Welcome Tome (Jesse)

[Ursula Wolfe]

Ursa stood next to one of her Hydroponics, picking the Bluehearts Flower that had recently grown there. She glanced to her ritual alter where she had been going through tome after tome recently. She had spent a lot of time battling hunters and she decided that she was bored with taking heads and blood and all kinds of other things she had slice from hunter and paladin alike. No, she needed to center herself again, bring herself back into her spiritual side by studding the tomes that Jesse had gotten her. However a recent search on the net had told her something. She was missing a few of them so she glanced over to her cell phone. Not the kind she wanted still but it worked.

She moved over to it and picked it up, calling up a number she went to most often of the line she was in - Jesse, the sire of her sire, and a man that had helped her quite a bit since she had been turned. Ursula scent him a text asking if he had the remaining tomes that she was missing, it wasn't long after she hit send that he was asking where she was, he was going to help her once again. She smiled and told him that she was in her apartment but that she had some shopping to do so she would meet him in the lobby of her building. It was a good thing for her because her building had shops galore, plus a good place to get tons of zombie ears.

Ursula was down in the lobby soon after that, moving to the shop to sell some things and buy some things that she needed. She was still contemplating two more hydroponics, but first she wanted something more than those so she needed to save her money. In truth there were lots of things she still needed but financially speaking they were out of her grasp so she paid little attention to them. Around her she could still hear people battling zombies and the occasional feral vampire. She would never understand why these creatures seemed to rally to this point, but at the same time, she wouldn't knock it because in the grander scheme of things, these were the creatures that she needed to go for, at least for a while. Zombie ears and Feral things seemed to be one of the most needed objects in her rituals.

She shook herself out of her thoughts and went back to deciding what in her bag had to go, and what things she would have to look for later on.

[Jesse Fforde]

The only ones who still appear to be around, who still appear to actually give a ****, are those sired by Axel. I had seen all three, recently, at a gathering I had called for Fforde. They were the only three to have shown up. I don’t think I’ll bother calling such a get together again. I think I’d prefer to just catch up with them all separately, to make sure that they are getting along alright. More recently, I’d gone hunting with Paige, who seemed to enjoy herself. I, too, thoroughly enjoyed myself, and even now feel the urge to call her again, to see if she wants a repeat. It’s nice to have a partner in crime – someone who’ll allow me to indulge in meaningless violence and not ask me why I’m so angry all the time. I’d also complete the tattoo for Renee—the crest and the hydra, rockabilly style, on her torso. I’d already been thinking about calling Ursula when I got the message from her instead.

I was not lying when I said they could contact me for anything, should they need to. I was not lying when I told them I’d help them where I could. As I read Ursula’s message, I frowned. I knew that I had one of the tomes that she required, but not all. Before answering, I made a quick enquiry to Micah, who accommodated my request swiftly. I now three of the four tomes that Ursula had asked for. I’d already texted Ursula to ask her where she was. She didn’t have to say ‘Corvidae Flats’. All she had to say was that she was in the lobby of her apartment complex and I knew exactly where to go.

I took the elevator from the second floor of the Eyrie to the third, where I stepped through the portal which would take me directly to one of the abandoned buildings in the Quarantine Zone. On my way through, I maimed a mooncalf and collected the bone – I’d spent a few nights the other week wandering around the QZ. I’d run out of zombie ears, and I needed some more if I was going to be any help on the team raids.

It was perhaps fifteen minutes after Ursula had texted me that I stepped into the lobby of Corvidae flats. It doesn’t take me long to find her through the small gathered crowd. I approach with a small grin on my face. I find her at the shop; I sneak up behind her before she has seen me, and lean forward to speak directly into her ear:

”Make sure you buy your lottery ticket,” I tell her. I have the urge to buy a few of my own.

[Attire]

[Ursula Wolfe]

The voice in her ear made her tense slightly before she relaxed and a saucy smile danced into place. A soft snort accompanied the smile on her face as she glanced over to the owner of said voice, seeing Jesse standing there. "Until I get the things I need, it's a waste of money. Even with this stupid relic I found." She said softly, the day she found it and had someone tell her what it did she spent a good 8k on lotto tickets. It still hadn't helped her a damn bit.

