A/N: I swear, I meant to have this chapter up about three weeks ago, but certain things happened . . . like DDR and homework and Labyrinth fanfiction, then organizing music and watching Prince of Tennis and organizing those screenshots and . . . I'm a procrastinator, what can I say?

Disclaimer: Ug steal long-haired male. Ug drag off to cave to make babies. Ug beat off lawyers with pointy stick.

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"So what did Jareth steal from you?' I asked Skye, who had produced a candle and matches from his pocket. In the candle's light, he was actually kind of cute, with ruffled blonde hair, black cargo pants, no shirt to speak of, but a gray vest that only partially concealed a physique that spoke of many hours playing DDR on standard mode. Considering his costume, it was apparent that he was as prepared for getting whisked off to another world as I was, so in addition to a light source, he had also produced some pretty tasty energy bars and water from a satchel. As the typical shojo heroine, I was prepared by having absolutely nothing except my feminine charms by which to grab the attention of a bishonen and make him do all the work for me.

I had found a very nice bishonen indeed.

"Do you play any video games?" he asked in reply, taking a manly bite of his energy bar.

"Ehh? A few. I've got DDR and a few RPGs, but nothing much. It's only enough to keep me knowing the bare basics. A well-rounded otaku must not only learn to like most genres of manga and anime, but also enjoy Japanese culture, music, live action movies, food, games, and try their hand at fanfiction, fanart and doujinshi." I recited from "OTAKU: Things YOU Need to Know".

He eyerolled. "Really, it's a wonder you actually get to school, with all this education you're getting."

I gave him a look and he continued.

"How big is the memory card in your system?"

I thought for a minute. "About sixty-four megs, why?"

"It's backstory, and we're giving the readers a frame of reference. Guess how big my memory card was."

"From the exposition you're giving, I'd say pretty damn big."

He gave a suffering sigh. "It was five gigs."

"Grrawwghhwaaallaaa?"

My eyes were bulging, and I made a slight gasping noise like a fish yokai out of water.

"FIVE GIGS! I thought those were things of legend! Like magic swords and pompadours! Hell, I've never even seen anything bigger than two, and those are ultra rare!"

"I managed to get my hands on one," He said mournfully. "It was the prize in a no-hands barred duel of Kingdom Hearts. It was exclusively known to only a few gamers besides myself and cost two hundred and fifty dollars to enter, but the competition was still harsh. The person who won in the least amount of time took home the ultimate prize, which was the memory card and had their entrance fee refunded. It took sixty-eight hours of gameplay, six caffeine injections and multiple bandages for my blistered thumbs, but I won by twenty-three minutes and forty-two seconds."

"And the worst part is . . . " he broke down. "Jareth stole the card right before I could beat the final boss in Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus!"

"You poor gamer!" I exclaimed, coming up and patting him on the back. "That makes me so sad . . . I want to cry . . ."

My stomach interrupted the sympathizing with a rather audible growl.

" . . . can I have another energy bar?"

Skye handed over another package.

"What did you get stolen?"

I swallowed the food and tried to make my eyes blaze angrily. I managed a nice smolder, but it went out quickly.

"He took my Yu-Gi-Oh card!"

" . . . a card . . ." Skye sounded unimpressed.

"It wasn't a normal card! It was the holographic, secret rare, ultra-deluxe, 1337 special edition Neo the Magic Swordsman!"

Now his eyes widened. "No way," he breathed. "That card's supposed to be practically nonexistent."

"My brother traded for it," I sounded smug. "He must've conned some n00b who didn't know what they had. In any case, I have one. Or had one, until that kisama took it!"

Skye pondered this for a while, probably wondering what the term I dropped in there meant, but decided not to ask. "So . . . how do we get out of here?" he finally asked.

"Beats me," I shrugged. "This is your area of expertise anyway. It's more like an RPG than any manga I've ever read."

"Well . . . generally I would have come across a key or something equally plot-point-y before now that would conveniently unlock a hidden keyhole, or there's something in this room that can get us out."

I looked around, but all I saw was a small wooden plank that looked vaguely like a door.

"Hey . . ." we both said at the same time.

"Door?" I asked.

"Door," he confirmed.

Skye lifted up the plank and put it against a likely-looking portion of the wall, where it clicked satisfactorily into the stone. He wedged his fingers between the wood and the stone, pulling the door open.

Oddly enough, there was a huge city with towers, flying hummer things, and brass trumpet theme music.

"Kingsbury!" I gasped (in a Japanese accent, of course, but the subtitles still show the word in English).

"Huh?" Skye looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"Kingsbury. From Haru no Ugoku Shiro."

There was much confused blinking on his part.

