The Labyrinth in the hours of early morning was a sight to behold, cloaked in the fog that had yet to be burnt away by the rosy light of dawn. There was an otherworldly quality to the land, entrancing Sarah as she assisted a yawning Sir Didymus in stuffing blankets back into the bottomless saddlebag. Pale hues of pink and purple stained the sky above her, and dew glittered the branches of gorse that caught stray pinpricks of light. Yet, unlike the portions of the Labyrinth familiar to her, the expanse of heath was desolate of life. There were no birds singing to welcome the morning, nor insects that flitted and buzzed around her. Most notably was the absence of any type of living being, goblin, dwarf, or otherwise. In her original journey, every step she took or place she visited led to some form of encounter, but for the first time, the land held no one to greet her.

Although, given that many of the encounters were with Fireys, junk ladies, and cleaners, perhaps it was good to take a break from goblin greetings.

As the sun teased its imminent arrival, the trio of adventurers and Ambrosius made their way across the heath. Their aim, Sir Didymus told Sarah, was the mountain range in the distance, whose rocky summits were lost amid dense, gray clouds. "They appeared quite literally overnight some years ago," the knight explained, keeping his eye on the shrouded peaks. "His Majesty flew to investigate, but the clouds were too thick to see anything of note. If my directions are correct, those mountains surround the center of the Labyrinth."

"You ever hear that rumor about the trolls?" Hoggle spoke up from his trailing position at the back of the marching order.

"The one regarding their migration? Aye, but there have been many tales about the rock-callers, as you and I know."

Sarah, exhausted from her sleepless night and half paying attention, looked to the shadowed range across the heath. "Is that where Ludo went, with the other rock callers?"

"No one's really sure," Hoggle said. "Rock callers don't usually come close to the goblin city. They've always lived on the outskirts of the Labyrinth, but a lot of those places have faded away recently. Some folk said they've seen clans moving to the new areas, since they lost their homes."

"See, that's something I still don't understand. I keep hearing about people and places 'fading away,' but no one explains what exactly happens."

Sir Didymus and Hoggle looked to each other before the knight slowed Ambrosius to a halt. His jaw clenched as he furrowed his brow, as if the act of speaking involved pulling each word from deep within himself. "Thou knows that this land depends on magic," he began, as his ears flattened and his whiskers twitched. "We too—that is, Hoggle and I, and the other denizens of the Underground—need magic to survive. 'Tis the basis for our very forms, and the very form of the Labyrinth itself. As thou saw with Hoggle, when magic dries up we begin to fade. Our bodies cannot exist without connection to the magic, and therefore we perish and leave existence altogether."

He hesitated and looked to his dwarven companion, who gave a single nod of encouragement to continue. "When parts of the Labyrinth fade, they become...well, not quite there. Hoggle and I have seen this happen during our adventuring, where the area becomes akin to a mirage. 'Fading' is precisely what occurs. The creatures that live there sometimes have the chance to flee once the process begins, but the area always fades away into...well, something like this landscape before us. A vast expanse of flat land, but devoid of any magical connection at all."

"Like a scar," Sarah realized aloud. "It's like the land is scarring over."

"An apt comparison, my lady." A canine whine emanated from the tiny fox, as he nudged his loyal sheepdog into motion. "I only hope thou never lays eyes on such a space. The sight is one of hopelessness."

There was little talking after that, as the promise of the dawn soured in the face of the hopeless, mysterious happenings within the Underground. Movement became near-mechanical, as Sarah walked while lost to her thoughts. What was she even supposed to do, besides journey to the Labyrinth's center? She could not restore what was lost, nor bring back those who had faded. Once upon a time she might have been successful at beating the Labyrinth, but this was an altogether different task.

"Get it together, Williams," she muttered to herself, as she stole a glance at the medallion around her neck. Moping and worrying would do her no good, enmeshed as she was in the unfolding adventure. Despite the experiences of both Didymus and Hoggle, she still held fast to the idea that something could be put right, even if she could do little to help. Yet, the lack of sleep and the tales told by her friends did not assist in lifting her spirits. Hopelessness, she realized, was contagious, and with that hopelessness came doubt. The feeling of drowning that had started the day was still present, and try as she might, Sarah could not shake the sensation that she was leading her friends towards something they would not recover from.

