Chapter Eleven: The Last

Jareth! Sarah cried out in a bark, furiously paddling with all four paws as tame waves tried to push her away. In desperation she latched onto Jareth's shoulder with her teeth, leaving the Satyr to paddle on her own. Incoherent growls rumbled from her throat as she tried to hold the unconscious Goblin King with his head above water. Wolves weren't made for this! From her frayed vision and the strong salty scent assaulting her nose, she guessed it was the sea she found her self in. Sputtering, Vanity fought her way to the struggling pair.

"You!" she yelled in her overly child like voice as the waves forced them to bob up and down, and forced Sarah to more firmly grip Jareth shoulder. "You aren't a real wolf! You can get us out of here!" She tasted blood. "Well?!" Her eyes fixed on the furiously paddling sadist. Her teeth sank further into his soft flesh. Jareth, I'm sorry. "What the fuck are you waiting for?!" Her wolfish eyes narrowed and a muffled growl that was meant to be speech angrily sounded out from her chest. "Shit! You don't know how do you?" Her eye twitched. At least something was getting through to the goat girl. "I'll have-" sea water dashed up and into Vanity's mouth. After spitting it out, she continued as though it hadn't even happened. "To guide you through it." With a lunge, she dived to close the small gap between them and latched onto Sarah's thick fur, dragging them down in the water for less than a second before the Satyr was back to pounding the sea with her hoofs. "Picture a place in the Underground you know! Preferably not the prison!"

Something didn't feel right. Though what that was he didn't know, but he was lying on a soft, silk like surface. Probably his bed. Gods he felt awful. His head was pounding, but still, he moved to sit up. Only to hiss as pain flashed through his right shoulder, closely followed by a whimpering sound from by his waist. He forced his eyes open, his vision slightly hazed, and saw a black blur at his side. With a houndish whine the blur advanced. Crawling slowly further towards his head, but stopped short and nuzzled his side instead. The pain in his head began to increase and it quite suddenly occurred to him that it was far to bright, so he let his eyes slip closed again. The presence of the creature was comforting and oddly familiar. If had hadn't known better he would have said it was a pet dog. But he had no pets, and this creature was giving off far too strong a magical signal. In fact, he knew that magic. It was Sylph magic. Completely undiluted and untainted. But the being that held it, that barely felt like a Sylph at all. Then through the fog of his mind, the beings identity clicked.

"Sarah?" he murmured, using far more energy than he would have liked to. A nuzzle to his side and a soft whimper answered, but his understanding of wolf speak fled with his wolfish form. "Touch my hand if you mean yes." And cold, damp nose touched the palm of his hand. He smiled. She was safe. He wasn't quite sure why he would have been worried about her safety, but he had been. "Are you okay?" Another nose to his palm. His smile widened. "Why haven't you changed back to your human form?" A grumble and the slap of her tail against his leg. "You don't know how, do you? Nudge my side for anything along the lines 'no I bloody don't'." The nudge was slightly over zealous, but he didn't complain. He most likely disserved it for something or other. "Do you remember how you changed into the wolf?" A damp nose to the palm. "It's exactly the same but backwards. Do you think you can do that?" Another nose to his palm.

A warm glow of magic bathed his right side from his waist down and had his eyes been open he was sure he would have seen the same light Sara had shone with before. A gentle hand placed itself on his stomach, he hoped she didn't notice his sharp intake of breath. "I was worried about you. I didn't know what had happened."

"At least I got us back here without mishap," he replied in a carefully measured voice.

"Actually you dropped us in the ocean. I got us back here."

"Celeste is going to kill me isn't she?" he groaned out. Stay away from water, she had waned Sarah. So what did he do? Drop them into the sea. Well done Jareth, very well done, he thought sarcastically.

"She hinted at that. I'm gonna get on your other side so I don't have to worry about knocking your shoulder." Why did she sound guilty when she said that? He was about to ask, but instead found a different question on his now smirking lips as he felt her step over him at the top of his thighs so she had one knee either side of him.

"Are you straddling me?"

"How else am I supposed to get to your other side when the bed is against the wall?" she snapped in return, sounding rather embarrassed. He could easily imagine a blush heavy on her cheeks and spreading across her chest. Suddenly he was rather thankful that he had the benefit of sixteen centuries worth of practice at self control.

"I think you might have misinterpreted me, I'm rather comfortable with this situation."

"Arrogant git," she muttered darkly, lying down beside him as she did so, leaving her leg draped him and resting her head against his chest. Oh yes, he was defiantly thankful for the self control. He kept his right arm where it was, not wanting a flair of pain to ruin this, but wrapped his left arm around her. Was he dreaming this? He had to be. Sarah wouldn't do this. At least not yet, he had only just started to attempt to woo her.

"Do you have any idea how worried about you I was?" So that was why she was acting as she was. Not that he was complaining. Situations like the one they had been though in the prison were rather good at bringing people of any species closer together, Vanity not included.

