Author's Note: A little shorter than the other chapters, but since this is the fourth rewrite, I hope you will forgive me. I'll have the next chapter up very soon.
Author's Note 2: I changed Toby's age. He's not twenty-two; he is not twenty-four. He will turn twenty-five on the last day of Jareth's ball. You'll see why soon enough.
Jareth holed himself up in his study for the rest of the day. On the desk before him were two things- Jervohl's ring and Sarah's photograph. Women, he eventually surmised, were creatures he would never understand.
Now men were fairly simple… somewhat… once you learned to read them… once you understood them… all right, men were just as bad, but at least he knew how he himself reacted to certain things and therefore had some point of reference.
Jervohl was not telling him something, of that he was certain. It wasn't so much that he could sense it, but it was clearly obvious. Had Jervohl been tortured or threatened, she would have said so. No, it was not torture. Something haunted her, but Jareth could not quite see what. Even Gildred was not a complete monster. The Goblin King understood his brutality; one had to be brutal when governing the outlaws. They had no sense of honour, no sense of law. To rule them, the fae would have to be worse than them.
Hence it was not fear or pain that she remembered.
What else could make a woman feel so angst-ridden?
A slow smirk made its presence felt, only to disappear again. Jareth sincerely hoped that it was not what his active imagination had tossed up. If Jervohl had somehow managed to fall in love with the man who haughtily claimed himself to be a direct descendant of the Sky Spirits, then more fool her. And more trouble for him.
He shut his eyes a minute and checked over his lands for the umpteenth time. He could expect Gildred to pay him an unannounced little visit in hot pursuit at any moment. In fact, the fae was approaching the Castle. Jareth sighed and opened his eyes. As per usual, his gaze automatically drifted to Sarah's bright smile. It was still… No, 'beautiful' was the wrong word because it was so much more than that. It was alive! That was it! Alive!
"What do you think, my dear? Shall I do something about this mess?"
His overactive imagine replied on her behalf. He nodded and took himself away, landing in a silent cat-like crouch wherever it was that Gildred was.
Straightening up, he grimaced. He had a liking for black too, but those black cloaks really were hideous. He made a mental note to have a very serious word with his rival on the state of his clothing.
Gildred sensed him, however- a very easy thing to do when the male standing behind you starts humming a flippant little tune- and whirled. Only to find a very pleasant smile of welcome on the Goblin King's face. He lowered his crossbow and waited.
"Welcome to the Underground, Gildred of the Sky," Jareth murmured, unable to help using that amusing little title.
Gildred's grey eyes, if possible, went even colder. "I apologize for trespassing," he said bluntly, "But I need to speak with you."
"Does creeping past my guarded defences count as an act of aggression or of peace?" Jareth mused aloud, clasping his hand lightly behind his back, "My lamentable memory; I never could remember. However, since there is only one of you and there are more than enough of my troops, I'll overlook that. What did you want, Gildred?"
"A word with you, Your Majesty."
"Ah? Well, then, I propose we get back to the Castle. I don't remember seeing you eat anything very much over the last four days."
"I hadn't the time. And I am hungry."
Jareth conjured up a crystal and turned it to a peach, offering it with a smirk. "Try this. I believe they are equal to your apples."
Gildred looked from the fruit to his host. He suspected Jareth. The Goblin King was never this pleasant even when they agreed. He was stern and cold and stiff. It was rather a surprise to see him so charming for once. Though Gildred wasn't the least bit fooled; there was a sharp detachment in the mismatched eyes that did not speak of good nature. Jareth had an agenda.
"The peach is not poisoned, my Lord. If I wanted you dead I would have said so by now," Jareth snapped.
The outlaw swallowed his suspicions enough to accept the offering. But he put it into a pocket instead and challenged the Goblin King to dare say a word about it.
Jareth shrugged. It was no harm to him if Gildred wanted to starve himself. He wasn't doing this out of any finer feelings on his behalf. Through some sense of warped logic, he did it because Sarah would have wanted it. And since Sarah was everything good and conscientious, he followed what he believed her opinion would have been. Her opinion in this would no doubt have been to let his sister work out whatever seemed to be worrying her. He could always throw the outlaw into an oubliette later.
"What do you want to speak with me about?"
"There is something I haven't told you, Your Majesty, for a very long time," Gildred said uneasily, "About your sister."
"For whose death you accepted the blame for," Jareth replied promptly, "Yes, I know. And you may rest easy. She returned here six days ago in good health, if a little changed from when last I spoke with her."
"Then you know."
"I know what she has told me."
Grey eyes flicked to watch the Goblin King's face. "An evasive answer."
"It would tell you a lot if you read it right," Jareth said smugly.
"Words are not my forte, Goblin King; swords are." It was pleasantly said, but the warning was thinly veiled.
Jareth had been prepared to be pleasant for Jervohl's sake, but he wouldn't stand to be threatened. And not by any upstart outlaw from beyond his lands. In seconds, the vines of the forest were wrapping around the fae with the red hair, trapping him securely even as he cursed and made to evade their clutches.
"Struggling does not help," Jareth recommended, "We are equally matched, you and I. But this is my Kingdom and I do have the advantage. Are we clear?"
"Get these thrice-cursed plants off me!"
Jareth obliged.
"I understand," Gildred snapped, taking off the cloak to untangle it from a few thorns. "Your Majesty, I did not come here to fight you. I only want to speak to your sister."
"Why?"
"We have things to say to each other," he said, "I ask for your tolerance only until such time as I can speak with her in private for a few minutes."
"If I refuse?"
"I will contrive some way. I've done so before and I'll do so again."
This time, the threat was not an empty one. Yes, Gildred had once infiltrated the Goblin Kingdom, if only to prove grimly to the Goblin King that he could do so. And in all probability, he would not be able to do it again, but Jareth was not in the mood to be on constant alert. Staying constantly in that state of awareness of his lands and his labyrinth for days on end was not the way he had envisioned spending the next two weeks. Especially not when Serenity was almost with him.
So he had a decision to make. Actually, he had two decisions to make in this situation and another two to make in the other situation. But both would benefit from having his sister free from her frustratingly dramatic inclination to either kill someone or burst into tears. And really, if Jervohl could be happily dispensed of to a place where she did not get under his feet, Jareth was prepared to foster even a relationship as ill fated as the one he imagined would well be sealed soon.
"The sun is almost set," he decided, "Would you care for a meal at my table? Jervohl will attend and you can speak with her afterwards. Oh, and I should warn you- I have a fae, a forest sprite and a dwarf as my guests, along with my ward and my mother. You will be expected to at least bathe and change, if not be polite company."
"Are you calling me uncouth and uncivilized?"
Jareth smirked and said nothing. "I will have a room prepared for you for the night. Oh, and when you see Jervohl, give her back this ring, please. I have absolutely no need for it." He handed over the ring with the pale grey powerstone and left the other fae male to follow him.
He sincerely hoped that Elban had not killed Jervohl just yet. Gildred would not be happy if he had come all this way for nothing. And there was still that ridiculous feud between Beran and Luka to be considered. And over and above all of this sorry state of affairs, was one very important decision to be made about Toby's twenty-fifth birthday in two weeks' time.
"Yes," he commented, "I must warn you, Gildred, that you are walking into a madman's world."
What would Sarah do, he wondered.