She put the stuff she had bought away and turned away from the counter to give Jesse a hug. She'd never really bothered to ask if it was something that bothered him, but she did it anyways because that was just how she was. She took a sniff and shook her head with a smile as she stepped back. "Had some fun on the way here I take it?" She said with that same naughty smile, sliding her gloved hands into her pockets. "Mooncalf, Feral, or Zombies?" She asked, moving to lean back against the counter. In this area that was the only thing that one could run into, and given that he was a great deal stronger than her, she could probably guess which one it was.

Smiling a little more she took in the sight of Jesse for a moment, before she added in "It's good to see you again, how have you been?"

[Jesse Fforde]

I give a shrug.

"Mooncalf. Wouldn't call it fun," I say, holding my arms wide to look down at myself. I wasn't aware of getting too dirty, but I suppose my lack of care could explain my lack of notice of the gore that had spattered my clothing. Nothing that couldn't be washed out, I suppose. Or perhaps I can start a pyre and burn the clothes. Maybe I can dance naked around it. Maybe that kind of thing will be accepted, given that I think I'm starting to go slightly insane already. The thought vanishes as soon as it arrived. The future isn't something that I dwell on. I have no hopes for it. I have plenty of fears that I choose not to acknowledge, because I refuse to admit fear. I try just to live moment to moment, because it seems to be better, that way. Don't dwell on anything. Just be.

"Fine," I lie. I hate that question. It's so generic, and no one ever tells the truth when answering it. How could they? People sure as **** don't want to hear how I am, and I sure as **** don't want to tell them, regardless. I can at least keep a straight face, and I can at least feel at ease that I am not just a burning ball of unreasonable fury. Sure, it's still there. But there's something about being around kin - my own 'family' - that throws a blanket over the fire of my soul, and lulls me into security.

"Planning to actually use these rituals straight away, or are you just collecting?" I ask, reaching into the messenger bag that I have slung over my shoulder to retrieve the tomes that Ursula had asked for. "Disenthrallment is one that I can't even get. But I have the other three," I explain while handing them over.

[Ursula Wolfe]

Ursa gave a little nod as he stated that he had run into a mooncalf and it hadn't been fun. Of course she could understand that, she had run into one or two of those freaky looking beasts. The first time she had seen one she thought that she had stumbled into a Resident Evil movie. She then took in the appearance of her 'grand-sire' for a lack of better phrase or word, he seemed to be thinking about something and she wondered what it was exactly that he was thinking about.

He spoke again and she hated that word, it was almost always a lie and that was one thing that irked her to no end. The only thing that kept her from growling was the fact that Jesse had always been someone to help her out when she needed it, and even sometimes when she didn't know she needed it. The random blood heals was always something that she was grateful for, especially when she had been too distracted by her rituals to even go out and feed.

Again he was talking, pulling her out of her thoughts and drawing her attention back on him. She glanced at the bag as he retrieved the tomes and she smiled brightly, her eyes almost glittering like water in the sunlight. She took the offered tomes and leafed through the first one a little before answering. "Well these three are enough for now, Thank you again Jesse! And as of right now I'm just going to study them, the fae are such fickle creatures. I tried to help someone who recently came to me and ended up with two skull fractures and a couple other wounds. By the end I was just too exhausted to help. It kind of pissed me off that I couldn't help, even when he let me borrow a relic that helped out."

She sighed and glanced down at the tomes again and shook her head. "These rituals are harder than when I was human." She said with a bit of annoyance in her voice. "Oh well. Thank you again for these Jesse." She said, smiling again to hide her annoyance with her failures.

[Jesse Fforde]

I know exactly what it’s like to be annoyed with one’s own failures. It’s a constant companion of mine, that sharp-edged voice telling me that I’m a complete ****-up. And no wonder they’ve all walked away. Of course, although I am nodding, I do not grace Ursula’s with the vitriol of my own self-loathing I have only to agree with the basics. ”Tell me about it. I’ve been near bled dry wanting to help people before, only to fail completely,” I say. I do recall my mistake, however; the one thing that I had failed to do which meant it was a miracle I’d managed to perform the rituals that I had.

