The sun, undeterred by the passage of time, scattered orange light across the courtyard with callous regard. Despite its warmth, there still remained a tyrannical chill within the Underground. Yet, Jareth paid no attention to the atmosphere as he sat upon the cobblestone. The king of the Labyrinth had larger issues on his plate than the climate of his land. For the moment, however, many of those problems could be dismissed, banished away in favor of a new, exciting endeavor. His fingers drummed up an absentminded rhythm beside him, a tune of leather against stone, as he watched his adversary-turned-pupil channel her power. Pressure gathered in the air to dance across his skin, and the Goblin King stilled at the familiar sensation of gathering magic.

Sarah's focus, however, remained far away from her surroundings. With closed eyes and trembling hands, she cast her thoughts beyond her physical form, seeking fluid thoughts and desires. Peach juice sang against her tongue, a domination of her senses. There was a pulse to the world, she noted, a movement of energy like that of a beating heart. In her mind, she spoke the words that she could not say aloud.

I wish...

Yet, it was not to be. The pulse vanished, taking with it the warmth of channeled magic and leaving Sarah cold once more. Opening her eyes, she took in the sight of her empty palm with a grimace. "Shit. I thought I had something that time."

"If I'm not mistaken, that's exactly what you said on your last attempt."

Sarah glared, and Jareth snorted a quiet laugh. Seemingly unbothered by her lack of progress, he stretched his long arms and legs out before settling himself stomach-up on the stone.

"You know," Sarah remarked as he rested his arms behind his head, "you could give me better advice than to just 'wish the right things'. I thought you wanted to help me."

"I already taught you what I know—magic at this level is far from complicated." Jareth tilted his head to the sun, his eyes closed against the warmth. "Dream, and make it real. There's not much else to it."

"Maybe for you, but this isn't exactly easy for me. I keep doing exactly what you say, and I keep getting nowhere."

She watched him crack open an eye, flashing a sliver of blue in her direction. In spite of his nonchalance, his words had sharp edges and held no patience. "You lack focus. Something holds you back from committing to a connection, and your ability suffers because of it. That's your responsibility to fix, not mine."

"I am focusing!"

"Then you would have no trouble with a simple task," Jareth shot back with a shrug. "Yet you struggle, when I know you're capable of more than just a lopsided crystal."

He closed his eyes once more to bask in the sunlight, and Sarah sighed. Exhaustion had crept some time ago into her very being, leaving her wondering how many more attempts it would take to produce something of value. Now, that answer seemed as muddled as her own thoughts. "I am focusing," she repeated, more to reassure herself than to reassure Jareth. "This is just...well, it's just one more complication, isn't it? You can't blame me for feeling overwhelmed. Last week my goal was to take Toby out for ice cream, and now I'm standing here learning magic!"

The anger in her final words took her by surprise. They roared out with ferocity, leaving only a ringing, harsh silence behind. Blood rushed to her face, and she turned her attention to Jareth, who remained still upon the stone. His chest rose and fell in a constant, near trance-inducing rhythm and the pendant resting at the base of his throat bobbed in the light. Sarah had never considered the Goblin King to be fragile, but it was the only word that crept into her brain at the sight of him. It was as if a porcelain doll lived before her, with paper-thin skin wrapped around bird-like bones. Perhaps fragile was the wrong word entirely — what she saw was not a fragile king, but a weary one, whether he realized it or not.

"He's fine, by the way."

Sarah snapped back to herself the instant Jareth spoke, her eyes darting away from his form and dissipating her thoughts. "Who's fine?"

Whatever restful spell the sun bestowed upon the Goblin King broke, and whatever strange notion brought on by his appearance faded as he came to attention. Weariness was absent in the light that danced behind the contrasting blues of his eyes, but there was still a hint of exhaustion, a warning of being pushed too far. "Your brother," Jareth murmured, "he's fine. Time moves...differently here, more erratically. Not entirely in sync with your world, I'm afraid, but faster here than there."

"So how long has it been?"

"A day, perhaps two since you left." He tented his brows, as if his soft and sudden candor took him by surprise. Nevertheless, he continued, with his eyes unfocused and lost in thought. "If it's worry over family that ails you, then know that they are fine. Yet, I believe something else is the source of your struggle, and you will only tire yourself out by ignoring whatever it is. Fix it, the sooner the better, if you wish to utilize your full potential. It's my job to train you, not solve your problems."

