Prologue
Hoggle looked around the room, watching the charm Jareth had set cause all of the debris from the party earlier to clean itself. In a little while there would be no evidence any of the events of the night before had even happened.The sun was coming up, Hoggle reminded Jareth, bringing him out of his reverie. "We should go, Jareth. She'll wake up soon, and after we worked so hard to keep her awake until the memory charm had been taken, it would seem a shame."
"I know," said Jareth sadly. "You didn't want to let her forget, did you Hoggle?"
"Of course not!" Hoggle told his king almost angrily. "But the Law says we must, and even you can't break the Law."
"She looks so beautiful sleeping there," Jareth went on lamenting. "Look at how slowly she breathes. If I hadn't been watching her all this time, I might not even see it. She's like a doll, a perfect porcelain doll."
"Sir, you must stop this. You always were the one for drama! The girl must forget and be forgotten and that is that!" Hoggle told him sternly, real anger in his voice now. But there were tears streaming silently down his face, and those who knew him would have heard the tremble in his sterness and anger caused by the quivering in his lips. Sarah's dark hair lay smoothly on the pillow, framing her face down to her shoulders. The blackness of it made her fair and precious skin stand out even more. Like the moon in the night.
"What shall I do now Hoggle?" came Jareth's voice beside him. "I hadn't ever planned on failure."
"Forget about her." Hoggle tried to wipe the emotion from his voice. "Find another girl. It's all you can do."
Jareth nodded his head slightly and closed his eyes. Kings did not cry, he reminded himself silently. He opened his eyes to look down at Sarah again. The rising sun was caressing her eye lashes. Still as death, she lay there with eye lashes like sun beams. Before Jareth knew what he was doing, he swooped down on her. He kissed her lightly, his lips brushing her forehead as softly as feathers. Before he had fully straightened, he was out the window with nothing to show his presence at all, save the woosh of wings, and the feathers littering her bedside.
Hoggl lingered a moment or two longer, picking up the white feathers scattered around the bedroom. This early in the forgetting process, even things as small as a feather might trigger her remembrance. It simply wasn't allowed. He looked around the room again, checking to see that nothing had been missed. It was empty, but for the still form on the bed who wouldn't remember any of her new friends tomorrow.