Chapter Six: Temperance
Soundtrack for Chapter Six:
"No One Is to Blame" —Howard Jones
"Bring Me to Life" –Evanescence
"Show Me How to Live"—Audioslave
Sarah stretched her arms above her head until her shoulders cracked. She'd been click-clacking at the typewriter for hours and could feel it all the way up her sides. She'd felt inspired to write, and although her memory of film-school instruction in screenplays was dim, she found it easy to pick up again. She was barely conscious of the world as she wrote, and Jareth encouraged her in the practice. However, her "r" key seemed to keep sticking, and it had finally become so annoying that she had returned to reality.
What the mechanism needed was oil, and rather than summon it herself, she thought she would find Jareth and make him get it for her. He enjoyed taking things apart and reassembling them; he'd serviced the old Hermes 3000 last time by turning it into and exploded diagram of itself with a flick of his wrist, and assembling it again just as quickly, leaving the dust behind. That was a trick she wanted to see again. And she was lonely for him, which was all the reason she really needed to go find him. It seemed in the week since Toby and Finnvah had left that she had barely seen her own husband at all.
She looked at Yimmil and Sir Didymus, snoozing together against Ambrosius' side by the fireplace. Sarah tiptoed over the shambles of the Scrabble board and their empty cups of mulled wine. She'd leave the entourage behind. Jareth was likely in the throne room, though he might also be in the library or on the battlements or in his private rooms. There was no telling exactly, but the Castle would be helpful and direct her to the right path eventually. And if not, it would be a fun adventure—at least until Egg's weight on her kidneys made her need a bathroom. There were thousands of rooms in the castle, Jareth had informed her, but only four bathrooms. Lately, this was becoming a problem.
She grabbed a thick blue shawl off the nearest chair as she snuck out, shoes barely bending on the stone floor. It was cold in the Castle, though her rooms were always cozy and warm. The cheery fire never seemed to need tending; it burnt down to coals by bedtime, and flickering back to life again by the time she woke. But she slept better and warmer if Jareth slept beside her, and last night he hadn't been in the mood. He had been brooding and surly, and she had told him to go for a flight and shake off his temper. And he had obeyed—transforming at the third running step, happy as a prisoner set free. She opened the window for him, and had the pleasure of watching the flicker of his white wings in the moonlight as he did midair dives and barrel rolls and triple-Salchows for her amusement—or whatever the owl equivalent of these maneuvers were—but then he had flown out of sight and not returned at all until late in the morning.
Whatever particular problem was eating him, he hadn't wanted to talk about it. He'd helped her dress in silence in the morning, condescended to take a few morsels of food from her hands, and had disappeared again shortly afterward.
There will be some changes after you arrive, Egg, Sarah thought, resting her hands on her belly. For one, I won't have a shelf to put my tea-mug on. For another, your father will need to unburden himself to me more than he does. Sarah had asked to take a hand in some of the logistics of getting the Goblin City through the winter, but Jareth sidestepped her requests. He wanted her buttoned up in her dresses and bolted into her velvet box. It had been nice, back when she was uninformed about the situation, never being obliged to worry about anything more important than how to use her last three letters on a triple word score, but lately it had become boring and frustrating. Hence the writing, and hence her occasional desire to play truant from her non-routine. Like now. Sneaky, sneaky Sarah, having an adventure!
She moved silently through the Castle. She could hear the business of goblins and other guests and other latecome residents to this sanctuary, but didn't hear Jareth's voice among them. Windows which had previously been crude holes open to the air had been glassed over, but there were still drafts. She followed the strongest of these on a whim and discovered the great chained doors of the Castle were wide open, with a goblin army's worth of slush tracked down the entrance hall. Sarah grumbled to herself as she pushed the doors closed and wondered just exactly who had come to visit or stay. He'll be in the throne room with whoever-it-is, Sarah thought. Renewing vows of fealty or receiving instructions on where to go. That's where I'll find Jareth.
