Author's Note: This is an AU. Its my own version of England in the late 1700's. I apologize if I, as an American, botch England but— fiction. This is my excuse. I do not mean to offend. Bear with me on this, it was difficult to figure out and more so to write. I hope it eventually makes sense to you because it does in my mind.

And now without further ado…

CHAPTER ONE

It starts with mismatched eyes.
A glittering ballroom.
An impossible staircase… and

"And— nothing, I wake to the sound of shattering glass," she sighed then added, "it's always fragments, pictures that don't make sense." Sarah watched as her employer stared angrily at the machine in front of him. "I had another dream," she said with an air of annoyance as he continued to ignore her. "I also dreamt that you gave me as a sacrifice to appease that damned machine."

"I would never!" Blythe Tillens shouted back with a grin— he was listening after all. "You have proven a much more reliable employee than it will ever be! The bloody thing has done nothing but refuse to work since I brought it here two months ago!"

Sarah couldn't help the small smile that appeared as Blythe swore repeatedly under his breath. He had spent all afternoon tinkering with the thing only to find that a single gear needed to be remade. He had been sure buying a small printing press would be profitable to his shop, but his hope crumbled when it stopped after two very untidy, unusable pages. The small fortune the press had cost would soon become nothing compared to the bill it was acquiring in repairs. More than half the asking price had already been spent before the current problem arose. It seemed the metal contraption was more hassle than it was worth and doomed to fail.

The final straw it seemed was not the price, but rather the spot of oil and ink on the left side of Blythe's face refusing to wipe clean. Though his light beard hid most of the stain, it would take at least a week before it would wash out entirely. Yesterday he would not have minded, stains at a scrivener shop were hardly upsetting, but adding the broken gear and cost of the blacksmith—again— he had reached his limits.

"I think it suits you," Sarah smirked as he tried, and failed, to remove the stain from his skin. "It's really not so bad, if you recall you run a printing press— it isn't the least bit shocking that you would have ink stains." Her eyes fell to the blotched apron that did little to shield her skirts from the drips and spills that too often found their way onto her lap.

Blythe huffed, throwing the blackened rag into the small basin at his feet, the greyish water puddling beneath the bowl. "You don't have to lie to me, Sarah. I won't send you packing for telling me how terrible I look— I might be tempted to give you a raise or even a promotion." His arm made a sweeping gesture to an imaginary sign above his head, "Sarah Williams. Head Quill!"

"Tempting as it may be," she smiled, then motioned to the empty room, "wouldn't that be setting a terrible example for the others? It sounds like favoritism to me," she asked, her face scrunched with mock concern. "But I accept nonetheless, and I demand you fetch me a quill made from the feather of a golden-winged unicorn!" Her giggles poured through her words as she bit back a fit of laughter.

Blythe's own mirth echoed throughout the room; he wiped at his eyes as the sound faded to winded chuckles. "Your price is too high. I am sorry to say my offer has been withdrawn." He finished coming to her side to peer at the pages she had been copying all afternoon.

Her eyes followed his to the documents littering her desk. Though they had been completed nearly an hour ago, Sarah was in no hurry to fight against the rain and mud to make a delivery that could wait until tomorrow. "I finished right about the time you started reciting such lovely and endearing refrains to the Iron Beast." Her green eyes darted from the press back to his, her voice a low whisper, "Be careful or your wife might start to wonder if you love that contraption more than her."

"Ha ha," He added dryly and moved the small footstool he had been using at the press to sit nearer to her. "So, mismatched eyes, eh? What does that even mean? Does one belong to a goat and the other a fish?" He gestured for the pages, the corner of Sarah's mouth hinting at a smile. Blythe shuffled them together and turned to snatch a large envelope off the shelf to his right, carefully putting the papers inside.

"If I were dreaming of eyes like that I could easily forget them," Sarah turned, languidly swiping up the tattered pieces of quill scattered over her workspace. It had taken her almost four hours and two quills (and one close call with the trimming knife) to finish her work.

"What bothers me isn't the eyes, although they are odd," her brows rose with an airy laugh- they both knew better. "It's how I feel for minutes, even hours after." Sarah's voice grew quiet, a faint ache stirring deep in her breast. She was lost and alone without any reason as to why. Beyond that was a hollow shell where a memory should have rested, but even now she couldn't quite recall the slightest shadow of what was lost. Something is missing. She told herself for the hundredth time in the four weeks since the dreams began.

