A/N: A HUGE thank you to all my wonderful reviewers. I'm so happy you all have liked my story. I think this may be the end, I'm not sure yet. I hope you all like it, either way.
Disclaimer: None of the characters in this story belong to me, I'm just borrowing them, I promise to put them back where I found them, safe and sound.
The ballroom was brightly lit, and merry courtiers were gliding across the dance floor, their faces covered with glittering masks. They laughed and twirled, oblivious to their King and the determined expression he wore on his uncovered face. He was searching for something, searching for someone. He strained to see over their heads, barely catching a glimpse of a pale figure weaving in and out of the crowd. He made his way toward her, finding only empty space where she once stood. Again he searched the throng, spotting her elusive form on the other side of the room now. This time he tried to make out where she was going, and cut her off before she could slip away from him again.
She was startled when he took hold of her, but then she smiled warmly. He took her into his arms and they began to dance, their bodies so close not a whisper could fit between them. As they swayed in time to the music he sang to her, the words of the song piercing his heart even as she lay soft kisses along his jaw, the corner of his lips, finally on his lips themselves, silencing his serenade. He kissed her in return, a powerful kiss that was meant to devour her wholly.
Suddenly a clock chimed, and she was pulled from his arms. They reached for each other, trying to hold on to their embrace, but she was being dragged away by unseen hands. He called out her name, but she was taken from his view, beyond his reach. To have searched so long, only to hold her so briefly…was it worse than never having found her at all? He sank to his knees, as the dancers fell still and watched him with sad eyes.
Jareth woke with a start. It was the same dream he had had every night since Sarah's death. His bed was a shambles, and wet with sweat. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept more than an hour or two. He was falling to pieces, and he knew it. He absently wondered how long the grief would be so strong. He had been told that time healed all wounds. Well, that may be true for mortals, for whom time was such a fleeting thing, but time passed slowly for his kind. Would the grief be this fresh for him in a hundred years? Two hundred? Surely he would be mad by then.
He had to see her. She lay in the Great Hall for one last night; tomorrow she would be placed in his family tomb, alongside his mother and father, and their fathers, and their fathers' fathers. It was a tomb built for kings and queens, and she was the greatest queen of all.
Perhaps she should have been entombed today, when the ceremony was over, but he couldn't bring himself to put her in that cold dark place just yet. He had to know just for one more night that she was still near to him, and now he longed to see her one last time, alone, with no prying eyes to pity him.
He stood and with a flick of his wrist was adorned in his usual attire. He crept silently down the hall, careful not to wake any of the goblin guards who lay sleeping outside his chamber door. He made his way to the great hall and carefully opened the great wooden doors. He closed them behind him and now, no longer needing to be quiet, took long strides towards the byre where his love lay in her endless slumber.
But when he got there, he found nothing at all. She was gone! Rage flared in the great king's eyes, and he began to storm back down the aisle he had just traversed. He didn't know who could have taken her, or why, but when he found them he would hurt them until they screamed for mercy, and then he would hurt them more. As he reached the door he was startled by the tiniest of sounds. A faint rasping that could not be accounted for. He spun around, and felt a chill despite himself. "Who's there?" he called. There was no reply, only the slight sound of someone breathing. "I demand you show yourself!" he cried again.
He saw a faint shape in the moonlight near a far window. He stepped towards it, only to watch it disappear. Now the sound came from the other side of the hall. He spun around to face the intruder once more. He heard a voice, achingly familiar and very soft in the thick night air.
"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered I have fought my way back to the castle beyond the goblin city."
Jareth felt his spine tingling, and hairs stood up on the back of his neck. It couldn't…it wasn't possible! "Sarah?" He whispered, taking tentative steps in the direction from which the voice had come.
The voice spoke again, louder this time. "I have fought my way to the castle beyond the goblin city…" it began, and then its owner stepped into a column of moonlight, casting a ghostly pall upon her pale skin. But her lips were pink, and her eyes sparkled... "To take back the heart you have stolen." she added, a smile appearing on her moonlit face. Then she finished, her words ringing in the great hall. "For my will is strong and death has no power over me!"
Through all of this Jareth had been standing dumbstruck. Now he closed the distance between himself and the apparition. He stopped short of her, and warily held out his hand, afraid that she was just another dream, or worse, a hallucination. She stretched her own hand out and placed it in his. Jareth felt his heart stop. She was warm. By all the gods she was warm and soft and alive! He wanted to cry out in joy, but all he could manage was tear filled, half whispered "Sarah..." The word was not a name, but a prayer, a silent invocation of gratitude to the only one who could have given this gift.
Quickly he closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. He paused to look into her beautiful green eyes and she said "So do you plan to kiss me, or have you forgotten how?" He threw his head back and laughed, the first laughter he could remember for…well…many years. And then he put his mouth on hers and kissed her, pouring every ounce of joy and relief and passion into it.
As they kissed she ran her fingers through his hair, caressed his face, his neck, his arms, his chest, reveling in the warmth of him. She needed as much reassurance as he did that it was not just a dream. He reluctantly took his mouth from hers and withdrew, still holding her tightly so that he could take in the site of her. Her skin was flushed now, and her lips bright red from their recent exploits. He drank in her beauty, his hand absently roaming her body even as he watched her close her eyes and smile at his caresses.