The trail of snow and water indeed led to the throne room, and Sarah congratulated herself on her brilliant deductive powers. She could hear what was going on before she could see inside, which wasn't unusual. Goblins had a gift for noisy mayhem and Jareth had a tendency to enable them. What was unusual were the sounds of the conversation coming from Jareth's frathouse court. She could hear two distinctive voices. One, Jareth's, superior and cruel. Another, a woman's, afraid. The snickering background chorus of the goblins in residence had a sinister and unkind tone. Jareth was bullying someone. The goblins were teasing her. And whoever she was, she was upset and afraid and trying to hide it.
Well, this seems familiar, Sarah thought, as she crept up to the lip of the throne room's doorway, shamelessly eavesdropping. Jareth's mocking drawl set her teeth on edge. She felt fourteen again, with the full force of the Goblin King's contempt bearing down on her. "Sarah, go back to your room. Play with your toys and your costumes." She wondered who was getting the performance this time, and strained to make out his words over the sounds of Jareth's goblin amen-corner.
"When you were a child, you had your mothers to teach you better manners. But I seem to remember that even then they had to force you to bow your head to me. You seem not to have learned anything."
"I've learned plenty, Goblin King." It was a woman's voice, strong and spitfire.
"So you're ready to swear your fealty to me, is that it? Is that why you're here, little one?"
"I was sent here to see Queen Sarah," the woman said. "I was invited."
"Oh, were you?" Jareth sneered. "Not by me." The goblins tittered with cruel good humor.
Deciding that Jareth's dubious qualities of mercy were most definitely strained, Sarah peeked her head around the corner.
The whitewashed clockwork giant, Humongous, was holding a woman up by the scruff of her coat the way a person would hold a naughty kitten. Nobody saw her; all eyes were fixed on this ludicrous pageant. Jareth, dressed in dark blue wool with a crimson silk redingote, seemed to be relishing his inhospitality. The woman, in frumpy coat and thick boots and a series of long mufflers wound around her head, was kicking out at the goblins who crowded around her. Many more goblins and chickens and pigs and bats peeked out from the draperies of the new double throne, or from the murder-holes and passageways and the pit. Snowflakes and afternoon light filtered in from the wide open oculi, gentling no impressions.
"I invited her," Sarah said, stepping forward into the dank room. She rapped on Humongous's side. "Put her down," Sarah said, shouting up at the driver.
"My lady wife. Glorious! What, no attendants?" He sprang up from his nearly prone position on the throne. He was wearing black gloves and had his silver-tipped riding crop with him. He was definitely having a bad day if he was mixing blues with blacks.
"HUuUuu-mOnNN!" the driver rumbled, disagreeing with her orders.
"I don't care if she's a... fraggin' aardvark. Put her down! Now!"
"Put her down, but don't let her go," Jareth informed the driver, holding out his hand for Sarah, who joined him reluctantly at the foot of the dais. "If you invited her, you can tell me her name. Can't you then?" He tapped the butt of his crop under her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.
Sarah scowled at him, hating his condescending tone. How far are you going to push this, Jareth? She knocked his crop aside.
Jareth ignored this warning. "No? Don't know who she is? Well, she is in disguise. Let's strip off all this glamour and see if you recognize her then." He summoned a crystal and threw it at the woman. It burst against her chest in a shower of glitter. "Eh? Eh, Sarah?"
The woman, whoever she was, shielded herself from the abrasive glitter. She had seemed oldish and fattish, though it had been hard to tell under all those clothes and scarves and hat, but after Jareth had scoured her, she was young and tall, with dark cinnamon skin paled by weak winter light. Her smooth brow was interrupted by a strange vertical scar. Sarah tried to place her ethnicity. West Indes, Spanish Harlem, or perhaps India. Sarah hadn't realized until now how lonely she'd been for women's faces, human faces. This stranger almost had one, but for her pointy ears and firefly-green eyes. She instantly reminded Sarah of Finnvah, and that was a warming thing. Sarah smiled tentatively at her. I hope she really is what she seems, she thought. I hope… maybe she'll stay.
