Pick Your Battles

Sarah and a drop dead gorgeous, human blond had spent the whole of their Saturday at the park near her studio apartment. The only thing that had kept her from blushing throughout the day was the image of his true face, the Erlkönig face, that her brain kept overlaying on his human one. She'd explained the rules of several sports and they'd settles to played ultimate Frisbee, soccer and kickball, as Sarah was horrid at baseball and basketball. Though they had watch others play those ones from a distance so he could see what she'd described to him. They played by themselves or with others when anyone else in the park showed an interest in joining them. Surprisingly, quite a few people joined them for several rounds.

Or at least it was surprising until Sarah noticed that many of the girls kept trying to be on Jareth's team or find ways to touch him as they played. As far she could tell he never seemed to notice. For the fun of it, Sarah had decided early on that she'd be on the opposite team in every round or game they played where there was a choice to be. Which also enabled her to see how roughly the guys would play against him, some even going so far as to block Jareth from getting too close to Sarah but then they were doing that with all the girls on either team. They just blocked Sarah off more than the others because Jareth was always trying to get near her.

Each game was like an intricate dance or a strategic battle. Jareth was the leader, the king of the other side even when he wasn't team leader, the same went for her. For each goal or point her side won, he'd rally his team and push for his own point or goal just a bit harder. She wasn't sure who had won at the end of the day but everyone parted ways on friendly terms. Sarah and Jareth picked up Chinese from a place close to the park so that they could eat by the park's little lake. They ate slowly, talking of everything and nothing until the subject she was dreading raised its ugly head. Jareth had asked to move his lesson up three entire days because she'd knocked out his retainer last night. So she'd decided to get it over with and had agreed to meet up with him at the park.

"I am rather concern that you knocked Arwel out so thoroughly, Sarah."

"First of all, he was in my studio, my bedroom, uninvited and then he started spewing rather spiteful things."

"I'm more curious as to why you just shrugged it off after. You 'decked him,' as you put it and then went on with things as if nothing happened."

"...Why didn't you step in if you were watching!"

"No, I saw it after. Crystal gazing through time is a wonderful thing. "

"Only because you can watch every episode made and yet to be of Sherlock and Doctor Who," Jareth gave her a deliciously wicked grin, "so why are you interrogating me if you saw it all?"

"Very few of my subjects know that I have the power to see past, present and future. Even less know that I can bend and shape to what I desire it to be when I wish... Very few have that power and some have even been assassinated for it-"

"So you're here to put up a show of getting both sides of the story to make your lackeys happy?"

"I couldn't care less about my 'lackeys' happiness, dear Sarah. I'm here to find out why you did it. I watched you hit him and then go on with your night attacking your homework and eating three plates of peach cobbler with an entire carton of vanilla ice cream. If I may, I would like to know what you where thinking."

"It was a horrific beast of a day, okay! My patience was gone before I even got home and then I found him there... Why was he angry with me anyway?"

"Why were you out of patience?"

"I asked a question first."

Jareth waved off her question as if it didn't matter, yet answered all the same, "he wants me to marry his daughter though the poor thing is scared witless of me even when I try to be kind. Why was your patience gone?"

"...I may have briefly seen someone else's face when I hit him."

"That answers nothing and only raises more questions, Sarah."

"I'd just come home from a date."

"Indeed, and how bad was this... date that you would take your anger out on one of my retainers?"

Sarah stared at her fingers, weaving them together then splaying them apart. She didn't want to answer him but she knew that he would simply wait until she cracked under his gaze. His needling made her wonder how much he already knew and if he did know why did he want her to voice it aloud. With no place to hide nor even a way to out run him, her only option was to answer. She felt even worse as she rambled a little in her embarrassment and pain for telling him. "The elf called me shallow and undesirable. The guy I was dating, Allen, we're in a bio class together... I'd been out with Allen not even twenty minutes before I found your retainer in my room... Allen had made me feel as if I was those things..."

Sarah turned her attention out to the lake. Sheer force of will kept the tears deep inside her as she tried not to think about how it hurt more to tell Jareth this than anything Allen had said to her the night before. She had explained to Allen when he'd asked before they had started dating, that she wasn't dating the blond that people had seen her with on occasion. That she and Jareth had been friends since high school, which was not technically true but close enough and all that Allen had needed to know.

