Beyond the Maze- Open

[oO Lorelei Oo]

She slept dreamlessly through the night and was thankful for that. When she woke she smiled seeing her husband beside her and reached out pulling him back into the bed. "Always with you. But just by looking at you, you did not sleep." She reached his face kissing him softly. "I know you like to be the tough one, but I'm sure we're safe enough here. I can't expect your parents to stop everything that may come at us. I have been training these last two years you know, and the children only slow me so much for now." She held him a moment more before hearing a knock on the door and his mother's voice calling out. She sighed lowering her head a moment then smiled at him. "Guess it's time to learn how to play mommy with the mommy." She would chuckle softly and soon make her way from the bed. She felt nauseous but would let it settle before she would clean up and dress. Before she would leave she would hold his hands looking to him. "I love you Jareth, King of goblins and the Labyrinth. No matter what happens from now on, I will always be waiting for your return. And if they deem you leave today, you better damn well be sure you're here and relatively unspoiled for the birth of your twins." She kissed him softly once more letting it linger before the knocking was getting to her. "Hopefully, I will see you later tonight."

She had waited she was sure quite some time before Erin would finally rise from the bed to greet her. "Well, having too much fun it seems, or not enough?" She watched her shrug and simple continued leading her about. "Well, since those two within you are so fond of testing their magic boundaries, we need you to learn the signs and how to influence it into something you can use as defense. The first lesson is feeling where their magic lies within them and your link that allows the use of you to do their little stunts." She showed her to a training room with thick mats about the floor. She motioned for her to sit comfortably before she would do the same in front of her. "Now, we do this learning through meditation. It will awaken your awareness more. Have you meditated before?" She watched as Erin shook her head. "It's simple. Slow focused breaths, listen and feel the air around you, on your skin. Then go deeper into those feelings inward. Most are usually somewhere in the chest or lower stomach area for power centers. Yours may be within your children. We'll start slow. And begin." She would close her eyes after watching Erin try her hand, and begin her own meditation.  

[oO Lorelei Oo]

Erin did as Titania explained and calmed herself. The children however were being less cooperative. She sighed at one point poking at her belly and mentally telling them to calm down. When it didn't work she just figured to ignore them for now and keep trying. She wasn't sure how long it had been but suddenly everything was quiet. She couldn't even hear Titania's breathing. Then it hit her like a rock as images began flashing through her mind slow at first then faster and faster. On the outside her breathing would quicken near hyperventilation as she fell back into the mats. Then the images stopped on one. All before had been others fighting. Always a man and a woman but different. In this view she knew the two as her ancestors. She watched Lilly and Jack as Lilly walked through a stream and tried to reach the unicorns. She felt puzzled.

"So you've come. You're the first by far to reach this place."

"But where is here?" She turned seeing an odd man though felt somehow she knew him. "You're.. Gump, aren't you?" She watched as he nodded from his crouched position and barely dressed.

"That I am. This was the beginning. Before this time, the unicorns had never needed guardians. Darkness knew of them, but they had always been farther away. This is when their curiosities of the realms drew them closer, within his reach. But this you know, as you knew my name. Some knowledge is granted. Some, not so much."

She nodded and followed as he lead her through the woods and by the stream. "Gump, why am I here? The Children.." She looked to herself sighing heavily in relieve seeing her swollen belly. "They'll take the bloodline won't they?" She watched him nod but soon stopped him feeling wrong. "Gump, why am I here? Why am I not finding my center to better control the children and my body as I was intending?"

He stopped looking to her. "You were locked Erin, and for good reason. The power within you is not something to be troubled or misused. It would have made you crazy with power as it did your brother."

Titania heard the change in Erin and opened her eyes to see the quickened breathing as Erin fell back. She went to her but stopped as she began to calm and a blue glow surrounded her. "Erin?" She went to shake her shoulder but called out being burned as she came in contact with the light around her. "Erin wake up. You need to wake up now, you're too deep where mortals should not go." She motioned for her guards to stand by but would wait before trying to wake her with magic.  

[oO Lorelei Oo]

She listened thinking for a bit before sitting within the grass. "I'm not sure I follow. I was just trying to figure out how to control my children's magic while they're currently using my body as a plaything to use theirs. Why would that have brought me here? And what power? I don't have any magic save what the children do." She watched him laugh a moment and sit beside her.

"Oh sad little mortal you be. As a guardian you have great power. But like all it comes as a price. Your family's innocence and justice being one of them to show who and what you are. The magic shapes your line through your blood and mind. There is great power within each guardian. You think it was the unicorns that healed you. They merely opened enough of your power to do so on your own." He looked to her curious of her. "No guardian yet has ever been truly unlocked. Such power is not needed now, though your bodies are built to take the use of it."

"I thought the magic is what made my brother crazy, but, if we're built for it, why did that happen?" She felt confused only have once more, more endless questions with riddles for answers.

"Because of the Goblin King. The mystic had unlocked Toby and granted some of his power to Sarah so not to be too much at once. Jareth may not have known the consequences of too much at once. Toby not knowing how to use the magic didn't show his potential. When the goblin king's magic was given it became too much and poisoned Toby." He looked to her a moment curious about the expression.

"I get that part, well now I do. But you're avoiding. Why am I here, in this place with you when I'm only trying to control the children?"

"Because you've come dangerously close to unlocking not only your ability but that of your children. If you unlock your gift now like this, it will unlock the twins and all three of you would perish in the blaze that would ensue."

She froze even her breath as what he had stated hit her. When she recovered she stood not knowing how much closer she had come just talking to him. "I want out. Let me out of here now." She watched him try and calm her but she wouldn't. She would snap awake coughing and turning on her side as she threw up. The glow still about her but fading fast. "I.. I need to go, forgive me." Her voice was low as she stumbled a bit as she stood. She felt lightheaded but needed to leave the room. She hoped Titania would understand.