He fell silent yet again. While his words had been barbed and callous, there was still the semblance of an olive branch buried within, as some attempt at a verbal peace offering amid their quarrel. It left Sarah to pick up the pieces of their conversation, and seize upon the chance to settle things back to some semblance of normality. "Back home, you'd make a terrible motivational speaker."

"I'm simply telling you what you need to hear. What you do with my advice is up to you."

"No, I get it. You're right. It...yeah, it helps to know that Toby's ok. I don't know what's going on, but I just hope it doesn't take forever to fix. We don't exactly have time on our side."

"Forever is never as long as you think," Jareth chuckled. Once more he unfurled himself like a sail, gliding effortlessly from splayed to sitting to standing in a singular movement. With a brush of his hands and an adjustment of his sleeves, his delicate nature fell away, replaced with the glamor and mystery that was the role of a king. "However, you make a fair point. Time is not our ally, nor will our quest pause while you learn. Perhaps it is time to continue onward."

"Wait, right now?"

He raised an eyebrow as Sarah scrambled to her feet. "Did you have other plans?"

"No, but — shouldn't we prepare or something?"

"You didn't prepare when you set out to rescue your brother."

"Well, yes," Sarah sputtered, her voice breaking into disbelief, "but that's different!"

"I fail to see any difference." A gloved hand thrust itself in Sarah's direction, and she took a step back from Jareth's keen stare. "Let us be off," Jareth said, "before we lose more time — and more optimism."

"What exactly are you going to do?"

His smile was cold, and suddenly Sarah could only think of a time seven years ago, when a glittering man dressed in black had challenged her to an impossible task. "Think of it as a demonstration of what you'll be capable of one day," he answered. "Let me show you what you can do with magic."

She hesitated, her focus divided between Jareth's face and the hand he held out to her. Her choice, or rather the only choice she could make, came a second later. "Fine," she sighed as she reached for his hand, "but so help me if you try any kind of funny business, I'll knee you right in your crystal —"

The moment her fingers touched leather, they were gone.

The world turned, and Sarah turned with it. Wind rushed through her ears, or perhaps it was the blood coursing through her veins — in either case, she reacted with the same stumbling lurch away from the overwhelming smell of mint. Everything was glitter and light, as her eyes adjusted to the sudden change. She gasped for air — whatever had occurred had taken the wind out of her lungs, leaving her angry and breathless. The anger she directed behind her, where she hoped Jareth still stood to take the force of her ire. "What the hell was that?"

Vision returned in bits and pieces. Jareth stood once more in his dark armor, not a hair out of place as the glitter around him subsided. He appeared to take her reaction with a good deal of mirth, which he could not hide from his words. "We left, like I said we would. I thought I was clear enough when I told you that before."

"Yeah, and I assumed you meant we'd leave through the castle, like normal people!"

At this, he raised an eyebrow. "When did we ever become 'normal people,' precious?"

"Oh, don't you 'precious' me!"

Yet, despite her quickness to anger, Sarah found it difficult to harness such rage. It slipped away from her grasp, leaving only hollow exhaustion behind. She let it go without a second thought. "Can you at least give some kind of warning next time you try and sweep me away to who-knows-where?"

"Look around, you know exactly where we are."

There was something familiar in how the pine trees rose behind Jareth, their branches leaning toward each other in a futile attempt at embracement. Yet as the Goblin King gestured for her to turn around, Sarah realized he was more on the nose than she thought. A river lay before her, encircling a clearing that broke away from the suffocation of the forest. If the topography was familiar, then the scattering of broken tents and cold campfires may have told her where she stood. What caught her eyes, however, were the scattered remains of fruit, splattered and smashed across the ground and grass. They lacked their unusual gleam, the sheen of magic gone in their breaking, and yet she recognized them all the same. This time, the goblin market stood silent, unable to seduce visitors without the presence of its sirens.

Boots scuffled against leaves, and a tangerine whizzed by Sarah in an orange blur. It bounced once, then twice upon the dirt path, before rolling down the riverbank and bobbing gently into the current's pull. Dumbfounded, Sarah turned her attention back to the Goblin King, who gave the place the same expressionless look he gave much of the Underground. He held no surprise to their location. On the contrary, Jareth's mouth twitched in what might have been amusement. "This was the goblin market," he said, "although I doubt any goblins will gather here now."

Sarah's mind struggled to catch up to the situation unfolding before her, as if part of her had been left back in the courtyard. As Jareth moved past her, she managed to garble out the first thing that solidified in her head. "Why here?"

