A/N: No they don't meet just yet, but its coming, I swear!
Disclaimer: Same shit different day, its not mine.
Chapter 16: Uneasy Alliances
Sarah felt as though she was fully awake, though she knew quite well that she was completely unconscious. Colors swirled and danced around her, rainbows melding and swaying as she moved through it. As she swam through the multihued tunnel, there was something there at the end. The brilliance of the light she saw there was incredible and should have been blinding, but somehow it wasn't. Something moved within that brilliance, a graceful, powerful presence that moved something inside her. A powerful force tugged at her heart and made her want to weep for joy and sadness, but above all, to cry out loud for the cold and lonely beauty that stood alone within that light.
The presence moved again and she caught sight of a brilliant horn, flashing gold hooves, a snow white mane and feathery wings before it receded once more into the safety of the light. Sarah reached out to it with her very soul, trying to understand why it stayed in the light, all alone. What came to her was a sad and lonely resignation. She didn't understand until she swam a bit nearer and saw it.
Beyond the light lay the Lightlessness. Sarah had come to think of it as an entity rather than an object and it sent a chill down her spine, where it settled in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't the Lightlessness itself that frightened her so, it was that it was growing. The presence within the light gave a soft whicker, sad and low as the darkness rose over it, bubbling and writhing.laughing, Sarah thought, it was laughing at her.and as the darkness dimmed the light, she saw those eyes, black as obsidian, pleading with her, begging her, imploring that she help, help before the light is consumed..!
Sarah gasped and clutched at her head as she cried out. The rainbow tunnel dissolved into more mundane colors and the light became far less remarkable and far more blinding before blurry figures surrounded her. As the haze cleared, she saw Brexis's crimson eyes. For a split second, the image of Brexis hunched and predatory seared her memory and she felt herself tense before she recognized that the vampire was no longer bestial in appearance, but was her old thin and lovely self once more. Others stood around her, more vampires, all of them gazing expectantly down at her.
"Wha.what happened?" At the sound of her own voice resonating within her head, she winced at the throbbing headache that asserted itself. She sat up and, looking around, she found that they were in an overgrown clearing in the Banshee Woods not terribly far from the road. The sun shown down brightly from high in the cloudless sky, only adding to the pain of her headache.
"Aldo, one of the centaurs, kicked you in the head when you rushed into the fight. When King Jareth showed up, Lady Anikara was quick on her feet and ordered that we bring you here and heal you, allowing you to keep your guise as one of us" she explained, motioning around her at the setting.
"I had such a strange dream." she murmured. Of a sudden she realized she could hear raised voices coming from the direction of the road and memory flooded over her like a tidal wave. She could only assume that the vampires and centaurs had worked out their issues, but there was one issue that she needed solving. Badly. "Jareth."
"Hush now, Miss Sarah, you must lie still while your blood circulates. You won't feel entirely well until it has."
"Wha.?"
"It's a technique we use for healing our own, but it works just as well on others," Brexis explained, hoping it would assuage Sarah's apprehension and make her lie still. She held up her wrist, displaying the oozing gash across the vein. "Vampire blood is a powerful thing. Drink but a bit and it will cure much of what ails you. Drink more and you lose your mortality. Drink it all, you become one yourself." At the sudden look of horror in Sarah's eyes, she hurriedly continued, "But we only just fed you a bit to heal your head wound, nothing more."
Sarah reached up and touched her lips, not surprised at the blood that came away on her hand. She moaned and tried to turn in Brexis's surprisingly strong grasp, fearing that she would be sick as her stomach heaved, but she was held firm. Brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and whispers reassurances in her ear until she drifted into a dreamless slumber.
~*~
"Well?" Jareth snapped, pacing back and forth before his stallion as he awaited a response from either Ayron or Anikara. Shayan sat nearby, looking cowed and embarrassed as he nursed the wound on his shoulder.
"Really Jareth, it was all just a misunderstanding! And besides, no one was seriously hurt! I'm sure you have more important things to do than hang about here and torment us!" Anikara scolded quickly, praying Jareth wouldn't press the matter of the 'vampire' that had just been carried off. Ayron said nothing, feeling it wiser to let Anikara do the lying. She was far more adept at it than he.
