Chapter 5: What was the cost of our infernal jealousy?
~*o0o*~
"Haven't you been paying attention?" Jareth shook his head sadly.
"I have done nothing but pay attention to you!" Sarah snapped, "Every falsity that rolls off of your tongue, every jeer behind your sadistic smile. If you'd paid any attention to me, you might have noticed that I always play to win."
"As flattered as I am to be held within your gaze," the Goblin King leant forward, his breath ghosting over her ear, "you've been paying attention to the wrong things."
~*o0o*~
Sarah hummed softly under her breath as she wove the flowers together.
That was a blatant lie.
She cursed and glared at the pretty monstrosities that refused to bind together into an aesthetically pleasing manner.
It didn't help that they were all different sizes. The purple asters and yellow hyacinths refused to interlock with the tiny forget-me-nots and the star-shaped petals of the white lilies.
Karen could probably tell her what they meant; she had a little scrapbook with flower pressings and neatly written descriptions in elegant script. Whenever she asked the goblin in the grass beside her about her choices she would just giggle and continue making her own flower crown. Sarah felt almost offended that three stubby fingers on each hand, tipped with talons, could accomplish what she could not.
Amity was already on her second crown, the top of her navy blue feathered head was adorned with rich burgundy-toned dahlias. Sarah gave Amity a dark look as she watched the new crown take shape, woven of delicate white chrysanthemums, aster, and geranium with little sprigs of rosemary.
If this had been one of Sarah's infamous competitions not even Jareth's biased opinions could possibly judge her flower crown as the better option.
Sarah groaned, lying back in the grass, she watched the way flickers of light filtered through the smooth extended leaves of the peach tree towering over her.
Talons tapped against her shoulder to regain her attention.
"Lady Champion," the goblin squeaked, "For you." She offered Sarah her completed flower crown.
"Oh, I couldn't," she protested, she could. "You worked really hard on it." She sat up stiffly, brushing off the dirt and stray insects crawling up her arms.
"Amity has one already, yes?" She swiped at one of the burnt red petals, "Champion look razzle-dazzle with present."
Well, I'm not wearing mine. It's a disgrace.
She accepted the flowers, twisting it into a more comfortable position where the geraniums didn't droop over her eyes.
Amity gave the crown she had attempted to make, a critical once over, tutting loudly. "Tis falling apart, won't do."
"Have at it," Sarah offered; it looked like a cat had swallowed a vase of flowers and regurgitated it. That was putting it generously.
With a few deft movements, Amity managed what had taken her the best part of an hour to attempt. Sarah glowered at the new crown that the goblin had planted in her lap.
"Hello, Champion." A low voice murmured in her ear.
Sarah jumped violently and flailed an arm out to hit the offending person hiding behind her. Unluckily for her, her hand wind-milled through thin air and smacked into the tree.
The Goblin King reappeared in front of her, brushing away some imaginary imperfection of dirt from his gleaming onyx armour. His mahogany cloak was long enough to trail in the grass below them but remained startlingly pristine.
Jareth shook his head at Sarah as she sprung to her feet to march over, keeping her throbbing hand clenched into a tight fist by her side, while her other hand clutched the flower crown. His eyes landed on the angry red cut and the amused mockery in his eyes dimmed slightly.
"Whatever am I to do with you?" He sighed.
"You could try walking into the garden instead of lurking in the shadows like a menace."
"I do not lurk, and menacing is a past time reserved for only every second Thursday," Jareth refuted, indignantly, "I bide my time. Observe," he purred, "You are quite lovely to observe."
Sarah flushed, smoothing a hand down her pale mint blouse and dark skirt to ensure her clothing was still presentable after lying in the grass. It was dangerous to wear anything white in the Goblin Kingdom; any manner of substance was equally likely to be hurled at her by the goblins as a 'gift.'
She already knew that he liked to observe. A flash of feathers past her window ledge, were as common a sight to her household as Toby's plethora of musical instruments, littering room after room. Karen had been very keen that he develop a musical talent whilst still young. If only their father didn't keep standing and tripping over them in his hurry to leave the house for work at 5am.
