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VALENTINE'S DAY
Sunday, February 14

"Hello, precious."

Jareth's voice was warm and smooth - seductive, even if it sounded a bit surprised.

Sarah - who was more than a bit surprised at hearing his voice appear behind her - jumped.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, whirling to face him. She ignored how the sudden movement forced her out of her warm spot on the park bench and tried to repress a shiver.

Damn, but February is cold... a part of her insisted, ignoring more important considerations. Like what a fairy tale king was doing in the real world.

"Escaping my minions," Jareth said succinctly, strutting around the bench and sliding in next to her. He draped an arm carelessly over the back of the bench, and Sarah fumed at how he didn't seem to feel the cold.

Barely above freezing, and the man still wears his shirt open to the waist, she grumbled privately, trying not to enjoy the sight quite so obviously.

"Actually," Jareth continued, "I took the afternoon off. After all the mischief that the goblins got into last month, I thought I deserved it - and it's far easier to escape when they all feel too cowed to cause more mayhem."

"Is this about the cake batter?" Sarah asked cautiously. "Because I really didn't - "

"No, no, this is about the revolt that the goblins attempted to stage on the chickens' behalf," Jareth yawned, stretching almost catlike in his seat. "They're still smarting from that, by the way." His expression darkened as he remembered that particular episode.

* * *

The goblins had waddled into his throne room in a group, bold as brass and all clutching their black chickens possessively.

"We gots a problem, king," one of them grunted.

Jareth, who had been hearing increasingly asinine cases all day, motioned for him to continue.

"Our chickens ain't bein' treated right. They can't do nothin', and everybody treats 'em like they're just animals!" the goblin blustered.

In his many, many years of ruling, Jareth had heard even more ridiculous claims - although he was hard pressed to think of one at the moment.

"They are just animals," he explained patiently. "They cannot speak, they cannot think - all they do is rely on instincts to survive."

"That don't mean nothin'!" a smaller goblin squealed.

Jareth turned his head to see his subject visibly shaking - probably in terror at having publically contradicted his king.

"I happen to know, Sniggle, that you eat chicken eggs daily. If they deserve equal rights, should that not include the right for their children not to be eaten?"

Sniggle gaped as he tried to find an answer. One of the other goblins beat him to it, however. "The king says they deserve equal rights!"

Jareth straightened in his seat slowly before ominously rising from the throne. "As I am the only king within the Goblin Kingdom and I do not believe such idiocy, I can only assume that you are referring to someone else. WHO IS HE?"

"King good man!" the first goblin insisted. "We obey him now! He respect chickens! Not like you!"

The goblins behind him took a subtle, but noticeable, step backwards.

"That doesn't answer my question," Jareth said silkily. "If you don't tell me who he is, I shall simply have to punish all of you instead." Almost twice their height, Jareth loomed over the miniscule goblins.

"Martin Luther!" one of the younger goblins squealed. "He's Martin Luther! Please don't hurt me!"

The king paused, tilting his head slightly at the name. "Martin Luther?" he drawled lazily. "What sort of name is that? I've never heard of him, in any case...which means that I still get to punish you for plotting against me."

The goblins fled.

* * *

"What did you do to them?"

Sarah's question - sounding slightly horrified - recalled Jareth to the present.

"I was going to punish this 'king' person they were rallying around, but they said he was named Martin Luther and there's no one with that name in the Labyrinth, so I punished the goblins instead." Jareth paused thoughtfully. "It was probably better that way. Goblins are quite stupid, and they never learn unless you punish them quickly and harshly for something. They're rather like small children in that regard."

"And how did you punish them?" Sarah prompted. She knew she should be reacting more to his sudden appearance - should be demanding that he leave, perhaps - but then, he wasn't threatening her, wasn't stealing her family, was really only sitting down and talking to her.

Besides, how else would she hear about something as strange and completely nonsensical as a civil rights movement for chickens?

"I ordered them to kill all the mosquitoes in the Bog of Eternal Stench," Jareth replied easily. "They always breed there in spring before infesting the rest of the Labyrinth, but the job is unpleasant, difficult, and tedious enough to make any goblin rethink another revolution." He smirked in self satisfaction at his clever solution.

Sarah shifted and pulled her arms closer around her against the cold. "So they were trying to make this Martin Luther person king?" she asked, just before the light dawned. "Wait - Martin Luther King? Your goblins were trying to crown a civil rights leader from the sixties?"

Jareth turned to look at her slowly, his expression surprised and slightly irritated. "This person actually exists?" he asked scathingly.

