Hello, Colleague [Emeritus]

[Jesse Fforde]

The shop is quiet. The leather chair that Jesse sits in squeaks, just a little, as he spins. He’s done a few jobs, some that he had booked in. The buzz of the tattoo gun still rings in his ears, though he has his phone hooked into the stereo system. Spotify plays a mix of songs, based on one that he’d discovered recently – some guy called Hozier. It’s different to the heavy-metal stuff he usually listens to. It’s Southern Gothic, almost, but it’s appealing, somehow.

He’d been working on a few more designs. There are stark white pages scattered across his little corner desk; some aren’t quite so stark. Some a covered in charcoal, while in the latter part of the evening he’d cracked out the watercolours. Designs are like pieces of art; and sometimes there comes a point where the artist doesn’t know where to go next. Especially one like Jesse – a perfectionist, in all factors of his work. When he has a design in mind, he wants it to be exactly as he pictures it, and if it starts to go wrong then he stops. He stops, and he stares. And he procrastinates. The chair is squeaking. It interrupts the music. It interrupts Jesse’s concentration. And so, he leaves it spinning as he abruptly stands and wanders into the back room. There are a few supplies hanging around the place, and he quietly searches through the shelves until he finds some oil.

He stands by the desk for a second or two, gazing down at his work. An owl. The majority of his own work, the stuff that came readily to mind, were owls or snakes. Why? He doesn’t quite know. Owls had always been an obsession, even before he’d lost his humanity. He doesn’t want this owl to be the same as every other – off to the side, there’s a sketch, done just in pencil. In the watercolours, however, is a more stylistic owl, with sharper lines and a fiercer look, its wings spread, and yet… there is something missing. Something vital. Something…

**** it, he thinks, and pushes the owl from his mind. He gets down on the floor and pulls the chair closer to himself—huddled underneath it, he starts to attack all the moving bits with the oil.

[Wearing]

[Emeritus (DELETED 4718)]

The night seemed rather slow in the sales office, after he had processed all the numbers in the register and the room was spotless and well organized he decided to go ahead and close up just a little early, surely Vel wouldn't be mad. He wandered out into the shop proper, he thought he would see if the artists needed any extra help. Jesse seemed lost in his drawings and Micah was nowhere to be seen. As the shop was empty and it had been a little while since he gotten any new ink himself he figured now would be as good as time as any to see if Jesse could work him in.

He cleared his throat as he approached the station, more to let the man know he was there than anything else. Taking a seat he smiled as he eyed the designs Jesse had laid out on the desk.
"Nice work man." he said in a rather low tone "any particular reason for the owls?" it was a curious question, owls weren't exactly the first thing to spring to mind if one took a casual glance at Jesse, but the work really was quite exceptional. "Slow night, eh mate? Think you have time to slide me in? Been too long since I've gotten anything done and need to get started on a sleeve and you are a pretty goddamn amazing artist."

[Jesse Fforde]

The chair squeaks opportunely as Emeritus’s weight settles into it. Jesse’s ear pricks toward the sound – that’s exactly what he needed. The squeak only occurs when there’s weight in the chair, and so Jesse reaches up to keep the chair still, even as Em sits in it. “Oi! Don’t move for a second…” he says, his narrowed toward the offending machinery. Such a small amount of machinery for such a mundane piece of equipment, and yet that small squeak had been doing Jesse’s head in. He applies oil to the area where he believes the squeak to have emitted from – then, with his grip still on the back of the chair, he spins it a little left, and a little more to the right. Perfect. Quiet as death. Just as he likes it.

He rolls out from beneath the chair and stretches to his full height, grinning down at his colleague. He’d seen Emeritus around – whether at gatherings or just around the shop, it didn’t matter. He hadn’t spoken to the guy too much, though. Couldn’t say that he knew a damned thing about him, except that he was one of the only ones who seemed to see Jesse’s comments on the Crownet for what they are – jest, rather than seriousness. Maybe it was because Em hadn’t been around when Jesse’d gone off the rails. Maybe, because he’s never seen that too-serious side of the Necromancer, he has no reason to think Jesse has any reason to be too serious.