She watched Erin motioning a guard to make sure Erin would make it to her room safely. She wondered unsure of what had just happened and decided to do some research. She wanted to know more so went to their library. She knew there was access to mortal records but wasn't sure if anything would be in them to explain Erin's episode.  

[oO Lorelei Oo]

She would turn hearing Jareth's voice and nodded hesitantly. "I didn't think her surge was that big, but then again, with your children within her it may be that link you felt. I was teaching her to meditate if you, to find her center. It's the standard beginning of any for learning magic, or how to control it. Next I know she's in some deep sleep and somewhat freaked out when she woke. I heard from my guard she found our gardens and is with that errand goblin." She looked to her son a moment holding one of the lineage books she had been going through. "Jareth, your wife, she is mortal isn't she? The power I felt, it wasn't knew magic, it was the old deep magic. She made a comment to your father the night of introductions, that she knew she would carry a month late. And yet she claims to have no magic of her own. You will tell me what's going on, won't you?" She didn't like the idea of her son keeping secrets but hoped it was for the better if he were.  

[oO Lorelei Oo]

She listened as her son spoke of his wife and kept her expression as it was. Being quite old, she had a lot of practice in keeping appearances. As her son left though she would make her way to her oracle. If what he said was true, it would change the game, and not something she wanted any others, especially his father to learn of. As she entered the oracle's chamber she would wait till the old woman was ready. "I have something I want to discuss with you Meave. You've not been upfront with me it seems. Are the Guardians of old still in existence? I swore that their line had been wiped out over a millennial ago."

The oracle looked up from her bubbling cauldron and welcomed the Queen of immortals as she usually did. At the mention of not being forward with information she was taken a bit. "My majesty honest I have been in the affairs of things to come." At the mention of the guardians of old she would lower her head. "For that I am unsure my queen. The powers that surround that line do not let us see into their futures or their past other then what is known in the minds of those we connect with. Unless one were here, I would not be able to read of them."

She listened to what the old woman said and thought for a moment. "Tell me then, if, by some random chance a guardian were to fight in this war, what would happen?"

"That would be unclear my Queen. The fates do not control them as they do us. The unicorns would not allow such play with their protectors, for the power they can hold within. That power though is only speculation."

"If it is only speculation, their power I mean, and they are known to always be mortals, is it possible for a mortal guardian to carry an immortal's child and survive?"

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Erin had found the garden of her parent-in-law's castle and tried to keep calm. She could feel the pull willing her back to Gump but refused to try the meditation again. She felt a kick as she paced the small pathways and held her stomach. "Not again. I will not let you to get that close again, I promise you." She worried hearing from Gump what she had almost done, and more if her children within her ever figured it out. She knew now more then ever she could be a ticking bomb to everything around her.  

[oO Lorelei Oo]

The oracle looked to the queen for a long pause before searching the endless bubbles of her cauldron. "It is not it seems. There was one, the first who tried with a mortal who was a guardian, the woman died giving birth to a son. The son, while he lived longer then any mortal at the time, still died within the hundred year." She continued to view several outcomes as she added what her queen wanted to know. "If a guardian were to battle, it would not be easy. If their gift is realized, which is rare within history, then the war could be one sided with the aid of other powerful immortals. The other side would be sure to lose. If they still thrive, hidden they must stay from those of your enemies. They would come to claim them as their own."

"I see. Thank you Meave for your council. As always I've learned what I've needed." Titania turned leaving the oracle's quarters and went to her husband. She didn't bother if he were in a meeting or not as she would take up his arm and pull him along. "Forgive me but I must speak with you now." She wouldn't stop or answer any questions he may have until she were within one of her special rooms and the door sealed. "We have a bigger problem then it would seem. Something I cannot discuss in the open to any others, nor will you."

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Erin turned feeling a hand and nearly flipped her husband before relaxing seeing it was him. She held him tightly a moment hiding her face in his chest. "Jareth, I'm scared, I don't know if I can do this." She held him there for a moment before pulling back. "I don't know if I can control these outbursts the children will have. Something happened, when your mother tried to teach me control, something because of me, because of what I am." She bit her tongue to say the rest knowing he'd know and they had been trying to keep that part of her a secret from everyone outside of the Goblin city. "I wish Jack would have told me more about my family history. Why would he have kept that a secret? Now I'm a ticking bomb and I don't know how I'm supposed to control it. Maybe, maybe your mother could do what she had before and just make me and the children sleep till I'm due, then I wouldn't have to worry. They didn't seem to be active when she had done that."  

[oO Lorelei Oo]

She looked to him nodding, and though she was calming was still worried. "Jareth, when I did that meditation, I was pulled someplace. A friend to the line told me I had gone too close to unlocking magic. He said if I were to unlock it while pregnant, it would unlock the children too, and that it would be too much power within one person." The sound of what he and Slack had created was tempting but wasn't sure it would contain them.

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She looked to her husband almost unnerved or angry at his comment. "Really, Oberon, there is a war going on, and while your children and subjects are battling you're watching court jesters." She stopped after a moment shaking her head. "We have a problem, a big problem. All those plans for defeating the Darkmoores I fear could change with Jareth and his wife. Jareth said something earlier when he came to check on me and her. She had an odd episode to say the least, and after his comment I ran a check with my oracle. It's very possible she's a guardian of old. We may not be able to keep her hidden, and if they get his wife and turn her to their side, I can assume you don't have to guess what could happen." She wanted to make her view clear and knew he had to plan for this just in case. She doubted Erin would fight them, willingly at least, but also could tell she would stay with their son.