Jacob smiled at Kurt, his thin, cracked lips displaying two rows of hideously unkempt teeth. Even his teeth had the greenish tint, but his gums were bulging and an unnaturally red color, as if swollen with infection. Kurt fought back a gag.

"Jacob," Kurt began, trying to keep his voice strong. Immediately Blaine perked his head off the bed at hearing the name. The sheet pulled up to his neck rolled back a little as Blaine supported himself on two elbows, craning his neck to look in the doorway.

"What do you want?" Blaine immediately began, jumping out of bed and onto the freezing floor. Although Kurt was facing a man who could and would tear them to shreds given the opportunity he rolled his eyes instead of being terrified. If he had known all it would take would be the leader of the Goblins to come knocking on their door to get Blaine up he would have called him earlier. Kidding. Almost.

Jacob smiled upon looking at Blaine's scantily-clad figure. He didn't try to hide looking at Blaine's form up and down. Blaine seemed to remember just being in his boxers and t-shirt, but made no attempt at preserving his modesty. Instead, he sneered at Jacob.

"I warn you, I like them feisty," the goblin replied in his nasally voice. "If I knew it wouldn't cost me my life I would take you here and now. However, my mistress has sent me to retrieve you two to dine with her. She would like," he paused, as if thinking over his next words carefully. "Answers," he finally settled on.

Unabashed Blaine immediately grabbed his scattered clothing off the floor and began dressing himself. Kurt noticed a fire in his eyes that he had never quite seen before. The idea of protecting Kurt from this disgusting monster made Blaine's blood run thick with fire.

Wordlessly, they followed Jacob down several flights of stairs and around slick corners. Kurt felt the cold seeping into his very bones and felt as though he would never be warm again. His legs were just stiff joints vaguely responding to his brain's commands as they entered a large dining room.

Kurt and Blaine had been into several castles to date, none of which as uninviting as the Dark Queen Santana's. Gloom seemed to hang over every room like a fog, infecting anyone nearby. The goblin Jacob seemed to thrive on it. Instead of his legs looking as bony as they did in the forest they were bulging with newfound muscles as he fed off the negative energy.

Jacob's attitude had also changed. There was an aura of arrogance surrounding him that was missing before. Although Kurt and Blaine had only met him the one time they could tell that, in the forest, he was powerful, but they felt safe with Artie. Now, however, Kurt pondered, looking over the sickeningly green creature, he wasn't sure if a God could save them.

With one last sneer at Blaine, and a pronounced wink at Kurt, Jacob vanished back into the doorway and down the long corridor they had just traveled. Kurt took a moment to shake off the disgusting implications of Jacob's wink, and to look over the dining room he had led them to.

Like every other room in the castle, the main theme was black. Dark draperies hung over the windows Kurt had previously been unaware of. The main light came from a large chandelier hovering several feet over the long, rectangular dining table. The chandelier shone with black diamonds and other precious jewels encrusting it's surface. Upon further inspection Kurt decided that the room could have been very beautiful with the right designer.

There was the outline of a large brick fireplace on the far corner of the room that didn't look like it had housed a fire since before Kurt's grandparents were alive. The walls, like the walls in the corridors, were void of any decoration or attempt at making the room look at all domesticated.

The long dining table was a beautiful shade of deep mahogany, buffed and shined to gleam in the prisms of light from the chandelier. There must have been room for at least twenty people on each side of the table, but no chairs. There was just one at the far end of the table which Santana was currently occupying. There were two more laid out on the opposite end, closest to Kurt and Blaine.

Santana looked very cruel and beautiful in the limited lighting, her thin cheeks giving her face a sort of hallow appearance. The thorny tiara upon her head looked extremely fitting, if she was going for, you know, Queen and Lord of All Things Terrible and Unholy. She certainly gave her interior decorating that theme when she hired whoever the poor decorator was. The decorator wasn't very creative, Kurt thought, giving a fleeting glimpse at the gloomy room.

Santana silently motioned for them to sit with a delicate wave of her arm, and they did. Blaine pulled out a chair for Kurt. Kurt sat down with a smile, and Santana let out an audible growl.

"Do not ruin my appetite," she warned, eyeing the boys distastefully. She raised a thin eyebrow. "Do not forget I hold the power to kill you both where you stand."

"I can see you don't entertain much," Kurt said passively, brushing off what Santana had threatened. If that bitch knew half of what he had gone threw in the past few months she would know a measly threat wouldn't make him shake in his boots.

Kurt could have sworn he saw a hint of a smile as Santana cleared her throat. Almost as if on cue wave after wave of goblins began entering the room. Blaine put a hand on Kurt's arm instinctively, but soon realized there was nothing to be afraid of.

