The very first thing Sarah did with Jareth's new gift was turn one of the goblins into a throw pillow.

By accident, of course.

No matter what she did, she could not change the pillow back into a goblin. She secretly suspected this was because she thought the beast made a much better throw pillow than a goblin.

She eventually gave up and went to ask Jareth to do it for her. He grumbled to himself all the way back up the tower steps, then changed the goblin back with a wave before disappearing back down the stairs.

"Sorry," Sarah said to the goblin, who glared at her warily and quickly followed his king back to the main floor before she 'accidentally' turned him into a tea cozy or a dust mop.

"Okay then." Sarah looked around the dreary stone walls of the tower room, then at the crystal wand in her hand. A slow, wicked grin began to pull at her lips.

Not ten minutes later, Jareth was sitting in the throne room, one leg casually draped over an arm of the throne, reading a book, when one of his smaller goblins dashed by, screeching madly, closely followed by something white and hissing. He glanced up curiously to watch the two creatures disappear down the stairway that led to the dungeons, and then calmly went back to his book.

Sarah arrived moments later and stopped in front of him, panting heavily and trying to catch her breath to speak. "Where—?"

Without taking his eyes off his book, Jareth wordlessly pointed to the stairs.

"Thanks," she said, and went after them.

The dungeons were dank, and dark, and depressing, but then they were dungeons, what else had she expected? Flowers and rainbows? Not damn likely. Maybe a few clumps of lichen blinking their bulbous eyes at her as she passed, but certainly no flowers. Sarah didn't even know if they had rainbows in the Underground. She supposed they must, but if they did, they could not have been seen from that part of the Castle. There weren't any windows, not even windows with bars on them.

The only really positive thing she could say about the dungeons was that it didn't look like they had actually been used for centuries. She used the faint, moon-like glow of the wand to guide her and almost stepped on an ancient, crumbling skeleton, and that was the only thing she saw that suggested there had ever been life in this place. She noticed that there were manacles around the wrist bones that were connected to thick chains which were bolted to the wall. She shuddered and quickly moved on.

She found the goblin by following his high pitched gibbering cries. He was at the back of the last cell, crouched in the very darkest shadow he could find. Shire, Sarah's cat, had him cornered there.

It had seemed like a nice idea at the time, and she really did miss her pet, so she had used the wand to summon him to the Underground.

Things had started to go wrong the instant Shire appeared in her room, on her bed, with every one of his sleek white hairs at alarmed attention. He took one look around the strange room, taking in Sarah and the hideous little monsters lurking in every corner, and sat down to clean himself. In Sarah's experience, this indicated one of several things; he was bored, he was irritated, he was feeling very pleased with himself about something, or—and this one really seemed the most likely—his fur had been ruffled during the transition and he was simply putting it back in order.

However, while Shire seemed to take everything in stride, the goblins made the mistake of trying to 'make friends'. The cat, quite understandably, took exception to this and tried to rip their faces off. He may even have succeeded, if one unfortunate creature hadn't tread on his tail and invoked the cat's wrath. Shire, who had a very well developed sense of revenge, had set on the goblin with every intention of disemboweling it.

And that was how she ended up here, alone in the dark, creepy dungeons of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City, rescuing a goblin from the raging demon that was her cat.

Shire gave a low growl and the goblin yelped and tried to climb the slimy stone wall. The cat paced a little away and sat down, looking positively smug.

"You stop that," Sarah scolded. Shire regarded her balefully, then got up and made his way back to the stairs, his tail held high and proud.

The goblin whimpered, bringing Sarah's attention to it. "Come here," she coaxed, trying to keep her voice as light and harmless as she could. "Come on now, he's gone. He won't hurt you."

The goblin didn't look convinced. "Will," he said. His voice was surprisingly low and scratchy for such a small goblin. Midge was no bigger than this one and his voice was high and shrill, a few octaves lower than a whistling teakettle.

"If you come out of there, I promise I won't let him hurt you, okay?" She tried to use the bright, soothing voice she reserved for scared children and crazy people. The last thing she needed right now was a goblin to freak out and try to bite her. Just like rainbows, she didn't know if they had rabies in the Underground, but if they did, it was a safe bet this little beastie had it. "Come on, he's gone, I swear."

"Is not," the creature argued. "Mean," he confided to her, making a clawing gesture with one hand to demonstrate. "Bite me. Hurt."

Sarah sighed. There really was nothing for it; she would have to try to pick him up and carry him back to the main floor.

She crouched down and when the goblin didn't shrink away from her, she reached out and gathered him into her arms. "If you bite me," she warned, "I'll turn you into a mouse and feed you to him."

The goblin's yellow eyes widened fearfully and his blunt little claws clutched her arms tightly. "Won't," he promised.

"Good, let's get the hell out of here."

"Hell," the goblin agreed solemnly.