WHO: Peter Petrelli, Hoggle and other denizens of the Labyrinth; briefly, Sarah Williams WHERE: the Labyrinth, in Jareth's Kingdom WHEN: Outside regular time. WHAT: Separated, but not alone, the challenges continue. RATING: PG-13 STATUS: log; COMPLETED! NOTES: Hoggle written by nopoweroverme
Peter was falling, then crashing into ground that was heavily inclined hard enough to knock his breath away. The downward motion continued, partly sliding, partly rolling. There was no way to know just how far he'd fallen, but when he finally stopped, striking against something far softer though terribly uncomfortable, he was still blind in the darkness.
And now, also incredibly sore.
"That hurt," he muttered to himself, still laying against whatever he'd fallen on. It wasn't comfortable, but it was softer than everything else down here, he was pretty sure of that. Quick self-diagnostic: his limbs were bruised, but nothing seemed any worse than that. A few new scrapes along with one semi-deep cut just over his left eye. A half-inch lower, and that could have been far more serious. Status: He would live. Next step: Find Sarah.
Then the soft, lumpy surface he was leaning on started to move. Peter rolled off of it, sliding his feet back to make sure he could move back, and squeezing his eyes shut to hurry along the night-vision process.
In the just as labyrinthine tunnels and passageways that made up the lower levels of Jareth's Labyrinth, Hoggle had been attempting to shadow the movements of the two above, biding his time until the moment Sarah predictably found herself down below in one of the oubliettes. He was certain she wouldn't be able to resist calling some part of it a piece of cake after all the times before. Once she had, he'd lead her to the castle, then maybe, if it wasn't too much of a bother, he'd dig out this Peter too.
Sarah'd probably insist anyhow.
So it was with some surprise when the human body that hit him came with a male voice, rather than Sarah's. That surprise quickly turned to indignation, this newest fact adding to the indignity of being landed on again.
"Argh, geroff me!" That was what Hoggle intended to say, but it was muffled entirely by his position. Still, Peter's weight did vanish and Hoggle sat up, glaring through the dark at Peter. "Watch where you're going!"
That wasn't a hard voice to recognize. "Hoggle?" He nearly opened his eyes in surprise, but overruled himself, keeping them shut for a full minute before lifting his lids and blinking in the dark. He could see the dwarf, faintly.
And relief at a familiar face was quickly replaced with annoyance that it wasn't Sarah's. "Well, excuse me! Next time I fall down a hole, I'll be sure and ask for directions, to make sure I don't hit the dwarf at the bottom!" He got to his feet, ignoring the protests from the fresh set of bruises, turning his eyes upward.
"Come on, come on," he muttered, his tone impatient. But in a moment it was clear enough that Sarah hadn't been dropped down this ruddy hole with him. So Peter stepped around the dwarf and clutched at the rocks, with every intention of climbing back up to her.
Hoggle didn't move from the spot he occupied, just brushed off his clothing with sharp motions, not so much to be clean as it was to communicate his further annoyance that Peter had crashed into him - in fact, that he was down there at all. His eyes far more adjusted to the dark, he watched Peter grab the rocks.
And then he laughed, far more of an edge to the cackle than usual. He really hated being landed on.
"Ain't leaving that way," he said, finally getting to his feet so he could step back and watch Peter. "What're you doing down here anyhow? Supposed to be Sarah."
"Gotta leave somehow," was Peter's response, given with a harsh note. "Sarah's on her own."
He knew she was capable. More than capable. Sarah had beaten the labyrinth before, and could do so again. But she was alone. Peter wouldn't let her stay alone for a single second longer than necessary.
He had made a little progress in his climb, maybe five or six feet. Beyond that, the slope was smooth. Perfectly smooth stone, polished down to permit no cracks, no edges, no anything to let him climb further. His hands sought for purchase, and then the edges holding his feet gave away. Peter slid right back to the ground, scraping his hands on the stones as he tried to catch himself, and failing.
Well, at least he hadn't fallen on Hoggle again. Peter stayed as he lay for a moment to catch his breath. "Why were you expecting Sarah?" he asked, eyes shifting to the dwarf.
As Hoggle had expected, knowing how these pits and oubliettes and other drops from the upper level to the places below were constructed, Peter fell right back down again. People always took things for granted in here, it never failed. The way in wasn't the way out and if Peter wanted to get back to Sarah, he was wasting time he didn't have.
Hoggle had a few minutes to spare, though, which was why he had just watched.
But at the question as to why Hoggle had expected Sarah, the dwarf looked at him as though he thought Peter were particularly daft.
"'It's a piece of cake'," he parroted, lined face twisted into a frown that only creased it further. "Thinks she knows the way through, gets too damn certain of it, then says that. Down she goes, I gets her out of here before she ends up dead and that's that."
The frown morphed into a scowl. "But instead, I gets you."