"I apologize for my husband's behavior," Sarah said to her. The goblins paused in their teasing.
"I'm used to it," she shrugged.
"Jareth, I did invite her. By proxy."
"Well then, she can give the name of the proxy and tell me why she was invited, or I can summarily Bog her," he said with cheerful malice. He wrapped his hands around her, protective and possessive. "Well?" he snapped at the bundle of coat and scarf and hat and carpetbag who shed glitter under Humongous's restraining hand.
"I was sent by Vercingetorix, Red Branch," she said proudly. "My name is—" she looked at Jareth and averted her eyes. "My name is Zoe."
"Is it?" Jareth said dangerously.
"Shiprah," their visitor said, meeting his eyes. "Called Zoe now. From House Crocus. But you knew that, Elder. I'm the midwife."
"Midwife?" Jareth seemed taken aback. "Midwife?" He looked down at Sarah. "What do you need a midwife for? I've read all six books!"
"You read six copies of What to Expect When You're Expecting, Jareth."
"Well? So? I wanted to see if the endings were different."
"You really do need my services," Zoe said with disdain. Zoe kept her shoulders back, wearing the weight of Humongous's grip like a privilege. Sarah admired her gumption.
"What I need from you, young Zoe, is—" But before Jareth could get fully wound up again, he was interrupted.
"My lady? My lady!" Sir Didymus yapped, jogging into the throne room. Sarah was so glad to see him that she could have kissed him. His timing was perfect. "I woke from a most shameful sleep and found thou hadst absconded!"
"Oh, good," Jareth shouted, brandishing his crop. "Everyone's here now! Form a line that I might beat myriad asses withal, beginning with your eloquent but irresponsible guard. Verily! Forsooth!"
Mocking and threatening Sir Didymus taxed Sarah to near the utmost limit of her patience. But Jareth was determined to dig for every red cent. "Or maybe I'll begin with you, Sarah. Did you send my Finnvarrah-Vercingetorix to bring her into my kingdom, and without even asking me? What's next? Salt pie? Nailgun massage?"
Sarah snatched the crop out of his hand and escaped his arms while he was distracted in trying to snatch it back. "Sir Didymus, please escort Zoe to my rooms." She kicked Humongous. "You can go back to your post and don't forget to close the door behind you next time. You're letting all the heat out. As for the rest of you—" she cast an evil eye over the goblin horde, "Grab your livestock and scatter. The King and I are about to have words."
Everyone looked at her. Nobody stirred.
"Move it!" Sarah said with drill-sergeant snap. "Now!" Gratifyingly, everyone did, sober and fearful.
And then she was alone with Jareth, who looked truculent and completely undaunted. "Well?" he asked in haughty tones, nose in the air, hands on his hips. "Explain yourself. Bringing outsiders into my home? Giving me commands in front of my subjects? It defies reason, but I'm sure you'll justify yourself somehow."
She remembered what her father had always done when she was in a snit. He would let her rant and rage and then explain the situation to her after she'd calmed down. This was generally effective, and she always did the same thing for Jareth…
…which was why she was surprised to find herself swinging his riding crop against the arm of the throne and then breaking it over her knee, leather plaits unravelling, shouting incoherently the entire time, lacking all good sense and ready to tear out his hair by the roots.
"Are you finished?" Jareth asked her with towering superiority.
"No! Bring me more of your shit to break!" Sarah screeched.
He whipped off his surcoat and bowed as he presented it to her in a parody of chivalry. Sarah took it between her hands and tried to rip it. No use. The fabric was thin but well-sewn. But Jareth kept his bow, mocking her in every line of his body, and she took her teeth to a seam until it split, and ripped it in two pieces. She stamped on the ruin for good measure, seething at him. "More!" Sarah shouted.
