Drowsy and happy, what will happen between Jareth and Pip? And what about poor Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Ludo locked down in the dungeon?
How about we find out now? Tee hhe, I'm up for it, are you? If so, keep reading! Onward!
Chapter 4
"What did she mean she doesn't need to be rescued?" Hoggle asked Ludo and Sir Didymus as he paced the small cell they were locked in. Pip and Jareth had gone and not returned, and Hoggle had a feeling they weren't going to for quite some time, if they ever returned to check on them. "What do we do now? If Pip really truly doesn't want to be rescued, what are we doing here?"
"Because the lady asked it of us and we complied willingly, my good sir." Sir Didymus mused, scratching his chin lazily. Sir Didymus sat cross legged on the floor, looking around; bored it seemed out of his brains. "We do as the lady asks of us, and so we are here."
"Sarah friend. Ludo help friend." Ludo huffed quietly, cocking his head to one side as he looked at Hoggle as he continued to pace around. Sarah had sent them to help Pip, but Pip had said she didn't need their help. Now what did they do?
"We need to escape this cell and go tell Sarah about Pip and Jareth and what Pip said about not needing help." Hoggle said finally, looking up at the others.
"But our lady said to return with her lady friend. We cannot turn up without the lady Pip!" Sir Didymus said quickly, trying to reason with Hoggle as he looked for a way out of the cell. "She would be most upset and displeased if we return without what we were sent for!"
Hoggle stopped looking around for a way out and quit pacing around the cell. He looked at Sir Didymus, thinking about what he had said. Sarah would be upset if they didn't bring Pip back with them. There was silence in the cell as Hoggle thought, thinking about everything Sarah, Pip, and Jareth had said to him.
"I got a plan!" Hoggle said suddenly, beaming brightly as he pulled the other two creatures into a huddle. "This is what we need to do..."
(Jareth POV)
Pip and I sat together wrapped up in each other's limbs as we nursed the wounds that Sarah had left us with, leaving us in pain and agony. Except she had thought on both counts we would tough it out alone, without seeking the help of someone else. But Pip was here, and she needed me to help her with her problems. Just as I needed her to help me heal my aching and bleeding heart. She understood my pain, what I was going through because Sarah had put her through the same ordeal. She reached out a hand to stroke my cheek tenderly, plainly showing me she cared in her simple way.
As I sat there holding Pip against my shaking body, I was struck with a strange longing to kiss her lips, to pull her even closer to my body and claim her heart as my own. It was a confusing and wonderful thought all at once, though I was unsure of why I had suddenly wanted her as my own so intensely. Looking down at her face I studied it, plastering her image in my mind's eye. Her long red hair fell in a curtain around her face hiding her eyes from me. Her fair skin, her soft reddish freckles that played lightly across her cheeks, her dainty little button nose, her beautiful almond-shaped emerald green eyes, and her lips. Her lips were light pink and slightly puffy from where she had strained them screaming before. I wanted to caress her face in my hands as I held it close to mine, to run my fingers through her long flaming hair until they were tangled in it, to taste her sweet soft lips surrender under mine as I kissed her hard.
"What is it Jareth?" Pip asked me, tearing me from my thoughts and back to the present, back to her. She was looking up at me, politely puzzled. Whether she didn't know what I was thinking or whether she was choosing to ignore it if she did know, I couldn't be sure. I was embarrassed, which was a strange new feeling for me. I was never embarrassed, no one dared embarrass me for fear if being thrown into the Bog of Eternal Stench. "What's bothering you? And don't say it's nothing, because you'd be lying."
"How would you know for sure?" I asked her, amused. Her gaze pierced my skin as she replied.
"I'm a girl, that's why. Women can tell when men are lying to them, got it? It's a gift all girls are cursed with." Pip yawned widely, stretching her arms out. She was tired and it had been a long day for both of us. I hadn't realized how tired I was myself until she yawned.
"Stop that Pip my dear, yawning is contagious!" I yawned, placing a gloved hand in front of my mouth as it stretched wide. "You're going it to me, stop. I don't want it!"
"Consider it a present for bringing me here, your Highness." Pip laughed, snuggling and wiggling closer into my embrace as her eyes slipped shut. I smiled down at hers as my own eyes fluttered, almost falling asleep before I realized that we were still on the throne room floor. Laughing internally to myself as not to wake my poor Pip, I picked her up gently in my arms, carrying her through the castle asleep in my arms until I reached my bed chamber. Deciding it would be best for the both of us I laid Pip down on my comfortable bed and looked for another place to sleep for the night. We could figure out where Pip wanted to sleep from now on tomorrow, I was too tired to worry about it just now, and so was she apparently. Looking down at her as she slept, I saw how peaceful she looked, her red hair fanned out over the white satin pillows. My greatest wish was to lie down beside her and wrap her up in my arms again as I slept, but I didn't dare disturb her so peaceful and gentle was the look playing across her sweet face.
