InWhichPrinceEricStartsLeadingTheDuchessDownTheSpiralStaircase

From IMiA

Juliana unclenches her jaw and stops smiling. She gives Eric the eyebrow. "The gardens? Moving targets?"

"I think not," Eric replies. "If you were concerned about the security of the library, I imagine you will find the gardens even more inhospitable." He rises from his seat and extends his arm.

She takes his arm and follows where he leads. She says, "I'm sorry." She means this, on so many different levels about so many different things, but she goes on with, "I could have said that better. I am not at my best."

"Even when not at your best, you are better than most," Eric says. He's heading deep into the palace.

She'll stay quiet until they get where they're going. She doesn't really look at him. She's looking around, remembering how the castle looked... yesterday. How things will change. She wonders about the hidden door into the ballroom. That might be a test if this is real. But then, she can't give that away - Deirdre told her not to. But then again, this is Eric, and Deirdre was more worried about Flora. She wonders about the servants. She looks at faces, and she wonders how many of these people will survive the war.

She will, of course, respond to anything he says along the way. She just has a lot on her mind, isn't making small-talk, and looks a tad bit grim (which *is* unusual for Juliana.)

(congrats. you've created a thread in which no one speaks :-)

Eric leads Juliana into the great marble dining hall and through it into a dark narrow corridor. Eric nods to a guard and proceeds to a door. Through it and onto a large platform. He leads Juliana across it and sets foot on a spiral staircase descending into the depths of Kolvir.

[OMG!!!!]

Are there lights? And now she has to decide in her own mind if she's buying into the future she's seen - is she really going to believe Eric loves her (or has the potential to) and will protect her - or is she going to balk at going down stairs that can only lead to dungeons?

Gah. She shivers. She does not like this. But she goes quietly.

[Liz is screaming, run! run! but I can't get her to do it.]

The stair is long, winding, and deep. A lantern is set on the wall about every forty feet.

[GM] (care to question? freak out? run for it?)

About five minutes into it she'll ask, in a very controlled voice, "How far does this go?"

"All the way," Eric replies. "I believe there are passages that open to the sea."

Are they single file now, or is this wide enough for her to stay on his arm, and if the second part is right - is she on the outside or the inside?

(she's away from the drop.)

[whew]

"We're going to talk in a cave?" she asks, trying to sound a tad distasteful, but really, she's hopeful. That sounds good at this point.

"In a manner of speaking," Eric replies. "Have you ever heard of anything more secure than the dungeons beneath the palace?"

"You are making me nervous, Eric," she says tersely.

"I am unlikely to walk you down here to lock you in a dungeon," Eric answers.

There is a light from below. A lantern on a landing. Juliana hears the sound of footsteps.

As they reach the landing, another guard nods at Eric. He takes a lantern from a shelf on a wall and hands it to the prince.

Eric proceeds to lead Juliana into a long and dark tunnel.

She goes quiet again. Unlikely isn't impossible. And her memory of the future is all screwy. She doesn't remember anything like this, and doesn't see herself ever forgiving him if he did such a thing, but that doesn't mean... it isn't possible. Especially since she's already started doing things that might change the future - like telling people about it. And acting based on it.

She really does not like this. All her instincts want her to bolt, but she's feeling pretty trapped. And he's right. Of course he is. This will be fine. They will talk. In a minute they'll be talking and everything else will go away.

She might be holding his arm a touch tighter than necessary.

Eric remains silent. The tunnel is long and dark. Juliana can feel the entire weight of the mountain above her. Six times Eric ignores side passages. On the seventh, he turns. Another passage, long and dark. Finally, Eric stops before a great, dark metal-bound door. A key hangs beside it.

Juliana thinks, 'This door is too big to lead to a cell.' She is now confused. She guesses this leads to a series of cells. She is about to come out of her skin.

Oh, she's certain she's well past the dungeons. This is far more isolated.

She's waiting for him. To speak, to open the door, to do something. She lets go of his arm, and steps away.

She's less afraid now. She is, in fact, looking rather accepting of the whole situation. If she was so wrong and stupid as to trust him this far, and he turns it against her, well, she figures she deserves whatever she gets. It would not be a bad way to die - and this hasn't been a bad way to live. She's not used to being brave. She's only ever bothered when her life was at stake. Now she's realizing she's going to have to do this all the time, if she wants to stand by Phillip. It will be terrifying, sometimes. She won't be able to run, and help him survive.

