"What is the meaning of this, Ishmael?" I quirk an eyebrow to examine the furry little critter. He has lost the eyepatch and now wears a blue cape that may have been a tablecloth in another life. The blade feels oddly satisfying in my hand.
"D'Artagnan," the creature says seriously. Pausing a moment, I absorb this new identity and mentally prepare myself for whatever the hell comes next. "What is the meaning of this, D'Artagnan?"
"The Phantom has our lady Christine trapped in yonder dungeons," D'Artagnan replies with all the seriousness of a broadway star. That's when I realize the cacophony that assaulted me upon arrival is actually the sound of goblins singing opera.
Gods.
"The dungeons you say?" I set off across the throne room, bypassing the wending stairs that lead to rooms with which I'm now a little more familiar.
"Right, Vicomte de Chagny." D'Artagnan skips ahead and grabs a flaming torch before proceeding me down the stairs.
"I don't want to be Raoul!" I complain hurtling down the stairs after him. "Raoul is boring!"
The identity challenged goblin casts a glower over his shoulder. "Keep your hand at the level of your eyes."
"Please tell me you've cast his majesty as our Lady Christine," I say, following the torch—which wavers about hip height—down the stairs, the air growing damp.
D'Artagnan does not humor me with a response. Organ music, which was faint and undetectable beneath the clamor of goblin singing, swells as we approach a gondola and an underground canal.
"Seriously?" I ask no one in particular before stepping into the boat and allowing D'Artagnan to row us onward. What am I doing? Why am I here playing pretend when there are problems to sort out? The moment trouble knocks at my door, I turn to set the whole house on fire.
The music continues to build as we drift into a near perfect replica of the throne room, it is simply filled with water, lacking windows, and clothed in flickering shadows. In a word, it is ominous.
To my everlasting disappointment, a rather unfetching goblin lass has been cast as Christine. She waits, dutifully trussed up in a wedding dress, and bound by ropes upon the replicated throne as Jareth hammers away at the organ.
"Raoul," cries Christine, unenthusiastically. "Oh Raoul, save me."
Jareth doesn't turn around, he just keeps playing. "Don't think about it you great prat. Obviously, she's all mine," drawls the Goblin King, sounding weary of life itself.
It's impossible to stop a grin from seizing my lips. He doesn't know I'm here. How can he not know? Doesn't he know everything always?
I tip my head toward the trussed up goblin-Christine, hoping D'Artagnan will take initiative and rescue the damsel. Confused, he may be, but that fuzzy little critter scurries over and begins hacking away at her bindings with his rusty dagger.
"Not for long," I call across the expanse of stone flanked on either side by dingy water.
Jareth's shoulders stiffen, but his fingers don't miss a key, don't strike a single wrong note. Slowly, he turns on the bench and locks eyes with me across the way. The organ continues to play itself.
He is appropriately attired for his role, black and white, the neck of his shirt open. But the Goblin King doesn't bother with a mask. With a face as perfect in its sharp beauty as his, why bother?
With his electric gaze holding mine, the game seems to intensify. We pay no attention at all to goblin-Christine and her incongruous musketeer as they struggle to make a clean exit from the dungeon.
Jareth stands, rapier appearing in his hand. "Raoul is boring," the king informs me.
Although I am entirely of the same opinion, I keep it to myself. "You should know that kidnapping young girls never ends well."
"She's not so young. The chit knew what she was doing, she shouldn't have encouraged me," Jareth—who is very much not the phantom—says. It is painfully clear that he isn't referring to lanky haired goblin-Christine either.
"Did she?" I bring the blade up, moving into position. Let it be known, I am no swords-woman, but I did take a few fencing lessons for theater back in college. All the same, my heartbeat ratchets as the king draws near with his lazy prowl, his wolffish grin.
"She did," he says, advancing and parring from the wrist to my right.
I manage to block him and retreat.
"She drew me in with the challenge of her eyes," steel meets steel as he continues his assault, "with the bite of her words." He just misses my arm, but I take initiative, and parring from the shoulder, nearly manage to land a blow to his side, before he deflects. "Lured me with her innocence and recklessness," Jareth says, advancing once more.
This time our blades lock with a resounding clash and the heel of my shoe slips off the side of the stone walkway. I barely manage to push him off and retreat toward the wrong side of the dungeon, nothing waits behind me but the organ, I'm cornered already, my lungs begging for air.
