The next morning dawned bright and clear for Tieran to report to work. The receptionist took him immediately to the director in charge of animation, a friendly man named James Green. He insisted Tieran call him James and immediately took Tieran on a tour of the company.

Tieran paid particular attention when James showed him the computer system, having been told by Cara that she needed as much information about it as possible. The server for the system surprised him enough that he nearly missed some of its vital statistics. He had had only a vague impression of a large computer running the whole operation, based on old pictures of room-sized mainframes. He knew computers had shrunk considerably in size, but was hardly expecting a desktop model.

"And this, here, will be your office," James was saying as they walked down the hall into a spacious room with a window.

Tieran, not knowing exactly what to expect for an office, walked to the window and said as he looked out, "It has possibilities."

"I'm sure with your talent and qualifications you're used to much better, but most of the staff appreciates having their own office instead of a cubicle."

"Yes, this will do fine," Tieran reassured him.

"Well, now that you've been given the grand tour and seen your office, I'll let you fill out your paperwork. After lunch, would you like to meet some of your co-workers?"

"Who will I be working with? Modelers? Designers?"

"We thought we would let you see where you think you could be the most help. I'll come get you for lunch. There's a small cafeteria in the building or we can go out to eat."

After James left, Tieran turned to the short stack of papers on his new desk and looked them over. Tax forms, beneficiary forms, emergency information, insurance enrollment, they all requested personal information that, until the day before yesterday, he did not have. Luckily, Cara had requested a copy of the files Ace had fabricated before they left and had remembered to place them in his portfolio.

He filled out of the forms with the information he had, taking care to punctuate his name correctly. The three of them had collectively decided that his family name could pass as possibly of Italian derivation, but would stand out less if he removed the apostrophe. His given name was still unusual for this world, but he had no time to learn to respond to a new one.

Finishing the paperwork left him with some free time until James came back to take him to lunch. He looked around the office. It was not large, but did have the large window opposite the door to let in plenty of natural light. The desk was L-shaped, running along one wall next to the window and then out into the room, so that he could sit facing the door with his back to the window. A computer monitor, placed in the corner of the desk closest to the window shared the surface of the desk with only the paperwork he had just completed.

The walls of the office were bare and stark white. He thought that a permanent employee would naturally personalize the office, but he had no idea what would be appropriate. How much would they bring in? What would be acceptable? What would fit in and what would stand out and draw attention to himself? Or would trying to fit in make him stand out instead? He would need to observe the offices of his co-workers and take note of their choices.

Boredom had set in by the time James came back to show him to lunch.

"We don't have any restaurants out here nearby," James said once they had paid for their food in the cafeteria and sat down near a window. "Most people bring their lunch from home or eat here in the cafeteria." Tieran reminded himself to ask Irielen to see what she could do about making him a portable lunch. He could not, in good conscience, continue eating off of Alia's limited student income until they paid him.

"I thought we would start with the designers," said James as they returned from lunch. He glanced through open office doors as they passed. Tieran saw that they were all empty. "Everyone seems to be out. They must all be gathered in the common area. You may have to meet them all at once."

Tieran disliked the prospect, but had to admit that it had the merit of getting it over with all at once. He reminded himself that this way he would only have to answer questions once. That would mean he would have only one story to remember in the future. "What would they be gathered for?"

"Someone's birthday? I'm not really sure. They take every opportunity they can to have a party."

The gathering was indeed for someone's birthday and had just started to disperse when they arrived. James collared a small group of attendees as they were leaving.

"Just the people I was looking for. I wanted to introduce the new man to some of the designers. This is Tieran Sartali. Tieran, this is Jennifer Simmons, Michelle Benitez, and John Swanson."

As each person was introduced, Tieran shook their hand and murmured polite pleasantries. Jennifer, thin with closely cropped blond hair, wore a short lime green dress. Michelle, slightly taller, with slightly longer black hair, wore a bright orange jacket over a black shirt and pants. John was also a blond, tall and thin. Tieran received the impression that the three of them formed a tightly knit group not open to outsiders.

As James introduced him to John, Tieran noticed another pair approach from across the room. "Ah, here's some more of the crew. This is one of the modelers, Amy McCullough. And this is her partner in crime, Thomas Cho, another modeler. If you can't find one of them, look for the other one, they can usually be found together." More pleasantries passed between Tieran and the tiny redhead and young man with a blue streak in his straight black hair.

James excused himself for a moment to have a quick conversation with another artist he saw across the room.

The six of them made polite conversation for a while until Michelle, Jennifer, and John, no longer the center of attention, became bored and professed much work to be finished in their offices.

As they left as a group, Tieran heard Michelle say in a private manner to Jennifer, but in a voice pitched to be heard by himself and the remainder of the group, "Did you hear that accent? Just wait 'til Sarah hears about that. She'll be down here in no time." John's response to this comment was drowned by Michelle and Jennifer's laughter.

Amy followed their retreat with a scornful eye. "Work to do, my foot. As if they'll do anything but gossip for the rest of the day. And you can be sure that Sarah will hear about your accent from Michelle herself."

"Who is Sarah?"

"The boss. The woman who owns and runs this place. I know what you're thinking, what a coincidence that she's named Sarah, right? Except it's not S-A-R-A-H. It's C-A-E-R-E-H, but it's pronounced the same. What her parents were thinking when they saddled her with that, I can't imagine. Maybe it's no wonder she turned out the way she did."

"Unless she came up with it herself. I wouldn't put it past her," Thomas interjected.

"Yeah, though she'd never admit it if she did. Just the same, she's a fanatic about the movie and likes to think she's The Sarah. English accents draw her like ants to honey. We had a guy from England here about a month ago to talk to the designers about periods of architecture and you should have seen the way she chased the poor man. You'd better watch yourself."