I slid down the wall beside the bed to slump leaned against it, thinking bitterly about just how comfortable my bed was and how much I already missed it. My last conscious thought was this – 'What am I supposed to do with Pip tomorrow? She bores too easy'
(End POV)
(Pip POV)
A beam of sunlight fell perfectly through my window, landing right on my face. I screwed up my face, trying to shut out the light. I wasn't ready to wake up just yet, it still seemed so early to my sleep-logged brain. I flipped over onto my face with a groan, pressing it into the soft pillows under my head. I stiffened, thinking but I didn't move. These pillows are way too soft, mine are really hard because my stupid brother always sneaks in my room and steals the good ones off my bed. Reaching out to grab the sheets wrapped around my waist, I pulled them up over my head, realizing as I did that these weren't mine either when I touched them. This isn't my bed, or my sheets, or my pillows. Everything's just so soft and comfortable, and everything I own is a nasty, hard hand-me down. What's going on here?
At first I couldn't remember where I was or what was going on. Lying there face down, I first remembered the feeling of another body pressed against mine, making me feel safe and protected – and wanted. Like someone actually cared what happened to me, that I was happy and safe. I had never got that feeling from my family, they hated me, I reminded them too much of my mother. Then I remembered that deep soothing voice, the comforting arms that had surrounded me, and last the face.
"The Goblin King!" I shrieked, jumping up.
SHRIEK! THUMP! 'OUCH'!
I had jumped a little too high, sending myself flying from the bed and onto the floor at the foot of it. Rubbing my head I looked around at the room I was in. It was rather depressing really in a beautiful way, all blacks and dark blues. It was nice looking to be sure, but so dark, like the owner wanted nothing more than to disappear into it and be forgotten when they were here. The bed was large and took up most of the corner closest to me, all white sheets and black bedposts. It was easily the brightest thing in the room. I picked myself up off the floor, walking around the room to peer into all the cracks and corners curiously. The walls were covered with shelves piled with lots of strange objects I had never seen before. Strange orbs, long feathers, weird thingamabobs, all kinds of things cluttered up around the edges of the room, leaving the bed in the middle of the floor.
"So this is where Jareth sleeps." I murmured to myself, running a hand over the end of the bed, feeling the silky sheets flow under my hand. Jareth was nowhere to be seen, he must have been up for hours, but I knew what to do if I needed him. All I had to do was call him, just like he had said to if I needed him.
Perched in a corner of the room in the shadows was a magnificent old wooden grandfather clock with an owl carved into the top. The clock was fashioned form ebony wood, with gold and silver in the border around the glass that protected the pendulum, which was encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies. Floating in the air around the pendulum were what looked like the same type of crystals as the one Jareth had given me when he had first brought me here. I pulled mine from my pocket to look between the one in my hand and the ones in the clock to see they were identical. It was splendid, and I reached out a hand to touch the delicately carved owl with trembling fingers fingers.
"No, don't touch it!" Jareth shouted at me, grabbing me from behind and pulling me away from the clock. I was shocked at having been so roughly pulled away by someone I had thought could never and would never hurt me and also confused at why I he was forbidding me to touch the clock. It was a beautiful clock to be sure, but was it really so important to him that it was left in the corner, untouched by my hand or anyone else's? "Pip, what were you doing? What the hell do you think you're doing, these things aren't yours, are they!" Before I could answer however, he cut me off, continuing to rant and yell at me, making me feel more than a little upset and scared. He was more than a little creepy and downright scary when he yelled. "Pip, you must never touch that clock, it's very important that you're listening to me? I hate to sound like Sarah, but don't touch it for your sake, I swear I don't mean to be a pest. Just leave it alone, will you? God, I was so stupid bringing you here, I should have left you there in the human world with Sarah. You'll be lucky if I don't take you back there right now, you ungrateful little girl! Better still, I could lock you in my dungeon and forget about you for a million years!"
"I'm sorry my lord, Goblin King." I stammered, backing away. Jareth seemed so angry, angrier even then when he had reprimanded the Hoghead gnome creature or whatever his name had been down in the dungeon. I tripped and fell backwards onto the ground at his feet, placing my hands protectively in front of my face in case he went to strike me. "Please, I didn't mean it!"
"Stupid child! You actually I would be stupid enough to hit you? How heartless do you think I am? You think I'm a monster don't you, just like Sarah did!" The Goblin King yelled, showing himself to me the way he had shown himself to Sarah, just as she had explained him to me – a heartless manlike shell with no concern for other's feelings and a bad temper. He stormed out of the room, slamming the doors behind him, leaving me to cry weakly on the floor. I wasn't sure what I had done to make him so upset with me, or if it really just had been about the clock in the corner. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I laid my head upon them, sobbing myself into a coughing fit.
