Thy Bog Overfloweth
Chapter 17
What in the name of Hell, Above, and Under does one get for a Goblin King who has everything?
Two weeks away from Jareth's birthday, Sarah was panicking, agonizing, and generally exhausting herself over that question. Chame assured her that she didn't need to get anything for Jareth--Sarah had kept him and Faolan fed, sheltered, and (relatively) out of trouble--but still, it was the principle of the matter. After all, Jareth had given her a dream-sweatshirt, a day-long wish, and Izzi; she had to return the favor somehow...
But nothing she thought of seemed right. A generic tie? As if! Jareth would probably use it to shot-put Goblins out the Throne room window. Chocolate? Nope. After his initial experiences with human delicacies, Jareth found his tastes ran more towards chili-peppers than chocolate. Clothes? Sarah lamented over the cost of anything fine enough that he would wear it, even Jareth's glamours dressed him in high-end fineries (if one can even call jeans a form of fineries). Books? He devoured books like most people devoured dessert, as if Jareth had only that small section of time to read and memorize the book before him. Art supplies? He did enjoy all sorts of crafts, from carving to drawing to painting to performing; Slidge assured her that Jareth was a master craftsman at any art she could think of-- he'd a long time to practice... but Jareth's family had built a fully-furnished studio in the new Castle. Socks? He liked socks, but that fell under the category of "clothes", and Jareth really didn't seem the type to wear fuzzy socks, especially on the new, highly-polished, hard-wood floors of the Castle (Sarah had yet to see Jareth trip, but if he ever did, those evil hard-wood floors would cause it).
Jareth actually noticed her agitation--stupid Fae men, only noticing what they weren't supposed to-- and asked her what was the problem; Sarah considered just asking him, but that would have given the whole thing away...
So here she was in Chame's library, skipping her History study session and fiddling with the zipper of her dream-coat and flipping through tomes of legend and history. It seemed that all the Fae, even Kings, liked gems and songs; she could offer neither to Jareth... especially since she heard of the gems he'd be given and the songs he'd receive from the Fae courtiers attending his party.
This is as bad as puzzling out the Labyrinth, Sarah brooded. She looked up sharply when Izzi pushed a book off the shelf three feet to her right.
"You promised to behave," Sarah started, but the scolding words died her throat when she looked at the book lying on the floor. The mortal girl picked up the book slowly; the tome fell open into her hand, eager to be read. Izzi trilled as the book rustled its pages, anticipating Sarah's needs and stopping on the exact page she required. Sarah blinked in surprise at the leather-bound book.
"Izzi, I take it back, you're a genius!" Sarah's gleeful exclamation made Izzi ruffle her chime-fur in pride; the book swished its pages in jealousy."And you, my dear book, are positively perfect," Sarah reassured it. The book quieted in contentment, and remained pleasantly cool in Sarah's hands as she raced to check out the book.
"Have fun, dearie," the Librarian--a rather hassled Sprite-- called after Sarah as she raced out with her book.
"Thank you, you too!" Here, now, was an answer-- the answer-- so simple and so complex... Sarah had to get started immediately!
What in the name of Hell, Above, and Under is she up to?
For the past two days, Jareth had watched Sarah pace, stare blankly at the walls, and huff in frustration; when he asked her what was wrong, all he ever got in response was, "It's just school stuff."
School stuff my Kingly arse, he groused as he ran alongside Faolan. The two were out jogging at two AM because Sarah--still leery after the air-raid incident--wouldn't allow them to fly, and Faolan couldn't use glamour yet. This meant waking up at ungodly hours to run in cool air, summer storms, or anything else Maria chose to throw at the two Fae. The time--such an odd concept to Jareth, time-- was the time that stilled between hours, minutes, seconds; the time was the time when the world slept and dreams raced and thoughts crept out from the gloomy recesses of the mind in which they waited for such moments.
Maybe it's her... time of the month, a little voice at the back of his conscious supplied helpfully. I mean, it's the classic symptoms, the moodiness, the agitation, the headaches, the zoning out... you saw it with your sisters, too.
