A.N.: The dress I mention in detail for Sarah is based on the one worn by Jennifer Connelley at the London premier of "Noah." Seriously, Google it. I think it's weird (I think most Hollywood fashion is weird), but it's definitely a Goblin Queen gown. I mean, just look at the feathers!

I'd also like to say that I had a strange bit of serendipity today: today, I ran into my old high school friend who loves Labyrinth, and was like, "Hey, remember how I'd never watch it with you? I freaking love it now, read fanfiction with me!" Yes, old friends are good friends.

And zomg, you guys, I've updated my profile page! Go check me out and...thumbs up...or...whatever...? It also includes a link to my brand-spanking new tumblr, which you should check out as it's going to have sneak peeks of the stuff I'm working on. This chapter was going to be on there, but I managed to get it finished before I got around to sneak peeking.

Second A.N.: Sorry this took way too long to update...I was having a hard time with the second half of this chapter. My awesome beta Mztlynne would like to take the blame for being busy with finals and being unable to help me for a while, but I really blame myself and my own laziness. Hopefully we're back on the ball, or at least not completely off it...

TheRealEatsShootsandLeaves: First off, thank you for reviewing every single chapter of "We Must Not Look on Goblin Men!" (And I cracked up at the hotel fruit line.) Are all the rest of you that dedicated to my awesomeness? I didn't think so (But no, I'm just joking [At least partly, go read my crossover, I really liked doing it.]).

And wow, thank you for the compliment! I did not think it was quite that sultry a scene, but I'm glad to hear you did! I wrote up a mini-dissection of how I thought Jareth should act and why, and whether not I was even being successful in that pursuit, but it was really boring and long, so I'm substituting it with a simple, "Thanks!"

dcdomain6: I had an initial thought of, "Man, I guess I'm really not being subtle about this." Then I remembered I pretty much gave away that particular plot point in the summary, so oh well.

Honoria Granger: Thank you, as always!

Maurdergurl2010: I am having so much damn fun with Toby. He's a teenager, which is its own bag of worms, but now he's dealing with serious emotional issues that are difficult for mature adults. I like to think his feelings are understandable, if not always healthy or right.

And a big ol' thank you and smooch to everyone else!

Turn around

And you're walking toward me

I'm breaking down

And you're breathing slowly

Say the word,

And I will be your man,

Your man,

Say when

"Say When," The Fray

The Goblin King had never been sick a day in his long and illustrious, even infamous life, so the fact that he now had a slight pounding at the temples was quite unusual. Novel, even. His unmatched eyes were closed in a wince against the suddenly too-bright light, and his gloved fingers were massaging his scalp as he groaned very slightly and to himself. A headache...usually he would have blamed the goblins, but he had a feeling niggling away in the back of his being that laid the blame squarely at Sarah's feet.

Sarah...What had he been doing? How irritating, his mind always distracted by that fretful mortal child. Well, not a child anymore, and his thin lips curved at the edges into a goblin smile. Sarah Williams, all a woman, and so worth the wait...he had been with her just a moment ago, had he not? The Goblin King opened his eyes and was relieved to note that the light did not assault his senses. He felt...fine, mostly. The headache was subsiding. He was standing in his bedroom, fully dressed, and that all seemed appropriate enough, but he could have sworn he had come here because of Sarah...looking for Sarah or getting something for Sarah or tempting Sarah; it always came down to her.

It felt very far away, but he could hear the striking gong of a clock from down the halls of the Castle. The thirteenth hour – and it was afternoon, for it was far too bright for it to be the middle of the night. Had Court Hours come so soon? Time to deal with his rowdy subjects as they presented grievances or asked permission or simply capered and cavorted as they most usually did. Damn it. With any luck, the headache would not worsen.