Peter rolled his eyes at the remarks. "You know, your vote of confidence is overwhelming." He sat up, and the self-diagnostic was updated to add a score of new bruises to his knees, and shallow lacerations on his palms. Since the conclusion remained that his life was in no danger, he ignored the new injuries.
"She didn't say that, and neither did I," Peter reported, wiping the dirt and gravel and blood off his hands, against his jeans. "We got past the sphinx. The hedges were on the other side of the gate. A thorn cut her hand, and I dropped through the floor. Sorry I can't give you any fresh ammunition to mock us with."
Hell with trying to make friends. Peter had been willing to give the dwarf a chance before, for Sarah's sake. But Hoggle didn't seem interested. The one thing they had in common was their concern for Sarah. Fine. Peter could work with that.
"Look," he said. "I realize you don't give a damn about me. I can live with that. But I know you care about Sarah. You don't want her alone in here any more than I do. That's why you were waiting here. For her. I get it. But you gets me instead." Peter held his hands out, palms up, and shrugged. "So we're stuck with each other. So why don't we go and look for Sarah together?"
The dwarf's face was a study in sullenness as he listened to Peter speak, but he didn't interrupt. The news about the sphinx made him twitch briefly, as the last thing he had wanted was Sarah to face that risk. It meant he really shouldn't have stormed off, but that couldn't be helped now.
Briefly, he debated just going it alone from here, finding Sarah as he wanted to and then coming back for Peter. There were two things that halted that plan in its tracks - facing Sarah after leaving Peter here to retrieve later, and the suspicion that if he tried, this kid would find a way out and get himself into more trouble, which would also fall on his head when Sarah found out.
"Oh, all right, you can come along." The emphasis was placed on 'come along', as a distinction between doing it together or being followed. "But keep up."
Grumbling to himself, Hoggle ambled over to a heap of boards in the corner, pulled three free and then moved to the opposite corner to stick them to the wall in the rough shape of a frame. The boards appeared to attach without any fasteners and as they did, Hoggle let go of them and rapped on the stone now inside the frame. Once. Twice. On the third knock, the rapped stone took on a different timbre, one of hollowness. When it did, Hoggle curled his gnarled fingers around the rock that stuck out the furthest and yanked.
With a creak and grind, the blocks inside swung out in one entire piece, revealing a passage. Without a glance back at Peter, Hoggle crawled through the dwarf-sized hole.
That was a clever trick. Simple, sufficient, and more than mediocre. Peter stuck that memory in his brain for safe-keeping. Who knew what he could do in this place if he got his hands on a bit of chalk?
The problem with Hoggle's tunnel became apparent as the dwarf was snugly crawling inside. It was Hoggle-sized. Peter was twice the height of the dwarf. Granted, he was skinny as a rail, which would make put in the realm of feasable, but it was going to be worlds away from comfortable.
Keep up. Peter snorted. The dwarf had no sense of comraderie. Still, with a lack of options, Peter slid onto his belly and followed the dwarf through the narrow passage, more wriggling and slithering than crawling, but progress was progress. He was going to be filthy whenever they emerged, but that wasn't important. The lack of disinfectant for his scrapes was slightly more concerning, since infection could set in at any point.
Again, not something he had any control over. He had a dwarf to follow, so that's what he was doing.
Remarkably, Hoggle kept his amusement inside for once as he moved along the tunnel. It would be hard on the ears anyhow in such close quarters, so instead he laughed in his head and determinedly kept moving. It wasn't an intent to leave Peter behind, exactly, just be more in control of the situation by making it difficult in places.
He wasn't exactly known for playing completely nice with people he'd just met, after all. Even those he cared about would have a hard time recognizing real gruffness from affected gruffness.
When Hoggle emerged from the end of the tunnel, he got to his feet and then stood there, tapping one foot impatiently as he waited for Peter. After all of five seconds of this, he bent his head and peered back into the tunnel.
"I thought I told you to keep up," he grunted.
For all the wiggling and slithering, Peter had been making pretty decent time. Not fast enough for Grumbly McGrumpypants here, apparently. "Sorry, my serpentine impressions have gotten a bit rusty." Emerging from that joke of a tunnel was a relief. He was every bit as filthy as he'd imagined he would be, and his shoulders were sore from the way he'd had to manipulate them. But his hands had stopped stinging, and the blood wasn't trickling into his eye anymore. Both were good things. Maybe dirt had caked into mud and made makeshift bandages. No matter really, it wasn't hurting any longer, and that was relief enough.
Peter started to rise, then checked the height of the ceiling before he continued. It was tall enough, so he let himself stretch to work out the stiffness in his muscles. "If that's what it would be like to have tea with that blue worm and his missus, then maybe it's better that we didn't run into them."
