Author's Note: My apologies that its been so long since my last updates. I started school again and have been working on two different books trying to get them finished and edited in the hopes of getting them published or publishing them myself. I've not forgotten this piece but can't promise to update it every few days to about once a week as I was when I first posted it. I will finish it as I want to see where it goes myself. I think I can manage to update at least twice a month but I won't promise more than that. However, I do want to give a great big "THANK YOU!" to all my readers and to all that favorited this piece!
Uh Oh We're in Trouble
Jareth stopped pacing a trench in the rugs on the floor his tent and smiled grimly at the report one of his spies had brought him. Iain had blown apart the last section of his palace in a tantrum and was as of now moving into his less defendable palace. As the damage was so extensive that even magic couldn't put it back together. Jareth played with the idea of making Iain so enraged that he did Jareth's work for him and blew apart all the Seelie palaces and armies during a temper tantrum before Jareth remembered that he'd given his word to the other courts to try and win Sarah back with as little bloodshed as he could. He was now out for vengeance's sake and to liberate the Seelie courts from Iain instead. Neither Jareth nor Gundahar could understand how such a dunce was still the High King of the Seelie court. The Underground was separated into three factions, the "Good," the "Bad," and what was left so to speak. The older myths and legends of Above mention free Fae, the trooping and solitary Fae that served none but in the history of time that had never been true.
The "Neutral" fae that chose to never serve either the Seelie or the Unseelie courts or left them for one reason or another were bound to the Erlkönig's court. There were hundreds of Seelie and Unseelie courts but only one court of the Erlkönig. Iain and Gundahar were only High Kings because of the number of courts they controlled, though Iain had inherited his throne and not won it by conquest as Gundahar had done. The Erlkönig was in short, the mediator. The one who was tasked with keeping them from killing each other off or engaging in some eternal war… That is if the Erlkönig was not instigating some conflicts himself as Jareth's grandfather, Arawn, had done. Which was why his own son had killed him to bring peace to the Underground after Arawn had gone insane.
Jareth tossed the report on his desk and returned to pacing. There was no logical reason for Iain retaining the seat of High King. The fool had no control of his powers and many of his courts had sided with Sarah in her short stay there. Iain had nearly killed Sarah with the spells he'd placed upon her. If it hadn't been for the Labyrinth unbridling the full potential of her power she would have died. She was fully powerful enough to naturally throw off much of what Iain and his toadies had tried to do to her but somehow the memory spells had gotten through. Yet not entirely seeing as Sarah had somehow subconsciously sent herself notes of not belonging in Iain's court. The impressions from the Labyrinth that Jareth had received the night Sarah had been taken had let him know that several of Iain's lackies had casted spells to torture and/or kill Sarah. Most likely without Iain's knowledge given that he was intending to marry her.
As soon as the the Labyrinth had sensed her near the boundaries as she wandered with the Seelie seamstresses and guards, it had completely shifted Jareth's camp to her location in the blink of an eye while simultaneously tearing a portal open from one side of the mountains to the other to collect her only to seal the portal up again once she was through. Jareth's encampment was now encircled in the lower reaches of the mountain range of the northernmost border he shared with the Seelie realms. The camp had been on the eastern plains and near the easiest access point for his, Gundahar's and even a few of the Seelie armies to reach into Iain's realm before the move.
All the fae that were not of his court but had offered to aid Jareth in getting Sarah back where now near tiptoeing around him in fear for that show of power. Even he was amazed at what the Labyrinth had done to rescue it's Queen though Jareth wasn't about to let anyone know that he'd had nothing to do with the massive displacement of his camp and armies. The Labyrinth did what it want to do, anytime, anywhere, everytime. Jareth was really just along for the ride and keeping the innocent out of it's path so they didn't get caught up in the Labyrinth's punishments of the unjust, the honorless and the cruel.