Last night had been their twentieth date. They'd gone to dinner and then to a movie. It had been in the theater parking lot that Allen had taken her by surprise and accused her of not putting herself out enough. She'd thought she had been "close" with him and he'd never said anything before last night about wanting more than the kisses they'd shared. She'd stared at him dumbfounded as she's tried to defend herself but he just bashed her with other hurtful things. A glimmer of crystal in sunlight at the corner of her eye made her turn in Jareth's direction some minutes later.

"No! Please don't-"

"I've already watched it. Sarah, I am your friend correct?"

"...Yes."

"Then trust me when I say that that fool boy is wrong."

"...Jareth, how often have you watch me through those?"

"You've a right to your own life, Sarah. Would you like to know why Hoggle was so happy about what you did to that imbecile, Arwel?"

"Sure."Sarah tried not to show that his answer had irked her. She did indeed have a right to her own life but she'd like some privacy too. She mentally cataloged that bit of the conversation to argue about it about another day.

"Hoggle's family had rented land from Arwel's for many, many generations for dwarves have shorter lives than elves. It was prime vineyard land given to Hoggle's family for saving Arwel's grandfather twice. Every quarter, Hoggle's family would give a tenth of the wine and beer that they'd made to the Arwel's grandfather and then his father. Hoggle's family is famous for their wine and beer. Best in the kingdom. When Arwel inherited he wasn't as kind, he wanted more than just the wine and the beer. Now, everything he did was always within the law and his rights, so don't start telling me that it's unfair! Because it is, or was but had to be...I may have let it stand so that I might gain the brewer to my own household-

"I did not give you permission to punch me in the arm, don't do it again!" Jareth glared at her but it was more playful than angry before continuing on, "Hoggle had inherited at the around the same time as Arwel. Hoggle only had the land and the brewery for three years when Arwel took it out from under him. Arwel's grandfather had chosen to count the wine as the silver owed each year for the rent of the land. One bottle of that wine sells at thrice the amount of the silver needed in tax but Arwel chose not to see the wine as such and see Hoggle as cheating on his taxes.

"With so many years without paying the silver the debt was too high to pay and Hoggle was evicted and thrown off Arwel's land and lost the hand of his betrothed as no father-in-law wants their daughter to be penniless. Hoggle came to me for justice though he knew that I could do nothing to get his land back. Arwel has sadly ruined the vineyards though I'm told he had a good hoard of the wine stashed away when they took an account of the household before they tossed him out. Hoggle will continue tending my gardens and vineyards since his own no longer exist... He carries that bag of jewels, thimbles and spoons around because its all he has left of his household and family. I should fetch a bottle of that beer to finish dinner-"

"Jareth, you're forgetting my first encounter with goblin beer and ale and mead and it was all in one night too!"

"Sarah, I meant for myself not you. No one can nor will they ever forget your first and last night with goblin alcohol. Goblin bards already sing of it. It is only the threat of execution that keeps the goblins from trying to give you more! And there is still fountains of soap froth bubbling out of geysers in the Bog of Stench! You may have hated purbetch but you really didn't need to ruin it for everyone else. "

"Why don't you just magic it out then!"

"I've tried! Whatever you've done to it can't be undone! If you wouldn't hate me for it, I'd kill that fox for taking you to that wretched bar in the first place."

"Well, thank you for sparing him," she sounded anything but thankful, "...Why exactly did Arwel get evicted?"

"You are the Champion of the Labyrinth, dear Sarah. You are under the protection of the Labyrinth and it's court and we are under yours. He broke several laws entering your home uninvited and confronting you as he did. I had to evict him before the Labyrinth swallowed his lands, household and any people unfortunate enough to be in the way at the time. I believe the Labyrinth will spit him out eventually-"

"It ate him!"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. We should get you home, Sarah. It's getting late."

"...And a little cool too. So what is my next lesson? Oh and when?"

"Thursday, it's a surprise."

Sarah sighed as she and Jareth got up and collected their things. They walked quietly through the park towards her apartment building. Jareth saw her to the steps, but she turned back to him at the door.

"Thank you for the distraction, Jareth." He smile at her before she headed in. Just as the door was closing behind her, she heard a whisper of "always," then wondered if it had just been the wind and her mind dreaming that he would say such a thing.