Author's Note: IT'S HERE; IT'S HERE! THE HEIR TO THE GOBLIN KINGDOM HAS ARRIVED! I'm more excited than anyone else, I think.
Author's Note 2: Someone mentioned feeling as if they'd missed something. In a way, you have. Both Toby and Jareth have a hell of a lot of seperate problems that they have to deal with besides war and babies. You know what Toby's problem is; you don't know about Jareth's. And that's because I don't plan to tell anyone about it until the time is right. Sorry! But that's the way the fic goes.
Author's Note 3: There are twenty-six hours in an Underground day.
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"Jareth, I can't do this."
"You must."
"It hurts; it really fucking hurts!"
"Lie back, my elf; relax. Arienne will be here soon." Jareth petted the sweat-slicked brow soothingly, more than a little pale as Toby grit his teeth through another contraction.
The child was early; Toby wasn't due for another six days. Luckily Arienne had warned them both to expect it. Unfortunately, Arienne had also implicitly warned Toby not to start pushing until the birth canal had formed. Jareth was not certain that he quite liked that. In his opinion, the sooner it came out the better for everyone involved.
The entire Castle was on the alert and about two dozen goblins stood waiting in corridors and nearby rooms, with blankets and pillows and clothes and sheets. The kitchen hobs were piled with kettles filled with water in various stages of boiling. The Goblin City itself was abuzz with the news. And the contractions had only started an hour ago!
Goblins of all ages and shapes raced from one store to the next, from one house to the next, shouting and generally spreading the news so loudly that even if someone hadn't known before, they and their neighbours soon did.
"The heir," the cobbler yelled, battering on the grocer's door as if expecting to see a child toddle down the street behind him, "It's coming!"
"What is?"
"The babe!"
"What babe?"
"The babe who's gonna rule when His Majesty kicks the bucket, fatty!"
Which, naturally, meant that a miniature gang riot was starting in the streets. Considering that the City was rapidly filling with goblins that were retreating from the farthest villages near the border shared by the Fairy Kingdom, the goblins were making a lot of noise. The garbage manager even ran into the scrap heap beyond the gates to tell the garbage collectors about the imminent arrival of the royal child.
A fierey pricked up its long ears and then pulled them off and stuck them higher up in the air to better hear the commotion. Once the words were heard- clearly, thanks to an ability to tune into the right sound waves by reaching impressive distances into the atmosphere- the rotund little creature skittered off up into the trees to tell its friends and everything else that cared to listen.
Toby wished very much that everyone would shut up and go away so that he could concentrate on not biting through his tongue. His skin began to redden with exertion as he rode out the long agonizing minutes. It scared him witless to have to go through this without knowing what exactly was going on. He almost kissed Arienne in delight as seeing him enter the large double doors. Jareth was a skilled enough healer in his own way, but not when it came to emergency C-sections. And the Goblin King was beginning to grimace every time Toby dragged at his hand as his body spasmed- not a good thing if that hand was the one cutting him open.
"Here," Toby panted, pushing the hand away when he was done with it, "Keep that. We'll need it later."
Arienne shared a look with the Goblin King and was pleasantly surprised to see him look so focused. He was surprised to just see him sit there, interacting and supporting and remarkably sober. With all the tensions, he had expected Jareth to start cracking under the pressure. But the half-goblin was astonishingly calm, taking the disagreeable play of the birthing process in his stride and seemingly willing to wait patiently for the final act. And that, the healer knew from experience, was usually not the case for first-time fathers of any general description.
And the mother... well, there was no mother. But the male on the bed was doing fine. Far from sending him into a downward spiral of moody depressions, the recent attack and rape seemed to have stiffened Toby's spine. There was a newly broken-in determination to him; stronger and more powerful even than the strength he'd had before. And Arienne was suitably impressed.
"How- how long?"
Arienne glanced up to the blue eyes blinking at him. "From what I can tell, the birth canal takes about six hours to form."
That did it.
"SIX HOURS?"
Jareth winced.
"I AM NOT WAITING IN THIS BED FOR SIX HOURS!"
The fruit in the Goblin City suddenly began to explode, spraying juice around and terrorizing everyone in the near vicinity with vicious seed-shooting. Jareth felt the power leapfrog around the land and hurriedly reigned it in, shutting his eyes for a moment to put restraints onto their shared power base.
"I am afraid you have to," Arienne pointed out, "It takes longer, but you will heal quicker if the birthing is natural."
