A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and for their wonderful feedback. I'm really glad to be writing in this category, thanks to your welcoming...ness.

If there was one thing Sarah Williams had learned in her two years away from home, it was that actresses put a lot of work into their craft. Of course, she knew it would be hard in Boston. She knew it would probably cause insomnia and severe stress, the constant search for a job -- but she wouldn't have it any other way. She wanted to act. She wanted to be center-stage, playing any part (but, preferably, the female lead), making people love her. People loved Mom, she thought to herself, so I could probably make them love me.

And that was the point in becoming a star, wasn't it? Awards and acclaim and attention? She certainly thought so. All of her employers, her directors thought so. It wasn't a lavish existance, in the beginning, but it was on the way to what she wanted.

Which was, at this point in her career, an old post office at the very edge of town. Over the years, it had become a small playhouse, inhabited by the Hopes and Dreams Theatre Company -- a small troupe of actors and actresses that put on several of the classics every year. It was quite the beloved thing amongst adult members of the community -- presentations included the plays of Anton Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, and Neil Simon, to name a few. Not to mention that there was actual talent in that ramshackle building.

She wasn't blind. She could see it, shimmering in the air like rising heat. It entranced the mind and warped the senses, curdling every expectation and causing all logic to wither. It was, although she hated to make the comparison in her newly-found state of adulthood, like magic.

It made her feel terribly silly to think such things, especially being a twenty-year-old performer. Her kind of person was supposed to drink ridiculously small cups of coffee with enigmatic, foreign men in ancient cafes. She was supposed to be breathing the smell of Ben Nye make-up and drinking the effect of blinding lights -- not dwelling on stupid dreams and fantastic obsessions she'd had at the age of fifteen.

It just wasn't right.

She tried to tell herself this as she stood outside the old post office, in a group of more than twenty young artists hoping to become a Hopes and Dreams player. Two printed monologues were held in a shaking hand, the only physical manifestation of her nerves. It wasn't the actual audition that scared her -- it was the fact that her dramatic monologue was from the red, leather book she had been so enamoured with; The Labyrinth.

They had only put flyers out two days before, and it was the only serious thing she knew, at such short notice... But Sarah did not take comfort in her word-for-word knowledge of the lengthy speech. It just made her sick. You're not a little girl anymore, she told herself sternly. You can't take material from fairytales no one's ever heard of. You can't read the exhausted plight of an innocent girl who doesn't really exist.

A side door opened suddenly, just ahead of everyone that stood in wait of their name being called. A petite, peroxide-blonde stepped out into the sunlight (where her hair became unbelievably white), and checked a clipboard for information on who was to go next.

"...Sarah Williams?" she said, looking into the crowd.

It was done.

Walls of newly-fashioned gray stone, druid spells carved over pillars, goblin hieroglyphics telling the tale of the Reversal -- of Sarah and her defeat of the first labyrinth. There were stairs leading up, down, and every which way (in memory of the Escher room); hallways were stacked upon hallways, pools of boiling tar twenty feet deep appeared out of thin air. The plants were dead. The former inhabitants were exterminated. Nothing moved, and nothing breathed.

Not even the wind, which had once been one of the Goblin King's cheif entertainments, was allowed to slip through cracks in mortar and create suspicious noise.

It wasn't quite so awe-inspiring as the original, but he supposed that was due to the novelty having worn off of the idea. Still, as Jareth gazed down from his tower, contradictory eyes sweeping the landscape, he couldn't help but emit a soft chuckle. The art of architecture had not escaped him, it seemed. Even after so many years.

In the background, he could hear her reciting that noble little oration -- a version much lengthier than the one she had used five years ago. Perhaps for the sake of saving time? He thought over this for a moment before refocussing his attention to her voice. It had lost a great deal of ferocity and bravado. She was not so angry. A great pity, when he took into consideration all the wonderful troubles her personality had caused her.

Oh, well.

If everything went as planned, if this lack of intensity was sincere, she would be with him the next evening at dinner.