But the Castle was unusually quiet as he strode through the great stone corridors of his private chambers. His boots made their customary, echoing tap as he walked, but he heard no belching, squealing, screaming goblins as he neared the Throne Room, either. That was all very strange, maybe even cause for alarm. Even so, his black gloved hand did not hesitate when it touched the great, carved handle of the Throne Room door, either. No, he pulled it open with one swift, easy motion, intending to march straight in to claim his seat at the center of the chaos – but at the threshold, hesitated.

It was...almost empty. There were a few of his rowdy subjects, scattered here and there, but they were in the process of sweeping up stray feathers and garbage, or were polishing the thrones- thrones?

"Darling!" The King wheeled on the heels of his sharp boots, his misaligned pupils a shade larger than was usually seen. Sarah? No doubt it was the same face, the same voice, and she was smiling. Not that quiet, calm way he often saw her when she was curled up in his chair with a book, or when she scratched the goblin Wig under his nubbly chin; no, this was a beam, a brightness of being that was caused by and directly for his benefit alone. She walked towards him, and he felt himself swallow a little harder than he was used to. This Sarah-Not-Sarah laid a smooth and delicate hand against the muscles of his chest and said in a soft voice, "I was worried I was going to have to wake you...did you sleep late, my beloved?"

Jareth said nothing for quite some time. What could he say? He'd afforded Sarah a considerable wardrobe, now that she was his, all his; but this particular item he could never remember having seen ever before. The bodice was all black lace, connected by pale pink chiffon rosettes. They made her flawless skin appear all the paler in comparison, and the skirt was entirely done in black feathers. She looked...

"...areth? Are you feeling alright?"

"What?" He was roused from his distraction by her voice, by her soft hand pressed against his forehead. His eyes shuttered for a moment at the contact and then opened again to look at her once more.

Those eyes of hers looked at him like he was the only thing worth seeing, and it was both tremendously gratifying and also hunger inducing, in the most visceral and thorough of ways. "You're lost in your own little world today, my husband..."

He felt himself choke slightly again, but...was not entirely sure why. "Nevertheless..." It was all he could mutter. His head was feeling heavy again, like mutton. "It is time to start the day's tasks."

"Nonsense..." Sarah's soft hands left his face, traveled down his arms, and when they had finished teasing the tips of his fingers, they found a home at the bony point of his narrow hips. It felt electric just noticing the heat from her body passing into him. "There's nothing so pressing it can't be done by someone lesser than yourself...Should a King clean the stables, or should a stable boy?"

"It's quite charming, when you put it that way."

The woman snapped her fingers, and what few goblins were in the Throne Room left it – for once. The silence was entirely too pleasant; but Sarah's hands were back at his hips again, and it was by the hips she gently led him back, back toward the seat of his throne. It was then he remembered the second chair, and his eyes gave a quick scan to the side. Yes, a throne to match his own, all bone and ivory, with a velvet drape of royal blue, instead of purple. Most notably of all, however, was the fact that it was just a few inches lower than his own, a submissive place, and he felt himself already beginning to purr. What had he been thinking? All was entirely right with the world...

"Jareth..." Sarah's hands were at his shoulders again, gently guiding him down to his seat, and she touched him in little, rapturous ways: a stroke along the sharp edge of his cheek, a quick touch along the point of his ears; her thumb lingered against his lower lip, or softly dusted his closed eyelids. And all the while, she looked like she might fall at his feet and worship him – and then did nearly that.

The woman leaned down before her King and husband and planted a long, lingering and soft kiss upon his mouth, her hands still resting against his shoulders, before she sank slowly to the floor before him. Sarah was sighing with a kind of bliss that was almost painful, so wonderful was it to hear. Her green eyes had never sparkled so brightly, her hands had never run along his tightly muscled thigh so well...her cheek rested at his knee before she kissed him there as well, one little hand slipping between his legs to spread them just a few inches apart. The King raised a single arched eyebrow, but then just stroked his Queen's impossibly silky hair. "Precious thing..."

