Chapter 2
Two of the same
After a hearty breakfast and a couple more rounds of love making, Sarah was eager to find out what magic powers, she now had at her disposal and most of all, what animal she could shape herself into. Jareth was quite amused by her eagerness as she literally dragged him into their library, pulling him by her hand and leading the way.
"Precious, I know you are excited, but pulling out my arm is not going to help you. Trust me, whatever magic you possess it won't be gone before we get to the study."
His loud entertained laugh filled the hallway and reverberated throughout the entirety of his castle. The goblins, still mostly incapacitated from the celebrations the night before, only groaned and moaned in response and barely opened their eyes.
"Kingy laugh", drunk goblin number one remarked.
"He happy with queenie", inebriated goblin number two reinforced.
"More ale for goblins then?" intoxicated goblin number three inquired.
"If kingy happy, means more parties for us", befuddled goblin number four clarified.
"Someone say more parties?" hammered goblin number five asked happily.
"Hey guys, we're having another party", bombed goblin number six declared.
"Roll out the barrels", plastered goblin number seven proclaimed.
With this statement all the goblins rose as best as they could and continued with their celebration by rolling out more goblin ale barrels and tossing chickens through the throne room. Music started playing from a crystal that held all the song collection of their king, and within minutes the 'Magic Dance' was in full swing with plastered goblin number seven attempting to sing the lead part.
He was later shot with a cannon out of the window of the throne room under a roar of laughter by his fellow goblins. Hammered goblin number five took over the lead singer job with not much better results.
Sarah paced impatiently up and down Jareth's study as she waited on him to finish scrolling through a book he wanted her to read for her magic studies.
"Sarah you have got to relax. You won't be able to perform any magic correctly if you are not calm internally."
"Well, hurry up then", she complained in a whiny voice and Jareth gave her a frustrated look over the rim of the book but remained silent.
She finally sat on the settee with crossed arms in front of her chest. It all seemed like an eternity to her as she sat and waited quietly.
"Ok, I think we are ready. Let's see what you got."
Jareth came walking around his desk and crouched in front of her, staring intensely into her eyes, his face only inches from hers.
"What magic do you see?" Sarah asked eagerly, waiting on his proclamation of her powers.
"I see..." he whispered barely audible as Sarah leaned into him, not daring to blink. "I see...two gorgeous green eyes who are driving me absolutely crazy with their impatience."
He rose with a wry chuckle and gave her a scolding look with his fists on his hips as she huffed with discontentment.
"Ok Sarah, now concentrate. Feel yourself creating a crystal. Imagine it appearing out of thin air with a flick of your wrist and straight into your hand and onto your fingertips. Imagine what you want inside the crystal. Let's say, you want to see someone. Imagine a face you want to see."
As he gave her his instructions, he demonstrated with a crystal of his own in front of her, waving it back and forth and juggling it with exact hypnotic precision. It all looked so easy.
"Piece of cake", she muttered as Jareth chuckled and shook his head.
"Aren't we a bit conceited", he laughed with incredulity and stepped back to let her do her magic.
No matter how hard she tried, she could not conjure a workable crystal. One time she almost had it, but it burst like a soap bubble as soon as it had formed. The other time it was so tiny, both of them stared at it close up in disbelief as it finally burst too. Jareth gave an amused chuckle.
"A little bigger than an ant's head would be nice", he added flippantly.
Sarah gave him a disapproving snarl over his remark and tried again. This time her crystal was nearly the size of a basketball. Jareth only shook his head and made it disappear.
"Find a medium. Not supersize, not tiny. It really isn't all that hard."
"Alright then, keep your snarkiness to yourself and let me concentrate", she spat back, earning herself another sneer from him.
Finally, an hour later she managed to conjure a normal sized workable crystals on a consistent basis.
"Perfect", Jareth cheered proudly and waved his riding crop through the air. "Now, let's imagine a face you want to see. Concentrate on that face."
"Ok, sounds easy enough", Sarah replied, re-adjusting her seat on the settee, and closing her eyes.
"I want...I want to see..." she screwed her eyes shut and twisted her face, pursing her lips.
"Sarah, are you constipated?" Jareth asked with concern, watching her grimaced facial expression with immense intensity as his nose nearly touched hers.
