Aspasia - May 2007 - After Caine
OOC: In my attempt to get scenes posted that have been lingering too long on the shelves, I have filled the time between cities in Italy with LJ. (Since I have no access to email).
This is a mother-daughter chat.
The travel to DC was not terrible from Tulsa, but long enough she felt the need to rest. Along the way, her blood could not help noticing her mother’s presence; mulling over in her mind whether her actions would be wise or not, she headed towards the faint draw of familiar blood.
Landing no more than 100 meters from the Amazon, Jessica waited in the darkness to ensure her presence would not be met with violence.
Meanwhile, Aspasia writes a few sentences into the journal on her lap, then shuts it, starting to scan the dark horizon.
What? …………….
The call of the blood. Anticipation and Tension.
It has the flavor of determination and trepidation.
A childe. For it is too strong to be one of the second circle.
The woman becomes still, waiting.
Jessica transforms into mist. Carrying herself with the wind, Jessica wills herself to find a place hidden in the blackness facing her mother’s back, checking on the Amazon’s movements before returning to her natural form.
Aspasia frowns slightly a look of concentration on her face as if she was thinking, or studying, although her gaze is fixed on nowhere, "Just do not stick a knife in your palm. I think that is a reasonable request." She murmurs to the night air, seemingly at no body.
A smile returns to Jessica’s face.
Aspasia tilts her head to one side as if listening to the sounds in the night air. But other than that her form is relaxed and at ease. "For what purpose are you here, beloved?"
The flavor is one of mischief now.
Who…. Jimmy? No.
Angelica? No.
It’s not Charles. It must be Jessica then.
Jessica calls on her blood to carry her steps with the gift of supernatural speed. Knowing her movements will not quick enough, but the attempt must still be made. She dives to tackle her mother...
It may have been surprise. It may have been acting, given how loose-limbed the Amazon was, but sure enough, the two women fall to the soft grass. Aspasia hits the ground first with a soft grunt.
Tumbling over the Amazon, Jessica lands face first in the dirt. Returning to her feet quickly, the younger Gangrel takes stance to defend herself. An odd look of seriousness is in her eyes as she waits for Aspasia to react.
This is different for my scholar daughter. Tag? Challenges? Interesting….
Aspasia wipes her hands on the outside of her thighs, as if dusting them off. "Well played." She smiles.
The woman gets up slowly, stretching her neck first by tilting her head to the left then to the right. Then, the Amazon settles into a fighter's stance, knees bent, weight on the balls of her feet. "What now, daughter?"
Using no gifts of the blood for this pass, Jessica concentrates on the perfection of her form. She attempts a classic feint, an invitation to spar. Clearly, the goal of this attack is not to damage but only to strike, make contact.
Her mother counters with the correct form, so that it becomes a dance rather than a fight.
"Come on, hit me." Jessica taunts, with a twinkle in her eyes.
Aspasia arches an eyebrow, a questioning look in her gaze. And she turns the sequence from being passive, the defender, to active with a touch more speed and heft to her blows, but still nothing to her full strength.
The sudden shift throws Jessica off slightly, but she recovers. It would be obvious to skilled observers that she is no match for her mother. However, stubbornness will not allow the childe to give up and she does get in some surprising blows.
This fashion of fighting continues between the two women in excess of a quarter hour, before the silence is broken.
Enough.
"Are you willing yet to tell me the purpose behind this?" Aspasia punctuates her words with jabs, and sideblows. Those strikes that make it past Jessica's defenses are sharp and swift.
"Do I really need a purpose to spar with my Mother?" Jessica replies, with a wrinkled nose as she gets hit each time.
“No, but if the fates crossed our threads tonight, I cannot imagine it is just for this."
I am certain you have some purpose in mind other than just missing my company, Daughter.
"I suppose that could be true, by the way how are you feeling?"
"I am well." The Amazon spins, with a low sweeping kick towards Jessica's knees.
Recognizing the movement, Jessica makes to jump high enough to miss the blow, but is not quick enough. Slamming to the ground with a loud hollow thud and a crack of her head hitting hard on a stray rock buried in the soft soil. Wincing with pain, she lays there a moment taking in the blow.
Aspasia kneels down beside her daughter, concern expressed unguarded in her face. "I think we stop now."