She smiled at him with those red lips of hers, like his voice alone was enough to bring her a kind of joy – and gods, did he hope it was – before she kissed the inside of his thigh. And then again, just a little further up this time. And again, and again, and...He hissed a little, his hips arching just slightly forward as her lips found their perfect target. "Sarah..."

The girl pulled away, face flushed, but still smiling. Her beautiful, thin fingers had hooked into the waist of his breeches and were pulling very slowly, but with a sense of determination. "Yes?" she asked him as she continued to pull just a little more cloth away, just a little closer to her goal. "Was there something you needed?"

"...nothing at all. Do continue."

She was perfect, she was perfect. She stole the breath from his lungs and the soul from his body when she loved him like that...and she did love him, it was obvious in every rapturous, adoring touch she made, every time her soft lips or supple tongue teased him just so. In another time, in another place, it would have been crass or debauched. Here, in this moment, it was the perfect evidence of devotion and worship. Everything she gave to him, he returned with the way his lithe fingers gripped her hair, with the way his breath just barely ghosted across his lips in a moaning sigh. Every muscle was shuddering in delight, and it was thanks to her. Everything wonderful and horrible in the world had always been her.

She was finishing him. His grip on the girl tightened and he gasped her name very softly as she went. His blood was pumping more slowly and calmly now, the flush along his cheeks was dying just a little bit more. Sarah righted his trousers and wrapped her arms around her husband's torso in ecstatic devotion, whimpering, "I love you, Jareth."

The Goblin King's eyes tripled in size.

"Damn it..." he was hissing now, finger and thumb pinching the bridge of his beak-like nose. "Bloody hell..." A dream, all just a dream. Pathetic, he hissed at himself inside his mind. The peach, the bedroom...the King of Dreams had been fooled by magic of his own making. My innermost desire is to have her say she loves me! What has become of the Goblin King?

"Jareth?" She was looking up at him with those green eyes wide with worry – but no, she wasn't. The true Sarah was most likely standing over his bed and laughing at him. Another victory in her court. And yet, she was still the one he wanted, and he felt himself burn for her with just a little more heat and intensity than he had even a moment before. His little Champion...every point she stole merely increased his desire for her. A game to never end, that was Sarah. "Is something wrong?"

The dream was almost done now, he could feel it starting to slowly fade along the edges, peripheral vision just slightly blurred. He smiled sagaciously. "Why, nothing at all, my pet..." He held her chin with the fingers that had just been pinching his nose and sighed. He might as well enjoy himself if he was forced into napping. But now, it was time to awaken. A drop of his passion lay burning on the corner of her lower lip, and he bent to kiss it away. The taste of himself on her soft mouth was like utopia, and his long fingers curled around her delicate arm, pulling her in towards him. When he reluctantly parted from this perfect dream of his, he hissed, "Sarah..."

"Yes?"

"Let's do this again, in reality, sometime."

The next time he opened his eyes, the Throne Room had entirely disappeared. He was not sitting, he was sprawled on the elegant coverlet of his bed, and it was dark, save for the sputtering of candles in their holders. That Sarah...he was going to get her for this, he really was; once he found her...Jareth sat up with a smooth pull of his muscles, betraying no grogginess from his magically drugged nap. He was not going to let the girl get any more satisfaction in her victory than she already had, and he smoothed back his mussed mane of hair with an easy motion, looking for all the world like everything had gone exactly as he had intended it to. But where was that damned Sarah?

Ah – in his armchair, tucked into the corner of the bedroom. A fire was burning away in the grate, and she was curled in on herself much as her hound pup might be, chin at her knees and breath soft on her lips. She looked every bit as wonderful as the Sarah of his dreams, even without the gown of a Goblin Queen. All the same, Jareth snorted at her sleeping figure in his chair. "So clever, are we, Miss Williams? So grown and mature to be playing at petty vengeance with your rescuer." Miss Williams did not respond, she just continued on in uninterrupted sleep. "Hm. Should anyone else try something so brazen, an oubliette would be the very least of their concerns. You have no concept for how well I treat you, the liberties I allow you." No argument from the girl. She could sleep through any tirade the Goblin King could give her.