Fortunately, both were spared for a time, as Gwib suddenly decided to wake up and pop his head out of the saddlebag. The little goblin rubbed his eyes sleepily, looked up at Jareth and promptly fainted. Swooning to one side, he tumbled out of the saddlebag and bounced onto the dusty ground with a plop. Jareth couldn't help but smirk. So, his mutinous little potion maker had defected to the mages. No wonder he couldn't find him. Had he had the opportunity, he would have booted the little bastard into the Bog of Eternal Stench years ago for his insolence, but this had been the first he'd seen. He was rather pleased to see that Gwib remembered him so very well.
Anikara rolled her eyes as she picked Gwib up by the scruff of his thick little neck and gave him a light shake. His little yellow eyes popped open in a rather unnatural manner and he just gaped at Jareth for several moments. Then, as though seized by the notion, he scuttled up Anikara's arm and over her shoulder, where he clung to her shoulder blade like a cat in a tree, peeking out from behind her thick black hair every so often to make sure that Jareth was not coming for him.
Ignoring her new burden, Anikara got on with her lie. "We are going to the high court to speak to the council about my sentence. Surely you remember that, Jareth," she said pointedly, causing Jareth to narrow his eyes with malice, "And my maids met with some of their old friends here in the wood. I don't know why your fretting over us, it seems to me that we should be worrying over whatever it was that we were threatened by in the first place! I don't know about the rest of you, but all of these shadows make me a bit leery and I'll feel ever so much better once we're clear of these woods." Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. Jareth seemed about to retort when she interjected, "And while we're on the subject, just where are you headed, dear Jareth?"
Whatever biting remark Jareth had intended to launch died in his mouth as she glared murderously at her. For a moment he said nothing, then replied, "Why, hasn't my dear cousin told you? It seems that some reckless little fae bitch thought it would be funny to harass me. I am going to the high court to report the abuse and have the council do something about it!"
Anikara paled slightly, but kept her composure as she allowed a little smile to light her features. "Well then, it looks as though we're going the same way!" she stated cheerily, "Since such is the case, I don't know why we shouldn't travel together! Much safer that way, and you know what they say," she gave him a saccharine grin that oozed insincerity, "the more the merrier!"
Jareth raised one arcing eyebrow as he contemplated the two before him. They were most definitely up to something, and he was bound and determined to find out exactly what. Quick as a wink, he straightened and his features lightened considerably as he exuded his most amiable attitude. "Well, I suppose that would be the logical course," he conceded with a nod, "Very well then, we'll travel together to the court en masse." Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Shayan pouting in the shade of one of the twisted trees still trying to stop the slow stream of blood from his shoulder, and he added, "But you really must have your maid fix his shoulder."
Anikara nodded. "Of course," she said civilly as she pointed to the scant trail that the vampires had left as they had carried Sarah off, "They are through there. Tell the one named Brexis that I wish her to heal your wound. You need not worry," she added at the look of creeping horror on the poor boy's face, "They know not to harm you now. And that if they do there will be hell to pay."
Shayan didn't look convinced, but he complied, dragging himself to his feet and skulking off through the trees like a dog with his tail between his legs. Anikara looked after him and gave Ayron a quick grin. Ayron, who still had not deigned to open his mouth, pursed his lips at the implication, then rolled his eyes and turned to calm his horse. Anikara meanwhile busied herself with trying to dislodge Gwib from her midnight locks and Jareth grabbed a crystal from mid air and began to play with it as though all that had just transpired were utterly secondary. He looked absorbed, but he watched every move the other two made as they waited for the vampires. He would discover them, whatever their game was, oh yes he would.
~*~
Shayan entered the clearing as quietly as he could, but just as he stepped upon the threshold of the thin sunlight, all seven heads turned as one to stare at him, seven pairs of crimson eyes glittering out of shadow. He had to fight the urge to run screaming back the way he'd come. Instead, he cleared his throat. "I'm looking for Brexis," he stated in a slightly broken voice. The creatures did not so much as blink at this, so he continued, "Your mistress wishes you to heal my wound." At this, the one female on the ground near the half conscious eighth vampire (Sarah) stood and approached.
