Chapter One
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Jareth wasn't a subject she wanted to think about--no, scratch that. She wanted to think about him, to figure him out, his mysteries, his lies...his truths? But she had an irrational fear that just thinking about him was going to make him magically appear again in her life. Literally. So she tried to break the habit of a lifetime and stop daydreaming.
Sarah chewed on the end of her pen, the tattered plastic scraping the tip of her tongue one cool November morning in English class. Tall, modelesque Mrs. Norrin was lecturing them on proper paragraph format for their soon-to-be-due essays, and the squeaking of the marker on the whiteboard kept drawing her out of her thoughts.
"I wanna freaking go," Lyssa whispered behind her, talking to her cell phone again in time to its muted beeps. Across the room her boyfriend was hunched over, eyes drawn to his lap, replying.
Sarah blinked and looked around at her once-again ordinary life. 'This is what I wanted,' she reminded herself. It had never seemed so dull before.
SHRRRIIIIING!
The students jumped up happily and left in record time to fully savor every second of the five-minute break time between classes. She rose with them, fingering the strap on her shoulder bag. A flash of light twinkled in her eye, and she looked up, heart suddenly hammering in her chest, but it was only the glint of Mrs. Norrin's ring in the weak sunlight steaming through the window as she lifted her cup of water.
'He has no power over me,' she reminded herself, moving into the crowded narrow hallway with the uncomfortable weight of books on her shoulder. Listening to the conversations going on around her she wondered why she had never before been bothered by her lack of a social life.
'Because I had my fantasies,' she answered herself, then pushed the thought away. It hurt to think that her ability to imagine had been stolen by a vengeful Goblin King--but she didn't even know for sure that that was what had happened. Sure, she had rejected the fulfillment of her fantasies, but not the enjoyment of having them. Or had she? Jareth had been vague in his wording. She paused in the hallway, and was knocked into the wall by a guy half a foot taller than her in a fitted t-shirt and jeans.
"Oh...didn't see you," he tossed over his shoulder without stopping, followed by a group of dreamy-eyed girls. She didn't bother replying, leaning more fully against the wall. No one saw her, because she had never seen them, only the images in her mind, and after several years people had stopped trying to include her.
'This is what I won,' she thought, depressed. 'Why does it feel like I lost'
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"So this is the little mortal that bested our dear Jareth," the High King said smilingly as he looked through the fairy's eyes as she worked her magic. Several decades of viewing through another being's eyes via a mind connection gave him considerable skill in directing her, despite her presence in the mortal world, and his in the fae. It helped that Vithana was submissive to him; she liked her place in his court. "She seems to be feeling her lack."
"Yes, Majesty," Vi said agreeably. No one addressed him by name, for to know a fae's true name was to be able to work spells on them. Many created intricate monikers, and those that didn't often had ones made for them, not always to their liking. The Goblin King had many names. Sarah had known him as Jareth, and the King took particular delight in addressing him as so when he came to court. Jareth was stubbornly calm about it on the surface, but the King could sense his distaste. So could the others; no one else dared to mimic him.
"I wonder that such a creature could defeat Jareth," he mused, prodding Vi in her bird-form to hop to a closer tree-branch to eye the girl as she entered one of those metal contraptions humans used to get around in. It weaved around similar vehicles and sped away down the pavement.
"They say he has not been the same ever since," his wife murmured beside him, loosing her golden waves from their up-do now that they were alone in their most private chambers. Queen "Alaitha" had a mind that caught information and analyzed it until it yielded every mystery it held; he trusted her grasp of fae-doings.
"Do they?" he asked, recalling Vi and releasing her from his power. His eyes lost their violet hue and returned to their usual sharp green.
"A storm moves constantly in the atmosphere of the Underground," she spoke of the lowest region of the fae lands, sliding forward on the bed towards him, allowing him a generous view of the cleavage straining against her sapphire-blue bodice. "The once-dry land is drenched with rain and lightning," she purred.
"A pity," he managed. "He will destroy his own kingdom." He reached for her, dragging her closer to him. "They say to love is to refuse sanity." Fae did not often love, but could be as loyal as they desired, and as lustful as mortal adolescents.
"He could be made to submit," Alaitha sat in his lap, gazing at her husband, neatly conquering him. "Capture his mortal obsession and taunt him with her. Then our rebellious Goblin King will not defy you so." She ran her hands through his hair, tilting his head back for a kiss.
He kissed her deeply, and sighed as she drew back, straightening. Jareth was well-known as the "black sheep" of the noble fae, a first son of the King's own brother. He could be governing a realm of higher elements, producing an heir and living in luxury with the aid of magic he was entitled to but not currently in possession of because of his rebellion. In Idon's name, the great ancestor of them all, the fool was ruling a land of goblins. Goblins! The lowest magical creatures! He forfeited his birthrights all to have the freedom to be relatively un-bothered out in the fae equivalent of the "boondocks".
But he was not far enough away that gossip could not reach him and run home to tell the court about his defeat.
"She is unusual." He nuzzled his queen's neck, caressing her with pure magic through her clothing. "I wonder that she had the strength to refuse him. How is such a being, who is enthralled by our magic, able to reject it?"
Alaitha merely smiled knowingly, sensing his falling in with her desires.
"I will take her and find out," he decided.
Alaitha drew back, putting her hands on her hips in a uh-uh pose. "She must want to come, or our realm will quickly ail her," she reminded him. "No, my husband--her dreams remain in our hands, as all lost dreams are, in the Source Cystal." There they were held and converted in times of need to powerful reserves of magic. They were not, as rumored, retained by the Goblin King, because his job was to win the dreams or the children, and he kept only his newly converted subjects, the laborers of the nation. Dream essences vanished into the King's crystal as soon as they were lost by any means, not merely Jareth's trickery.
His queen reached for him again. "You may go where you wish, without summons. Go to her, offer her the chance to reclaim the dreams she lost, and bring her here. And with her," she magicked away his clothing impatiently, something only a highborn fae could do, "you will bring in line your wayward noble."
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A/N: I didn't want to do an information-dump through the dialogue, but I needed to needed to bring to attention why the King is interested in Sarah as well as explain a few things about the fae in general. I tried not to be to be boring while doing so. I want to again point out that only royal fae can do magic, which I probably won't be going into more detail about, though I haven't yet decided if the plot calls for me to explain why. Either way, it's a rule in this fic, which helps to explain Jareth's having magic for a different reason than in The Light Aboveground, though I've kept the fairy-viewing as a matter of convenience, since no one else has crystals like Jareth. I hope this chapter wasn't too bothersome. Things will become more interesting in chapter two.
Also, I KNOW IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I UPDATED ANYTHING, FORGIVE ME!!! In my defense, my grandmother almost died. That's rather distracting, to say the least, and emotionally draining. I will try to be update-y again now, since she is better, and I'm not frantic with worry.
P.S. I don't think modelesque is a real word...but I'm sure I've heard it before. Means "resembling a model" by way of unusual beauty or presence, at least to my mind anyway. I just wanted to be be as lazy as possible in description while still giving you a sense of the minor characters who we will probably never see again... : )
To my reviewers:
Notwritten--thank you for coming to visit my new Sarah/Jareth story!
Caughtinblackseyes--fabulous, eh? I like hearing that, thanks!
Anna--I'm glad you think this is interesting. I know it's a common theme in fics, Sarah's lost dreams, but I hope mine will be turn out to be different enough you all like it anyway.
