True to his word, Jareth did come back with several goblins the day before her presentation. They sat - or rather, Jareth sat and tried to keep the inquisitive goblins on the couch while Sarah stood in front of them and gave her long-practiced speech.
Jareth was actually quite impressed with it. For all of Sarah's worry and concern, she had the entire thing memorized and only looked slightly nervous.
"That was marvelous, Sarah." he grabbed the tail of a squirming goblin who was two centimeters away from falling off the couch. "How many times have you practiced it?"
"Four dozen, probably." she wrung her hands. "Do you think I need to-"
"I think you need to reward yourself preemptively for a job well done. I can't think of a single thing I'd change - your pitch is wonderful and you've done everything you can."
A goblin on the other side of him slipped from his grasp and ran off to a different room.
"You really think so?" she nervously used her hair behind her ear.
"I do." he smiled.
Feeling more confident, she left the speech as it was for the day. Her visitors stayed for a while longer, talking and eating snacks she had prepared.
And then they were off.
Their goodbyes were not long or drawn out - they were the casual partings of friends who would see each other just the next day, if not sooner... Except they wouldn't.
Sarah felt a bit awkward after they left, standing there. She hugged her arms around herself. Should she have made a bigger deal of it? She had no idea when she'd see him again. She rubbed her arms and pushed it from her mind.
Walking up to the office the next morning was a chore. She had to purposely direct one foot in front of the other, lest she suddenly turn and bolt for the exit. She heaved a heavy sigh as she entered the room where she would pitch her case in front of her potential bosses. The sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could be home with a bottle of moscato and a bowl of macaroni, she told herself.
Standing in front of the room, she watched as the women she'd be speaking to filed in and sat down. They were dressed on the business side of business-casual, hair pulled back into a clipped bun or left straight, mostly flats but one pair of heels that were already causing their wearer to limp. In the midst of that awkward nerve wracked haze of silence before something happens, the strangest little thing stood out to Sarah.
The woman on the left was wearing the same shade - the very same shade and brand, she'd lusted after that color in the store long enough to recognize it anywhere - of peach shimmer lipstick that Sarah herself had bought the past week.
And that's when it struck her.
These women were just like her. Heck, they probably wanted this whole over with just as badly, surely they wanted to get home to their own bottles of wine and putting their feet up and an evening of scrolling through Netflix suggestions while their dinners got cold.
She thought of the sidhe women and the enormous gulf she had felt between them, the kind of gulf that can only be between a mortal human girl and an ageless, timeless being who's very veins pumped magic and mystery.
But these women here - they were one and the same with Sarah. If she displeased them, the worst they could do was make her stay at her current job. And she liked her current job. There would be no boggings or being turned into a mouse or a frog. There were no kingdoms on the line here.
If she could have seen herself in the mirror at that moment, she would have been surprised at just how reminiscent of Jareth her smirk was, the same look he'd give Sarah when a goblin went off a long story that didn't exactly make any sense but seemed very important to the goblin.
"Good morning. How are you all today?" she asked warmly.
Everything was going to be fine.
She launched into her well rehearsed speech.
When she had finished speaking, the only sound left in the room was the scritch of ballpoint pens on notepaper and for the briefest second it caused the adrenaline to rush through Sarah. But she remained composed, even when they told her they would inform her of their decision with a few days.
As she prepared for bed that evening she no longer felt even a trace of worry. They would decide what they decided and that would be that. There would be no real loss if they chose to leave her where she was, and she would worry about how to handle the promotion after she was actually promoted. She glanced out the window into the dark sky, searching for a familiar shape in the air, perhaps.
She hoped Jareth knew she was grateful that she was given the opportunity to practice her public speaking. But Jareth had said he wasn't behind the whole thing. So looked up to the heavens and sent a silent thank you out, to Jareth, to the universe, to whoever was listening, and then went back to bed.