A/N Own Nothing. All my love to notwritten and phantom
Chapter 14 – The Underworld
Finally they came to the entrance of a very large cave, Kiara looked in suddenly deeply afraid. She couldn't see a thing inside of it, there was nothing but darkness. It took all of her will power to follow Jareth and she couldn't resist hanging onto his arm while they walked. It was a long downward spiral into the cave and all the while drips of water, groans and other unrecognizable noises could be heard. Kiara was now second guessing her decision to come at all, in comparison the labyrinth was a paradise.
At the bottom of the spiral was a small river with a man wearing all black was standing guard at a bridge. Kiara wondered if this is where the ferryman myth came from, only instead of taking a boat across the river you actually just had to walk across a bridge. Jareth walked right past the man and headed across, but Kiara stopped for a second to look at him. He turned to her and the glow in his eyes scared her enough that she didn't want to hang around any longer. She latched back onto Jareth and resisted burying her head into his back. She heard him chuckle lightly, but did her best to ignore it.
"Jareth, how nice to see someone brave enough to venture into the Underworld," said a short dark haired fae. He walked over to meet the visitors and gestured for them to follow into a room along the side of a tunnel.
"I do not plan to venture much farther into the Underworld for many more centuries," Jareth replied with a small smirk. The other fae nodded once and sat down on a large gray chair. Kiara was right and the place was as depressing as she thought. She stopped listening to the conversation and tried to see if she could see anyone else walking around the area. Jareth noticed her curiosity and assumed that she wouldn't really be interested in normal fae business, "Kiara, why don't you go look around for a little while and I will fetch you when we are done." Kiara looked scared, but she did want to see more of the cave.
Alexander nodded and turned to the fairy, "Yes little fairy please have a look around, I promise you that nothing will harm you. All that live here are spirits of the deceased." That last comment did not make Kiara feel any better, but she slowly headed out of the room and down further into the tunnel.
The tunnel twisted and turned a few times before opening up into a large chamber where she saw souls coming through one door and going out one of three other doors. She walked over and tried to overhear what some of the elves working there were saying. Sadly she didn't learn anything interesting, at the door where the souls were entering was an elf looking up names in a large book and directing them to one of the other three doors. All of the souls looked like they weren't really there, no one was speaking and none of them had any expression on their faces.
Kiara walked through the middle door surprised that no one seemed to care. Inside was a large set of stairs that led into another large chamber where the souls seemed to be randomly walking back and forth or just sitting on the ground staring into nothingness. She was about to be done seeing any more when a soul approach her and actually looked into her eyes. The soul looked extremely sad, but then what soul would be happy in place like this?
The female soul lightly put her hand on Kiara's shoulder, but all she was able to feel was a cold wind where the woman's hand was. The woman smiled slightly and looked over to the other side of the room, without saying a word a male soul looked up and came over to see Kiara. The souls looked at each other and then back to Kiara.
"Hi," was all Kiara could think of to say. The woman was fairly young, probably younger than Kiara and no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't see what color her eyes or hair was. The souls were all a very blank blue gray color and slightly transparent.
"Hi," the woman responded, "You look so much like me." The man nodded and Kiara just shrugged in reply. "Kiara," the woman said lightly and looked at the man with a slightly hopeful expression on her face, "You are not dead."
"No, I'm not; I'm just visiting with the Goblin King." The man suddenly looked very displeased, but didn't say anything. Kiara noticed as she looked around her that many other souls were beginning to surround her and trying to touch her. Even though it made her think of a really bad horror movie it still scared her. The souls continued to put their hands through her as she backed away from the one who originally talked to her.
"Don't leave yet," the woman said, "We want to get to know you."
"Why," Kiara asked attempting to push the souls away, however her hand just went right through and had no effect other than making her even colder.
"Because I am your mother," the woman said with a smile, "Your father and I have been wondering about you for years."
Kiara's eyes widened in disbelief, although she often dreamed of meeting her parents this isn't exactly the way she always planned it. She backed away towards the door stuttering as she went, "I really have to go, Jareth is waiting." She turned as ran away as fast as she could watching some of the souls trying to grab her one last time as she passed.
Back up through the tunnels she ran trying to put as much distance between the deceased and herself. She wanted nothing more than to get out of this place and didn't care how it looked when she ran back into the room where Jareth and Alexander were still sitting and talking. She ran right to Jareth putting her arms around him and burying her head into his chest.
Jareth was surprised since he was very distracted he did not feel Kiara's scared emotions until she was in the room with him. He made himself looked disgusted and glanced up at Alexander who shrugged and said, "Nothing should have been able to hurt her in here. With the exception of the elves, nothing else could even touch her."
"No, sorry nothing hurt me. I just saw something," Kiara mumbled and backed away from Jareth.
"Yes, there are a lot of things down here that most are never prepared to see," Alexander answered. He gave Jareth a disappointed look and Jareth knew it was because he let this lowly fairy not only touch him, but speak as well.
"I think we are done here anyway, we will leave now," Jareth stood up. He turned away from Kiara and completely ignored her until they were far away from the cave entrance, "I told you not to make a nuisance of yourself."
Kiara kept her head down and mumbled, "Sorry." She kept her eyes down even as they took off and started flying. Jareth could feel how upset she was and was starting to feel guilty again no matter how much he tried to push it away. When they stopped for a break, Jareth decided to find out what it was that Kiara saw. Deep down Jareth thought Kiara was very brave to adventure through the caves at all since he knew that he would never willingly do it.
"I have yet to venture down into the tunnels, what was down there?" he asked.
Still keeping her eyes down Kiara began to tell Jareth what saw, "Their eyes were so blank like they weren't really there and they all kept trying to touch me but only one of them would speak." Jareth leaned against a tree and waited for Kiara to continue so she did, "It was my mother, which is what scared me the most I think."
Jareth stared at the fairy for a minute and smirked at her, he didn't understand how seeing a relative could be that scary at least not in that way. "Is your mother that unattractive that she would scare you away?"
Kiara shook her head and started to laugh at herself, she started seeing how ridiculous she was being about the whole situation. She should have taken advantage and found out more about her parents like she always wanted too, instead she ran away liked a complete idiot. "No, I look a bit like her, but I never met her before; at least I don't remember ever meeting her. My father was there too, I've never met him either, but he didn't speak at all."
"We must hurry back, a runner will be entering in a few hours," Jareth said as he stood up and began to change. Kiara sighed and nodded hoping that she would be able to keep up. She did her best and Jareth did slow down a few times for her, but Jareth ended up leaving her to transport to the aboveground. Now she was able to take her time and actually stop to see the sights. She landed near the dragon cave she saw earlier and took a look inside.
The cave was very deep, but it was well lit. She called in to see if anyone was around and soon heard loud footsteps coming towards her. It was too late to wonder if this was a bad idea now and she watched as a dark red dragon approached her. It didn't look very nice, but on the bright side it didn't look like it was going to eat her.
"Hi, I'm Kiara, the Goblin Queen. I just wanted to stop in and say hi, I've never met a dragon before." Kiara didn't know if the dragon understood English or if the dragon really cared who she was, she was just praying that she wasn't going to get eaten. She swore she saw the dragon actually roll its eyes right before it walked back into the cave leaving her by herself once again. With a quick shrug, Kiara took off into the air and continued her sightseeing.