Author's Notes: This was supposed to be the last chapter. Now it looks like there will be two more, because I already split this one in half (yes, I'm strict about my chapter lengths) and I'm not done yet! Though very nearly there... Otherwise, I spent several weeks stalled because I couldn't remember the word 'vertigo'…wow.
Why are events running out of order? Because that's the way they came to me. Once again, remember that this is my version of wyverns and doesn't (to my knowledge) follow the usual description.
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Interlude: What Came Before, and What the Wyvern Saw.
Which came first, the wyvern or the egg?
Even the wyvern would be hard-pressed to say, for wyvern and egg are as one for the first months of their awareness. Wyvern is aware of shell as human is aware of skin and bone. It knows only that it is protected by something solid and seemingly impenetrable.
Wyvernandegg.
Through shell, it can feel sand and wind and touch. And moreso for touch, it can feel the thought behind the touch, or at least the emotion. Before it has even learned to recognize itself as an intelligent, unique being, wyvernandegg is aware of other beings.
It can learn fear from the touch of cold, hungry beings who steal its egg from the safety of the clouds, or sadness from the touch of one who has spent centuries alone and dares not hope for better.
It can also learn joy and love and bravery. It learned all these and more in an instant when Sarah laid a hand upon its shell. So many wondrous emotions that it felt it must burst from all the feelings!
And then it did.
It lunged within itself, instinctively knowing the action without understanding.
Wyvernandegg to wyvern and eggshells.
The wyvern's first moments of fragile awareness were filled with confusion and splotchy darkness. It recognized that the warm softness it was sitting on was not sand but a living being. Taloned feet dug gently into the shoulders of the one who had prompted the wyvern's release from the darkness and silence of its egg. Nuzzling her gently, it noticed that both of their skins were sticky, though where one was the familiar stickiness from inside its shell, the other had a tangy scent and filled the wyvern with a sense of wrongness. She did not move. Angry voices echoed from above. It mewled piteously.
Scent, Speech, and Hearing. Its newfound abilities were not shaping up to be enjoyable.
It craned its neck towards the sounds, aware for the first time of Sight as a crystalline bubble floated gently downwards. The wyvern touched its muzzle to the delicate gem, which burst in a sparkle of light and showered glitter over the pit and its occupants. The world spun away and the wyvern spun with it, burying its head and clinging wildly to the only good thing it had found so far.
When it looked up again, the world had calmed itself. Sarah was still there, the wyvern was still there. But 'there' was not there, it realized with alarm. 'There' was someplace else entirely and the wyvern did not like this drastic, unnatural change.
Nor did it like the strange man nearby.
Perceiving a threat to Sarah, it drew itself up to its full (if diminutive) height and hissed, brandishing small but sharp claws at the stranger.
Come closer, it wanted to taunt. Come closer and I will eat you!
In spite of the fact that there was no way a baby wyvern could possibly eat a fully-grown man, Jareth was taking the creature quite seriously. There was blood on Sarah's face and she had not moved in spite of the commotion around her. When he took a small step forward, the wyvern snapped at him viciously. With a growl and a gesture, he summoned a crystal and made as if to throw it at the creature, but reconsidered at the last moment.
Though the wyvern flashed its claws and teeth at the king, the talons of its back legs perched gently on Sarah's shoulders. Jareth frowned thoughtfully. Could it possibly be...protecting her?
Stripping the leather glove from his right hand, he slowly lifted it towards the creature, palm up. He caught the wyvern's gaze and held it. The hissing cut off abruptly as the wyvern observed him.
Jareth took a step forward, then another. The wyvern watched intently, but its posture was curious now rather than menacing.
Another step. Jareth was an arm's length from the bed now. He held his hand perfectly still while the wyvern caught his scent, then slowly began to lower it towards Sarah. His eyes flicked over her still form.
As soon as his gaze broke with the wyvern's, the creature gave a surprised start and screeched at Jareth's descending hand. It lunged forward and bit, digging its beak deeply into the soft flesh of Jareth's palm. The king froze.
He made no sound as the wyvern clung stubbornly to his hand. Their eyes locked again, blood dripping between them and spattering on Sarah's pale skin.
The wyvern's eyes were catlike and round, boring into Jareth as if seeing deep into his soul. Which in a way, they were. Even with the limited knowledge he had of wyverns, Jareth knew that much more than the taste of his blood was being sampled. The creature's eyes grew heavy-lidded, and he felt an alien mind prowl through his thoughts with a lazy feline grace. He struggled against resisting the contact. It would have been quicker and easier to blast the creature off Sarah and encase it safely in one of his crystals, but that would alienate the hatchling forever, and if they were both trying to protect the girl...he would take all the extra help he could get.
Abruptly, the wyvern released his hand with a gentle chirp and stepped back, settling at Sarah's side with its tail curled about its scaly body.
Jareth wondered what the creature had seen in his mind. He shook himself and dropped swiftly to Sarah's side, healing the bite on his hand with a thought. He delicately traced the line of blood across her face and into her hairline, where a deep cut was still slightly oozing. Her right hip was also badly bruised and her right wrist was broken. She was covered in bits of shell and an unknown fluid he assumed came from within the egg.
Badly injured, but nothing he couldn't repair.
He sat back on his heels and glared at the wyvern with a mixture of frustration and relief.
"She landed poorly," he told the creature. "She was protecting you with her body." It mewled sadly, placing its head disconsolately on Sarah's chest in understanding.
He placed his ungloved hand gently on Sarah's forehead, his eyes fluttering shut briefly as he concentrated on healing her. The wyvern chirped a query at him and then gave a startled squawk as the wounds vanished. Even the stains and spilled blood faded away like...well, like magic. Jareth opened his eyes to see the creature crouched respectfully, watching him.
