Truth Hurts, Little Girl

The swimming inner light of the crystal cast a phosphorescent gleam over Jareth's face, eerily lending him the appearance of a death mask. But even the thought of his handsome face seeming specter-like would not have deterred Jareth from the task at hand.

In the shimmering curve of the crystal's wall, an image flickered into life. A dark-haired girl sat upon her bed, a patchwork quilt tugged up over the lower half of her body; the hefty textbook nestled in her lap, coupled with the mundane and rather commonplace setting of her quite average bedroom, did not an engrossing scene create, and yet Jareth was drawn to it. The girl, it was to be noted, was quite pretty; not a breathtaking beauty, but she exuded an attractive combination of willfulness and innocence that made her very skin glow.

In short, Jareth had not this much doted on a single female since…well, never. Something about this girl, who was by far too young and easily much too pure for him, had ensnared him; as much as the arrogant and beautiful Goblin King would hate to voice it, the girl had, however unknowingly, sunk the claws of infatuation into him. Deeply.

But Jareth attempted to focus more on the girl's current state, rather than his own personal fascination with her. For he had noticed, with an odd wrenching sensation in the region of his chest, that grayish spots of moisture dappled the page open before the girl, and after watching for a substantial amount of time, it soon became apparent that the girl was not reading the text at all. Sarah Williams was crying, and it sent an odd shiver of anger through Jareth to see her in such a state.

"God, this is so stupid!" she burst out suddenly, and the surge of passion was obvious in her tone even through the distance and distortion it traveled to reach Jareth's ears.

"But it's not fair. It's really not."

Despite his concern for Sarah and her apparent trauma, Jareth's mouth curved into a smirk at the sound of this familiar phrase. The girl was quite prone to using it in times of despair, although she had been using it less and less, since…

Jareth abruptly lowered the crystal from his sight. It would do no good to dwell on such things. He forbade himself to even complete that last thought, as that would involve straying down a road he'd long since blockaded in his mind.

Sighing in a resigned fashion, Jareth allowed the crystal to slip from his fingers. The sphere seemed to give a ringing shriek as it shattered on the unyielding earthen tile, and icy shards of glass scuttled across the floor on impact.

A stooping goblin maiden crept quietly up beside the throne and swept the glittering slivers into a dustpan, shaking her head and tut-tutting to herself. Jareth had broken yet another crystal.

Sarah drew up the corner of her quilt, one she'd in fact had since her early childhood, to dab at the moisture sliding down her cheeks.

"I didn't even know him. You don't just cry over someone you don't know!" Sarah said these words with a fortitude she did not truly feel she possessed at this point in time; her shoulders quivered slightly and she knew that she could not stem the steady flow of her tears just yet.

Suffice it to say, Sarah was not exactly worldly in her experiences with the opposite sex. In fact, she had very little experience at all. Earlier that very same day, Sarah had been coldly informed through the grapevine that her date to the spring formal, handsome Jeffrey Rockland, was opting to take his new girlfriend, the rather despicable Miranda Kelley, in her stead. Sarah was crushed. She had felt so mature, being asked to go with an older boy to the formal. Her friends had all been jealous; how many other sophomore girls got asked by boys like Jeffrey?

Sarah pushed these thoughts from her head wearily, and forced herself to stand. I'll just have to get over it, that's all. He's just a boy. Walking aimlessly across her room, her eyes fell on the colorful calendar tacked to her closet door; a blonde fairy draped in watery blue robes gave her a haughty look from the April page. Sarah's spirits lifted ever so slightly. In a little over a month, she would finally be 16.