*
AN: Okay here you are. Disclaimer: Don't. Own. Anything.
*
Strangely Devine: Chapter Eighteen: Stones in the Forest
*
Sarah sat back on the hay and fumed. She was very angry with Dacian and with everyone at the castle for not coming to rescue her. She needed to be rescued! Dacian had made it more then clear that he was going to turn her into one of the Nosferatu. That meant eternal life drinking blood and being his queen. She didn't even want to think about what would happen if she tried to live as a vampire at the Goblin Castle. That would never work. She'd end up eating Gwendolyn's foot or something.
She felt tears of frustration leap to her eyes and she pushed them away angrily with her thumb. The really horrible part of it was, even though she was feeling dreadful for herself, and missing Gwendolyn like mad, the only person she could think about was Jareth. His name became a mantra in her head and she didn't know why. She missed him.
Was it possible that in the month she had been stuck in the Calais court she had grown feelings for him? The physical attraction was blatantly obvious. He was sexy and he knew it; he knew she knew it. This much was clear.
But actual feelings? Sarah thought she hated him! He was a villain. The evil nightmare from childhood she couldn't chase away as an adult. But she never hated him, not really. She had been afraid of him before. Now what did she think of him?
At the moment she missed him intensely, so much she would have given anything to see him, and fresh tears threatened to spill over. The idea that Dacian might kill her was terrifying, and then Sarah realized why the idea of being made a Nosferatu was worse than death. Jareth would want her anymore.
Wouldn't want her? Or wouldn't love her?
Sarah pressed her thumbs into her eyes. Maybe she had gone insane. The idea of loving Jareth was completely mad. That he could love her was even worse and made her, frankly, pathetic. When had the idea of love even been introduced or relevantly tossed around? Never, not once, so why was she thinking it now on the way to her death?
"Stop it" she muttered to herself. "Stop"
Why would she love Jareth? There wasn't any reason, he was vain, spoiled, arrogant, rude, and he had stolen her brother. Fine, that last one didn't count any more. Sarah wasn't the least bit willing to admit she might actually think arrogance suited him, or that his rudeness was quite amusing, and without his vanity and spoiled upbringing, well, he wouldn't be Jareth, would he?
"I don't love him, you're going mad" she whispered as she slid sideways into the hay.
*
Gwendolyn shrieked as the owl flew into Sarah's bedroom. "Your majesty--- sorry--- Jareth!" she yelled at the flying creature as it swooped around the bedchamber and hovered over the bed. "Don't fly in the castle!"
Jareth transformed a foot over the bed and landed on the duvet with his legs crossed in front of him. He looked miserable and very tired. Gwendolyn was usually his biggest tormenter when it came to his health, he wasn't sickly by any means but he nearly always looked it. Pale faced, painfully thin-which he only made up for with lean sinewy muscles, and those mismatched eyes. His hair was limp too.
"Jareth" Gwendolyn sighed and strode over to the bed, one of Sarah's dresses over her arm.
He had a blank expression on his face and he might have been pouting. Gwendolyn wasn't sure. She touched his knee and he looked at her.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly.
Jareth considered anything that would make him look weak to be despicable; she wasn't surprised when he said, "No--- I'm fine"
Gwendolyn sighed, "You look tired, I'm sure Sarah won't mind if you got in her bed sleep here for a bit"
He shot her an amused look "Trying to get me into bed again, Gwen?" he joked.
She rolled her eyes, faintly amused. "Sure, I just don't want you to die from exhaustion"
He nodded and lay back amongst the pillows, resigning himself to staring at the ceiling. For the moment there was nothing else to do.
*
Dolan was working furiously over his new peace potion when Egeus walked into his chambers. Egeus had a sort of chemistry mentality, he understood logical things. While magic was not logic, the brewing of potions and the ingredients made sense to him.
"Hello Prince Egeus" Dolan greeted him "how are things?"
"Terrible really, Prince Dacian has run off with Jareth's Sarah" Egeus said bluntly.
