Chapter Text
The first time was sudden: all-too small arms wrapped around him. Trapped between mortal hands and mortal heart, the Goblin King was spellbound. He suffered the panicked, adrenaline-soaked urge to break his little Fool’s arms at the elbow. He had the right to do so, he had the reason, he had…had…
He had a child in his arms, holding on with supreme trust and looking up at him with curious eyes.
“You don’t feel like a Dad,” she finally pronounced before letting go and tumbling off the throne, out of the room, back into the city, towards Hoggle and Didyamus and whatever other unfortunate bore her attentions.
In the wake of the moment, Jareth was left alone and silent, the lingering warmth on his back tight as scars.
The second time was slow: he'd been pleasantly mindless, staring at a sunny expanse of nothing, all but sprawling on the granite windowsill. By the time he'd actually registered the tug at his hair, she'd forged half a braid.
"It's the oddest blond I've ever seen," she declared proudly. "It's like--like frost and summer at the same time. Isn't that odd?"
He pulled back, showing his teeth, and received no sign of chagrin in return; she merely dropped her hand, letting her work come undone.
"I like it a lot, though," said his unrepentant Fool before proceeding to dangle riskily over the window’s ledge in search of humorous clouds.
The third time was sloppy: she'd gotten into a nonsensical brawl with the Fireys (again) and stomped back to the castle wearing enough mud to pave a road. The goblins had laughed. The King had laughed.
And then stopped abruptly as she pressed both hands to his face, palm flat on each cheek like one page against the next.
"There!" She'd hopped back, rocking on her heels with impish poise. "Gorgeous."
The next time--be it fourth, fifth, or sixty-seventh--does not matter. Because in every book of law and every tome of lore credible to his kind laying hand upon the King without permission means to forfeit your life for the privilege. As any King's subject should know. As any King’s subject would avoid.
But his Fool knows no laws, owns no history, fears nothing she know and treasures all she doesn’t. Her story is an unfinished path.
And every time he’s surprised by the Fool’s touch he feels that road wind deeper inside him.