Disclaimer: I do not own it. If you think I do Gods bless, but I don't.

Sarah is informed of her newly acquired marital status, and she gives the Goblin King a taste of her very adult temper. Oh, and the score there is nowhere near settled. With a plot firmly in mind Sarah has retreated to her room to write a novel to let off steam.

How to Tame a Goblin King:

"I'm home, did ye tell Sarah about the dinner, then?" Maeve entered the cottage with a sunny smile and an armload of lilies and dark-green foliage. Three vases were laid out as Jareth watched in abject shock for not only the woman's carrying capacity, but her flower of choice. Lilies were for funerals, not for the celebration of a betrothal. Did humans know nothing?

He was about to demand just that when Sarah called out from the top of the stairs. "Oh, you're home Do you need anything carried in from the car?" She appeared at the top of the stairs then, dainty reading glasses perched on her nose. For some unexplainable reason, Jareth felt a surge of desire. The Fey never had impairments that caused them to wear glasses, and so the entirely mortal contraption held the allure of the unknown.

A rather vivid image of Sarah beneath him wearing only those glasses caused him to clear his throat, and make the offer before Miss O'Fallon could do it for him. "I'll go out and fetch them."

The cool air did the trick, and he felt the primal urge to claim being washed away slowly. It dawned on him rather quickly however that he wasn't wearing any shoes, and now his thick socks were soaked. Rather uncomfortable predicament.

He carried the four large bags rather easily once he managed their awkward shapes, and headed resolutely for the door. From just down the lane, on the edge of the woods he had come from only days ago, he saw someone with long white hair. He fought the urge to curse, and didn't think too long on what Duncan was stewing up. Heaven only knew what madness was going to come now.

When he entered the house he set down the unwieldy grocery bags and tugged off sodden socks. He tossed them with surprising accuracy into the laundry bin, and carried the bags barefoot into the kitchen, where Sarah in Maeve were already lost in conversation.

The two women were smiling, and Sarah seemed more at ease than she would ever be around hi alone. The older woman seemed to give her a sense of security that he just didn't offer.

"Oh Jareth!" Miss O'Fallon turned to him with bright eyes, almost clapping her hands in delight. "The lilies are perfect! They're Miss Sarah's favorite flower, ye were right." As Maeve winked at him, Sarah narrowed her eyes. He almost swallowed his tongue. He most certainly hadn't been spying on her, or learned the information at all by any means. And now Sarah was glaring at him with the power of a thousand suns, and it wasn't even his fault!

That's not fair. But that's the way it is.

He smiled. After all, Miss O'Fallon was only trying to help. "I know my Sarah, what can I say?" His tone was throaty, and Sarah blinked in surprise. He was vastly pleased to see that he had rattled her cage of calm. She wasn't the only one in foreign territory!

With a spark of determination in her deep green eyes, Sarah smiled at him. She crossed the distance, snuggling into his chest, talking to Miss O'Fallon from there. Jareth was suspicious of her game, but determined to play at it, and win. At least, until she spoke again. "He always was the sweetest thing when we were dating. Tell her what we did on our first date."

He was completely without words. Miss O'Fallon smiled at him encouragingly, putting away the groceries for the week. What would he tell her? He knew next to nothing about mortal courtship, and Sarah knew it. Well, what would he have done in the Underground for a first rendezvous?

Give her expensive gowns and escort her to a goblin ball. If that fails, offer her a crystal with the power to make her dreams come true. Really believable, Jareth. Even if Maeve knew of his kind, she wouldn't know he was the Fey King, and he felt no compulsion to tell her.

"We met in the park, like we always did. And then I… I took her out to eat." Was that something mortals did? Miss O'Fallon didn't raise a word of question or protest, so he continued. "After we ate--"

"Who paid?"

"Paid?" Jareth stopped short, unsure how to reply. He felt the instinctual reply rising, that of course he had paid, but he doubted very seriously Sarah would let that lie. She might have contradicted him, and right now he was enjoying holding her far too much to cause a squabble. "I… we, that is… we went to a quiet spot in the park by the bridge, and ate the picnic I had packed. We didn't go to restaurants for just that reason, you see. Sarah-mine tries to pay her share, and I don't like to fight."

He could feel Sarah's laughter as she smothered it in his shirt. He gave her hair a soft tug, and she only laughed harder.

"Well now that is a romantic thing, a picnic by the water. I'm glad yer smarter than ye pretend. Ye seemed like the type to demand she come and stay with ye, no matter her dreams and goals in the mortal realm. Yer type is infamous with that sort." She hadn't looked at him, and good thing. If she had seen the anger in his eyes she would have been terrified witless.

"Maeve, you know what Jareth is?" Sarah's voice broke Jareth from his anger, but only just barely. He was sure that he's be pondering the woman's offhand statement for hours to come.

"Indeed, Miss Sarah, the veil is thinnest here. We see and hear more of their kind than of ours sometimes. There was a time when mortals and Fey walked together of a moonlit night, and no one thought a thing about it." Her accent made it believable, though Jareth knew it had been before her time. She spoke of his Father's time, a time before the High Council, and before the separation of magic from the mortal world entirely.

Sarah fell silent again, and Jareth rocked slowly side to side, in a soothing motion. He could tell that despite her anger, he was lulling her into a state of drowsiness. He closed his eyes a moment, content. If this is the reward at the end of a long, tiring day, I could withstand an eternity.

"So lass, are ye gonna wear something' special fer the dinner party tonight?" Maeve's teasing, motherly question made Sarah shoot upright, banging the top of her head and the bottom of his chin. They both drew away in pain.

