Dragon's Blood and Faded Shadows ((Jesse))

[Ursula Wolfe]

Ursula leaned against the wall of the Dragon's tower, she was relaxing a bit, waiting for another Feral vampire to come her way. As she waited, she closed her eyes and began to think about things, the powers that she was slowly gaining with what seemed like every day. A lot of them she rarely used, there was little reason too, but one that she had taken a liking too. The power she felt whenever she opened the gate to this world that she had only heard rumors and whispers of - a place she had summoned her wraith from, her uncle Shadow. The power was something that she could get used too, she had begun to cast it before she went to bed so that when she awoken she felt the power flowing through her veins.

As her blue eyes opened, glittering with the thoughts of the power she felt, she called upon the gate. If she were resting, she might as well call the powers to her, allow them to fill her as she waited for the next 'willing' victim to cross her path. The powers she used often were those that made her that much harder to track and that much harder to hear coming. Ursa smirked a bit, already the power of the other realm was starting to fuel her. It was the one power she had learned with Hantu, but she had yet to learn any of the other powers that he said that he knew.

Ursa let her icy gaze travel the place that Jesse had told her about, the first floor had been a zombie run of sorts, the kind of thing that she rarely batted a lash at now a days, not only because she was used to the things only whispered about or joked about in fantasies, but because they were nothing to kill for her, she could slice through a horde of them like a hot knife through butter. This floor was another thing that she hadn't come up against in a while, but now that she was older, stronger, more powers to use against them, she was once again cutting through them with little trouble.

The power continued to flow through her and as she waited, she began to tap a tune of sorts on the hilt of her sword with her ring. The soft clink of metal against metal filling her ears. All the while she watched, waited for the next feral to come her way, after all, why seek them out when the clicking of her engagement ring against the metal grip of her sword would call them to her. Of course, she wasn't the only one in this place, she could hear bullets and the the singing of blades in the air all around her, and of course, she could hear the footsteps of those doing as she did, hunting the vampires that were more like rabid beasts than those that walked, talked, fought, loved, danced and any other thing that required half a brain cell. It was the footsteps she listened too now, her 'tune' falling silent as the steps drew closer to her.

((Ursa's Outfit))

[Jesse Fforde]

Aah, raids.

Jesse knows exactly why he likes raids. They’re fun. They’re just one huge playground. They’re kind of weird, in that so many vampires gather in one place. So many people who hate each other. Sure, there are plenty of people he knows and likes in raids; his family members and faction mates. But he passes plenty of people that he’s helped to kill before, too. People who’d probably want nothing more than to see a sword through his chest, but no one ever attacks anyone else in raids. Not often anyway. Like it’d be some kind of gross form of misconduct if they did. It’s like a social agreement.

Of course they’ll probably all have the same excuse: they’re all on a brief holiday from their grudges because they have a common enemy. Sure yes, Jesse could agree – it’s better that these creatures all die and that this building be cleared of anything supernatural so as to keep the Masquerade good and proper. But really? Really, he assumes everyone is there for the same thing.

No one gives a **** about killing monsters.

They just want the relic.

And yes, Jesse will admit that’s part of his motivation. He’s only got one of these relics on his own, by his own merit, with his own strength and finesse, and that was ******* ages ago. Ages. And he wants another one. Because somehow, the more relics he gets, the more he can prove himself. The stronger he can feel; the more able to be who he is. To be a head of a family. Maybe if he has more relics…

…hell, even he doesn’t know. But going into these raids is also a great distraction from the fact that a lot of the time he actually feels like a fish out of water. Floundering, and completely incapable of anything of any consequence. Maybe it’s better to be feared than respected?

Not that he’s had too many problems, lately. Despite all of it, he’s really just in this raid because he likes killing things. Regardless of how easy they are, it’s still a good way to spend the night – mowing down everything in his sight. As per usual, he’s got the sword in one hand – his shiny new Feral’s Bane – and Legion’s old Flametongue in the other. The gun is kind of a sentimental thing to him, now. Just like the sword will be. ****. Sentimental things. That’s what Jesse has become – sentimental.

He grunts as he swings the blade, sending the feral stumbling backward before he lifts his gun and shoots the ****** in the head. Several times. It collapses pretty quickly, and Jesse rifles through the thing’s grotty clothing looking for a key that is not there. There’s no way he’s going to get to that relic, not at this rate. With a low growl, he bottles some of the feral’s blood – at least it’s the rare black kind – before standing and rounding the corner to look for his next prey.

Instead, he runs into Ursula.

He grins, and nods his greeting. “Ursula. You look like you’re going on a picnic,” he says. She’s not wearing her usual red. It’s kind of weird.

