A World Full of Shadows
10. Win, Lose or Gore
Sarah blinked her eyes and found she was wrapped in Jareth's protective embrace. He was sleeping but his arms were clasped tightly around her. She had no idea of the passage of time as her memory of recent events was sketchy. She recalled being intermittently encouraged to drink a vile bitter tasting black liquid, and not much else. Her hand shot protectively to her stomach and she tried to feel a sense of connection to the life inside.
"Have no fear my precious one, all is well," Jareth murmured drowsily, and his eyes remained closed.
Sarah realised they were both naked and she was not in her own bed. They were in the Goblin King's chamber and she couldn't remember how she'd got there. She tried to ease herself out of her lover's embrace, but he tightened his hold.
"Jareth, let me go," she protested as she pushed against his bare chest.
"You need to sleep," he whispered.
The light was poor but she could make out strange markings on the backs of her hands.
"What the hell?"
She wrenched herself free and jumped out of the bed to find her arms and stomach also etched with weird symbols.
"What's going on?" Sarah was beginning to get alarmed.
Jareth threw back the bed covers to reveal his body was also adorned with similar markings.
"We got married," he stated, as if it was no big deal.
"Now, get back into bed," he sleepily commanded.
Sarah was aghast and couldn't seem to form any coherent words.
"I, I don't understand, I was barely conscious, how the fuck can we be married?" She finally overcame her shock and managed to tap into her rage.
The Goblin King let out a heavy sigh, as if the whole business of giving an explanation was unnecessary and tiresome. He got out of bed, with his hair looking even wilder than usual, and his naked body shimmering in the half light.
"You are carrying my child, Sarah, you were already mine before I solemnised our union. We will have a formal ceremony for the benefit of our subjects, but we are now bound together as one," he explained.
"Where I come from, the bride is usually awake when she gets married, I just can't believe you'd do something like this," she was hurt and mad as hell.
There was a wet slickness between her thighs, and she had vague flashes of a frantic sexual coupling taking place between them. The nausea which plagued her in recent days was gone, but she now felt sick in a different way.
"Jareth, what the fuck? I don't even know what to think about the whole weird-voodoo-sex marriage thing. I thought you loved me," Sarah raged as tears spilled from her eyes.
"And so I do, my precious wife and queen of all I have, I love you as I have never loved another," he declared as he reached out to comfort her.
"We simply don't do weddings here the way they do in the human world, ours is more of an old sacred tradition."
She stepped away from him and looked around for something to cover her nakedness.
"I want to go home," Sarah demanded as she found a robe to put on.
Her semi-clothed state made her feel slightly less vulnerable.
Jareth remained in all his unclad glory and was resolutely cocksure as he began to shake his head disapprovingly at her request.
"You are home," he stated.
This was his victory and by his estimation, it had been a long time coming. She defeated him when she was only a child, and for years he worked at clawing back the power he'd given her. His motivation turned out to be love, and not revenge, as he'd originally intended. Sarah was always going to be his, and he'd played the long game, sure in time he would win. She was more than worth the agony of the years he'd suffered waiting for her. Jareth knew he'd been high-handed in getting Sarah pregnant in order to regain power over her. His duplicity troubled him, until he realised it would have happened anyway, even without his meddling. Their child was conceived in his world, it was the only explanation for him not sensing her pregnancy before she'd left him. They made love numerous times during her return visit, in a place; at the heart of his labyrinth, where her birth control, even if it hadn't been tampered with, would have been useless against his strengthened magic. He had gained more than even he dared to dream, and yet, he still desired for his hold over her to be complete.
"I never agreed to this, you have no…" Jareth grabbed hold of her hand and cut her off before she could finish speaking.
"Yes, I do, you're pregnant with my child and that gives me a certain power over you," he said.
Sarah wasn't sure what that meant, but feared she'd lost a game she didn't even realise they were still playing. He had her backed into a corner in more ways than one, and there didn't look to be a way out. Was spending her life with the man she loved such a terrible forfeit?
"All of this is my own fault; I indulged my teenage fantasies of you. Oh boy, did I indulge them. You were so charming and you never gave up, I longed for that and you fulfilled that need in me. But then shit got real, as they say, and now you've trapped me here, for what, forever? It's a good thing I don't believe in happy endings, because let me tell you, this ain't even close," she protested.
"Ah, but this isn't the end, my darling wife, not even close," Jareth's smouldering smile melted away some of her anger.