So she's looking up at Eric with a rather odd expression, and one I doubt he's ever seen on her face. She's submitting to the circumstances around her, and really totally trusting him.

Eric takes the key and unlocks the door. He sets the lantern down. He puts his considerable strength into pushing it inward. It resists but slowly creaks open.

A brilliant light pulsates from within.

"Enter freely and of your own will." Eric gestures for Juliana to enter. It is clear that he plans to step inside as well.

Well, that submitting to circumstances thing lasted about 10 seconds. She's scared again. She hesistates. She looks at him. She doesn't like the way he looks in the light, and looks away. She very slowly goes into the room, looking ahead of her, and I imagine she's soon going to experience a rather keen sense of wonder and stand there dumbfounded.

Juliana finds herself in a vast chamber. The fluctuating lighting makes it hard to determine its actual size, but its dominant feature

itself is well over a hundred yards long and fifty yards wide. The floor glistens like black glass.

An intricate golden design sends blue sparks into the air illuminating the room. The tracery has curves and angles and hurts to look upon, yet almost hypnotically draws Juliana's attention.

Behind Juliana, the door swings closed. Beside her, Eric stands gazing upon the tracery.

"You will never be in a place more secure."

She just stares at it. "What is this place?" she asks quietly.

"The center of the universe," Eric replies. "The great Pattern of Amber."

"Holy Mother," Juliana says, but it really is in reverence, for once. She turns around, with great force of will, and looks up at Eric, stunned. "It looks like it is made from a star."

She has forgotten what she came here for.

[so I've got to ask, does she sense anything? Does the magickal noise she's sensitive to (but does not realize she's hearing) suddenly go quiet? Is it peaceful, or does the pattern make its own noise? Stuff like that.]

Juliana isnt really aware of anything other than this chamber. There is an electricity in the air-almost if lightning were about to strike-but somehow energizing and comforting at once.

Eric smiles. "You wanted to talk someplace more secure than the royal library."

She breaks into a smile. God, it's hard to be around him.

"Right. Something happened with the 'ambient magic of Amber' earlier. Phillip says I passed out. I don't remember passing out. I remember some things from the next sixteen years into the future, and getting sent back here."

She pauses to see his reaction to this statement.

Eric arches an eyebrow.

"I'd had a - a touch of memory loss in the future; about 24 hours ago for me now. I forgot, momentarily, the impending events from the moment in which I came back to here, and then. Naturally, a lot can happen in sixteen years. I didn't remember everything, or even most things. But I remember some important things, that might help you, or at least give you some warning."

She shrugs and the smile turns rather sarcastic.

"Or, because of a magical thump, I created an interesting future built out of my hopes and fears. There are a few things I did in the last day that might help me verify that I picked up on pieces of things that might be real - or not. Like rooms I've seen in the palace which I, as of this date, have not been in. A passage into the ballroom. And whether or not I get pregnant fairly soon. Of course, if I am right, I could be changing the future already. And that is fine, and indeed, my intent - to a degree, although I know I can't control that much."

She stops and waits to see if he even wants to hear this now.

"Visions of the future are dangerous," Eric says. "In my experience truths are all too often mixed with lies."

She nods. "I know. I wish I could write the whole thing off, but I can't. It happened, and it was very real to me, whatever it was. And if even a piece of it is true, difficult days the like of which we've never known are coming. I will not underestimate my subconscious mind so much as to presume that I couldn't have 'created' this from clues in my environment. Either way... I want to help you." There is a

• very* subtle emphasis on the 'you.'

"Perhaps this was my motivation to stop hiding from things and do what is right. I don't know," she sighs, "but I have to act. If it was true, and I do nothing, I'm as good as a traitor. Are you going to let me help?"

"If I do not, you will do it anyway," Eric replies.

She smiles. It's not a nice, tame smile. "No. You can get in my way enough to seriously hamper me. If you won't accept it, I won't help you. I'll help Phillip, and leave you to your own devices. I'm going to help him either way - he's the one with no choice."

"My helping him might help you by consequence, but that's neither here nor there. Either way, I need you to stay out of my way. I don't mind protection, so long as it doesn't hamper my ability to do what I need to do. Weir showing up to guard *me* when a handful of women just died who had *no* protection, and a bunch of children are "missing" no one wants to discuss," her voice is rising, temper starting to flare, "is just not acceptable. If I don't see them, fine, but keep them out of my way. I have to *work* with these people."