I'm not supposed to talk to myself, Jareth replied to the voice. It's not very monarchial.
That's not a word! the voice protested.
Yes, it is, go look it up, Jareth's mental voice drawled.
It isn't a word, look... Here, Auberon's Authorized Concordance, Volume Eight, Edition Twelve, Copyright 1313 Anno Domini... Do you have anything more recent?
Afraid not; I haven't had the time to memorize the dictionary as of late. You might try the thesaurus; I think it's from the sixteenth century, Jareth told the voice.
Nah, this'll do. Let's see... M... M-o... M-o-n... M-o-n-a... right. Monarch, Monarch butterfly, Monarchial. Huh. Whadd'ya know, it 'is' a word.
I told you so, Jareth rumbled smugly.
The voice gave a mental impression of a shrug. 'No matter. You've been speaking to me for the past two minutes, anyway, so why not finish our original conversation? You know, there are all sorts of things that can help women when they're feeling bad. Most of these things tend to involve copious amounts of chocolate, of course, but I figure--
Wait a minute, Jareth interrupted. 'Who or what are you, exactly, and why should I trust you?
I'm the Spirit of the Labyrinth? the voice tentatively ventured.
I think not. Try again.
The voice sighed. I'm your conscious, you bloody fool! I've always been around, but you threw me into an oubliette a long, long time ago for daring to question your judgment, Reason.
My name is Jareth, not Reason. I shouldn't have to explain this to myself.
You are the Reasoning part of the mind, yes? And I am the part that steps back and tells you that you should apologize and sighs when you ignore me. I haven't got a name, but you can call me Sid, if you'd like.
Sid?
It's better than Subby, which is what you called me when you were younger, Sid said indignantly. And do you want my help, or not?
Not, if it's all the same to you, Jareth's Reason replied snidely.
Too bad for you, then. Listen up, I have a plan...
Chame glanced at the two reflections in the scrying pond and sighed. Both sought to support the other and to do so surreptitiously. Jareth, she knew, was going to be in a world of trouble when Sarah found out what he'd done. Sarah, however... Chame honestly had no idea what Sarah was up to. She had a feeling that Sarah's antics would draw far less attention than Jareth's.
It was, most definitely, another point in Sarah's life to add to her "Top Ten Weirdest Experiences", beneath the Labyrinth but above her first flight, her time as a Kelpie, and the time the Goblins played James Bond with water guns and martinis.
She listened with growing horror as the person on the other end of the phone explained that the man currently within the police department's holding cell was arrested for disorderly conduct, and that the cops on duty were damn near calling for asylum employees to take the man away to a place where his delusions would be relatively harmless, and that if they hadn't already tested the man for every drug they knew of and found all the tests negative, the man would have been sent straight to a center to put him in detox.
...Oh, and aforementioned man kept asking to call a Miss Sarah Williams, please, tell her it's Jareth. The cops were truly astounded to find that the man didn't seem to be speaking to them but to the shadows in the corner of the holding cell. The man was, the dispatcher informed Sarah, so completely insane that the other people within the holding cell-- including a serial killer, a drug dealer, three drunks, and one poor man arrested for jay-walking-- were requesting that the unstable individual be moved to a different cell.
He is so dead, Sarah growled to herself as she jerked her arms through the sleeves of her dream-sweatshirt. "Izzi!" she called aloud. When the drake lifted her head sleepily from her tree, Sarah relayed the story as she knew it.
"I need you to go find Faolan," Sarah finished. "The lady who called didn't mention an enormous canine, so he's probably out wandering the streets and I don't want him to get hit by a car or anything. Bring him back here once you've located him. Alright?"
Izzi trilled in agreement, and Sarah stormed out of the dorm as silently as she could. "I do hope Faolan doesn't get hit by a car," she murmured, "but I certainly wouldn't mind pushing Jareth in front of a bus at the moment."
