"But…." Sarah tried to manifest words, tried to translate them from her mind and properly shape them on her lips. Her mind raced a mile a minute. Thoughts cascaded like a raging river through her mind. One thought led to seven more which led to fourteen more till it was nothing but a flurry of thoughts. As if someone had released a cage of pigeons….they scattered about the sky…each one in a different direction….fleeting and without reason. None stayed. None grouped. They didn't huddle in a mass to form something coherent. It was almost too much for her to handle, thus she could only regress and cling to the one idea that seemed most concrete.
"You. Lie!" she lifted a crooked finger upon him. "It…it….was a lie?! It…IS… a lie!" Her brain was becoming befuddled and sluggish as her neurons raced and searched for meaning, tiring at its inability to form reason. Trying effortlessly to make meaning and sense of the words and pictures spread forth in the book. That book that spilled upon the floor at her feet like a dead corpse.
Even with her accusation he had not raised his head to her. He still remained seated but was deftly pulling on a pair of soft black leather gloves. They completed the black of his entire ensemble. Every attribute was steeped in black….like a walking black hole. Darkness blanketed him. It enveloped him and hugged closely to him, as if he truly sprang forth and resided in the shadows. Sarah eyed him as he continued to remain silent. His head was down, black hair shielding his features as his focus remained on the gloves. The silence stretched between them to the point that all Sarah could hear was the thrumming of her own heartbeat and the soft expelling of her breath.
As if he was a master of stealth and silence, once the gloves found their home upon his fingertips, the silence was shattered with the eerie sound as he flexed his hand in and out of a fist. The soft sound of the leather bunching sent a chill down Sarah's spine. She shivered as if an icy wind had blown in from the open terrace behind her. The silence left her uncomfortable in her skin. The pages from the book left her uncomfortable in her skin, like an itchy irritation flooded through her veins and crept over her entire body.
Shock? Shock? Is this what shock feels like? She questioned herself. She could only wish that darkness would close upon the edges of her peripheral vision. That would be a relief to the tightening in her chest. The stiffness of her limbs and the choking feeling about her neck at that itchy irritation creeping upward, looping around and pulling taunt about her throat. She quickly moved her hands to her neck to check that she wasn't really choking. There was nothing there, and yet….
She could swear she was choking. She shook her head jerkily, closing her eyes, holding back….holding back….The tears seared behind her eyes. They stung like someone had put a drop of acid behind her lids. She desperately fought them back. She could feel the anxiety growing with every ragged breath she inhaled. Fight it….fight it…..FIGHT! Her mind screamed at her.
Just as she struggled to emit words from her lips, as her clenched jaw muscles fought against her, his voice broke the silence between them. Her eyes flew open, quickly finding that he had risen from the chair. In her panic she had not heard him leave the chair, nor his footsteps bring him but a few feet from her now shaking form. He leaned over and picked up the book from the floor and cradled it slightly in the crook of his arm. He gently brushed invisible specks of dust and dirt that may have settled upon the pages and gently arranged them so there were no creases before closing the cover. He even caressed the labyrinth symbol upon the cover as if gently handling a wounded bird. Just as delicate as he touched the book, he was turning and placing it away into thin air, as if he stood next to an invisible bookcase.
Their eyes avoided each other but not for long because he soon turned veiled green eyes upon her. No longer were they the mismatched eyes of the Goblin King that Sarah was more familiar with. Instead, they were the feral green hunter's eyes. Despite the vibrancy of the green, they still were lackluster and shadowed, as if the mirth and sparkle had been subdued. Without turning, Sarah felt as the sun was shadowed by a cloud. The warmth drifted down her back and she watched as the light receded from the room, as if paying respect to the dark King that stood before her. In their wake, the shadows stretched forth and replaced the warmth bringing an instant coolness to the room, as if a forest of darkness had suddenly cropped up in the room about them and continued to linger as if he willed it so. The wind picked up and she felt a cold steal into her bones as if death had come suddenly and unknowingly upon her, touching her shoulders and neck and filling her body with an unnatural winter.
"You feel it don't you?" He questioned her as he watched her body tremble with a shiver.
"F-f-feel what?" She questioned him.
He didn't answer as he stepped closer. "You ripped my world apart Sarah."
"N-no!" She said took a tentative step back from him, feeling the air grow colder behind her with the step, as if crossing a threshold into winter.
"I must re-order it."
"You….lie…" she spat at him. "Stay away from me!"