"Well I'm fine, apart from the shoulder and the headache. I've had worse though," he added hastily in an attempt to reassure her. "What happened to my shoulder by the way? I don't remember being attacked." He felt her try to move away but he pulled her back against him. "Sarah?"

"Something happened when you were getting us out of that person. It was like the world was spinning three different directions all at once. I think it must have hit you the hardest and the next think I know we were in the sea and I was still a wolf. I had to stop you from drowning so I grabbed you shoulder, but the only thing I could grab it with was my mouth and a wolf's teeth are sharp." Her voice was brimming with guilt. "Vanity told me how to get us back here."

"It sounds like you saved my life. Thank you. I'll have to take you out on a date as thanks." He opened his eyes again, just to test them and found that everything was still quite blurry. But he refused to let that stop him from looking down to he with his trademark smirk.

"This is serious Jareth. I was really worried about you!"

"And I'm being serious as well. You deserve a nice night out without the threat of death hanging over you. When was the last time you got all done up and someone took you to an expensive restaurant and made you feel like you were the most important woman in the world?" The light was starting to hurt his head again, but he could put up with it, especially since his vision was slowly clearing and he would soon be able to see her again.

"No one has ever done that for me," she replied shyly.

"Well, they're about to. When is your next night off work?"

"Monday."

"Are you doing anything that night?"

"No."

"Then I'll pick you up at about half seven."

"I'm not going to be able to argue with you on this, am I?" she asked flatly.

"Certainly not. I've been hoping you'd get back to normal so I could ask you out on a date since I saw what had happened to you when you came into the shop. Though we will have to go somewhere in the Upperground since elegance is rather lacking in most of my Kingdom and I wouldn't class my dining hall as a date. Speaking of my Kingdom, that is where we are isn't it?"

"Yes, we're in the Goblin Kingdom." She sighed and nuzzled closer to him. The only thing he wasn't impressed at with their situation was the fact that both of them were practically covered from neck to toe. Well, apart from Sarah's cleavage but he doubted she would appreciate him touching her there. The one thing that he didn't like about the Underground was the lack of skin contact in everyday life.

They didn't move for a while, nor did they spoil the silence with unnecessary words. Jareth did close his eyes again, just before the migraine of the century had time to form. He just wished he could hold onto her with his other arm. Despite this he felt something he had not felt for what seemed like an eternity. Contentment. He could lie like this for centuries and not tire of it. He had no desire to move and hoped fervently that it was a feeling shared by Sarah. If only his arm . . . Actually now he thought about it, he really should do something about it. He had no idea how bad the injury was, but from experience wolf bites were quite nasty no matter how mild they were. He could wait a little while longer. Just another minute, the he would break the comfortable silence.

Well, ten minutes. "Sarah?"

"Hmm," she replied with a note of drowsiness to her voice. So she was just as comfortable snuggled into his side as he was with her there.

"I need you to heal my shoulder before I forget again." A long yawn came before words.

"How do I do that?" He was lucky that she was half asleep; she would overcomplicate and worry needlessly if she was fully awake. His kind was actually remarkable simple to heal when compared to other.

"Just put your hand on wound and think about rose vines. I'll do the rest." Another sleepy murmur followed his words. Closely followed by a gentle pressure over his wound with a flare of pain. He breath came in a sharp gasp, but other than that he showed no signs of it. It took a moment for the warmth of Sylph magic to start building up around the area of pressure, but once it did the relief was instantaneous. All pain fled and he felt the familiar sensation of his flesh slowly melding back together. Oh well, here comes another scar to go with the rest of the set. "You can stop now," he murmured in a low tone. And sure enough the warmth slowly stopped emanating from her hand and slowly seeped through the rest of his body.

"Do you want me to move?" she asked with some reluctance.

"No talking, sleep."

"Hmkay. Oh, Celeste got the collar on Vanity while I had her pinned to the floor. She's pretty pissed off and doesn't like me very much."

"Not liking you is a good thing. Having Vanity as a friend doesn't say much for your morals. Now go to sleep, you sound exhausted."

"Well, I have been guarding you for two days," she mumbled drowsily. "I had to get Celeste to call into work to tell them I hadn't gotten over that bug you told my boss about."

Again the silence returned. Comforting and as soft as her words could have been. He flexed his arm, relishing in the fact that it was soon to be wrapped around Sarah. Her weight on his chest was oddly soothing and finally his right hand found her waist. Pulling her close to him, he settled down and prepared to sleep.

"JARETH!" The outraged cry sharply snatched his consciousness back to the real world as Sarah started groggily looked around. Jareth however had a fair idea of what had happened and turned his head to face the door with a smirk on his lips.

"Yes Auranar?" he asked brightly, looking at the tall Elvin who stood in the door way with Celeste.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Lying in my bed, fully dressed, with a very attractive woman."

"What's going on?" came the groggy voice of the very woman he had been talking about.

"Auranar is about to skin me alive," he explain calmly.

"Oh, as long as he does it after out date."