Arching an eyebrow, he leaned over and picked up one of the earthenware jugs of goblin grog. Sarah hefted it and threw it against the wall. It crashed in a thousand dripping pieces, which was very satisfying. By the time they were joined by the smithereens of a plate and a cup, he was sneaking an amused smile. He picked up the last of the tableware in reach and smashed it for her.
"Do you feel better now?" he asked.
"I'm still mad at you!" she wrung her fists. "Those aren't your subjects. They're mine too! This is my kingdom too!" Unable to restrain herself, she gave him the lowest blow she could manage. "You made sure of that, didn't you?" He had changed her in preparation to turn the kingdom over to her, to bequeath it at his death. Jareth winced; the blow had struck hard. "How dare you disrespect me in front of them! And how dare you treat the midwife like that! I wouldn't be surprised at all if she decided to leave me here alone. And with no help but you!" She burst into loud and ugly sobs.
"Sarah…" Jareth said, uncomfortable. He tried to embrace her but she put up a fight. "Please," he said, now sounding slightly desolate. "Please?" Still angry, she let him pet her, nestling her in, warming her ears and her fingers. "How was I to know you'd sent for her, Sarah? Her? How was I to know she wasn't an assassin or a spy sent to hurt you or me or our baby? You didn't tell me!" He gathered up as much of her as he could, running a thick coil of her hair over and over his hand.
"She's one of the new people, isn't she?" Sarah snuffled resentfully. "A fae and human mix, like Finnvah."
"Another reason not to welcome her with open arms. She's made no oaths of fealty to me. She's dangerous."
"But maybe she has a clue, Jareth! This baby… it's not going to be quite human, is it? It'll be more like… Zoe, or Finn, than like you or me." She pressed Egg against him. "Finnvah picked her, Jareth. He wouldn't have picked just anyone for me. For us."
He tried to work up a scowl, but it failed. "You're right. Finnvarrah isn't careless with you. But you could have asked." He sighed. "Haven't I tried to give you everything you want? You could have asked."
"You're right," Sarah said, rubbing her cheek against the laces of his shirt and the hard skin-warm smoothness of his amulet. "I should have asked you for help, but I was afraid. I'm sorry."
"Foolish girl," he said fondly, and kissed her gently.
"The right words here are 'I'm sorry too, Sarah,'" she replied with a little heat.
"I'm sorry too, Sarah. What am I sorry for?" He tugged her hair gently.
"For not talking to me. I need to know what's going on. I don't have it in me to blindly obey you. You have to talk to me. You have to explain things to me. You can't keep me in the dark." She pinched his ear. "I'm your helpmeet, Jareth. I'm your partner. I'm the Queen."
"Things would be much simpler if your wedding vows had included 'to obey,' he mused. He closed his eyes as her grip on his lobe became a gentle caress. He moved away after a moment and offered her his arm. "Come with me, then, Queen Sarah. You've commanded me to share. I have something to show you."
"Holy shit," Sarah said, disgusted and surprised. "What the hell is that?"
"It's a message," Jareth said, also disgusted.
Sarah reached out to touch it, and Jareth pulled her hand back. "Don't," he said.
He had brought her to his private rooms, the ones with the trompe l'oeil landscapes that seemed to move, the room Sarah never entered without his express permission. She hadn't seen the interior of this private space in weeks. Before, it had been a dream of Summer. Now Winter had come even into Jareth's personal retreat. The trees were bare, the blanket of summer wisteria over the gray velvet couch had become a bank of snow-white fur, and the crescent-moon lampstand was coated with silver icicles. Only the waterfall pond seemed unchanged, wafting steam over everything. Jareth had opened one of the little doors hidden in the landscape of the paintings and brought out a burlap bag. Carefully, not touching the contents, he had drawn the bag open over this message, this art, this thing.
