Work Text:
Sarah of Terra (formerly, simply, Sarah Williams) watched the procession from where her chin was propped up on her bejewelled hand. The parade was a march pungent with wealth and finery, lace frothing from the hems of the gift boxes and chariots. She tilted her head owlishly.
“Is that the cause of such fuss?” She jerked her head at tiny little figure. Nüwa, Lady of the Zhu region, the Queen’s lady-in-waiting (and occasional lover) only needed to nod once before lazily scooping the caviar into her mouth. They both knew the ‘fuss’ Queen Sarah spoke of was not the slow-moving cavalcade in front of them, but the current scandal plaguing the Goblin Court.
“Bothersome,” the Queen sighed, although she was also referring to her newly painted nails. “Nüwa, the cod, if you may.” Her chief lady-in-waiting lifted the succulent fish to her mistress’s mouth. It was her job to ensure comfort for the Queen as she dined— all without lifting a finger.
The Feast of Roses commended that day. Throughout the evening, not once did the Queen look away from the small child seated on her mother’s knee, shoved far away on the other side of the hall.
It was well-known that the Queen was a bride by conquest; one of those women, in modern day Earth, that often became the figures of ancient tragedy and romance. She had defeated the Goblin King at the Labyrinth, but it was he who had the last word, spiriting her away at eighteen and raping her against the castle’s floor.
Or so they whispered.
Now the Queen mainly resided at the Rim Palaces located at the South Corridor of the Goblin Kingdom, facilitating the border between the kingdom and the Caračhitians. She liked the desolation and the rocky terrains, they claimed— liked the mad wind howling between the jagged stones. She kept a strict army where slow death was a common punishment, although flash burnings were sometimes the exception. Noticeably, her court was smaller but tighter-knit than her husband’s.
“Jareth,” she purred against him during breakfast. “I’m surprised you’re ready to join us. I thought you’d be exhausted by your journey.” Not to mention his tight little scullery wench of the season’s summer. But Sarah wasn’t the type to complain about petty things.
“It would be remiss of me to skip dining with you, my love,” he said, scratching her chin as if she were a cat— and he the neglecting, guilty master. Lovingly, he fed her a slice of honeyed bread; brought all the way from the North Corridor.
“My favourite,” she cooed, before licking his fingers and running them suggestively down her throat. Then to prove she hadn’t forgiven him, she beckoned imperiously to the wench waiting submissively at the far side of the hall.
“Come,” she ordered, noticing the child clinging to the mother’s skirts. “Such a sweet daughter…” Sarah turned her head sinisterly to her husband. Watch, her green eyes sparkled. “What’s her name?”
“M-Milda, Your Highness,” the wench girl stammered.
“Milda,” she sighed, tasting the syllables. “Sit on my lap, won’t you darling?”
“Y-Your Highness,” the wench girl protested, her eyes welling up. Sarah silenced her with a finger snap, and all at once, a guard snatched the child from her mother. The wench looked at her King pleadingly, but he was too exasperated and amused to reciprocate.
“Sarah…” her husband started, but decided to give up and watch the show.
“Come, girl. And what is your name?” Sarah enquired sweetly.
“C… Carnice, Y-Your H…Highness…” the wench girl stuttered out. Already tears had collected at the corner of her eyes.
“Hmm.” Swiftly, Sarah plunged one hand into her husband’s trouser and extracted his length, the other patting the child’s hair. She kissed him on the mouth tenderly and bid him to sit back.
“See, Milda,” she whispered conspiratorially into the little girl’s hair. Milda’s big, blue eyes widened nervously and looked down at the length encased in the Queen’s hand.
“C-O-C-K. Cock. This is your Daddy’s cock. Do you want to touch, sweetheart?”
“Your Highness!” Carnice cried out, but Sarah shushed her in annoyance.
“C-O-C-K,” her fingers brushed the child’s lower lip as she smiled encouragingly. “Cock. Say ‘Cock’, darling.”
The child’s voice was hesitant as she repeated the word, and Sarah tutted disapprovingly. “Atrocious,” she said, her head turning to Carnice. “Do you not teach your child to read, girl?”
