Prompt: "Emerald Green Lace"
"Concentrate, Toby," Jareth snapped.
"I'm trying," he hissed through his teeth, his hands shaking.
"Honestly, I know you can do better than this."
"Stop badgering him, or he'll never be able to concentrate," Sarah rebuked him, folding one leg over the other. "How can he when you keep yapping at him?"
Toby bit his lip and struggled with the magic beneath his fingers as it pulsed in rebellion.
"Well, he's going to have to use it with goblins running amok or someone's trying to take off his head—it'll be good practice."
He twitched and the magic tried to rebel again. He had to force it back before he could try finishing his task. Finally, he pushed his sister and the former Goblin King's voices aside and willed his magic to obey. Defiant to the last, it felt gave in and he laughed at his accomplishment. "I did it!"
"You did it?" Moppet repeated, pausing from handing Stank another biscuit.
"You did it," Sarah grinned triumphantly, like she was the one who had worked so hard.
"…no, you didn't," Jareth said after a minute.
"What?" Toby asked in despair, looking down at his work.
"I told you to turn it red—now it's green," Jareth explained, holding up a long scrap of emerald lace. "You'll have to do it again."
"Again?" he repeated in horror.
"Echo?" Stank asked, glancing around as everyone kept repeating each other. Moppet patted his head affectionately and tried to send a supporting smile at Toby.
"I think it's better green," Hana commented from her spot on Sarah's shoulder, (Sarah had been delighted to meet a fairy who wouldn't bite her, and Hana had been more than pleased to meet Toby's infamous older sister).
Sarah nodded. "Maybe you should try something else anyway," she suggested. "He doesn't really need to know how to change the color of lace, right?"
Jareth gave her a dark look, prompting her to go back to her cookie. "Just how is he supposed to work out the subtle nuances of grander spells if he can't turn a scrap of fabric red?"
"It looks red to me," Didymus announced. The others quietly let this comment pass since Didymus usually reacted poorly to being reminded of his colorblindness.
Toby sighed and glared at the fabric.
"Look, Toby, it's really not all that hard," Sarah tried and waved a hand at a stack of books near her. They quickly changed from blue to pink, red to mint, and green to purple. "See?"
He glared at her and began to grumble.
Jareth frowned as he looked at the books. "Those happened to be worth millions in Aboveground currency, Sarah."
She paused and then quickly reversed her spell, changing back to their original color. "Sorry. Didn't know."
Jareth gave her a knowing look, (prompting a "hey, no really!" from Sarah) and turned back to Toby. "Try again."
Toby sighed and moved his hands to hover over the scrap of (mocking) emerald green lace. I liked it better when Mizumi taught me magic.
"I heard that."
"Stop reading my mind!"
"Stop making it so easy."
"Jar-eth, lay off him."
"You, stop coddling him."
"I still say it looks red."