Into the Unknown [Ursula Wolfe]

[Eilif (DELETED 11054)]

Four years have passed since Frederick had come to Harper Rock, four years had he roamed the decaying city, pursuing his only passion left, death.
And this city was full of it. Although he had entirely dedicated himself to understand the occult, he was unsatisfied, he had reached no significant outcomes of his rituals, as if he where blocked to the unknown realms. And he didn't know why.

He had enchanted items, and to use them as keys in his ritual circles, but with no success. It seemed like something he just didn't have access to.
He attempted to contact the infamous vampires who supposedly roam the city, tried for more than an year and to achieve yet another failure.
He had even risked going to the quarantine zone.
Everything he did everything he possibly could but with no response from the other side.

What he needed was a change of perspective, it wasn't the world that blocked him out, but himself, he had lost that firts feeling he got when he arrived to Harper Rock, he had lost his motive.
He needed to reconnect his body with his soul. Or at least that was his last hope.

He processed this while lighting a jasmine incense, under the sunset, and the soothing music played by the river.
With deep breaths he began to take the fading rays of sunlight, and as it became darker, the illumination of from sun was reemplaced with a hollyberry candle, standing upon an altar of earth and stones.
He placed his "key" in the altar (a neckless which belonged to his sister). And finally he let his back touch the ground and let his eyes close.

[Ursula Wolfe]

It was another one of those nights. Ursula was having them more and more, those nights when she just wandered the city, no real reason why, she just needed the walk. She had a hell of a time not that long ago with the fae so now her wanderings kept her closer to the city, but she still chose to wander through the wilderness. As she walked, the grass around her wilted, leaving dead and decaying grass and weeds in her wake. Perhaps that was the reason the fae had gone after her the way they had. She knew that the fae hated vampires to begin with, but she was walking death.

Nature and pretty much all living things wilted and grew sick in her presence. Granted, it was her touch that did the most damage, but just being close to her when she was upset and not concentrating could weaken or sicken someone. That is, if her shadow didn't get to that person first. Most the time she was good about killing for fun, but **** happens. She sighed as she looked up at the skies. There was one thing to be said to walking in the wilderness. She could enjoy the stars.

She was doing just that when an interesting scent caught her. Her eyes closed and she concentrated on it. Jasmine. The scent brought back memories of the past, while she's been vampire and before harper rock. Ursula closed her eyes again and this time, she reached out with a new power of hers. When she first started training the seeker in her, she had only concentrated on one aspect. She had had her reasons. Now, that reason had been (for the longest time) from her mind, so she had started to train more of the skills that came with being a seeker. She stopped for a moment. She sounded like she was in Harry Potter.

"You must be the youngest seeker..." "in a century, according to McGonnagel."

She shook the old childhood movie from her mind. Her mother had thought it adorable but completely unrealistic. Her father though, built her a wand and a nimbus for both her and her brother. Ursula's eyes closed and she shook her head harder, the darkness crept close but when her eyes opened again they were gone. She continued to follow that scent until she stood at what looked like a male laying in the grass by an alter. Her head cocked for a moment and she chose to stay silent, watching the ritual go down.

Again she was reminded of her parents. Both had practice in witchcraft, she had as well. The occult ran deep in her blood. She remembered being a kid, sneaking out to watch her parents work their spells. Her father only did it once in a while, it was her mother and her aunt that had been the ones to spell craft at least once a week. Her uncle had practice and taught her Haitian Voodoo that is before he vanished. And then she found out why he had.

The golden eyes of a wolf watched the male perform his magical workings this eve. She'd given him that. Then she'd feed and be on her way.

[Eilif (DELETED 11054)]

Sunken beneath the darkness and silence, he had reached tranquility. So much his mind dosed off, he felt almost paralysed as images flew through his closed eyes.
Surreal visions mixed with past memories. Fact became fiction and fiction fact.

How many times had he attempted to feel the death energy? to reach the Threshold? Speak to the dead? or to seek death itself?
Except this was diferente this time he did not come to seek knowledge nor death, but rather he searched for himself, for his soul was as lost as his body was in the material world.