"Screw healing, I want it out now!" Toby gave way to a suddenly more painful bout of contractions. Everyone in the room held their breath for the few moments that his mouth fell open in a silent cry. They sighed with relief when he slumped back.
"I'm afraid that is impossible. The magic doing all of this works in its own good time. It can't be rushed."
Toby licked his lips and shifted his head on the pillow. "Six hours is too long," he mumbled tiredly.
"Not waiting six hours puts your child's health at serious risk."
Toby stared at the ceiling and then shut his eyes with a groan.
"Believe me, this is the only way," Arienne sympathized.
"It really isn't that long," Jareth soothed.
The truth was that Jareth had his doubts too. Arienne wasn't even sure that Toby's body would react for this final stage as an immortal's would. Immortals were bred with an unconscious ability to absorb magic and adjust to it. Mortals were not. And there was rather a lot that depended on magic at this point of time. But even leaving aside birth canals and feeding capabilities, Jareth had been bluntly told that Toby's hips were probably too narrow for the child anyway. And his back was only holding up because Arienne had poured a liberal dose of something de-sensitizing down his throat as soon as he'd entered.
"Yeah, well, you try it!"
Jareth smothered a grin and obligingly gave his hand back to be squeezed. At least Toby was still spitting fire! The contractions were picking up and he poured every drop of his confidence into his husband, hoping it would help to stand the pain.
Four hours later, Toby was cursing everything in sight as the contractions came far too close for anyone's liking. "How... much more?"
Arienne looked down under the sheet covering his legs and shook his head sympathetically. "Not yet. Wait a little longer. You should probably feel it happening."
"Thank God," Toby wheezed sarcastically, "When... my dick decides... to fall off... I'll let you know. Okay?"
"Fine," Arienne smiled, not in the least put out. He'd been in cases when the women had thrown whatever came to hand at him. Sarcastic remarks were strangely sedate. Of course, there were the other births were the babies were delivered in record time, nothing went wrong and the women were perfectly modulated throughout, but one couldn't have everything. "Did you know the Lady Frielda took over fourteen hours to have her child?"
"Who?" Toby gasped.
Jareth cleared his throat warningly and glared at the serene healer. "That," he snapped quellingly, "Was not my fault."
Toby looked from one to the other in confusion, breathing deeply to calm his nerves and get his breath back. He jerked his head in a questioning kind of way and Jareth shrugged- "My mother," he replied.
"If this child takes anywhere near fourteen hours, you will never touch me again," Toby warned.
"Scout's honour," the Goblin King promised, hoping that it wouldn't even if he had to cut the child out himself.
"You- ah! God!- were never... a scout- shit!"
"Breathe," Arienne instructed severely, "Talk later; plenty of time to talk after the birth. For now, save your strength."
Toby groaned tragically and threw an arm over his eyes, shutting them for a few moments' respite as his skin itched and his hair and shirt stuck to him irritatingly. A low hum of some kind was rattling around in his gut, forcing him to give a half-hearted wriggle.
Another hour passed. Arienne shared a worried look with the Goblin King as he shook his head again. "A while more," he cautioned.
After the tenth hour of the pregnancy, Toby was approaching manic hysteria. "GET IT OUT OF ME!" he shouted.
The Goblin King sighed and nodded. "Can we do that?" he asked, "I know the womb is protected in case of emergencies and that a premature cut could damage that and cause harm." Toby looked up to the both of them in a near panic. "But that should have faded by now." Toby relaxed.
"It should," the healer agreed, "But I am not sure of that. If we could wait a few minutes more."
The few minutes were interrupted when Toby suddenly said, "Crap!"
"Toby, would you please..."
"No, the- the thingie... ow! It hurts!"
The sheet was lifted and Arienne poked his head under. Toby was beginning to feel like a one-dollar sideshow. He sourly promised himself that he'd sell tickets next time, and then almost had a heart attack because he'd just indirectly agreed to have a 'next time'.
"Jareth," he called desperately.
Jareth took his proffered hand and rubbed comfortingly. Toby controlled himself from saying that it wasn't his hand that was hurting.
"Jareth, I need you to promise me something."
Dark brows pulled slightly into a frown. "Toby, this isn't really..."
"PROMISE OR THIS KID AIN'T COMING OUT!"
The Goblin King almost fell off his chair. Dazed and deafened, he nodded and clutched the thin golden hand like a lifeline. "Anything," he murmured hurriedly.
