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

[Ursula Wolfe]

Ursa continued to 'watch' her uncle as she awaited Jesse. She knew that he had a tome that took him somewhere else so she had to figure that like the court was now, that he had portals that could take him to all kinds of places, especially here. She hummed softly until Jesse appeared and then went to place his weapons on the rack. She hadn't even noticed that there had been one, she normally just set down her weapons within arms reach of where ever it was that she chose to take a seat at. Just like now, beside the couch was her sword, her gun was actually still at her hip. So as Jesse went about removing his weapons, she too removed the gun, setting it by her sword.

As he plopped down next to her, she smiled brightly to him, the smile that said she was truly happy, a smile she reserved only for those that deserved it. A list that was quite small now that she thought about it. She could count them all on one hand. Her eyes glimmered with curiosity, and with a final look in the direction that she had heard her Uncle's sweet Cajun voice, her smile grew excited "Oh yeah! So Obi Wan, lay it on me, how does this work exactly?" She asked as she shifted a little, curling one long leg under her as she turned to face him, her eyes still holding that brightness to them, like a child waiting on Christmas eve to open her gifts the next morning.

Ursula waited patiently on baited breath for Jesse to answer her, she didn't expect it to be easy, especially since he had already gave her a cliff's notes version about how he figured out he even had the ability as well as how he started to learn how to do it on his own free will. So it was safe to assume, though she was excited to learn, that this wouldn't be as simple as it was for her to do something like summon spirits to her, or summon Barti or Jordan to her. Still, she wanted to learn so she wasn't about to interrupt Jesse as he gave her this lesson in traveling to the Shadow Realm.

[Jesse Fforde]

As Ursula turns to face Jesse, Jesse echoes her movements. He crosses his legs on the couch facing Ursula, his back resting against the arm. He can still see the wraith hovering but ignores it, hoping that the thing doesn’t give them any kind of trouble. If it’s somehow protective of its mistress, perhaps it would prevent her from ever entering the Shadow Realm. If one isn’t careful, the pull of that abyss could be addictive; Jesse himself tries not to use the power too often, simply because he remembers how the discovery had taken place. He had thought he was dreaming, and he had not wanted to wake up. And the one time he had died? He almost didn’t want to come back. May not have, if it weren’t for his anxiety for Grey. Perhaps the pull of his family, of his own blood, would have eventually dragged him back to the land of the living.

The Necromancer takes a deep breath before his shoulders relax, and his bright blues gaze steadily at his charge. His hands rest, palm up, upon his knees, and a light smile lingers at the corners of his lips.

”Think of it like meditation. Find complete silence and a calm within yourself. Or, if not a calm, then focus on your need, your want for the Shadow Realm. Push every other thought from your mind, and picture the place. Picture your soul leaving your body, and all the weight of reality slipping away. Imagine… that’s what it’s like down there, yeah? All the hunger and the bodily aches and pains slip away. Like the wraith that stands by you now—imagine you are as light as he is,” Jesse says, slowly, his voice that usual husk, though now uttered in this undulating explanation, maybe it’s a calming sound, rather than a rasping grating one.

As he speaks, his eyes drift shut and he can feel all the weight lifting from his own body. He is practiced at this, and in the process of explanation, he half does as his own voice tells Ursula to do. He has to force his eyes open and clear his throat to bring himself back; to keep from leaving this plane without Ursula.

”If this works, and we both end up in the Realm head North West. We’ll find each other, if we both head North West…”

[Ursula Wolfe]

Ursa shifted a little once Jesse had turned to face her. She moved so that she was a mirror of him, instead of just one leg curled under her, she had her legs crossed like him. Her blue gaze traveled down his form for a moment, noting not just his position but also how he had seemed to relax. She then glanced over to her uncle, or where she assumed that he was from when he had spoken and smirked a little. Uncle Shadow was protective in his own ways, but he wouldn't harm someone teaching him a skill that even he would have liked to have back when he had a body.