"What?" she asked, opening her eyes and unscrewing her face. Her eyes nearly crossed permanently seeing him that close against her.
"You looked like you had ablution related issues", Jareth chuckled highly amused. "There is no need to contort your face to such an extreme. Just relax."
"Ok, ok, I can do that. Here it goes", she sighed, inhaling deeply.
She once more closed her eyes, but this time kept her face relaxed and focused.
"I want to see...Hoggle", she exclaimed.
At first nothing seemed to happen, but slowly the fog inside the crystal cleared and the face of her dwarf friend appeared. As the crystal zoomed out it appeared that Hoggle was in the middle of his own ablutions and Sarah blushed.
"Oooops, bad timing I think."
Jareth looked into the crystal and gave a booming laughter.
"So, that's why my nice bushes by the gate are wilting. Higgle is taking a leak on them. I need to have a word with this ...hogshead."
He tapped the crystal with his riding crop and sneered with contempt. Sarah only threw him a disapproving look but didn't correct him over the wrong name. She closed her eyes again.
"I want to see...Toby."
Within seconds the crystal displayed Toby's pouting face. Apparently it was lunch time and he seemed to argue with Karen over the vegetables he apparently refused to eat.
"Well, nothing has changed there in ten years. Still refuses to eat the healthy stuff", Sarah laughed.
She successfully tried a few more times, conjuring up the faces of Ludo, who was in the middle of a nap, and Sir Didymus, who seemed to be in a deep discussion with a winged fairy over the usage of his bridge across the bog.
"Why doesn't she just fly across? She has wings?" Sarah wondered to herself, shaking her head to get rid of her thoughts.
Now, Jareth wanted her to concentrate on a specific location.
"Show me...the throne room", Sarah's mind called out in silence.
As the throne room came into view, Jareth's brow knitted and he drew his head closer to the scene inside the crystal.
"What the bloody hell?" he shrieked. "Those blasted goblins are still at it? Damn blimey bugger. Wait here, I'll be right back."
Before Sarah could react, Jareth had disappeared in a cloud of swirling glitter. She amusingly watched the drama in the throne room unfold inside the crystal. She couldn't hear Jareth's words, but judging by his face, he was ready to bog the entire lot of them.
Several went flying through the air after a swift kick, and combined with the chickens flapping everywhere and the ale being spilled, it looked like a scene from Animal House.
Sarah couldn't help but to bend over twice with uncontrolled laughter. Goblins were scattering everywhere with chickens flying and Jareth throwing exploding crystal balls.
She quickly stopped her chortling and turned her crystal off, assuming an innocent position on the settee, when she saw Jareth vanish inside the crystal. Within seconds he reappeared in front of her, slightly flustered with a few chicken feathers in his hair and ale stains on his pants.
"Well, that went rather well", he exclaimed dryly, trying to hide his discontent.
Sarah bit her bottom lip hard to prevent from losing herself in a laughing fit. Jareth only narrowed his eyes and gave her a suspicious look.
"I think you got the crystal magic down for now. Let's move on", he remarked dismissively and waved his hand to dissolve the insolent crystal.
He crouched down in front of her again and Sarah couldn't help herself but to plug a few remaining feathers out of his unruly hair. He only rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like 'blasted goblins' under his breath. Sarah did her best not to giggle, and placed a tender kiss on his lips to show her support for his situation.
The next couple of hours Jareth spent teaching Sarah basic skills, like changing her outfits, or hairstyle and color, and how to conjure food or drinks and other small items.
He was quite impressed with her progress and after another two hours called it quits for the day. He still had some certain other activities on his schedule and didn't want to waste the entire day performing menial magic tricks. He wanted to perform only one special magic trick, and that one required their bed as a medium.
Over the next couple of weeks, their days seemed to be spent in the same manner. After 'marital morning duties', as Jareth liked to call it, and breakfast, they were off to the study for more magic lessons. After lunch, she would read up in the books he had provided her, to further her skills while he held court.
At times she became quite frustrated over her slow progress, while he tried to assuage her that she was doing exceptionally well, and at other times, it was him who became frustrated by her impulsiveness and impatience.