"Jareth's Sarah?" Dolan repeated, amusement crossing his face. "I didn't realize people were going so far as to calling her his Sarah"
"Well, legally she is, isn't she?" Egeus shrugged as he inspected the contents of a near by jar. "Although I expect she doesn't know about that law. The one that states any mortal to cross the lands is thereby slave and subject to the wills of the master of that land"
"I know the law, Egeus" Dolan smiled, "My brother, Sir Gaeton says that the human girl is considered in high esteem in the High Prince's eyes, and that he lets her get away with much"
"It's as if the law isn't even in existence." Egeus sighed. "I never thought I'd see the day a human cursed Jareth to his face"
"She did, did she?" Dolan smiled "Good girl, my lovely sister Gwen has taught her well"
"Poor Gwen, she's a wreck" Egeus sighed.
"They were very close?" Dolan asked. He took a pinch of red powder and tossed it into the cauldron he was stirring.
"Hmm. Very" Egeus mused. "I suppose Gaeton was here to see if there was anyway to track the lady?"
"Oh yes" Dolan sighed "There is no way"
"Pity"
*
Sarah awoke with a start when she felt the litter pull to a stop the second time. She scrambled over to the window and saw the red sun melting over the tree's horizon. Oh, there were a lot of trees, so many she could hardly see the sky. They were obviously in a forest of some kind. The ground was leafy green with ferns scattered here and there, but not an animal in sight.
She wasn't surprised. As the sun set the vampire caravan excitedly pulled off their cloaks and jumped off the Thestrals, no longer afraid of the blinding burning light. Sarah vaguely wondered if people in the underground had enough knowledge about science to know that the sun was merely a ball of burning gas. Probably not, she thought, as she watched Jasper and a few others make rude gestures at the retreating sun as if it were the back of a beaten enemy.
Idiots, she thought, it's only going to rise again.
Then again, it might not. This was, after all, the Underground. Thirteen- hour days and Goblins and the like.
Sarah peered into the new darkness and a figure blocked her view. It was Dacian of course.
"Hello my love" he hissed. He looked quite wretched as it were. Half of his face was still that smooth pale skin, but the other side was quite marred by blisters and burns. Sarah cringed. If she was going to have to look at that for the rest of her life she might regret hurting him.
"Where are we?" she asked calmly
"Ah--- I suppose I can tell you" he conceded with a wicked grin. "We are in the Ciren forest"
Sarah blinked. Of course they were. She had been kidnapped by vampires and taken to an evil forest. It just kept getting better. "Why are we here?"
"Oh, now, my love, I can't tell you everything"
"You must tell me something" she hissed
Dacian smiled coyly and touched the bars, watching her flinch away with glee. "I must tell you nothing, my love. You once belonged to Jareth, but soon you will belong to me. When the clock strikes thirteen, to be precise. That is after all when it opens"
Sarah almost didn't hear the last part. Her brain was stuck on the words 'belonged to Jareth'. She shook her head, that was trivial. "When what opens?" she demanded
"Hmm" Dacian tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I don't think I should really tell you that, my love. You will find out."
*
"Is this our fault?" Aislinn asked carefully.
Her mother sipped her tea daintily. "I don't think so, darling. Not really. It would have happened whether we asked Dacian to dine with Lady Sarah or not"
Aislinn pulled a face. "Does Jareth blame us any way, Mummy?"
"Perhaps darling" Mariead sighed "But we did out job well, and it had the desired effect. I don't doubt Jareth will find her. He always wins in the end"
"Yes he does" Aislinn sighed dramatically. "In any case, if the baby's a boy, I've decided to name it Jareth"
"Won't that be a bit confusing?" Mariead asked "Two Jareths?"
"Yes I suppose" Aislinn nodded, sipping her tea "But then perhaps Jareth won't be so angry with me. He is furious you know, walked right past me last night. He's smart enough to know what we did."
"Psh--- we hardly did anything" Mariead brushed her daughter off.
"Well--- in any case, I heard naming children after relatives is a very human thing to do. Perhaps if I name a girl Sarah?"
"Darling, I do not think that will quite make Jareth happy if the girl does not return" Mariead said gravely.
*
Dacian stared out into the forest with his inky eyes. He would have that girl. He was sure he would have her, but he could not shake the feeling that he was being followed. By what, he didn't know, and perhaps it was just paranoia or a feeling of foreboding. Should he dread turning Sarah to be his Queen? She could be stubborn and wilful, but she made up for it by far with her beauty. As far as Dacian was concerned she did.