It was a cool night tonight, but the dream woven about Sarah kept her warm-- and if it hadn't, her temper would have. The half-mile walk to the police station gave Sarah plenty of time to plan the bloody demise of a certain Fae King.
"You're Miss Williams, I hop-- presume?" The man behind the desk didn't have to voice the please, please, please get that crazy ass OUT of here! Then again, his expression-- the reluctant hopefulness and the trepidation that came with the fear that Sarah wasn't here to relieve them of the Fae in the holding pen-- might have spoken louder (and more concisely) than any words.
"I am," Sarah responded, and the look of dawning realization-- also known as the look of, thank-god-our-asses-are-SAVED-- barely had time to take hold before the cop was out from behind the desk.
"We just need you to check and make sure you actually know the, er, disorderly in the holding cell," the cop explained as he lead Sarah down a short hallway. "Then you have a couple of forms to fill out, but nothing major." Sarah nodded as they reached the jail cell.
About nine people milled about in the cell... And the last one paced furiously, carrying out a snarling conversation with the shadows in the corners of the room. Even with his mortal glamour, Jareth looked like a wild beast caged--the glamour softened some of the sharper angles of his face, and rid him of glitter, and it lessened the flare of his features, but it could not hide the looming presence, nor the wild hair, nor the storm-like temper that hung about him like a cloak.
In mortal garb-- faded blue jeans and a plain black shirt-- the Goblin King looked every inch the villain. His fellow inmates watched him with something akin to both fear and dread, and the police winced whenever he paced to close to the bars. Sarah huffed.
"Yeah, I know him. Why don't you go get the paperwork and I'll fill it out here?" The cop who had lead her down the hall nodded and fled into the office. All the jail-birds looked up at her words; most of them looked confused at her words--in fact, the only one who understood what she said was Jareth, who stilled in his pacing.
"Sarah! I take it Fekk got my message to you?" Jareth strolled easily to the wall of steel bars.
"No," Sarah gritted tersely. She put her hands on her hips as she glared at the faerie-tale king opposite the wall before her. "As a matter of fact, Fekk is still in the corner with you, dumbass. Do you have any idea what it's like to be woken up at two thirty in the fucking morning to walk to the police station and bail your roommate? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just strand your ass here!"
The others in the jail winced, but Jareth pulled his dignity about him even tighter and straightened his spine from the brooding slouch it had been curved in. "Now see here, Sarah Williams. I refuse to be yelled at like a recalcitrant child!"
"You, my fine faerie friend, have no business ordering me about. Especially not when you're the one stuck behind the bars." Sarah's scowl slid briefly up into a smirk. "You can't even touch those bars, can you? Made of steel, and you're allergic to iron." Jareth snarled and reached out; his gloved hand wrapped around the two crossed bars as Sarah's eye level... and crushed them together.
"I am respecting the laws of your people, woman," he hissed. "If only because it would not be dignified to rip this place apart, it is still intact."
"How very generous of you," Sarah snapped back. She had been up late for the past three nights, Jareth's party was in t-minus nine days, and now she was yelling at the Goblin King at way-too-damn-early AM because he'd been arrested for disorderly conduct. Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "You know, we could go rounds with this and get nowhere."
Jareth eyed her suspiciously. "What's with the sudden change of heart?" he asked.
"I am not entirely sure that I was really mad at you, just cranky. I will admit that I wanted to yell at you, though. We'll finish this conversation in the morning, though--I'm too tired to berate you properly at the moment." Jareth snorted, but watched as Sarah filled out the papers. The police waived the fine, saying something about the charge not being serious enough for a monetary tithe, but they were looking anxiously at Jareth when they told Sarah. There was a slight bit of difficulty opening the cell door; the two bars Jareth had decimated to make a point had been two separate parts of the lock.
The police and the jailed delinquents watched in stunned silence as Jareth and Sarah walked out of the prison, bickering in a quiet, friendly manner, far cry from the shouting match they had taken part in not minutes before. Then the two were on the street, and the people within the station forgot about the crazy blonde man and the mercurial brunette who bailed him.
