Chapter 2: Dreams of Reality
He moved but it was the slow movement of a fragile branch forced to bend by a child's hand. Raising his head ever so slightly, his dull mismatched eyes gazing up at her lazily, through the lifeless strands of his unruly mane. Sitting there as if he was nowhere he had not expected to be, as if kneeling half naked and bloody on the floor of a college dorm room was nothing out of the ordinary for a fey lord, Jareth smiled softly.
"I like this dream... I like it very much. what. ...have ... you..."
His voice was hoarse and strained, a bare whisper against the backdrop of the college life going on cluelessly beyond her open windows.
Long raw and bruised fingers curled into tight fists as a rough coughing seizure raked through his emaciated frame, cutting of his mumbled words and whipping his hair back and forth violently, obscuring his deathly pale face.
"Jareth!"
His name spilled from her in a cry, as she propelled herself across the room pulling him in gently, and resting his icy body against her, before he could crumble to the ground. Her arms supporting him as he wheezed and fought for each shallow panted breath. It felt like an eternity as she cradled him, murmuring soft words into his reeking foul hair.
Then slowly, ever so slowly, the convulsive cough finally stilled, leaving a shivering villainous fey lord with bloody lips in Sarah's arms. His already pale skin translucent and bruised, an angry swelling running along his left cheekbone, the skin split and bleeding crimson streaks down his cheek, to drip from his discoloured jaw as a low agonized moan escaped his cracked and raw lips.
"Don't leave me...again..."
The words were soft but his bruised nail less hands held her arm in an iron vice, as his swollen eyes fluttered shut, with a pitiful whimpered sound.
There were no words in her vocabulary, to express the horror of seeing the torn and broken state of his once apparently flawless body. Blood wept from countless wounds and lacerations, his flesh swollen and discolored by deep bruises and horrendous burns, his entire body a jigsaw puzzle of agony.
Running her trembling fingers over the thick tangle of his hair, Sarah bit her lip in desperation, this was not what she had expected when she called his name. What was she to do with a shattered fey with one leg in the grave. And what in the name of the labyrinth had happened to him, what could have brought the terrifying goblin king, lord of the labyrinth, and snatcher of unwanted children, so low.
"Jareth? Please wake up, please Jareth I don't know what to do, .. what do you need me to do?..."
"He needs someone to make him feel safe.. loved... More than six and a half mortal years, sweet elders, six and a half years we thought him lost to us..."
The voice was thunder rolling through a mountain valley, it was the haunting cry of a dying stag, and the soft purr of a content lynx, it sighed and shouted all at once as an enormous shadow stole the sun's light plunging the room into dusky darkness.
A scream threatened to tear from her lips as she stared as the giant horned figure towering above her.
He, definitively he, stood clad in a cloak of vibrant ivy leaves and skins still wet with fresh blood, into which his shoulder length burnished gold hair blended seamlessly, and in his powerful tan fist he held a staff of oak and willow, bound with strands of golden vines and adorned with still bloody skulls of every forest animal imaginable. But it was the crown upon his stern brow that stole her breath away.
It was gold ivory and bright gems that glowed like stars caught in the branches of an ancient forest guardian. the crown no, that was the wrong word for it, it was so fucking much more, it had been wrought into the shape of antlers and the spreading branches of an asp, and it seemed to fill the entire room, far too big to be held so effortless on any head.
Sarah knew that she was staring like a stunned child, as she unconsciously sought to cover as much of the fallen king in her arms with her own body as possible. It was a weak attempt of protecting him from the terrifying figure before them, but she could do nothing else, as jumbled words tumbled from her lips.
"What happened to him? Why is he here? and... Who are you? Why are you here? Did you do this to him?.. Well I won't let you hurt him anymore so you can just... Fuck off! back to whatever fairy hole you crawled out of... He came to me and I'll help him now..."
Ok that was dumb... but she could not pull her words back now, all she could do was pull herself up with a dignity and strength that she had never dreamt to possess, and stare unflinchingly at the towering... well she assumed that he was some sort of fey king.
His voice roared through the room like a tornado, ripping pictures off the walls and tipping over the cheap Ikea furniture like dry leaves and dead twigs...yet outside not a whisper was heard, nor a shadow seen.
