Chapter: Claws, Kisses and Wounded Eyes
Dawn, clear and crisp, filled the room with golden light, blinking against the blinding brightness, Sarah leaned sleepily into the soft touch, as long cool fingers ghosted across her cheek
" Hmm Morning Jareth...Jareth! oh god it worked, you are awake, you..."
Tears burned as she gazed into his pale exhausted eyes, and reaching up she gently wrapped her fingers around his:" Fuck I was so scared, I had no idea what I was doing, you have no idea how disorienting it is to see internal organs through an orb, and then have to figure out how to knit them back together, with magic, I mean shit! it's such an unbelievable head rush you just can't imagine..."
Smiling Jareth sighed "oh I'm still young enough to... remember the first rush of... magic... but you did not just knit the torn vessels now did you? you mended more..far more..."
Flexing his hands he groaned at the pleasure of moving them without pain, before turning utterly serious." You are quite a bit stronger than you imagine Sarah, and that... hmm... will help you tomorrow, when you bond with the. ..Labyrinth.. it will make him stronger, and. .. "
Catching his breath in sharp obviously painful pants, Jareth closed his eyes, and rolled back in the fur, his hand reaching for hers searching for something to hold onto.
" Jareth where does it hurt, let me help..."
"It is... hmm of no concern... it is merely the after shock of... the healing you performed... hmm. it... will pass... just... don't let go..."
His fingers clamped down like steel jaws on her hand yet Sarah only smiled at the discomfort, because the pain meant that he has holding on to her, that he was here, with her.
His face had paled to a ashen grey and sweat beaded on his forehead as he slowly released her throbbing fingers, and the sight made her want to scream, as he struggled to pull himself into a sitting position, with a look of steely determination.
" Jareth you really need to stop writing checks your body can't cash...I might not be able to heal you next time..."
Satisfied with his position, Jareth let out a shaky breath, as he levelled a stern look at her " Sarah hush and listen to me... I matter nothing in the scheme of things... I am. ... just one... if I should perish.. what then? at best I will be... mourned by a handful of souls maybe two... but if I fail to teach you... what you need know.. .. then the worlds, all four of them... will suffer... they will die...or worse live on in a Hell that there will be no escape from... "
Holding up a shaking hand to keep Sarah silent as he gasped, trying to make his body still.
" Listen to me Sarah... you have but one chance tomorrow, if you fail... then... hmmm... we all face a fate, worse than death.. "
"But Jareth I. .. "
"No Sarah, you can do this, look inside you have carried my magic in your heart, these past seven years. You took it all when you shattered mine..."
The words left his lips so quietly that Sarah, didn't hear them at first, only when the hurt filled his eyes, did she truly comprehend the whispered words.
" Oh god Jareth... I... I... ."
His voice was, a quiet defeated whisper, as he stared at the slow moving clouds beyond the huge windows. "You did not know, how could you, you were but a child... a sweet innocent child, and I a man grown... No Sarah do not blame yourself for what I should have been old enough to avoid... I..."
Her lips were soft and warm, yet the sudden movement startled him as she melted their lips together, in a first kiss filled with heart-breaking desperation. He could not stop his own hands as they buried themselves in her thick hair, capturing her in the kiss holding her a willing captive as his lips claimed hers greedily until their lungs burned with the need to breath.
"Arhrm If yer pups ar done trying ta eat each others faces, yer have work ta'do. "
Keeping her back pointedly to the exasperated dwarf Sarah leaned her forehead against Jareth's as she whispered." Well I am no longer a child and once the Labyrinth is safe, I will show you just how much of a grown woman I have become. And I will piece that broken heart of yours back together even if it takes me forever, do you hear me My King, I'm done fleeing. I meant what I said, I give you power over me, my heart, soul and body, it's all yours...if you still want it. ..."
Smiling sadly against her lips, Jareth answered with another soft kiss.
"Okay, Younglings now stop y'er gnawing and get ta work, the labyrinth won't wait for yer yer know."
Pulling back from the soft kiss, Jareth levelled a scorching look straight at the Parchment and charcoal laden dwarf, it was a look that should by all means have reduced the grinning dwarf to a snivelling wreck clinging to his king's leg, and pleading for Jareth not to banish him to the bog. But now the diminutive creature merely grinned even wider as he scampered to the opposite side of Jareth, and began spreading the thick white parchment out on a lap desk which had magically appeared across Jareth's legs, forcing Sarah to pull back a little to accommodate it.
"Now as I see it, it'll be important that the young miss knows the proper pattern, and how ta bind it all together, Or what do yer think?"
Nodding as his attention was drawn to the parchment, Jareth picked up a thin piece of coal, before he sketched a circle on the pristine white with effortless ease.
"This represents the realm we are in now, and this is the. ... Labyrinth, pay attention it is important that you retrace the runic knot exactly as I do... you start here, two thirds from the apex..."
The coal in her hand traced a final graceful swirl, before sitting back on her heels and watching Jareth and Hoggle, as they scanned her Runic knot, with critical eyes, Jareth tracing the swirls and lines with his long, strong and elegantly claw tipped finger... Claw tipped...
Gaping she stared at the grace of his hands as he followed the intricate lines. Golden triangular claws ended each finger, when seen from the top they looked like pointed human nails, but from the side they look like the claws of a bird of prey, like an Eagle or... an Owl.