Though they were foggy at best, the images felt personal as if every emotion was meant for her alone to brook. At times she could swear the broken jagged edges were the connections to moments long forgotten or not yet lived, begging to be remembered.

Her dreams were all the same, broken pieces to a puzzle she didn't know how to solve. Though they were not identical, two things remained constant night after night. She always woke feeling a profound loss or a numbing fear that gripped her until she could flood the room with any source of light. Too many nights, the fear and emptiness had been so palpable she could do nothing but weep in the quiet confides of her room, while the very next night she might scream herself conscious. Her exhaustion was due as much to her lack of sleep as it was the emotional turmoil that followed in its wake. This, accompanied with the eyes that found their way into her dreams hinting at something she couldn't name, was more than enough to leave her feeling bared and vulnerable. Even when she was alone.

Sarah had never seen the face they belonged to, but she knew as well a her own name, they were unquestionably male. They were possessive, leaving her confused and frightened because this man— of this she had no doubt- looked at her with eyes that penetrated to her very soul. He was watching and waiting, but for what she didn't know. Why would he- anyone want to watch her?

"Sarah?" Blythe's voice pulled her from her thoughts, his brow wrinkled with concern when her eyes found his. She had been frowning, a hand clutched to her stomach in a desperate grapple for stabling comfort. "Sarah, is something wrong?"

"Is everything alright?" came the sweet lilting voice of his wife, Constance, from the other side of the shop carrying a heavy tray laden with tea and refreshments. She smiled brightly at the pair but the look faded into a slight frown the longer she stared. "You look awfully pale. Perhaps a bite might do you some good," with a glance to her husband she added, "for you both it would seem."

Sarah gave a small smile, the couple were far more than she deserved— the three were as close as family, and in many ways closer. Blythe and Sarah were stumbling toddlers together, sharing everything but blood, though the various scrapes and bruises acquired in childhood might protest otherwise. Even as they grew into the awkward years of adolescence where boys were taught to be men and daughters to sew and sing and sketch, the two remained thick as thieves. There were never judgments or pity, nor the false smiles and pretty lies, that others seemed too eager to offer.

Misfortune was a plague that had infected the Williams family in one fell swoop, leaving nothing but heartache and anger in its wake. The aftershock had almost destroyed everything Sarah held dear, including herself— Blythe had refused to let it happen. He became the light in her ever-darkening tunnel until every trace of tenebrosity disappeared.

She had worried— sickeningly so— about her life after Blythe married. His betrothal to the Moss' only daughter had been set before he was old enough to understand what being a husband meant. However, his parents had taken pity on their only child and ensured the two were never strangers, arranging frequent opportunities for them to be acquainted with one another. For years Blythe had promised Sarah that nothing would change between them, though it didn't quell the trepidation that overwhelmed her upon their first meeting.

But he had been right, as usual, and their little makeshift family went on as if nothing had changed. And, if Sarah were to be honest, having someone else to talk to was, in more ways than one, a blessing she hadn't known she needed. They listened to her and her strange dreams, never once belittling her concern.

The bell at the shop door jingled against the frame— Constance turned but Blythe caught her hand halting her steps, "I'll see to it." He stood ushering his wife to take his place on the stool. He smiled down at her and pressed his lips to her plaited chestnut hair. "I think Sarah would prefer your company at the moment anyhow."

"The eyes?" Constance asked once they were alone, a knowing smile on her lips. She knew far better than even her husband how affected Sarah was by her dreams. One look from Sarah was enough to confirm any lingering suspicion Constance might have held.

"I should be terrified— and I am," Sarah fell into her chair, "just not the way I should be. I should feel horrified not—" her mouth tried to form the words but she couldn't find them, she hadn't known any sensation quite like the one she felt when those eyes found her. Sarah stood, stepping quickly to the nearly forgotten tray and readied the tea, desperate to keep her idle hands busy.

Constance took her cup, waiting patiently for Sarah to take her seat once more. "I believe the word you are looking for is tempted." She took an unhurried sip, her honey eyes never leaving the wide emeralds before her, catching the faintest blush that crept along Sarah's cheeks.