The Goblin King appeared not to hear her at first, preoccupied instead with an object on the ground. He bent down and turned back to her, clutching in his palm a bruised and dusty peach. It was far from the beautiful, flawless fruit that she had touched mere days before, but before her eyes it began to transform. Its skin glistened and pulled taunt, until what Jareth held was a whole and perfect peach.

"Sometimes," said Jareth, as his attention moved from the peach to Sarah's expression of wariness, "the way forward is the way back. If we want to find the Oracle, we need to head towards the mountains. To start anew would be a retreading of where you and your companions already walked."

Those words in particular brought old memories to her mind — the sight of a quiet old man, and his talkative bird of a hat. "You know," Sarah said, still eyeing his outstretched hand, "I heard that saying the last time I was here. Must be pretty popular if you're quoting it too."

"Or they're simply the right words. You of all people know the power of saying the right words."

At this, Jareth tossed the peach upward, following its brief trajectory with his eyes until the fruit burst into glitter. If he expected Sarah to be impressed by such tricks, her indifference provoked a scoff from him instead. Her eyes were trained not on the glittering sky, but toward a more terrestrial target, as she looked back from whence she came. Beyond the trees lay all that had happened before — the castle, Tangle's forest, the canyon — and yet it felt like a different adventure, one from the distant past. Something, however, was still missing, something she picked up on after her quiet contemplation. "Where are the others?"

"Hedgehog and the knight?" The king's attention remained diverted, as he kicked another half-squashed fruit in the direction of the river. "They'll be here momentarily. My mother will make sure of that."

"But you didn't tell her we were leaving."

"There was no need. She knows."

At that moment, a strange feeling permeated the air, one that was as deeply unfamiliar as it was personal. Sarah's first reaction was that someone stared into her very soul, watching from someplace beyond her reach. Yet, there was a warmth as well, a mental touch of sorts that made her head hum. Her fingers felt coated in powder, despite nothing present on her hands as she rubbed them absentmindedly together. She swore she heard a laugh, a crystalline sound that was gone before she could figure out its origin.

The feeling vanished, leaving behind a vacuum of cold that chilled both body and soul, and a familiar rectangle of light drew itself out of the air. "I don't think I'm a fan of your mother calling me up on some kind of magical mental telephone," Sarah muttered, shuddering at the rising goosebumps across her flesh.

Jareth paused with his foot half raised in the act of squashing a grape under his boot. Upon seeing her vigorously rubbing her arms, he let out a laugh. "When you channel the magic of the Labyrinth, you're bound to make a few connections to those who do the same. Besides, it's all harmless. It's not as if she — or I — can see into your thoughts."

"Good, at least I'll have privacy there. Why the hell would you even want to do that anyway?"

The smile Jareth wore became a ghost, barely present on his face despite the quirk of his lips. "Because otherwise, having magic can become a very solitary experience."

Sarah prepared to correct him for what was quickly becoming one too many times, or at least ask him what he meant, when three figures stepped through the doorway in front of her.

As Maria's light faded, Sir Didymus was the first to react with a surprised and sudden bow atop Ambrosius. "Ah! Greetings, your Majesty and my lady! We are pleased to see thee for the continuation of our journey!"

Hoggle, however, lacked the optimism of his compatriot. He bristled in the presence of the king — and Jareth met his gaze, unmoved by the dwarf's sullen challenge. After a moment, the Goblin King prevailed in their silent standoff, as Hoggle grunted and recollected himself. "Erm, yeah, Sarah's got to keep going. So uh, so shall we."

Apparently satisfied with both Hoggle's answer as well as his deference, Jareth smiled. There was no joy in such an action, at least no joy that Sarah recognized. Rather, there was an iciness to his smirk, an indication of some unknown calculation that had paid off in his favor. She lost the chance to crack such a mystery open, however, as Jareth turned on his heels away from the party. Gone was the humor or tease that she witnessed earlier in the day during their lessons. Now, he was all business, even as he spoke. "Let's not waste more time, then. The Oracle awaits."

With that, the Goblin King began moving away from what had been the goblin market mere days before. Perhaps eager to leave past actions behind as well, Sir Didymus nudged Ambrosius to walk alongside his liege, and left Hoggle and Sarah to walk behind them. As the knight began to chatter away, Sarah turned on the dwarf with crossed arms and a knowing glare.

"What?"

"Hoggle, what was that all about?"

"What was what about?"