"Date!?"

"Auranar is not going to skin you alive Jareth, I am." Oh no, Celeste was doing the whole creepy calm voice thing. He was defiantly in trouble.

"What have I done now?"

"What have you done! You dropped the last Sylph in all three worlds in the bloody ocean! After I had specifically told her to stay away from water!" His eyes widened in horror. He would have sat bolt upright had Sarah not been in the way of that action. The last Sylph?

"It was the barrier warping. That's what made lose concentration," he muttered to himself in a combination of worry and horror. Then to Celeste he added, "I thought you said there were three left?"

"I did," she replied, he shoulders slumping. "Two of them were brother and sister, they were killed at the same time. An arrow to the chest for one and flash blade to the neck of the other."

He approached her as a wolf, not because he wanted to, but because she had taken the form of a wolf. He jet black fur wavering in the slight breeze that rippled over his balcony. She was sat proudly, as was fitting for such a creature. She was just large enough to be able to see over the ledge, her nose was pointing to the sunset. He made just enough noise in his approach for her to not be alarmed. When he finally reached his side, he said nothing. He simply sat by her side and looked in the same direction as her. It was when he saw that the balcony's ledge was just a tiny bit too high for him to see over that he realised she was larger than him in this form. So he turned his mismatched eyes to her form.

Never had he seen a more perfectly formed wolf, not even from the royal line of the Sylph when they had been at their most powerful. Her nose was long and twitched in the wind, her ears were sleek so that the fur would not obscure any sound that might enter them. No bones were showing at her ribs, hidden not by fat, but muscle. Her legs were long, yet did not appear bandy as was a common fault with her kind. Instead they looked powerful; excellent for throwing her into that full throttle run he had seen her do in the Gremlin Kingdom. Her jaws looked even stronger than her legs, though he guessed she still had not quite mastered their use yet or she would not have drawn blood from him when they were in the sea.

He turned his eyes to the stone floor, feeling rather unworthy to be in such a proud wolf's presence when his own form as a wolf was scar covered, odd eyes and rather scrawny compared to her. He knew she must think he looked like some sort of runt. But he wouldn't be able to understand her if he was in his true form, and Underground wolves thought hunting birds was an enjoyable sport, so he didn't dare use his owl form when she was a wolf.

She tilted her head towards him, capturing him with those grey green eyes of hers. It was odd to see a Sylph with eyes like that. They usually had the most spectacular colouring when it came to eye colour. Slowly, her eyes roamed his wolfish form. Appraising him. Looking at his every strength and weakness. It was not unnerving or uncomfortable. It was simply a search for the truths in his form. You're built for stealth but your coat betrays you. Slowly, but not without grace, she lowered herself to her white furred stomach.

You don't think I'm a runt? He asked, following her example, though with a little less grace. This shape was clumsy to him. Let him take to the air any day.

Why would I think that? She asked with the twitch of her ear. I have no other wolves to compare you to. For all I know I could be the weird one for being this size.

You're not. Though you are better constructed than the vast majority of wolves. Why don't we take our human form?

I don't feel human any more. I don't know what I feel, but human isn't it. On his belly, he crawled closer to her and nuzzled her softly furred neck with a caring whine. She leaned into it gratefully.

The more time you spend in the Underground, the closer to becoming a Sylph you get. Her tail gave a single thud against the floor, acknowledging his words as truth.

I want to go back to the Upperground," she said with all the pride of a wolf. I refuse to let what's happening interfere with my life. Her tingue lolled out to the side and a roughish look came to her eyes. Besides, I have a big date to get ready for.

As her arms stretched upwards, her wings stretched out, reaching their full magnificent span. Her mismatched eyes, drastic in their difference, slide over the pristine white marble that the grand throne room was built of. The watery sun that shone through the high, arched stain glass windows, glanced off of her pale skin and golden hair that was bound back in a warriors braid. Slowly, she lowered her arms and brought her wings to rest, comfortably folded at her back. Red silk hung from her shoulders, one band at each, reaching the almost sterile floor, showing her status.

She brought one hand to eye level and held it out as though it lay flat against something. Skin flattened on its underside. Had anyone seen it they would have sworn she held it pressed against glass. Her lips curved into a satisfied smirk that all at once seemed arrogant and regal. A thin blond eyebrow elegantly arched. "Not long now," she murmured, her voice soft yet deadly. The fingers of her hand bent back noticeably, but not unnaturally, as she pushed her hand forward. "Not long at all. I have so dearly missed my children." Her smirk widened to a wicked smile at her own, insincere words.

A/N I really d appologise for the wait. No doubt alot of people are about ready to kill me now. But college and fanfiction don't get along when exams come around. I hope this chapter kind of makes up for the wait.

Thank you to gothchick, Miharu KawashinotwrittenDanikaLareynaSonata IXOrion Ciel, jenny bee, Morrigana for your reviews. They mean the world to me.

And Vanity will have a larger role in the next chapter, just thought I should warn you.