//Livingroom//

Lisa moves back to the living room and sits in her large, whicker comfy chair. SHe picks up the papers she'd been looking at. Resumes. She'd been looking for some more staff for the store. She and Jewel couldn't take care of it on their own anymore. She'd been so busy with Aethen that she had barely had time to contact these people. And with Yule so close, she didn't want to disturb anyone. They probably already all have jobs by now. She thinks to herself, hoping that at least one of them hadn't. She flips to a newer page; Aethen O'Brien. Aethen . . . Well now that would be interesting. And a little wierd . . . She hadn't seen much of the older Aethen lately. She was really uncomfortable with the whole situation. She sighs, not really knowing who to choose. Maybe I should let Jewel do this. She tosses the papers back on the table and leans back, closing her eyes and rubbing them a little. She sighs, listening for Jrewel to come back down wit hAethen.

Aethen’s white smoke heralds his arrival on the sofa on the other side of the living room. In his arms sit a selection of perfectly wrapped gifts, some for Lisa, some for his younger self, some for Jewel. It’s amazing what you can do when you collect on some bets and call in some owed favours. He sets the gifts down on the sofa next to him. He can sense Lisa’s discomfort with the whole situation, that’s pretty much the reason he’s stayed away, but it’s Yule and he can’t not come and visit his family. He’ll end up spending the actual celebrations alone anyway, that’s what always happens.

“I come bearing gifts,” he says with a smile. He runs a hand through his newly cut hair, brushing the bits of snow out of it. Last time Lisa had seen him, he’d had shoulder length hair, so the new shorter look should come as a bit of a surprise.

Not sensing Aethen's arrival, her eyes closed, Lisa jumps a bit when Aethen speaks up. "By the gods, Aethen, you've gotta stop doing that." She scolds, but smiles to lessen the blow. SHe was happy to see him, despite her discomfort with the whole situation. Temporal mechanics were never her forte. In her mind, the grown Aethen she still be Evil because tthe young Aethen has not yet grown up Good. He should sitll have his Evil background. Right?

Lisa shakes her head. Aethen's presence always seemed to invoke mass confusion for a few moments until she decides to ignore the whole temporal thing. "Nice hair." She comments. "Though I think I liked it longer . . . " She observes, getting up and walking over to sit on the couch with him to get a closer look. Her eyes glance at the gifts. Aethen always managed to find the most unique things for her and Jewel. And baby Aethen, as well.

"Jewel! Aethen's here!" She calls upstairs wondering what was taking the girl so long to get downstairs. "Er . . . Adult Aethen . . . " She adds to clear up any confusions.

Jewel comes into the livingroom with Aethen in her arms and she sats him down on the ground near his toys. She looks up at the adult Aethen and smiles.

"Great hair! I love it. So how have you been?"

Jewel glances down at little Aethen and then looks back up to the adult one.

Wow... Aethen and Aethen...

"So where have you been? We haven't seen you in almost two months."

Lisa smiles, seeing Jewel get distracted by her older son's presence. She shakes her head and gets up. As she walks past baby Aethen to the kitchen, she ruffles the baby's hair.

Lisa re-enters the room and sets the plate of food down in frotn of Aethen. Baby Aethen, that is. She reclaims her seat beside Aethen

Aethen squeels with glee as they enter the room. His arms are outstretched like a plane. "AH!hahaha!!" He squeels even more when he sees his adult self. He doens't actually know it's his adult self. Just this fun guy that stops by every once in a while with fun new toys. When Jewel sets him on the floor near his toys, he immediately grabs for his favourite toy; an old keyboard that Lisa didn't use and he starts slamming on it like he's typing. He only notices Lisa's presence when she sets the food down in front of hi, "Tank!" He tells her as he grabs for a piece of cheese in each hand. He stuffs them both in his mouth and then takes some crackers and thrusts his hand into the air towards adult Aethen, offering to share with the grown man.

Jewel smiles at Aethen's eager face to share his food with the other Aethen. Her mind was getting off track with the visit of the older Aethen and she had almost forgotten she was heading out.