"Yes," Sarah affirmed. "He died forty years ago, though. He was a Baptist preacher and did a lot of work to get African Americans equal rights compared to the whites - they were discriminated against horribly back then, but not anymore. He's very famous," she finished, only then remembering that this was the man whom Jareth's goblins had meant to install as king in his place.

"And he's been dead for forty years..." Jareth mused. He threw his head back suddenly and laughed expansively.

Sarah, watching him, had to laugh herself. It was - strange - seeing him like this, but his laughter was infectious, and so she laughed along at the goblins' inanity.

"Come on!" he said, suddenly throwing himself off the bench and pulling her along. He ignored her shrieked protests - she was only surprised, after all - and said, "I haven't laughed like that in years. I believe I owe you a dance, for that."

"Wait - Jareth, wait! Don't you think you should find out why they're celebrating our holidays? I mean, holidays from here - from my world?" Sarah babbled, thrown off-kilter by Jareth's spontaneity. "King's Day - and Martin Luther King Day was almost a month ago; didn't you say that was when they got in trouble?"

"Yes, but they're always doing silly things," Jareth laughed. "Two weeks ago, I caught them messing about with a groundhog and arguing about whether it was spring or not. I just took the animal away and sent them back to the bog to finish catching the mosquitoes."

"But that's another holiday!" Sarah wailed as Jareth spun her. "That's Groundhog Day!"

"You have a day to celebrate groundhogs?" Jareth teased, enjoying their dance too much to pay close attention to her protests. "What else? Rabbits? Chickens? Perhaps a strange rabbit crossbreed that lays eggs?"

"No! Well, Easter, but - "

Jareth laughed again and swept her up in his arms to twirl them until he was dizzy, snow crunching softly under his feet. "Oh, you precious thing, do you know how silly you are? You'd fit right in, you know. I should have kept you all those years ago and sent your brother home. He wouldn't have been nearly as much fun."

"Jareth, you ass!" Sarah shrieked, making him wince. He had very acute hearing, and she was close to his ear. "They're just holidays; I didn't make them! And put me down - you're the one who's being silly."

Still chuckling to himself, he carried her over to the bench and sat her on his lap, wrapping her in his arms so she couldn't leave. "All right, then, precious," he soothed, holding her until she stopped pushing against him and settled into sulking. "Tell me about today, then. Isn't it a holiday? I thought I'd come to see your celebrations, since I was taking the afternoon off anyway."

Sarah, suddenly realizing exactly which holiday it was, blushed scarlet. "Um...it's really not a very good holiday - I mean, there aren't any public celebrations for it, like for Easter or Groundhog Day or Independence Day..."

Jareth's wide smile simply grew as he watched Sarah trip over her words, face blushing like a tomato. He still didn't know what the holiday was about, but he was sure that it was interesting. "Sarah..." he teased. "What is today celebrating?"

"Nothing..." she tried to say, blushing and looking away from him.

"Nothing? Nothing, tra la la?" he insisted, catching her chin and forcing her to look at him.

It hadn't escaped his notice that, although she was blushing and clearly uncomfortable, she wasn't trying to escape him.

"It's Valentine's Day, okay?" she snapped. "So all the happy couples are out at parties and expensive dinners and giving each other presents and snogging and - mmf!"

Jareth cut her off with his own bit of snogging, deciding it would be worth her arguments later. After holding the kiss for a long moment - and exploring her delicious little mouth quite thoroughly - Jareth let her pull back. "There. Now was that so painful?" he asked. "I just wanted you to tell me what all the celebrations were about."

"You didn't have to sexually harass me!" she snapped breathlessly.

Jareth shrugged lazily, not even bothering to hide that he was grinning like the proverbial canary-eating cat. "That, my dear, was not sexual harassment. That was simply to stop your increasingly passionate rambling before you became too angry to talk to." His smirk grew even wider. "If you are ever curious about what real sexual harassment is like, though, I'd be happy to show you."

Sarah glared frostily at him. "Actually, today isn't only Valentine's Day. It's also the Chinese New Year," she huffed.

"Oh?" Jareth asked, grinning congenially again. "How do you celebrate that?"

Sarah paused. "I don't know, actually, but I think you get together with family and have a large meal. And maybe fireworks. I'd have to ask my friend Amethyst. Her family is Chinese."

Jareth reclined comfortably on the bench. "If today is her family's new year, then wouldn't she be celebrating? We should join her." He grinned slyly.

Sarah frowned. "I'm sure she's busy with her family, and they might not want strangers barging in on their party."

"But you aren't a stranger - didn't you just say that you're her friend?" Jareth purred persuasively. "And you did say that there were no Valentine's celebrations...unless you'd like to go out to dinner with me."

"I'll call her," Sarah said shortly.