"May I?" He gestured to her hand.
Sarah recalled fleeting flashes of stumbling around in a cold room, pressed up against searing warmth as incredible tranquillity filled her with dizzying clarity.
She offered him her hand gingerly, almost dazed. In a way, it was his fault she was injured. He should fix it, she rationalised.
Carefully he removed a glove from his left hand. Jareth cradled her injured hand whilst gently stroking pale fingers over the bleeding cut. The brief little bubble burst of energy he had gifted her (non-consensually) was nothing compared to being directly touched by his magic.
His skin was exceedingly hot, as though he were powered by a thousand furnaces, forever stoking the flames beneath his flesh. Each small pass of his fingers sent the preternatural heat, seeping into her and allowing a rush of tingling ecstasy to flow up her entire arm.
Sarah watched him with hazy, unfocused eyes as he grinned at her blissed-out expression. He allowed her arm to drop away limply like a dead fish as she stared at him in wonderment. She was too busy feeling everything to notice that her minor injury, totally deserving of immediate magical medical attention had been healed.
Somehow that unstoppable surge of heat had flooded her chest cavity and the very centre of her now burned with alarming intensity.
He wasn't even touching her any more.
"Oh," she whispered.
"Oh?" He asked, arching a quizzical eyebrow at her.
The Goblin King was so dreadfully calm, as though completely unaware that he had turned her world upside down with a simple brush of his fingers.
Sarah pressed her newly healed hand to her chest, counting the rapid thud-thud of her traitorous heartbeat. She tried her best to ignore the curious tilt of Jareth's head as he watched an entire crisis frantically play out across her facial expressions.
It's only because of his magic! She desperately insisted.
Oh yes, aren't we fond of his magic, another part of her whispered back.
"I-" she choked out.
A hint of that wondrously awful heat that resided in his hands, shone in Jareth's eyes as he stepped closer and enclosed his hand around her own again. "Are you quite well?" The false concern in his voice would have made Sarah roll her eyes if they weren't too busy rolling into the back of her head out of pleasure.
It never feels like that normally when he grabs my hand! Her mind screeched.
She had never considered the fact that he had so rarely, touched her without a barrier.
"I-I'm fine," Sarah squeaked, you did not just moan, she chastised herself viciously. "H-here," she practically threw the flower crown she had woven (with help) at the Goblin King, "There's no point in me having two of them." Please stop looking at me.
The Goblin King considered the crown and softly smoothed out the petals she had mussed and displaced. "Interesting choices," he murmured. With one last critical look, he placed it upon his mane of wild moon-silk locks; he twirled a lily petal in his hand before allowing it to drift back down to the earth below.
To her disappointment, the Goblin King looked far from ridiculous with an array of flowers in his hair; some might say he pulled it off better than she did. They would be wrong.
"Kingy pretty," Amity remarked, grinning with gaping gums.
Sarah blinked in surprise, having forgotten that the goblin was still there.
The Goblin King made a flicking gesture and the goblin became silent, slumping back down into the grass without a fight.
"Ah, as lovely as it is to see you, I've things to do. Fiancées to meet." Jareth's eyes glittered dangerously as he returned his attention to Sarah, "It seems that the Queen of the Hollow Mountains wishes to dine with me this fine day." It wasn't difficult to hear the underlying bite in his voice. They were both well aware that Sarah would do anything but eat at his table, less he stopper her mouth with sweet fruits that induce dreams too painfully perfect for her to wrestle free of.
"Off you go then. I've challengers to prepare for. Fiancées to crush." Is what she should have said.
Instead what came out was a strangled sound of dismay and a furious protestation of "No!"
No? The word was ringing in her head.
No, it wasn't, Jareth had echoed it aloud with some degree of confusion.
Touching Jareth was obviously making her delirious.
With iron-clad control, she pulled her hand away, mournful of the loss of the tingling sensation. Sarah stared up at him helplessly, with the horrifying realisation that the excitement and fire that so often danced in their conversations, now lingered in their touch and had left an imprint of its overpowering sparks in her very synapses.
