Chapter Forty-One
8 Months After Sarah's Aboveground Wedding
Sarah clicked 'Save' on her word processor app and shut down her laptop. She felt good… the outline of her book series was complete, and now she could start fleshing out the individual volumes. She stretched her back a bit, looking around her office. Her eyes fell on her wedding picture, displayed proudly next to the crystal frame Sir Didymus had given her, and the lovely polished rock paperweight from Ludo. Smiling softly, she let the memories of that day, and the days since, wash over her.
One holdover from that ceremony was the new fashion among Othánas couples to wear matching wedding bands when they'd made their bonding wish. The jewel crafters were making a brisk business designing rings out of various precious metals, sometimes accented with gemstones or crystals. Sarah adored the band of braided gold that she wore which matched the 'engagement' ring Jareth had given her the night they made their bonding wish. The gemstone, a 'Dragon's Tear', was a beautiful, faceted stone that changed its color, ranging from shades of red to violets to greens and blues, depending on how the light hit it. Sometimes she just sat there, staring at it, moving her hand about in order to see the different colors.
It was amusing to know that the person who inspired Jareth's choice of engagement ring was her own brother, Toby. It was touching, really… the way Toby gravitated to Jareth whenever they visited. In many ways, Jareth was the perfect big brother in Toby's eyes, and it was obvious that he in turn really enjoyed her brother's company. Seeing them together, she recalled that vision of the little green-eyed boy in the snow and knew in her heart that Jareth would be a phenomenal father.
True to Karen's prediction, she saw more of her family after her marriage than she did during her university years. Jareth made good on his promise to bring the Williams family to the Irish Estates, and they passed a lovely Harvest Festival week, taking in the countryside and seeing the slow, mellow pace of life so far from New York. Toby was glad when Garthan and Lily came to the estate for the week and brought Anduin; their antics together with the glamored Ughlánas (which Jareth explained as local children who liked to play at the estate) never failed to elicit amusement from the adults around them.
Shaking the memories from her head, Sarah glanced at her inbox, noting a letter from Queen Erzebet of the Strigoi. She opened the letter with real pleasure… the Strigoi Queen was a vibrant, pleasant woman with a wicked sense of humor to match her own. Sarah always enjoyed their correspondence and was glad to be able to work towards bringing the two kingdoms closer together. Just a month ago, the Goblin Kingdom had hosted an emissary from the Strigoi, another very pleasant and charming couple, and Jareth had high hopes that a treaty between the two nations might follow.
Taking up her duties as Queen of the Goblins had been… interesting. For months after her graduation (and the subsequent freeing up of much of her time), she sat with Jareth in local court and the Tír Ceilte court, observing the kinds of petitions and disputes that came before the Crown. She had been almost unbearably moved when she'd noticed that Jareth had installed a matching throne to his in each chamber, demonstrating her equal status for all to see.
After some time had passed, and when she had a decent idea of how things worked, Jareth encouraged her to start making her own judgements and analysis of what came to be presented to them. She was hesitant at first, but his faith in her gradually gave her the confidence to start participating in the Court proceedings directly.
He also invited her to come at least once a week to the security briefings he had with Randel and Garthan. While military matters were definitely not her cup of tea, she appreciated that Jareth wanted her to at least be informed of the security status of their kingdom. In all ways, he treated her as a co-ruler, not a consort. She was still a little amazed that he would have that kind of trust in her.
She tried to be careful about introducing a lot of human customs to the Underground. While Jareth had no objection to her importing her holiday traditions (indeed, it seemed that any excuse to celebrate was welcomed by the residents of the Kingdom), she always kept in the forefront of her mind that these people had gotten on for centuries without the benefit of her so-called wisdom, and that she had to be cautious when it came to some of the concepts she had been raised on. When she wanted to make a change or an addition, she made sure to always run it past Jareth, to make sure she wasn't going to step on any toes. So far, it worked quite well.
One change she made, that Jareth had wholeheartedly approved of, was her integration of the Ughlánas into more of the social life of the castle. They were included in the holiday festivities she planned, as well as the other social activities she organized. The Othánas as a whole certainly had no objection, it could be said that they simply hadn't known how to open up some of the castle functions to include them. They enjoyed the presence of the Ughlánas and started planning some of their own, more private events to include them.