Hoggle shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. "There's room, the wall slides open. Not worth the time, they only have worm-size mugs. Ever drank tea out of worm-sized mug? Bet you haven't."
The dwarf was prepared to elaborate further on the hospitality of the worm, but in looking over Peter - and wondering if he ought to drag the kid by a fountain to clean up before he brought him back to Sarah - he was stopped short by the wound above Peter's eye. More accurately, by the wound that was now not a wound so much as just a scratch, a distinct enough difference that Hoggle noticed. Just because he was giving the kid a hard time didn't mean he hadn't noticed and made plans to come up near a particular part of the inner gardens for a moment to take care of it, for Sarah's sake, but now that wasn't necessary.
Hoggle wasn't stoic in the face of shock, which was why he gaped, spluttered and pointed to Peter's head. "How'd you do that?"
Peter considered that. It wasn't as exciting as he could have imagined, but it still would have been entertaining. The worm-sized mugs put a bit of a damper on the whole thing, though. "No," he said, frowning slightly. "Can't say that I have. But it would-- huh?"
He paused, his train of thought derailed by the shock in Hoggle's face and voice. The dwarf was pointing to his head, and Peter felt his hair, his face. The only thing of note was the scar, but that had been clearly visible before, and hadn't brought on this kind of reaction.
"How did I do... what?"
Hoggle hadn't shaken off his shock. "Your gash - no more than a scratch now," he said, eyeing Peter with equal parts suspicion and curiosity. The kid had powers - Hoggle had heard him say as much when he told Sarah they'd been taken by Jareth - but he hadn't understood the exchange then between the two, and gotten too annoyed watching to ask what they meant.
Even if he had 'witch' powers like 'THE WITCH' who was his sister, he'd said Jareth took them. So how had Peter done this?
Peter blinked. He reached up, and touched his fingers to the gash over his eye. He could barely feel it. The skin was hardly even tender. He let out a startled breath, then looked down at his hands. They were dirty, fine, but a brisk rub against his jeans wiped off enough of the mud and grime to see that the lacerations that had been there a few minutes earlier were gone. Gone!
"Aaahahaha!" Peter shouted, the cheer one of victory, quickly turning into joyous laughter. "They're coming back!" He knelt, grabbing Hoggle by the shoulders. "They're coming back! Do you know what this means?!"
Peter laughed again, and threw himself and the dwarf into an impromptu spin. "He's not as powerful as he thinks! I'm healing!" Peter put Hoggle back on his feet, clapping his hands and shuffling his feet in a sudden little victory dance. "I'm heal-ing, I'm heal-ing! Break it down!"
Though Hoggle had been shocked by the healing, he was outright startled at Peter's reaction to having it pointed out, jumping back several steps from him but not far enough, as Peter still caught him by the shoulders. And if that wasn't enough of a personal space violation, then Peter picked him up. What was with people picking him up and swinging him around?!
Only Sarah was allowed to do that. He didn't care how apparently excited this kid was.
Before he could voice an objection beyond and outraged growl, he was back on the ground again, only to witness Peter, by all appearances to Hoggle, lose his mind. There was a brief space in which Hoggle seriously considered leaving him and running away, before the insanity turned his way, but what Peter was saying kept him in place. Well, not the last bit, but the parts in between about Jareth.
"Wait, just waitaminute, kid. What's this," he gestured with stubby arms in Peter's direction, "mean about Jareth? And you?"
Peter was still grinning. This was too good. "Jareth tried to take away my abilities. He said he did. I thought he did! They were gone! I couldn't use them, none of them. He didn't steal my powers. He suppressed them. They're still here! Inside me! I can get them all. All of them. Not at once, I mean, I'll have to pace myself out. In just a few hours, I should have the things I need."
Hoggle, of course, had no idea of the enormity of what Peter was explaining. He wasn't even following it completely, in the sense that he had no idea what these abilities/powers were, other than the fact Peter had just healed himself. The idea that Peter wasn't just some regular human kid who had no chance against protecting Sarah from Jareth would be visited, but first things first.
"He was wrong and he doesn't know it?" That was the most important part of this for Hoggle. It meant that they had an advantage now Jareth didn't know about and, best of all, it meant someone had gotten the best of Jareth.
The cackle that followed that thought was long and loud, and for the moment, Hoggle didn't even care if Jareth was watching.
Peter's grin widened when Hoggle started to laugh. "Yes," he agreed, through his own snickering. "He was wrong. We have the upper hand, Hoggle. And, with any luck, he doesn't even know it."
Though if he did, what did it matter? He hadn't taken Peter's abilities away. He'd only suppressed them. If Jareth had the power to remove them completely, he would have. This meant he didn't. He couldn't change what Peter genetically was. Which meant his abilities would continue to reemerge.
"Alright. Where to from here?" He was still excited, still overjoyed, but the lack of Sarah to share the moment with was something he needed to correct. Soon as he calmed a bit, he planned on trying to reach out to her with telepathy.