"I hadn't thought about it, but I really should, shouldn't I?" Her voice was low and wicked, and while Miss O'Fallon laughed, Jareth wanted to surrender. He knew his feisty little mortal was planning something, and it would most likely be to make him uncomfortable or angry.

"Sarah, you are beautiful in anything you wear--"

"Come on, Jar." Her shortened use of his name rankled. He really hated it when people shortened his name. He was a King for goodness sake, his given name was shortened enough for them. He was seriously contemplating making everyone in his acquaintance refer to him by his full title. "You know sometimes I like to get dressed up. And this is a special occasion after all."

"Yes indeed, Miss Sarah. I' sorry, I wheedled my way in and made him tell me. He didn't really want the dinner at first either, but when I told him it would make ye happy, he really had no choice." She didn't offer him a wink with her lie this time, no, she was busy chopping carrots for the roast se was making for dinner.

Sarah looked at Jareth in question, and he inspected his cold, wet toes.

"That was considerate of you." It was a quiet concession, the only one he was likely to get until the battle was through. He accepted it with smile, his head tilted so the light from the kitchen glinted on his platinum hair.

"Always for you, precious thing."

Sarah shook her head, another habit of hers. She took an apple from the icebox, reminding herself to pay Miss O'Fallon a little extra for food at the end of this. The older woman had already given far too much without expecting anything in return.

Jareth was standing there, staring down at her with an emotion on his face that Sarah didn't want to inspect too closely. Not at all. Things would work out just fine if he stopped looking at her that way. Like she was the moon and the sun and all of the stars, and his world was dark without her.

She took a bite, knowing it was probably the only meal she was going to get until dinner, and the engagement party. It made her stomach rumble in protest, and Jareth laughed. Though it tied her stomach in knots, she glared at him to distract him from it. If he knew what his laugh, what the looks he gave her did to her… well she'd be trapped, wouldn't she?

She had a plan, and it was coming along well enough. Step one: If you present a Goblin-- or any other underground creature, it seemed-- with a challenge, they felt the need to meet it. Always present them a challenge to distract them.

Step Two: keep them guessing. She was going to make him fabricate their courtship, and the proposal, and a few other things. And she was going to do it wearing a dress that would bring him to his knees.

If she was going to be married to him for the rest of her existence, she was going to make sure she got the most out of it. Made him earn it. If the truth was known she didn't really have any qualms with him as a husband, as a lover and partner. No, it wasn't that at all. She had been looking for a man like him for years. It was just the frustration she felt having the choice taken from her that still irked her.

Until he proposed the right way, until he offered her a place beside him again, she was going to play at his own game. If it was selfish she didn't care. If it was greedy she didn't worry. It was what she wanted, and she had no illusions that he would deny her something she truly wanted.

She had become patient, and she had learned a few things about men. She was going to wear him down and make him chase her until she had him right where she wanted him. He already had her, after all. It was only…fair.

She smirked the entire way up the stairs and into her room. She was going to shower and perfume and soak before getting ready. It was going to be a very good night, one way or another. Jareth was many things, but he was no fool. He would catch on to the game in no time at all, and then… she shivered in anticipation.

The portal was there, right in front of him. Duncan could feel the energy tugging at him in frustration. Whether it wanted to consume him or rend him to pieces really didn't matter to him any longer. He extended his hand forward, and felt the pull. It was wild now, and hungry. It would only take a little magic to tear it open, to make his escape back into the Underground, to spite Jareth.

To return to Elyse.

Part of his mind knew that she was lost to him, had been for almost a century now. She had married that dark-haired, dark eyes Fey from the Southern Woods. He hadn't been able to keep her, he had driven her into the other man's arms… He would make amends, he swore, he would make her love him again.

Thinking about love made him think about what Maeve O'Fallon had said earlier. They were betrothed. The contest was over. She had submitted to Jareth, said the words that gave him power over her again. He had lost, and now his magic was lost to him as well, as they had agreed.

He cursed, twining his fingers in the invisible-yet tangible- energy. If he had only a little magic, only a little, he could escape this mortal plain and return to his rightful place. All of the research, all of his scholar's findings… they all told him the portal was going to close itself soon in response to his prodding. To keep the realm within safe, it was going to remove itself from this one, and never connect the two again.

"My darling lies over the ocean, my fair one lies over the sea. My darling lies over the ocean, O bring back my loved one to me…" His whispered song snapped the last thread of his control. He reached within himself, and tore, pulled at the very essence of the magic that the portal offered. He drew it within himself, so much more than he had anticipated. It swelled and surged there like waves cresting and crashing in a storm. It filled him completely.

He couldn't have guessed that Sarah hadn't said the words, couldn't have known that Jareth had not yet won the bet. And because of his desperation for magic, he drew in almost all of the portal's essence. The earth literally trembled.

His first urge, when he felt the last twine of his sanity snap, was to go through to veil and retrieve his lost love. But then a malicious, twisted sort of justice revealed itself to him, and he laughed hysterically at the fairness of it all.

Jareth took his love from him, banishing him to a mortal realm forever. Now he would take Jareth's love, leaving him to suffer the separation here, in exile. Oh yes, yes, and he knew just how he would do it. The betrothal party…

Author's Note:

Thank you for bearing with me there for a while, I'm going t be working at the Ren Faire so it's gonna take me a while to update my stories. Oh yeah, I said stories didn't I? I've taken the poll into consideration, and I've already started my second fanfic, since this one is drawing to a close. It's called 'Wicked Queen', so go ahead and check it out. Updates on that will only happen once a week though, it won't come as fast as this one. Mostly due to the work I mentioned earlier. Oh, by the way, review, review, review!!

Until next time,

-Chaotic Reverie