Then Jesse began to speak, mentioning meditation. That made her smile a bit and almost immediately her body did relax, mostly because she was well practiced at meditation. It was something she had been taught to do young in life and continued to do so even in this new one. In this new one though, it was more about gaining energy rather than clarity or calm. Then again, she did seem to love to kill, so perhaps she needed to relax more often. She once again let her eyes note the way Jesse was, could tell that he was trying not to fall into his own lull. With a soft smile that mirrored his own, she allowed herself to obey his direction. Her eyes slowly closed, her long lashes fluttering down onto her pale cheeks, her smile faded a little as she began to relax. And though it was tempting to tease him about his voice being rather dishy at the moment, she even let that thought fade into the background.

Slowly she let everything fade away, she let her thoughts and plans on her wedding vanish, the thoughts of her reappearing sire that seemed to want to have something to do with her again, thoughts in general vanished into the mist as she took a deep breath in and out. Not that she needed to breathe, but the slow in and out, in and out of the air rushing through her lungs was just one more thing to help her concentrate. The only problem she was having was the last part of his request, to think of what it is like down there. All she had to go on were the things that her Uncle Shadow had told her. She concentrated a bit more, she could almost feel her uncle hovering close to her. Jesse's last message was almost lost to her, but she had heard it. That brought one question to mind though and that made her concentration waver.

Would she know which way was north west down there? Was it anything like Uncle Shadow had told her. Those things made concentration slip just a little before she beat it down and focused. Still, she managed to give a slow nod of her head as she began to concentrate on what her uncle had told of the shadow realm, began to even let her breathing slow and slow and slow until finally she stopped all together. She concentrated on her soul, what it was doing. The weight of everything around her vanishing into the mist like her thoughts, her soul easing from one plain to the next.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse’s eyes are half-lidded as he watches Ursula across from him; his lips are parted and his tongue curled as if to continue; to describe the realm in all its glory. How would he go about it? It’s almost a mirror image of the city itself. Almost, because things are not where they should be. This is something he ought to have told Ursula, in case she tries to move through the darkness according to the landmarks that she might know, that might be familiar to her. Those landmarks shift and change and can sometimes do so right in front of one’s very eyes. The world down there is like a perpetual fadeportal, always shimmering and ever-changing, the shadows deep and twisting, almost as if they have a mind of their own.

There’s silence, too, heavy and all-encompassing. And yet, it is not a lasting silence, due to the spirits that wander amongst the dream-like buildings. Sometimes they whisper. Sometimes they scream. But they feel like thoughts rather than like physical things, sometimes, and Jesse hardly notices them until he is right on top of them, absorbing their energy almost without thought.

See, he half wonders whether one of those roaming spirits is his brother, Jordan. And if he is consumed, what then? What happens to him? Is it a bad fate, or is it a good one? Does he simply blink out of existence, not even condemned to eternal darkness because the spirit that was Jordan is just no longer?

Whatever the case, he’s not actually seen anyone else perform this trick before, and he’s never too sure what happens to his physical body when he does. He arches his brow as he watches her disappear – as if she had been summoned, slowly fading from existence. At least his instruction seems to have worked, he thinks, before his own eyes fall shut again and he sinks into that meditation that he had previously avoided.

Within seconds he feels the heaviness of reality drop away. He feels as if a cool wind is passing through his body; he feels light as a feather, and the throbbing, burning, scratching ache in his throat is gone. A large sigh escapes his lips as he rolls his now-ghostly shoulders, relaxation and relief spreading through him like a glorious disease. As tempting as it is to just sit down for a while, Jesse instead begins to move with purpose. His instinctive compass guides him, and he begins to wander in the North Westerly direction; he thinks of Ursula as he does so, as if mentally calling out to her. Somehow, this seems to have helped him find others, in the past. Somehow, as if spirits thinking about each other are drawn to each other, perhaps. He’s not too sure.

Whatever the case, he begins to move, even if at a languid pace, keeping his eyes peeled for a shadowy wraith-like visage that resembles Ursula Wolfe.

