Thy Bog Overfloweth
Chapter 16
It took Jareth nearly a week to get over his illness, which was both a blessing and a curse to Sarah. On the one hand, he was pretty out of it when she started giving him human medicines; doped up on Benadryl, the Goblin King wasn't in the right shape to notice Sarah was gone most of the day. On the same hand but the other side, the Goblin King on Benadryl was irrational and half-delusional; several times Sarah had returned to her dorm to find Jareth arguing with the door, telling it that "under no uncertain circumstances" was it to "attack Faolan again, if you have to hurt something, save it for the it."
At least she hadn't been there when the Goblin King was convinced he was really a couch cushion. Jareth had traumatized poor Faolan.
But on the other hand, Jareth had decided to teach Sarah to fly during his semi-delirious days. Sarah had even made him sign it in writing, which was why the strange four were at a park in the middle of the night... Jareth wouldn't have been convinced otherwise. He had mumbled the entire car ride to the park, something that Sarah couldn't quite make out but that sounded suspiciously like "Stupid obsession with transformations..."
Faolan was already happily stretching his wings while Izzi floated in loops around Sarah and Jareth was busy teaching Sarah the basics before they set about flying.
"Do not try to fly as soon as you shift our shape," Jareth warned her. "You'll be disorientated for a moment or two; and before you comment on my flight, just keep in mind that I have had several centuries to practice--you haven't. Once you've shifted, stretch your wings and legs to get the feel of them before you try anything."
"What kind of bird will I be?" Sarah asked, eager to begin.
"At this time of night? Something nocturnal. Beyond that, I don't know. Later, I'll take you flying Underground during the day and you can learn your first diurnal form. But the first two are always based on you, and your personality, to some extent; you won't be able to choose your form until later. Remember, this is more complex magic than what you've been learning... expect some difficulty!"
"Hey, wait a minute," Sarah said suddenly. "If you have more than two bird forms--"
"Avian. Drakes and griffs don't belong to the same genus as birds." Sarah glared at Jareth's interruption.
"Avian forms that you can take, why are you always a barn owl?" Jareth sighed, but answered.
"As my first avian form, a barn owl is the easiest for me to take Aboveground. My second form is diurnal, true, but much larger..." Jareth trailed off and would have left it there, but Sarah's expression and gestures forced him to continue, "An osprey is a might bit more impressive, but it's bulkier and not as quiet. With you, I can only wonder. I bet you'll be some mutated magpie... or a screech owl." Sarah glared, but when Jareth started teaching her to pull and shape the magic around and within her, she relaxed.
To work with magic, she found, was as peculiar as to work with soothing live-wires. The presence of the magic was calming, but to have contact with the magic was like sticking your hand in an electric socket while bathing: absolutely shocking, raising your hair and reverberating within your bloodstream.
The oddest part (and the most unsettling) was that while she shaped the magic, Sarah could feel herself re-shaping. The vaguest thought effected the magic's twisting, and Sarah nearly turned to mist while thinking of air and wind instead of feathers and bone structure. At last, though, she formed the image in her mind and in the magic: a bird, with a beak and wings and feathers... dear lord, the amount of different feathers! Jareth had insisted that she know them all by name and purpose. She paid special attention to the wings, though still keeping the vision vague.
Once she had the image, once she had the magic shaped, once she took a deep breath and prepared herself... Sarah let go. The magic coursed through her, around her, changing hair to feathers, lengthening fingers and truncating the rest; the ground rushed to her with dizzying speed and Sarah staggered, distinctly noticing the way her sight and hearing sharpened as it allowed her to see Jareth laughing as he shifted and hear Izzi's confused trill.
Sarah hopped irritably when the magic settled again; the ground seemed entirely too close. Jareth had already winged his way over to her, and she thrashed her wings wildly to smack him when she heard him hoot. Sure, it sounded concerned, but there was an underlying note of amusement in the barn owl's call.
-Sarah, I'm shocked. A flammulated owl?- Jareth, as a much larger owl, easily pinned Sarah's wings with his talons. -Stop that before you hurt yourself, shorty.-
Izzi slithered along the ground to insert herself between the wrestling owls (well, one fighting owl and one laughing owl) to hiss at Jareth. He hissed right back at her, but when Izzi hackled, Jareth hopped back two steps.
Sarah found it very odd to look up at Izzi, who was enjoying herself as she flipped up Sarah's contour feathers to brush against the semiplumes and filoplumes-- which startled Sarah and made her jump, knocking into the drake's jaw. The paw grooming her feathers halted and Sarah ruffled her feathers to straighten them.
#Sorry, Izzi, that tickled.# Sarah "sang" the words aloud as well as telepathically, and the sound of her new voice startled her again.
Jareth laughed at her again and set to teaching her to fly.
Flying is awesome, Sarah thought as she soared above the campus. She was heading to her next class, actually, and she found that she could fly much faster than she could run. Jareth had taught her how to tie her backpack into the spell, and Sarah only had to walk casually into one of the many empty classrooms and launch herself out a window to be on her way.
The owl form she took seemed a little conspicuous in the daytime, but honestly, none of the students ever looked up at her and all the teachers were inside. Sarah shuddered to think of whatever mischief Jareth and Faolan were up to, but Izzi kept pace beside her and Chame assured her that the Goblins would let her know if anything happened to their King.