Jareth stood from the bed with a very soft, yet very distinct sigh. "You're a terrible little hussy." Even so, before he could make good on any of his implied threats, he found he had crossed to the chair, pulled her gently into his thin arms, and laid her upon the bed with all the care a shepherd might afford his dearest lamb. Looking down at that obnoxious, stubborn, sleeping face, the King brushed a stray lock of her dark hair from her eyes – and pulled the coverlet around her. She could sleep on; he would go assess the damage done to his portrait hall for the present.

Spring had come to the Underground. It felt like it happened all at once, and almost without warning. Sarah knew, logically, that the snow had been lessening and melting for weeks, but she awoke on this particular morning to find it had totally disappeared. The conveniences of magic, she supposed.

The air in the Castle and the Goblin City was heavy with warmth and just a bit too much humidity to be comfortable. It made the goblins irritable, hungry, grumpy, though they were usually all three of these things, so far as Sarah could say. They were animated, too – not that this was so unusual.

Sarah's grasp on time had become shady at best, living in a twenty-six hour world, but she reasoned that she had now spent more than four months Underground. It was strange how little that bothered her. Four months away from her life and from her family, and yet...And yet everyday, she was finding new things to see: new, ancient maps in the library; a new plant unlike anything else before it in the garden; a new path through the Labyrinth with the promise of new adventures and new creatures. It wasn't that she wasn't still mourning, but rather that her love of magic made everything so...different.

Sarah had loved reading about the Labyrinth as a child, and even in her moments of greatest terror for herself and for her brother, she had loved being in it, surrounded by its magic. And she had loved seeing magic spread through the rest of her simple, mortal life. It was all these things, combined all over again. She found herself in the seat of all grand magic, and despite the cost, she found she was loving it. And Jareth...Jareth was a jerk, but he was still every girlish fantasy of sensuality she had ever been able to conjure. College boyfriends, theater boyfriends, they were attempts at a mortal life, but they never had lived up to her fantasy, just like everything else in her life. He could get under her skin and annoy her as no one else ever could, and yet she still found herself wrapped in his arms, night after night. It felt distressingly natural, and she had no desire to stop it.

But today, in the springtime haze, everything felt...fraught; like a wire, strung tight. Yes, it wasn't unusual for the goblins to be animated, but she'd never seen them quite like this before. They skittered about the Castle halls like furtive little whisperers, and they chittered and chattered in low voices, when they usually had no qualms with making noise. When she questioned Wog, the only answer Sarah received was, "Something happening, Lady!"

"Well, what?"

"We'll see, we'll see!" He spun in circles like Tristan did chasing his tail, and when more goblins passed by, they promptly joined in.

"The words, the words!"

"Soon, soon!"

Sarah watched them until she felt dizzy and then just decided to leave them to their topsy turvy turnings. They didn't make any sense anyway.

Even so, she felt like she couldn't escape this sense of tension. It wasn't just the goblins, it was the very air, it was the thrumming of magic at the Labyrinth's heart that added to this sense of impatient waiting. Something was happening, Wog was right about that, but she just wished she knew what. In the solar of the Goblin King, she stood on the balcony and looked out. Dark clouds were coming over the far away mountains, and they looked to her like a herd of wild horses, galloping and raging forward, unfettered and unbroken. Something was coming, and it was more than just the rain.