The only part of this that Jareth countermanded was the idea of integrating their dining halls… and she couldn't blame him, really. Her own experience with trying to instill table manners backed him up in his insistence that they dine separately. For their part, the Ughlánas were on their best behavior during these new activities, and a new spirit of 'family' seemed to permeate the castle since she'd taken up residence.
One thing that fascinated her was the way the Othánas educated their children. In the castle was a suite of rooms called 'the Creche', where the wished-aways were cared for before adoption and where the children of the courtiers would come to spend a good part of their day. Lessons in reading, writing, mathematics, and history were presented in games, craft projects, and activities, with the children learning as they went. Once a child had reached the human equivalent of ten years old, they were surreptitiously tested so as to discover what areas they had an affinity for and desire to learn. Their education was then tailored to those areas. Eventually, the child would move toward one-on-one education with a knowledgeable teacher in their chosen field. Sarah found it to be preferable to the system she'd gone through Aboveground and spent a lot of time there, helping to develop lessons geared toward reading and writing.
She had been surprised to find that the Ughlánas had a similar creche on their side of the castle. While she knew they could read (at least at an elementary level) and do basic math, she hadn't expected that such thought would be put into educating them. She was intrigued to find that the Ughlánas mostly enjoyed farming, and that they were largely responsible for growing the Kingdom's foodstuffs. In their creche, they learned animal husbandry and the cultivation of crops along with the basics of literacy. She made sure to spend a lot of her time in their creche, for fun mostly, as she knew nothing about farming. It was a wonderful system, all told.
Her defense classes were coming along nicely, too. Jareth hadn't been kidding when he said that he expected her to learn self-defense. The lessons she took were not the more mellow version she was used to Above. Oh, no. She was drilled in how to kill someone with her bare hands, with her feet, with her knees or elbows. She was taught to use every part of her body as an offensive weapon, even her teeth. Once she was deemed proficient in unarmed combat, she was then tested to see what weapons she had an affinity for. Although she was trained to be able to use swords, bows, crossbows, and hand axes, it would appear that daggers were much more comfortable for her, thus she spent an hour per day drilling with Lily in the use of them. At all times, she had several cold forged steel daggers concealed on her person, her 'hidden sting' as Jareth named them. It felt… empowering.
Her magic lessons also proceeded apace. Jareth hadn't been sure what kind of Goblin magic she would end up wielding. Othánas women had Healing magic, but not much else… not unless they were in danger or enraged. That was when they could do limited range transporting and some shielding, as well as offensive magic such as levin-bolts. Sarah had no Healing magic, but then… neither did Jareth.
Extensive testing and experimentation showed that the magic she had access to was actually his, and she channeled his power as opposed to using any power of her own. She could fling levin-bolts, generate magical shielding and transport herself at will (so long as she had been to the place she was transporting to or had something as a link). She could also conjure items, with the restriction that they had to actually exist, either Above or in the Underground. She could wave her hand and banish items too, although where the items were banished to, she didn't know. Conjuring and banishment didn't work on living things, but she could conjure herself up a pizza and a Pepsi now and then and banish the remains.
Interestingly, she discovered during her magic lessons that while Othánas males had access to much of the same magic that Jareth had, the energy for that magic came from within them. The same was true for female Healing magic. Thus, it was a finite resource. A person could literally drain themselves to death if they used too much magic (which is what Jareth had almost done when he'd transported the entire Goblin population to the Labyrinth way back when). This was why the Othánas strove to do as much as possible without magic as opposed to using their powers. Eons of being a hunted people had taught them to always keep a reserve for emergencies. They followed this precept religiously and frequently copied human innovations to give them the creature comforts common to the Fae without expending magical power.
Another reason for this caution was the fact that magic could be tampered with, something Jareth used to do to the Fae back in his saboteur days, and the more things that didn't rely on it, the better. Unlike the general population, Jareth's personal reserve of magical power was immense, and as King of the Goblins and Lord of the Labyrinth, he also had the power of the Labyrinth to fall back on, which (by extension) meant that she did too. He still followed the precept of 'less is more' when it came to magic and did his best to instill the same values in her.
One of the powers he had that she did not share was his conjuring and manipulation of crystals. This was apparently something linked to the Labyrinth and under his purview alone. Likewise, she could not manipulate time the way he could. The whole thing was rather fascinating… time was fluid, but there were some things that could not be changed. Altering time to bring someone back from the dead wasn't possible, as the soul of the person had already moved on and could not be brought back. The whole thing was so esoteric and convoluted that it scattered her thoughts, and she preferred to just shrug it off as something outside of her reach and call it good.