"Show me," she ordered calmly, indicating the wound. He hesitantly pulled back the torn cloth of his shirt to reveal the still-oozing double puncture wounds. Without fanfare, Brexis reached up and spread the wound with one hand, then bit down on the tip of a finger on the other so that it bled. She let a drop of her crimson blood flow into each little hole and watched with mild indifference as they swelled and closed, leaving only a pair of tiny white marks. "If any vampire should try to taste you again," she said dispassionately, "be sure that they see that scar. It marks you as mine, and they'll dare not touch you."
It was against his better judgment to flirt with one of these creatures, but it was against his nature to pass up such an easy come on. "So you own me now?" he grinned teasingly. Brexis halted in her tracks and turned back to him, eyeing him once over.
"Yes," she replied, "You are my prey and I can feed on you as I please." Shayan did not know if she was joking or not, but he decided to let it drop, for fear that she wasn't. Looking past her, he noticed that the eighth vampire had stirred.
Perhaps it was that Sarah was disoriented or just groggy, but as she sat up, she lifted the veil off her head on an impulse. Shayan did a double take as he realized that she was no vampire. Her skin was creamy, but not the deathly pallor of the Undead, and her eyes were hazel, not red. Most pointedly, when she yawned, he knew there were no wicked fangs between her pink lips and as she tilted her head back in a stretch, the sun glittered on her skin without effect.
"What.but, your not-" he was cut short as Brexis, quick as lightening, was next to him again. Glancing up at the sun, she lifted her veil only enough that she could look him in the eye.
"You breathe a word to your master and I WILL feed on you," she growled in a low, malicious tone that sent a chill through his very bones, "Do I make myself clear?" she inquired, replacing the veil. Shayan could only nod nervously as he turned to go, taking one last look at the confused girl on the ground, turned and ran back the way he had come.
A/N: I know its not what you wanted, but the J/S action is coming. I am trying to think of the right way for them to meet and I have an idea, but any suggestions would be welcome! Thanks!
Disclaimer: Same shit different day, its not mine.
Chapter 16: Uneasy Alliances
Sarah felt as though she was fully awake, though she knew quite well that she was completely unconscious. Colors swirled and danced around her, rainbows melding and swaying as she moved through it. As she swam through the multihued tunnel, there was something there at the end. The brilliance of the light she saw there was incredible and should have been blinding, but somehow it wasn't. Something moved within that brilliance, a graceful, powerful presence that moved something inside her. A powerful force tugged at her heart and made her want to weep for joy and sadness, but above all, to cry out loud for the cold and lonely beauty that stood alone within that light.
The presence moved again and she caught sight of a brilliant horn, flashing gold hooves, a snow white mane and feathery wings before it receded once more into the safety of the light. Sarah reached out to it with her very soul, trying to understand why it stayed in the light, all alone. What came to her was a sad and lonely resignation. She didn't understand until she swam a bit nearer and saw it.
Beyond the light lay the Lightlessness. Sarah had come to think of it as an entity rather than an object and it sent a chill down her spine, where it settled in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't the Lightlessness itself that frightened her so, it was that it was growing. The presence within the light gave a soft whicker, sad and low as the darkness rose over it, bubbling and writhing.laughing, Sarah thought, it was laughing at her.and as the darkness dimmed the light, she saw those eyes, black as obsidian, pleading with her, begging her, imploring that she help, help before the light is consumed..!
Sarah gasped and clutched at her head as she cried out. The rainbow tunnel dissolved into more mundane colors and the light became far less remarkable and far more blinding before blurry figures surrounded her. As the haze cleared, she saw Brexis's crimson eyes. For a split second, the image of Brexis hunched and predatory seared her memory and she felt herself tense before she recognized that the vampire was no longer bestial in appearance, but was her old thin and lovely self once more. Others stood around her, more vampires, all of them gazing expectantly down at her.