Jareth, idiot though he may be, really is a good teacher, Sarah mused. It had taken him only two hours to teach her to fly, including traffic laws. Most of it was common sense-- like letting larger birds of prey pass unless you were confident in your ability to out-maneuver them, or checking to be sure that the windows/glass doors are open before flying into them (Sarah learned that one the hard way). Some of it, though, was more complex-- feather positioning, or making herself aerodynamic; these were now second-nature and she'd first become an owl only two days ago.
Chame had visited while Jareth taught her indoor flight--meaning they were back in the dorm and Jareth, in his Fae form, tossed crystals at Sarah to force her to flap about the room-- and commented on her fluffiness. That had been almost humiliating, but when Jareth took a picture of her and showed her the film, Sarah had agreed with Chame's assessment.
Sarah angled herself downwards, unaware of the much larger raptor shadowing her movements.
Jareth would later swear that Yrrile had dared him to do it. Before he could set about swearing, however, Sarah had to explain to her Biology teacher why she had stumbled through the door with an osprey on her head. She barely managed to keep her teacher from calling animal control by using her hair band to seal Jareth's beak (mostly because it made him look ridiculous, but partially because he was sending her thoughts on biting "that annoying twit of a teacher"), keeping a tight grip on Jareth's talons, and agreeing to stand at the front of the class with the osprey so the professor could lecture on the adaptation of birds of prey.
Sarah, naturally, started ranting at Jareth once they returned to the dorm room; Sarah had called for takeout and they were waiting for their dinner to arrive and found the wait to be a good time to pick at an old scab.
"Why? Why do you insist on getting me in trouble? I never did anything to you--"
Jareth interrupted Sarah's rant with a rather bored, "Are we ignoring or forgetting the way you broke my ballroom, my robot, and my Escher room?"
"We have been so far," Sarah said stiffly. Faolan whined from his location beneath the Mega-Poofzilla and Izzi shrank off of Sarah's shoulder to sulk in the boughs of her tree.
"Perhaps we have. Maybe we need to get this straightened out," Jareth suggested, his expression and inflection unnervingly detached from the conversation.
The ensuing eh, argument (the Goblins who showed up to watch would call it the Gorrif ek Stalliabmet' Werryt, or War of Many Cursings) grew very heated very quickly. Insults, swearing, accusations, and occasionally Goblins were sent flying at one another by the debaters; both seemed to feel wronged in some way and neither willing to compromise over understandings of the past. Jareth seemed to poof up as he got angrier, and Sarah just got louder, and Faolan and Izzi were openly staring at the King and the Mortal, and the Goblins brought popcorn to eat while laughing at Jareth and/or Sarah/ throw at Jareth and/or Sarah after a particularly bad comeback.
That poor, poor delivery man knocked on the door to deliver the Chinese food ordered to hear two people simultaneously growled, "What the hell do you want?" One voice was icy in distemper, the other fiery with animosity. The man--coincidentally, his name was Timothy Pritchard the Fourth and he would go on to write a series of self-help books on communication after suffering through eight rather nasty divorces... But that would be another forty years in the future-- held up the bag as a shield when a rather pissed off woman jerked the door open.
"Two orders of dumplings, one order of sesame chicken, a quart of fried rice, and beef lo mien?" Timothy Pritchard the Fourth squeaked nervously. The P.O.'d woman sent a half-scathing, half-thoughtful look towards an equally livid man that Timothy Pritchard the Fourth hadn't noticed before. Somehow, the sight of both angered beings scared him less than just the one... As if they would keep each other in check, if only for something else to fight over. That part of Timothy Pritchard the Fourth's thought made him ready to bolt, and indeed, Timothy Pritchard the Fourth stayed only long enough to let the woman snatch the bag from his shaking hands before he turned and bolted, not even waiting to be paid.
Faolan and Izzi crept out to eat, and the Goblins scuttled off, and Jareth and Sarah sat in a terse silence while they started eating.
Sarah broke the silence first. "I'm sorry I called you a feathery son of an effing bastard's ass." Jareth glanced up at her, trying to judge the sincerity of Sarah's apology.
"I'm sorry I called you an arrogant whelp of a fornicating ape," Jareth said warily. Sarah nodded quietly in acceptance of Jareth's apology, and the tension infusing the silence fled, though the oddest family continued to eat in silence...
Until Sarah stole Jareth's dumplings, anyway. Then the four degenerated into the playful chaos that had, somehow, become normal. For them, at least.
Chame heaved a sigh of relief, watching her son and Sarah bicker in their friendly manner. For a while, she had been afraid that their argument would send one of them packing--and it wouldn't have been Sarah. I should have known, Chame mused absently, that they really needed to get that out of their way.
The Unseelie Queen glanced around her-- at the construction halted for a night's rest; at the out-dated magnificence of the Castle that had once stood there; at the awe-inspiring Castle that would stand there soon.
Two and a half weeks left... And only one and a half of that time is for construction, Chame brooded before she turned back to the scrying pool beside her. I imagine that last week will be the most eventful.
Oro: I know this is late, but I had Tech, so you'll just have to deal. I did warn you that the next few chapters would probably be posted on Saturdays. Unfortunately, the next chapter will probably be late, too, since I'll be travelling, but I'll try to post it on time.
Quill: I am offended that you've been looking at other owls.
Sarah: I like my owl, thanks. Leave her alone.
Oro: Flammulated owls are awesome. (grins) Send me a post message, and I'll send you links to some wonderful pictures of them if you don't wnat to check google images.
Jareth: I agree with Quill for once.
Sarah: Get over it.
Quill: In this chapter, Oro doesn't own: Labyrinth, its characters, flammulated owls, or delivery people.
Oro: Way to rub it in, Quill. Salt into a gaping wound and all that.