"I want to try and make things work between us, for the baby's sake as much as anything. He or she will need a father, and would never deny you the right to be a part of your child's life. But if you love me like you say you do, then that should mean you care about my happiness, right?" Sarah questioned.
He nodded.
"Of course, my precious one, I would move the stars for you," he vowed.
She couldn't help but be affected by the sincerity in his eyes, despite his underhand dealings. He loved her fiercely, in a way that was quite overwhelming for someone who'd feared being abandoned. Sarah didn't know what to think about the whole marriage thing, as it seemingly consisted of nothing more than daubing their bodies in strange symbols followed by an intense sexual union. She recalled the markings glowed golden during their coupling and were bright enough to light the room when they climaxed. Her memory was hazy, but Sarah didn't doubt it was a consensual act between them, although she still felt he could have waited until she was a little more lucid. Her mother warned her about falling in love, and taught her to fear being left alone. But she didn't prepare her for someone who would never let her go, and who adored her so completely.
"Come back to bed, my Sarah," Jareth held his hand out to her, and after a moment's hesitation she took it.
She was weary, and although surrender on the matter of returning to her own world was not an option, rest was sorely needed. She knew the battle was best saved until she was strong enough to stand a good chance of winning
They got comfortable under the covers and he tenderly kissed her.
"Sleep well, my queen," he said as he manoeuvred her in his possessive embrace.
"The poison failed," Queen Mab screeched.
"She didn't even eat any of the fruit and then that meddlesome Goblin King swooped in and carried her back to his lair," she raged.
"We should be stronger by now, and yet I'm not feeling it," Vetya complained, her eyes colder than ever.
"Nor I," Yarla kicked a nearby sprite as a test and found herself disappointingly feeble.
Mab feared her plans were crumbling due to some unforeseen factor. The human had done her part, and the book she'd written about the Unseelie was now in the public domain. The reason why it was not yielding the expected results was a mystery the queen needed to solve. Mab suspected the increased population of the human world was to blame. There were so many of them compared to how it was when the Unseelie were at the height of their powers. She was sure the novel should have inspired some renewed belief from the mortals by now, but maybe the impact of one book wasn't enough. The humans required greater spectacles and grander gestures to make an impression on them these days.
"Why do we listen to you? You promised us a complete restoration and we've had but a mere taste of it," Vetya's blue veins looked as if they might burst through her pale skin.
"How can we destroy the Goblin King in this pitiful state? His magic is equal to, if not more powerful than ours combined, and now he has the human under his complete control," Yarla lamented.
"All is not lost," Mab assured them, although she felt less than confident.
There had to be some way of clawing back something of what was owed to them. If the answer didn't lie in the human realm, there was only one other option.
"We will have to keep faith in the black heart, and hope that it can help us to reclaim our power," she informed them.
The macabre relic, which they held as sacred, was supposedly the preserved heart of the creator of the Unseelie Court. It was said to contain the vestiges of their original potential, and legend had it that if a suitable blood sacrifice was offered to it, it would restore their power. The ritual had never been successfully performed as the specifics of the required sacrifice were in the form of a riddle, which remained unsolved.
"We should have turned to the black heart in the first place, as we intended, instead of going off on a tangent with your hare-brained schemes," Vetya squared up to her co-ruler.
"Oh, really? Well I think hare-brained beats scatter-brained, and you two haven't got enough sense between you to outwit a troll," Mab raged.
Yarla snarled, and the ice queen fixed her with a venomous glare.
"You think you're better than us," Vetya screeched.
"All this bickering will get us nowhere; we must put our heads together and solve the riddle. All is not lost, not by a long way. Only weak fools fall at the first hurdle, and we are still very much in the race," Mab implored them to cooperate.
"T'is still neither known as one thing nor the other,
Created of man and woman,
But as yet knows no father or mother,
If the right words be spoken over its blood
Once more, the black heart will do you good."
She recited the riddle.
"If you're such a smarty pants, you should be able to solve it," Yarla challenged her.
Mab contemplated it with growing frustration, until she had an epiphany.
"Ha," she exclaimed.
"The answer has been under our noses the whole time."
Her co-rulers were non-plussed.
"It has?" Vetya questioned.
Mab gave her companions a scathing look.
"You two really are as useful as tits on a troll," she sneered.
They both resumed their snarling.
"The answer is an unborn child, of course, and we happen to know exactly where we can find one. I believe we can kill two birds with one stone," Mab rubbed her hands with glee.
They might not have been able to touch Sarah in the human world, but things worked differently here.