Ah, there's the sense of impending doom. I'd wondered where it went.
Five years she had been doing this and the levy had broken over what, the casual mention of a Fae she'd never met? And how her feelings flooded out mercilessly, choking her words and swimming before her eyes
She cleared her throat. "I meant...go?"
She couldn't even convince herself, let alone Jareth, who she was going to punch straight in his evil, perfect, smug mouth.
"I see," the Goblin King smirked; the delight in his expression was mortifying. "I'll give Helena, your regards, shall I?"
Why? Why was he going to force her to say it? The space between them was laden with so many unspoken words and the ropes of a thousand intentions, coiled in the shape of a razor-sharp noose.
Don't go, she wanted to say.
Leave me alone, was a close follow up.
He is a liar, her mind whispered. A reminder.
He lied as he paraded his fine paramours before her; the adoration he cultivated in their minds choked them like weeds as they thought of themselves far above a silly little mortal with a silly little game. His every smile and sickening pet name drew them closer to another loss. No, she refused to believe he cared about this Queen or any of his challengers that had shown neither hide nor hair after their defeat.
"What am I to you?" For all that she was screaming the words in her head; it came out as little more than a hoarse whisper.
Jareth's head snapped back like he'd been struck. She wanted to snatch her words back and bury them in the earth where she played her games of deception, the games that she won.
"What are you not to me?" The Goblin King countered, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward, no longer gentle or kind. Something wild and furious flashed behind scalding ice irises.
"Must you make a game of everything?" Sarah spat.
"Isn't that your job?" The Goblin King laughed, uncaring of the pulsing heat and lazy pleasure he flooded her with from his touch. Sarah twisted her wrist in his grip but they were unyielding manacles; she glared daggers at him as his beautiful mouth uttered such mellifluous sounds. "Round and round we go, time after time you tell me n-"
Sarah swiftly closed the distance and rammed her face into his.
There was nothing particularly romantic about the violent way she mashed her mouth against his. It was a fight Jareth responded to in kind, with all the might of a King challenged on the battleground. Their teeth clashed and his hands released her to dig into her hips with renewed intent, just as her own clawed at his hair, shredding sunshine hyacinth blossoms in her eagerness.
There would be bruises there later and she would delight in tracing over them when she remembered this.
She would make sure that he remember her the next time he was off on some dalliance with another challenger.
Sarah let free ever ounce of her festering frustration and pent up longing as her moans were swallowed up by Jareth's devouring mouth.
Just as his hands had been, his mouth was blisteringly hot; he seared her with each kiss and left a trail of branding marks; he lathered the bites he lovingly left on her throat with more open-mouthed kisses.
His teeth were too sharp, jagged and inhuman. How many times had she caught a glimpse of them as he derided the fallen challengers and made threatening promises with such agonising devotion?
She didn't care. She didn't care about anything at the moment but ensuring she had more, more, more.
It didn't matter that her tongue was probably bleeding, too overwhelmed by the euphoric buzz of his magic sliding under her skin and warming her blood. It wasn't just his magic that made her knees tremble and her insides turn molten, his touch dod that alone.
When Jareth's hand slithered up the back of her shirt, he made sure it was the ungloved one, leaving a blazing imprint of fire along her spine. He made little protestation as she nipped him back, groaning indulgently and holding her closer against the frantic hammering of his heart under armour that did little to protect him. It was vindication; he was as affected as she was.
He pulled back for a moment, pupils blown wide with lust that bled away into something almost tender as he resumed kissing her senseless.
Just when she began to wonder whether they could stay like this, trapped in an eternal cycle of want, they were interrupted by the sharp cough of another person in the garden.
Lurking, she considered, darkly.
Sarah tore her mouth away sharply, her hazy thoughts snapping back into focus as the dizzying warmth receded but failed to withdraw entirely.