Her headache throbbed, and while neither Sarah nor her friends saw it, the token given by the Goblin King illuminated ever so briefly before becoming still and cold once more.

The hours passed by along their walk, with no change in the landscape apart from a few rounded hills here and there. At the crest of one of these small hills, the party spotted something new. Down the hill stretched a large crack in the earth, snaking outward on either side beyond comprehensible view, as if the earth had split itself in twain. The heath ended at this canyon, while on the other side grew thick grass, and the distant promise of trees and forest. The gap between the separated earth was too wide to leap, and the gray face of the cliff edge seemed to taunt the group with its distance as they approached.

Sarah, Hoggle, and Sir Didymus made their way to the edge of the cliff, and peered downward, rewarding themselves with a view of gray rock and darkness. "It must go on for a while," Hoggle said. "I can't see the bottom."

"Is there a bottom?" Didymus, who had begun to slide off Ambrosius as he peered down, righted himself in his saddle. "Perhaps this gorge goes on forever."

"Bottom or not, we still need to find a way to get across." Sarah lifted her eyes, searching for any sign of a safe area. There had to be a way to get from one side to the other, if not here then further along the cliffside. A bridge could really come in handy right now, she thought as she scanned the empty lands, wondering if an impassable canyon was the kind of danger that warranted calling upon the Goblin King.

Then, she spotted it.

As if summoned from her thoughts, a bridge connected the sides of the canyon a few feet away, in a spot that Sarah could have sworn no bridge existed before. It was the kind of bridge one saw in cities, a sturdy construction of stone and glass and metal that, while out of place in the Underground, brought little surprise to Sarah. Stranger things had happened in her Labyrinth experience, and a bridge resembling one from her own world was low on the list of weird occurrences.

"Oh, perfect!" She pointed, and her companions turned in confusion in the direction of the bridge. "That's easy enough to cross over! Come on, let's keep going."

Before her friends could say a word, she was already on the move, clods of grass kicking up from under her feet. The crossing was too real to be any type of illusion, and the more she looked at it, the more solid it looked before her. As she was about to step foot onto the bridge, Ambrosius let out a bark of alarm, and Hoggle and Didymus called out her name.

She stopped, and turned to see them at the edge of the cliff. They looked upon her with confusion and possibly fear, prompting her to scoff. "What? It's just a bridge."

"Sarah," Hoggle spoke slowly, as if struggling to keep some inner emotion down, "there's no bridge there."

The smile still lingered on Sarah's face, and she could not help but laugh as she gestured to the bridge in front of her. "What are you talking about? I'm nearly standing on it right now!"

"My lady, Hoggle is right," said Didymus, whose worry laced his words more prominently than Hoggle's. "Thou art at the edge of the cliff. If thou goes further, thou shalt fall."

Now her grin slipped from her face, as she turned back at the bridge in confusion. It still lay before her, but as she stared, it seemed to become less solid. Doubt clouded her mind despite what lay in front of her. "But...but I can see it. Hoggle, Didymus, you both really can't see it?"

They shook their heads, and as they did the bridge grew almost transparent. Sarah could see the gray cliffs on the opposite side of the canyon now through the bottom of the bridge, a sight that only confused her further. It felt so real before, to the point where she was confident that it existed and wasn't the quickly fading sight she now confronted. This instead was baffling, and briefly called to mind an experience from years before, with a worm and a hidden wall at the start of her teenage quest.

"It's here though," she whispered, furrowing her brows as she tried to work out an explanation for what lay before her. "I swear, it's right in front of me."

With a tentative hand, and with a kernel of doubt still in her mind, Sarah reached out to touch the bridge. The air felt warmer here, a chance from the chill that she had grown accustomed to within the Labyrinth. Cool, smooth stone grazed her fingertips, provoking a sigh as hope fluttered to life within her. There was no denying her senses, for the bridge felt exceptionally real under her fingertips. Her belief grew, and as it did, as she told herself that what she saw was the truth, the bridge once more became solid. "Look! See, I'm touching it right now!"

Hoggle ambled up to stand beside her, and she watched as he reached out and, before her eyes, touched the bridge. When he turned to her, however, his expression was mournful. "All I feel is air, same as what I see. Maybe it's a trick, to make you think it's safe before you plunge to your death. We can keep going, find another place to cross."