A strange twitch ran through the woman then – like the pricking of gooseflesh, it fled down her shoulders and through to her fingertips. Sarah shuddered and tossed her hair to try and clear the odd sensation, but it lingered longer than a simple nervous twitch. Things...happened in the Underground, in the Goblin King's castle, that she would have had no way of explaining: dresses and books and hairbrushes appearing whenever she looked for them, cups of coffee, even though the goblins forswore any knowledge of the beverage. It was easy to attribute all of this to her lover, but he didn't seem that particular type of thoughtful, to Sarah's mind. Similarly, she sometimes felt she just knew things. Oh, often she was sure she had read them in the great library and then merely forgotten, but she wasn't always certain that was the answer, either. This, right now, was like that, like some ineffable thing was gifting her this knowledge. Maybe it was the way the goblins knew; and they knewsomething, that much was obvious. Maybe it was a product of four months Underground, magic rubbing off on her. But she knew.

She knew that in a far away castle of a far away realm, a little fey prince (who had once been so very much like her own brother) was anxious and angry and fitful. Some inner voice of knowledge whispered the cause of his distress: a natural born child of his adoptive mother and father, a princess adored and doted over. Sarah closed her eyes and swallowed with a dry mouth: these feelings of jealousy and hatred tasted toxic on her tongue, and entirely too, too familiar. And faint and deep, like the pounding of a pulse, those fateful words. "I wish..."

Sarah's closed eyes opened with a hoarse cry, and her looks darted this way and that as more and more goblins went rolling about like whirling dervishes. "He's going to say it!"

"The words, the words!"

"How do you-" Sarah started asking one of the many who were now ignoring her, her pale hand clutching the column of her throat. There was no answer.

All at once, like a great pressure at last bursting, the goblins howled in fretful delight. Screams and cries that were twinged with pleasure erupted all around the woman, goblins dancing, goblins whirling like a storm throughout the halls. Sarah followed their path. What else could she do? She had no idea what was going on, and it seemed they certainly did. The majority of the press of goblin bodies were filtering slowly into the Throne Room, and Sarah elbowed and pushed her way there, damp palms rubbing nervously against her thighs.

On his throne, the Goblin King sat draped in elegant repose, a ghastly, goblin grin on his sharp teeth. He was so relaxed in his posture that his head almost dipped back below the curved arm of the seat, his left leg tossed over the opposite arm. His left hand giddily tapped his riding crop against his knee, but seated there, on his lap, was a babe of no more than six months; a girl child with wispy curls of gold and eyes as wide as saucers, more confused by her surroundings than frightened. The goblins shrieked and howled with delight at her appearance. Sarah swallowed her nerves and pressed her way to the dais where the King's throne sat.

Jareth at last seemed to notice her. "Ah, Sarah!" He sat up, swinging his leg forward and holding the balance of the child with his gloved right hand. Sarah had rarely seen her paramour grinning so greatly, teeth crooked and white in his sharp face. "How grand to have you hear, oh best beloved. Such a change for you, isn't it? Seeing this from the other side?"

Sarah found it difficult to swallow. "What do you mean?"

"'What do I mean,' she asks. As if you didn't know." With his strange, wild eyes never leaving Sarah's face, Jareth leaned slightly forward and pressed his thin lips against the child's soft temple. The girl turned her head slightly, but was quickly back to observing the strange and cavorting creatures all about the Throne Room. Sarah's hands knotted anxiously before her. "Sweet, isn't she? Should you have preferred a younger sister?"

"Jareth-"

"Highness!" A round goblin with tusky teeth bounced by the arm of the throne. "We go now?"

"Yes, yes, go!" Jareth's humor seemed ridiculously high, for even his goblins could not irritate him with a child in his thin arms, sleeves dripping like curtains. "Should you like to watch her while I am...occupied, my sweet? You do have such practice with children, no?"

Sarah chewed at the inside of her cheek for a moment – but nodded, arms outstretched. "Give her to me."

Jareth tossed the round babe into Sarah's waiting arms, and the woman quickly clutched the child to her breast, heart pounding in her chest out of momentary fear the girl would fall straight to the cobbled floor. "It is time for my grand entrance." Before Miss Williams could make further sense of his actions, Jareth had twisted his wrist, so that a crystal sat elegantly and delicately balanced against his fingertips. "A kiss for luck, precious thing?"