"And on that topic, why are you sending weir to guard me? And what the hell were you and Phillip fighting about?" she asks, hands on hips, all annoyed now.

Once again, Eric arches an eyebrow. Juliana is certain that the only other living woman to ever address Eric in such a manner is somewhere with Phillip. In fact, aside from his brothers and father, few men have ever addressed Eric in such a manner. Eric's temper is legendary.

Suddenly, Eric chuckles and shakes his head. "I see time and distance have, if anything, only fanned the flames that burn within you."

She scowls, but then grins through it. "Damn you. Ugh." She throws her hands in the air. "You are..." she puts her hands back on her hips. "You are beyond me." She smiles and shakes her head. She bits her lip. She calms down some.

"Look, my prince, there is a royal conspiracy going on here. That's what happened at the House of Flowers. It was someone in your family or someone brought in by your family. I'm never going to say that anywhere else again. I don't want to die. Really, I don't. That's why I stayed out of the 'investigation' despite an express invitation from Abigail. So now the 'investigators' have been attacked. That's lovely. When you tell me you don't know what happened to them, well, that says a lot, doesn't it? And no one knows where the King has gone off to, right? He goes missing, and something happens to magic, and I start seeing things."

She sighs. She's very sad and getting tired of trying to convince these men that something is going on.

She rubs her forehead. She's closed her eyes.

"Look, really, I'll let the Phillip thing go. He's not going to tell me what happened, and neither are you. Fine. I have two theories on why I have your puppies coming to watch over me, and I'll go ahead and pick the one of those that flatters you more. But you paid attention to everything I said when we were together and here I'd thought you were just humoring me, and you worked things out, and that has put you in a position now that... well, it's going to fall on you."

She puts her hands down and looks back up at him. "So can I help you?"

"What do you suggest?"

She gestures a lot with her hands as she goes through this:

"Well, it will depend on how this goes. If the King shows back up next week or next month, fine. You can put just about anything off that long. I don't think that's what's going to happen though. You have a small army of weir in the city, and you've had them working 'with' the palace guard for some time. I think you're in good shape there, as long as they stick with peace-keeping activities. Guarding people, helping save people from fires, and the like. You've already built up some good will toward them, and that's good for you. They'll have more access to more places, but they'll never get everywhere. In the end, they're weir. There is always going to be a measure of discrimination against them."

Now that she's going, she's obviously thinking out loud. She really hadn't thought past goal #1, up until now.

"The diplomats will be put off awhile, but at some point they're going to demand to see a King or representative of such. I've dealt with a lot of those types. I can help you there, until I start showing, anyway. And even after that, I can write a lot of letters and calm a lot of fears and make things look more under control than they will be. So, that I can help with. Hell, I could send you a pretty comprehensive list of how most of the Golden Circle will react, and when, if you'd like," she shrugs, and adds with a grin, "and that's not information from my vision - that's just what I know after all these years."

"Now that we're speaking..." she begins, and stops. "I don't know if you are aware, but I'm not supposed to be speaking with you. I hope if the King does come back and decide to string me up for it you'll interceed. I would never have broken a direct order if I didn't believe the kingdom itself was in danger."

Here she stops a moment to try to read his reaction to this news (if it's even news).

He simply nods.

She doesn't look very happy that he knows. At the same time, she's relieved.

[Hm. are you certain as to which part he is agreeing to?]

[She's taking her five best possibilities, and making her best guess. It's what she always does. That it is biased in this situation... well, needless to say, it is. She's angry about it. She doesn't even realize how mad she is at Oberon, at Eric, even at Phillip, for being 'forced' into something. Yes, it worked out, and that's all fine and good, but they MADE her do it. Oberon, by his power. Eric, by his helplessness, really - but then there is a lot of unresolved hurt that he never came after her. He never seemed to care - and that just really is like a hole in her. A big rip that hasn't been fixed yet. Obviously, she did have some real feelings for Eric.

Phillip fucked up and gave Oberon someone to saddle her with. He has that whole helplessness issue going too - he wasn't willing to fight for her freedom either - although who was she to him then but a life sentence? She blames Phillip the least, at any rate. She blames herself too. She blames herself for walking out into a garden with a stranger and fucking him, and then actually letting it go on... She blames herself for not keeping it just sex. She blames herself for never admitting to herself, much less Eric, that she felt something more than friendly affection and lust.