The Goblin King let loose a snarl that transformed his face into a bestial mask of displeasure. Teeth that had nipped and toyed with the vulnerable skin above her pulse now looked ready to rip and rend flesh into a mess of gore.
A delicate-looking Fae wearing a circlet of silver, cast a critical eye over the two of them. "I am Hylla of the Hollow Mountains. Odd indigo eyes bored into her, but she was beyond caring about the disarray of her clothes and the numerous reddened marks against her neck. "I take it I wasn't expected."
"Get out." The venomous words had been growled by none other than the Champion.
"I think not," she sniffed, "I've come a long way to marry, this..." The Queen trailed off, looking for the right words, "Thing."
Jareth's look of affront coalesced into something insidious.
Thing. She would dare to call him a thing. Something to conquer. Something to take from.
Sarah's disgust soured her internal organs; its septic encroaching, poisoned her blood and left her to spew a stew of vitriol. "Get out of my Labyrinth!" She hissed.
She was absolutely sick of them, sick of all of them. Mesmerising creatures that lay all over Jareth, so certain of their victories. They all held scorn for her poor pathetic mortal self when it was their empty, glittery heads that failed to make heads or tails of her challenges. Well, she'd show her.
The intruder's eyes flashed crimson. Before she could approach them there was a deafening rumble, the ground beneath their feet shook violently and cracks branched out, splitting apart the grass. Sarah's eyes flickered to Jareth in alarm, she'd never known there to be earthquakes here (at least ones not induced by Ludo after he eats Hoggle's 'Sunday Soup Surprise').
But the Goblin King's visage remained steely calm as he watched his Labyrinth warp and twist, unyielding walls suddenly bent and bowed, rising up and encircling the Queen of the Hollow Mountains. His still gloved, right hand flexed agitatedly as though he had a sudden cramp in it.
Sarah watched half-fascinated, half-horrified as the glittering bricks of crystal-studded stone convulsed, as though swallowing. The walls stretched out further and further away from the garden where they stood; the spasmodic rhythm was repeated as a shrill shriek grew more and more distant the further the ripples grew.
All at once, the walls receded back into the earth as though they had never been birthed.
"What was that?" She fought to keep a tremor out of her voice. There was something almost elegantly brutal about the way deceptively inanimate brick had united in an aggressive attack.
Jareth didn't answer for a long moment, his expression inscrutable as glacial eyes bored into her with all the might that the Kingdom's walls held within them.
"The Labyrinth...sent her away," he replied carefully.
"Why?" Sarah already knew the answer, and as she watched the ice melt away in his eyes and noticed the strangely dazed look coming over him, she knew he did too.
It was difficult to feel sorry for Hylla, after interrupting that.
"Because you told it to." Jareth's breath was laboured; insultingly so, more ragged than when he had been kissing her within an inch of her life. "You said my Labyrinth." There was nothing accusatory about the wonder in his face.
"Ah," embarrassment curdled in her stomach. She reached for Jareth's gloved hand, squeezing it apologetically. "I didn't mean to say that." Her tongue still tingled from where the words had slipped forth, truer and sharper than any insult she had ever directed at him.
How long had the Labyrinth been her home? Her safe refuge from the mundanity of paying bills and the constant pull of her parents to tie her life down to a suitable person. Some days she thought that they wanted grandchildren, more than they wanted their actual children.
A feral joy glowed in the Goblin King's eyes as he took her other hand, simply holding on to her as flickers of dizzying power started to spark between them again. "Oh, you didn't?"
That was familiar.
What's said is said...her mind reminded her in the Goblin King's taunting voice.
And despite the euphoric delight that was trying to burst out of her and the undeniable desire to latch onto Jareth again, greedily. Sarah couldn't help but feel like she had made an irreversible mistake.
The heat of his skin grew impossibly hot, now painful. Sarah pulled back with a yelp, eyes growing wide as they observed the strange sigil of gold, now branded to the back of her hand. It throbbed and pulsed in time to the frenzied pounding of her heart, interlocking lines woven into a maze with no entrance and no exit.