[Ursula Wolfe]

That weightlessness seemed to continue to ease almost as if she were in a vacuum just free floating and light. Her 'eyes' 'opened' and she was almost shocked - almost. It seemed that the things that her uncle had whispered about had been a mild understatement, and yet, a small part of her felt like she belonged in this world. The darkness in her speaking to the darkness of the world itself. The way the things rippled and shimmered even in the darkness. There were spirits and all kinds of things. She looked around for a moment, 'taking a breath'. She knew she didn't need it. Not even in the real world did she need to breathe, but even down here it seemed like a silly thing to try. She was what? a spirit herself? She couldn't tell. A darkness in the dark? She was trying to get her barrings.

Ursa looked down at the ground, even that was darkness, not like the kind she caused. She noticed that nothing really 'grew' and she had to laugh. Normally death would be growing all around her. Weeds grew at her feet when she walked on soil but because of her dark nature, she killed everything she touched. Or at the very least made it very sick. She shook off her thoughts and once again began to look around. She started in what she hoped was a north west direction. Would she recognize Jesse in this way, she glanced around, seeing the shapes of other spirits and while the basic outline seemed enough to tell sex, everything else seemed gone into nothing. She seemed to think knowing who was Jesse and who wasn't would be far harder a task than ever before.

Would she find him? Would she know it's him? Would he know it's her? Could she even talk? That thought had her glancing around before she began to softly sing to herself. While she was no Whitney Houston or Madonna, she could still hold a basic tone in the real world. Down here it seemed she could as well. That made her feel a little better. Not so much about her singing, but the fact that sound could still come from her in her voice. With no lungs, no vocal cords, one would think that talking was impossible. Perhaps it was just her thoughts coming into physical form? She didn't quite know. She ran into a wall of some kind, and slowly, she began to 'feel' her way around it, still hoping that she was heading into the right area, the wall seemed to run the entire length of the city. Or so it seemed. Had her body not just jumped plains but space in general? Had she ended up way out in the wilderness? She didn't know.

For a moment she thought she might have heard Jesse and stopped singing for a moment, but then she began to wounder if perhaps it was just a part of her thinking of him so much that she was just hearing that smooth voice of his, making it up because she was simply thinking about him. Then she had a thought... could she summon him? Could he summon her while down here? Or would that some how bring them out of this world since they had chosen to be down here instead of being sent down here for whatever reason? This thoughts ran through her head as she continued her soft singing and following the wall north, hoping that it really was north and that eventually she would find Jesse or he would find her.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse’s voice in the Shadow Realm is not at all like his voice upstairs.

No, that’s a lie.

His voice is similar, but different. More robust. Full. In the Shadow Realm, they are bereft of their physical shortcomings. Jesse half wonders whether, if he had discovered this power before he’d found his voice again, whether he’d have been able to talk down here… but it is a thought that is easily dismissed. Of course he could have, just as he could have above ground. It had been a mental impairment rather than a physical one, and thus he’d would have equally been deprived of his voice here as he was there.

Now, however, as he is speaking and there’s no mental impairment, he lacks the physical obstruction. His voice box had remained rusty, causing his voice to remain gruff and to often break—to get huskier and more like a shallow whisper the hungrier he was or the more emotional. Physical reactions that mean nothing in the Shadow Realm.

When he speaks in the Shadow Realm it is with the voice he’d have had if he’d grown up normally and without any mental disability. Unbroken. Literally smooth. Not rough like coconut, but smooth like honey. He rather enjoys the sound of his own voice; and it would seem that Ursula does, too. For he is certain that it is her. Almost. He follows her for a little while anyway, just to be sure; listening for the nuances in the singing, the different notes and scratches that identify that voice as belonging to Ursula.

