Heart hammering in your chest, you grip at the bars of the cell and call to be let out.
Silence is the only answer from outside, but inside your dark cage you can hear the mad Jester who took you laughing, circling the room.
'Still your heart and your voice, sweet lightner mine! You are already outside, outside!'
Seeing that you are not even rattling the bars, you whip around and flee into the darkness, trying to stay clear of him.
There's no where to go however, no matter how far you seem to run he is there. Floating nearby and cackling at you, seemingly amused at your flustered appearance.
Finally you give up and stare up at him, waiting for him to make his move and begin combat.
But he never attacks.
Instead, he floats down closer and closer as he sees your ragged breathing calm. Confused, you ask him what he's waiting for.
'Uee hee hee! That's not your line, line! You should greet your brave saviour with a hearty thanks or perhaps a grateful kiss?'
He punctuates his impudent request by draping his enormous tongue out of his mouth and you are shocked into silence.
Recovering somewhat, you demand to know why the hell he thinks that he's saving you by kidnapping you!
Laughing madly, he begins to recount the 'heroic' escape from the battle which he seems to have started and notes that because of your help in distracting the guards, he decided to take you with him as a reward for your kindness and bravery.
Quite unsure what he means, you try to think back to the scuffle that arose before you fell asleep. You had assumed that all the commotion going on had been some kind of attack on the castle due to the utter destruction being levied.
Now you recall, the jester had been struck down by a mighty spell and, assuming that he had been attacked, you had quickly healed him and gotten him to safety. You hadn't even fully taken in his appearance, just his name, before the guards had found you and you had lost consciousness.
Jevil. The card castle jester. Now you seem to be his prisoner.
As if sensing your disquiet, he moves to your eye level and offers you his hand.
'Come, come! Let me show you to our new home. They have locked us out of the kingdom, so we should build our own out here!'
You feel a strange, tingly pull towards his hand and find you have put yours in his without too much thought and in the space of an eyeblink you find yourself transported back to within sight of the cell doors.
'Here we can keep watch for if they decide to come back outside. But enough about them, it's time to make us a cosy, cosy love nest, my princess! Uee hee hee!'
Your stomach tilts slightly at your sudden changed position within the deceptively large space. Jevil is clearly an extremely powerful magic user...
While his back is turned, you consider trying to battle him but you are unsure of how effective it truly would be. Instead, you ask him how you can get back to the kingdom.
Almost a little sadly, he tells you that it's quite impossible and that you are stuck here for the foreseeable future until someone from outside can open the gates. As he talks, it becomes clear that he seems to think that you are the ones who are outside and not the trapped.
As he completes a surprisingly cosy looking dining table, you ask him what his intentions with you are.
A flickering purple flame atop a candle of black wax flits above the table and he invites you to sit down.
He looks serious for a moment and then his teasing demeanour returns.
'Why, I intend to win your heart, sweet lightner! I won't grow so lonely out here with such fine company!'
Something is tugging at you, he seems unhinged at times and yet sincere in his grace at others despite is unsettling laughter. While you might be stuck here, you are at least glad that he doesn't seem to be a danger to you.
Calming, you tell yourself that things aren't so bad. He is cute, he isn't attacking you which is more than you can say for a lot of the residents of Dark World.
His grin cracks even wider than before, seemingly sensing that as you sit, you relax and he lets his cheerful laughter bubble up from out of the very middle of himself.
Where he managed to source food from, a strangely coloured pie, you are as of yet unsure but given that you are hungry you quickly dig in alongside him. It tastes a little bit odd, but it is filling and very much welcome.
As you lift a spoonful to your mouth, Jevil catches your eye and he winks at you.
'So, how about that smooch then, Anon? Uee hee hee hee!'
Well, since you're stuck... How bad could a little kiss be?