Each one of the disfigured goblins carried a tray of food, and put their tray down on the table before leaving the room. Kurt and Blaine took in each goblin as they silently preformed their job. Having beetle-like eyes such as Jacob's did not seem to be an average physical characteristic for the goblins. Each one, although similar in size and stature, had widely varying features. Some goblin's eyes were as big as the dinner plates in their hands, watery and disproportional to their face.

There were others whose eyes were as small as Jacob's, and even some much smaller to resemble pinpricks. Some had bulbous noses that seemed to be constantly dripping, and Blaine could have sworn he saw one or two without a nose at all. It was almost like they were each unfortunately thrown together with whatever parts or pieces were on hand at the time. There didn't seem to be much physically different in size or dressing that separated males from females.

Once the table was full, Kurt and Blaine had to admit they were skeptical about eating anything presumably prepared by these beasts. Santana, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind at all. Instead of inviting Kurt and Blaine to eat she reached out to a nearby plate with her fork and stabbed a greenish slab of meat on it. Thick blood gurgled out of the fork holes on the meat, making terms such as 'E. Coli' and 'Salmonella' come to Kurt's mind.

Showing an impressive array of table manners, Santana brought the dripping piece of meat directly to her mouth and took a heaping bite, chewing loudly. Blaine's face wrinkled in disgust. Santana swallowed and took a large gulp from a nearby goblet of blood-red liquid. Kurt rolled his eyes. Did she really have to go that far to set the theme? Yeah, dangerous castle, villain queen ruler here, he gets it.

"We need to talk," Kurt finally said, finding his voice. Santana smiled.

"Do not think that I'm just keeping you alive to get word about Brittany," she began. She didn't want to sound desperate. On the inside she was just dying to know everything about how Brittany was doing. She could not believe these two idiots had found their way halfway around the world and back. Why were they not smart enough to stay in one of the scant safe places littered along the way? Or at the very least stay with Brittany. That's what all the other's ended up doing. Well, almost all the other's. Except for the ones who found themselves littered along the front lines of battle.

"Then are you willing to discuss peace?" Blaine asked hopefully. Santana cackled.

"And give up all the power I've come to know and love?" She asked incredulously. She dismissed the idea immediately. "Here in my castle I have everything I have ever wanted. I only needed to walk a path paved in other's blood to get here. I would never lose sleep over it. There is no one in all the lands greater than I. Just the sound of my voice is enough to cause millions to shiver in fear. My power is so great you pathetic humans run and hide in your ignorant cities. One day those too will not be safe and you will all suffer the same fate as the thousands before you." Santana seemed out of breath; as if this was something she had been dying to get off her chest for a long time. She smiled so hard at the sound of her threats that she had dimples formed in her cheeks. Despite everything she had just said, only one question came to Blaine's mind.

"Why?" He asked simply. He couldn't see any feasible explanation for anyone to have as deep of a hatred of life as she. A blank look crossed her face for the briefest of moments.

"I need no reason to spread destruction and mayhem," Santana said simply, giving her curly ponytail a quick twirl with a finger. "If my path eventually leads to Brittany it will be as it is written. I would strike her down without a second thought as I have done thousands." Kurt tilted his head to the side slightly, an idea coming to his mind.

"I'm sure something had to have occurred at one point in time to make you so spiteful," Kurt began. He absentmindedly put his hand on Blaine's a common gesture of his growing love and affection he never even gave a second thought to these days. He sure couldn't imagine his life without Blaine. Before he could finish his thought, however, Santana cut him off.

"I will have NONE of that at my table," she screeched, the sound of her voice dripping with distain. She sneered at the sight of their hand holding and her power visibly cackled in the air around her head. Kurt immediately let go of Blaine's warm hand.

"I'm sorry," Kurt began slowly, legitimately terrified. His eyes grew wide as Santana's face began to visibly distort into a mask of anger.

"I do not need your signs and murmurs of LOVE in my home," she seemed to make this word sound like a swear the way she spat it out. "There is no need for it! Just speaking to you two has made me think of things I haven't thought of in years, things I am above." She stopped suddenly, a glimmering sheen of sweat on her beautiful face. Kurt and Blaine wondered how often these sorts of outbursts happened around Santana. "I do not even care if Brittany were to die. It wouldn't affect me here. I have replaced her with my loyal goblins. They would never leave me as she did."

With that last statement, Santana grew quiet, not seeming her usual superior self. Kurt could almost forgive her of all her crimes for a second. She wasn't just pure evil; she didn't take pleasure in all the suffering she caused others. She was masking her true feelings and pain with causing harm to others. The realization struck Kurt all at once, and his heart did truly bleed for her.

She was not the Dark Queen everyone hailed her as. She was simply the victim of a broken heart.