"Perhaps His Majesty could be called upon to aid us," Sir Didymus offered, raising an eyebrow as Sarah clutched at her necklace and shook her head.

"No, that can't be right! I know it's real—it has to be real!" Without thinking, she stepped forward, as Hoggle grasped at empty space in a vain attempt to pull her backwards.

For a moment, for the briefest of seconds, she worried the warnings would be true, and the bridge blinked out of existence. Her body lurched, finding nothing upon which to stand, and fear shot through her before she remembered the sensation of metal and stone on her fingertips. Pressure bore down upon her. As if responding to her thoughts, her foot found solid ground, and with another step the bridge was beneath her feet. Heart still racing, Sarah closed her eyes to sigh, shivering slightly at the chill that followed the rush of adrenaline before she regained her composure and turned to smile at the others.

Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Ambrosius stared in openmouthed silence at Sarah, as she put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot against the stone. It was the knight who spoke first, sputtering broken questions until one finally came through with whole incredulity. "How art thou floating?"

"I'm on the bridge," said Sarah. "If you doubt it, it starts to fade away."

Hoggle tilted his head in contemplation, and brushed a hand against the railing once more. "I think I feel it, maybe. What exactly are you seeing that we're not?"

"Well, it's made of stone and metal, and it sort of goes up in the middle. The railings are glass, so you can see the sides of the canyon, but the stone is gray like the canyon rocks—"

"Oh! Oh, I think I see it! Yes, it's as you describe—whoa, slow, Ambrosius, slow!" Ambrosius took a step onto the bridge and, finding his footing upon the stone, barked and bounded forward as his rider frantically yanked at his reins with a yelp. The two were across to the other side in seconds, with the sheepdog shaking with delight and Sir Didymus admonishing him in vain.

Laughing, Sarah made to follow, but hesitated as Hoggle joined her to walk across. He appeared stunned as he took a step onto the bridge, and grabbed at the railing as if it were about to fall to pieces below his feet. "I don't get it. What were we doing differently that you weren't?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. Maybe you're supposed to believe it's real, and it makes it real? Or maybe...maybe it needs hope. You have to hope you can make it across?"

"Could be that, I suppose." Hoggle laughed to himself with a shake of his head. "Second time now that you've risked life and limb on a hunch, though. Makes me wish I were more like you."

"Like me?"

"Y'know, more...certain, or level-headed." Reaching the other side of the canyon, both found Didymus patting Ambrosius in a sign of forgiveness for his earlier gallop. The knight paid them little mind, especially as Hoggle added, "It's like you know how things are going to go, or you're sure that you're doing what's right."

She nearly stopped walking at those words, only forcing herself onward once her reeling mind settled back into place. "That's the thing though," Sarah hoarsely replied, soft enough that she knew Hoggle would not overhear. "I'm not certain about anything anymore."

As they made their way past the tall grass and eventually into a forest of pines, the doubt from the canyon followed Sarah, nagging at her exhausted mind all the way into the evening. It was only after they made camp amid the dark pine needles that her mind quieted enough to slip her into a shapeless, welcomed slumber.

Sleep, would, however, not come without the price of a dream.

For the third time, Sarah found herself in a haze, as her surroundings curled themselves out of mist into the form of a room. There was an elegance to this space that she had not seen Underground, with every sight inviting a consideration and appreciation of what resided within. Her eyes took in the sitting area and baroque chairs that flanked the now-cold fireplace on the far side of the room, before roaming over the shadowed tapestries, illuminated only by what faint moonlight escaped the heavy velvet curtains over the windows. She spotted a nearby desk with what little vision she had in the darkness and absentmindedly brushed a fingertip against its bare surface. Even something as simple as the desk held intricate carved patterns of plants and animal life upon its frame, making her wonder where she could possibly be in the Labyrinth.

As she bent down to examine the designs, there was the slightest of movements at the edge of her vision that captured her attention. Straightening and peering into the darkened interior, she made out what appeared to be a massive canopied bed, flanked by curtains that would have provided privacy had they not been pulled back. Instead, Sarah had a view of a pale figure sitting up against the headboard in the bed, and nearly gasped as she recognized whose room she stood in.

"My my, precious," said the Goblin King, as a grin played over his face. "It's awfully bold of you to visit for a midnight rendezvous. Did you miss me after only a day?"