It was a narrow cylinder of ice, about a foot tall, tinged red. A barbie-doll was trapped in the center, floating upside-down in an eternal swan-dive, arms raised above her head, brown hair obscuring her face. Her tiny plastic arms and legs jutted out into stumps at the head and the foot of the column. No hands, no feet. And blood. The red… that was blood.
"Is that supposed to be me?" Sarah asked, shocked. Of course it's me. Of course. This is what the King of Winter intends to do to me. "Where did you find it?" Sarah asked. She shrank into Jareth's arms, horrified and disgusted, and wishing with just a tiny bit of her heart that she'd left well enough alone, left all this for Jareth to manage. Too late now. He held on to her tightly.
"I found it two days ago, out in the perimeter. On the very border. In the broken passage. You know where."
Yes. The place where we took our last chance, Sarah thought. "Did you find it by itself, or was there more to it?"
He paused. "Jareth," Sarah warned.
"It was surrounded by a circle of thirteen fairies. Toby and I obviously didn't manage to collect all of them. Dead ones, decapitated, stuck in the snow like little candles. Their hands and feet had been cut off. There were more bodies. Perhaps twenty or so. they'd been… mutilated. Deformed by magic. I can't quite describe it. They weren't part of the … message."
"So John Company thinks he can threaten you by threatening me."
"And brutalizing my subjects." Jareth's voice was bitter.
Sarah cuddled him into her breast. "No wonder you've been so het up."
"I am not 'het up,'" he replied with wounded dignity. "I'm… tired. Everyone needs something from me, everything is difficult." He butted his face against her shoulder with this last word, and she patted his back sympathetically. "I thought, maybe if I can keep you from knowing how hard things are, it would be easier. It was like having part of myself kept innocent."
"Silly owl," she said, touched by the sentiment of his motives, even if it had been stupid. "I knew anyway. Well, I knew something was bothering you." She looked at the threat embedded in ice. She tilted his face up from her shoulder and smiled at him. "Buck up. It's a nasty message, but he's revealed at least three things he didn't intend to, the spiteful thing."
"Oh?"
Sarah smiled grimly. She was good at puzzles. She was the best. "One, he can't get inside the Labyrinth himself, or he would have left this directly on our doorstep, not outside. The borders are holding for now, but they need watching, particularly at the gates."
"What do you think I've been doing?" Jareth complained, but Sarah shushed him with a finger over his lips.
"Two," Sarah said, looking at the ice sculpture closely. "The King of Winter doesn't know about the baby. Otherwise he would have made an allusion to it. The doll's abdomen cut out, blood on the thighs, something. Something specific to frighten and threaten us with. He doesn't know."
Jareth's brow smoothed out. "You don't think so?"
"No. The only people who know about the baby are my family and the Labyrinth's residents. Maybe not even all of those. Maybe they think I'm just fat," Sarah said, patting Egg. "Most of the goblins and the ones living now in the Castle know I'm pregnant, but none of them have gone telling tales. That's the third thing."
"Hm?"
"We can know for almost certain that he doesn't have any spies or agents inside the Labyrinth. If there were, he would know, and since he doesn't... you know your kingdom is loyal to you. Or at least the ones close enough to us to know anything worth telling about us."
"Unless young Shiprah is a spy or an agent." He kissed her fingers and then nipped them. "House Crocus worships me as a god, but young Shiprah always had a rebellious streak."
"Yes, well I understand now why you were so nasty to her, even if I don't excuse it." She avoided looking at the message any more, and felt a surge of confidence and well-being. "Imagine all the other things that the King of Winter doesn't know? They'd fill a book."
"I suppose now you want to go interview our newest resident?" he asked.
"Gold star for you, Goblin King," Sarah said. She kissed the tip of his chin. "Let's find out if she's the right one for the job."
"How many babies have you delivered?" Jareth asked, circling around Zoe, sharklike.