Jasper stumbled up to him. "Master there are but ten minutes before the portal opens" he said in his rasping voice.
Dacian cringed, such a lack of intelligence. But then again, Jasper was one of five who knew about the portal. The only other Nosferatu who knew about the portal were those that he trusted. Unfortunately they were all nearly as dim as Jasper.
He had stumbled upon the portal quite by accident. Dacian was nearing his five hundredth birthday, and like so many of the other Nosferatu, remembered all to well what human blood tasted like. Of course, those other fools had signed over their rights to the Fae in order to become part of the court. They lived off animals now. Frankly, Dacian thought it despicable, it was no way to live.
The portal was simply a cluster of stones, enchanted by the oldest of magics and charmed by the ancient ones to allow access between the two worlds. At one time, mortals and the inhabitants of the Underground had moved freely. But then the introduction of iron proved deadly to the Fae and they retreated to Calais. Nosferatu and Trolls were considered savages and goblins and dwarves too stupid to hold their own in the Aboveground.
During this time, the cluster of enchanted rocks had resided in the Fae lands, as even back then the Fae controlled everything. Perhaps the rocks were more intelligent then the Fae though, because only four hundred years ago, they had disappeared quite on their own. The portal was gone and the only ones to go back and forth between the two worlds were the wished away Goblin Children.
It was one fateful day two hundred years ago that Dacian had found the portal. At first it seemed to good to be true. A casual walk in the black magic forest in search of some poisonous mushroom he needed for a potion to kill his uncle had resulted in Dacian's vitality restored. Nearly every night after that he returned to the Portal and went into the Aboveworld, terrorizing the stupid humans of London and Salisbury Plains.
More recently it had been difficult to pass between, as more and more humans flocked to the sight of their Stonehenge, as they called it.
Dacian walked over to the stones and ran his hand down on thick pillar of rock. They were his secret, and when he became king he would let his secret be known to all of the Nosferatu. His idiot parents did not know what it meant to be a Vampire. They didn't understand.
"Sir? Shall we get the girl?"
His black eyes flicked up to Jaspers haggard face. "She has been in that iron cage long enough to subside any magic in her, I suppose" he admitted, "Bring her out."
Sarah had retreated to the hay when she heard the carriage begin to rattle. Jasper's face filled in the window and blocked out the moonlight. "'ello darlin, ready to go?"
She cringed and pressed herself into the wall. Jasper laughed coarsely and grabbed her by the ankle, pulling her out and cajoling. "Come on, darlin, won't be all that bad. You may like it, even"
Two other Nosferatu joined Jasper and they helped drag her out of the carriage and over to Dacian and the portal. Sarah stopped struggling when she saw the massive stones. They were exactly the shape as those in England only instead of being in a wide green field, these were in the middle of a black forest.
She remembered a conversation with Jareth about a missing portal. Well this must have been it, Dacian must have found it. Was he taking her back? Why would he do that?
"Stop it, where are you taking me?" She demanded, and received an elbow in the ribs from one of the dark figures carrying her.
Dacian sighed "My dear, control yourself. This is a portal to the Aboveground"
"I know that!" she spat bitterly "why are you taking me aboveground!"
Dacian tittered at her and pulled her out of the arms of her captors and into his. She tried to get away again but he pulled her effortlessly into the centre of the stones as he talked. "Well I couldn't very well kill you and turn you into one of us down here? Could I? No, there are ways the Fae would know and I'd never get to be King then. And you would never be my Queen" he laughed
Sarah was felt torn between letting him take her back to her world where he would just kill her or running into the forest. Either way she would be dead. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she was more then sure Dacian could hear it. She wished with all her might for anything, the stones to fall on Dacian's head, a baseball bat, perhaps even a mighty storm of blinding glitter. Nothing happened.
Then she wished for Jareth.
*
Jareth woke up and realized he wasn't in his own bed. He looked around the room and vacantly remembered it was Sarah's. She still wasn't back. He sighed. Stupid girl, letting herself get kidnapped like that. Jareth slipped off the bed and looked at his dishevelled appearance in the mirror. He looked like a ghost.