Sarah scrubbed at the mark desperately, clawing at the imprint that was rooted in far beneath her skin. It remained indelible, like an unblinking eye, vast and all-seeing it stared back without repentance.
She turned her venomous gaze upon the Goblin King, only for him to yank his second glove off, displaying the same horrifyingly familiar pattern living within his flesh.
"What have you done?" Her voice was pleading, begging him to deny what was excruciatingly obvious.
These were the words she had greeted him with when she had first been recalled into his life by Labyrinthine ties.
"What have you done?" His tone was almost malicious; she would think him furious if not for his jubilant smile.
There was very little room for ambiguous interpretation.
"Had I known you'd give me a magical STD from kissing, I could have lived without touching you." Sarah snarled back.
The Goblin King only laughed, "How many of my challengers have I kissed? Caressed? None bear the mark that you do. That is by your own design."
The hand that he had stroked so gently, filling it with warmth and power as he tenderly sealed her wounds now had the same fevered temperature that the Goblin King's skin had.
She didn't want this.
Of course, you do, her mind whispered back, what did you expect would happen if you kissed him, if he knew that you wanted him?
That doesn't mean that I want to be trapped. Bound. Whatever he's done to me.
Sarah's heart was trying to crawl out of her throat, her innards were combusting as a deadly heat started to weave into her blood once more.
She could only watch in terror as the Goblin King knelt down on the grass, eyes alight with elation and skin-crawling triumph. "Hail to the Goblin Queen."
A voice shouldn't be capable of sounding both reverent and mocking at the same time.
The villain of her childhood gazed up at her in victory.
None of the others were good enough. You'd never have let them win.
As much as she was cognizant of this truth, it didn't change the fact that he hadn't asked. He'd taken and assumed and captured with words and hidden intentions. Why could he never learn to ask?
How long had he been hiding behind his lovely fiancés and fiancées, sucking and teasing eager flesh, delighting with his duplicitous mouth whilst imagining that she was the Challenging Champion to reign over them all?
Can you be angry at him for doing what is in his nature?
His nature told him to take Toby, to take any poor unfortunate soul that had been wished-away.
How repulsive was her own nature that that was redeemable, that his only fault in her eyes was that he hadn't asked her if she wanted this; when deep down they both knew a part of her did.
It was little surprise that Sarah fell back into the dictates of her own nature. She needed to run, to flee this place. She needed to think.
Just as she had done many times before after her challenges were complete, Sarah attempted to return above, thinking of her cramped apartment with the leaky roof, her Wednesday book club and Toby's cello recitals. She screwed her eyes uptight.
"This is your domain now, my love. Trying to leave is a futile endeavour." Jareth chided, rising to his feet with an incongruous sense of superiority for one that had been knelt in the dirt.
If Sarah's heartbeat quickened any more she'd be in danger of having a coronary disaster. It brought her despair to think that Jareth would somehow find that a satisfying end to her, killed by her own heart.
Her eyes flashed open. "I am not your love."
"Oh yes you are," The Goblin King replied, his voice sing-song sweet in its contradiction. "Do you know how easy it is to make a simple little declaration of intent to rule?" His laughter was abrasive, like shards of glass scratching her eardrums, "And how impossible it is to best the Labyrinth and its challenges?"
Jareth's eyes landed on her clenched fist, sigil still steadily glowing. He reached across and caressed her cheek with the back of his own branded hand, sending another wave of mind-blowing pleasure crashing through her. "You're all backwards, darling. Back to front and upside down" he grinned. "Your Labyrinth has waited such a long time for you to claim it." When Sarah's knees buckled, he caught her arm, shaking his head in false pity, "Time enough has passed, little Wife."
Sarah slapped him hard across the face, with burning hatred and a scalding hand she placed every iota of her fury behind it. Jareth reeled backwards, stunned by the force of her blow. He rubbed the blooming mark on his cheek, eyes huge and oddly innocent.
"I am not your wife, you can't just decide that." She felt ill, she felt like she wanted to cry and never stop, not until this garden was flooded and her husband drowned in her grief.