"Jareth wrong." As far as Hoggle was concerned, Jareth was often wrong about a lot of things, but he usually had his position as king to have his way despite that. But this time, being the Goblin King, being powerful magically and being a great big bully wouldn't stop him from apparently underestimating both his own power and Peter's. This was... well, this was pretty good, and optimism was not Hoggle's strong suit.
Eyeing Peter now with a speculative interest, rather than just the scowls and frowns for before, Hoggle waved toward the right.
"Down that way, past the false alarms," he said and then he did scowl, far more than some talking stones would usually merit. Much like other things had changed, various passageways of the alarms had changed as well.
Peter was ready to start moving, until the scowl. If it had been directed at him, he wouldn't have bothered to worry about it. But a look like that, for the annoying talking stones?
Peter let out a breath. "Changed them too, did he?" This was starting to be the pattern. Anything he or Sarah thought familiar had been altered into something far more dangerous. He frowned, and looked to the dwarf. "Want me to go first?"
Hoggle's scowl deepened. "Changed. Yeah. They spit fire now, too." And they didn't much seem to care for the fact they had to do it either, but then Hoggle always had thought they were an odd lot. Annoying and odd.
"Won't matter who goes first," he said, but he knew that it would, as Hoggle was the one who could predict when the faces would launch their attack. And Peter was too tall, there was no hope of ducking under them all in time. No, they were going to have to work together to get through, even if the kid could heal. Hoggle wasn't certain how far that ability would go.
"Let's get going," he said and started forward, but this time rather than lead by many steps, he stayed slightly more even with Peter, casting furtive, curious looks at him frequently.
Fire. That would hurt. Peter knew pyrokinesis, but he wasn't sure how taxing it would be to try and call up that particular ability. If he tried too soon, it would hurt, as well as drain him. It had to be a slow process, and he had to allow it to be slow.
They started moving again, and Peter found it easier to keep up with the dwarf. The kind of looks he was getting from Hoggle were amusing at first, but once they were out of these tunnels, Peter figured he ought to explain to Hoggle the things he could do. It would either help his case, or hurt it, but the dwarf deserved some answer.
There was a faint light ahead. As they followed it, the cavern they moved into was sand, not rock. High in the ceiling there were torches that dimly illuminated the room. By the firelight, Peter could see shards of glass glittering through the sand.
Fire hot enough to melt sand into glass. Jareth had raised the stakes in this little game of his to all new heights.
It didn't take anything more than their entrance to set off the rock faces in the cavern, at least the ones closest to them. Despite the danger, Hoggle looked mostly annoyed, tapping his foot impatiently until he could get a word in edgewise.
"TAKE HEED, AND GO NO FURTHER," the face closest to them, on Peter's side, intoned.
"BEWARE. BEWARE," a face further down warned.
When the face next to Hoggle started to speak, he glared and slashed his hand at it. "Enough. We know, just get on with it."
The rock face let out a whimper. "Please, consider listening this time. I really don't want to do this."
Hoggle groaned. "I won't tell if you won't tell."
The 'take heed' rock face spoke up. "He will know. Come on, just go another way."
It was a pretty odd brand of loyalty Jareth's subjects showed. The goblins, along with some of the labyrinth's inhabitants, notably the sphinx, seemed devoutly loyal. The rest were bound by fear of reprimand. They weren't happy in their jobs, even if it was all they had ever known. The alarms here had previously only wanted to speak their warnings, not even upset if the warning was ignored. But this time, they were pleading not to have to carry out their positions.
"Actually," Peter spoke up, "Jareth is having a duel with THE WITCH right now. He's not going to be paying much attention to what's going on here." He crossed his arms, and considered things for a moment. "We really just want to get by. But I wouldn't want any of you to get in trouble. So maybe... what if you could... just miss with the fire? You'd look like you were doing your job, and we could still pass through without any burns. Sounds like a win-win situation to me."
There was a ripple of murmurs around the cavern, the rock faces all seriously considering this suggestion. All they really wanted to do was say their warnings, the fire jets had been an unwelcome burden on their duties. It was bad enough people rarely came this way as it was, being the right way. Usually, they went other ways if they even got this far.
"Yeah, I like that idea," called a rock face at the far end, voice impossible high and squeaky.
"Oh, shut up, you like everyone's ideas," a long, thin face halfway down the cavern said.
"What if I singed your shirt a little?" the face closest to Peter asked.
"You have to make it look good," the one next to it interjected.
Hoggle, at this point, had heard enough. "Oh no, he don't," he said, ambling over to the rock face. "I'm not having you accidentally set him on fire." Sarah would never forgive him for that.