She ignored his words, stepping closer to take in what could be seen in the limited light. His eyes were sunken into his face and pronounced against his visible, sharp cheekbones, giving him the appearance of a much older man. The mess of sand-colored hair was wild atop his head, with pieces that fell into his field of vision and subsequently went ignored. Here in a bed too big for a single man, he looked fragile, as if the slightest breeze would dissolve him into nothing more than memory. If before now she had doubted the claim that Jareth was dying, the view in front of her put any and all doubts to rest.

Yet, despite his state, he still caught Sarah's attention with that same piercing gaze, the one that bound her in place and threatened to strip the secrets from the depths of her soul. It was this gaze that lingered, as the grin vanished in favor of a troubled frown. "So, it's really you after all," he muttered with a slow tilt of his head. "I was worried for a moment that this was just an ordinary dream."

"It would be if you would stop butting into my dreams when I try to sleep."
"I could say the same to you, precious. As I said before, this is not my doing." With a grunt, Jareth raised himself into a sitting position in his bed, struggling for a moment before he could ease into a comfortable arrangement. "As you can see, I happen to be slightly indisposed."

"That's a nice way of putting it."

"It's how my mother would frame my state. Then again, she always was an optimist."

"I'm surprised she can be optimistic at a time like this," Sarah sighed, her gaze flitting away to take in the tapestries surrounding the room. "The last time I saw you, you looked fine. Have things gone downhill since then?"

"Everything's going downhill, my dear. That's the nature of losing magic: there's no happy ending when the bottom drops out. As for the last time we spoke, it was within my own dream, where I could be how I pleased. I lack that energy now, especially since you surprised me not a moment after I shut my eyes."

Something about his flippant tone struck a buried nerve with Sarah, pulling at the last remnants of her tattered self-control. "Don't make it sound like I'm to blame. I didn't ask to be here."

Jareth raised an eyebrow at her antagonistic grumblings. "Yet here you are, all the same. Or have you come to accidentally haunt my slumber?"

"I'm not doing any of this!" She gestured at the room around them with a broad sweep of her arm. Jareth followed her movement with an increasingly severe countenance, one that went ignored by Sarah in her frustration as she took a step back and away from him. "Stop messing with my dreams—I didn't like it when I was a teenager, and I sure as shit don't like it now!"

"So worried about yourself, are you?" There was anger in the Goblin King's expression, an anger that Sarah could only confront with the scraps of patience she had left and her rising sense of outrage. "You're so keen to label me a villain that you never stop to question if I'm to blame in the first place. Whatever qualms you have with me are of your own doing, precious."

"I'm not your precious, and I'm getting really tired of having to tell you that!" Sarah ran a hand through her hair with a ragged, mirthless laugh, jerking her hand free as it caught in various tangles and knots. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to do, but everyone keeps telling me I have to go play hero and save everyone in the Underground. Here I am on a mission to who knows where, and all you've done is upend my life!"

"You were the one who agreed to come back." Jareth scowled as he rose from his bed, shedding for a moment his haggard demeanor. "Why go to all this trouble if you were just going to say no?"

"Because life's not fair," she countered. "I learned that lesson a long time ago, but if I have the chance to make it better, I'll take it."

"Ah, but that's the question then, precious: whose life were you hoping to make better?" His voice dropped into something akin to a growl, and as he approached, Sarah found herself backing away from the intensity of his gaze. His steps were slow and deliberate, more akin to stalking than simple fluid movement. "Maybe I misjudged you. Maybe you're still the same selfish brat from before."

"That...that's not—"

"Not true? Lies?" Jareth's laugh was harsher than his stare, and she flinched at the sound, unable to look away even as her back brushed against the wall. "When I asked if you were happy, you never did give me an answer. Perhaps, after all these years of caring for yourself, you've decided your self-imposed exile is too much. Tell me, did you return to save your friends, or did you come back here to stop yourself from feeling guilty?"

The hushed words aimed true, stinging with a bruising honesty. Whatever expression Sarah wore as she struggled to reply made the Goblin King chuckle. "As I suspected," he muttered. He stopped feet away, yet still the room felt dominated by his energy, as if every last part of his being went into this moment of claustrophobic, looming suffocation.

"You don't know me," Sarah whispered. "You don't know the hell I've dealt with in trying to move past what happened."

