The Darkened King

Doubts and Uncertainties

Sarah's entire body shook as she let the memories sink in. She remembered the numbness she had felt while in the court of the Underground. She remembered how she had become a possession for Jareth, how he had used her.

She remembered her attempts to flee from him, of how she had fought to free herself from him, to free her child from him. The pain of losing a child tore through her as she remembered how empty she became after the miscarriage. She remembered how incomplete she had been, how she drowned in her misery. She had escaped Jareth, he had never known of the babe, and she had been forced to suffer alone.

In the end the sorrow was too great and she had taken her life. She had buried her memory in order to hide her overwhelming sadness. She had not looked back on it since it had happened and she wondered what had happened to Jareth to have made him go so entirely cold. She cast her thoughts back to the time, but she could find nothing but an argument.

He had stolen her from the mortal realm and made her his queen in the Underground. She had loved him and he had with drawn from her. He had been controlling and unfeeling. She had confronted him about it but he had laughed at her and judged her from behind cold eyes.

She had feared him lost.

She still feared him lost.

She was uncertain what to do. Could she even face him again, wasn't that why she had taken her life? Yet she had still returned to him, in the end. Sarah had once been told that a woman would return to her abuser seven times before she left him. She wondered how many times she had returned to Jareth.

Yet she had so many memories of loving him, of being over come with love for him, and of being loved by him. Not just on a physical level, but also on an emotional one. She remembered him looking at her and being able to see his love for her in his eyes.

Or had she just seen what she had wanted?

Sarah cast herself back into the oldest of her memories, the ones clouded the most, and forced herself to remember the beginning.

To remember the truth.

She stared at her reflection; she wore a gauzy white dress and a strange bangle, that appeared to be made of Celtic knots, upon her upper arm. The bangle was her only jewelry and her hair fell past her waist in dark curls.

Turning she found Jareth watching her with an amused expression.

"What is it?" She found herself asking though she did not remember making the decision to speak to him. He was dressed oddly, even more odd than normal, in leather pants and without a shirt. Blue ink revealed more Celtic knots like the one she wore upon her arm.

Her eyes traced the swirling symbols that covered his chest and disappeared beneath his trousers. His hair was shorter and a black feather was braided into one section to fall against his cheek. It made him appear...even more villainous than normal.

"I was amused by a thought." Jareth stated with a grin as he pushed off against the door frame to come closer. 

"And what may that thought be?" She heard herself ask.

"How beautiful you look in the moonlight when you are a creature of the sun." Jareth stated as he gathered her in his arms and inhaled her scent. She rested her head against his chest and a sense of completeness and bliss over took her.

"Manann, do you think...that is, will we ever be like this again?" She spoke in a wistful tone.

"I am unsure, but I will take these moments and forever treasure them, no matter what the outcome of this war be." His voice faded and Sarah felt him become less and less solid. As he faded, she felt incomplete. As if a part of her had been torn out from her body, as if her heart no longer beat and the sun no longer shine.