All that said, she wouldn't change it. She believes her destiny is with Phillip. Part of her is also very thankful toward Oberon, because she thinks he probably saved her life by doing this to her. She believes he was right. She would have been bad for Eric. As Eric's wife in this moment she'd be pushing him already to secure his position - to start on a path toward the throne. And that might have gotten him killed. It certainly wouldn't have been good for Amber.

So she's a big mess. But what she's hearing is, "Yes, I knew, I did nothing, I said nothing, :shrug:, dad will be pissed, I won't let him kill you."

So she's unhappy. And relieved.]

"Now that we're speaking, I can tell you, *thinking* people in the City are nervous. They know some kind of darkness has been creeping in. Rumors leaked out of Arbor House. None of them are quite dead on, but people know something strange or unusual happened there. The murders. The little mob scenes in Southside. Anyone with any magickal sensitivity will know something has happened today. And the King isn't around. The vast majority of the population, unless someone pushes them in another direction - and it would not surprise me if someone did - will ignore every clue and hint and sit back and let 'the royals' figure it out. The Crime Lords... well, if they don't try to take advantage of this, what kind of criminals would they be? This I know for certain: the girls (she's referring to the whores, and Eric would know that from the old days) are scared. They are really scared. Everyone connected to the fire is keeping their heads down and saying nothing about what they know, although I'm positive everyone from the House of Flowers has come to the same conclusion I have."

"Surely someone is just holding those babies against the actions of Prince Bleys, right?" she asks, desperately hoping he's going to say yes. She doesn't want them to be dead.

"Bleys has no children," Eric replies.

"Well, that's hardly the point. Someone would just have to think he did," she says.

"That would be most unfortunate for them," Eric says. "Even Bleys is not so stupid as to sire children in a local brothel. Yet, were someone to try to use such a rumor against him, I wager his response would be most spectacular."

"Do you have some other explanation for why those specific children would be the ones to go missing out of this fire? Could the whole thing have just been a distraction?" she asks.

"I imagine there are many who are asking those questions," Eric says. "Abigail and other agents of the Crown not the least among them. Of course, the Crime Lords will speculate and try to turn the situation to their advantage. I expect," Eric sadly sighs, "that there will be many deaths before this is over."

She reaches out to touch his arm, as if in comfort, but catches herself at the last second and pulls away. She looks at the wall, then, not at him. She watches the light play there a moment. She looks sad too.

She nods, finally. She looks back up at him, rather determined. "Well, I live to serve. When... If things need doing that I have some experience and skill in, please, send for me. I'll do what I can. I..." she struggles to smile. When she manages, it is still very sad. "It is good to talk to you again. You're right. My temper has gotten no better. I wish you didn't rile me up so," she says, slipping into country talk for a second, "but that's no excuse. I'll work on watching my tongue."

"That might be wise," Eric says. "You are too important to risk harm befalling you due to your temper." He smiles. "You make it quite difficult to keep you alive as it is and you will be of no use to me or Phillip or to your girls if you make unnecessary enemies."

"I'll keep that in mind," she smiles more fully. "I did pretty good at Arbor House, actually. I learned a little about self-control over the last 250 years. Everything's just a little harder with *you*," she shrugs, "but that just makes it more of a challenge, and we like those."

"I'm sure," he says with dry amusement.

She sighs. It's a sort of a --I talked to you now, and I don't have more to say (or that will make a difference), but I don't really want to leave yet -- sigh.

"I would like to see Sean, and the rest, if I could?" she states/asks.

"Of course," Eric says. "Though he is not a pretty sight, I'm afraid."

She nods, and purses her lips. She knows there is no good point in trying to prepare for it. She's going to be upset, and there is no way around it. The last 48 hours have hit her like a ton of bricks. Dead women, missing and likely dead children, and possibly dying friends. Visions of a dead husband, talking about ugly truths for the first time in a long time with Phillip... and just talking to Eric again. She's going to be exhausted by the time she gets home, and there is still so much she and Phillip need to discuss.

She reaches out and does actually touch Eric's arm this time, although she's very tightly controlling/suppressing herself. "Thank you, for calling us up, and checking on me, and putting up with me. And... for everything... before. I never got to thank you."

"You are welcome," he says. Quietly, he adds, "Thank you."

She smiles up at him and pulls back.