Sarah was sleeping behind a partition at the back of Jareth's tent. He'd pace away then pace back, reassured that she was there with each hint of her sent and the sounds of her breathing that he'd gain when he was near where she slept. Jareth stormed back to the other side of his tent to keep from touching her even though he longed to hold her as she cried in her sleep. She'd told them all she knew and he and Gundahar had told her the same in turn. Sarah had acted quite unsettled when she'd learned of her betrothal to Jareth. She'd cried when they'd brought Toby in and she couldn't remember who he was. Sarah was angry with everyone including herself because in her words, "I know is should know him but I don't! I'd say he's my son but he can't be because Iain's court midwife check me and let everyone know I'm a virgin!"
Toby had burst into tears and had clung to Jareth as Sarah had raged. She struck out at no one as she yelled but had tucked her hands into her armpits and dropped down to sit in the middle of the floor with the darkest look of self-loathing that Jareth had ever seen marring her beautiful face. That look came often but only when she cause the little toddler to cry. She'd refused to look at Toby after that but all could see the pain it caused her to see him and know that she should know who he was yet not be able to remember. Toby had been with them since Sarah had disappeared. The Labyrinth had been unwilling to leave the boy Above without Sarah as a buffer between the boy and his parents.
Jareth had a mind to blood adopt Toby to Sarah and himself and truly make the boy their son. He'd planned on waiting to recover Sarah from Iain but now he was waiting for her memory to return. If it returned. Jareth ground his teeth, he refused to believe or accept that her memory would not return but others doubts were getting to him. It been two weeks since he'd gotten her back and nothing had worked. In a fit of desperation, he'd even kissed her. She'd punched him and nearly broken his nose. She'd stood there frozen as he'd tried to stem the flow of blood from his nose. Sarah's eyes were wide in shock and pain. For a moment he thought she knew him before that look of self-loathing crossed her face again and she'd then stormed off to his tent.
Jareth took a deep breath of her scent again, trying to let it calm him in the fact that her scent was clean and held nothing of Iain's scent like it would have if Iain had slept with her. Not that that would mean Jareth loved Sarah anyless. It would have just changed how Iain was to die and how slowly if he had managed to take advantage of her.
"Jareth..."
Jareth's breath hitched as Sarah murmured his name in her sleep. He'd never heard someone speak in such a tone. So soft and sorrowful. So full of loss and longing as to put a La Llorona or a Banshee to shame. Jareth moved silently around the curtain that hid her bed from the main areas of the tent. Kneeling down beside her bed, he took one of her hands in his while reaching out with the other to lightly stroke her face and wipe away her tears. He could feel the pulse of the Labyrinth through her hands. It did not like to see its favorite Champion, its self-chosen Queen and true love of its King, hurt and had been trying since she was found to comfort her and heal her mind.
"Sarah, darling, I believe the Fates and Norns may hate the thought of us together…"
The corners of Jareth's mouth twitched as the Labyrinth gave a small twinge of annoyance and frustration at the back of his mind. It agreed but did not like it anymore than he did. The Labyrinth was incapable of words but after a millennia of being sentient, knew how to clearly express how it felt and leave no room to be misunderstood. As much as it hated Allen, who was still running around in the bowels of the Labyrinth, it abhorred Iain more. The lesser goblins took shifts chasing Allen and thoroughly enjoyed doing so but Iain, Jareth was sure, would be entombed in the living walls of the Labyrinth never to be seen nor heard again with the tens of thousands that Jareth's grandfather had entombed when he created the Labyrinth.
The Labyrinth had been so happy, light and playful since his Father's days. There was anger at times where the Labyrinth sought justice for the innocent that were wronged but it was no where near as dark as it had been during his Grandfather's reign. Jareth had never forgotten the darkness in which the Labyrinth had been created. Built in madness and infused with the bodies enemies and souls of the lost to give it life, with corridors painted in blood and floors scattered with bones, even walls built with bones.
Jareth's father had spent near ten-thousand years of his life changing the Labyrinth into what it was today once he found that it could not be unmade. He'd given it purpose, a just cause for being. Yet, with all it had learned and good it had done, the Labyrinth was turning towards what it had originally been built for. The Labyrinth was once again beginning to long for blood, though it yet only longed for the blood of one certain Fae male. And its King for once, was not inclined to deny it that longing.