Sarah clambered back into bed like a bear returning to its cave to hibernate sometime around three. She had demanded a full explanation from Jareth, who settled back against MegaPoofzilla and extracted two huge, slightly deformed, semi-mushy chocolate bars from his jeans pocket. He handed one to Sarah, and opened one himself. When Faolan sniffed at the bar in Jareth's hand, the King broke off a piece to feed the wolf before biting into the bar and looking warily at Sarah. She unwrapped her candy bar and took a small bite, breaking off a chunk for Izzi, who floated over to drape herself across Sarah's shoulders. Both females listened as Jareth began to speak.
"You may not know this," he started, "since I never told you, but I grew up in a rather large family. I have three sisters, and four sisters-in-law, so I grew up knowing there are certain times when one does not push a woman's temper too far, lest she start throwing things or crying. My sisters, I noticed, always felt better after eating mortal foods--particularly honey peanut butter and chocolate of any kind."
Sarah's shoulders slumped. "How is it you know about feeding women chocolate for PMS but not about tampons?" As Jareth opened his mouth, Sarah gestured him into silence again. "Never mind; it was rhetorical. How in the Underground did you get arrested for buying chocolate?"
Jareth shifted, a little uncomfortable at the memory and the shouting match he felt sure was soon to come. "The clerk at the mercantile I purchased these from did not seem happy that I paid him in silver," he muttered. "He kept insisting I paid in dollars, and when I told him I didn't have any, just precious-metal coins, he told me he'd have to speak to the manager. The both of them were very irritating little pricks and I lost my temper with them... But I got the chocolate!" Jareth added the last in a forcible bright tone. Sarah stared at him for a moment before she burst into laughter. Jareth seemed relieved.
Damn you, Sarah wanted to yell, I'm supposed to be cranky and bitchy when I'm PMSing! And it's so not fair, she thought wistfully, that he can be that faerie-tale villain one minute and so sweet the next...
"Hang on," Sarah said suddenly, "I thought you don't like chocolate!"
"I don't," Jareth replied, "but you don't eat unless someone else is eating with you. I have been watching you, you know."
Chame grinned at the scrying pond. The cranes-- or owls, as the case may be-- were dancing, and they didn't even know it. Naomhan padded up behind her to look over her shoulder.
"They don't need to be chaperoned, Chame," the High King whispered to his Queen. "And you need sleep. Nine more days, and our third-youngest comes home to visit."
"Second-youngest," Chame corrected. Naomhan grinned as he hugged her to him and splayed one hand over Chame's stomach.
"Third," he insisted. Naomhan laughed at the look of shock on his wife's face. "You can tell Sarah tomorrow," he rumbled as he scooped up the High Queen to carry her off. "You need to rest. I'm sure Sarah can help out more on things at this end, and I can take some time off from the negotiations with the Seelie King for a week or two. Everything is going to be perfect, just you wait and see."
Oro: Good morning! I would like to clarify some things in this chapter:
1-- "...or anything else Maria chose to throw at the two Fae." Maria, according to a song my uncle was singing over spring break, is the name of the wind.
2-- "...my fine faeire friend..." is a blatant reference to Lixxle's My Fine Feathered Friend in hopes that she will read this and update soon.
3-- various and sundry cursing. I spent a week at camp with my uncle, an ex-sailor. My mother actually called and yelled at him because I've been cursing all week.
Quill: It's damn annoying, too.
Jareth: As if you aren't! I want to know what's going on!
Sarah: In two or three more chapters, you'll know.
Oro: Maybe... I don't want this story to end! But, alas, the plot grows thicker... as does Chame's waistline. Heh. That's because I have a sequel of sorts planned out--a oneshot-- that requires a baby for Jareth and Sarah to babysit. Plus, Chame was meddling too much. Naomhan is going to make sure she steps back a bit... and allows the siblings their share in the chaos!
Disclaimer: Not saying it! Nyaa-nyaa-nyah-nyah-nyaa! (There is a difference between child-like and childish. So nyah-nyah! --one of the (many) senior citizens at the camp I went to)