As the smell of jasmine travelled through his lungs, he attempted to pictured what he seeked; the very essence of his being, easier said than done, and as time flew by, unknowing wether it was minutes or hours (Time becomes irrelevant in moments such as these), he knew he was progressing, even if it was at a slow pace, he could taste his goal closer and closer.

As he felt his soul reuniting with his being; he perceived something very odd that took over, pulling him from his connection. The atmosphere abruptly became colder, his images darkened and a sense of dread filled him, and although he was dragged out of his bonding he was not returned to the material world, but rather welcomed to another.

A violent feeling of claustrophobia sorrowed his thoughts, it made him feel sick in a way, and high pressure squeezing his being, piercing his soul, he did not know if to welcome this feeling or to attempt to flee.

Had he finally reached to communicate with the Angel of death? Had his long search finally given fruit? but this was strange, this is not how it is intended, or at least how he thought. This felt darker.
It even seemed the other way around, as if for some reason death seeked out for him.

As he settled in to his new surroundings, he came to realise that he wasn't dragged away nor invaded, but reather was interfered.
The question now was, what and why?
He had never had an experience such as this, it exited frightened him alike.
As he searched the source for this feeling, he noticed something that brought him despair, it wasn't death who he encountered but rather an agent of death and he was as much alone here as he was in the material world.

He fought his way out of his trance, for what could give such a powerful aura? He knew Harper Rock was the land of the dead, that many things here where impossible anywhere else, but this was much more horrifying than anything he had encountered.

As he broke free from his limbo the candle extinguished. Coughing as he awoke and almost in shock he sat up and turned around at an equal speed.
He was surprised at what he saw, it was not the creature he expected to see, but reather a young woman.

But her eyes pierced through him, almost as if he was in the sights of a predator, studying him, predicting what he would do next, and tasting his fear.
His body paralysed not only by how she stared but also terrified of her presence, and how it affected his ritual.
He had been around so many terrifying people throughout his life, but nothing like her. And as his mind processed so many words and actions of what to do next, his instincts prevented him to take one, as if any movement would provoke the wolf to strike the rabbit.

Regaining some composure over his primal instincts he finally spoke braking this seemingly eternal silence.
"Why are you here?"
His words where somewhat forced out, and the fear in them was obvious.

He knew those where not the wisest of words. But he was curious if this huntress had been stalking him or rather stumbled upon her prey. If death had seeked him or found him.

Of course there was also the possibility that he was imagining things and she had no ill intentions towards him, but her glare and terrifying aura said otherwise.

With that in mind and the knowledge that his words where not the best of choice: once more he spoke; this time more calm and clearly.
"Sorry, you startled me."

[Ursula Wolfe]

Ursa watched him for a moment, the way he bolted upright and the couch that came from him. She had crept a bit closer to him before he moved, once he did though, she stopped. He had turned to her and watched her in a way that was close in similarity to prey caught in a trap. And of course, there was no shock in her expression at how he first went to shocked anger to an expression closer to curiousness. With a soft lick of her ruby red lips, she smiled. It wasn't a kind smile, it was amused and dark, as if she had planned to have him sign his soul over to the devil.

In a way, he already had. She had her dark days, days that manifested in so many ways, the first was her presence, the other was the pulsing that now matched his beating heart. Another was the was the her shadow moved on its own and even seemed to close in on the poor mortal. She hissed softly and the shadow snapped back to her in a blink. And of course there was weeds that were now waist high. Her hands with their signature red gloves brushed along the weeds. Normally the gloves could and would protect living things, to a point anyways. Now they did nothing. As her hands brushed along the weeds as if they were long grass the ends wilted and curled.

There were some curses she carried that she didn't care about. She knew how to work around them, in some cases, like the fact weeds grew at her feet, yet her touch withered them, it was a good scare tactic. He spoke again and she smiled in response. "That is a better response than the first you had, though I have to admit, neither really help you're case if you are looking to stay alive."

The weeds continued to grow and die, and when she stepped closer to him, they began to grow anew only to wilt once more. "So there are only a handful of spells that use those ingredients, which one has tickled your fancy this summer's eve?"