Jareth (kingjareth) wrote in parabolical, @ 2008-07-12 20:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | jareth, narrative |
Who: Jareth
What:: Jareth leaves a present
Where: Outside of Sarah’s apartment
When: Monday, July 11
Rating: PG
Status: DONE
Jareth had ignored Sarah for over two and a half weeks, and the reason behind it was more vexing than the absence. It wasn’t just that he had not contacted her, it was the fact that he had more or less abstained from looking in on her that was so bothersome, and he blamed the witch for that. Ever since she darted into his life, snatching up that blasted cable and refusing to speak to him, Jareth found himself worrying that his plans might not work, and that bothered him. His plans WOULD work, they had to. Being a king, the most powerful king in all the world, meant that your plans had to be perfect, well thought out, and, above all, foolproof. Because of that, he spent two and a half weeks crafting a plan tirelessly. Avoiding Sarah was hard, painful, but it was necessary so that he didn’t allow her to become a distraction from his larger task. He’d think about the plan when he sat in the park watching the humans go about their lives, read their books in the library and think about it more, and at night, while all of the humans dreamed in their beds, he thought more about his perfect plan to win Sarah over.
And now that the planning was done and he was walking toward her apartment with his offerings cradled in his arms. Reaching the door to the apartment building, he imagined for a moment that he smelled something sickeningly sweet, a reminder of her but he told himself that it wasn’t possible, that the witch had not gotten to his Sarah. His hand went to the door, and when it didn’t open he muttered a curse under his breath. He had never tried to open it before, as the one time he had been inside had been with Sarah and every time he had looked in on her had been through the window or while she was out and about. He didn’t know why it refused to simply open and let him drop off his gift.
“You must be here for the party…” Jareth turned his head, carefully schooling his face into a neutral look despite the fact that the giggling old human woman had the nerve to touch him on the shoulder. “Oh my, honey, they did such a good job picking you out, Amy will love it. It’s not every day a girl turn thirteen after all.”
Jareth flashed a smile that was more snarl than anything, but his entire perception changed when the woman pulled out a key and opened the door. Whatever her faults, she had gotten him in. “The King’s live upstairs in 309, I’ll meet you up there. It was very nice of you to get her a present young man.”
Jareth watched her leave and then snorted. The flower, the package in his hand…they were all for Sarah, not for some nitwit of a thirteen year old child. Going upstairs to Sarah’s apartment, he laid them gently at her door. The entire building, but particularly her part of it, reeked of the sweet awful odor, but he wouldn’t’ be deterred now This effort had taken him two and a half weeks, and it was all that he could do not to pound the door down now, to give her the presents, to rescue her from the stifling stench, but his plan required patience. Every piece in the puzzle had a purpose. The flower was meant as a peace offering. He’d not been able to resist adding it because the bright yellow-orange color of it, and its fiery tenacity to stand out even amid a sea of similar ones reminded him of Sarah. The package itself, the true present, was full of meaning as well. He had included a hardcover volume of the works of two authors by the name of Grimm, with the blue silk ribbon marker turned to the section on King Thrushbeard. There was also a small wooden box containing several glazed black pottery shards.
Jareth laid them gently on the floor directly in front of her door, then stooped down again to nudge the flower more fully on top of the parcel. Satisfied with the display, Jareth turned and walked away. It was the closest he could come to expressing why he did as he did, and why he wouldn’t give up on her. Just as the good king in the human history book had gone to great lengths to convince the princess that she should be his bride, so Jareth would do a great many things to get through to Sarah. He might do things that others would see as cruel, just as the king had done when he ran over the pottery, and he might be seen as ridiculous to others, but Jareth knew the truth. He would succeed in the end, and, when Sarah was at the end of her rope, begging him for his favor once more, he would be just as generous as the king had been. He would welcome her back with open arms and forgive her. He’d come back tomorrow, after giving her time to consider his gift and his offer, and then they would be free to leave this horrible place and return to their kingdom— his kingdom.
Smiling at his vision of the future, he didn’t even care when a group of children obviously about to attend the aforementioned party stopped to gape at him, or when one of them said his hair was better in the movie—he didn’t even hear them. In his mind, he could still hear Sarah’s voice, saying the words he had committed to his memory at the end of the story.
Then she cried bitterly and said, "I was terribly wrong, and am not worthy to be your wife."
And in his mind he answered her, just as the king had done.
“Be comforted. The evil days are past. Now we will celebrate our wedding."