"Better," the mortal grunted, "I need you to tell me what's going on... down there." He nodded down to himself.
Jareth took a deep breath, took a look and came back, looking a little green and yet intrigued. "You do not want me to tell you," he advised.
Toby gave up. He pulled himself up slightly, propped his feet firmly on the bed and took deep, determined breathes. "Say when," he growled hoarsely.
Jareth wanted so badly to laugh and cry and generally go sit in his throne room and give way to hysterics. It was like a farce, watching everything go wrong or muddled or somhow haywire. And he still had a war to plan.
'Think of that later,' Toby hissed mentally, 'Or you can sleep on the floor for the next three years.'
He hastily composed his thoughts.
Arienne gave the muffled command to start pushing and Jareth suddenly realized that in many ways the labour was only starting. He pulled off his coat, rolled up the poet sleeves and set about trying to stay out of everyone's way while offering support. He didn't even know why he was there. Certainly it wasn't customary in his society for the husband to stay while the wife gave birth, but Karen had insisted that it would be good for the both of them and he had acquiesced for Toby's sake. But regardless of whose fault it was for his presence, he recklessly decided that he would see it through. After all, how many other males could boast of seeing the horribly nightmarish birth of their children?
For twenty minutes nothing seemed to be happening. Arienne shouted at Toby to push. Toby shouted back that he was. Someone or other would tell Toby to breath and he would swear roundly at them with a choice of words in English and the goblin tongue that Jareth hadn't known he possessed. Arienne called for warm water and cloths, and for something to wrap the child in when it was out. A quiet goblin nurse was sent into the room with the various requested items, staring intently the other way when the mortal wrenched at her King's hands and moaned with the effort.
"Good," Arienne suddenly cried, "I can see the head." He disappeared under the sheet and Toby felt a touch on his thigh. "Just a little more," floated out from those mysterious recesses.
The mortal was tired, in agony and felt like something horribly skewer-like was ripping him apart from his groin to his stomach. Though why his stomach should be suffering he couldn't have said. He grabbed Jareth's hand with both of his, leaned back and bore down so hard that he actually cried out in fright because the pain was too much and too quick to even comprehend all at once.
Jareth was much more able to comprehend it and he gripped back just as hard. He stared in fascination as the sheet twitched and fluttered for a moment and then Arienne emerged. The smell of blood and sweat was hanging in the air and the wriggling little thing in the goblin's large hands was streaked with blood and mucus.
He watched enraptured as a little foot kicked weakly out over the healer's arm. He was so intent that he missed the exchange of the child to the discreet goblin nurse who stood in the corner ready to care for the baby and only remembered what else was happening when he heard Arienne tell his husband to push a few more times.
Toby was drained, but obeyed valiantly with a few weak pushes and then collapsed, panting and gasping and whining on the bed. He didn't notice the general hustle and bustle around him. The world was so dark at that point, with little white dots flicking in and out of his line of vision. He chased them dreamily, a sharp aching between his legs the only reminder of what had just happened. But there was an enormous sense of release hanging around him, of achievement even though his mind refused to put words to that thought.
He wanted to ask whether the child was safe and healthy, whether it was a girl or a boy. But he didn't have the strength left to open his eyes. He nodded vaguely to himself and anyone who happened to be watching and drifted into a kind of aware sleep. Gradually the noises and movements around him faded away into nothingness.
Jareth waited only to see that nod and the complete relaxation take over the ruffled golden body before taking off for the table in the corner of his room.
The goblin nurse looked up and smiled a large smile at him. "A girl," she said happily, "You has a nice little girl. Very pretty, no?"
He looked at the red, wrinkled little face and the long body and the scraggy thatch of blond hair. The eyes were puffy and she was whining and whimpering, trying to turn this way and that and obviously not managing it. "She is beautiful," he sighed, "Very pretty indeed."
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Toby drifted in and out of sleep for a good five hours after that. He awoke for a few moments when a cold, wet towel was placed soothingly between his legs, and then when Kyfrem sponged the grime and gore off of him to help him rest easier. But most of it was masked with a dream-like quality that made it seem unreal in his memory ever after.
He woke up finally somewhere around seven in the evening, to find the sky a riot of orange and purple, and Jareth at the open window with his back to him.
"Jareth?"
