Dreamer at the Dance
by MadMarian
Darena held the pot of rouge pensively and gazed into the silver-framed mirror. She reached for its frame with manicured hands and tilted it--turned it *this* way, and looked into it. Were those--lines on her face? She frowned, smoothing her ivory complexion delicately. No, it had just been a trick of the light.
She heard singing behind her as Liliana danced into the room, her dark hair exquisitely curled, her shimmering gown dancing about the floor. She was a vision--as always. Darena felt a pang of envy.
"Do you think Jareth will dance with me tonight?" Liliana said with a sigh as she posed dramatically in the doorway.
"Who can say, with Jareth," Darena replied, turning her attention back to the mirror. "He gives answers to no one."
"Ah, that's true. He's an enigma," Liliana cooed, leaning over Darena's shoulder and peering as if to check her flawless visage. "But then, he did dance with me at the last ball," she added with only a hint of a smile at Darena in the mirror. Darena did not respond. "He is always unexpected," Liliana added. "It's what I love about him."
Darena smiled. "You use that word so easily. What do you know of love?"
"I know that Jareth is the only man that I wish to dance with," Liliana replied. She smiled wickedly at Darena in the mirror. "And I shall, my dear. I shall."
Darena pressed powder to her cheeks and compressed her lips. "As you say, of course."
Liliana laughed and spun away, dancing dizzily, a swirling vision of silk and gauze across the floor. "Of course!" she laughed, then paused in the doorway, looking back at Darena. "Is...that what you're wearing? How...sweet."
Darena looked at her a moment, then turned back to the mirror.
Liliana only shrugged her perfect shoulders, then vanished.
Darena deftly wove the satin ribbons into her honey-colored hair and dabbed color onto her lips. I am pretty enough, she thought. But Liliana exuded beauty from every pore--hers was a beauty without effort, and Darena had always envied her.
But tonight, perhaps tonight...tonight was a masquerade ball, and Liliana would be wearing a mask, like everyone else. That would make things more even, surely. Darena sighed in spite of herself. Tonight will be different, she had told herself before--how many times? Hundreds? A thousand? She had lost count. All she had ever known, it seems, was an endless stream of balls and cotillions and moonlit soirees in this castle, the most exquisite place she could ever imagine. She had no memory of ever having been anywhere else.
Sometimes, this vexed her. Surely she had not been here always, dancing away the hours with vain and beautiful men, longing for Jareth to choose her, to take her in his arms, to make her the center of everyone's attention. But that was all she knew. And if Jareth would only look her way but once, it would all be worth it.
*
The ballroom was a vision of gauze and glitter, perfumed with a rich, luxurious scent that spoke of love. The masks were elaborate on some, mockeries of ogres, goblins and skulls; some were simple half-masks like Darena's. She felt vaguely unsettled, not being able to see anyone's face in the swirling mass, hearing the laughter and not knowing whom the eyes were upon. Despite her mask, she suddenly felt naked and unable to hide.
She walked through the crowd, hoping not to be noticed, when she saw Liliana. She was wearing an ornate half-mask that obscured all but her mouth, but Darena recognized the luxurious hair and that breathtaking gown. Liliana was not looking at Darena, however; Darena followed her gaze and saw that Jareth had just entered.
Darena's breath stopped in her throat. It always did when she looked at him, but tonight he looked more perfect, if possible, than ever before.
He moved like a god through the crowd, all the dancers fawning about him, but clearing a space where he walked, trying to drink in every inch of him with their parched and adoring eyes. He ignored them all, as cool as a windstorm.
Darena stood still, watching him, letting the crowd wash past her on either side. She couldn't help glancing at Liliana, who was working her way toward Jareth with a smile that was at once coquettish and predatory. Surely, tonight, Liliana would have Jareth all to herself.
There was a commotion from the other side of the room, and Darena fought to tear her gaze from the sight of Liliana, who had just reached Jareth's side.
"You will need more of a mask than that to fool me, Darena," said a voice from behind her. She turned to see a horned half-mask, goblinesque and leering, and beneath it a familiar smile.
"Derrick!" she exclaimed. "You look frightening!"
He bowed slightly. "I do, thank you." Then he swept her into the river of dancers. "Shall we, my lovely?"
As they danced, Darena looked over Derrick's shoulder to see where Jareth was. Liliana was still near him, but he was ignoring her. She seemed to be whispering things to him, but he was looking across the room.
Darena followed his gaze and saw, just coming in, a girl
The girl was very young, and shockingly lovely. She was wearing a gown that looked as if it had been made from the light of the stars. Her hair was gorgeously piled and wound with ribbons, and made even Liliana's tresses seem dull by comparison.
All eyes were on the stranger, including, Darena noticed, Jareth's. His lips held the faintest smile, and there was perhaps, a gleam in his eye that she had not seen before.
Darena pulled herself away from Derrick, ostensibly to catch her breath. But she was only looking for a place to stand, to watch what was transpiring between Jareth and the young girl.
The girl was moving, wide-eyed, through the crowd, seemingly confused by all the noise and laughter and surely, all the eyes upon her. Darena saw Marco and Claudette--horrible, fat Claudette with her bawdy laugh, and that obscene mask she was wearing!--call the girl over to them. Marco invited the girl to see what was in his box; Darena knew his wooden snake trick very well. The gathered crowd laughed as the girl backed away from them like a lost deer, wondering at their sharp stares,their trickery.
