Chapter 13: A Healthy Measure of Royal Angst

Jareth transported himself directly to his throne room and slumped carelessly into his throne. What had he been thinking, to kiss her like that? He groaned and shook his head. Sarah wouldn't want to have anything to do with him after that; he just knew it. She was going to lump him, quite rightly too, in with those panting, lusting little frat boys at the party.

But how was he to know that he was going to start feeling like this about her? He'd been quite drawn to her twelve years ago -- he knew he might have possibly even grown to love her -- but he hadn't felt such a physical expression of desire. With his kind, physical desire only accompanied the strongest feelings toward someone. Was it even possible that he'd fallen that deeply in love with Sarah in only two days?

And she'd made it plain enough that they were only friends, and just barely that. "On the right track," she'd said. Even if she did grow to love him, he knew it would take more time than he had. He had to be betrothed by the time the Dwarf King married, and that was only two weeks away.

Jareth thought of his current fiancée, and smiled sadly. Someone as pure as Arien surely deserved someone better than a bored and aging goblin king with a dual personality and darkness in the corners of his soul. He hoped that he wouldn't have to inflict himself on Taliu's only daughter, even if it meant breaking the arrangement he had made with Taliu before his friend had died.

Plus, he wanted Sarah. Oh, he wanted her! He spent the night remembering all of their previous interactions -- Sarah was pure in her way, but she had a hardness to her, a core of steel that Jareth knew could make her utterly ruthless when she had to be. Just like himself. That kind of iron was necessary in ruling his stupid, clumsy, and occasionally vicious little subjects. Arien wouldn't be able to handle it, he knew. Arien was too diffident and timid. Even though she was High Princess of the Underground, she lacked the iron determination and will that would be necessary to rule the goblins. Sarah, on the other hand, had them in spades and would do very well. Look how well Sarah had done with his subjects even as a child! By now she had the maturity, wisdom, education and grace to make him a fitting queen.

But he didn't have enough time to court her properly! It was impossible that, in the space of two weeks, he would be able to convince her to give up everything she knew and come to the Underground to be with him. He cursed himself for waiting so long to contact her; he just hadn't know where she was since she had stopped contacting Hoggle and the others, and moved out of her old room in her father's house -- a room that he knew as well as anywhere in his own domain.

And how would Sarah deal with his other incarnation when she saw him? Would the Goblin King scare her? Jareth now knew that he was totally smitten by Sarah -- but would the King feel the same way, the next time he appeared? Jareth resolved to show up as him, the next time Sarah called for him. It would be best to get all the unpleasantness out of the way in the beginning, so there'd be no ugly surprises later.

Then again, the news that Jareth wanted to marry Sarah and have her ruling next to him might come as enough of an ugly surprise to her, he admitted with a rueful groan. Not to mention the fact that there had never before been a human ruler in the Underground, and he very much doubted that the unicorns would approve of her. Their approval was required for any ruler to take the throne, and he felt sure they would not allow him to pay court to a human.

And what if the unicorns couldn't even examine her? He knew that human standards of sexuality varied greatly, and it was entirely possible that Sarah had been intimate with a man before. While the thought depressed him on the basis of his own feelings for her, it would be impossible for the unicorns to get near enough to examine her if she had. He hoped fervently that she had been chaste -- otherwise all his planning was for naught, and he'd end up married to one of the four-leggers himself.

All in all, the chances of his actually being able to marry the woman he loved were very, very slim.

"Ah, Sarah," he whispered. "What am I going to do?"