”You are mending the circle as you go, right?” I ask. A simple question – and she probably has been, and she probably just requires a little more practice. I give a shrug of my shoulders and glance around us, at the people gathered in the space of the lobby. Strange, how this particular complex has become a hub of activity simply because of the zombies that seem to be drawn to it. It makes me wonder – were the zombies drawn here first, for some reason, or is it simply the mass of moving living things here that have attracted them?

”The fae hate us. Vampires, that is,” I say, feeling no need to lower my voice. Here in the Quarantine Zone, if there are those who don’t know about vampires… well, they shouldn’t be here anyway, amongst the zombies. ”They’d have given you less grief when you were human simply because you were human. It’s got nothing to do with your own talent. That hasn’t diminished. It’s just got everything to do with how you smell to the fae, and how willing they are to do your bidding, I suppose,” I explain.

[Ursula Wolfe]

As Jesse told her of how he had failed before as well, Ursula felt a bit better. If one with the experience she lacked could also have bad days then she was more than likely to have them as well. This made her smile a little as she would eventually know what he knew and there would be others looking to her as she looked to him. This thought brought back the glitter in her ice blue eyes, like the sun reflecting off an iceberg. She would get better it would just take time and practice and she had more than enough time on her hands now. Ursa would never die. At least not completely anymore.

Jesse's question brought her out of her thoughts and her eyes focused on the male before her. She nodded as she spoke "I do when I have the ingredients to do so. Sometimes I run out of the binder mid ritual." She said and then fell silent as he began to explain that the Fae hate the vampires because of smell. Try as she might, she couldn't help but smirk as her mind drew a mental connection from that sentence to the movie Twilight and how the wolves and vampires couldn't stand the scent of each other. She shook the image out of her head and then refocused her gaze on her grand-sire.

"I would think that being human would be a downfall. When I was a human, I was alright, my spells were quite powerful because of being taught all my life by my mother and aunt. Now though, I have so much power. Or at least, I should say I feel as if I have more power, more power than I had as a human. But then when I was a human I never worked with fae, I worked with the gods and goddesses, those that govern the elements." She said softly and then sighed and looked around.

She pulled one of the books out of her bag again and flicked through the pages. The Home Bound tome. This would be an interesting one to try. She held it up and looked at Jesse, "Is this one a hard one to pull off?" She asked. The ingredients didn't seem to off and it was most likely to be the one that she would try first the moment she was able to get her hands on some Oil.

[Jesse Fforde]

I nod. At least she is aware of how to do the rituals properly – for one reason or another, it was a thing that I was unaware of for a very long time. I suppose I should feel proud that I managed to complete the number of rituals that I did. Water under the bridge at this point, I am happy to know that Ursula has been taught properly.

I give a shrug as Ursula ponders the reasons why she thinks this sort of thing should come more easily to a vampire. The only answer I have is that, perhaps the Hunters and the Paladins are onto something. Maybe, in the end, we are unnatural. Maybe it throws something off as far as magic is concerned; to work with the elements is to work with nature. One cannot be in tune with nature if one is not natural.

”We are different now, that is all. It just takes some adjusting,” I say. As always, a man of few words. Although I am inclined philosophically, the idea of a full-blown discussion is still somewhat daunting. I am happy enough to keep my thoughts to myself. I’m not sure they’ll help Ursula any, in the end.

When she asks if the Home Bound ritual is one that is easy to pull off, I have to give yet another shrug.

”You’ll have to tell me once you’ve tried. I never have,” I tell her. I have a tome already – one given to me by Tytonidae that will take me to the Eyrie. I know that it is a fickle magical thing, carefully attuned to the person holding it. If I were to create another tome with the one to the Eyrie still in my possession, the latter’s magic would be eradicated.