Sarah stared at him, green eyes round and red lips parted. A kiss for luck? He wants me to kiss the crystal? Blinking, she bent at the waist and just barely pressed her lips against the smooth, cool surface of the crystal, gaze flicking up to see her lover staring at her and the motion, a kind of gnawing hunger in his eyes that made Sarah's insides clench.

He cleared his throat slightly, eyes somewhat hooded and far more quiet than before. With another flick of his arm, his black and shimmering blue cape fell across his shoulders, and he tossed it behind him with his free arm. "Well?" he directed his goblins, who chattered and giggled with delight. Without another word to anyone, the lot of them blinked out of the Throne Room, so that all that was left were distressed chickens, clucking and molting their feathers as they dashed about – and also, Sarah.

The woman stood by the throne for several minutes, unmoving until the baby began to wriggle against her, starting to become distressed and cooing her confusion. Sarah at last gulped, catching her own saliva and a new breath of air before adjusting her hold on the girl to let her lean against her shoulder. "Oh my God," she whispered aloud, and not even to the baby. Those eyes, those eyes – the way he had looked at her! Had he always been this way, or was this a new development? How long had she failed to notice? Perhaps to the baby, and perhaps not, she whispered, "I think he's in love with me."

Sarah's feet carried her to a very strange room – a nursery. It was not as dusty as she might have expected, and Sarah found herself wondering about the last time it had been used. For Toby, perhaps, or had there been other children in between? Had Jareth been cradled and coddled in this room, or had he had children of his own to put here? If she had been discovered there, and asked how she had found the room in the first place, the only answer Sarah could have given was that it was that same instinct that helped her find missing combs and hair pins – or worse yet, the strange way she had of knowing that a princeling was wandering the Labyrinth now...

Well, it didn't seem to matter. Sarah found clean, pink blankets in the crib, as if their use had been anticipated, and she tucked the baby inside of it, settling herself in a rocking chair just waiting, waiting, waiting...

She must have fallen asleep, for Sarah only felt like she had blinked and she found Jareth leaning over her, a serious (yet curious) expression on his face. The light from the nursery window was dimmer now, and a small fire burned in its grate. Sarah startled slightly, and Jareth leaned back. "You look quite natural like that," he said, his voice rather smoother than she might have expected. "I am certain you did not often adopt such a position for your brother. And still you'll deny me the pleasure of heirs from your pretty-"

Sarah scrubbed at her face and gave him a quick glare from her tired, green eyes. "What's happening?"

"Here, in this room? In the Labyrinth? On the molecular level-"

"In the Labyrinth, gawd, you are the most sarcastic man..."

Jareth smirked at that, though. "Oh, he is losing."

Sarah's teeth worried at her lower lip and she rose with a stiff motion from the rocking chair, rubbing slightly at her tense neck before peering over the edge of the crib. The girl was still asleep. "...her name is Marjolaine," she whispered, and the Goblin King raised an arched brow at her.

"A very lucky guess." Sarah didn't tell him the truth; that she knew it the same way she knew how to find the nursery, and it was a thought she found creepy and not worth dwelling on.

The woman wrung her hands nervously, teeth bruising her lip. "Is the prince in the Labyrinth?"

"He is – and no smart ideas about helping him, you're not to interfere in this bargain."

"Why not? My friends helped me."

Jareth's eyes slitted to a glare. "You don't need to remind me – nevertheless, it was you who spoke the words, it was your triumph. They helped you, but the power came from you alone. You wouldn't do that for him, you would carry him the whole way to the center, and he cannot triumph that way."

Sarah's head drooped, she gave a heavy sigh; it did make sense, she couldn't deny him that. "...can I at least see where he's at?" At the look he gave her, she hurriedly added, "Pure curiosity, scout's honor."