"I will keep that in mind."

"Are they filling you in on all the latest gossip? Know everything about everyone yet?" James asked as he returned.

"After a fashion," Tieran answered. "They have been telling me about Caereh."

"Then I'm glad I wasn't here. They usually know more about everyone than I want to know. I hope they didn't tell you anything awful about me?"

"All your deepest secrets have been exposed, James. You have nothing left to hide," Amy teased.

"Your name did not even come up," Tieran confessed truthfully.

"I can see you're going to be no fun to have around when it comes to teasing," Thomas told Tieran.

"I thought it would be bad form to tease my boss on my first day." answered Tieran with a smile. "I would like to keep my job long enough to redecorate my office. I have to have something to clear out when I am fired."

"You'd better check out the competition before you start making plans," James told him. "Amy and Thomas are the undisputed champions of office decorating around here. It was their first priority. And they're still always tweaking things."

"Come on. We'll show them to you," Amy offered.

Tieran could only describe their offices as extreme. They had installed shelves which held a few books and binders here and there as a concession to convention. Otherwise, hundreds of small toys, action figures, and models filled the shelves of both offices. Posters covered the walls not taken by shelving. Models hung on fine wires from the ceiling, that Tieran in particular, being the tallest of the four, had to duck to avoid. In addition, Amy had a large colorful kite pinned across one corner of the room and ceiling.

"How do you concentrate?" Tieran asked laughing at the riot of color. "I would find this disturbing."

"The blank walls are what distract me," Thomas said. "I keep wanting to fill them up with something. And the toys are a handy diversion when you have a block. I play with them and let my subconscious work with the problem on its own."

"I see I need not worry about going too far with my personalization with you two forging the way down the hall. Thank you very much for showing your offices to me. I will let you get back to work now – I understand I have more people to meet."

"No problem," responded Thomas.

"Stop by any time," invited Amy.

"I'll take you to see the animators next," James said as they left the two modelers in Amy's office. "One of them is having real problems imprinting his character."

"Imprinting?"

"That's what we call the initial animation of a character. He's been working on it for weeks. Maybe you'll have some suggestions."

Tieran asked with polite curiosity, "What or who is he trying to ...imprint?"

"The main character, Jareth. The designers and modelers had him fine and of course we had the movie to work from, but the imprint just won't work. Here we are. You'll see.

"Mike, this is Tieran Sartali, the new guy I was telling you about. Tieran, this is our slacker, Mike Barr."

"Hey, how's it goin'?" Mike turned and waved from his chair. "Yeah, that's me. I just draw the same thing over and over."

"So you are the resident Penelope, keeping yourself in a job?" commented Tieran with a friendly smile.

"Who?" Mike was totally lost.

"Penelope, Odysseus' wife in Greek mythology. She was to choose among suitors and remarry when she finished weaving a shroud. She preferred to remain faithful to Odysseus, so each night she picked out what she had woven that day. After three years, the suitors learned of her deception and forced her to finish it."

"Oh. Nah, I'm not getting married."

James cleared his throat. "Ahem, yes, well, actually we don't know what the problem is. We've had several animators working on Jareth. If it was any other character, we could leave him out or start over, but we can't do that with GK."

"GK?"

"Goblin King. Everyone pretty much calls him by the initials now."

"I see."

James filled Tieran in on the recent history of the animation department's problems as they watched Mike work. "Things started out smoothly, but everything started to slow down. The first few characters we did were designed, modeled, and 'printed in no time. Then the imprinting started fouling up.

"It has to be something in the software. It's all new, remember, and only the animators use it. The designers and modelers use the old stuff. This company developed it and hasn't distributed it, so we're the guinea pigs and get to find all the bugs. They never have found the problem. Tech support says it was just human error, all the animators' faults. Of course, we don't believe that. They did fine at first, why would they start making mistakes now?

"So, then we got a backlog of models and designs. We've got that mostly cleared out now. For some equally mysterious reason, the 'printing bugs worked themselves out recently, except for old GK here. He's still causing as many problems as ever."

They remained a while longer, watching over Mike's shoulder as he worked on Jareth. Tieran took the opportunity to contact Jareth.

"Jareth, can you hear me?"

"What now? Get your first paycheck? Or did what's her name have a relapse?"

"I see you are in your usual good mood today." Tieran answered, unperturbed. "I have found your animator."

"How nice. Do give him my regards."

"He is working on you now."

"Really? I never would have guessed. Are you planning to tell me anything I do not already know?"

"Apparently, you have been giving them a great deal of trouble."

"I give them trouble? That's comforting. Now that you have found him, what if he had an accident?"

"Jareth! I will not harm the man.

"Not even a little?" Jareth pouted and wheedled. "Just to prevent him working for a while?"

Tieran remained firm. "No, not even a little. They would find another animator, in any case. They have had several working on you already."

"I think I'm getting somewhere today," Mike interrupted Tieran's thoughts. "I've just about got it this time."

"He thinks he is getting close, Jareth," Tieran warned the Goblin King.

"I know. You must do something, Tieran –" Jareth's thoughts cut off.

"Got him!" Mike crowed.

"Save it quick before we lose it!" James commanded.

"Jareth? Jareth! Alia!" Tieran called, still searching for any contact with Jareth.

Disclaimers, credits, trivia:

Labyrinth, etc. belong to the Jim Henson Company.

You would not believe how many variations of Caereh's name I had to go through to get to one sufficiently different from Cara to avoid confusion and yet not match any names being used on the fanfiction list this was originally posted on. If by some chance there is someone is using that variation of spelling as a name (screen or otherwise), she has nothing to do with them.