I'm so sorry that it took so long to get this chapter out and it's so short, I've been settling back into uni life.
Hope you enjoy it I promise the next instalment should be finished soon.
We are in the home stretch now!
Enjoy please feel free to review.
Chapter 18
The Castle beyond the Goblin City was full to the rafters with the Labyrinths subjects and the Goblin King had left his throne room, unable to take the terrified stares of his people, taking refuge in his bedchamber. The storm was just about to reach the castle and the Goblin King could only hope that his parents could calm Sarah down.
Jareth could still only barely understand how Sarah could have obtained this much magic and apparently it wasn't just over his Labyrinth. He knew it wasn't to do with the powers that he had misguidedly gifted a 15-year old, albeit stunningly beautiful, girl-child.
Obviously feeling more comfortable now his parents were there Eric couldn't help himself in spouting one more insult at the pregnant Sarah. "And you do? A mortal slut who refused a King, a King who would have laid the world at her feet?"
Sarah felt the anger rising again. "What did you just call me?"
"A mortal slut." He seemed to relish the insult
"Eric, I wouldn't..." His mother tried to warn him.
"Mother!" He silenced Titania. "This is between me and Jareth's whore! Yes that means you Sarah Williams, still an oblivious child who thinks she can throw her weight around with fae royalty and always win."
"Why is it that neither of your sons know how to treat women, King Oberon?" She address the High King directly for the first time, trying to divert her own attention. Sarah was still just about managing to hold in her fury, unsure of what she was now capable of.
"Don't you dare insult my family, bitch." Eric spat, still not taking Titania's less thansubtle hints to stop.
Sarah couldn't hold it in any longer, and Eric slammed against a wall again. "I really would try to avoid angering me further, you arrogant pig. I would call you a son of a bitch but I happen to respect and like your mother." This time she had cut off the air supply to his lungs, very soon Eric was turning blue in the face. "Your majesties, I suggest that you take that odious sack of shit out of my sight before I kill him." She said not taking her eyes off the Fae prince.
With her back turned Sarah didn't notice The High King sneaking up behind her, pulling off one of his leather gloves, he lightly touched the back of her neck with his bare hand and she collapsed on the floor. Eric, who had been turning a nice shade of blue, was released from the mortals hold and fell to the floor gasping.
"Well that could have gone better." Titania said sharing a look with her husband.
Jareth had been staring at the oncoming storm from the bedchamber's balcony for so long he almost didn't notice it vanish without a trace. It was the cheer that went up from the throne room below that alerted him, rousing him from the dire thoughts that had momentarily distracted him.
"That was far too easy." He said to himself. "A storm like that can't just vanish, even in the Labyrinth. If Sarah had something to do with this it wouldn't be natural for her to cool off that quick. Something has gone wrong." The Goblin King left his jubilant subjects and transported himself to his parents, more worried than ever about Sarah.
"I had to do something." Oberon tried to justify his actions, "She was starting to realize the extent of her powers, or even that there might not be a limit at all."
"Yes but did you have to knock her out?" His wife was annoyed now at every male member of her immediate family. "We needed her calm, not unconscious!" Titania berated.
"Well talking with her didn't seem to be having the correct impact." He responded.
"Who cares," The now recovered, but still terminally stupid Eric, moaned, "she needs to be locked up for what she did to me!" He was sitting on the sofa cradling his head in his hands, elbows on his knees.
It was that moment that Jareth appeared in his usual shower of glitter. He took one look at Sarah, where she still lay on the carpet, and rushed over to kneel beside her, gathering her prone form in his arms. "What the hell happened?" He demanded to know.
Eric was the first to respond. "Your girlfriend tried to kill me!" He whined.
"Only after you tried to take Jay." Titania reminded him, the child in question held safely in her arms.
"He is my son, I have the right to take him." He was still adamant on that point.
Oberon interrupted with, "Shut up Eric!"
Jareth was slightly confused but his anger was mounting. "You are that child's father?" At the cocky, proud look on his half-brothers face Jareth lost any trace of sympathy he might have felt for a man on the receiving end of what Sarah Williams could dole out. "Then Sarah had the right to punish you for what you did. Do you have any idea what she went through for that boy? What I did to her because of it?" He took a deep breath and directed his next comment at the High Queen, "You'll be glad to know the storm is gone for now." He managed to get out between his clenched teeth.
"But it might return when Sarah wakes up." Titania responded, "What are we going to do?" She asked to the room in general, not expecting an answer.
"What happened here?" Jareth repeated his question, staring down into the sleeping, tired face of the woman he loved.
Titania filled in the blanks in the Goblin Kings knowledge. She watched his face, worried at the shade of red her usually pale step-son was turning. "What I don't understand is how she could have so much magic? I could rationalise her effect on the Labyrinth, but the mortal realm?" She finished.
"I know why." Jareth answered after taking a few deep breaths. "I think I finally started using my brain when I was looking at that storm." His eyes finally left Sarah's face.
"You gave her this power!" Oberon accused, already aggravated with the steadily worsening situation.
"No I didn't, but I will deal with it." The Goblin King promised his Father.
Oberon curtly nodded in agreement
Eric chose that moment to have a tantrum more suited to a five year old. He stood and stalked over to where Jareth still held the human woman."Well isn't that nice, your mortal strumpet gets what she wants, you get things your own way per the staus quo, I somehow lose the rights to take my own child and get told off by everyone as per, bloody, usual!"
"Eric you may be unfaithful to your wife but Sarah waited nine years for me." Jareth explained with a patience that he did not feel. "You have no grounds on which to insult the woman I love and bearer of my child!"
"A woman who twice refused you? Spare me from your self-serving indignation. All mortal women are trollops, eager to bed any good looking man in an attempt to get themselves off." The arrogant idiot spouted.
To spare himself any further dealings with his half-brother Jareth conjured a crystal to imprison the irate, immature Prince. Eric was left pounding on the inside of a bubble of magic that took up an entire corner of Sarah's bedroom.
"Father if you could take Eric back to Avalon, I need Queen Titania to take Sarah and the child back to the Labyrinth." The Goblin King asked as politely as he could given the current state of his emotions.
"Can't you take them yourself?" Titania would rather go somewhere private to lecture her biological son than face Sarah and Jareth's relationship problems.
"No, I have no power over either of them." He admitted. "I think that has always been the problem." He continued almost to himself, his eyes returning to Sarah.