Author's Note: This story is now Co authored with leannapotter, who is responsible for the vast majority of this chapter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 2~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jareth paced in frustration. He had to rescue the High Princess' daughter, and soon. The problem was that the girl, no matter how much she loved fantasy stories, had no idea that he actually existed. What he needed was to have somebody to wish her away.
"BY THE BLOODY GODS!" he snarled menacingly, throwing several ancient, priceless books to the ground. The reason being because he had run out of chairs (there had been three), and the window no longer made that minusculey, satisfying smashing sound when it broke… Because it was already broken.
"I need somebody to make a fucking wish!" He resumed his furious pacing, only to freeze in his tracks. Somebody had made a half wish, a rhetorical wish that he couldn't answer. He quickly recognized the person who had made the wish¾ only somebody with High Fae blood could make even a half wish that strong. He needed somebody to make a wish in the household NOW, before it was too late.
Zaralynn woke up to a parched throat and a bad dream. She slowly relaxed as she took in her darkened surroundings with an odd sense of relief- nothing was out of place. She remembered a rather funny part of that night's story, Labyrinth. Her bad feelings gone, she quickly remembered how thirst she was and swung her feet out of her warm bed and onto the plush carpet, wriggling her toes in pleasure as she did every time she got out of bed.
Silently creeping out of her room, she wondered if Sarah would read her another chapter of the story if she asked nicely enough. Zaralynn may not have particularly liked Sarah, as she could be rather harsh at times, but the girl loved the wonderful stories that Sarah told at bedtime. As she arrived at her destination, she halted in shock and disbelief. Sarah was on the ground in a pool of crimson, aromatic blood, still clutching an oddly familiar, rather small knife and unconscious. Zaralynn's mind went completely blank and the young girl shouted the first thing that popped into her head:
"I WISH THAT THE GOBLIN KING WOULD COME AND SAVE SARAH RIGHT NOW!!!"
Jareth suddenly stood up straight. Was that… Yes, it was! Someone had wished… They had wished him to come and save Sarah. But it couldn't be. Jareth had been watching her for years now, and he knew that voice well enough to know that it was the oldest of Sarah's stepsisters. He had never thought that her stepsisters had liked her overmuch, but he wasn't complaining.
Jareth quickly transformed into his owl form and took off out of his broken window, making a mental note to fix it later. He flew out over the labyrinth and beyond, until he came to a window set right in midair at the top of a hill overlooking the labyrinth. Inside, he could see a terrified little girl's face staring in shock at something he could not see.
The window was just big enough for Jareth to fit through in his owl form, and he flew in, the tips of his wings brushing the windowpanes ever so slightly, and landed on the kitchen floor in his true form.
The little girl stared up at the Goblin King, wide eyed and slightly slack jawed before she squeaked with terror and ran out of the room. Jareth sighed and summoned a crystal.
"Go after her," he whispered into the small orb, and it did as it was told, floating out of the room and following Zaralynn. In the morning, she would remember nothing of what had taken place. He looked around the room, and simply blinked. The rest of Sarah's so- called "family" would not remember her unless he deemed it fit to remind them.
Jareth knelt beside Sarah. She had already lost a lot of blood, and he hoped that he hadn't come too late. He inspected the cut carefully. It was deep enough to do quite a bit of damage, but she had not quite penetrated the muscles, which was good. He placed his hand gently over her thigh and chanted, "Restitute cruor, restituo cruor, restituo cruor…" The blood that was pooling around Sarah and soaking into her clothes slowly but surely drew back into the wound, and Jareth did not stop chanting until the last of it had been sucked back into Sarah's body.
"Vigoratus vulnus," he whispered, and the cut healed. Jareth gently picked her up and carried her out of the kitchen to the front door. He nodded at the front door, and the doorknob turned and the door opened. On the other side, instead of the walk leading to the street, was the bleak landscape of his kingdom on the top of the very hill he'd come from. He turned around and the door closed with a snap before disappearing. He took a deep breath as the bulk of his power returned to him. He held Sarah a little tighter to him before he disappeared from the spot, leaving behind nothing but the glitter that slowly fell to cover the hilltop.