Sarah looked up, her eyes meeting the back of Jareth's head. He appeared to be focused on the path through the pine trees ahead of them, or at least was distracted enough by Didymus' ramblings to not see her straggling behind. She lowered her voice into a hiss, nonetheless. "What the hell is going on between you and Jareth?"

"Nothin' you should worry about."

"Nothing? You call having a stare-off with Jareth 'nothing'? Can you at least tell me what you're so angry about?"

The dwarf met her eyes, then looked away, doing his best to stare anywhere that wasn't directly at Sarah. "I'm not angry," he mumbled after a moment, "not really. It's like you said before: I'm still that same fairy-killing coward. I keep trying to be brave at the wrong moments, but I'm a coward anyways, and it frustrates me."

"You're not a coward," Sarah reassured, as she kicked a stray pebble out of her path. "Would a coward risk his life to fight an army of goblins? Would a coward help a bratty teenager make it through the Labyrinth?

"They would if they were me." Hoggle's eyes followed the kicked pebble as it rolled away into the brush before he turned his tentative gaze back to Sarah. Where before there was a guarded nervousness in his eyes, there now remained only sorrow. "I'm sorry Sarah, I really am. We're still...we're still friends, right?"

What kind of a question was that? She pushed past her momentary shock to attempt a smile. "Of course we're still friends. Why wouldn't we be?"

While he returned her grin, it slipped away mere seconds later to be replaced by the same troubled expression. "I dunno," Hoggle said after a pause. "I just worry that things will get messed up somehow."

"You'd have to really screw shit up to make me want to stop being your friend."

"I wasn't talking about me messing things up."

His words were quiet, delivered so softly that Sarah nearly missed them. Yet she could not ignore how he came to a stop, his attention focused on the forest around the party. She looked in the direction that captivated him, unable to see much beside trees and undergrowth...until something moved. In the blink of an eye it was gone, so quickly that she might have imagined the sight. She turned to Hoggle to ask if he had seen the same thing, but he was already back in motion. Strange. While she must have imagined it, Sarah could not shake the feeling that she had seen a hooded figure in between the trees...

"Are you coming?"

Jareth's voice startled her out of further reflection, as she looked up to see that the others had paused in their walking to look back at her. Sarah nodded, not trusting herself to speak what was on her mind. Yet, as both Sir Didymus and Hoggle resumed moving, Jareth hesitated for the briefest second before joining them. Such hesitation felt uncharacteristic to what Sarah knew of the Goblin King, but it was his expression that nearly sent her reeling. For in that moment, she could have sworn Jareth looked strangely worried, with his attention focused on Hoggle and his brows drawn together.

In her time in the Labyrinth, Sarah had seen various sides of Jareth, all of them difficult to reconcile with each other. Worried, however, had never been one of those sides. If the unshakable Goblin King was now concerned, if something had managed to break through his vainglorious veneer...then perhaps things in the Underground were more unstable than Sarah realized.

That night, Sarah had no idea if she dreamed.

There had been signs in the past — murky, clouded visions that made clear the line between dream and reality. Now, however, there were no such indications. All around her stretched forest, with every leaf crisp and vibrant to the eye. Their greens and brown hues shone in the night, crowning the great tree trunks with their foliage. All felt remarkably real, as real as living and breathing, and had she not fallen asleep mere seconds before, she may have thought herself still awake.

She knew she now slept — the remainder of the day had been uneventful, and the group had made quiet camp at sundown with little conversation. After her lessons and tension, slumber under the unblemished Labyrinth skies had seemed a welcome respite.

However, above her head stretched a multitude of heavenly bodies — stars splashed across the sky, and galaxies twisted themselves into curves and pathways. Grandest of all was the moon, presiding over the darkness with its full, warm face. It shone over the Underground in a way that could not compare to the darkened skies of reality.

There was beauty to be found under such glow, in a place both familiar and unknown, but the emptiness of the dreamscape remained unnerving. She swallowed out of reflex, hoping that the answer to such mystery would come from peach juice on her tongue. The taste of magic eluded her. Her sigh felt loud amid the silence, and she watched her breath cloud and condense in the air. "Well Jareth," she muttered as her breath twisted up towards the moon, "if this is your dream, you've certainly made it interesting."

