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KING'S DAY
Wednesday, January 6th

Sarah heaved a sigh of relief and dropped onto her bed, running her fingers through her hair. The holidays were finally over and she was back at school, but she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Toby had been happy, she consoled herself. The way his face lit up at Christmas always made her smile in reflection, even if Karen was always crotchety over being woken up early to open presents.

And reminding her that he's only seven and still a kid does NOTHING to help her temper... Sarah mused, pushing herself off her bed and moving at a glacial pace to begin unpacking. Oh well. At least he liked the Legos I got him.

Which had set off a discreet, but uncomfortably pointed, lecture about how Legos are a choking hazard and who was supposed to clean them up when Toby left them out and what was she to do when Karen and Robert tripped on them and broke their necks.

"I need a drink," she groaned, flinging the (ugly but "stylish") sweater Karen had given her on her bed.

"What a coincidence," a deep, silky voice purred from behind her - an impossibility; her roommate wouldn't be back until tomorrow, and oh gods, how did a man get in our locked apartment?!?

Sarah whirled and tripped over her bed in a terrified rush to back away from the intruder, not even looking at him until she was sprawled helplessly across her twin-sized bed.

"So do I."

Sarah looked up at the man standing over her, the oh shit alarm bells quickly becoming oh gods I'm FUCKING SCREWED.

He was a tall, slender man with blond hair and mismatched eyes. He wore beautiful, expensive, and well-tailored - if somewhat eccentric - clothing, a gold medallion about his neck, and tall, slightly heeled black boots. He was beautiful, he was dangerous, and she hadn't seen him in six years...

...and he was, for some inexplicable reason, covered in -

"Cake batter, Miss Williams. The goblins do not bake - in fact, no one in my kingdom bakes, so I will be quite interested in your explanation as to how this happened."

"M - my explanation?" she asked, slowly sitting up and scooting as far away from him as she could. Some ancient fight-or-flight instinct was telling her to move very slowly around the predator in her bedroom...

"Yes," Jareth replied in his silky, dangerous voice. "You see, the goblins decided that today would be a wonderful day to surprise me with cake batter - and chose to do so by covering me in it, as you can see. As I sent the lot of them to the bog for their treasonous actions, one squealed 'It's not our fault; it's not our fault; Lady Sarah said to.'" Jareth mimicked the goblin's voice with icy precision. "So I repeat - I will be quite interested in your explanation."

Sarah gaped at him for another long moment before her brain finally kicked into gear. "I have no idea what they're talking about," she said honestly. "I haven't seen any of your goblins since I ran the labyrinth, and I haven't even seen Hoggle, Sir Didymus, or Ludo since before Christmas - two weeks ago, actually. I certainly never said anything about cakes or batter or covering you in it."

Jareth stared at her pensively, still looking terrifyingly angry, but she thought - just thought - that his anger might no longer be aimed at her. "So you have no idea why my goblins would currently be doing this?" he asked, still icily.

He twirled his hand and a crystal appeared in it, which he held out to her. Sarah leaned forward very carefully, not touching it, and looked into it.

Goblins, some still splattered with the noxious bog water, danced and scrabbled about in his throne room, digging through the puddles of cream-colored batter on his throne and the floor around it. One found something that looked like it was made out of brass or copper - some cheap, shiny, gold-ish metal - and jumped in Jareth's throne yelling "I King! I King!" The token clutched in his grubby hand was vaguely triangular, like Jareth's medallion.

"Cake...and a king?" Sarah asked aloud, bewildered. "Cake, king...king, cake...oh no."

Jareth glanced up at her, one wingtip eyebrow raised. "Yes?" he asked politely.

"Ah... I think I might know what they're doing, but I have no idea why, or how they heard about it."

"Do go on," Jareth encouraged, smiling disconcertingly.

"Well, today is King's Day - the twelfth day after Christmas - and if you celebrate it, which I've never really done, then you bake a cake with green, purple, and gold icing and bake a bean or a trinket into it. When you eat the cake, whoever gets the trinket in their piece becomes 'king' for the day." Sarah watched Jareth with trepidation, wondering how he would take this news.

"I...see." Jareth stared into the distance thoughtfully for a long moment before focusing unnervingly back on Sarah. "I shall have to reeducate them, then. No one will be the king of my labyrinth, even if only because of some mediocre concoction of egg and flour."

And, just as suddenly as he'd appeared, he was gone.