"Howl's Moving Castle," I prompted exasperatedly, aghast that he didn't know of the glory of the movie, gamer or no.

"Oh yeah . . ." it hit him. "Wasn't that the movie that lost to Wallace and Gromit at the Oscars?"

"And when I get my hands on the Academy, their skulls will be made into COMMUNAL NUTBOWLS and placed in SEEDY BARS!" I declared, teeth sharpening and tongue snaking out in my wrath.

Skye eeped and backed away sloooooowly from the crazy otaku.

"Wait . . . " I realized. "If this is Kingsbury . . . then that means . . . OMG! HARU!"

I'm certain my fangirl squealing reached a new octave that was as yet unknown to man.

"Do you know what this means!" I asked Skye, grabbing onto his vest and pushing my face freakishly close to his.

"I'll have to make a new costume to replace the one you're ripping now?"

"No!" I shouted impatiently. "It means that if I go out and knock at the door once you close it, I could see Haru! And Markl! And Calcifer! SQUEEE!"

I ran out of the door and into the bright Kingsbury sunlight, pushing the door closed (which despite being nothing but driftwood on Skye's side, was a very elegantly carved door on mine). I gave a great big smile and kicked on the door, fully prepared to kiss and glomp whoever or whatever answered my knock.

The door creaked open and Skye hesitantly poked his nose out.

"Oh. It's you," I sighed, crestfallen.

"Who else did you expect it to be?"

"An impossibly beautiful bishonen with magical hair that can change color and length at will?" I retorted.

"I can dye my hair blue if you want." Skye sounded a bit sulky.

"No, then your hair would match your name," I breezed past him before he could come up with a suitable answer to my last, totally pwnzing comment. He made a face at my back and closed the door.

"Does this thing have a doorknob?" I searched the surface of the wood for any sort of a lump that might serve as one."

"No. Why would it?" Skye was confused. Again.

"Because that was how Haru's door changed locations." I replied. "If that was Kingsbury, then there should also be Porthaven and the castle. So we want back down, but there's no knob. Hn."

If Skye blinked any faster, his eyes would look shut. "Can I have a translation from otaku to gamer, please?"

I scowled. "Do you at least know the general idea of the plot?"

"Howl/wizard/guy gets Sophie/old lady/girl."

" . . . Oy."

I started on a quick five-minute lecture about the wonders of Miyazaki-sensei, the general plot of the movie, and how Skye should stop being a heathen and watch it. I think he lost about half the speech, seeing as he had the same glazed look on his face that I do when a teacher is lecturing me about doodling cartoon (they're ANIME, dammit!) characters during class.

"So let me get the door bit straight," he started, pondering my words. "Howl's castle door opened up to one of four locations, either Kingsbury, Porthaven, the moving castle, or some war zone based on the position of a blob of color on the doorknob. This door has become like the one in Howl's castle, and we just opened up one of the entrances."

"Well . . ." I hesitated. "There's actually eight entrances, if you also count the book."

"You read the book too?"

"It gives a better feel for the ambiance of the movie and helps with minor translation issues so that no nuance of the original escapes my notice," I defended.

Skye shook his head. "I don't think I'll ever understand you anime people."

"Don't even try to tell me that you didn't go looking for every cheat code and walkthrough you could when you first got Final Fantasy."

He winced. "Touché. Anyway, we need the black-down, since that also leads to whatever the heart desires, or something like that. In any case, since there isn't any doorknob here, it means we can only get to Kingsbury. Unless . . ." Skye trailed off.

"What? What?"

Skye abruptly walked to the door and started to open it again, but from the left side instead of the right this time. It swung open to reveal a quaint little sea town with gulls and a bustling market.

"Hmn. Porthaven." I glanced outside. "So each time you open the door from a different end, you get a different setting."

"Seems so," Skye closed the door and this time pulled it down to reveal a grassy hilltop, moving at a pretty steady pace.

"The castle!" I shrieked, and would have jumped out to admire it if a) it wasn't moving quite so fast, and b) Skye hadn't had a death grip on the collar of my blouse.

"Ah! Watch it! That'll tear!" I attempted to see down my back for any ripped seams, brushing off the invisible dirt he deposited there.

"Would you stop acting like a D&D group on crack every time you find a manga reference?" he told me off, closing the door again and this time pulling it up from the bottom.

A black veil-ish thing was the only thing visible in the doorway this time, and I poked a finger into the door.

"That what we want?" Skye asked.

"Possibly. It could be Wales, since that was also a black-down knob, but I doubt it."

"How come?"

"Because we couldn't get out and the story would end."

Skye gave a nod and grabbed my hand bishonen love interest style (or maybe it was bishonen hero style. I tend to get those two mixed up) and together we walked into the darkness.

