Sarah sighed as she shut the door behind her, glad to be home and away from the madness that had become her school and her he few friends with the arrival of Valentines Day. All of her classmates seemed to have gone completely round the bend, the girls all lovestruck and the guys all prancing about. The last few weeks had been torturous for her as everyone else allowed themselves to be swept up in the preparations for the ball that evening.
Whoever had come up with the idea of the ball had a lot to answer for. Practically the whole school had been distracted for weeks because of it. Who was going with who? What should I wear? Questions that she had heard flying around for weeks, things that she had no interest in. Even the teachers seemed to be caught up in the madness, they certainly hadn't been reigning in the students who seemed more focused on a silly little ball than their education.
Sarah had no intention of going to the ball that evening, despite having been asked by two different suitors, neither of which she would even consider accepting. Her father had tried to get her to consider attending and Karen had returned to her stance that Sarah should have dates at her age and had tried to encourage her to go to the ball on her own if there was no-one she wished to go with.
They had even both gone as far as purchasing her a ticket for the event without the other knowing, so she now had two tickets to a ball she had no desire to attend. Her father had tried to appeal to her love of fairy tales in attempt to persuade her, informing her that she would never get to dance with Prince Charming if she never attended the ball in the first place. She had smiled gently at him, informing him that dancing with Prince Charming had never been her dream.
She made her way up to her room wondering at what made them think she would want to go to the ball, she had never attended any of the school dances before, she wasn't even sure that she would attend her own prom when the time came. She had no real desire to dance with some teenaged boy, giggle with a group of silly girls, or get drunk on the punch that would no doubt be spiked with whatever cheap alcohol some of the others could get their hands on.
Opening her bedroom door she could instantly tell that someone had been in her room. Laying on her bed was an elegant gown, one that her mother had worn in one of her movies and had sent to Sarah to keep. Next to the dress was a short note from Karen saying she had the dress cleaned in case she changed her mind.
Sarah sat at her vanity, her back to her mirror as she stared at the dress. It was a soft chiffon in a shade of peach that Sarah couldn't seem to draw her eyes away from. The dress was so unlike the last gown she had worn to a ball, the ball were she had danced with a King. School dances, even the thought of them seemed to be pale in comparison to the thought of her short dance with the Goblin King in his crystal ball room.
That dance and the time she had spent in the Kings' embrace had been plaguing her the entire run up to this ball. While everyone else was looking forward to the ball to come all she had been able to think about was the last one she had been to if even only fleetingly. She hadn't seen the King since that night three years ago, but sometimes in her head she hoped she would meet him under different circumstances.
She knew better than to wish, wishes and words had power, so it was only ever a thought, often half formed in her own mind. Thinking back to that dance the words of the song he was singing drifted into her mind. 'I'll paint you mornings of gold, I'll spin you Valentine evenings' Sarah wondered what he was doing that evening, but wasn't willing to make a wish, especially if the feelings she perceived he had for her had waned over the last few years.
She needed him to make the first move if he wanted to, if he wanted her, but she knew through her ardent study of lore once she returned from the Underground that he needed an invitation. Her last words to him meant that he was unable to wander freely into her life. She didn't want to make a wish to bring him to her side, she only wanted him there if he was willing. A thought ran through her mind and she dashed downstairs to retrieve the tickets before returning to her room.
Using her mirror she said the right words to call Sir Didymus to her, knowing that Hoggle would not be amenable to help her with this, but that Sir Didymus would consider it a quest to take her message to the King. Sarah gave him one of the tickets and charged him with the duty of getting it to the King as quickly as he could with the message that it was from her.
She didn't know if it would work, but she hoped it would. She rushed to shower and get ready knowing that if he accepted the ticket as the invitation it was meant as it would be rude to keep a King waiting. Once ready she looked at her reflection in her vanity mirror, the dress fitted her well and she had swept her hair up into a messy bun with a few loose strands framing her face.
She made her way downstairs only to find Karen smiling at her from the kitchen. She had arrived home with Toby while Sarah was in the shower. "You look wonderful," Her stepmother commented. "I am glad you changed your mind. Go have fun."
Sarah smiled weakly at her, not sure if she was doing the right thing but she had no choice but to go now that she had issued the King an invitation.
When she arrived at the school she made her way straight to the hall they were holding the ball in, hoping she could get a good look around to find the King before it got too crowded, and if she didn't find him she could then watch the entrance for his arrival.
The hall was tastefully decorated, but it didn't hold a candle to the crystal ballroom of the King. She searched throughout the room for the King as she had once before, only this time when she ended up in his arms there was no baby to rescue. They danced for the good majority of the evening, in step and in time with the music and the rest of the dancers, but at the same time to a different tune. They didn't even speak, for the whole time they danced the King hummed the tune he had sung to her once before, it was only on the last dance of the evening that he sang the words to her, softly in her ear for her and only her.
As the evening wound down she thought that they would get a chance to talk, any time she had attempted to speak to him throughout the ball he had just led her back to dance, humming his song once more. Instead he walked her to her car, kissed her cheek and then disappeared as if he had never been there. She pondered on the way home and by the time she was back in her room she knew just what it was she needed to do.
"I wish the Goblin King would come and talk to me, right now." She intoned.