"...hm. Well..." The King sighed, twisting his wrist and producing another of his scrying crystals, holding it out to his lover as she leaned over his palm. "Fair warning: the Labyrinth conforms to the expectations of the person in it. You saw a land of vaguely threatening fantasy because that is what you wished to see. The children of the Underground, however, are raised with very different tales from your little book – and they have the proper respect for my power. What's more, they fear it."

Sarah drew back almost as soon as she had looked inside the globe; the poor boy was sobbing with fear in a stone corridor whose walls seemed to weep blood. And all around him, hideous, gnashing yellow teeth waited in every shadow. It was a nightmare! "Is this what the Labyrinth is really like?" she demanded of him, small hands balled into fists at her side, almost shaking with a kind of betrayal.

Jareth seemed somewhat taken aback. "Really like? Better to ask the Labyrinth, not I! It changes to suit the viewer, it is merely being obliging. If it has a true nature, I know it not."

"And the goblins and the fieries and Hoggle and Didymus – are they all different?"

"Ah. No, not all. My goblins, however, can also look very different from a different perspective." He shook the crystal with his wrist, and, like a snow globe, the image swirled and changed. It was Wog in the glass, Sarah felt certain, but he was nothing like the long-earned, wrinkly faced troublemaker she knew; where Sarah saw Wog as something harmless and well-meaning, a little like a pug, he seemed much larger here, bent over and with long strings of drool dripping from impossibly sharp teeth. He was one of many goblins stalking the halls of the maze, lying in wait, and Sarah turned away, eyes shut tight.

As if sensing her distress, the baby Marjolaine opened blue eyes and began a nervous wail. Well trained, Sarah turned and quickly scooped the child out of the crib, checking her for damp and shushing her gently. Jareth watched every movement with a sharp, owl eye and Sarah's gaze settled on his face, a new kind of determination there. "There's another way to do this, you know."

"I'm not going to like where this is going, am I?"

"Give the child back-"

Jareth pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "No, I'm not going to like this."

"Wait." Sarah briefly held her hand up to him, palm out, begging patience. "Just wait, listen. Give the child back – but not for free."

Jareth's brown eye opened and peered at the woman before her, features tight. "What."

"She's a princess, right?" Sarah adjusted her stance so the royal baby could rest against her hip. "And her parents would do anything to get her back. That puts a king and queen in your debt, Jareth."

The King stood a little straight, the hand that pinched his nose instead going to hold the point of his chin. "...I'm not sure if you were ever told this, but the fey dislike being in debt to others."

Sarah smiled – wide and confident. "That's kind of the point. You can make them do anything to get out of it. And for their child? Well, they might do quite a lot."

It almost looked like his jaw dropped. Sarah stumbled slightly, because she suddenly did not have the warm weight of the infant upon her hip, and she found herself next to Jareth's bed. Oh, of course...him and his glittery poofing about...Before Sarah could further press her point, she found Jareth's now bare hands tangling themselves into her long, dark hair, and his hot mouth pressed against her ivory throat. "You wonderful, delicious, genius woman, you..." She could not answer, for his mouth had found hers, tongues swirled together oh so briefly. "That conniving mind..." He pushed her back onto the bed, pinning her there with his body and covering her with nips and caresses of the most adoring kind. "What do I have to do to make you my Queen?"

Sarah stiffened beneath him, but the fey man hardly noticed, preoccupied with the stays of her gown as she took a sharp breath. "...well, I'd need to be respected, for a start. You'd have to care for me, genuinely and deeply, and I'd have to be your equal."

Jareth stilled above her, his hands still tangled in the ribbons at her back, but he slowly pulled those away as he leaned above her, jaw slightly slack. "...when you say 'equal,' what you mean is not make you submissive to me, yes?"

"Oh jeeze, do we need to get a dictionary for this? Because I'm not getting a good feeling."

Even so, he slid off of her body, off the bed entirely, steadying himself on one knee and hand out; it was that ring again, that gem like a crystal sparkling on his palm. Did he have that with him the whole time? Or was it just magic. "I am willing to hammer out the details once the bargain is struck."