"How is this possible?" he breathed, finally able to speak.
She opened her eyes and looked at him seriously. "I don't really know." she said. "I was actually hoping you could explain it. And this too." She added holding up the hand that wasn't tangled in his hair. He gazed in silent wonder as a perfect crystal formed on her fingertips. She manipulated it back and forth across her hand just as she had seen him do many times. Then she tossed it into the air and to his amazement it became a dove, which circled them twice and then flew out of an open window.
He had known something was different about her, had felt the charge of magic around her, but he hadn't realized it was coming from her. "Sarah…" he began, fighting his heart, which was telling him to shut up and kiss her again, "You have to know something. What do you remember?"
And so Sarah recounted her journey through to the other side of the veil, and of her meeting with the Lady of the Summerlands. "She put her hand on my shoulder," Sarah finished, "and that's the last thing I remember. I honestly don't know what happened after that."
What had happened after that she wondered? She had awakened in this room, only moments before. It was, in fact, at the exact moment that Jareth had awakened from his nightmare, though she didn't know it. She had been confused at first, but then she recognized the Great Hall, and the flowers and the dress she wore. When she realized she was lying on her funeral byre, she panicked a bit, and wished fervently to be in another part of the room. To her astonishment, she was there almost as soon as she wished it. Shocked, she tried again, and again she was somewhere else. She almost panicked again, but then Jareth had come in. Just the site of him had calmed her.
She was deep in thought now, and roamed distractedly up the aisle of the Great hall, her fingers brushing the petals of the flowers that lay everywhere. Some of the bundles of flowers had notes attached to them. She picked one up now and read it softly to herself. Jareth was behind her, watching quietly but with great interest. She picked up another and knew by the scrawling handwriting and choppy sentences that it had been written by a goblin. She chuckled a little at the words 'Me so sorry you not live. You nice lady. You good queen.'
Jareth placed his hand lightly on the small of her back. It was a little thing, but it spoke volumes. He watched as Sarah picked up another note, and another, moving in a slow circle around the byre. "Darling," he said softly, "Can you read these notes?" She looked up at him as though he had grown a second head.
"Of course I can." she said, slightly confused at the renewed look of wonder on his face. "Some of them are a little sloppy, but they're legible."
"Legible maybe," he said, an amused smile playing at his lips, "but none of them are in English." It was her turn to be amazed, and she put up no fight as he took the small stack of notes from her hands. He held one up to her, the silly one that had made her laugh. "See," he said, "This one is in Goblin. Very low Goblin actually." He frowned at the note. There seemed to be something sticky on it. He let that note drop back to the pile of flowers and discreetly wiped his hand on his pants. Then he held up another, "This one is Low Elvish. And this one," he said, holding up a note that was written on what seemed to be a large glittering flower petal, "this one is Fairy. There are many other languages here as well."
Sarah took the notes back from him and gathered up a few more. Now that she compared them she could see he was right. They were in different languages, some of them vastly different. She realized with a start that most of them were not even in any kind of alphabet she was familiar with. Some seemed to be flowing patterns of circles, while others where crude stick drawings. And yet she could read them all as if they were in plain English. She looked up at Jareth, fascinated. "How is this possible?" she asked.
He laughed. "I don't know why you keep asking me. I've given up on that question."
She looked around again at the Great Hall, and raised her hand absently to her head, where she found the crown that Jareth had given her earlier that day. She felt a wave of sadness, suddenly, remembering the song he had sang for her. She looked up at him and saw sadness in his eyes as well. She laid her head on his chest and was comforted by the sound of his heart beating so close to her. "I've seen this place before, Jareth." She said.
"Yes, when you were brought here to watch your funeral." He sighed, stroking her hair.
"No, not just then. I saw it in my dreams. When I looked into the crystal, I saw this place." She remembered that in the dream they had been standing on the platform, so she closed her eyes and wished to be there. When she opened them they were.
Jareth chuckled. How many other new tricks has she learned?
he wondered.
"And what were we doing in this dream of yours,
my heart?" She looked up at him, about to speak, but her cheeks
blushed a fiery red and she ducked her head shyly. He put two
fingers under her chin and lifted her face until their eyes met.
"Come now, little girl. No being shy with me now."
"I think we were getting married." She whispered conspiratorially.
Jareth smiled, but then his face turned serious. Perhaps this was the best opportunity to pose a theory that had been forming in his mind. "There is a story, "Jareth said, pacing now, "a myth really, that if one of my kind were to fall in love with a mortal, and she with him, and their love was true, the mortal will be granted immortality. In short, the mortal becomes one of us. It's just a story" he added quickly, "I've never heard of it really happening. And the myth says nothing of raising people from the dead."
Sarah frowned, deep in thought. "You said yourself that every myth has some base in reality" she mused.