Jesse gets closer, until he is sauntering along beside Ursula. A Shadow like near everything else in this place, but a shadow with shape. Maybe their shapes are mental projections; they know instinctively how they themselves walk, how they hold themselves. Things that they wouldn’t know about themselves but which they do by habit alone. Each person has a specific walk; a specific set to their jaw or to their shoulders. He can recognise Ursula as much as he would recognise his own shadow on the street.

”So does it meet your expectations?” he finally asks, shifting in to stand in front of Ursula, his own hand running along the blocked wall at the edge of the city. Something to do with the rift, he supposes, and how it does not extend beyond Harper Rock. He sometimes wonders whether there are depths to this place that no one has yet explored.

[Ursula Wolfe]

She seemed to glide almost, wondering if perhaps it was this place or it was her own mind that seemed to add even more grace to her steps as she made her way along the wall, singing some parts softly, humming others. Ursa, as she sang, thought of what was happening in the real world. Was her steps visible to the real world as she walked? Was the grass dying inexplicably and weeds growing in their place, only to shrivel and die as well? Or was she only there in spirit, her body still safe at home. She had heard rumors that mystics when they came here would have to find a new body. Would she? Was her body no longer there? She didn't know. As she thought about this though, she noticed a shadow beside her and for a moment wondered if it was her uncle. He followed her like a stalker sometimes. Of course, when he was helping her, she didn't care.

Then that voice, as smooth and delicious as honey spoke and she was almost frightened by it, almost let out a shocked yell that would no doubt echo along the shadows. However, she didn't. Instead, she stopped walking and turned to the shadow beside her, letting her gaze take it in. No, it was definitely not her uncle. Not only was there the lack of a Cajun accent, but it wasn't as lanky as her uncle was. If she really concentrated, she could make out the stance, the presence and see it for who it was. Jesse. She smiled, though she doubt it showed, as she was probably just as without detail as he was, but it was there none the less. Ursa then gave a nod of her head and a soft laugh that seemed wicked and eerie - even to her ears - and yet was clear amusement.

"It is interesting to say the least." She said, and was actually shocked that her voice was low and smokey, sensual even in its flow but still holding that quality that everything she said was meant to be a spell, to enchant and enrapture anyone that heard her, though now there was a slight undertone of sinful malice. "Is it like this always down here?" She asked, her shadow making a slight waving movement to the rest of the area they were standing in. "And why can't I go any further?" She turned her head to look towards the invisible barrier that was keeping them from going any further west though had yet to keep them from going what she assumed was north.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse wants to sing. Though even the powers of the Shadow Realm would not save his awful tune. He cannot sing to save his life, regardless of how his voice seems smoother while held in the hands of shadow. He laughs, low and deep, as he notices the fright in the other shape; his own form would dance away just a little, to back off and give her some space. He nods, too, wandering a little further, a little away from the wall. Ursula would recognise the gait, if nothing else—the habit that Jesse has, sometimes, of wandering around with his hands shoved nonchalantly in his pockets, his shoulders straight and his chin high.

”Always. In a way. It shifts, randomly—there are fade windows, and there are doors. There are… you can see buildings, right? You can see grass. But it’s not a mirror image of the world above because every five minutes, or every five days—you don’t know when—it moves around. Keeps you on your toes,” he explains, canting his head to the side as if he’s waiting for it to happen, any second now. When it doesn’t, he shrugs his shoulders again and tries his best to answer the second question.

”I always assume it’s the city limit. We can’t go beyond it because the rift between the Shadow Realm and reality exists only in Harper Rock. As if… whoever created it to begin with set parameters. Boundaries. But that’s just a guess, I don’t know for sure,” he says, his voice a soft undulation in the hushed, whispering silence of the realm. Not a shout, not too soft as to be unheard. But weaved into the atmosphere as if it were always meant to be there.

He wanders back over to where Ursula stands, and reaches out to touch the space in front of them. Again, his head cants to the side and he focuses; he focuses on making that space as impenetrable as the edge of the city. A wall that shimmers, shadowy grass growing and swaying where none had been before. He gestures for Ursula to touch it—to feel that she cannot walk through it.