"Ten, personally. Two human, eight from the Free People. I've assisted with seven other births. All alive-o and healthy, Elder. My luck is always good there."
"You will address me as 'Majesty,' not by any vague titles, young Shiprah." Jareth unclasped and unceremoniously upturned her bag. A few changes of clothing and personal items fell out. Jareth shook the bag suspiciously, and then there was a practical avalanche of items that made a formidable pile on the bed. Zoe made a noise of outrage and started forward to retrieve her possessions, but Jareth's vicious glance and Sir Didymus's staff kept her back.
"Goodness," Sarah said. "It's like Mary Poppins."
"Verdad, that's where I got the idea," Zoe muttered. She looked embarrassed and angry as Jareth stirred through the pile, picking things up and tossing them aside, Yimmil helping, thinking it was a game. "You're making a mess of my things," she complained.
"Yes," he said mildly. He reached for a wooden box and opened it. There was a selection of scalpels, forceps, and other wicked-looking obstetrical devices, all of which reminded Sarah of why she desperately needed someone with Zoe's talents.
"You won't need these until the birth," he said in a tone that brooked no argument, handing the box to Yimmil, who bore it off. Next he took up a small black case and opened it carefully. "Explain the purpose of this," he said, drawing out a wicked-looking syringe.
"It's for injections," Zoe said, nonplussed.
"I know it's for injections! What on Earth or Under were you planning on injecting my wife with?" He brandished the syringe like a weapon. He looked unstable and furious. Standing in her place Sarah would have been daunted, but Zoe was pert to answer.
"Vitamins, if she needs them. Antibiotics, if I need to give an episiotomy. Anesthetic, if she needs help with the pain." Jareth inspected several ampoules tethered in a neat elastic row and nodded, and put the syringe back, though he hesitated, as if he'd like to stab someone with it first.
He focused his intense eyes on the midwife and kept the case under his arm. "You'll get these back once you've injected yourself with each of these substances in my presence. Except the morphia and your chirurugeon's knives. I'll keep those until they're needed. They can kill." He looked at the rest of the pile with disdain. "Nothing else here is particularly suspicious or dangerous. You must have been confident of a warm reception, bringing all this clutter with you. You always were arrogant."
"Don't flirt," Sarah said with severity.
"I wasn't flirting!" Jareth said.
"Yelling at her. For you that counts as flirting."
"She has it coming," he said grimly. He picked up a small folding picture frame and opened it.
"That's mine," Zoe snapped, and this time she ignored Sir Didymus and went to her things. She snatched the picture out of Jareth's hands and glared at him. "Don't touch that! It's mine!" She cradled the photos to her chest and stuffed her belongings back into her bag one-handed. "It's all I have," she said, more quietly. She kissed the photos before laying it carefully on top, and snapped the bag closed.
"No, no, young Shiprah," Jareth said cheerfully. "You have work now. Aren't you lucky?" Zoe winced.
"So she passes?" Sarah asked.
"Barely," Jareth said with disdain. "You may take her to your service if it pleases you. Daughter of House Crocus, on your knees."
"No," she said, evading his eyes. "I have a few questions for Queen Sarah first."
"Make them snappy," Jareth said. "You're getting on my last nerve."
Sarah looked at Zoe. If I were in her position, and had anywhere else to go, I'd have been gone half-an-hour ago. She's afraid of him. Angry with him, but also afraid of him. I wonder… does she have anywhere else to go? "Ask away," Sarah said.
"It's really his baby?" Zoe asked, looking only at Sarah. "Of his body? You're carrying a fae child? Truly?"
Sarah had the impulse to laugh, but Zoe seemed so earnestly apprehensive. "Yes, yes, yes, and yes," she replied.
"The Hidalgos don't breed with mortal men and women."
"This one has," Sarah said simply.