The looking good had to be a give-and-take, but Peter was drawing the line at any physical injury. "Well, that would look impressive. But I'll take the shirt off first, if you want to do that. My skin doesn't take well to burning." Peter was already pulling off the black shirt as he answered. It was a way to show willingness, and to deter the rock faces from insisting that he be wearing the shirt, since scorch marks would be even more a show of good faith.
He tossed the shirt to the ground where he could see bits of glass, moving back with Hoggle to get away from any potential blast radius. His jacket he reluctantly tossed further down the passage, to let any of the other faces get a shot at singing it. With his jacket and shirt gone, the weapons he carried were visible, the gun tucked into his waistband, and the katana that was always strapped to his hip. So far there had been no call for either one, and Peter was hoping things would stay that way.
While he waited for the faces to finish their debate, he brushed his fingers against the scratch over his eye. The mark was gone completely now. His healing ability was slowed, but far from ineffective. Excellent.
Where the jacket had landed, several faces argued out who would get a chance to singe it.
"I wanna do it!"
"If you do, you'll burn the whole thing. I'll do this."
"Just give me a sleeve, just one, please, oh, please?"
"Oh, all right."
Two short bursts of fire later, the back and one sleeve of Peter's jacket were singed, any creasing in the fabric from how it had landed now small holes or smoking ridges. Hoggle watched the whole thing with openly displayed derision but an internal sense of relief. He hadn't really been looking forward to timing their passage through this place and getting it wrong.
The face next to Peter cleared its throat, taking its time before singing the shirt, as these flame jets weren't exactly pin-point accurate. A long pause, in which it cleared its throat a second time, and then flame passed in the air over Peter's shirt, striking the ground in front of it to let the outer edges of the flame do the job.
When the fire stream was shut off, the face cleared its throat again. "I do hope that's all right, I did try to leave you with a shirt," he said, clearly worried.
Peter picked up the shirt, shaking off the sand and shards of glass that were clinging to it. The right side had taken the brunt of the fire, leaving no shoulder and only the bottom half a sleeve. "Looks like a close call to me," Peter said, giving the face a grin as he pulled the shirt back on. "I don't think anyone can see it and think you didn't do your job."
The coat, he gave a bit more consideration, and a deeper frown. He liked that coat. It had been a gift from the father of a little boy he'd pulled out of one of the detainment facilities. There were burned patches now, and a few holes. He sighed, and pulled the jacket back on, careful not to let any of the damaged material tear further. "Looks good, guys." Making it look good was important. Having his shirt burned without the jacket being harmed would have been ridiculous. "We're gonna nip through now, if you want to call out the warnings. Just don't expect much reaction, okay?"
Aware that he had echoed Hoggle's words after they had left his mouth, Peter gave the dwarf a grin, and nodded down the path. "Come on, we should get going."
The look Hoggle returned when Peter grinned at him was one of surprise to hear his own words used by someone else. It really did make him wonder just how much Sarah had told Peter about everything. The thought was actually a comforting one, despite Hoggle not wanting it to be. He was far more comfortable with grudges and grumpy feelings.
Peter's suggestion was met positively. "Oh no, of course not, but thank you," a rock face called from partway down among the various cheers the faces were offering up at the chance to do their shtick without the fire too.
And then the chorus of false doom began as the two walked between the faces.
"GO BACK WHILE YOU STILL CAN."
"SOON IT WILL BE TOO LATE."
"THIS IS NOT THE WAY."
Each face in turn offered its short or long saying of doom, but eventually they reached the end.
"Psst." The hiss came from the last rock face on Peter's side.
He didn't exactly understand the reasoning behind the false alarms. Anyone with some sense would realize that, with this much effort shown to deter them, they must be headed in the right direction. The only sort of person it would fool was someone with the mentality of a five year old.
Peter paused. Oh. That makes more sense now. Clearly, Jareth though they would be adequate deterrents.
The hiss made him pause. Peter glanced at the face in question, leaning in conspiratorially. "Yeah?"
The rock face cleared its throat and then continued to whisper. "You wouldn't happen to need a false alarm or two, would you?" It didn't hurt to ask, after all.
Peter grinned, a bit sadly. "Wish I could, buddy. I really do. If I figure out a way to bring some of you back with me, I'll come find you." He patted the face about where the shape gave the suggestion of a cheek.
The thought of having a few of those guys lining the entrance to the Hyperion made Peter grin. And give definite sentient intelligence to the security.
"Oh. All right," the face whispered, disappointed, then cleared his throat, "ONLY DOOM AWAITS YOU FROM HERE."
"Right, right," Hoggle grumbled as he turned the corner and moved up a slight incline in the next passage. They weren't far from a few possible spots for ladders, but the trick was to find the places they weren't too broken to use.
Also, avoid the Cleaners. Without Jareth there, Hoggle thought at least that should be easier.
Behind them, the wall slid closed with a creak and Hoggle twitched slightly, as it was cutting off a possible escape should they hear the distinctive scrape and grind of the Cleaner's machine. But he didn't hear it and without Jareth there to speed it along, they would still have time to avoid it.