"So umm... Lisa. I'm going to stop by Stylus Clothing to try to get a few things done before we close down for the holidays and I need to do some Christmas shopping anyway, along with going to the castle and see how everyone is... where was I going with this... Oh right. Do you need anything?"

So much to do... Why am I waiting till the last minute?

Before Lisa can answer Jewel's question, Jewel is pulledi nto something that is very premonitionesque. She sees a vision of Cassie at The Shoppe speaking with Morgana. The vision is in black and white, and alittle fuzzy, but she can still make out the basic features on each person.

The vision leaves Jewel a little breathless and dizzy, feeling as if she's about to faint for two and a half of her own posts.

Jewel's eyes snap shut and she finds herself pulled into a vision. She sees the two women talking and can vageuly make out that they were at The Shoppe, a place that she never knew of. As Jewel came out of the black and white vision she felt as if she had just been suffocated and she could barely breath.

"Li-sa."

Jewel said, holding onto the while. It was probably hard for Lisa to make out what she said as her words were being over come by coughs. Jewel slowly found her way to a chair and she sat down, taking abysmal breaths. She cluched a sofa pillow and was gradually calming down.

"Wow... they-they've n-never been so painful..."

A few coughs followed.

Lisa smiles as Jewel's train of thought is momentarily lost. A typical occurance. Something thath appened a lot. Lisa thinks about the question. DShe couldn't think of anything she needed. Just make sure the store didn't go under. It was their only current means of income. "Um . . . "She says, not seeing Jewel being pulled into the vision. When she looks back up at the sound of her name, Jewel is moving to one of the chairs. "Jewel . . . You ok?" She asks quickly. Oh, goddess. She rushes to her side, feeling the girl's forehead. It seemed fine. But she was certainly pale. "What happened, Jewel? What's never been so strong? Did something happen with your powers?" Her eyes glance towards little Aethen on the floor, who was happily stuffing his mouth with the snack she provided him. Her face is a mass of worry.

Jewel blacks out for a minute due to the lack of oxygen she was taking in. When she came back to her senses she saw Lisa beside her. She was taking wheezy breaths and was getting light headed, but she was still able to think regulary.

"I've never had a vision l-like that before. It was strong and it took the breath right out of me."

Who were those women?

Jewel tried to stay still and she was trying to calm herself down. This was the first time anything like this happened and it wasn't like Jewel hadn't had premonitions before. Out of the three premonitions she's had, this was the worst and it wasn't forced by a spell.

Lisa looks at the adult version of her son. "Gt a glass of water from the kitchen, hurry." She orders politely, denoting the emergency in her tone of voice. As if Aethen didn't know it was something of an emergency. "For love of the goddess, child, what did you see??" She somewhat badgers the young witch. If the powers had sent her a vision, it was obviously important.

Jewel's regular breath pattern slowly regains and Jewel's coughs become more spaced out. She took a few more deep breaths and looks at Aethen.

"Don't worry about it I'll be fine."

Jewel turns to look at Lisa.

"I just saw two woman talking. One was white and the other was darker. I couldn't tell if she was black or just tan. It was in black and white. They were at a place called The Shoppe I think. It wasn't all clear, but that's what I saw."

Jewel tried to replay the vision in her head, searching for other details, but that was all that she could find of importance. She takes another breath and her breating in on its regular pattern.

Lisa's worry for Jewel begins to subside as Jewel seems to recover from her vision. It was very odd that she had suddenly received one, but she had, nonetheless. The Shoppe? She thinks fo a moment, wondering why she would get a vision about The Shoppe, Morgana and a customer. A very odd occurance. But obviously she'd been sent the vision for a reason. SHe stands back up and walks back over to her chair slowly, thinking about what this could mean. "Well, the darker woman was Morgana Knight, a dark high priestess. She is of African descent," Sheeplains to Jewel, answering he question about the woman's skin colour. "As for the other girl, I couldn't tell you. I think you should take a little trip to The Shoppe. That's the only thing I can figure." She looks at little Aethen on the floor, then to the adult Aethen. "Can you go with her, dear? I can't take little Aethen. That would just not be good." She explains, pleading with the older version of her adopted son.

