Chapter 70: Nerves and Nuptials
The morning of the wedding found Sarah pacing nervously, waiting for Lorikar to show up with her breakfast tray. Ordinarily it was the dwarf's job to wake Sarah as well, but this time she had been too nervous to sleep very deeply.
The little dwarf maid seemed unsurprised to see Sarah up and awake. "I've brought you some tea this morning, my lady," she said. "It's very good for calming one's nerves… if one should happen to be nervous, that is," she added hastily.
Sarah laughed. "I'll take it, with thanks, then."
Her wedding-dress was lovely. "How did he do it?" Sarah marveled quietlyas she held up the skirt to examine the intricate golden embroidery against the white. It was the pattern of his pendant, sewn right into the fabric of the gown with the design repeating itself over and over.
"How did he do what, my lady?" Lorikar asked.
Sarahrecovered her poise and covered her lapse. "How did he manage to just once, find a gown to which I can't object?"
Lorikar giggled as she helped Sarah dress. "I think King Jareth has a sense of occasion sometimes," she confided. "It wouldn't have boded well for you to have sent back your wedding-gown!"
Sarah conceded that to be the truth. Lorikar tightened Sarah's corset-laces and fastened up her dress, and then set to work on her hair. She wove flowers into it, white and gold ones that matched the gown and looked quite striking in Sarah's dark hair, and curled it with a simple, muttered incantation.
Sarah looked at herself in the mirror and marveled. She looked powerful and radiant, and she wasn't even a queen yet!
Her father met her at the door to her bedroom. "Oh, Sarah, honey! You look beautiful!" He offered her his arm, to walk her down. "Jareth tells me it's not the done thing here, for a father to escort his daughter, but he's making an exception for us. He made sure I knew it was just this once," he teased. "So the next time you marry a mythical monarch, you'll have to walk down to meet him all by yourself."
"I'll remember," Sarah promised with a smile.
As usual, Jareth was dressed to match her. He wore white trousers tucked into his usual high black boots, a gold waistcoat and a white cape covered with the same gold embroidery as Sarah's dress. His hair was left loose, falling over his shoulders in a platinum cascade, and his head was topped by a golden crown. One side of it was higher than the other, and it sat at a rakish angle on his head. He always had been fond of asymmetry.
"Oh, my," Sarah said softly to herself when she saw him. This was real. She was marrying this man. He was beautiful. She started to tear up a little.
Robert patted her hand where it rested on his forearm. "He's a good guy," he said, "even if he does wear his pants like a fairy."
Sarah chuckled, her tears forgotten. "He says you're not so bad yourself, for a guy with zero imagination."
Robert smiled and lifted up her hand to kiss it. They were almost to the front of the room full of people. "This is it, honey," he said. "Good luck. I'll sure miss you!" He reached the front of the room, where he shook Jareth's hand, tucked Sarah's into it, and then went and sat down next to Toby.
The room was silent as Jareth and Sarah stood together before the High Queen and exchanged their vows. Before all the Underground, they promised to love, honor, and respect each other until they were parted by death.
Sarah had previously taken off the crystal necklace Jareth had given her, and now Jareth stepped forward and placed another one around her neck. This one was a smaller, more delicate copy of his crescent pendant, the symbol of office for the Goblin King. It wasn't the Goblin King who made his vows and bestowed his symbol of office: it was Jareth the man, opening up and revealing his "private face" in front of his guests as he took Sarah into his arms and kissed her with an eagerness that could not be hidden.
Kissing during weddings wasn't usually done in the Underground, and murmurs arose when Jareth broke with custom. He silenced them with a look, leaving them to realize that with a human wife, he was using a human tradition to make her feel at home.
At least, that's what he let them think. Really, though, he just wanted to kiss his new wife. He couldn't help it if her customs made for an excellent excuse.
A/N: It's official: they're (finally) married! Hurrah!
To my reviewer who wondered why Sarah was only getting her Bachelor's Degree at age 27, I explained that earlier on in the story: because of her father's divorce, she had to work for several years to save for college before she was able to start. A lot of people don't start college right out of high school. And 27 years old would be very young for her to be getting her doctorate! She's not superwoman, nor yet a Mary Sue, so I just made her plain, human, and poor (as so many of us are), who completed undergrad at 27.