”In time, you’ll learn how to craft the realm’s atmosphere. To pull the shadows—to create walls that look like buildings or grass or whatever you want,” he says. He pauses. He could keep going—and will, at some point—but he’ll pause. And he’ll wait and see if Ursula has any questions, before moving on.

[Ursula Wolfe]

If there was ever a time that she would know Jesse, it would be in that laugh as well as the way he moved as he gave her a little bit of space, though, it was space that she once again closed by following him to where he was standing. Of course she didn't get too close, but she felt as though if she wasn't at least a few feet from him something would happen that would take him away or take her away from him. A thought that seemed confirmed by him saying that the SR liked to change and shift around. Though as he spoke of the mirror image, or rather the lack of it, she let out a silent breath, though she was currently standing in grass, she was glad to know that the grass in the real world wouldn't be wilting away for some unknown reason.

He continued to tell her about the Shadow realm and what he had to assume about it. And she had to admit that it made sense in a strange way. Of course that once again brought her thoughts back to her uncle. If she had summoned him from here, then that meant that he had lived in this city when he died. She almost said something but then decided not to talk just yet, just to listen, to learn about the things that Jesse was teaching her. It wasn't until he had said that it was just a guess that she nodded and tossed in, "Actually, that sort of sounds like a good explanation to this place. It does make more questions than answers though, however, those are more for my uncle." She said in a bit of a ramble before she fell silent so that he could continue with what he was telling her of this place.

As he spoke about learning to craft things within this place, Ursula glanced around taking in all that she could see, the grass, the buildings. "I can craft things down here? Well that sounds like it would be an interesting thing to learn next I think. Can I change things that have been changed by others? Like if someone builds a wall around themselves, can i take that wall down? Or does it not work that way? What other things happen down here? And those gateways I can open, when they open does that mean i can see out? or can i open them down here? I guess I have more questions than I thought." She finally said with a laugh. It seemed as though she were freer down here, more carefree not as careful. Perhaps it was the fact that they seemed to be alone, no humans lurking about to overhear anything they may say.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse laughs, too. It seems to be a theme in his life, these days. Questions. So many questions. It’s different, to what he’s accustomed to. As a human he always lurked on the outskirts. No one asked him questions that weren’t rhetorical because they knew he couldn’t answer—or assumed that he wouldn’t. Even when asked questions outright, normally he didn’t answer. Slowly but surely, he has shed that old skin and has instead donned a new one. He’s still trying to figure out whether he enjoys it or not. Whatever the case, Jesse has always been a patient man, and Ursula’s questions do not bother him.

”No. If someone else crafts walls, you cannot take them down again,” he says. If that were the case, what use would the power be? There were plenty of people who had it, and those walls would not provide any kind of privacy or protection if they could be so easily deconstructed. Jesse even laughed, again.

”That time I died? I was trapped. With Reanna and Nemesis. I only learned how to do it, then. I accidentally trapped us in the corner. We were stuck there for… I don’t even know how long. So, you can’t even deconstruct your own walls. It’s strong, whatever it is,” he says. He can’t really explain what the material is. It’s solid, but not like anything solid he’s ever felt before. More a resistance, than a solidity. Jesse turns to face the shadow that is Ursula. The next question isn’t so easy to answer.

”I’ve never tried to open a gate down here. Try it and see? I know the windows are sort of… portals into the real world. A way to orient yourself, I think. I haven’t really played around with them much,” he says. ”But, you don’t really need gates down here. Gates help you with your magical energy, right? But who needs that, when you can summon that energy to you?” he asks. And, in answer to one of her other question, focuses his attention on the spirits. As if sending out some kind of frequency to draw them close.

Within seconds, they start to drift toward them. More shadowy entities, some slighter than others, all probably belonging to dead souls. Dead souls themselves, really. Jesse has no idea what happens to them when he reaches out and draws them to him to consume them, to absorb them into his own body. Except that he can feel his own reserves strengthening.

Although Ursula may not see it, he is grinning at her.