Zoe looked at her a moment longer, huge green eyes made larger from speculative staring. She opened her mouth as if to contradict again, took in the severe look Sarah gave her, and closed it. "I'll make a vow to you, then, Queen Sarah. Take me into your household, for as long as seems right to you."
Sarah looked over at Jareth. "Can I?" she asked.
Jareth tapped his finger against his nose, considering. "This won't be like receiving the oaths you had from Sir Didymus or that giant walking carpet, or even what it might have been from Higgle—"
"—Hoggle"
"Huggermugger. Or even like any promises of help and aid that young Finnvarrah might have given. They love you. Young Shiprah does not. See her there, ready to let fly at me with a sharp word or a ready weapon? How she despises me." Jareth came up behind her and touched her cheek with his, voice warm and seductive. "See her eyes? Even now, she's holding back her anger, and she's doing it because you fascinate her. Our baby fascinates her. She's dangerous. But she can be yours, Sarah, if you so wish. All you need do is pick up her strength and take it for your own."
Sarah trembled, feeling daunted yet somehow magnificent. It's the edge of fae magic, cutting into me, she realized. She was never sure, later, whether Jareth had spoken his next words aloud or if he had whispered them directly into her mind.
Take her and claim her. Listen to the power singing in you. Do what no human being could do, and claim power over your subject.
She felt the strength of his arousal pressing hard into her buttocks, and his hands around her waist became a caress. "Bend your neck and let her take your amulet in her hands," Jareth instructed. Sir Didymus got down on one knee and doffed his cap.
My amulet? … my key. Sarah loomed over the kneeling Zoe, and realized how vulnerable this position made her, and was once again grateful for Jareth's steadying arms around her. She could snap that key from around my neck and take it. If she took it, she would hurt me. It's not just trust from her. It's trust on my part, too. She shivered as Jareth directed Zoe to clasp her hands upon the key around her neck, in an attitude of prayer. She sandwiched Zoe's hands and wrists between hers, remembering the feeling of holding Sir Didymus's prickly paws in her hands in just this way when he had offered his oath. But Jareth was right, this was different.
"Repeat after me," he murmured, low, in her ear. Sarah shuddered and said the words.
"Vassal, do you swear to be my good and trusty help, serving me and none other, making my friends your friends and your enemies my enemies, and being always comfortable to my will and pleasure…"
Sarah gasped repeated the words, eyes never leaving Zoe's. She felt the transmission of power, verdict, mundeburdium, like a flowing essence from her hands to Zoe's body. She could feel the midwife's strength and life, sweet and juicy as peaches, a force she could suck out easily as a Capri-Sun pouch. She could feel Jareth, too, as if he were under her skin, his palm pressed to the back of her head, pouring a flood of his own power into and through her. She felt like a conduit for a vast golden current, godlike, and she knew that if Zoe ever broke her vow, Sarah had the power to know it, and the power to punish her severely, even to kill her. Addictive, she thought. Inhuman.
In the thunderhead of this power, Sarah remembered that she was human. She'd resisted the lure of fae magic before, had edited back the strange scrawls it wrote over her soul. Zoe wore a quiet wince, and there was a tightness around her eyes that betokened despair. In pity, Sarah added seven extra words to her oath of fealty, ones that would have enormous repercussions in the future.
"…Until seven months and seven days pass."
She felt Jareth's arms tighten around her in surprise, and probably dismay. Zoe herself seemed to take heart, and repeated the words quickly, finishing with, "I swear to all these things for all that time," as if she were afraid Sarah or Jareth might try to make the duration more indefinite. And then, unbidden, and with a gratitude that threatened to bring tears to Sarah's eyes, Zoe released the key and put a devout kiss on each of Sarah's hands before standing again.
"Hmph," Jareth said. "I suppose that will have to satisfy."
Sarah felt suddenly dizzy. Both Jareth and Zoe reached out simultaneously to catch her before she could topple over. Room spinning, she saw their eyes meet, some sort of initial truce negotiated over her body.