"Magic takes time, especially for an adult. I had hundreds of years to practice, you have only been a fae for a little over two weeks. Be patient, my love."
He wrapped his arms around her as they stood on the balcony watching the sun set.
"I know, but it's still frustrating when things don't move along as I expected. I had hoped I would be an owl by now. I so wanted to fly with you."
She gave him a sad and pouting face and he gently stroked her cheek with his ungloved fingers.
"Oh precious, give it a little longer. Transforming into an animal of any sort is more advanced. It will happen soon, I promise."
"Hm, ok then, if you say so", she murmured back, still not convinced.
"Yes, I do say so", he laughed and scooped her up into his arms as he marched over to their bed.
"Again? We already did that, just an hour ago", Sarah exclaimed with a blushed face.
Jareth only laughed out loud as he let go of her and plopped her unceremoniously onto the bed.
"I only felt like carrying you across the threshold. Even I am too tired for any more activities tonight. Let's go to sleep, my love."
He divested himself of his clothes and crawled under the covers to join Sarah in a caring embrace.
"Good night precious", he kissed her gently on her forehead and within minutes he had fallen asleep; and so had Sarah as she fell into her dream.
"I wish I could be an owl and fly with you", Sarah murmured in her sleep as the wind began to swirl and rustle the curtains of the open window of their bedchamber.
"Your wish has been granted, Champion of my Labyrinth."
"Ok, try it one more time Sarah. You are so close I can feel it."
Jareth was exhilarated. For the past hour they had been working on animal transformation and a few times Sarah had actually started to shape into a form, but never quite managed to complete it. They still did not know what she would be.
"I'm getting tired and hungry", she moaned placing a hand over her rumbling stomach and throwing Jareth a pleading look.
"I'll get us something to eat. While I conjure us something up why don't you go to barrister case 317 A and get the book on animal transformation."
Sarah nodded. She knew exactly which book he was talking about. It was on the very top shelf of the first book case. It was too high for her to reach it, but luckily it had a ladder attached to it and she could easily climb it and retrieve it.
She had already clambered up the ladder and secured the book when she tripped over her skirt of her dress and lost her balance, letting go of the book, which came crashing down onto the floor with a loud boom. She tried to grab the shelf but miscalculated and wobbled precariously on the upper step.
"Jareth", she cried out and fell backwards off the ladder, flapping her arms to regain control of her fall from thirty feet up.
The fall seemed to last for an eternity, judging by her inner clock. She felt as if she was in a slow motion freefall, flinging her arms, watching Jareth jump up and coming to her aid. Something strange happened to her body and she had a weird tingling feeling run through her limbs.
She screeched and plopped backwards into Jareth' waiting arms. The landing felt very soft and comfortable. She looked up to see Jareth' wide open eyes and mouth gaping at her.
"What is it?" she tried to say but could only manage some unintelligible noises she did not associate with any human language.
She jumped up, still being held in Jareth' arms and looked at him with questioning eyes, tilting her head. Why did she feel so strange? And why was Jareth beginning to look like a grinning idiot?
"Sarah? Do you know what you are?" he asked as he placed her on the settee.
Sarah wanted to furrow her brows and found there were none to furrow. She diverted her eyes from Jareth for the first time since landing and looked at herself. Instead of arms she had wings, two of them, and reptilian legs with long talons. Her body was covered in white and light brown soft feathers.
Jareth conjured a mirror for her and her mouth fell open when she stared at her reflection. She had turned into a snowy barn owl, just like Jareth, exactly like Jareth. They were two of the same.
"I am an owl", she screeched exited not realizing at first that she could no longer talk and sounded like an overexcited bird of prey.
She flapped her wings and fell off the settee, only to end up hopping around the floor of the study like some mentally deranged crazy raptor.
"Sarah", Jareth's deep voice sounded calm and soothing. "Sarah relax. Let me guide you to revert back to your human form. We need to make sure you know how to do this. As much as I love owls, I rather sleep with my wife in her human shape in bed."
He gave her a playful wink as Sarah squeaked at him, hopping up and down like a yoyo with flapping wings.
Jareth only laughed as he crouched down before her and raised his hand.
"All right, let's begin."