Reaching out suddenly, Sarah startled him as she caught his hand, running her fingertips along the still swollen cuticles, as she smiled. " Is this why you use to wear gloves all the time?"
Pulling his hand back sharply, he laced his fingers together, hiding the claws with long practiced ease, as he rested them in his lap, with a cold guarded look in his pale eyes. " Well it is not anything that is..."
Bewildered she looked from one man to the other." That is what? I mean they are like WOW! they remind me of a bird of prey. How did you get them? Were you born with them ?"
Darkness filled Jareth's eyes as he snarled. "I'm sorry I did not mean to offend you, with my deformity, I had simply forgotten."
" Jareth? I said that they are beautiful... Hoggle?" : Frowning in confusion Sarah turned sad eyes to Hoggle pleading him for help.
Shaking his head sadly, Hoggle sighed, and quietly rested a gnarled hand on Jareth's shoulder, whipping the glowering kings head towards him.
" Young pup, she likes them, She doesn't think yer malformed, do yer young miss?"
Shaking her head vigorously, Sarah wanted to scream at the ill concealed disbelieve in Jareth's pale face. " Jareth, please don't hide them, they truly are beautiful, let me see? Who could ever say that they are not beautiful? and why would I think that you were deform? I mean it's just claws, nothing else it's not like you have .. What a tail and an extra hand hidden somewhere below those blankets? "
The suspicion, burned like a naked flame as Jareth pulled the blankets up higher, clearly hiding from her. "Why would you lie to me like that? How can you ever think this beautiful?"
Thrusting his fingers out at her, he held them up in blatant display, waiting with naked pain in his eyes for her disgusted recoil.
Smiling gently, Sarah wrapped her fingers around his hands, forcing him to spread his fingers despite his weak resistance as she brought them up to her lips.
"I... :Kiss:.. find..:Kiss:. all...:Kiss.: ...off..:Kiss:... you...:Kiss:... beautiful...:Kiss:.. claws...:Kiss:... horns...:Kiss:..and tail...:Kiss:.. all off...:Kiss:... you...:Kiss...kiss"
Oh god there was so much pain in his eyes, as she gazed into them, and punctuated each word with a soft kiss to the tip of each claw. Sighing against his skin, she pressed a final kiss against each of his now healed palms. Her heart aching with the need to make the lonely pain in his eyes vanish.
"Why?"
Tears threatened to spill as he sat staring at her with such heartbreaking vulnerability, he wanted nothing more than to believe in her passionate words, but millennia of pain did not dissolve so quickly. And Sarah knew that she would have to up the stakes to convince him.
" Because you are you, and they are just so you, who else but my Goblin king would have claws? who else?"
Leaning into him, she placed a hand on either side of his face holding him in place as she whispered. " And I can't wait to feel your claws on my naked skin, so you better hurry up and heal..."
Pulling back Sarah couldn't keep a satisfied grin off of her face as Jareth was left speechless and blushing furiously. Who would have known that the goblin king could blush like a schoolgirl.
Picking up the coal, Sarah said innocently. "So how did I do?"
. ... .
Pulling the blanket up and around, Jareth, Sarah sighed sadly as Hoggle re-entered the room, carrying the bowl of cold water, he had refilled in the adjoining bathroom. "Well he might push both of yer hard, but yer gonna be glad tomorrow when yer be standing in the glade."
Nodding as she received the bowl, Sarah dropped the cloth into the frigid water, letting it soak as she looked down at Jareth's pale sweat beaded face, with a gut-wrenching sense of dread. It had taken all day for Sarah to master the complexities of the binding knot, and create the deep crimson crystal, that rested forgotten on a black silk pillow on the unused four-poster bed. Determined to see her through Jareth had push on until he collapsed mid sentence, leaving the duo to tend him as his fever soared once more.
"I know, but god he's such a bloody fucking idiot, I swear to god, he has a class A death wish..."
Resting his gnarled hand on her slender shoulder, Hoggle sighed as he handed her a steaming mug of what smelled suspiciously like real black coffee, before wringing out the cloth and resting it gentle on Jareth's furrowed brow. Sipping the scalding coffee Sarah nodded in appreciation, as she watched the dwarf fuss over the unconscious fey like a doting mother.
" He aint got no death wish, he's just too committed ta what is his ta protect, and he often ignores his own needs... always has the poor pup"
And there it was again, that strange gentleness' in Hoggle's voice as he spoke about the king who had always seemed to scare him witless. Curiosity coursed through her mind, and spilled from her lips.
"Okay Hoggle I have to ask, because this is just getting too weird, why are you talking to Jareth like that? calling him youngling, and young pup? And why the Hell is he listening to you like that I mean, he's your king right? He's the high and terrifying Goblin king? last time I saw you two together he couldn't even remember your name, and now you two are acting like your his father or something?"
Gnawing his stubby knuckle, Hoggle's shoulders slumped, as he slid down the wall to sit facing her, cradling his own steaming mug of coffee, and taking a cautious sip, before he looked up at her with a strange, somewhat pained look on his aged face.
"It's... well, yer might as well know... But I'm warning yer it's a long and boring tale..."