Now who's being overdramatic?
It stung. Had he come to her and asked to stop playing these games with his suitors, if he'd given an indication of his so-called love...what would she have done? It frightened her to think of how unopposed she would have been to this mere minutes ago when she had been trying to mesh their bodies together.
Right intention...wrong action, or was it the other way..?
No, she wouldn't be his wife. She wouldn't be something demeaningly won from a long calculating game that culminated in his victory. It didn't matter that she wanted him, or that she wanted to claw the eyes out of every man and woman who looked at him with lust.
"Put aside your foolish pride, beloved." Sarah scowled to see the mark she had left fade so swiftly from his face, "Upon your head, you wear a crown, and it was you who kissed me. The time for fighting is in the past."
Love...darling...beloved... the words sunk into her like needles. Was she being prideful?
A part of her was pleased to see the intensity of his joy at calling her wife, a title she had guarded viciously from all others. But there was something else, something wrong. In all their years and all their exchanged words, he hadn't learnt what it was to be honest. And so, even now his intentions were a mystery, sunken beneath depths and layer after layer of misdirection and sugar-coated words.
If she was to marry him, it would be on her terms, not his.
Beloved...darling...love...
Her name was still absent from his repertoire.
"My name, the name of your so-called wife, is Sarah. Use it!" She exclaimed, in exasperation. She hated the names he called her, how many had there been that he had named thusly? Many a darling and dearest had passed through his castle with the intent to win his Kingdom. Sarah was her name; hers alone and he would use it.
The Goblin King's eyes brightened with mirth, "Ah yes, your name. Your lovely name, to name something is to have power over it. And I shall name you S-S-Sa-" He began to heave out great hacking coughs.
Mismatched eyes bulged as he choked on the name that refused to slip free. "S-Sa- Champion," he finished; he shot her a seething look full of loathing as the wrong name burst forth.
"No power over me," Sarah chided, almost breathless with surprise. "You can't say it. You could never say it."
Jareth's lip curled into a sneer, "If I cannot call you by your name, I shall simply call you my wife. For that is what you are. You have won me," he stalked closer, keeping a wary eye on her in case she decided to lash out again, circling and circling her like she were his prey.
"I may be worthy of being your wife, of being a Queen, but you are not worthy of being my husband." Sarah refuted, with a gleam in her eyes, mind furiously unpicking the words he had handed her, "What have you done to win me?"
The sky overhead became overcast and the peach tree she had been sat under began to shiver in anticipation. The sudden chill of the air was almost a balm to her throbbing golden-tainted hand.
"Everything!" Jareth snapped, "I have given you my Kingdom. I have given you myself. What more could you possibly want?"
"How about something I've actually asked for."
"Oh you did," he sneered, "With every flash of jealousy in your eyes, every vindictive smile as you crushed your foes. You certainly asked for this when you pressed your mouth to mine, with no intention of releasing me."
"I wanted to win," she hissed back.
"Yes, you always want to win," Jareth looked almost fond, "And now that you have, you're back to wailing about the bitter unfairness of life once more." He pressed his hand to her face again, open-palmed and surprisingly gentle for the forcefulness of his diatribe. "I think you would have let me take you, right there, pressed into the yielding earth. Would you like me to remind you, how good it feels to give in for once?"
Her thoughts were hazy, manic joy was flooding her senses and causing her limbs to relax against her will.
But her will was as strong.
Sarah laid her head against Jareth's shoulder, her mind clouding over in thoughtless bliss. When Jareth released his hand from her face and bent his head to kiss her, she bit his lip hard.
Blood stained her lips and she laughed at him.
A single finger swiped at his bloodied lip and he stared at the ruby droplet with fascination. Frigid eyes flickered to her with calculated tension. He certainly didn't like her laughter anymore.
Had no one ever hurt him before? Told him no?
From her pocket, she pulled out a familiar stone, smooth and dove grey with webbed cracks running through it.
"Perhaps you'd like to prove your worthiness, challenger." Sarah taunted.
~*o0o*~