”It’s a tricky one,” I explain. ”I haven’t tried using it, because if I were to succeed, the tome that I currently hold would no longer work – not for the location it’s set for, anyway,” I tell her. This, at least, is something that Ursula ought to know. Something that will be helpful to her. ”Is there a particular place you want to bind it to?” I ask out of idle curiosity.

[Ursula Wolfe]

'It takes some adjusting.' Ursa understood the words, but she couldn't help but still be a little annoyed by the fact that it would need to happen. Sometimes, a girl has things to do, plans in motion and all that. She shook out the thoughts she was having and smiled a little bit as she looked at Jesse, smirking a little as he shrugs. That seems to be his go to answer for just about everything. A little annoying, yes, but nothing that she can't deal with, especially since she gets along with him so well otherwise.

When he tells her that he had never attempted that spell, she blinked for a moment and then nodded. She could not say she has done every ritual she had a tome to, so she could just assume that he was in some way like that as well. No need or no will to want to do certain rituals. As she thought about this, she continued to listen as Jesse told her what he knew about it, and what he had to say made her think. Why would one stop working just because another had started, then she thought about it some more. Remembering that some spells cast by witches could be out done by a more powerful witch on the same object or person. She sighed a little as she figure out that she would no longer be able to do what she had planned.

Jesse spoke again, this time asking her where she wanted to bind the tome to. She glanced up at the ceiling of the lobby, and then glanced back at him as she answered, "I was thinking my apartment, since that's the place I'm most likely to go. I had planned to do one to another place, just in case I need to go somewhere else, but by the sounds of it, that wouldn't be possible."

She pouted her rose colored full lips slightly for a moment before she glanced back up at him with another question on her mind. "So it's never possible to have more than one linked tome at one time? If I did mine first and then was given another, It would be the stronger of the two that would work?" Apparently she had much to learn still, things that she would have to read about in all of these different tomes.

"You wouldn't happen to know how exactly to word the location would you? Like could I set it for where my bed is or do I just say my apartment and it just puts me inside it?"

[Jesse Fforde]

I follow Ursula’s gaze up to the ceiling. I know she has a place here – same as Axel. I think? If I’m remembering correctly. It makes sense to create a tome that would take you back to a place of safety. That’s why they exist, right? That’s why people want them. To get them out of a sticky situation at a moment’s notice. Or maybe they’re just lazy and would prefer not to have to take the train home. Or drive. Or traipse through messy sewers that are infested with hunters out for your head.

I turn my attention back to Ursula as she asks her questions. Pertinent questions, too. I’m aware that we’re standing around in the middle of the lobby; I don’t know whether she intends to just go off and do her own thing, now, or whether we’ll use this opportunity to catch up. I spy over Ursula’s shoulder some couches, set around a little table. Just like any normal hotel lobby, if it weren’t for the zombies. At least they’re being taken care of by the other occupants of the building, and Ursula and I can talk in peace. I gesture to one the couches with an arched brow; she can decide whether she wants to stay and talk with me or not. It’s completely up to her. And as I gesture, I begin to answer her questions.

”I’m not sure it’s a case of one being stronger than the other. It’s a case of… the newest one always trumps the oldest,” I explain. ”Of course that could mean that the newer one is always stronger; maybe the magic wanes,” I say. It’s not something I ever dabbled in as a human and although I do practice a lot, I know I’m not the best ritualist out there. I haven’t done them all. And the fae still have their way with me at times.

”Unfortunately, no. You can’t have different tomes to different places on you. Not together. Only separately. You could say they don’t like company,” I smirk. ”As for the location – as I said, I’ve never done it before. I’m not too sure about the specifics. I only know the basics, and only those because I have one on me,” I say, patting the pocket where I know I’ve stashed the tome – the one that will take me to the Eyrie. Given to me by… who was it that gave it to me? Every, maybe? I don’t remember. Regardless, it’s a thing that I never leave without. It’s on me at all times, day and night. ”I can ask though, if you want. And I can get back to you,” I say, knowing Micah would be happy to answer any questions that I might have, regarding the art of rituals.