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Titania tried her hand at a few of Jareth's parlor games while he was setting up for the next level of the quest. She discovered that she was particularly good at a game called "bullshit" since most other fae there were too scared to call any of her bluffs.

She tired of the game quickly, and returned back to the balcony and her personal camera, studying Raven and Skye intensely.

"You'd better win this, mortal," Titania breathed over the image. "I have a lot of money ridding on your adventure. Perhaps too much for me to do nothing but watch."

The Faerie Queen pondered for a moment, then snapped her fingers.

"Robin, I need you."

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Anime Lexicon:

DDR: OMG SO FUN! Basically matching up arrows with music and stepping where they tell you. I'm only on light mode now, working my way up, but there are some nuts out there who are practically flying across the mat.

"Costume . . . another world": In video games, they're ALWAYS ready for being whisked off, where as girls tend to be less prepared.

Doujinshi: Basically, a fan-made comic of a continuation of a series

Five gigs: Believe it or not, I've heard of one and two gig cards at Best Buy and places like that, for about 200 bucks. Hence, five gigs is extremely rare, which is why I made it up.

"Grrawwghhwaaallaaa?": Try making a gurgling sound in the back of your throat and also making a noise of complete shock and jealousy with a tiny growl. That's basically what this sounds like.

Youkai: Literally, demon. In Inu Yasha, there's a multitude of species of youkai, (dog, cat, cow, half-demons, etc) so why not fish?

Pompadours: I would like you to Google "Ryu shaman king." His hairstyle is a pompadour, hence it being a thing of legend. In the live action movie Kamikaze Girls/Shimotsuma Monogatari, there's a character who actually has a real-life one. It's very scary, but I recommend the movie heartily.

Kingdom Hearts: Hero's love interest whisked off by evil minions, best friend becomes pretty villain, blah blah blah. My friend recently got sucked into this, finally finishing beginner mode at 90+ hours, so I figure 60+ is good for Skye at expert mode. While it is quite stress relieving, I really suck at video games.

FUN THING TO DO IN KINGDOM HEARTS: Start the game. Find a tree. Climb up the tree. Hump the tree.

Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus: New video game out in Japan, not in English just yet. My very favorite J-Rock star, Gackt (Remember him from a few chapters back?) is a minor character. He's sooooooo prettyyyyy. -swoon-

n00b: Newbie in 1337 speak

kisama: Literally, bastard, although Japanese has so few major swear words, it's hard to actually get something strong enough to emphasize your point.

Kingsbury: A city in the movie/book Howl's Moving Castle/Haru no Ugoku Shiro.

Haru no Ugoku Shiro/Howl's Moving Castle: A very recent movie by the great Hayao Miyazaki.

Wallace and Gromit: I love the movie, I really do, but I think Howl should have won.

"Communal Nutbowls": An actual quote by the same friend, who called me right after the award was announced, and rather loudly pronounced this statement.

Haru/Markl/Calcifer: Howl/Haru is pretty, Markl/Michael is cute, and Calcifer is just damn cool.

Instructions for making Calcifer:
1) Get a large pot full of soil. Have a hose on standby.
2) Place as many sparklers as possible in the soil in a teepee-like circle, with the tops all connecting in at least one place with another sparkler.3) Take the last sparkler and angle it away from the rest, making sure that its bottom touches the bottom of another sparkler.
4) Light the last sparkler
5) Stand back.
6) Really far away
7) Take pictures and send them to me

"Magical hair . . . at will": If you've ever seen the movie, Howl's hair does indeed change length remarkably fast.

Pwnzing: Just got 0wnzored (Forgive my horrible 1337)

Black-down: I'm still kinda unclear as to how this knob works in the anime, but generally, I figure that it leads to wherever you want it to.

D&D: Dungeons and Dragons, an RPG. Tends to get a little weird/hyper along the way.

Wales: In the book, the black-down knob lead to Howl's home in Wales (giving me a whole new fetish for welsh accents)

"Bishonen . . . style": Grabbing the hand like a love interest, or like a hero trying to protect the weak female. One usually leads to the other.

Bullshit: . . . I couldn't resist. There are instructions online if you've never played.

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Please tell me if there's something I missed in the lexicon this time, it's about 10 o'clock here and my brain is starting to turn into a big slushie. Reviews are wonderful and inspire me to write more. Flames will be used to heat my freezing feet (Why is it always so cold in my room?)

I am taking requests for any sort of reference you'd like to see in here, especially for video games. Now that Skye's a major character, I need to keep putting references in here for him, but I'm rather game-illiterate.

((I just looked back at the pages written, and OMG, it's eight pages. Damn, I better get some nice reviews for this. Please?))