He smirked. "Not so arrogant now, are we? Teeth and talons aren't everything." He brushed Sarah's hair back from her face, smoothing it away from her neck. Tilting her head gently to one side, his fingers brushed the scar of the Dryn mark. His expression darkened. "Magic isn't everything, either."
He stood with a sigh, then startled as the wyvern also jumped up. With an indignant warble, it perched on Sarah's shoulder, talons slashing wildly. A cut appeared on Sarah's neck, slicing directly across the Dryn mark. Before Jareth could react, the wyvern was tearing at its own soft belly with teeth and claws. It lifted a muzzle soaked with its own blood and time seemed to lurch to a stop. The wyvern blinked very deliberately at Jareth, then lowered its head with aching slowness. He could only stare as it bit down firmly on the slash on Sarah's neck.
Jareth swore, reaching to pry the creature away from her. He had obviously been mistaken about its intentions. But as his hand touched the scales, the wyvern went limp and the distinctive feel of alien magic filled the air. The king froze, old defenses snapping into place as he struggled to identify what was happening. He dared not remove the wyvern from Sarah, nor even remove his own hands from the creature's body, until he identified what spell had been activated.
Could it be a trap set by the Dryn? Slowly sinking to the bed, careful not to disturb its occupants, Jareth's mind raced wildly. The ball was in a few hours. If he hadn't deciphered this spell by then, he would have to risk breaking it and destroying all three of them. He must be at the ball when it started, or the Dryn were likely to destroy his subjects in their frenzy and come looking for him. The last thing he wanted was Alryn to discover him in such a vulnerable position.
Looking at Sarah's pale face, a pang of sorrow wracked the king's body. The girl had been in constant danger since returning to the Underground. He should never have let this happen. He should have been there to protect her. Though, he snorted, would it even have mattered if he was? Here he sat now, so easily held powerless, his hands full of injured wyvern and sticky with its blood. His shoulders slumped.
He certainly didn't deserve Sarah.
Shaking himself out of his depressing thoughts with a sigh, Jareth decided he could at least heal the wyvern's wounds. He didn't want the creature dying in the middle of whatever magic it was working, especially not if it involved Sarah. Plus, the gruesome wounds were distracting and he needed to concentrate if he was going to decipher this spell.
As his magic brushed against the wyvern's, he felt a strange answering pulse. The creature's body was unconscious, but its mind was awake and alert, and concentrating intensely. He felt a brief surge of relief from it when the self-inflicted cuts healed from its body, but when he turned his attention towards the new cut it had made on Sarah's neck he found himself forcefully rebuffed. Frowning, he tried again, and was again turned away.
Whatever the wyvern was doing, it seemed it did not welcome Jareth's involvement.
"I healed you, you wretch," Jareth growled aloud, suppressing his rage with difficulty.
Surprisingly, the alien mind quivered in response, and then Jareth found himself pulled into the wyvern's consciousness. Fighting the vertigo, Jareth struggled to make sense of the wyvern's thoughts. Newborn, its mind was still chaotic and uncertain, with only two steadfast beliefs in its head.
One, Sarah was a beautiful, magical creature and should be protected at all costs.
Two, Jareth was competition.
Jareth's anger dimmed in amusement at this latter thought. You can't be in love with a human, silly creature!
The wyvern responded quite calmly that Jareth was in love with a human, so why couldn't a wyvern be?
Before Jareth could retort, the wyvern mind directed him gently to the dark miasma hovering nearby. It was thick and sooty black, almost oily in the way the fog roiled and curled upon itself.
Dryn, his mind whispered to the wyvern's. The creature queried him with a thought and in a rush of images and feelings, Jareth passed on all his knowledge and his encounters with the Dryn. Anger colored the wyvern's thoughts where those memories touched upon Sarah.
Pleased by such righteous rage, Jareth revealed his own dark feelings for the Dryn, though he was careful to keep his guilt over not protecting Sarah hidden, lest he provoke another attack from the creature. Strangely, the wyvern's anger seemed to double upon realizing Jareth's thoughts, its mental presence growing sharper and stronger. Almost as if it was feeding off Jareth's emotions, he realized. And with it, the ugly darkness of the Dryn mark seemed slightly fainter.
Allowing his anger and frustration with the Dryn to run free, Jareth's suspicions were confirmed as the wyvern's energy seemed to blossom. With each drop it absorbed from the king, it grew more powerful, until with a frightful mental shriek it attacked the darkness of the Dryn, greenish light dissolving the ugly fog wherever it touched.
With something like a mental BANG! the connection broke and Jareth found himself blinking back into consciousness. Dazed, he shook his head slowly, trying to comprehend what had just happened. His hands fell away from the wyvern as it released Sarah, gently climbing off of her to curl again at her side. Sarah seemed no worse for the wear and, though tired, he detected nothing unusual in the wyvern or himself.
The wyvern chirped expectantly, drawing Jareth from his thoughts to focus on the scene before him. The wyvern nudged Sarah, clearly wanting Jareth to heal the scratches it had inflicted on her. Chiding himself for not doing so sooner, Jareth waved his hands and the marks on Sarah's shoulders and neck vanished.
It took a moment for the significance of that to sink in.
The marks….vanished.
Slowly, disbelievingly, he touched the smooth, unblemished skin of Sarah's neck.
The wyvern gave a low, satisfied purr and Jareth lifted his eyes to stare at it.
"You are quite the gift, indeed."
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Author's Note: In the past I responded to comments here, but the site now allows you to do that directly, so I won't bother sticking it in here anymore.