[Wearing]

[Ursula Wolfe]

Ursa turned her eyes towards the voice that called her name, a smirk coming to her face as the ice in her glacial blue gaze seemed to melt just slightly - as was customary whenever she was in the presence of those she called her family. Usually the closer they were to her, to her heart, the brighter that blue seemed to get. In this case, Jesse was pretty damn close. A list that was pretty damn short, basically, him, her fiance, and her sister. All of which she cared about deeply and would do anything for.

"Jesse! You look like you're ready for the same picnic then." She teased back as she slid her sword into its scabbard on her hip and stretched out her gloved hands, the read leather squeaking a little with the movement. "How goes the hunt?" She asked, leaning back against the wall again, lifting one foot clad in a black and red leather boot to brace against the stone wall behind her. She wondered if he drew closer if he would feel the same power that she was feeling - that she was feeding on, absorbing a little bit at a time. She hadn't really tested her powers with others around so she didn't really know if the power would flow into everyone or if it was to her alone.

Her eyes took in the sight of the male that she looked at as her sire more than her actual sire. It was rather amusing to her that they were both wearing things with hoods. Though, in her case it was so that she would limit the amount of zombie guts, and mooncalf blood, and gods knows only what else would end up in her hair. It was easier to wash (or burn) clothes, but getting that stuff out of her long black locks that currently had red streaks in them. A small part of her wondered what he was doing all hooded up like a thief in the night, but that was a different question for another time.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse’s body is loose, easy, and free. It’s what happens in these raids. To be the best that he can be, he tries not to think about what he’s doing. He lets his body do the thinking; when he fights, it’s like a dance. He uses the walls and inanimate objects to launch himself into the air, to twist and land and roll. One would think that he would run out of energy sooner, but he relishes the hunt, and the chase.

With an arch of the brow, he glances down at his attire. If he looked like he were ready for a picnic, he assumes Ursula’s got a rather twisted picnic in mind. A picnic for ninjas, maybe. Or assassins. Their food? A nice, peachy young virgin trussed to a table with all her main veins on show. It isn’t the virgin herself that Jesse desires, no, but the taste of her blood.

He clears his throat and shakes his head. The constant thirst clawing at the back of his throat causes distraction and erratic moods, if he lets it get to him. He straightens his shoulders and glances skyward. The atmosphere thrums with invisible power, and Jesse knows what it is. Why. A gate – he can feel it like a lure. If it’s not the thirst that gets to him, it’s his curiosity about the Shadow Realm. The pull of death. It touches his skin like thousands of fingers, caressing. Relaxation crawls over him like a soothing balm.

”The hunt is as it should be,” he says, vaguely and with his usual characteristic shrug. The zombies really are too easy, and they don’t provide much of a challenge. But he wants the relic. Even if it is a relic that he has already, it is one that he can give to one of his progeny in need – or one that he can sell, to gain money for the family coffers.

”How are you finding it?” he asks, turning his full attention to Ursula, ignoring the feel of the realm against his skin, and the thirst at the back of his throat. It has been a while since he’s talked to Ursula properly. Now is a good opportunity to gauge how she’s doing with her skills, and her powers.

[Ursula Wolfe]

Ursa smiled a bit as she watched Jesse, nodding at what he said about the hunt, at this point she was in the same boat as him, or at least in a boat just behind his. She was a damn good fighter, but Jesse was older, so she had to expect that not only would he be a better fighter physically, but that he had powers she did not. That being said, this was a good place to practice her skill at killing things. She liked to keep her skill with a blade in tip top shape, and then she was training with her gun as well. She wasn't big on guns, but sometimes, you had to use what you could. That sometimes meant guns.

His question brought her out of her thoughts and she smiled a bit at him, her eyes glimmering with amusement. "About the same as you I would expect." She winked at him and then glanced around "I was getting a bit tired though and thought I would give one of my new powers a shot, I have to admit, the power it gives me... despite the cost to my hunger, is pretty well worth it in my book." She said, glancing around to make sure there were no humans near by to hear her talking of powers and blood and hunger. She was pretty sure, Jesse would stop her from talking if he had seen any, assuming she didn't see or smell the humans first.