A glow caught her attention, just at the corner of her vision. Amid the trees, something shone, pulsating and rippling in the distant dark. Sarah stared at this far-off display, watching it weave through the walls of trees, before walking in its direction. A chill blew on the wind, speeding up her walk into a jog, and then a run. Her bare feet flew over the grass, toes skating over frost, immune to the cold that threatened to seep into her veins. It was like flying, like riding a wind with no end in sight, as the ground blurred beneath her. Here in the dream, all felt right. Sarah laughed at the feeling of energy dancing across her skin, and how her heart drummed a heated beat against her breastbone. The aisle of trees stretched onward, infinite trunks and infinite leaves flanking the way, the only audience to her rush of power.

Then, there was light.

Sarah came to a halt, surprised that she was not out of breath from such exhilaration. Not that breathing came easily, for as she stared at where she stopped, she truly felt her breath be taken away.

The air was filled with magic. This was a new wood, a grove of white-barked trees with a multitude of tangled roots snaring them together. As Sarah surveyed the forest, she could not ignore the leafy canopy extending above the tree trunks towards the heavens. The foliage was iridescent, each individual leaf a tiny prism of light that glittered and pulsed. Before her eyes, light moved within them, bouncing and swirling into something on the brink of being recognizable. When the leaves rustled in the breeze, she swore they whispered to her. Their multicolored, inviting glow drew her to the trunk of the nearest tree, as she squinted up at the lights. Everything — the leaves, the trees, the whispers — felt familiar, as if plucked from a long-buried memory.

She took an opportune lull in noise to press a hand against the closest tree's white bark. Her fingers appeared small next to the wood, but as they made contact, that small thought became a larger feeling. Sarah had the sensation of pulling away from her body, akin to a boat bobbing on an endless sea. The whispers became mutterings, sounds just on the edge of being discernible words, a rush of noise to accompany the beating of her heart. There was laughter in her ears, cries that pierced her soul, pleas that moved her beyond understanding. Yet, despite the overwhelming assault on her senses, it felt strangely natural, a compliment to herself that she never realized she lacked.

The leaves above her head rustled, and she looked up to see the swirling light coalesce within them. Without a second thought, she placed a foot upon one of the tree's exposed roots. The motion boosted her higher, closer towards the mystery and further from solid, knowable ground. Despite her lack of balance, the new vantage point offered a closer glimpse into the light of the leaves. Here, amid the bone-white branches and the surrounding light, nothing disturbed her thoughts. Nothing, that is, until a childlike laugh broke through the whispers in her head.

It was a laugh she had heard before, one that she relished hearing over and over again whenever she could. As if prompted by the sound, the light within the leaves moved in a new direction, coming together to move and flow like water from one leaf to another. She strained herself, eyes watering at her attempt to see more from her position, just out of reach in confirming what she believed she saw. Within the leaves, the energy coalesced into a form of a sleeping child, whose blonde hair glowed and shimmered. She recognized him almost immediately. After all, she would never dare forget about the boy she chose over everything.

"Well, this is a surprising place to meet."

Her concentration broke, and once more she was only Sarah Williams, lost in a dream. Toby, or the image of him, dissolved back into aimless light. The brilliance of her run, the tranquil nature of the woods — all this evaporated as the connection broke. Yet, despite Jareth's voice from behind her, things remained luminous, and she kept her eyes trained on the canopy. The voices in her ears quieted, just enough so that she could hear herself ask, "What is this place?"

"Somewhere no dreamer should walk."

He stood just out of the corner of her eye, close enough that she caught a glimpse of white feathers cloaked across his shoulders. Recognition took mere seconds, only heightened as she turned to stare and confirm her sights. It was, after all, hard to forget the last time Jareth dressed in white, amidst the crumbling Labyrinth. The white ensemble still fit him as it had seven years before, perhaps a little too well if she judged by pants alone. His countenance, too, was eerily similar to their final encounter. Gone was the smug, all-knowing gleam in his eyes, replaced instead by some cloud of emotion, some trouble she could not name. If the leaves above bathed in light, Jareth's face remained shrouded in darkness.

"You know, you don't have to speak in riddles." Both of her feet reunited with solid ground, but Sarah remained reluctant to ground her thoughts. Instead, she stole another glance at the trees surrounding her, as she added, "We're both adults here, I'm sure we can have one conversation without it sounding like a fairy-tale."

Blunt honesty was quickly becoming her favorite tool to use on Jareth, if only to watch him momentarily lose his focus. In this instance, however, he appeared to agree. With exaggerated nonchalance, he crossed his arms and leaned against a nearby tree, as if playing along with her request. "Look around you, my dear. You've seen these woods before if a thorny friend of my mother's is to be believed."

