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Sarah's money was coming to an end. She had gone most everywhere that she had wanted to go, and it had been fun while it lasted. But now, it would soon be time to begin an entirely different adventure.
Presently she was in Ireland. Her plane had landed in Dublin, and after walking around the city for two days, she had rented a car and taken off into the country. The moors and old village walls were beautiful in a lost, meandering sort of way. She was staying in an inn that night, and planned to drive back to the city the next day. It was actually Halloween, which she had planned, being unable to think of nothing more hauntingly idealistic than spending this day in rural Ireland.
Sarah was going through her suitcase, trying to see how many things she had accumulated. She had tried to shy away from buying souvenirs, but had invariably gotten some. (She hadn't been able to resist buying some pants suits, and dress skirts and blouses while in London.) And just this day, a local woman had persuaded her into buying a good luck horseshoe, especially if she was going to go "drivin' round the countryside by your lonesome on All Hallow's Eve." People here still believed that there were things that came out to go bump in the night. But who was she to argue with them, really, knowing who she knew? Sarah had laughed to herself, and indulged the woman. After all, what did it matter?
But standing in her room as she spun the shoe around her finger, a sudden thought occurred to her.
"I want to talk to you," Sarah said, dropping all formality. She knew he would always hear her direct voice, and it was what she wanted, whether stated as a wish or not. Besides, she didn't think that "I wish" was required anymore of those who were already in his power, so to speak.
She was right.
"Yes?" she heard, as he appeared next to the fireplace. He was dressed rather casually (for him), wearing a white shirt with black pants and boots. "Why Sarah, a little far from home, aren't we?"
"I'm taking a vacation. So? Does this mean anything to you?" she asked, holding up the horseshoe.
Jareth looked genuinely puzzled. "No?" In a loose motion, Sarah tossed the horseshoe not at him, but to the side of him. He picked it out of the air easily, and held it up. "Should it?"
"Can you touch it because you're wearing gloves?"
Jareth seemed confused for a moment, before he actually laughed. "Sarah, don't tell me you thought me some sort of faery?"
"Well, sort of? I mean, what else could you be? What are you?"
He threw the horseshoe up into the air, and then began spinning and rolling it from hand to hand as if it were one of his crystals. "Does it matter?"
"Yes! Since I'm going to be spending the rest of my life with you, I think I'd like to know."
He gave an elegant shrug. "The words for what we are have long been lost in your language. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that they existed in the first place."
"We?"
"I'm certainly not completely alone, though there are merely a handful, so to speak. However, we generally can't endure each other's presence for any lengthy period of time."
"We?" she questioned again.
Jareth made a vague gesture. "We've always been here--the things of the ancient world--watching since before your ancestors built their first cities. There are different names of us in different places, of different times. They called us demons in Japan, gods in old Egypt-- Sometimes we inspired the legends, other times they took ideas and merely applied or confused them with us. None are exactly correct."
"So is there a word...?" she ventured.
"Not by us."
Sarah was now thoroughly enchanted once again. "So how old are you?"
"I recall Rome."
"Which part of Rome? Beginning? Empire? Collapse?"
He shrugged again. "I don't remember. The times of this world have never been my primary concern or interest."
"This world?"
"Don't be dense, Sarah," he said humouredly, still tossing the horseshoe around. "The world of the Underground."
"World?"
"My kingdom is more than the Labyrinth, and the Underground is more than that. In its way, the Underground extends throughout the earth. Don't you find it incredibly coincidental," Jareth continued, "that nearly every people throughout time has had tales of other beings and some sort of hidden world where they primarily lived?"
"I never thought of it like that before."
"Not to mention that the ones who look the most like humans are the most powerful?"
"The most powerful, is it?" Sarah asked with a smile.
He smirked. "But of course, dear Sarah. We rule the Underground, or at the very least don't answer to anyone else." Jareth flipped the horseshoe over in his hands once more, before catching it and holding it up. "You won't mind if I keep this?" he asked. "I'm sorry if you were planning to use it against me..." he trailed off.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Just a silly souvenir I bought that made me think. But why do you want it?"
"Iron is rather hard to come by in the Underground."
"But you said--"
"I never said faeries don't exist. You yourself have seen that there are other things--goblins, dwarves, annoying pixies. And 'faery' is rather a broad category, you know. There are many unpleasant things in the Underground. In fact, it might be prudent for you to have some iron, in addition to my own devices. There are things that it's quite effective against--I just don't happen to be one of them."
Then Jareth grinned and disappeared.