"I have been practicing it about the court as well, have you noticed?" She asked with a smirk. There were times when she had walked around, going to places where she knew that her family lay when the sun was up and called up the power of the gate for them. She had also done it when she was around Jordan since she had picked it up. "Do you know any of the other powers that come with this one?" She asked, she had a feeling he did, but it was usually better to ask then assume. Assuming made an *** out of you and Ming. Whoever Ming was. She kept her inner monologue to herself as she relaxed back against the wall.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse isn’t concerned about humans. They’re in a raid. Any humans in here are … well, they’re a weird breed, and they don’t last long. Anyway – he’d be more than happy to put down any soul who might wander across them and overhear **** that they shouldn’t overhear. Jesse nods. ”Ah, Shadow Gate. I have noticed,” he says. He’d had no idea who was opening them, but now he knows who to thank. He himself can do the same, but he doesn’t very often. If he needs that kind of energy, he can summon spirits. It’s a wonder he hasn’t depleted the city of its blood stocks by now, with the amount of spirits he sometimes summons – for himself and for others. He at least manages to deplete the stock of the stuff in the fridge at Larch Court.

The Fadewalker powers are amongst his favourite. They speak to his love of death; the death of others, and even of his own. It’s not something that he says out loud. He doesn’t admit it to anyone, least of all to Grey. The Shadow Realm is not tortuous. It is not a place to be afraid of. If Jesse gets restless when dead, it’s because he worries about Grey. The others? He knows they can get on fine without him. None of them ever contact him. He has told them all numerous times that if they need him, they can contact him. That he cannot read their minds, and cannot know when they are in need. The lack of contact assures him that they all must be incredibly fine. Grey, though? She had explained to him what she had done when he was gone. The way she feels, as if he had actually died. As if he were never coming back. His death hurts her more than it does him. And he has to remember that, whenever he craves the darkness of the Realm. There’s no way he could admit to her that he enjoys the place. It would go down like a cup of cold sick.

Jesse clears his throat and nods.

”You can curse the spirit of others – tire them out, sap them of their energy. You can enter the Shadow Realm without dying, and can come back whenever you want, without having to find a door. And, while you’re down there, you can change the way it looks. It’s really ******* handy if you’re trying to keep obsessive assholes from taking your spiritual energy,” he explains. He then narrows his eyes, trying to remember what else he could achieve. ”You can also see these… orbs. If you pick them up, you kind of… absorb them. They give you … I don’t know how to explain it, but they’re helpful,” he says with a shrug. He turns back to Ursula, curious. Had she picked up any of those abilities yet?

[Ursula Wolfe]

Enter the Shadow Realm? She had heard of the place... Mere whispers from her uncle, he had still yet to explain how he had been there, how he had been the one to answer when she summoned her first and only Wraith. Her Ice blue eyes shimmered a bit as she listened to the list of things that she could learn of the Fadewalkers. Yes, she had been granted the ability to learn them from the guide that taught them, as well as her first hint of the powers with the Shadow Gates, but these others that Jesse now told her about sounded quite interesting indeed.

She smiled a bit at him, "How do you enter the Shadow Realm?" She asked, her eyes glimmering a bit more. "So far all I have learned is this..." She motioned to around them where the power of the Shadow Realm was leaking into them. "Can you show me how? What it looks like?" Perhaps it was odd that she seemed so intent on seeing where she would end up if she was ever caught doing her powers or feeding - granted she rarely fed from anything other than blood bags, still, it would be nice to go there on her terms not the terms of anyone else. "My uncle has told me of what it is like down there, or rather, he has hinted at it. He likes to keep things mysterious." She said with a slight smirk. "I would really like to see it on my terms first." She added and then fell silent.

Ursa knew that she could ask anything of Jesse, well anything within reason, she doubted there were some things he would be able to give her or help her with. Shaking her thoughts clear though, she looked at him, her bright Icy eyes glimmering with a thirst for learning something new, something she didn't know now but wanted to learn. It would be interesting to actually learn a new power rather than randomly do it and have to spend countless hours trying to figure out how she had done it.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse shrugs as he recalls his first jaunts through the Shadow Realm. In the beginning, he’d thought it was all some sick cosmic joke. When he went to sleep he’d have nightmares, so he tried not to sleep. Ever. It wasn’t healthy for him. And then, when he couldn’t keep his eyes open a second longer, as soon as he fell asleep he’d be in the Shadow Realm. He’d had a lot of trouble with sleep for a while – between the nightmares, the sleepwalking that had him throwing himself from the Eyrie and shattering the majority of his bones, to wandering mostly naked in the wilderness, and the spontaneous trips to the Shadow Realm, he’d sworn off sleep for eternity. It is why he now knows how to keep himself awake during the daylight hours. He’d forced it on himself.

Regardless, Fadewalking is not a power that he had knowingly learned how to use. It was something that came naturally; something that was perhaps lured out of him sooner rather than later by his ghostly brother. A necessity, in order to help Jesse move forward with his life and let go of the past.