"Check over there," he pointed with a grunt at a small recess in the wall, "see if it's still got rungs at all." Hoggle moved forward to a depression further on, shoving hard at it.
Peter jogged over to the indicated spot. The walls were pretty clear, with no ladder in sight. But when he looked upwards, towards the shaft above, he could see the rest of the ladder up and over his head, rungs bolted to the walls. Peter reached, and could grasp the first and second rungs, if he stood on his toes.
He peered back out into the main passage. "This one's a possibility," he said. "But I'd have to lift you up."
Ceasing for a moment with his pushing, Hoggle studied Peter and considered, not just the part where he'd have to be picked up, but the part that concerned where they would come back above in the Labyrinth. It would save time, but it was also the second most awful place in the Labyrinth now, next to the Bog.
"How good are you at keeping your ears plugged?" he asked.
Peter shrugged. "I have an older brother. Two nephews. And I live in a hotel with around forty people, but I can still tune things out when I have to. It this something I'd have to tune out, or avoid hearing completely?"
If it was the latter, his shirt was destroyed enough by now that using a few strips to make earplugs wouldn't matter.
Hoggle grunted. "Avoid hearing - at the least, not hear directly," he said seriously, walking back over to Peter. "The statues, they sing and it, I dunno, messes with your noggin." He made a face. "Meant to drown people in the fountains - they're bottomless. But it's the faster way through."
The point was still to get back to Sarah, but that garden had been there since before Hoggle could remember and there had been many it had claimed, the ones Jareth was happy to see eliminated.
It seemed to him that this was the last place he ought to take the kid.
"Like the Sirens," Peter said, with a sigh. "I've heard about something like that before."
To be safe, he went ahead and tore off a few strips of his shirt, wrapping them into tight bundles that he could slide into his ears. "Feel perfectly free to hit me if you see me getting too close to one of them." He tore off material for another set, offering them to Hoggle.
Then he looked back up the shaft, and got ready, hands waiting on Hoggle's waist. "Ready?"
Free to hit him? Hoggle's eyes narrowed for a moment, wondering if it was some sort of trick, but when he was offered pieces of cloth by Peter, the expression changed to surprise. Hoggle had just planned to keep his fingers in his ears until they were through the garden. He hadn't expected the kid to offer him a protection too.
Damn him. He wasn't going to like this kid. He wasn't. Sarah was enough.
Still, Hoggle formed the earplugs and shoved them into his own ears and then nodded to Peter, arms already up to grab the lower rungs.
"Let's get out of here."
Once Peter lifted him, he grabbed on to the rungs, hoisting himself the rest of the way. Though small, he was relatively strong and soon he was moving up the ladder, pausing briefly to make certain Peter was following.
Once he could see Hoggle making his way up the ladder, Peter adjusted the makeshift plugs in his own ears, then grabbed onto the second rung and pulled himself up. A bit of upper-body strength, and Peter was pulling himself up the ladder after Hoggle.
The plugs in his ears were muffling any noises. He hoped that would be enough. In order to keep his brain a bit more occupied, Peter concentrated on Sarah. Just Sarah.
I'm okay, Sarah. Me and Hoggle are coming to find you. We're coming.
Still not certain about this, Hoggle continued upwards, pausing twice at the telling creak of the rungs, a protest to the weight on them. It couldn't be helped.
At the top, Hoggle braced his back against the wall and pushed upward with a twist. The cap on this passage was heavier than many of the others and thus accompanied by multiple grunts that would no doubt be muffled both by the earplugs and the close confines. Finally it gave way and Hoggle pushed it aside carelessly, more concerned by the strains of music heard very faintly. It would only get louder once they were out into the garden itself.
Climbing out, he dropped to the ground - a decent drop from the top of a pillar for one of human height, a bit more significant for one so short - and then picked himself back up from the hard landing. The garden that met them was in many ways counter to most of the sections of the Labyrinth. This greenery was magically maintained, the lawns kept at a uniform height and the flowers a riot of color, huge and exotic and too bright to seem truly real. Even they seemed to sway slightly to the haunting music filling the garden.
Rather than rough or bleached stone as in many of the other parts of the Labyrinth, all structures within were marble in its whitest, purest form. This included the multiple huge fountains and the lifesized, living statues in the middle of each. Some were female, some male, but all were barely robed and shared a carved beauty meant to tempt and designed to beckon to their intended victims, just as their songs were destined to lure any listener straight to their watery deaths.
They gave Hoggle the creeps like nothing else in the Labyrinth. The statues' songs made his skin itch and he pushed fitfully on the earplugs to make certain they were secure. He looked back for Peter, gaze sharp, and mouthed one word as he pointed to a gate at the opposite side of the garden, a distance that seemed to grow the longer they remained in the garden.