Gwendolyn had fallen asleep in a large chair in the corner, her head was tipped back at an odd angle. Jareth pulled a face; it couldn't have been comfortable. He waved his hand and Gwendolyn appeared on Sarah's bed. He really did love Gwendolyn. She was the younger sister he never had. Sure he had two older, vain, and overbearing sisters who he loved as well. But Gwendolyn was just as important as they were.
Jareth sighed and turned back to the mirror, attempting to smooth down his wild blonde hair. It did no good.
A strange tugging sensation overcame him then. Quite like he was being summoned in the most desperate of ways. Jareth's eyes widened as he realized who was summoning him. He vanished.
*
It happened instantaneously and Dacian didn't know what hit him. He had, you see, made one vital mistake. While Sarah could not perform magic of any kind, she still had Jareth's crystal and when she wished for Jareth, it was Jareth that she got.
One moment Sarah and Dacian were standing in the circle of stones, the next Jareth was there as well. He looked around in surprise at first and then before Dacian could react he pulled Sarah to him and waved his hand at the Nosferatu Prince.
Dacian flew out of the circle of stones. "She can't do magic though!" he roared furiously "You can't be here!"
"Well I guess you were wrong" Jareth said softly.
Sarah felt like fainting. She threw her arms around Jareth's waist and pressed her face into his chest, hoping she would never have to let go.
Jasper and a two others strode towards Jareth, he twisted his hands in their direction and all three turned to smouldering ashes. The two remained Nosferatu saw this and after exchanging panicked looks, took off into the forest.
Dacian hopped to his feet. "You can't do this! She is mine!" he raged madly.
Jareth held his hand up. "Don't be stupid, Dacian." He said in a soft and deadly voice. "You're a prince and I do not wish to take responsibility for your death, but do not try my patients. She does not belong to you"
Dacian snarled and started to speak again when suddenly a sort of ethereal glow encased the stones. The Prince made a startled sound, realizing what was happening. In the next moment, Sarah and her Goblin King were gone.
*
AN: Gasp, shock, horror.
Remember to REVIEW
AN: Okay here you are. Disclaimer: Don't. Own. Anything.
*
Strangely Devine: Chapter Eighteen: Stones in the Forest
*
Sarah sat back on the hay and fumed. She was very angry with Dacian and with everyone at the castle for not coming to rescue her. She needed to be rescued! Dacian had made it more then clear that he was going to turn her into one of the Nosferatu. That meant eternal life drinking blood and being his queen. She didn't even want to think about what would happen if she tried to live as a vampire at the Goblin Castle. That would never work. She'd end up eating Gwendolyn's foot or something.
She felt tears of frustration leap to her eyes and she pushed them away angrily with her thumb. The really horrible part of it was, even though she was feeling dreadful for herself, and missing Gwendolyn like mad, the only person she could think about was Jareth. His name became a mantra in her head and she didn't know why. She missed him.
Was it possible that in the month she had been stuck in the Calais court she had grown feelings for him? The physical attraction was blatantly obvious. He was sexy and he knew it; he knew she knew it. This much was clear.
But actual feelings? Sarah thought she hated him! He was a villain. The evil nightmare from childhood she couldn't chase away as an adult. But she never hated him, not really. She had been afraid of him before. Now what did she think of him?
At the moment she missed him intensely, so much she would have given anything to see him, and fresh tears threatened to spill over. The idea that Dacian might kill her was terrifying, and then Sarah realized why the idea of being made a Nosferatu was worse than death. Jareth would want her anymore.
Wouldn't want her? Or wouldn't love her?
Sarah pressed her thumbs into her eyes. Maybe she had gone insane. The idea of loving Jareth was completely mad. That he could love her was even worse and made her, frankly, pathetic. When had the idea of love even been introduced or relevantly tossed around? Never, not once, so why was she thinking it now on the way to her death?
"Stop it" she muttered to herself. "Stop"
Why would she love Jareth? There wasn't any reason, he was vain, spoiled, arrogant, rude, and he had stolen her brother. Fine, that last one didn't count any more. Sarah wasn't the least bit willing to admit she might actually think arrogance suited him, or that his rudeness was quite amusing, and without his vanity and spoiled upbringing, well, he wouldn't be Jareth, would he?