He reappeared in the middle of a forest, on a trail that was barely more than a foot wide twisting through the trees and underbrush. Jareth swore as he maneuvered his way around felled branches and trees while trying to keep from jostling Sarah around too much. He didn't have far to go, but the path was rarely used and was nearly impossible to navigate.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, he came upon a gate. Half the size of most large estates (most estates had gates twelve feet high or more), the gate was made of bronze, with the family crest in the middle, two rearing dragons facing each other as if they were about to fight over a large sun.
The guards on either side of the gate snapped to attention when they first saw the Goblin King, but relaxed a little when they saw him. Jareth rearranged Sarah's head so that her face was buried in his shoulder. Nobody had ever seen her here before, but she was the spitting image of her mother, and everybody knew what the High Princess looked like.
The guard, Jareth believed his name was Garathaine, nodded at him and opened the gate.
"What's that you got there, Yer Highness?" he asked. When Jareth shot him a warning look, he instantly looked away and started whistling nervously.
Jareth started up the cobbled walkway through a much less dense section of the forest. He finally came out in a clearing just big enough for the enormous mansion in front of him. When he got to the door, he realized that he had no free hands to knock with, so in his brief moment of insanity, he rapped his head hard on the door three times.
The door was opened by a rather short elven girl. Jareth knew her. Her name was Arathaine.
"Arathaine, go wake up Lord Galanodel," Jareth ordered. She began to run off when he added, "And bring me something for my headache!"
Jareth walked slowly up the large, red carpeted staircase to a lavishly decorated guest bedroom. He gently, but reluctantly, placed Sarah on the king sized feather bed, silently resting her head high on the pillows. He checked her thigh, making sure that the healing wasn't ruined by the strenuous walk on the trail, then moved to take her pulse and breathing. Seeing that everything was normal, he ran a simple diagnostic spell to make sure that her brain wasn't damaged by the blood loss. Satisfied, he turned to see a ruffled Lord Galanodel standing in the doorway, his eyes wide and shocked.
Jareth, old friend, what are you doing here? Is everything all right with you and your kingdom? Who is that?" He asked in rapid succession, not giving Jareth a chance to respond. He stepped further into the room, trying to see who was lying on the bed behind Jareth.
"Calm down, Galanodel. I will explain everything later, but right now, I need your help in figuring out what is wrong with Sarah. She won't wake up, and I know that you are the best healer in the Underground." Jareth stepped aside to reveal Sarah, unconscious and with fever spots high on her cheekbones, which was never a good sign. Galanodel stepped around Jareth to stand by the bed, and quickly checked her temperature. It came out to be 104.5 degrees, dangerously high. He quickly summoned several icepacks, placing them on her body in an attempt to bring down her temperature, while casting an advanced diagnostic spell, which checked her white blood cell count, red blood cell count, looked for any toxins in her blood, and for internal hemorrhaging or bruising. What he found shocked him. Sarah had a major infection on her blood, which was slowly poisoning her body and killing her. He called for a servant to bring him several herbs, and while he waited he asked for Jareth to tell him what happened.
"She was in a pool of her own blood when her oldest stepsister wished for me to save her. I restored the blood to her body, and that must have been when the infection started. I brought her here as fast I could, after making sure her family wouldn't remember her. You should know whose daughter she is." Jareth said anxiously, trying to help as much as he possibly could. He had watched Sarah since birth, and even though her personality was suppressed by exhaustion and fear most of the time, he saw the person she could have been in her dreams, vital, happy, and overall, beautiful. He had fallen in love with her a long time ago, but was unable to interfere because of the laws of his magic. So he had been forced watched her year after year, being abused by her stepmother, ignored by her father, a mortal idiot who didn't know what a beautiful person his daughter was, and was unable to help her. Until tonight.
"Well, she should be ok if I can get her to swallow the herbs, but I'm not sure she can. However, she is thoroughly comatose, and it would be dangerous right now. She will make the night. But I wouldn't try anything right now." Galanodel said sadly, seeing his friend's anguished expression. They both looked at the comatose Sarah, hoping that she would wake up soon.