Screaming in terror Sarah didn't think as she hurled herself across the gasping Jareth shielding him from the onslaught with her own flesh.
"FOOLISH MORTAL WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION ME! OBERON KING OF FEY, THE HORNED ONE! THE LORD OF THE WHITE HUNT...HOW COULD YOU EVER HOPE TO STAND BETWEEN ME AND MY PREY?"
"Leave her be, my lord! look how she shields him with her soft and malleable flesh, she spoke out of fear nothing more, and her courage is to be admired not belittled…"
She was tiny a mere moth to have alighted on the forest lords mighty shoulders, yet at her soft command the gale ceased and the world became lighter, a realm of soft autumn once more. As the tiny queen, for she could be nothing else took flight from her perch on gossamer wings of cascading color. Staring in transfixed wonder yet never moving from her protective pose Sarah saw the moth grow, a speck one moment, and a towering vision of unearthly beauty the next, fully the female equal of the hunting lord.
The queens moonlight hair waved and shifted on unseen and unfelt eddies of air as she knelt before Sarah, a smooth hand of flawless ivory outstretched beckoning the crouched girl to straighten and be afraid no longer.
"Come child be not afraid, my lord husband meant no harm, his anger is but the result of long days of futile searches for his beloved son. Know that we are Jareth's parents, and that the sight of his grisly wounds pain us as much as they do you. Now tell me young Sarah how did you come to call him from the night realms, how did you wrest our wayward child from the claws of the night goblins, when we could not?"
"You are the one who spoke in my mind!? You told me what to do, how to call him, don't you remember, you said to call his name six time and shed a single tear…"
Gaping at the ethereal female she might be but, Sarah's hand never stopped their gentle stroke as she soothed the trembling man in her arms.
"Aah Yes, you must understand child that time for us flows on different tides than that of the mortal realm, those words were spoken many centuries ago, when first your souls met. Only to be heard once you both were ready, or the need grew desperate enough and it would seem that the time for both is now. "
"Need? what need and ready for what? What the hell are you talking about? No wait, you are his parents? How come Hoggle or Ludo never mentioned you guys? But more importantly what do we do now? I can't keep him here, I live in a dorm room for crying out loud, what the hell am I going to tell Lilly? Oh crap Lilly, look my roommate will be back any minute now, and I SO can't have her stumble into this hornets' nest..."
Nodding her agreement the Queen smiled a radiant smile, and light flooded the room once more, forcing more pained moans from Jareth's thin lips, as it reached his eyes.
"Very well then, let us take flight and bring our broken child home."
"Wait what!, what are you saying? Are you taking him away from me? NO not now! He came here, he came to me, he... needs me…"
Gently resting her delicate fingers upon Jareth's furrowed and filthy brow, the queen sighed with heavy sorrow.
"He does not know where he is child, in his mind this is but a dream, a dream he has dreamt many times before... but a dream nonetheless."
"He doesn't... know? but he... Oh Jareth.. "
Tears fell, heavy and thick as she held him tight in arms that shook with the force of her sorrow. Pressing her brow against his she felt the heat of his skin, through the strength of his fever as he burned from within.
He had come to her, yet he did not know, in his mind he was still trapped in the hell where he suffered, at the hands of goblins, his own people. Even if he didn't realise where he was, he still needed her to be strong, and brave enough to do what was needed.
Drawing in a heavy breath, Sarah tasted the coppery tang of fresh blood, and the soft sweetness of the compounds late bearing apple trees on the caressing breeze. This had been her home for the last year, her only home, and Lilly her only family, apart for her fey friends.
Could she really leave this all behind, could she sever her links with the aboveworld, not knowing when or even whether she ever could or would return? Biting down hard on her lower lip Sarah shared a short look with the patiently waiting Queen. Was she really leaving anything behind? It was just over two years since the accident that killed her family, and shattered her world.
Two years since that night where her father had lost control over the car as they had driven home from a happy night out bowling.
A black animal had sped across the road, forcing her father to swerve to avoid it. One minute he had struggled trying to keep the careening vehicle on the road, the next she had woken up with tubes in her throat, and sticking out of her body at odd angles, all alone in the world, her family long buried.
"If you are taking him then I'm coming too, I'm not leaving him again, just let me leave a note for Lilly... "