"I don't love him, you're going mad" she whispered as she slid sideways into the hay.
*
Gwendolyn shrieked as the owl flew into Sarah's bedroom. "Your majesty--- sorry--- Jareth!" she yelled at the flying creature as it swooped around the bedchamber and hovered over the bed. "Don't fly in the castle!"
Jareth transformed a foot over the bed and landed on the duvet with his legs crossed in front of him. He looked miserable and very tired. Gwendolyn was usually his biggest tormenter when it came to his health, he wasn't sickly by any means but he nearly always looked it. Pale faced, painfully thin-which he only made up for with lean sinewy muscles, and those mismatched eyes. His hair was limp too.
"Jareth" Gwendolyn sighed and strode over to the bed, one of Sarah's dresses over her arm.
He had a blank expression on his face and he might have been pouting. Gwendolyn wasn't sure. She touched his knee and he looked at her.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly.
Jareth considered anything that would make him look weak to be despicable; she wasn't surprised when he said, "No--- I'm fine"
Gwendolyn sighed, "You look tired, I'm sure Sarah won't mind if you got in her bed sleep here for a bit"
He shot her an amused look "Trying to get me into bed again, Gwen?" he joked.
She rolled her eyes, faintly amused. "Sure, I just don't want you to die from exhaustion"
He nodded and lay back amongst the pillows, resigning himself to staring at the ceiling. For the moment there was nothing else to do.
*
Dolan was working furiously over his new peace potion when Egeus walked into his chambers. Egeus had a sort of chemistry mentality, he understood logical things. While magic was not logic, the brewing of potions and the ingredients made sense to him.
"Hello Prince Egeus" Dolan greeted him "how are things?"
"Terrible really, Prince Dacian has run off with Jareth's Sarah" Egeus said bluntly.
"Jareth's Sarah?" Dolan repeated, amusement crossing his face. "I didn't realize people were going so far as to calling her his Sarah"
"Well, legally she is, isn't she?" Egeus shrugged as he inspected the contents of a near by jar. "Although I expect she doesn't know about that law. The one that states any mortal to cross the lands is thereby slave and subject to the wills of the master of that land"
"I know the law, Egeus" Dolan smiled, "My brother, Sir Gaeton says that the human girl is considered in high esteem in the High Prince's eyes, and that he lets her get away with much"
"It's as if the law isn't even in existence." Egeus sighed. "I never thought I'd see the day a human cursed Jareth to his face"
"She did, did she?" Dolan smiled "Good girl, my lovely sister Gwen has taught her well"
"Poor Gwen, she's a wreck" Egeus sighed.
"They were very close?" Dolan asked. He took a pinch of red powder and tossed it into the cauldron he was stirring.
"Hmm. Very" Egeus mused. "I suppose Gaeton was here to see if there was anyway to track the lady?"
"Oh yes" Dolan sighed "There is no way"
"Pity"
*
Sarah awoke with a start when she felt the litter pull to a stop the second time. She scrambled over to the window and saw the red sun melting over the tree's horizon. Oh, there were a lot of trees, so many she could hardly see the sky. They were obviously in a forest of some kind. The ground was leafy green with ferns scattered here and there, but not an animal in sight.
She wasn't surprised. As the sun set the vampire caravan excitedly pulled off their cloaks and jumped off the Thestrals, no longer afraid of the blinding burning light. Sarah vaguely wondered if people in the underground had enough knowledge about science to know that the sun was merely a ball of burning gas. Probably not, she thought, as she watched Jasper and a few others make rude gestures at the retreating sun as if it were the back of a beaten enemy.
Idiots, she thought, it's only going to rise again.
Then again, it might not. This was, after all, the Underground. Thirteen- hour days and Goblins and the like.
Sarah peered into the new darkness and a figure blocked her view. It was Dacian of course.
"Hello my love" he hissed. He looked quite wretched as it were. Half of his face was still that smooth pale skin, but the other side was quite marred by blisters and burns. Sarah cringed. If she was going to have to look at that for the rest of her life she might regret hurting him.