Jewel listens to Lisa, memorizing the information that was given to her. When she said 'dark high priestess' Jewel knew something was defenitly wrong.

Morgana Knight...

Jewel looks at the older Aethen and shakes her head. It wasn't that she didn't want help it's just that she thought she didn't need it.

"I don't need protection or help. I just need to get there and find out some information about this girl."

Lisa smiles to Jewel, trusting the girl's instincts. "Alright then. Just be careful, 'k? I don't want anything bad to happen to you, too. Morgana's very powerful." She warns the Elemental. They couldn't afford to lose an Elemental.

Jewel nods and smiles. She was positive she wasn't going to get into any trouble. It wasn't like she was going to try to pick a fight with anyone. She leans over and kisses little Aethen on top of the head.

"Ok, then I'll be back soon!"

Jewel says her goodbye's and walks out of the livingroom to the front door.

Aethen snaps back to reality, it’s been happening more and more often lately, and for longer periods of time. He’ll just zone out and not be able to process anything from the real world, and each time, he doesn’t notice that any time has passed. He looks up at Lisa, then looks around for Jewel... he finds her missing.

“What happened?” he asks, not knowing anything that’s gone on since he came in really. The look on his face shows nothing but confusion, and maybe a little bit of fear, he has no idea what he does during the times he blacks out, apart from what he’s told, he could be going around killing people, or people could be killed. World War III could break out and he probably wouldn’t notice until he was already dead.

Aethen, now frightened at what had just gone on, begins to let out a cry. He begins to jump in Lisa's direction and holds out his arms wanting to be held, tears falling to the ground.

Lisa turns to Aethen, with a raised eyebrow. She was getting worried about Aethen and his mental absences. They were getting longer and he spaced out at the worst possible moment. The cries of her son made Lisa turn immediately to pick him up. She picks Aethen up and tries to calmly shush him. She looks up at the older Aethen.

"Well, at first I thought Jewel was having a heart attack which turned out to be a premonition. She left to go to The Shoppe."

Lisa pats baby Aethen's back and kisses the top of his head. She turns to the older Aethen, with a frown on her face.

"Aethen, are you ok? You don't seem to be yourself lately. Is there anything wrong?"

“Well, at first I thought Jewel was having a heart attack which turned out to be a premonition. She left to go to The Shoppe.”

“What? You let her go there on her own?” he asks, knowing full-well what The Shoppe was, probably the biggest supplier of dark magick materials this side of Egypt. He watches Lisa as she kisses her son’s head.

“Aethen, are you ok? You don't seem to be yourself lately. Is there anything wrong?”

“The honest answer is no, I’m not okay, yes there’s something wrong, and no, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. I just seem to black out, normally it’s only a minute or two at the most, but this was...” he checks the clock, “almost half an hour. That’s been the longest one yet.” Aethen stands up and looks around and looks down at the gifts he’d brought for everyone. He looks back up to Lisa. He smiles for a second.

“I’ll go and tell Nena to get down there, and to pick up Matthew and Jonathon too. There’s no way Jewel should be there on her own,” and with that, he disappears in a cloud of white smoke, headed to the elemental castle.

White light envelopes both baby Aethen and Lisa as Aethen's last gift to the two of them. the same white light engulfs his resumée, destroying it.

From this point on baby Aethen and Lisa have both been given the power of forcefield generation, this is entirely due to the fact that Aethen gave his life to protect the two of them. Both of them have this power available to them at their apropriate levels, however neither of them will know of it's existance until they use the power.

Aethen looks up as his adult self leave sand waves a fist full of crackers. "Bye bye!" He says i na cheery tone and goes back to eating the snack his mother had prepared for him.

One hour has passed. Aethen and Lisa are together in Lisa's room getting ready for a bath.