When did this stop being a game? What the hell are we doing? A cool sweat sticks the flannel shirt to my back as I take another reverse step. Butterflies, or possibly bats, have taken wing beneath my ribs as he gives me a moment to catch my breath.
"I highly doubt she meant to cause you such trouble," I lie. I realized by the end of my run in the Labyrinth that we'd somehow changed. When he appeared in the window that night so long ago, he'd looked at me with disinterest, with boredom. Who could blame him? I was another silly child to be bought off with gifts and sent on her way. I was insignificant. And, he was terrifying.
But, as the hours went on, the expression in his eyes had changed. By the end it was I who was terrifying and he who was rendered insignificant, powerless. We'd changed places and now what were we? Two beings separated by nature and understanding. By worlds and ever constant ticking of the clock? Forever really is a long time. It is harder than you'd think to move the stars. He couldn't rule me. I couldn't love him that way. Even if part of me wanted to.
Jareth is done with words. The rapiers dance in ringing clashes as he advances once more, catching me off guard. He'd been holding back before—of course he's the better swordsman. Within moments he's disarmed me, my blade making a splash as it skitters over the edge of the walkway. The point of his sword rests gently beneath my chin. At least he didn't shove me into the murky waters.
"Congratulations, you've got me," I say with infinitely more bravado than I'm feeling. We've dislodged the bench and the organ has me well and trapped against it.
There's no playfulness in the king's eyes as the blade disappears and he steps in close to me, herding me back against the instrument which sings out in protest. It had stopped playing itself while we fought.
My heart rages against the confines of my ribcage as Jareth tips me further off balance, his gloved hands landing on either side of me. The instrument fusses at the abuse as I'm forcibly captured and sat atop the ledge over the keys.
"Jareth," I squeak as he slips between my legs, our faces inches apart. It isn't dignified. It seems I'd let the king lure me into a false sense of security during our last few encounters. He is devious as ever.
"I do have you," he says, voice low and deadly. One of his hands caress my cheek.
"This isn't the way it goes," I say, trying to hear my own thoughts above the din of my pulse. "The phantom doesn't suddenly fall for Raoul."
"Raoul is rarely this alluring," Jareth says, his thumb sweeping over my bottom lip.
Gods.
I may as well be a seventeen year old girl in a graveyard kissing pale, beautiful, perfect mistakes.
As fierce as he was with the sword, his lips are furious when they claim mine. Claim is a good word because each kiss is an act of possession, a stake being driven into my traitorous heart.
All good sense gone, my fingers curl into the silk of his shirt and draw him nearer as desire pulls me down into a certain insanity. His hands and teeth are everywhere, my shirt a forgotten puddle of fabric on the floor at our feet.
Feverishly, I tug his over his feathery head and nearly shatter as our bare skin meets to the auditable umbrage of the organ. But, the dungeon fades away between one blink and another and I find myself lost in his nest of a bed. A welcome improvement as we do away with the articles of clothing remaining between us.
I will not think about how this is a reckless, awful, idea. I will not.
Lost in the dark, his bare fingers dance across my skin not missing a key, not hitting a single wrong note as he plays me every bit as well as he did the organ.
"You're absolutely horrid." I can't catch my breath or latch onto a single thought as he steals inside me like a thief in the night. My entire body sings its praise at the invasion. The loathsome, treasonous thing.
"I know," he smiles into my throat, tension building as our bodies say all the things we won't. "And, you love it."
The world breaks apart, and he captures my cries with his lips, not allowing me to keep anything to myself, before his teeth find my shoulder and his own body tenses with release. It hurts, but that's alright. It should hurt, this is madness. Glorious, life-shattering, madness.
"Raoul and the phantom are certainly not supposed to do this," I say, babbling now that some sanity has returned. "D'Artanan and Christine will be terribly unhappy."
"Shush." He rolls onto his side and covers my entire face with his hand. "I've uncontestedly won a major battle. I want to relish it."
"I think it was more of a draw. We both surrendered in the end," I snap, pushing his hand away. He uses it to draw me closer, his fingers trailing across my skin.
"The purpose of my visit was scheming, I'll have you know," I say, relaxing into him. There's no sense in retreating now, the smoke hasn't cleared from the battlefield, but my defenses have fallen.
"We can scheme later, although that may have been better foreplay than make-believe and sword fights," he says, sounding sleepy.
"I like make-believe and sword fights," I yawn.
"I am well aware of what you like, Sarah," he whispers just before I'm taken by sleep.
hehehe