Sarah sat at her generous oak desk, scribbling away with a cantankerous feather quill that couldn't help from commenting on the text slowly drawing out from its ink. Generally she ignored the textual commentary supplied by her pen. She also found it easy to ignore Jareth in her state of heightened concentration.
Jareth, however, did his best to titillate her imagination by slinking round her back and looking voracious and sly over her shoulder. It was of little use.
Sarah had work to do. Her respite consisted in being thoroughly engrossed in the task at hand.
Every now and then Jareth thought to drop in and help her. How he planned to help her Sarah only wondered. But she detected his odd mood and watched in half frustration and half bemusement as Jareth intermittently tried to silence her quill with guttural whispered threats of bog and the occasional flash of fingers targeting the talkative quill feather. The latter gesture really got under Sarah's nerves more than she could say. Honestly, if Jareth really wanted to help, he could very well have given her a non-yapping writing utensil to begin with.
But no, Jareth had given her the talkative pen with devilish glee in his heart. It had been his intention to irk her even and especially during her private moments of reflection and creativity. Sadly, his plan hadn't worked as well as he'd anticipated. Sarah was very good at ignoring the niggling comments spewing from the enchanted feather dancing deftly in her hand. Very good indeed. Probably from all that goblin practice. Yes, he mused, it was difficult to faze that Sarah. Still it was of no matter. Just one more challenge for him to surmount—what new antic to give his poor Sarah a proper jolt?
As Jareth lost himself in visions of producing some novel variety of petty torment, he lost track of his surroundings. Sarah, noticing the absentminded stillness of his lingering presence behind her, took the opportunity to lift her right hand and summarily stuff the jabbering feather end into the Goblin King's spaced expression. Before he knew it, Jareth was choking on a half-inhaled half-swallowed feather.
Chuckling at the idea of down in the king's precious little nostrils, Sarah reached into her pocket, pulled out a ball point pen and continued writing.