Jareth had suggested—demanded—that the midwife give Sarah a thorough checkup in his presence, but Sarah had put him off. She was too tired after the vow to even consider it, begging for a nap instead while Sir Didymus was sent off to make arrangements for her new vassal's livery and quarters. Zoe had, surprisingly, offered Jareth an olive branch in the form of a short wooden tube with a flared lip. "A Pinard horn. Maybe you'd like to hear the baby's heartbeat?" And she had Sarah lay down in her bed and shimmied her clothing out of the way, pressed the fetal stethoscope hard against Egg first in one direction and then another. She looked up at Sarah and gave that delighted and surprised smile again, the one that reached her lips, showed her pretty white teeth. "There it is," she had said, beckoning Jareth over.
"So loud," he said in wonder, on his knees before her. He looked up at Sarah in worshipful delight. "So strong!" And Zoe had carefully retreated into the background as he stroked her skin and kissed her before turning his ear back to the instrument again. "Can you hear it, Sarah?"
She had shook her head. He pressed her hand under his, holding the horn in place, and turned into an owl, brought his owl's ears to the instrument, strutted across her belly twice in possessive triumph, and then turned his head to the lip of the horn again, and chirped and warbled in a quick oceanic rhythm. That's what he hears, Sarah had thought with wonder, scratching her free hand through his powder-soft feathers. That's Egg. Her soul leapt with utter delight.
That night, Jareth slept warm and safe beside her. They'd made delirious and perhaps inappropriate love together, but the tides of desire were too strong to be stopped by considerations of her rather large belly. She dreamed she was hip deep in that tide, that it was pulling at her thighs and at Egg. She dreamed it was ripping Egg slowly away from her, like a scab, like a tooth.
She woke with a start. Pain. She felt a pain gnawing slowly at Egg. The pain was Egg. In terror she reached between her legs and felt her fingers come away wet, saw them smear darkness against her nightgown.
"Jareth!" Sarah said with a surge of panic. "Jareth, get the midwife. I'm bleeding!"
Next… Chapter 7: "Strength"
Thanks to FrancesOsgood, acting midwife for this story and beta extraordinaire.
Fanny: You're in for a treat next chapter, then.
Panda: Finnvah loves Sarah intensely, yes. Maybe even more than he loves Jareth. This will cause complications. I feel like this shout-out should be as long as your delicious reviews, but it's not. Instead, I'll tell you that the moment with the little owl proudly strutting across Sarah's baby-bump is totally for you.
Askeebe: It's tricky to write an adult and sexualized and fully-formed adult character who appears in the film as a baby. Trying to avoid as much squick as possible; this Toby isn't a baby any more.
Jetredgirl: I know you like the Sareth action. I hope this chapter was good for you.
Zayide: Finnvah loves Sarah for her own sake. His relationship to Jareth is neither wholesome nor simple. But wholesome and simple are overrated, at least in my opinion.
Jalen: I'm loving your Labydrabbles! I don't know if I made any references to anything in this chapter, but if you see one, point it out? It was pretty exhausting to write.
Whydancer: Jareth is a special case because of his tempering/tampering with humanity. He's also the King of the Labyrinth. He could have probably gone the goo route, but it would have left a terrible wound in the Labyrinth. His idea was to get his replacement, his heir, to do him in and take his place. These are great questions, but I like to leave some of this stuff purposefully ambiguous and try to answer to it in the story (because I'm trying to figure these things out myself, too).
brylcreem queen: Miss them no more! This chapter is all Sarah and Jareth all the way… but maybe upsetting.
comical freaka: HOLY CRAP LADY! The Troll Market is an absolute and direct inspiration for the Goblin Market in this setting—I watched that scene about three times to get the right 'feel' for it. *high five*
irgroomer: If my best-laid plans go aright, he'll get his boo-boo (and other parts) kissed next chapter.
Kat: Thank you! So glad you're enjoying it!