RUN.
There was no way to help Hoggle with the lid. Peter tried anyway, breaking off from the attempt at telepathy to focus there. His head ached immediately, and a moment later, just as the stone finally grunted and began to move, Peter felt the telltale trickle of blood from his nostrils. When Hoggle started to move again, Peter followed slowly, wiping away the blood before the dwarf could see.
The sunlight outside the shaft was a welcome, welcome sight. Peter spared a second only to raise his head and bask in it; then his attention went back to Hoggle, in time to see the instruction.
Run.
The murmur of music was dulled by the earplugs, but what filtered through was haunting and beautiful. He wanted to pause and listen, his mind kept trying to focus on the music. He hadn't been expecting that. Peter shook his head, hard, trying to get back in control.
And then his face turned, looking at one of the groups of statues. His eyes were lying, they had to be lying. The faces of Sarah, Nathan, Heidi, and Claire were smiling back at him from those marble faces.
Caught between the impulse to run to the statues, and the determination not to get caught in this trap, Peter dropped to his knees, hands over his ears while his elbows tried to squeeze together and cover his eyes.
Get it together, Pete,, he was telling himself. Just RUN! But he was afraid to open his eyes.
His mind reached out again, desperate this time for that touchstone.
SARAH!
Hoggle had never witnessed what happened to humans in this garden. He didn't have the stomach for it. He knew the entire place left him feeling particularly cowardly, but it didn't have the same effect on him as it appeared to have on Peter.
He hadn't run himself, not until he'd made sure Peter ran as well, so when Peter dropped to the ground, Hoggle darted forward. He doubted he could carry Peter, despite his strength and sturdiness, but dragging was an option if he couldn't get any cooperation.
Locking short, burly arms around Peter, he tugged hard, trying to get him to get up and run. It didn't seem to do much good, which only heightened Hoggle's current level of panic. He knew now he shouldn't have brought the kid in here, but he knew with just as much certainty he couldn't give up until they were through the gate.
"Come on, kid," he yelled, even though yelling didn't do much good and yanked harder, finally worming one arm around Peter's to get a solid grip on at least one limb.
As Hoggle did so, a cry he could not hear pierced the statues' songs, one colored by the desperation that it was a response to, lending it the force necessary to reach Peter distinctly. Not as strongly as accustomed, but it was there.
PETER!
The sound of Sarah's voice, echoing through his mind, broke through the struggle Peter was fighting between the parts of his mind. Sarah. Sarah!
He grasped at that one shout, the reply. She'd called his name. He heard her. Peter lowered his arms from his head, his eyes wide. After a second, they focused on the dwarf tugging at his arm.
"I heard her!" he said, surprised when his own voice was muffled. But then he remembered. The plugs in his ears. The statues. The fountains. RUN.
Peter threw himself back to his feet. Hoggle was pulling his arm still, so he stayed hunched over, letting the dwarf guide him. Keeping his eyes locked on the ground, only the ground, watching the grass fly by as they ran.
I'm okay, he sent back to her. I love you. We're okay. Hoggle helped me. We're okay. They would be. Peter didn't stop running until Hoggle let him, and dropped to the ground, leaning against the wall to catch his breath.
Hoggle heard Peter's exclamation and took it only for a sign that the statues were further affecting him, as he hadn't heard a thing but that damned music. Preparing to tackle the kid if necessary to keep him from diving head-long into a fountain after whatever he'd just heard, he was relieved when Peter got to his feet and ran the way Hoggle had intended. Or he'd be relieved, once they were out of the garden, when he had time to feel so.
Though the distance wasn't impossibly long, it felt that by the time they'd reached the gate and pushed through it, as Hoggle's legs were far shorter. Flopping onto the ground without shame, Hoggle braced his hands against his legs and sucked in deep breaths, the relief finally kicking in as the metal gates clicked shut again, abruptly silencing the songs within as effectively as a wall.
But in the silence, there was a voice for at least one of them.
Oh, thank God you're both all right, I was so worried. Do you know where you are? We're - I have Ludo and Sir Didymus with me - on our way to find you. And I will find you. I love you.
Oblivious to what was occurring where he couldn't hear it, Hoggle panted in his spot.
Peter was panting himself, though not just from running. Those marble faces were still flickering in his mind, trying to be seen, the song trying to be heard. He rubbed his eyes, leaning hard against the wall to make sure he wouldn't get up and launch himself back through the gates.
When the gates shut, the effects cut off abruptly. It was painful and glorious at the same time.
Outside a garden. Stay away from the garden. Trust me, and stay away from it. He let himself breathe for another minute. His head was starting to hurt from the extended use of telepathy, no doubt punishment for forcing the link open the way he had. Where are you?
He opened his eyes, looking towards the ground. "Hoggle? You okay?"
