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Accidentally, like a martyr.
The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder.
-Accidentally Like a Martyr
	Warren Zevon
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Witness To Destruction 
Chapter Fifteen

The castle was still this late in the night, as she sat in a comfortable 
chair in a small room off the main library. Open in her lap she held the 
large leather-bound book Jareth had shown her two days ago.
             She had tried vainly for sleep for a few hours, but as time 
ticked it's way closer towards the dawn she found herself hopelessly awake. 
Amalthya had wandered into the library and found the book lying on the 
table. She had picked it up, retreated to this little annex, and started a 
fire in the grate. She flipped through page after page of history, glancing 
at portraits of people she didn't know, tracing her own roots in the family 
trees.  So this was her father's family. She had always wondered about it, 
and found it nice to have this tangible link to her past.
	She had known her paternal grandmother, though she had died when 
Amalthya was only eleven. She remembered her as a sweet old woman with 
white hair and grey eyes. Eyes Amalthya always remembered as sad, 
especially when they looked at her son.

"Why are you so sad, Grandma?" She had asked her once.

"Oh, don't you fret over me, Dear. I'm just wishing for things past, is 
all."

"Oh." As she grew older, she began to understand her grandmother's concern.
Her father didn't seem to take any joy in like. There was nothing that made 
happy, with the exception of his daughter. She knew now that she had been 
too hard on him when all her wanted was for her  to have a good life. It 
was just his distaste for her dreams and fantasies that tore them apart. Of 
course she understood his position now, at least a little. Knowing his 
background, it made scene that he'd try to distance himself from anything 
that reminded him....of what? He thought process screeched to a halt. He 
must have been afraid of something, or someone to react so vehemently. He 
had tried so hard to live a 'normal' life, and in the end, it was his death.
She felt a tear trickle down her cheek. Funny, she had not cried for him in 
all these months, but now-now she felt as if some huge pent up emotion had 
escaped it's carefully built prison and threatened to overwhelm her. She 
leafed through the book some more in an attempt to ward off the tears, and 
in doing so found an interesting scrap of history.
	It was contained in the text on the page facing the portrait of 
Tristan, a summery of his life to date.  It seemed Tristan's brother, 
Julian-her grandfather- had been banished to Earth almost  one hundred 
years ago. But her father had been only forty five when he had died a 
little more than a year ago. she calculated the dates quickly in her head. 
That meant Julian had been on Earth fifty five years before her father had 
even been born. "I guess they don't age, even on Earth." 

There was a quiet noise out in the library; the kind of discreet noise a 
person makes when they don't want to startle someone. She turned her head 
to the side and saw Jareth holding two steaming earthenware mugs. He came 
in and set one down beside her, glancing at the book as he did so. 
"Catching up on some history?"

"Couldn't sleep." She sighed. Jareth only nodded. She took up the cup, 
reveling in it's warmth against her cold hands. She breathed in the steam. 
Hot chocolate. She took a cautious sip and almost cried out. Not because it 
scalded her, for it was, in truth, the perfect temperature. Just hot 
enough to burn a little as you swallowed it, without actually scalding your 
tongue in the process. She almost cried out because it was made with real 
chocolate and fresh cream. The way her father had always made it for her on 
winter nights, even though it never got truly cold in California. It was 
one thing she always missed on icy nights in New York. 
Her father's cocoa. 
It wasn't until a salty tear fell into the cup and disturbed the tranquil 
surface, that she realized she was crying. She hadn't cried for her father 
in all these long months, unwilling-or unable- to realize just how much she 
had missed him in the long years in New York as she struggled to survive. 
How much she had loved him. And now, she couldn't even tell him!

Jareth was in a bitter-sweet agony. Grateful that Amalthya had found a part 
of herself that was capable of loving and of receiving love in return, but 
upset that it had torn her so completely, and overwhelmed her. Overwhelmed 
him. "You have two choices", fate seemed to tell him. "Act now, or forever 
hold your pain." He laughed at the strange twisting of the old vow. So the 
guillotine of time hung grimly just above his head. A wrong move, and it 
would sever forever his ties to humanity. The hurt would grow, and his 
heart would grow harder. All the callousness Amalthya had rubbed away with 
her unwitting kindness would grow back stronger than ever. He knew the pain 
of that, Sarah had given it to him with her brisk refusal after he had come 
to her plainly exposed. She had cut to the quick. "Act now..." The shadows 
sang.

A pair of gloved hands took the cup from her, setting it down gently on the 
table beside her. So total was her misery that she didn't act as a pair of 
strong arms took her from the chair and out onto the balcony, didn't move 
as the same arms held her tight as they sat together in the hazy half-light 
that comes just before the dawn. He held her as she cried and cried, as she 
had never truly done before. She cried for her mother, she cried for her 
father, she cried for the years of loneliness that closed  in on her and 
drug her down like water takes a drowning victim.
	He cried with her, for all the times he couldn't help her, had 
watched her suffer from afar, had failed her.
They were one in the sorrow. For sometimes, the past cannot be forgotten 
until it has been hauled, kicking and screaming, into the harsh light of 
day, and faced head on. Otherwise it builds like and inverse mountain; 
bigger hurts pilling on top of the smaller ones till it becomes too top 
heavy and it falls, crushing out the life beneath it.

The sun rose in brilliance, full with promise, heavy and red with a secret 
passion. It cast a rosy hew on the whole of the Underground, and never had 
Jareth seen it look so beautiful. "I love you." came the whisper from his 
lips, so suddenly that he didn't even realize what he'd said before the 
words died in the air. It was done. He had given of himself completely, 
torn his heart to pieces to utter those three words. It was his final 
judgment. She would accept him wholly, and they would sore of to an unknown 
future, happy for whatever pain or sorrow it held. Or he would die here. It 
was that simple. The blade of the guillotine fell lower.

End Chapter Fifteen