"In trying to forget what happened," Jareth corrected, venom lacing his phrasing. "There is a difference between overcoming and abandoning, as you know all too well."

His gaze drifted down to her neckline, and Sarah became conscious of the pendant whose weight brushed against her collarbone. "You are right in that I may not know you, but can you say with certainty that you know yourself?"

Again came that look, the one that promised no escape from an examination and retrieval of her deepest secrets. "I at least know what I'm not," she answered, coating her words in bitter, angered emphasis. "I'm not like you."

"No," the Goblin King softly agreed, "you might be the villain after all. The girl with the cruelest eyes, who cannot decide if she wants to play hero or coward." She caught a fleeting expression on his face, as if he had been struck by a revelation of some variety, before he resumed the same scowl. "You still haven't explained how you've entered my dreams, and given that they began once you returned to the Underground, I'm more than a little suspicious."

"I don't want to talk to you anymore. Let me out of this dream." A feeling coursed through Sarah's veins, warm and calling to mind the heat of fire as she swore the edges of her vision ripped ever so slightly.

Jareth took a step forward, never once releasing her from the pressure that commanded the room and surrounded his form. He reached out a bony, gloved hand, inches from her necklace. "What are you—"

"I said let me out!"

Everything shifted. The dream shattered before her, as it had seven years before in the magical ballroom—only this time there were no leering partygoers, no mirrored halls or masks. There was only the sensation of being yanked back, and the sight of a stunned Jareth growing smaller and smaller as if retreating down a long, black tunnel. Light gave way to shadow, and yet the pressure that surrounded the Goblin King followed her, chasing her across the darkness of her mind...

Sarah sat upright with a quiet gasp, her eyes flying open to see the looming shadows of the pine forest in the morning light. Her hand flew to her necklace, and with a tug the knot ripped free, releasing her from the weight. Instinct nearly made her throw the medallion deep into the trees beyond, but she paused, her heart stuttering a rapid, angry beat against her ribcage. Whether it was anger or fear that caused her body to shake was unclear, as she sat amid her slumbering friends. The woods were silent, with only the faint hush of rustling needles saturating the air. Everything around her felt on edge, as if the entirety of the Underground held its breath.

She looked at the medallion, weighing her options in the palm of her hand before her shoulders slumped and she retired the knot around her neck. "I won't use it," she whispered, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb her friends. "I'll keep it, but I won't use it. I've made it this far without your help, and I can still keep going."

When her friends awoke later, she told them nothing of her nighttime meeting with their king, busying herself instead with gathering up their blankets and chatting amicably with Hoggle and Sir Didymus. As they once more set out, Sarah silently decided that it was better to not let her friends know of her strange dreams, conscious again of his symbol she wore around her throat.

Jareth had no power over her for the past seven years, and she was determined to keep it that way, even if it meant giving up sleep to make such a dream a reality.

Well, my thesis was accepted and passed, and as of today I'm officially done with my graduate program! It's been a wild semester, and it's hard to believe I'm done with schooling for the time being. I can say now though that I officially live up to my username with my masters degree.

This chapter was a weird one to write, which is part of the reason it took me a month to finish it. The bridge sequence really held most of it up, because I wavered between having Sarah be the only one able to see it, OR having her be the only one unable to see it. In the end, one won out over the other because I could tie it into some interesting plot developments. The title was also tough here; in my drafts it's called "A Matter of Trust," but I found that after the bridge conversation it felt weird to call it that. So, much like chapter two, we return to Langston Hughes and the idea of dreams. Oddly enough, the dialogue was the easiest to work with this time around! I'm feeling a lot more confident in the character's voices the further I go, and I (hopefully) am making the back-and-forth sound more natural, particularly with Sarah and Jareth. The positive feedback from LFFL I received for portions of that conversation really helped! :) Thank you to the readers and reviewers thus far. All your comments have lifted my spirits in these uncertain times, and have encouraged me to keep this story going.

As for the next chapter, it's going to be a doozy. Chapter eight is the only chapter thus far that I planned out in its entirety before I've even written it, because a LOT of little hints and comments and events have been building to what will happen next. I've been really looking forward to writing it for months now, and I finally get to do so! I'll try to have it up before June, although with job searching it may take a little over a month. Either way, I'm very excited to share it once it's done, and I can't wait for all of you to read it!

Until next time.