Darena lost sight of the girl as a mass of dancers swept around her, dancing in peculiar silence, a significant silence. Darena turned just as--her heart leaped--Jareth was behind her. He touched her arm! Without so much as a thought, Darena took her position in his arms and let him lead her away from all care.
In the next few moments, Darena knew only Jareth, only his scent filling her head and drowning her, only the rustle of his satin waistcoat singing a sweet song in her ears. For a sweet, breathless moment, her world began and ended in the arms of the Goblin King. She wanted to whisper to him, to make him remember her out of all the other women he had danced with, to--dare she even think it--to love her.
But he was still not looking at her. He was dancing so smoothly, so perfectly, and yet all his attention was focused on the girl with the staring eyes, who froze whenever she spied him, but made no move to approach. Darena began to feel an ache in chest, a strain about her wildly beating heart, as she realized she could have been any one of the women at the ball, that Jareth cared only for the beautiful stranger, that he did not even know who it was he was dancing with. She was grateful as he stopped dancing, and she slid unobtrusively away, and some other gorgeous thing took her place. Jareth's gaze toward the girl never wavered.
And in the next moment, he had vanished, and the crowd had moved on, and Darena was left to one side, shaking, dizzy, trying to hide.
Liliana--where was Liliana, Darena wondered. Had she seen Jareth dancing with me? she thought to herself. She straightened then, lifting her chin. They all saw me, she thought. That's what they saw--me dancing with Jareth. Surely they are all talking about it.
But no one was staring at her, no swarm of coolly jealous women had surrounded her to whisper unkind things within her hearing, as usually happened after Jareth finished dancing with some swooning thing. They were all staring at the girl, who seemed to be searching, in vain, for Jareth.
Derrick suddenly appeared at Darena's side again, and whispered, "Who is that young, starry creature, dear Darena? Do you know?"
"No one knows," she responded, surprised that her voice did not tremble from her brief encounter with the Goblin King.
Darena's spine suddenly tingled as she realized that Jareth and the girl were now face to face, the last adoring few sliding passively from his shoulders as he moved to dance with the stranger. Darena, and many of the onlookers as well, stopped breathing.
A space cleared about them on the floor as Jareth whirled the girl, the two of them locked in impenetrable gazes; Jareth's lips moved, Darena saw. He was speaking to her!
"He's singing!" Derrick whispered from under his hideous mask, his mouth hanging gracelessly open. "He's singing to her!"
Darena felt a sigh escape her--as Liliana had said, Jareth was always unexpected. He never even so much as spoke to most of the women he danced with at the balls. If he were feeling generous, or if a lady's dress were cut particularly low, he might deign a smile, but no more. This woman seemed to have captivated him. Darena's heart felt empty.
She tried to turn away from the sight of them, those two impossibly beautiful creatures tangled in a web of fascination and dream, but she could not. Their intensity reached to her across the room--the ball itself, the masks, the mysterious scents and brilliant decorations, all had been for her, for this girl, this young slip of a thing whom not one of them knew. No wonder the night had seemed charged with meaning.
They danced closer to where Darena and Derrick stood watching, and Darena saw that the crowd was pushing in, unable to tolerate their attentions to Jareth being so utterly ignored. They were openly laughing at the girl now, jeering, squeezing in the space around her to form a wall of derision. The girl, Jareth's overpowering gaze forgotten,was turning in confusion, looking for a way out of the sea of hateful masks which had moved close enough to engulf Darena and Derrick. The girl glanced at the faces as if looking for a friendly hand, some acceptance or a way out of the tangled mass, and for an instant her eyes met Darena's.
Darena's thoughts coalesced then, into one clear thought--a memory of such crystalline clarity that, for an instant, she relived that brief moment--a moment when Jareth had held out a crystal, a perfect, clear, empty crystal--a moment when she, herself, Darena, had reached out and touched the crystal, had felt its smooth weight roll into the palm of her hand, had gazed eagerly into it, and turned it...
But the memory faded, and the girl was shoving her way through the bodies, away from Jareth, away from them all. And Jareth was frowning.
Darena watched as the girl ran to the wall, and, taking up a chair, raised it and threw it.
The ball shattered into a million brilliant shards of glass and glitter, silk and lace and laughter and screams, and Darena felt a great wind pulling her away from everything she knew, everything she was, and a darkness overtook her, and the roar and static of the shattered party whispered away into shadows and emptiness...
*
Darena awoke with a gasp.
She looked around her, wondering why her heart was racing so, and saw that she was in her own room, her own beautiful room in the east wing of the castle. She took a deep breath and smiled at her own foolishness--being frightened over a dream she did not even remember!
She slid out of bed and eagerly ran to the mirror that stood on the floor by the opposite wall, fingering the material of her new ball gown and sighing with anticipation. It was the loveliest gown yet, of pale lavendar silk with tiny white rosebud accents at the shoulders and waist. She held it in front of herself and looked into the mirror, humming softly. Yes, it set off her eyes perfectly.
It was the perfect dress, for the perfect ball--a moonlit dance in the garden. By moonlight, she thought, this dress will look simply magical. It is sure to enchant him.
"Tonight," she whispered into the mirror. "Tonight, Jareth, King of the Goblins, will choose to dance with me." She smiled. "That will show Liliana!"
And she whirled, laughing giddily, dancing and holding the dress as a partner. Her heart leaped at the thought of holding Jareth there, instead of a dress or some ordinary partner. It made her catch her breath just imagining it. It had always been her dream to dance with Jareth.
The only dream she cared about in the world.
~Finis~