{Side note: The dress Cara wears is modeled after the Queen of Owls by Nene Thomas}
Ch17 The Goblin King's Ball
The ballroom had known opulence. Between glittering cornices were hung many long chandeliers where the wax, dripping for a hundred years, had formed stalactites. The silk covering of the walls had faded and, in places, worn threadbare. Bubbles decorated the room, and the whole of it was contained within the iridescent skin of one great bubble. A tall, gilt, thirteen-hour clock stood in a corner. It was almost nine o'clock.
Sarah watched the dance, and the dancers watched her, from behind their masks. The men sported silken shirts open to the waist and tight velvet breeches. Some of them wore wide-brimmed, plumed hats; others had capes or carried staffs. The women's gowns left their shoulders bare and dove low between their breasts. They had their hair coiffed high, and many wore long gloves.
The dancers moved in a ring around the ballroom, with a kind of lethargic brilliance, as though the party had been going on all night. Men who were not dancing lounged indolently against the columns, or in a cushioned pit in the center of the ballroom, in the company of women. Maids and footmen, with skin the color of old parchment, served them trays of fruit and refilled their goblets from decanters. And always the dancers were watching through the eyeholes in their cruel half-masks, from which snouts projected and horns sprouted above. Moving together or elegantly reclined, they watched Cara, or watched each other watching, and beneath the masks the mouths smiled at each other like knives.
Cara walked around eyes wide wondering where Sarah was, where she was and how she gotten there. She knew that in the story she had read you had to eat the peach but she hadn't maybe it was seeing the bubbles/crystals with the ball in it that did it. Cara was feeling very uncomfortable with the people that were staring at her and seemed to be whispering about her then she noticed herself in one of the mirrors. She always tried not to look at herself in the mirror since as far back as she could remember she had never liked what she saw, now she saw why they were whispering she had white roses in her hair and was wearing a beautiful snow white dress with black trimming that she felt would have suited someone else much prettier better then her. She was the picture of innocence in that setting, a picture that excited the dancers, who never took their masked eyes off her, while they moved with weary grace to the cadence of the sinisterly beautiful tune. A few gorgeously gowned women snickered behind their fans at her. The people passing behind her, in the mirror, were watching her like ravishing birds of prey.
Cara was tense now, self-conscious as she normally was only more so now in the dress, for she was among people she could not understand but who behaved as though they knew something that she didn't know. She hoped this would be over soon as she continued to move hurriedly around the ballroom looking for Sarah and ignoring the whispers around her.
"Where is she?" she wondered aloud.
"Where is who?" a voice asked behind making Cara's eyes open wide for she knew whose voice it was even though she'd only heard it once before. She turned to face a man holding a reddish horned mask on a stick who, once she'd turned, removed it to reveal himself.
"Jareth?" she said surprised that he wouldn't be somewhere else looking for Sarah instead of by her. He was a resplendent figure, upright and blond, in a midnight blue frock coat, diamante at the neck, shoulders, and cuffs. Ruffs of pale gray silk at his throat and wrists set off the pallor of his skin. On his legs he was wearing black tights and black, shiny boots.
He smiled at her surprise "Shall we dance?" he asked and before Cara could protest he took her hand and whirled her onto the dance floor.
"What do you think of it?" he asked her.
"I feel like I'm in a dream. It's the most beautiful place I've ever seen."
"You're the most beautiful thing here Cara."
She blushed, not only from Jareth's comment but also from the fact that she'd never really dance with a guy before and that he seemed to hold her so closely, she managed to find her voice and ask "What are you doing here?"
"Well it is my ball," he responded with a smile making her blush more.
"I meant why are you not you looking for Sarah?"
Jareth looked hurt for a moment "Why? Should I be?"
Cara felt bad as if she'd said something wrong again; she looked at the ground as she spoke, "I'm sorry I just assumed you'd be looking for her. She's so smart and beautiful and everything, I'm nothing special I'm sure I'm not even supposed to be here."
She heard Jareth laugh lightly then felt a hand under her chin "You don't understand do you?" he said more then asked, lifting her face to look at him. "Many people are beautiful on the outside but on the inside they're beasts. You have a greater and truer beauty, an inner beauty, the kind that shines and casts a pure light on everyone else lucky enough to realize it." Cara blushed deeply and looked away causing Jareth to laugh again, "So sweet and innocent I doubt you'll ever lose that, no matter what those fools do to you."
Cara looked back to see Jareth look angry, "What is it? Who do you mean?"
Jareth smiled slightly "Isn't it obvious? Those fool parents of yours all they do is hurt you, I've seen them! I've heard it, the hurtful things they say to you just because they can't do anything about what's happening in their lives! They try to make you feel inadequate and worthless, if I ever get my hands on them…" he trailed off and Cara could see the anger in him again.
"It's alright," she said somewhat sadly "I'm used to it and it's not as if you're the one doing it. Besides trying to talk to them or change how they think won't do any good, they always have to be right it's just how they are. I'm not even sure they realize they do it or how much it may hurt Niki and me when they do."
Cara sighed slightly and noticed that somehow during there dancing he had lead her off to the side where it wasn't so crowded she was about to ask how the got there when Jareth pulled her closer and embraced her making her blush very red.
"How…" he said quietly "How can you still be so sweet and gentle after how they've treated you? How can you be so kind to everyone when others have been cruel to you? Why are you still so childish and innocent when you've been through so much?"
Cara was in too much shock to speak and even if she wasn't she had no idea what to say. Jareth held her tighter making her blush even redder.
"Why? And why can't more people be like you?" He let her go slightly just enough to look her in the eye, "Why?" he said again, much quieter this time, as he brought his face closer to hers, Cara couldn't move. It looked like he was about to kiss her, a part of her happy and a part of her was afraid.
Before anything could happen Cara heard a clock begin to chime the hour and remembered, *Niki* Cara gently placed her hands on Jareth's chest to stop him, "I can't."
Even though she didn't really want to she pulled away from Jareth and ran to one of the mirror walls. Cara picked up a chair sitting near by she looked back to see Jareth looking sadly at her as if he knew she had to even if she didn't want to, then turning back to the mirror she smashed it. As the bubble burst she heard a few of the others who had been at the ball scream before she felt herself falling as she was sucked through the whole.
As she fell she saw strange things, and pieces of things, and things of pieces, were whizzing through space with her, some overtaking her, some receding. Then Cara started to recognize objects. It was an aerial Sargasso Sea formed of everything she had ever seen or imagined but rearranged in improbably combinations.
*If this is the debris of the ballroom than all my life must have been at that ball, in disguise.* she thought.
The floating junk room of her mind stretched from horizon to horizon. It was all speeding up and beginning to spin around, faster and faster, in a maelstrom, her with it. The rush of air became a screeching, untuned music which made Cara cover her ears.
Then it stopped she was on the ground, in her own clothes again and as Cara looked around she knew where she was, the junkyard.