"Where are we?" she asked calmly
"Ah--- I suppose I can tell you" he conceded with a wicked grin. "We are in the Ciren forest"
Sarah blinked. Of course they were. She had been kidnapped by vampires and taken to an evil forest. It just kept getting better. "Why are we here?"
"Oh, now, my love, I can't tell you everything"
"You must tell me something" she hissed
Dacian smiled coyly and touched the bars, watching her flinch away with glee. "I must tell you nothing, my love. You once belonged to Jareth, but soon you will belong to me. When the clock strikes thirteen, to be precise. That is after all when it opens"
Sarah almost didn't hear the last part. Her brain was stuck on the words 'belonged to Jareth'. She shook her head, that was trivial. "When what opens?" she demanded
"Hmm" Dacian tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I don't think I should really tell you that, my love. You will find out."
*
"Is this our fault?" Aislinn asked carefully.
Her mother sipped her tea daintily. "I don't think so, darling. Not really. It would have happened whether we asked Dacian to dine with Lady Sarah or not"
Aislinn pulled a face. "Does Jareth blame us any way, Mummy?"
"Perhaps darling" Mariead sighed "But we did out job well, and it had the desired effect. I don't doubt Jareth will find her. He always wins in the end"
"Yes he does" Aislinn sighed dramatically. "In any case, if the baby's a boy, I've decided to name it Jareth"
"Won't that be a bit confusing?" Mariead asked "Two Jareths?"
"Yes I suppose" Aislinn nodded, sipping her tea "But then perhaps Jareth won't be so angry with me. He is furious you know, walked right past me last night. He's smart enough to know what we did."
"Psh--- we hardly did anything" Mariead brushed her daughter off.
"Well--- in any case, I heard naming children after relatives is a very human thing to do. Perhaps if I name a girl Sarah?"
"Darling, I do not think that will quite make Jareth happy if the girl does not return" Mariead said gravely.
*
Dacian stared out into the forest with his inky eyes. He would have that girl. He was sure he would have her, but he could not shake the feeling that he was being followed. By what, he didn't know, and perhaps it was just paranoia or a feeling of foreboding. Should he dread turning Sarah to be his Queen? She could be stubborn and wilful, but she made up for it by far with her beauty. As far as Dacian was concerned she did.
Jasper stumbled up to him. "Master there are but ten minutes before the portal opens" he said in his rasping voice.
Dacian cringed, such a lack of intelligence. But then again, Jasper was one of five who knew about the portal. The only other Nosferatu who knew about the portal were those that he trusted. Unfortunately they were all nearly as dim as Jasper.
He had stumbled upon the portal quite by accident. Dacian was nearing his five hundredth birthday, and like so many of the other Nosferatu, remembered all to well what human blood tasted like. Of course, those other fools had signed over their rights to the Fae in order to become part of the court. They lived off animals now. Frankly, Dacian thought it despicable, it was no way to live.
The portal was simply a cluster of stones, enchanted by the oldest of magics and charmed by the ancient ones to allow access between the two worlds. At one time, mortals and the inhabitants of the Underground had moved freely. But then the introduction of iron proved deadly to the Fae and they retreated to Calais. Nosferatu and Trolls were considered savages and goblins and dwarves too stupid to hold their own in the Aboveground.
During this time, the cluster of enchanted rocks had resided in the Fae lands, as even back then the Fae controlled everything. Perhaps the rocks were more intelligent then the Fae though, because only four hundred years ago, they had disappeared quite on their own. The portal was gone and the only ones to go back and forth between the two worlds were the wished away Goblin Children.
It was one fateful day two hundred years ago that Dacian had found the portal. At first it seemed to good to be true. A casual walk in the black magic forest in search of some poisonous mushroom he needed for a potion to kill his uncle had resulted in Dacian's vitality restored. Nearly every night after that he returned to the Portal and went into the Aboveworld, terrorizing the stupid humans of London and Salisbury Plains.
More recently it had been difficult to pass between, as more and more humans flocked to the sight of their Stonehenge, as they called it.
Dacian walked over to the stones and ran his hand down on thick pillar of rock. They were his secret, and when he became king he would let his secret be known to all of the Nosferatu. His idiot parents did not know what it meant to be a Vampire. They didn't understand.