I feared the Goblin King's return. He could come and go as he pleased with the smoke trick from before, which scared me quite a bit. The fact was he could materialize at any moment out of thin air, just when I felt I was safe and alone in this room he had left me stranded in.
Picking myself up off the floor I rushed to the two high doors at one end of the room, pulling on the handles, thinking I could escape. I underestimated the Goblin King once again, something I seemed to be doing more and more often lately. They didn't budge and I could only assume that he had locked me in this place, my own little prison of sorts.
(End POV)
Jareth stormed, ranted, and raved throughout his castle, yelling curses and threats to anyone or anything he came across in the halls as he stomped quickly passed. He ran up the stair to his tower room, the room he went to when he was planning something, usually something wickedly bad that could come at the expense of someone else. Slamming the door shut, he paced the room until he had calmed down slightly, or at least enough so that he wouldn't yell at anyone else.
The servants and other goblins in the Goblin King's army shook in fear below the tower, deciding it would be best to just stay away that day until they were sure it was safe. There had been many a time when the Goblin King had unknowingly thrown a spell he had been working on out the window to drop onto the head of an unsuspecting goblin, who was usually turned into a chicken. (A/N: I thought I would make up a reason for why there always seemed to be chickens running around in the 'Labyrinth'! There you go an answer to the mysterious chickens!)
(Jareth POV)
I closed my eyes as I sighed, running my shaking fingers through my hair in frustration. I knew what I had done, whether or not I liked what I had done or not. I had yelled and shouted at Pip – the very girl I cared about, the one person I had come to love. I gagged, my eyes snapping open. I did love Pip I realized, my heart sinking. What am I kidding, I don't have a heart. I'm an empty shell of a Goblin King, a shadow of what life is, I don't exist, I have no right to exist after what I did to Pip.
"She'll never forgive me." I sighed, dropping to my knees in front of the table where I kept my spell books and other magic things. The look she had given me as I had yelled at her was the only thing I could see in my mind when I closed my eyes. "She was so scared, I terrified her. What's the hell is wrong with me!"
I jumped up, throwing myself up against the hard stone wall in anger. I felt so stupid and useless. I didn't care if I hurt myself, I shouldn't have even been alive in my own mind, I had no right to be so mean to her.
"Why did I yell at her?" I asked myself, sitting in the chair by my desk. I was going back though it all in my head, trying to remember. When I get that angry, I act purely on instinct not on thought, so sometimes I can't remember why I got so angry in the first place. All I remember afterwards is that I did get angry at all. "The clock, she wanted to touch the clock, that's it!"
I jumped up, realizing why I had gotten so upset with her. She had wanted to touch the clock - that cursed clock thing I kept safe locked up in my bedroom for no one to see or touch especially. I had never told anyone about it. It would be too dangerous for anyone to know my secret. They might take advantage of it or use it to take advantage of me.
"The truth is that clock is tied to my powers. If anything happens to it, I'll die along with it. It's the source of all my magic and power over the other goblins. Without it, I'm useless and if it's destroyed, I'll die." I said to myself, admitting it. I had to keep the clock safe, and I had hurt Pip because of it. "Right now I'd rather her have knocked the clock over and set it on fire as terrible as I feel right now. At least then I wouldn't feel so guilty."
I knew I had to apologize to Pip, but I also knew I couldn't go empty handed. I walked over to my table, flipping through my spell books for a spell I could give to Pip as a present for being such a jerk to her earlier. I found just the one, performing it quickly before wrenching open the tower door and running down the steps.
"I hope she can find it in her heart to forgive me." I whispered to myself, straightening my collar as I stood outside the door to my room. I had magically locked it so no one but myself could ever open the doors – from the inside or the outside. I had forgotten about that and hadn't gotten around to telling her yesterday, which meant Pip would think I had locked her inside out of anger. It's not really a conversation topic though, how would i have slipped it in anyways? 'Lets talk about doors, they're so wondeful! By the way, did I ever tell you about how my door can't be opened by anyone but me? No? Well, now you know!' Great way to get her to like me isn't it? God, I am such a moron!
Biting my bottom lip, I knocked on the door, not remotely surprised to hear Pip scream even though it made my heart ache. I had been expecting as much. I opened the door slowly, walking slowly inside before closing the door with a snap behind me. Here we go! Time to make things right!
So the clock's important, Hoggle has another brilliant plan, and Pip's terrified of the one person she thought she could fall in love with. What will happen next? Will Pip accept Jareth's excuse for being so cruel? Find out next time in chapter 5, until then!