Rage twisted his features and a vein grew thick and pulsed at his temple. His eyes narrowed like slits on a black angry cat. He clenched his hands into fists, bending solicitously over her. Then jabbed his finger into the embroidered red poppy flower that rested at her heart. Every thud again her chest was like the piercing of a knife.
"You impertinent… insolent…audacious….contumelious….spoiled brat of a child." He snarled at her. The words wanted to spill forth but there were not enough to describe his rage toward her at this moment. "Damn you…you destroyed everything! Everything!" The rage surged up in him, his voice boomed within the room and small fissures cracked the walls. Thunder sounded beyond Sarah's frail looking form. The shadows started to envelope the edges of the rooms and a white mist sprang forth from the floor and began to sprawl insidiously around the floor, coating everything in a white angry haze. An icy wind blew through the air causing Sarah to shiver and cast her eyes passed her shoulder. The sky was darkened with storm clouds and rain began to pelt, but the minute it neared the terrace it turned to ice. The ice seemed to grow upon itself it there were huge icicles dangling from the entrance between the terrace and the room.
"Stop!" Sarah yelled. "Stop, I know you are doing this Jareth!"
As if in response to her command, lightning streaked across the sky and thunder clapped loudly and he raised his eyebrows in response as if begging her to test his patience more. Something similar to an insidious smile creased his features…light spilling forth from his green gaze, but not the kind that had held mirth and mischief. No, this light held a degree of madness…the kind that was so desperately intertwined with vengeance and loss. A wound that had festered with time that it had become septic. He reached forth grasping a strand of her chocolate hair and twirled the threads between his fingers. She attempted to bolt from him, frantically trying to evade his touch but he caught her by the wrist and swung her body about till she rested before him again. Instead, he demonstrated his power. He gently stroked her cheek with his glove encased finger, and her lips barely parted, as a whimper escaped her.
"Do you feel it yet, my princess?" He questioned as he maneuvered about her, realizing that rage would not work. He deftly swung his midnight figure about her till he stood behind her, his arm sweeping across her chest and latching fiercely onto her shoulder as he dragged her body flush with his own. His grip was like iron and backing up to him was like hitting a wall of stone. His breath hovered precariously above her ear, soft and feathery light. Sarah gasped like a stranded fish upon land, gulping in the icy air about them, feeling it as it began to burn into her lungs.
"I….I'm s-sorry," she whispered softly. "Please…."
He sneered at her vague apology. "Water under the bridge," he hissed back fiercely, the timber of his voice was laced with spite. "I do so love that sharp tongue of yours, Sarah!" It was like he purred her name. "The apology doesn't become you."
"No…please….Jareth…" she pleaded in desperation.
"How you cling to that name dearest. I suppose I should allow it, since I am so fond of you." He pulled her deeper into him as the icy breeze picked up. Sarah's hands felt cold as she reached up to his arm, trying to pull herself free of his embrace. She could see as the white mist settling onto the floor turned to snow and ice like a blanket. The black shadows morphed into a dark forest with black trees. "Do you feel it Sarah? For it is near." He taunted her with a languid smile.
"Please stop…."
"What? Do you plead for mercy?" He queried. "For I think you would not be encouraged by my type of mercy, dear Sarah. Remember, you wrote about my mercy…," he warned her. Silver light flashed from the corner of her eye and she suddenly saw his dagger. It glittered despite the darkness that surrounded them and she sucked in a ragged breath as she felt the point just barely scrape upon the fabric of her dress as he rested it next to her racing heart.
"Worry not, my love…for I shall fold you in my dark arms and I will protect you in my black embrace."
"Protect me from who? You?
"From yourself, my princess."
"No, no….no!" She scrambled defiantly within his hold. "You will not change me into one of your birds…Y-you have no power over me!
"I think you'll find that things have drastically changed."
She tried to wrestle free of his embrace to no avail, straining with all her might that a sheen of sweat broke upon her brow.
"Not only can I keep you here, but you'll find that I have complete power over you now. You freely agreed to it. And I am debating if I should do to you what I have done to almost all mortals that have encountered me within my realm."
Sarah choked back the tears but they spilled forth anyway. "Please….Erlkin!"
"Alas, my love," he started as he swept her into the crook of his left arm, dipping her down and low till they settled upon the ice and snow that had coated the floor. But they were no longer in the room at Almafitare. Now they were in some dark forest, covered in winter. He dragged his leather clad finger across her lips. He traced the path of her tears from her face as his smile faded to a grim line. "I am bound…" He crushed his lips to her own and thrust the dagger into her heart.