by the way the shadows cast a dark and deathly cold Jareth. She'd never seen this Jareth save once when she'd said he had no power over her. The steely blue eyes went as hard as diamonds and as cold as ice.
"They've been watching us, but why Jareth? What possible reason would they have against you or me?" The question fell heavy in between them, when an idea struck Jareth.
"Sarah, I think you've been watched a lot longer by Shadow folk then you might know. I never thought it to be anything because the Shadow' move so easily between your world and ours…there was bound to be some sort of lingering from them, but I think…I know this lingering is much stronger than I first realized."
"What do we do?" her small voice rang determined and sure. If there was to be a fight, she was ready to defend everything that she had gained in the last week. No one was messing with life, no one. Jareth snorted a little laugh as he looked at her petite frame; messed up shorts, baggy shirt, wild hair, her heart so tender, and yet she was as tough as steel.
"Right now we will sleep because tomorrow we have wedding plans to attend to with Karen..." Sarah interrupted Jareth's decision with her own sarcastic humor.
"I didn't think beauty sleep was really on the menu for tonight with such a danger out there?" Jareth's grin grew farther across his face. 'This is why I love her. So much fire and passion stored up in one creature…this is why I will fight for her until the last breath leaves my body.'
"No we don't need any beauty sleep, in face some ugly sleep is what I have ordered on my menu tonight. I hope the preparers don't mess up my order, I do hate waking up hansom." Sarah just stared at him, shook her head, and started back off towards her bedroom. Jareth watched her, "What? Come on, you have to admit you want to laugh?"
When he got to the room Sarah was lying in the bed waiting for him. A large grin had spread across her face, leaving no doubt that she was back in a joking mood despite a maybe threat to their happiness. He closed her door quietly and leaped into her bed occupying the space next to her. With his grin quickly striking out along his face he listened to her speak, her eyes squinted, and her mouth curved off to the side as if in deep thought.
"I think you need to talk to those preparers of you sleep type because they keep screwing up your order." His chuckled vibrated his chest and made Sarah's worries burn down into nothing more but a tiny ember. All the sudden serious she blurted out, "I love you Jareth. You know that don't you? That I love you, and nothing can change that."
"I think we both know that I love you with everything that I am, and nothing in time or space will change that." He leaned into Sarah sweeping his lips over hers. It was like he'd been dead to life without her, but now with her here everything was more vibrant, awake, and alive. Happiness elevated him. The kiss at first so simple and pure became passionate, deepening with everything that they were. He broke away sadly.
"Now precious, we both need our sleep. I'm an old man, who can't believe he's saying this, but he needs to keep being chivalrous, and you need to rest your mind. What say you?" His voice came out torn with his desperate want, but it was squelched by his obvious manners. Sarah just laughed silently at him.
"Old man my ass…although I do admit I can't wait till I get to find out how untrue that statement is one day." The shock was so apparent in Jareth's face that Sarah laughed even harder now.
"I do say my dear that you can be quite the little vixen, and just so you know, I am an old man compared to you." The look he gave her made her stop like a scolded child, but neither one of them could keep up the farce of anger.
"I say to bed then old man."
Together they well asleep wrapped in one another's arms. The night passed away hour after hour letting dawn melt through the trees outside her window. The bright fresh glow of a new day stung both their eye lids letting them know that their beauty sleep was over, and wedding planning was to begin.
