Author's note: As always thanks for reading. This next part kind of moves up along. I know you're probably all waiting for something hot to happen between our two heroes and I promise it's coming soon!
Born-of-Elven-Blood, things don't quite steam up yet…well you'll see.
Lady Akhana, I hope when you come back and find a couple of additions you'll be happierJ
Ok on with the show!
Sarah made her way behind a large rock, away from His Majesty's prying eyes. Slowly she peeled off the slimy, muddied blouse. A sneer of disgust fouled her expression. Several times Sarah flung her muck-ridden locks off her face. She'd just managed to remove one slushy shoe when she heard the snapping of a tree branch close by.
"Jareth, do you mind?" she spat over her shoulder. Strangely, no one was there. In a feat of great balance, Sarah twisted around the boulder to see where Jareth had gone. Hopping on the remaining shoed foot, she craned her neck and saw no one by the hole.
"Jareth?" she whispered. "This isn't funny. I know you're hiding." She was calling him out and he wasn't bluffing. Sarah put her shoe back on and held up the dirty blouse to her chest for some modesty. Cautiously she came around to where the two of them had come up from the tunnel. She could see footprints surrounding the hole. She saw hers, Jareth's, and then some other type of prints. These prints were smaller and there were three times as many. Who ever made them must have been fast and quiet because Sarah hadn't heard a thing over the rushing waterfall.
As Sarah's brain finally process what she was looking at her eyes widened. Jareth had been taken. She tried to follow the footprints but found that they suddenly disappeared. Twirling around madly Sarah yelled in frustration.
"Oh great! Fantastic!" She cried to the treetops. "I finally start to get somewhere and now this happens. Well fine! Don't even think for a moment that I'm coming after you, because you can just forget it, Jareth. I have other, more important concerns."
Roughly, Sarah put each arm into each sleeve of her blouse. Then, almost stomping like a toddler throwing a tantrum, she walked back to the pool of water and jumped in. It seemed that she was already dirty and wet, and she had no time to bathe properly.
Gasping for breath, Sarah resurfaced. The water was cold and quickly she scurried back out into the warmth of the sun. Again she rung-out her hair and tossed out of the way. With a stern look of determination she reached into her pocket.
"DAMN!" she cursed. Jareth had the compass. Without Sarah was most definitely lost. Now she would have to find him. "You win this round Jareth," she pouted to herself. "And when I find those little monsters who took you, they'll wish I'd never found my way back to the 'Underground'."
She continued to grumble to herself as she picked up her pack and headed for the trees. Sarah had the feeling that even if she wanted to mark a trail it would be a waste of her time. So instead she tried to memorise the look of the trunks as she went.
She wasn't very sure which direction she was supposed to go, but Sarah figured that since she was in search of Toby, the Oracle, and Jareth, that she was bound to stumble upon one of them eventually.
Night was falling and Sarah still hadn't found any of the people she needed to find. On the upside of things, she was convinced that she hadn't been travelling in circles all afternoon.
Suddenly, Sarah's ears perked to voices coming from up ahead. Keeping herself hidden behind the greenery, she crept up to a campsite. Sarah almost didn't believe what she saw.
Three red-faced girls with ragged dresses and mossy hair danced around a crackling fire pit. Not one was taller than Sarah's waist. One broke away from the circle and pulled out a large fluffy feather. Sarah then saw Jareth strung up by his ankles, hanging from a high tree branch. His shirt lay beneath him, his arms seemed to be tied behind his back.
The mischievous girl with the feather used it to trace a line up and down Jareth's rib cage. Sarah stifled her own snickering as the Goblin King, himself, burst into tearful shrieks of laughter.
"Stop. St-stop it!" Jareth cried through the laughter. "I mean it. Ha, ha." He wriggled and twisted trying to get out of reach, but the little girl just followed his movements. The other two girls pulled at their hair and screamed with delight. One even fell over she was laughing so hard.
"Teach you good," said the girl with the feather. "Bad Goblin man," she scolded passing the instrument of torture under Jareth's nose causing him sneeze several times. The second girl, not the one who fell down, took something in her hand and showed it to him.
"What is this?" she asked Jareth. It was the enchanted compass. "You weren't being naughty with it, were you?" She held it so it swung like a pendulum in front of his eyes.
The first girl stopped tickling Jareth so that he might answer. It took a moment for him to catch his breath and the second girl repeated her question adding, "You know us?"
"What I was doing with that little trinket is none of your concern," responded Jareth with an arrogant air. "And yes, I know you. You are the meddling little wood sprites that ward off unexpected nobodies from the Oracle's domain. Only, you can see that I am a 'somebody'. Now let me down." His last words were more of a command than a request.
All three girls looked at one another and then to Jareth. Simultaneously they shook their heads. "You're wrong," said the third girl. "You are a Nobody. No rite to audience with the Great Oracle."
"Come, come, now. Surely you know me as the Goblin King," he protested. The three sprites remained silent. "I will not be addressed with such disrespect. Untie me and take me to your master, or face the consequences."
Now all three were giggling, but not with the carefree amusement as before. Now the giggles were malicious and disconcerting. Sarah felt fear raise the hairs on the back of her neck. The sprites began swatting at Jareth, batting him back and forth. Their sharp nails scratched at his exposed chest, arms and abdomen. He cursed and threatened them to no avail.
Sarah couldn't stand for it any longer. She had to do something. Without thinking, she leapt out from her hiding place and threw anything she could grasp at the creatures; rocks, dirt, pine cones. All the while she screamed and grunted incoherent noises in an attempt to frighten them off.
The three wicked girls turned on Sarah and charged her. Before she could tell her feet to run the other way they pounced. Sarah was wrestled to the ground and somehow knocked out. The next thing she knew, she was hanging upside down right next to Jareth.
TBC…
