Sarah woke early the next morning, yawning and stretching as the first sallow red light of the day crept into her room from the window. Once again, her white Renaissance dress was cleaned as perfectly as if it had never been worn. Even the bit of fraying on the hem of the skirt was mended.
"Thank you," Sarah said softly to the listening air around her, and pulled the dress on. She moved over to her vanity, a new spring in her step. She felt sure now that Jareth would not keep her forever. He would eventually grow tired of pursuing her, since she would never love him, and move on to some other girl. Until then, Sarah just had to be patient.
As Sarah tripped nimbly and lightly down the stairs at the end of a long corridor that morning, heading toward to dining hall, she realized she was practically skipping. Her feet flew as they moved over the steps, her loafers making soft "tut-tut-tut" sounds on the stone steps. She was noticing things so much better today, seeing their beauty in a way she hadn't the last two days. Knowing that she would go home perhaps in only a few months made Sarah's spirits rise to an almost ridiculous level.
I can pretend I'm just staying at a boarding school or something. Ten months of boarding school, and I'm home again. The thought was silly, but it gave Sarah hope. If she could just cling to the idea of ten months spent in the castle, then she could believe it would end, and she could return home to her family.
Her thoughts were so buoyant when she walked into the dining hall that she was actually willing to be friendly with Jareth.
After all, if he's not keeping me forever, I don't really have a reason to hate him. He did take Toby because I asked, and he did bring me here because I asked. I should thank him, and be his friend. He means well, even if he is misguided. I hope he'll do better with his new girl, whoever she is. Sarah had fixated on the idea of Jareth falling in love with someone else so strongly that she believed it to be a certainty now.
"Good morning, Jareth," Sarah said cheerfully, seating herself to his right again, the two of them forming a right angle of the head of the table.
"Good morning," Jareth's voice was subdued and careful, and he was watching her face curiously. Sarah gave him a huge smile.
"I'm starving. Can you start serving breakfast? I promise, we can talk all you want later, but right now, I could eat your gloves!"
Jareth's sharp eyebrows shot up into the feathering of blond hair over his forehead, and for a second he seemed at a loss for what to say. Then, after a moment of staring at Sarah, he waved a hand, murmuring a word or two, and her plate was instantly filled. Sarah set to eating hungrily. She felt as if she'd gotten her appetite back and then some. She'd worried that she'd lost it completely when Jareth had kidnapped her, but now she found herself eating seconds of very large first helpings.
"You seem to be in a good temper today," Jareth said carefully, his rich voice hesitant.
"Oh, yes, I am," Sarah said, taking another bite of a small wedge of a delicious berry pie.
"You almost seem... contented to staying here."
"Of course," Sarah said, keeping her own private musings to herself. She didn't want to offend Jareth, or force him to find a new girl immediately. As flighty as he'd seemed to her while she was running the Labyrinth, she had no doubt that he would eventually--given time--find a suitable replacement for her.
"Ah," Jareth said, allowing himself a small, hopeful smile. He settled back in his huge chair, steepling his fingers below his strong chin. "Do you plan to visit Hoggle again today?"
"Actually, I thought I might spend the day with you," Sarah said, and licked her lips, removing a thin coating of the sweet pie-filling from them. "Here." She took a forkful of the pie, then stood, holding a hand under the fork and moving over to Jareth. "You have to try this; it's amazing."
"I, uh..." Jareth hesitated, leaning further back in his chair as if to avoid her.
"No, really, it's delicious." Then, as a thick drop of berry-juice dripped into her palm, "Quick, before the entire thing ends up in my hand." Without waiting for him to comply, Sarah leaned forward, popping the fork into his half-open mouth. After a startled moment, he closed his lips on the fork, and Sarah carefully drew it out, and licked her palm clean as Jareth chewed, looking up at her with open confusion in his eyes.
"Isn't it great?" Sarah asked, standing and watching him chew.
"Very," Jareth replied after swallowing. Sarah smiled and nodded, content, and went back to sit down in her chair.
"I was thinking that we shouldn't be at odds," Sarah said, twirling the tines of her fork in a slurpy mess of berries and juice on her plate. "I'm going to be here awhile, and we should try to be friends."
"Yes?" Jareth said, watching her with a slow-dawning hope in his face.