The word was whispered so softly that Toby would have forgiven his husband for not hearing it. He could himself hear the sounds of shouting and singing as the news traveled around that a healthy baby had been born to the royal couple. The Heir. His child. Jareth turned and smiled with relief to see him awake, coming to sit on the bed beside him with a pile of soft grey blankets in his arms.
"My child?" Toby made to sit up and found that it took a while for his sluggish muscles to respond to him. Jareth eased an arm around his back and helped him.
"Are you all right?" the Goblin King asked in concern. He waited for the answering nod and checked to see whether his lover was being truthful before offering the bundle up. "Your daughter, my elf."
Toby took the child and stared down at her. Her tiny nose looked like she could smell something she wished she didn't have to. And her eyes looked like she was trying not to look at this new and strange world around her. But there was something so fragile about her and she fit against him as if she had been made for him to hold.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Jareth demanded, as proud as a peacock with two tails. "Perfect features. She has blue eyes."
"Like mine?"
"I do not know yet. I had blue eyes too, once." The words were wistful and the voice was soft. "She has blond hair too."
Toby watched the slender forefinger stroke carefully over the blond fuzz. It was hard to tell whether it would be his bright gold or Jareth's moon-like tint. But she was perfect. "She is beautiful," he agreed.
They both watched her for a while, until Toby thought of something else. "You know, all those names we've been thinking up- they suddenly don't fit any more. She doesn't seem like an Alice or a Claire or a Fiona. There's so much more to her than just... the Aboveground." He couldn't explain himself but felt Jareth's silent comprehension, relaxing against a strong shoulder and rocking his little daughter.
"There is a name..." Dual-coloured eyes looked ruefully down at Toby's enquiring gaze. "I'm afraid it might sound a little silly."
Toby glared. "Unless it's Coco, as in the clown, I would never call a suggestion of yours silly. What is it? Not Farrah!"
Jareth glared right back. "I am not naming my daughter after a past lover."
"Glad to hear. Now, what is it?"
"Arrakhdeen."
Toby blinked. "Did you cough," he asked anxiously, "Or was that the name?"
Jareth rolled his eyes skyward. "Arrakhdeen is a word in native tongue. It means 'Dusk'."
"Arak-din," Toby attempted, "Somehow that sounded wrong."
"It was," Jareth laughed, "You must roll the 'r' and draw out the last syllable. And the 'k' is harsher, from your throat not your tongue."
"Arrakh-din... uh, -deen. Oh bugger! Dusk. I suppose we couldn't just name her that, could we?"
"Dusk? No. But there is hope: as a name, the word smoothes out to 'Arradine'; how would that sound?"
"Arradine." Toby rolled it off his tongue, tasting it in his mouth. The baby in his arms gave a squeak. "Arradine. I like that. Dusk. But why dusk?"
Jareth gave a sudden mischievous smirk. "In Underground belief, we each come from different paths of time. You descend from the sun, I from the moon. But we meet twice everyday and merge- at dawn and dusk. At dawn, the sun takes the night. At dusk..."
Toby blushed. "I get it, I get it. So it's symbolic of how this little thing came to be. Cute. Since when have you been a romantic?"
"A romantic?" Jareth raised an eyebrow. "I assure you it is no such thing. I read."
"And sing. And paint. And write." Toby smiled up into his husband's face, wanting to reach up and kiss him but not daring to move. "And steal children and annoy people and declare war and do all sorts of manly things. Such a contradiction in stereotypes!"
Jareth leaned down and kissed him, running an insistent tongue against the lower lip for entrance. Toby obliged him and he flicked inside, seeking heat and warmth and love. His lover moaned into the kiss and pressed against him.
The sound of a disgruntled baby broke them apart. Looking down at the tiny face, Toby was enchanted to see the hint of a tiny pout. She was going to be exactly like her father, he decided triumphantly, she was going to have the most willful personality in the world.
"I think she's hungry," Jareth remarked, touching her cheek.
Toby looked at the baby to his husband to the baby and then at himself. "I, uh, think you should get Arienne. I'm not quite sure how to do this."
Jareth smirked and rose with a short, extravagant bow. "I go to do your bidding, my Lord," he chuckled. Straightening, he wiped the mirth from his eyes and let Toby see the very real emotions there.
Toby watched him go and tried to calculate his time. War was declared. The Underground was in chaos. But Jareth was hurting and Toby couldn't understand why. But he would find out; Toby made that promise to his little daughter. He would find out.