Anam Cara

The Champion Gets a History Lesson

Sarah dusted the swords and shields that hung above the mantle though not much had settled since her last attempt, her walkman playing through the headphones over her ears. The music gave her a small reprieve. Forcing her brain to take in the lyrics and instruments, drowning out her own thoughts.

It had been a few days since that first witnessed nightmare. In that time, she busied herself with sweeping, beating rugs and cushions, mopping, and scrubbing until the king's room shone with the product of her sweat and callouses. And, of course, she cared for Jareth. Anticipating his needs. Fulfilling his requests. Anything to keep her mind from thinking.

The time he spent sleeping in unrestful repose had only increased as the days went on. Every dream he had seemed to end with him chasing after a woman whose name now burned in her ears; branded on her brain and heart as it was on his, claiming him for an apparition. Her stomach soured as she thought of her. A feeling she also refused to call by its name.

So many questions swirled in her mind as she laid awake at night when left alone without the day's distractions. Who was she? Had she rejected him? Run away? Was she a lover or wife who died? Why wasn't he currently married? Had he ever been? What bothered her the most was the realization that she knew nothing about him.

Who was he? Where did he come from? What was his childhood like? How old was he? She knew none of those things. And yet she couldn't bring herself to ask. What was she afraid of?

The truth. Would she learn that she was nothing and no one to him? Just a silly little girl that he met once. Would she have to face her jealousy head-on? Accept that her fantasies were hers alone and that he desired another?

She felt stupid for never considering it. Well, she always was one for wanting was she couldn't have. Acting career. Fae Kings. Like everything else, she would learn to move on but it was so difficult while she was here...with him. She descended the ladder on which she was perched, searching for something else to occupy her hands and mind.

Lightning sparked across the dreary sky outside. Jareth closed the book he had no ability to attend to, laying it on the table next to his high-back leather chair in the sitting area, and observed Sarah from the corner of his eye while she dusted the furniture around the room before picking up another tome he hoped would achieve what the first could not. Anything to keep from sleeping again, from dreaming.

Corridors stretching endlessly and a dark figure running just ahead of him. Skirts rustling. Long hair flowing behind her. He was so close to catching her. Sometimes, for a moment, he believed he had before waking once more to the harsh reality that he had lived centuries alone.

He noted that Sarah had been quiet, more reserved in recent days. Though she never fully lost her spark or her wit, he could tell that something was weighing on her mind. Were her duties too much? She did not seem unaccustomed to menial labor which irked him, for some reason, much like an itch just out of reach. She seemed content as she hummed, fiddling with a box on her hip that was attached by wires to bizarre ear muffs.

"Sarah" he called to her, waiting for her to remove the contraption covering her ears. "What is that thing you're wearing?"

"This? It's a walkman." Realizing by his annoyed glare, that answer would not suffice, she continued, "It plays music that has been recorded onto these tapes."

She pressed a button and the front popped open with a loud click, revealing to him the plastic cassette inside. She had brought a small stack of them into the room earlier, adding to her ever-growing collection of belongings in his room beside her makeshift bed on his window seat. She barely left his side now.