"So, today I'd like to spend some time with you. Show me the sights. Take me around the castle and the grounds. Give me the grand tour!" She made a magnificent gesture with the hand holding her fork to emphasize her point and only succeeded in splattering Jareth's face with berry juice.
"Ah, well," Jareth said, looking at her from under a thin coating of red juice.
"Damn," Sarah muttered, grabbing her napkin and hopping out of her chair, her face going as red as the juice on Jareth's cheeks and nose. "Sorry about that." She bent down, carefully using a corner of the napkin to wipe the juice from Jareth's nose, feeling almost as if she were cleaning Toby after an evening meal.
"Sarah," Jareth began, but she cut him off quickly by pressing the napkin to his lips.
"Hush. Talking makes food run down your face. I know. When Toby covers himself in macaroni and cheese and then tries to babble to me, it ends up everywhere." Jareth shut his mouth, and Sarah finished wiping his face, then stood back, arms crossed, to assess him.
"Better?" Jareth asked, his tone vaguely scandalized. His expression was so hang-dog, Sarah had to laugh, and actually went so far as to knock him lightly on his shoulder with her fist.
"Oh, come on. It wasn't that bad." She returned her napkin to her place at the table, laughing under her breath. She missed Jareth's whispered, "No, it wasn't."
"So, what should we do first?" Sarah asked, turning away from her plate to smile at Jareth. He rose slowly from his own chair, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"I think it ought to be up to you to decide," Jareth said after a moment.
"But I've seen practically nothing!" Sarah objected, rising to stand next to him.
"That's all right."
"What if I ask to see a grand ballroom, and you haven't got one?"
"I have one."
"Oh. What about a huge garden?"
"Yes, that is on the grounds, too."
"A library?"
"Yes."
"Video game room?"
"Now you're being impetuous."
"I know," Sarah laughed, looping her arm through his--none of that polite, fingers-on-the-elbow stuff today. "Why don't you take me to one of your favorite places?"
Jareth considered, his eyes straying to their interlocked arms, then smiled. "All right. Let's be off."
The walk was pleasant. Morning had arrived in the Underground in earnest now, and the sky was a dull, marbleized red with wispy orange clouds drifting lazily over it. Sarah caught glimpses through the windows as they walked. Huge, double-windows in long corridors showed the ruby-bright sky looming over the intricate Labyrinth. Tiny, decorative windows in stairwells showed peeks of orange clouds meandering across the sky.
It's like playing a game of hide-and-seek, Sarah thought as she glanced out a huge window in a hallway decorated with tapestries. Each window I look out of, I try and find the same things I've just seen.
"You're smiling again," Jareth observed quietly, glancing down at her.
"I'm enjoying playing hide-and-seek with the clouds," Sarah said, and laughed at herself cheerfully. Jareth glanced out the window in time to catch a cloud taking advantage of her distraction to quickly change its shape.
"I think the clouds are enjoying it, too," Jareth replied dryly.
"You mean they... know?" Sarah asked, glancing out the window again sharply.
"Of all the worlds, Sarah, this one has the most sentient magick in it. It infuses everything, making it intelligent beyond what they would otherwise be, and giving them just a little bit of their own magick."
"Whew," Sarah muttered. "Everything?"
"Well," Jareth amended, "almost everything. The goblins have never been anything but goblins, and I doubt any amount of magick would change that. I'm sure by now you've notice everything else responding to you in a most unmundane way, though?"
Sarah thought of her trembling door, her bed sheets turning themselves back, and the candles that lit themselves her first night in the castle, and smiled. "I've noticed a few things."
"Even your dress is becoming infused with the magick."
Sarah looked down at her simple Renaissance gown with alarm, then back up at Jareth.
"Yes, it is becoming magickal too, Sarah."
"I noticed it always seemed clean in the mornings, after I'd taken it off to sleep."
"It cleans itself. It likes you--even I can see that. Because it likes you, it wants to look its best for you. Soon, it will begin mending itself should you tear it, the threads reforming and reconnecting. Before long, you'll find that you can't dirty it, even if you roll in mud, and you can't tear it beyond its own ability to repair itself."
"That would save a lot of time on Earth," Sarah said, thinking of the many nights she'd stayed up late scrubbing at a persistent grass stain on the skirt of the dress with bleach and water.