She also could not polymorph into an owl or any other creature. This, apparently, was a power that only the male Othánas possessed. This disappointed her a bit, as she'd been looking forward to trying out flying. Jareth promised her a ride on dragonback to make up for it, and while it wasn't exactly the same as flying under her own power would have been, actually riding a dragon was an utterly exhilarating experience. The dragon himself, named Nargel, was quite congenial during the flight.
The other power he had that she did not share was his mastery over dreams. It apparently did not extend to the population of the Above at large but did affect those who had come into contact with the Underground, such as potential wishers and former runners. He laughingly admitted that he would have been able to observe her dreams had she not revoked his power over her and told her with a rakish smile that while he couldn't see her dreams of him… he knew when she'd had them… and how frequently. Her face flamed at that point, recalling that many of those dreams were… rather explicit. Then, she was horrified, remembering that she'd given his power back when they'd reunited. He'd chuckled, nuzzling her neck, and told her that he hadn't peeked at her dreams, knowing she would not welcome such an intrusion in the slightest. He then suggested that at some point she should tell him what she dreamed… so they could act it out. That led to a rather wild night in the Escher room… one that could still make her blush when she thought of it.
That was one area that she suffered from a bit of insecurity about. Adulthood for the Othánas came at around two hundred years… meaning that Jareth had been a grown man for almost eight hundred years. While it was unrealistic to expect that he had passed those centuries without ever indulging in sex, it had also bothered her a little that he'd had so much experience. She didn't judge him for his lifestyle before she'd even met him, not at all. What had bothered her was that she felt… inadequate, at least as compared to the lovers he'd had in the past.
What she didn't count on was that her aura would give her away, nor did she realize just how persistent he could be when he knew something was bothering her. Eventually, she spilled it out, and to his credit, he didn't laugh at her. Instead, he patiently explained that for the Othánas, sex in and of itself was regarded as little more than a bodily function, much like eating or drinking. It was pleasing, just as eating a meal was pleasing, but the pleasure was fleeting and not, in the end, satisfying.
Sex with a bond-mate on the other hand was entirely different, an experience on so many different levels of emotional and physical intimacy that it was like comparing vanilla ice cream to a triple decker banana split with chocolate sauce and caramel. His experiences with her were every bit the overwhelming, fantastical, and ecstatic encounters that they were for her… because their joining during sex was more than just physical. It was spiritual, mental, emotional, and magical, for him just as much as for her. After a while, she came to believe him and stopped feeling as if her inexperience was somehow a disappointment to him.
He was also incredibly patient with her. It took a while for her to feel comfortable in her own skin, and to feel free enough to get adventurous with him. He encouraged her to be as bold as she wanted to be, letting her set the pace of how far she wanted to go. She recalled her thought when they'd reunited in person, how she'd wanted to tear his shirt off with her teeth. One night, she did exactly that, to his utter delight, and over time, she was able to relax and let her imagination run free.
It wasn't just in their bed play that he fulfilled her needs… he was incredibly in tune with her moods, no doubt because of her aura, but it was how he reacted to them that was so… wonderful. He could sense when she wanted tenderness, when she wanted laughter, or those quiet moments when she just wanted his presence. As time went on, she could read his aura much more clearly, and could respond to his moods as well.
She also learned to read his expressions as well as his aura, the way his lips quirked when he was amused, the way his eyes crinkled in the corners when something struck him as humorous. She learned to read the tensing of the muscles in his jaw and the lowering of his brows as warnings of an upcoming storm and was thankful that his anger was rare and never unjustified. Above all, she reveled in the love and heat in his gaze whenever it fell upon her.
He was also rather playful. She'd discovered that he was ticklish, and took great joy in tormenting him, at least until he used his greater strength against her, then paid her back in kind. He would also try to make her laugh during Tír Ceilte court, whispering jokes and outright slanders about some of the petitioners, and it was her part of the game to keep her expression neutral. Most times, she succeeded.
As she stared dreamily at their wedding picture, she had to admit that married life had been something wondrous so far. If there was anything she could point to as a regret, it was that it had taken her so long to come to terms with her love for him. Especially when every day, she loved him even more.