Summary: Sarah prepares to face the faerie court, a gathering of beings endowed with magic far beyond her. But Jareth knows something she has yet to fully discover.
She sits at the mirror, staring into the glass as if to make sense of the image there. Eyes narrowed and calculating, the bright green sparking with the defiance that rises at even the slightest challenge.
Jareth's tread is nonexistent, heels well above an inch betraying not even the smallest click upon the stone floor. When his face appears there, just above hers, she does not start nor even gasp in surprise. No, such girlish displays of fear have fallen away with the passage of time. And long ago, so long ago, she learned that he had no power that she did not give him.
Instead those mesmerizing eyes flick up, almost annoyed. A mask to hide behind. For while she does not fear Jareth, there is still apprehension at the unknown.
"They'll know."
"Yes, I daresay they will. But why should you care?"
Sarah's mouth twists. "Why should I care? They're magic. You're magic. Every damn thing in this upside down world is magic. But me."
"Which makes you all the more formidable." The words are sharp, inarguable. Yet she raises a fine, dark brow all the same.
Jareth sighs. Gloved fingers lift and ghost over her hair, dark and heavy and arranged in a loose braid that sweeps around and over her left shoulder. Elegant, yet simple enough to say she doesn't need intricacies to be beautiful.
"Think of it, my dear." Deftly, his fingers pluck at the air, a golden flower materializing between thumb and forefinger. "Here is a mortal girl. No magic, no sorcery to her name." The flower slides against her locks, then rests among the dark tresses. "She enters the world of monsters and mayhem, where some can bend reality itself and even the earth beneath her feet cannot be trusted." Another flower, and another, each placed just so. She shivers as one is carefully arranged at her nape, the pads of his fingers sliding briefly against the skin of her neck.
"You, Sarah. They will see a girl who defied time even as it reordered. A girl who solved a labyrinth centuries in the making, whose depths many enter yet none escape. They will see a girl who knows her own dreams and breaks them if need be. A girl who faced the King of Goblins."
He pauses here, a wry smile curving his lips. "Who, I might point out, has no small power himself." The hands at her hair cease, and instead lower to her shoulders. They slide ever so slowly upward, and she can feel the warmth of his palms through the thin leather.
"All this you've done. Without their magic, their tricks, their deceit and lies. Don't you see, Sarah?" Her head tilts back as his fingers trace up the sides of her throat. "You've bested them all. And how terrified they shall feel, how insignificant, and weak. To know that you have more sway, more force, more power than any of them shall ever dream."
Sarah's gaze is intense. He can see it growing in her. So close.
"They will know your place, Sarah. As should you. And it is far above theirs." She reaches back, grabbing his blond hair, pulling him down in silent command. He smiles wickedly, lips eagerly closing over hers in a ravenous kiss.
She is still learning, still discovering herself. But soon Sarah Williams shall find what he has known from the first.
Far beyond one King. There is no one with power over her.