"You have told me many times about the mysterious eyes that tempt— yes tempt you Sarah— but I don't recall much else." Her tea had only moments of drinkable heat, and she swallowed as much as she could stomach. "What do they look like I wonder, to be so enticing?"

Sarah could not hide the color that brushed at her ears and burned down her delicate neck. "Piercing blue and smoked sage. One pupil dominates the other under striking chocolate brows encased in black wings and silver—" her voiced faded to a whisper as the memory took her, the air trapped in her breast as a foreign sensation danced across her skin.

"If memory serves, Richard's eyes are not blue," Constance's brows shot up, her voice a gentle warning. "Lusting after your fiancé is hardly a sin, but a stranger's eyes— even in a dream can have consequences."

She didn't need to explain— Sarah was all too aware of the implication. A moment later her face brightened, "No harm comes from dreaming, as long as you remember it is simply that— a dream."

He had felt the familiar pull for centuries. The sharp tugging of an invisible vice around his mind and tighter around the pulse of his magic. It was too common and he too seasoned to be bothered by it as he was in the early days of his reign. There was no pain, nor even the faintest hint of it as a dreamer called to him. Though it was far stronger when done deliberately— the pull remained even when a mortal's mind called to him in the depths of sleep. It was always his choice to respond when summoned to a dream; even wishes could be ignored if said without true conviction of the heart and mind.

He ignored them often.

Tonight, the pull was different— he couldn't explain how but every sense of his being felt it. For weeks he had felt something similar; it should have gone away but it only persisted to a festering wound of curiosity. He was annoyed by its consistency— fascinated by its strangeness, he answered the summons. Letting himself be pulled into the imaginary world he could so easily manipulate without tasting effort, he vanished from the warm comfort of his over-sized bed.

The dream was new, only moments in its infancy, slowly building a world from the darkness of unconsciousness. Dirt and stone rose up to his feet as the last of the void faded into dank, brown walls glittering in the warm afternoon sun. Broken tangled branches littered the path before him. He was in a labyrinth— his Labyrinth.

Whose dream is this? It was impossible— mortals couldn't dream of his kingdom— it was forbidden, sealed with magic far older that any fae he knew, and yet here is was laying before him inviting him to transverse its pathways and tunnels. He knew every stone, tunnel and oubliette hidden within its walls, every trap and puzzle. This was not the work of an active imagination trying to conjure the fabled Goblin City— no this was a mind that knew.

This was a runner.

His eyes darted to the gaps in the walls trying to find the impossible dreamer. Footsteps echoed against the stone, and he followed soft steady click. Then silence, deafening silence— he stepped forward, moving around the stone wall obstructing his path. A girl. The runner was there, debating the paths and choices before her. She turned. An instant before their eyes could meet, the space began to crumble, the images changing around him in a blur of glittering whites and silver.

Gossamer fabric dripped from the walls dancing their way to skim the glittering floor. Shadows danced carelessly around the empty space before him crowding the seemingly vast room. Masked and unencumbered by the others, pushing their partners to an unheard tune. One lone figure pressed through the crowd. The girl.

This was familiar.

Her back was to him, her dark hair a stark contrast against the white gown and muted tones the ballroom. His head shook of its own volition. It can't be- It's impossible. His back straightened as she turned, time crashing to a violent stop as her profile came into view. His jaw ached as he ground his teeth together in utter disbelief. He took a measured step towards her as her small frame faced him head on. Wide, bright, naive eyes met his mismatched gawking.

Sarah was dreaming of him.

A/N: I know THOUSANDS of Labyrinth fanfics have been written before, and if this story has been told before I apologize. I hope, if nothing else, that I can inspire someone else to write that story buried behind all the uncertainty. I love the characters and hope you love what I have done with them.

From where I sit, with all the plans I have ahead for our lovely characters, I realize this is the result of Beauty and the Beast, and Labyrinth's (and maybe Phantom of the Opera's) one night stand, leaving the unclaimed bastard child that is my story.

I have never written a fanfic before, I actually was introduced to this wonderful world of fiction early this year, and was inspired. I have never let anyone aside from my husband and my siblings read ANYTHING of mine, so please BE GENTLE!

DISCLAIMER: Alas, I do not own anything related to Labyrinth, David Bowie or Jim Henson and Co.