"Wait, you mean...no, this can't be Tangle's woods." She gestured towards the lights above, to which Jareth only raised an eyebrow. "None of the trees looked like this when I was there!"

"Oh? And what do they look like?"

He had to be kidding. Maybe this was some attempt at a joke, or something that passed as Labyrinth humor. Yet the Goblin King remained entirely serious despite Sarah's waiting for the other shoe to drop. "Bright, shimmering, probably made of magic or wishes or something. Throw in some glitter and you'd probably have some kind of typical Labyrinth tree, even with the whispers."

It was as if a switch suddenly flipped, for Jareth straightened before she reached the peak of her sarcastic retort. She swore he grew paler in the light, all color draining out of his face despite the glow behind her. This went beyond throwing him for a loop — this was the reaction of someone who received earth-shattering news, and that only opened up a pit in Sarah's own stomach. She swallowed her nerves, but her voice still came out with a tremble. "You see it too...right?"

Jareth did not respond. Rather, he moved towards her, still seemingly dazed, and reached out for the third time that day. The question Sarah meant to ask died before she could utter it, as he put his hand upon her shoulder.

Everything went dark.

The fogginess she knew from her previous dreams returned with a vengeance, lapping at her heels as the woods were plunged into night. What once had been a canopy of light was now nothing more than dark black leaves, the same leaves that she walked under at the beginning of her journey. Only the brilliant silver moon and stars shone in bits and pieces above her, blotted out by this new facsimile of arboreal sky. No whispers invaded her ears, producing a silence that threatened to go on forever. All was smoke and shadow, more nightmare than dream.

Jareth's hand fell away after only a second.

Fog and darkness disappeared, banished instantaneously by the prismatic light that fell across the forest. Freed from the silence, the whispers and murmurs nipped at Sarah's ears. Both Sarah and Jareth stumbled backward, as if pushed apart from their contact. She caught herself against the bark of the tree at her back, and for a moment, her vision rippled.

The Goblin King's eyes grew wider still, as he attempted to catch his breath. "Don't. Don't wake up."

"Wake up?" Her laughter was enabled more by nerves than humor, the sound harsh compared to the emptiness of mere moments before. "I'm not leaving until you explain what the fuck that was!"

The answer came in pieces, smoothing out as Jareth wrestled back some semblance of control over himself. "This is a place that is infinitely old, older than me and nearly all who live in the Underground. The trees of this forest are very special, for they catch the dreams of the world within their leaves."

A breeze blew through the forest, and the leaves shuddered above. The motion scattered light everywhere, but none landed on Jareth. "So," Sarah said slowly, "the whispers and leaves are all dreams. We're in your dream though, so why the hell can't you see the same lights?"

"Because I don't have power over dreams."

It was an honest reply. Too honest, in fact, for what such a simple phrase implied. Yet, the way Jareth spoke was as if some final puzzle had been completed, or some grand mystery had been solved. Sarah fought back her panic, and in turn found herself fighting against what she knew, somehow, would come next. "Who does?"

As the light of humanity's dreams filtered down from the leaves, Jareth wore a cold smile, veiled in darkness and feathers. "Only the ruler of the Labyrinth can turn dreams into wishes," he said, "which means that I'm either relieved of my royal duty...or our situation just became wonderfully complicated."

Yes, I'm finally back on track in regards to plot! Only took me nearly three months too!

I have to apologize here for the delay in getting this chapter out way, way later than I expected. Part of this I attribute to burnout (I just started a new job where all I do is write and edit, so writing and editing for fun has become...less than fun), and part I attribute to just this chapter being a pain to write. Chapter 11 went through a LOT of drafts, and a LOT of rearranging of information to help the flow feel less jarring. This is the downside to having a lot of little parts in a fic: you have to balance them all without shoving them all in as walls of exposition. But forget all of that, this chapter's done and posted! Woo!

Originally I planned on getting another chapter out before the end of the year, but...well, I'll be focusing instead on reediting older chapters in Unearthed. Some of you might've noticed the first chapter looks a little different (in terms of word usage; the ideas are still the same), and that's because I'm working on making them less of a massive wall-of-text introduction. Last year I said that my goal was to get Unearthed to be one of the best works within the Labyrinth fandom, and that's still very much the case as I close out 2020. So, expect an update on what the heck is happening with Sarah in January, once I get some rest and enjoy the holiday season.

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, shared, and followed this work. It really does mean a whole awful lot, and I always have so much fun reading all the comments. Couldn't have made it this far without all of you.

Until next time.