Day 135 (Two Weeks Later)
It was raining, a cold, heavy rain, clouds blocking not only any sight of the sky but of the distant mountains and lands beyond the bounds of the Labyrinth. Sarah shivered and pulled the window shut, then hurried over to huddle in front of the fire.
It had been raining for four days straight, a phenomenon Sarah might have disliked but paid no real mind to if it wasn't for the fact that everyone kept remarking on how unusual it was. There were muttered comments about portents and omens, comments she would have ignored at home but was forced to consider seriously here in the Underground.
She suspected Jareth had something to do with it, but wasn't sure how. Nor was she in any position to question him on it, since she was still not speaking to him. Nor did he try to initiate conversation with her, even if he wasn't going so far as to ignore her; on the contrary, he remained alert to her presence whenever their paths crossed, but he seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move.
If that was the case, he'd be waiting a long, long time. Even though she couldn't get that overseen moment between him and Sihve off her mind, even though it revealed a side of him she'd never expected to see, it didn't change anything.
It didn't change the fact that he'd forced her into an agreement that went against everything she'd been raised to believe in, that she believed herself; giving up her virginity to save lives was noble in theory, but it sucked in reality, and he hadn't even bothered to apologize for any of it. As far as she was concerned, all he'd done was admit his intentions when forced to, and no amount of cuddly moments with Changed Ones would change her mind about him.
She'd expected him to continue availing himself of her body, but to her surprise he hadn't laid so much as a finger on her since their bout of angry sex after she learned his original intentions toward her. He had, however, returned to sleeping in the same bed, slipping under the covers sometime after she fell asleep and leaving shortly after she awoke in the morning. No matter how early or late, he stayed in the bed until she opened her eyes, and she suspected he spent much of that time studying her.
She hoped she wasn't giving away the confusion that was still skirling through her mind and body, that all he saw was the hostility she deliberately projected whenever their eyes met, but somehow she suspected he saw right through her. As he always had.
She was allowed free reign of the castle once again, and spent much of her time searching for her vanished trunk of Aboveground clothing. It was a futile search, and she knew it, but it gave her something to do that was wholly her own, that required no favors or condescension from the Goblin King.
She avoided the library most of all, because it was there that she'd begun to feel useful, wanted, all the things Jareth wanted her to feel. Even if he had changed his mind, as his now-vanished sister insisted, it didn't change what he'd started out to do. So she wanted nothing to do with anything he'd encouraged her to do, even if she'd loved doing it.
Once again the scene in the throne room rose to the forefront of her mind. She'd always assumed the children who'd been turned into goblins were treated the same as the other goblins, the "natural" ones, but she could see the difference now that she was actively searching for it.
It still puzzled her, until she had a sudden insight. She turned the thought over and over in her mind as she absorbed the warmth of the fire and half-listened to the rain splattering against the window panes.
The insight didn't just apply to Jareth's treatment of the goblins and the Changed Ones; it applied to herself as well.
Simply put, Jareth wasn't human.
She knew that, had always known it, but she'd been treating him as if he were. As if he were nothing but a human with some extra abilities.
She drew her knees up to her chest, encircling them with her arms as she stared blindly into the flames. Jareth wasn't human. Jareth didn't play by human rules, didn't live by human rules. He was arbitrary, capricious, whimsical. Just like her studies told her the Fae were.
Oh, they had rules, fairly strict ones if the literature could be taken at face value, but within those rules were vast loopholes, mostly applying to how they dealt with mortals and underlings.
Like her and the goblins.
Reluctantly she decided she'd better return to the library after all. Somewhere in those dusty tomes lay the answer to the question of exactly what rules the Goblin King was playing by. And even if she were speaking to him, she was in no position to trust his word on anything. Research, something at which she had discovered she excelled, might help her discover if Jareth was even worth believing in the first place, no matter what his sister said.
No matter what he said, either.
A/N: A short chapter, but a pivotal one. Enjoy!