"I imagine it would," Jareth replied, smiling, then gently removed his arm from hers. "We're here. I'd like to present my garden to you, Sarah."
Sarah's breath caught as she looked away from Jareth's strong, handsome face to the garden he indicated with a grandiose wave of his hand.
When Jareth had said 'garden,' Sarah had pictured a neatly manicured lawn with rows of nice flowers. If she took that original mental image and multiplied it by a thousand, she'd still only have a fraction of what was before her. The manicured lawn was there, but it rolled for hundreds and hundreds of feet in every direction, stopping at the doorway she and Jareth now stood in. There were flowers, but none like Sarah had ever seen on Earth. These flowers were of colors she wouldn't have been able to describe even if she tried. Some of them were a blue so shining and electric, they made her squint. The pink flowers were a shimmering, ethereal color, like the soft blush over an angel's cheek. The purple flowers were so purple that they were almost ultra-violet. And in the distance, Sarah could see huge orchards and large vegetable and herb gardens. She was so over-whelmed that she actually stumbled back a step, and Jareth had to put out a hand and catch her gently on her lower back to keep her from falling.
"I should have warned you," Jareth said mildly. "It is a bit much to take in if you've never seen it before."
Sarah was moving forward then, crouching next to the closest flower--a yellow so brilliant it reminded her of the early-morning sun. She reached out a trembling finger to touch a petal, almost expecting to be burned. Instead, the petal was cool and soft beneath her finger, like any flower-petal on Earth but more so, a softness like lamb's ears and silk and velvet all rolled into one.
"If you'd like, you can water some of the plants. It's the easiest way to make friends," Jareth offered, and showed her a small watering can. "It contends to keep itself full permanently. I've watered the entire garden twice over before, and the can was still full as the end of the day."
Sarah lifted the watering can gently, and began watering the yellow flowers nearest her, speaking to Jareth as she did so. "I couldn't really picture you having a garden. You just don't seem like the type to have flowers and trees or anything tender and growing that needs to be cared after."
"You don't know me very well," Jareth replied, watching her watering. "I'm not only a demon. I'm also half-Fae. Many Fae are very fond of growing things."
"Of course," Sarah said, smiling over her shoulder at him.
They were quiet for some hours then, Sarah slowly wandering through the garden, watering the plants that caught her eye, Jareth watching her silently. When Sarah finally put down the watering can, her stomach let loose a loud, bawdy complaint.
"Sorry," Sarah muttered, flushing. "How long have we been out here?"
"Long enough," Jareth replied, offering her his arm. "It must be nearly lunch time now. The table is probably already set."
"Already?" Sarah repeated. "I always... I always thought that you set it. You know, wave your arm, the plates and silverware and food appear."
"No, the table sets itself."
"But you always have the same thing to drink. Does the table always give that to you?"
"Yes, always. It is a potent drink. With it, I need not eat or drink anything else at a meal."
"Then why is there always so much food? There had to be enough at every meal to feed a small country, and then some left over for an island or two."
"The castle enjoys trying to tempt me with different dishes. I rather think it likes having you here to ply with food now. I always stick to my drink."
"You shouldn't," Sarah said earnestly. "Some of the food is very good."
"Yes, but I didn't enjoy meals before. They stretched forever, with no company and no distraction from the silent sound of my eating. I began to drink to balais to shorten the time I spent in the dining hall alone. But that was before."
"Before what?" Sarah asked, not realizing she was stepping onto dangerous terrain.
"Before you came, Sarah. You chase away the silence in the dining hall, you make the entire castle thrum with life."
"It still seems pretty silent to me," Sarah said, wishing he'd be quiet on the subject of how wonderfully she'd transformed the castle. It made her wonder if he actually meant to let her leave eventually.
"You haven't been here for hundreds of years, listening to the resounding echoes of sounds that aren't even there."
"Sounds like fun," Sarah muttered, then quickly changed the topic. "Why don't you eat something with me at lunch?"
"Like what?" Jareth asked, eyebrows raising slightly.
"We'll decide that when we see what the castle has decided to serve us today," Sarah replied. "Let's go, Jareth. This will be good for you."
You are good for me, Jareth thought, but merely smiled back at Sarah's bright smile before she dragged him into the castle.