”First – it’s something that I’m not going to show you how to use here. It’s hard to explain, but it’s almost exactly like dying,” he can say that now with authority, seeing as he had witnessed death first hand. ”When you come back, you wake up in the morgue, as if you had actually died. But you have a choice. The morgue is owned by Velveteen so there’s no danger of being discovered that way,” Jesse says, remembering the clothes and personal items that she’d left for him there. Now, he keeps a locker all to himself, with spare clothes inside, just in case he ever feels the need to go for a jaunt through the realm.

”When I first used it, I didn’t know I was using it. It happened whenever I fell asleep. Now, I suppose, I close my eyes and I relax, as if I’m trying to go to sleep. But I focus on where I want to go. I think about death…” he says, before clearing his throat. It will be different for Ursula. She wouldn’t have that same longing, deep down. That same fascination. It’s easy for Jesse, because the Shadow Realm is a place that he enjoys, on a certain level. This he does not admit to Ursula. He shrugs again.

”We can give it a go. Are you willing to leave the raid? I can meet you back at Larch…” he says, knowing that Ursula has the tome, and it’ll only be a hop, skip and a jump through a few other portals for Jesse to get there, too.

[Ursula Wolfe]

When Jesse started to speak, Ursa tensed slightly, as if she had done something wrong, but as he started to explain, she felt a new tension take over the old. This power was like dying, she didn't know how she felt about that, but at the same time, she was curious, and then there was what she had said earlier, it would be on her terms. She could understand him not wanting to teach her the power here in a rather public setting. He continued to explain how he had learned to harness the power. Thinking of death. That would be rather easy for her. Every living thing around her died except for weeds, and even those once they thrived with life would wither, leaving a nest of dead growth if she stay in a wooded place for any length of time. Her ice blue eyes fluttered closed for a moment, she could almost hear her uncle Shadow's whispers, he had whispered of things there.

Her eyes opened again as Jesse asked if she was willing to leave the raid and she smiled at him, an almost sardonic kind of smile, "Well, not like I will win this one," she said with a slight huff-like laugh. "I'll meet you there, Jesse, and if I forget to say it later... Thank you." She said with a more genuine smile, reaching into her bag, pulling out her tome and winking to him. Then she glanced around, thankfully, they were relatively alone, the walls blocked any direct line of sight from the rest of the fighting happening in the raid. Again her ice eyes closed and she spoke the words, when they opened again she was at the alter in Larch.

Not knowing what else would go into learning this, she moved to sit on the couch in the same room as the alter and waited for Jesse. She knew it wouldn't take him long, she could and always did count on him to never leave her in a lurch. It was then that she caught the slight shift in light. "Hello Uncle Shadow." She said with a smirk, as she noticed her own shadow moving about.

"Ya possede', Honeychile!" He said to her causing her to laugh softly.

"You're only just figuring this out, Uncle?" She asked with a smirk, turning her eyes towards where his voice had come from, near the alter beside her.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse’s eyes turn skyward, as if imagined the greater foe that lay in wait for him. There’s a relic there, somewhere, and he could make it his own. Ursula doubts her ability to ‘win’ the raid—the jargon they’d adopted for these things is almost amusing, as if it’s all some kind of game. Jesse has ‘won’ one before. Only the once, and he had surprised himself by doing so. Except, coming to these places is never about the ‘win’ for Jesse. Instead, he chooses to enjoy the wholesale slaughter, as if they’ve all been given permission to run riot and indulger in their more basic, darker desires. Not that Jesse really has any problem indulging of those outside of a raid, regardless. But at least here, he doesn’t feel the need to keep it on the down-low.

Regardless of how much he thinks he might be able to reach the conclusion of this specific raid, when he turns back to Ursula he knows that he doesn’t really care about leaving. This place is like a playground, and sometimes playtime is over. Sometimes, he is needed for higher pursuits. To hunt, or to help out a family member. This is one of those times. Besides which, any excuse for a romp through the Shadow Realm is a good one for Jesse. It has been a while, and he looks forward to it.

Ursula disappears and it doesn’t take long for Jesse to follow suit, making sure his weapons are all sheathed before he pulls the tome from his pocket. It takes him a little longer to get there, however, seeing as his own tome takes him to the Eyrie; from there, he takes the elevator up to his hut, which has a portal to his family home. It drops him in the same place as the others’ tomes drop them. He puts the weapons away upon the rack by the stairs before he finds Ursula.

”Right. Are you ready?” he asks, dropping down onto the couch beside Ursula. He can see the wraith in the room; he gives it a curious a look, but otherwise pays little attention to it. He’s accustomed to seeing wraiths around the place. And accustomed to leaving them to their own devices, as if he can’t see them at all.