"Wha.what happened?" At the sound of her own voice resonating within her head, she winced at the throbbing headache that asserted itself. She sat up and, looking around, she found that they were in an overgrown clearing in the Banshee Woods not terribly far from the road. The sun shown down brightly from high in the cloudless sky, only adding to the pain of her headache.
"Aldo, one of the centaurs, kicked you in the head when you rushed into the fight. When King Jareth showed up, Lady Anikara was quick on her feet and ordered that we bring you here and heal you, allowing you to keep your guise as one of us" she explained, motioning around her at the setting.
"I had such a strange dream." she murmured. Of a sudden she realized she could hear raised voices coming from the direction of the road and memory flooded over her like a tidal wave. She could only assume that the vampires and centaurs had worked out their issues, but there was one issue that she needed solving. Badly. "Jareth."
"Hush now, Miss Sarah, you must lie still while your blood circulates. You won't feel entirely well until it has."
"Wha.?"
"It's a technique we use for healing our own, but it works just as well on others," Brexis explained, hoping it would assuage Sarah's apprehension and make her lie still. She held up her wrist, displaying the oozing gash across the vein. "Vampire blood is a powerful thing. Drink but a bit and it will cure much of what ails you. Drink more and you lose your mortality. Drink it all, you become one yourself." At the sudden look of horror in Sarah's eyes, she hurriedly continued, "But we only just fed you a bit to heal your head wound, nothing more."
Sarah reached up and touched her lips, not surprised at the blood that came away on her hand. She moaned and tried to turn in Brexis's surprisingly strong grasp, fearing that she would be sick as her stomach heaved, but she was held firm. Brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and whispers reassurances in her ear until she drifted into a dreamless slumber.
~*~
"Well?" Jareth snapped, pacing back and forth before his stallion as he awaited a response from either Ayron or Anikara. Shayan sat nearby, looking cowed and embarrassed as he nursed the wound on his shoulder.
"Really Jareth, it was all just a misunderstanding! And besides, no one was seriously hurt! I'm sure you have more important things to do than hang about here and torment us!" Anikara scolded quickly, praying Jareth wouldn't press the matter of the 'vampire' that had just been carried off. Ayron said nothing, feeling it wiser to let Anikara do the lying. She was far more adept at it than he.
Fortunately, both were spared for a time, as Gwib suddenly decided to wake up and pop his head out of the saddlebag. The little goblin rubbed his eyes sleepily, looked up at Jareth and promptly fainted. Swooning to one side, he tumbled out of the saddlebag and bounced onto the dusty ground with a plop. Jareth couldn't help but smirk. So, his mutinous little potion maker had defected to the mages. No wonder he couldn't find him. Had he had the opportunity, he would have booted the little bastard into the Bog of Eternal Stench years ago for his insolence, but this had been the first he'd seen. He was rather pleased to see that Gwib remembered him so very well.
Anikara rolled her eyes as she picked Gwib up by the scruff of his thick little neck and gave him a light shake. His little yellow eyes popped open in a rather unnatural manner and he just gaped at Jareth for several moments. Then, as though seized by the notion, he scuttled up Anikara's arm and over her shoulder, where he clung to her shoulder blade like a cat in a tree, peeking out from behind her thick black hair every so often to make sure that Jareth was not coming for him.
Ignoring her new burden, Anikara got on with her lie. "We are going to the high court to speak to the council about my sentence. Surely you remember that, Jareth," she said pointedly, causing Jareth to narrow his eyes with malice, "And my maids met with some of their old friends here in the wood. I don't know why your fretting over us, it seems to me that we should be worrying over whatever it was that we were threatened by in the first place! I don't know about the rest of you, but all of these shadows make me a bit leery and I'll feel ever so much better once we're clear of these woods." Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. Jareth seemed about to retort when she interjected, "And while we're on the subject, just where are you headed, dear Jareth?"
Whatever biting remark Jareth had intended to launch died in his mouth as she glared murderously at her. For a moment he said nothing, then replied, "Why, hasn't my dear cousin told you? It seems that some reckless little fae bitch thought it would be funny to harass me. I am going to the high court to report the abuse and have the council do something about it!"