"Those are myths in you're world, Sarah." Jareth said. "In my world, a myth is older than time." Even as the words were uttered a bright light entered the hall and moved toward them. Jareth held Sarah to him protectively as they watched the apparition come closer. Just as it reached them it stopped. Before their eyes it shifted, forming itself into the shape of a woman. With a bright flash of light the orb was gone and in its place Great Mother stood. Jareth instantly knelt before her, his face nearly touching the ground. Sarah followed his lead, of only slightly later than he.
"My Lady," Jareth said, still not raising his eyes to look at her. "To what do we owe this honor?"
Great Mother placed her hand lightly atop Jareth's head. "My darling Jareth," she sighed, "look at me, that I might see those stunning eyes of yours."
At that Jareth raised his head and smiled at his mistress. "I am yours to command, My Lady." He said politely but, as Sarah noted, with a little less humility as before. Sarah too raised her head, if only to get another glimpse of Great Mother's overwhelming beauty. To her surprise and delight, Great Mother laughed, that wonderful chiming laugh she had heard in the clearing.
"Rise, young Jareth. You always were the most charming of my creations." She took both of them by the hand and lifted them to their feet. "I have come to grant you my blessing upon your union."
Jareth raised an inquisitive eyebrow and glanced at Sarah. "Union, My Queen?"
Great Mother smiled lovingly at them both. "You have given your heart and your soul to this young lady, have you not? And did you not also publicly declare her your queen?" She asked and Jareth nodded. "And Sarah, when you were with me, you said that you accepted his gift. You said you would 'give him all that you have'. Is that still the case?"
"Yes Great Mother," she said, smiling at Jareth as he took her hand in his. "All I have to give."
"Then the deed is done. You are soulbound to each other. This is a bond stronger than marriage, and stronger than time." She turned her gaze to Sarah and added, "And stronger than death."
"So the myth is true?" Jareth breathed.
"Yes, Jareth." Great Mother said. "A mythical gift for a mythical creature and the woman he loves."
Jareth bowed before the Goddess once again, Sarah swiftly joining him. "Mother," he said, "How can we repay you for this gift?" To his shock, Great Mother knelt next to him.
"It is a small thing, darling Jareth, but one you well deserve. You have been alone too long. All I ask is that you take good care of each other, and continue to watch out for my children." At this she turned to Sarah, her eyes twinkling. She leaned close and whispered something that only Sarah could here, and kissed her softly on the forehead. Then she was gone.
Sarah and Jareth stood and stared at each other for a long moment, not knowing quite what to say. Jareth was the first to finally speak. "Sarah," he whispered, not bothering to hide his wolfish grin, "I think that was our wedding."
Sarah laughed, but inside she was tingling, and she absently touched the spot on her forehead where Great Mother had kissed her. "It's not exactly as I pictured it." She said, "But I can't think of a better qualified person to conduct the ceremony. Does this mean I'm immortal now?" she asked.
"Not just immortal, but one of my kind," Jareth answered, putting his arms around her, "I'll teach you how to use your new powers, but not tonight. We have plenty of time for that. Do you think you can handle being with me forever?"
She hugged held him to her tightly. "I don't think forever will be long enough." She said and added. "Isn't someone supposed to tell you to kiss the bride?"
"I'm the Goblin King, no one tells me what to do!" he said with mock arrogance, and swept her into a fiery kiss. When she opened her eyes and caught her breath she realized they were in a bedroom. Jareth's bedroom, she supposed.
"Did I do this?" she asked.
"Oh, no, this one was me." Jareth said, tracing the line of her jaw with his finger. "This is our wedding night after all, and it's already half over. I don't intend to waste another minute"
Sarah blushed deeply, and touched her forehead again. Jareth saw the gesture and momentarily stopped his explorations. "What did she say to you honey?" he asked, for clearly it was on her mind.
Sarah shrugged. "Nothing really, she just said to enjoy my wedding night, and she would see to it that the rest of my dreams were set in motion."
"Do you know what she was talking about? What other dreams did you see in her crystal?" Jareth asked.
Sarah thought hard about it. Her time in the otherworld was beginning to feel like a lifetime ago. She had seen a wedding and then….Sarah smiled as she remembered the second dream. Perhaps it was best to keep it to herself for now. "I don't remember." She lied, "I guess we'll see when we see." She looked around the room and saw a large fireplace on the other side of the bed, and in front of it the couch from the dream. "When does it get cold enough to use a fireplace?" she asked. Jareth was puzzled by her sudden change of topic, but humored her. "We have a short winter here, but not for another five or six months." He answered, and she smiled again.
Jareth was pretty sure she was keeping something from him, but he would let her have her secret. He had other things on his mind right now anyway, and he wasted no time picking up where he left off. He waved his hand and soft music could be heard. Sarah smiled, and conjured her own magic. With a flick of her wrist they were dressed the clothes she had seen in her dream of their wedding. Jareth held out his hand cordially. "Dance with me, My Lady?" he asked. She took his arm and they began to dance as they had so many years ago. He looked into her eyes, her beautiful green eyes that swallowed his soul, and whispered "I love you, Sarah"
She gazed at him in wonder and answered "And I love you, Jareth, more than anything." He began to sing to her, and she put her head on his shoulder happily. This time there were no clocks to break the spell, and no invisible hands to pull them apart.