Jesse opens his mouth to ask why the **** Em should ask such a question. Why the owls? But of course, Em was in Andras, not in Tytonidae. Maybe he isn’t exactly up to date with the meaning behind the owls. But, then again, the owls aren’t just that for Jesse. In the end, Jesse shrugs.

“I just like them. They’re always watchful, but silent as… death,” he says. A little concerning, he thinks, this preoccupation with the silence of death. Maybe it’s not silent at all. Jesse’s never had the opportunity to find out what death sounds like. He clears his throat and scratches at the stubble there.

“What kind of design do you have in mind?” he asks. Although he hasn’t said yes, the question is, in its own way, agreement. A yes, he has time.

[Emeritus (DELETED 4718)]

He grinned slightly and nodded listening to Jesse describe the owl metaphor. Made sense from all he gathered being on the outside of Tytonidae. Everyone in the city knew of their duties, yet they were hardly ones to openly boast. When he was posed the question of his preferred design, Em removed the phone from his pocket, doing a quick search for what he had in mind. Laying the device in front of the artist, his finger lightly tapped the screen "Loki" he muttered, pointing the to old Germanic rendition of the trickster, "and Andras, in rune script." he rolled the sleeve up his left arm "I would like to get Loki on my forearm and Andras on my wrist."

Getting a bit more comfortable in the chair he decided to try initiating a bit of small talk. "How long have you been in Harper Rock?" the next question nearly felt ridiculous, given the amount of ink Jesse displayed "What made you get into the tattoo business?" he shook his head slightly, idle talk was not an art form he excelled at but knew when first starting to get to know someone it was an essential song and dance.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse would have been quite happy to talk about tattoos all night – small talk is not his forte, either. In fact, it’s something he actively avoids, and it’s one reason why he sometimes wishes he’d never got his voice back. Or, he wishes sometimes that, although he had got his voice back, he kept it secret. At least when he had no voice he could use his muteness as an excuse not to indulge in small talk, even if a pen and paper were available. He supposes it’s the same now – he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to. He’ll just come across as an asshole. Which, in the end, is absolutely fine by him.

Some people, however, deserve the respect of at least a small amount of small-talk – of short replies that answer their questions neatly and succinctly without making them feel as if they’d been blown off. Emeritus, family and faction member, deserves that kind of respect. No point in causing rifts where they shouldn’t belong. It’s not as if Jesse hates everyone, he just hates certain rules of social etiquette.

“Been here all my life,” he says. He does find it slightly odd, how many foreigners there are in the city. As if all of the locals had been driven out by the local legends that they knew to be correct, and thought if they lived elsewhere, maybe they’d be safer. Which left room for all the visitors to settle. Jesse then shrugs. “I liked to draw. Fell into it – best kind of job without the ******** of art school and degrees. Started as an apprentice,” he says. And his specific brand of sketch suited the industry, even though he’s branched out since, and also does portraits and watercolours, rather than just the bold designs.

While he answered the questions, Jesse had been looking at the screen of Emeritus’s phone. The runes are fine, and he’s done plenty of them on people before, no questions asked. But, because he does respect this particular client, he decides to be honest.

“You know, I know people like to use runes like an alphabet these days, but that’s not really how they were intended, in the Norse – they each have their own symbolic meanings. If you want a symbol for Loki, I’d recommend Jormungandr,” he says, commandeering the phone to do a quick google search, and finally magnifying an image of the world snake. “Jormungandr is the world serpent – one of Loki’s most notable offspring. Loki himself doesn’t really have a specific icon,” he explains. “Modernity has ascribed an alphabet to the runes, though, so if you are happy with them, those should be fine, easy,” he adds with a nod.