Anikara paled slightly, but kept her composure as she allowed a little smile to light her features. "Well then, it looks as though we're going the same way!" she stated cheerily, "Since such is the case, I don't know why we shouldn't travel together! Much safer that way, and you know what they say," she gave him a saccharine grin that oozed insincerity, "the more the merrier!"
Jareth raised one arcing eyebrow as he contemplated the two before him. They were most definitely up to something, and he was bound and determined to find out exactly what. Quick as a wink, he straightened and his features lightened considerably as he exuded his most amiable attitude. "Well, I suppose that would be the logical course," he conceded with a nod, "Very well then, we'll travel together to the court en masse." Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Shayan pouting in the shade of one of the twisted trees still trying to stop the slow stream of blood from his shoulder, and he added, "But you really must have your maid fix his shoulder."
Anikara nodded. "Of course," she said civilly as she pointed to the scant trail that the vampires had left as they had carried Sarah off, "They are through there. Tell the one named Brexis that I wish her to heal your wound. You need not worry," she added at the look of creeping horror on the poor boy's face, "They know not to harm you now. And that if they do there will be hell to pay."
Shayan didn't look convinced, but he complied, dragging himself to his feet and skulking off through the trees like a dog with his tail between his legs. Anikara looked after him and gave Ayron a quick grin. Ayron, who still had not deigned to open his mouth, pursed his lips at the implication, then rolled his eyes and turned to calm his horse. Anikara meanwhile busied herself with trying to dislodge Gwib from her midnight locks and Jareth grabbed a crystal from mid air and began to play with it as though all that had just transpired were utterly secondary. He looked absorbed, but he watched every move the other two made as they waited for the vampires. He would discover them, whatever their game was, oh yes he would.
~*~
Shayan entered the clearing as quietly as he could, but just as he stepped upon the threshold of the thin sunlight, all seven heads turned as one to stare at him, seven pairs of crimson eyes glittering out of shadow. He had to fight the urge to run screaming back the way he'd come. Instead, he cleared his throat. "I'm looking for Brexis," he stated in a slightly broken voice. The creatures did not so much as blink at this, so he continued, "Your mistress wishes you to heal my wound." At this, the one female on the ground near the half conscious eighth vampire (Sarah) stood and approached.
"Show me," she ordered calmly, indicating the wound. He hesitantly pulled back the torn cloth of his shirt to reveal the still-oozing double puncture wounds. Without fanfare, Brexis reached up and spread the wound with one hand, then bit down on the tip of a finger on the other so that it bled. She let a drop of her crimson blood flow into each little hole and watched with mild indifference as they swelled and closed, leaving only a pair of tiny white marks. "If any vampire should try to taste you again," she said dispassionately, "be sure that they see that scar. It marks you as mine, and they'll dare not touch you."
It was against his better judgment to flirt with one of these creatures, but it was against his nature to pass up such an easy come on. "So you own me now?" he grinned teasingly. Brexis halted in her tracks and turned back to him, eyeing him once over.
"Yes," she replied, "You are my prey and I can feed on you as I please." Shayan did not know if she was joking or not, but he decided to let it drop, for fear that she wasn't. Looking past her, he noticed that the eighth vampire had stirred.
Perhaps it was that Sarah was disoriented or just groggy, but as she sat up, she lifted the veil off her head on an impulse. Shayan did a double take as he realized that she was no vampire. Her skin was creamy, but not the deathly pallor of the Undead, and her eyes were hazel, not red. Most pointedly, when she yawned, he knew there were no wicked fangs between her pink lips and as she tilted her head back in a stretch, the sun glittered on her skin without effect.
"What.but, your not-" he was cut short as Brexis, quick as lightening, was next to him again. Glancing up at the sun, she lifted her veil only enough that she could look him in the eye.
"You breathe a word to your master and I WILL feed on you," she growled in a low, malicious tone that sent a chill through his very bones, "Do I make myself clear?" she inquired, replacing the veil. Shayan could only nod nervously as he turned to go, taking one last look at the confused girl on the ground, turned and ran back the way he had come.
A/N: I know its not what you wanted, but the J/S action is coming. I am trying to think of the right way for them to meet and I have an idea, but any suggestions would be welcome! Thanks!