"Sir? Shall we get the girl?"
His black eyes flicked up to Jaspers haggard face. "She has been in that iron cage long enough to subside any magic in her, I suppose" he admitted, "Bring her out."
Sarah had retreated to the hay when she heard the carriage begin to rattle. Jasper's face filled in the window and blocked out the moonlight. "'ello darlin, ready to go?"
She cringed and pressed herself into the wall. Jasper laughed coarsely and grabbed her by the ankle, pulling her out and cajoling. "Come on, darlin, won't be all that bad. You may like it, even"
Two other Nosferatu joined Jasper and they helped drag her out of the carriage and over to Dacian and the portal. Sarah stopped struggling when she saw the massive stones. They were exactly the shape as those in England only instead of being in a wide green field, these were in the middle of a black forest.
She remembered a conversation with Jareth about a missing portal. Well this must have been it, Dacian must have found it. Was he taking her back? Why would he do that?
"Stop it, where are you taking me?" She demanded, and received an elbow in the ribs from one of the dark figures carrying her.
Dacian sighed "My dear, control yourself. This is a portal to the Aboveground"
"I know that!" she spat bitterly "why are you taking me aboveground!"
Dacian tittered at her and pulled her out of the arms of her captors and into his. She tried to get away again but he pulled her effortlessly into the centre of the stones as he talked. "Well I couldn't very well kill you and turn you into one of us down here? Could I? No, there are ways the Fae would know and I'd never get to be King then. And you would never be my Queen" he laughed
Sarah was felt torn between letting him take her back to her world where he would just kill her or running into the forest. Either way she would be dead. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she was more then sure Dacian could hear it. She wished with all her might for anything, the stones to fall on Dacian's head, a baseball bat, perhaps even a mighty storm of blinding glitter. Nothing happened.
Then she wished for Jareth.
*
Jareth woke up and realized he wasn't in his own bed. He looked around the room and vacantly remembered it was Sarah's. She still wasn't back. He sighed. Stupid girl, letting herself get kidnapped like that. Jareth slipped off the bed and looked at his dishevelled appearance in the mirror. He looked like a ghost.
Gwendolyn had fallen asleep in a large chair in the corner, her head was tipped back at an odd angle. Jareth pulled a face; it couldn't have been comfortable. He waved his hand and Gwendolyn appeared on Sarah's bed. He really did love Gwendolyn. She was the younger sister he never had. Sure he had two older, vain, and overbearing sisters who he loved as well. But Gwendolyn was just as important as they were.
Jareth sighed and turned back to the mirror, attempting to smooth down his wild blonde hair. It did no good.
A strange tugging sensation overcame him then. Quite like he was being summoned in the most desperate of ways. Jareth's eyes widened as he realized who was summoning him. He vanished.
*
It happened instantaneously and Dacian didn't know what hit him. He had, you see, made one vital mistake. While Sarah could not perform magic of any kind, she still had Jareth's crystal and when she wished for Jareth, it was Jareth that she got.
One moment Sarah and Dacian were standing in the circle of stones, the next Jareth was there as well. He looked around in surprise at first and then before Dacian could react he pulled Sarah to him and waved his hand at the Nosferatu Prince.
Dacian flew out of the circle of stones. "She can't do magic though!" he roared furiously "You can't be here!"
"Well I guess you were wrong" Jareth said softly.
Sarah felt like fainting. She threw her arms around Jareth's waist and pressed her face into his chest, hoping she would never have to let go.
Jasper and a two others strode towards Jareth, he twisted his hands in their direction and all three turned to smouldering ashes. The two remained Nosferatu saw this and after exchanging panicked looks, took off into the forest.
Dacian hopped to his feet. "You can't do this! She is mine!" he raged madly.
Jareth held his hand up. "Don't be stupid, Dacian." He said in a soft and deadly voice. "You're a prince and I do not wish to take responsibility for your death, but do not try my patients. She does not belong to you"
Dacian snarled and started to speak again when suddenly a sort of ethereal glow encased the stones. The Prince made a startled sound, realizing what was happening. In the next moment, Sarah and her Goblin King were gone.
*
AN: Gasp, shock, horror.
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