On the ground, Hoggle nodded, a tough constitution lending itself to being able to catch his breath and get to his feet, though he was still panting. When he looked up at Peter, his eyes widened, a flash of concerned quickly covered by his usual expression.
"Better than you, looks like," he said, gesturing to Peter's nose, which was obviously bleeding. "Is it broken?"
If it's all the same to you, could you possibly move away from the garden so we can all stay away from it and I can get to you? And we're in the Bog. Well, not in it, but by it, and -- Peter, how is your telepathy back?
Peter put his fingers to his nose, unsurprised to find them bloody when he pulled them away. "Not broken," he said. "Just..." He flinched a bit, as Sarah's reply brought with it a stabbing pain in the center of his forehead. "Hang on."
Not sure yet, he sent in response, but my head is protesting. We'll head towards you. I love you, Sarah. He had to squeeze his eyes shut against the headache in order to finish, but once he was done, Peter let the connection fall, and laid his head back against the wall. He was panting again, but tried to explain to Hoggle.
"My powers. Abilities. I..." He tapped a finger against his temple. "I can speak... mind to mind. Telepathy. Used it too soon. Hurt." And a gesture to his nose, with the bloody fingertips, to show this was the result. Another pause, to catch his breath. "I heard Sarah. She's at the Bog."
All right, so this kid had better powers than he was certain Jareth had, as Hoggle knew Jareth had never spoken mind to mind to anyone, because if he could, that would be the only way he'd do everything and sit on his lazy, useless backside in the castle while doing it. Hoggle wasn't really certain how he felt about this, not yet, but it was causing a shift of opinion that, unknown to him, had already begun since shortly after Peter fell on him.
Hoggle grunted and then dug into his pocket for a moment, producing a handkerchief which he handed to Peter. Despite the somewhat shabby state of the dwarf's attire, the handkerchief was clean and neatly folded.
But he didn't look happy, and the reason for the stormy expression was soon clear. "I suppose you're wantin' to go to the Bog." The way he said it, one might think he thought the idea was insane. They would be correct.
Hoggle was hoping the kid was sensible enough to say no.
Peter was surprised by the handkerchief, raising his eyebrows at the offer. "Thank you," he said, accepting it gratefully, and pressing the cloth to his nose. The flow of blood was slowing and would cease in another moment. The ache in his mind would take a little longer to subside.
The tone and the expression Hoggle was giving him made Peter smile. "No," he said, with absolute certainty. "No, I do not want to go to the Bog. At all. Even less after seeing that." He gestured towards the garden with his free hand.
Then he sighed, and looked back at Hoggle. "But that's where Sarah is. So I guess we don't have any choice."
Grudgingly, Hoggle had to once more give Peter a few points for his answer, as it was really the only one, but it conveyed a level of appreciation for the awfulness of the Bog that Hoggle couldn't deny. So the kid wasn't insane, that was a plus.
It still meant they had to go to the Bog.
"Argh, why did she have to go there?" he growled, then cursed, then stomped his feet for good measure. He knew why, knowing Sir Didymus rarely left his post, but he still didn't have to like it. At all. Ever.
"We're not crossing the Bog," Hoggle finally said, folding his arms over his chest. "We'll go there, then get them back up on the wall. Forest'll take too long anyhow."
That sounded like a good plan. Not crossing the Bog of Eternal Stench sounded like a very good plan. Peter nodded, ignoring the stab of pain that was trying to linger in his temple, and pushed himself back up to his feet.
"She's with Ludo and Sir..." Peter trailed off, stumbling over the knight's name. "Sir Ditty... Fox Quijote de La Bog." He waved a hand. "You know the one."
His nose seemed to have stopped bleeding. Peter wiped the last of it away with the handkerchief, and looked down at the stain. "Sorry," he said, frowning at it. "I'll get you a new one."
Missing the joke, Hoggle simply corrected Peter. "Sir Didymus." Having his own name mistaken so much, the correction of his friends' names as well was automatic.
"Eh, don't have to, I got more," he said dismissively about the handkerchief, then looked around. They were on one of the hills the Labyrinth was built on, which made it a bit easier to get his bearings after the garden distraction. The wall in question was close, which meant it was further than one would think, but there were still some known shortcuts in this place that hadn't changed.
"Didymus," Peter repeated, to make sure he had it right. "Sir Didymus. Okay." With a brief smile of thanks, he tucked the handkerchief into his pocket. He had a feeling it would come in handy again before too long.
"We'll go that way to get on the wall," Hoggle said, pointing to a place where the grass outside the garden changed back to stone. "Find them, get them to follow the wall to a way up." And linger as briefly as necessary at the Bog. That was the crucial part of the plan for Hoggle
"Won't take too long," he reassured Peter, then set off in the direction he had pointed, once more falling into step with Peter. "Now hows about you explain these 'abilities'."