Carnice was speechless, her jaw working at words that could not escape. Once again, she turned her pitiful eyes to her royal lover, who in turn only had eyes for his wife.
At this, Sarah laughed. “Honestly, Carnice! You needn’t look at Jareth like that. You are in my court, girl, although I promise I won’t bite. Come closer.”
Carnice neared, her fingers twisting nervously in her lap. Sarah smiled beauteously. She lifted her husband’s cock and twisted it around like an analog stick.
“Suck.” The Queen ordered, and Carnice reared back as if struck. In response to the lack of immediate obedience, the Queen’s eyes flashed, and her hand tightened imperceptibly around Milda’s nape.
Around them, the enraptured court watched with bated breath. This was why everybody attended the Feast of Roses; the show, the drama, the murder— blasted pettifogging things. Behind her mistress, Nüwa hid her giggle behind her hand.
Meanwhile, Carnice shook like a leaf. She was damned, she knew; and suddenly amongst the nobility in the voluminous hall, she knew herself the esteemed ingenue stuffed and spitted for the morning revelry. That sob trapped in her throat; your romantic King never loved you. And he didn’t, now she knew, casting all hope to wind at the same moment she looked deeply into his eyes.
He stared back at her, never flinching, blue eyes perfunctory in their spectating. She was the scullery wench, he was the King. She turned her head to the Queen just as she stepped timidly forward— and the whole goddamned hall never once looked away from this play.
“Now, Milda,” Queen Sarah said to the little child on her lap. Milda had hidden her face in the Queen’s bare shoulder, before looking up to connect gazes with her mother. Sarah stroked the child's hair lovingly and guided her gaze to look down.
“Did your mother ever tell you how babies are made?”
“Loving you is easy,” Jareth whispered into her shoulder, after a bout of passionate lovemaking. He held her possessively and nudged her left breast with his mouth, long fingers already restless between her thighs.
At lunch, she had smiled at him incessantly. The corners of her mouth lifting and held there by cosmetic pins, it had seemed to him then, painted a dangerous shade of red. That smile had continued all through the appetisers, through the diplomatic discussions with the South Corridor traders and through the dance, when she had appeared to the court to teasingly refuse all his advances. He knew better though, and sighed as he relented.
Secretly, though, he was pleased. His wife never failed to make his life interesting. Besides, he may have seduced that wench to cajole such a reaction. He admitted as much when he handed both mother and child over to her.
“Maybe I should visit more often,” he said as he entered her slowly for the fifth time that afternoon. A moan caught in her throat as he started rocking her, but no one could miss the irritation that flashed across the Queen’s face at the mention of increased visitations. She gripped his hair to stabilise herself, before forcing him to suckle her breasts. Jareth’s tongue ran over an ancient, diagonal scar, prompting a smile.
“I remember this,” he chuckled, mouthing over it tenderly. “Tell me, dear, still having thoughts of leaving me?”
“No,” she sighed out when his thrusts were angled just where she needed them to. “But I still have been stabbed once or… oh…” Sarah threw her head back.
No other words were traded between them for the rest of the afternoon.
After dinner, Jareth, the inconstant cad that he was, slipped away with four courtiers and three kitchen maids. She didn't complain, merely rolled her eyes and carried on.
She lit a candle and ordered her ladies-in-waiting to retire to their rooms. Her normally scheduled paramour was dismissed with an apologetic kiss before Sarah descended deep into the catacombs below her castle.
Here, no one was allowed, not even her husband his position be damned. He had taken much from her, but he would not take this— not what he had already stolen from her, so long ago.
Sarah Williams knelt down in front of the tomb, a little statuette of a blond boy playing in front of its entrance. TOBY WILLIAMS, a simple carving said.
So many years ago, and so many scars— the burns and lashes he had gifted her when she tried to escape his castle. Once upon a time, there was a girl.
She was kidnapped, and her brother foolishly came after her.
Sarah Williams rested her cheek against the freezing tomb of her murdered brother, and just as tradition when it came to the Feast of Roses, she wept.