Shaking off the fall, Jessica coughs up a small amount of blood. Sitting up, traces of the vitae stream down the back of her neck, just under her hair. Spitting the blood from her mouth, she pulls herself together and heals her wounds. "It’s but a flesh wound."
"We stop." Aspasia's tone brooks no argument, and she reaches out a hand towards Jessica's cheek, worry in her eyes.
She is trying to be like Hisa.
She does not understand that it I don’t expect that of her.
She is Athena’s votary, not Artemis.
"I’m ok ...really I am. Stop worrying so much." Taking Aspasia’s hand into her own, Jessica’s eyes close softly. Perhaps it is the touch of skin to skin. Mother to childe.
"Of course you are." Aspasia's voice is soft and loving. "Really we have to stop because my aged bones will start to creak and protest." She squeezes Jessica's hand lightly.
* Liar .*
*Because she is not a challenge. Because you could hurt her.*
" Age, mother?” Her daughter’s right eyebrow arches up in disbelief. “Or have you still not fully recovered?" Jessica's eyes open with a look of undisguised worry.
"It's been a harsh few weeks, Daughter." The woman shrugs, "Little time between meetings and other calls of need."
"Please don’t play coy with me."
"I bear no wounds to hamper me in combat. But I don not think that is what you want to speak on.”
"Mental wounds are just as hampering as physical."
*Truth*
"Emotional ones are worse." Aspasia sits back on her heels, still in a kneeling crouch. "So have you come to cross-examine me?"
Jessica reaches out to her mother’s knee and pushes her backwards. "No, I don’t do that anymore."
Aspasia twists like a cat, to catch her balance, with the flat of her palms to the ground. "So speak then, beloved."
"I want you to come with me."
"Where?" The Amazon gracefully stands up, wiping her hands along the curve of her thighs.
"Does it matter?"
"Yes, because surprises are not easy for me to manage right now."
"It’s no surprise mother, I can promise you. You know exactly where I want you to go with me."
Well, that reduces it to a select number of cities.
Aspasia exhales. "How long the trip?"
"However long it takes."
"I cannot just disappear, Jessica. I have commitments." A wrinkle forms over the bridge of the
Amazon’s nose.
"I’m not asking for you to disappear or to forego your commitments, to be fully honest. Shouldn’t take more than an hour. But with your stubbornness, could take an eternity. It’s your choice.”
Aspasia sighs and stands up. "Lead on, childe of mine."
Jessica waits for a measure of breath, before revealing. "Our path goes to DC."
Aspasia shakes her head, sharply. "No. There can be only two reasons for a visit there. Perhaps, three. None of which I am willing to deal with now."
"Oh? What is so terrible in DC?" Jessica says looking up from the ground, her hand holding her legs to her chest.
"Do not play coy, Daughter. There is the Prince, the Sheriff and the Hound. If the latter wishes word she can come to me for the other two,” She frowns, “- not now. On this I am immobile."
"May I ask you a question?"
The Amazon looks off into the distant night. “Yes."
"What is family?"
Aspasia starts to pace. "State what your issue is, Daughter. I have no patience for soul searching questions.”
In this she is Athena’s pure and true. And always at the most unwelcome times.
"Please answer the question." Her daughter’s voice is soft.
Aspasia looks sharply over her shoulder. "I am tired of questions. If that is all you have, then they can wait for another night."
Looking straight into her mother’s eyes Jessica searches Aspasia's soul. She looks away with an expression of sorrow and disappointment.
"Don't go the night without tending to your head, Daughter and be safe on the road." Aspasia walks over to her bag and the journal lying beside it.
Jessica stands, slowly approaching, then placing a hand on her mother’s shoulder.
Aspasia allows the touch, even as she tucks the book into her travel bag.
In Greek, Jessica speaks softly "Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, but in the feeling of happiness that dwells in the soul.”
Continuing on in the language, "I learned that from you. You taught it to me, when we spoke of family. Do you remember?"
"Yes, Daughter."
"What has changed?"
"Happiness does not require I speak, see or deal with those with whom I am at odds. And happiness does not reside in DC."
"You would be there for me no matter what I’ve done. No?"
Aspasia looks up. "I am not going to talk about her. And I think you are talking around the subject to lead back to that." Her expression is fierce. "Understand me. I AM NOT IN THE MOOD."
Jessica's hand slides down Aspasia’s arm to her hand, taking her hand into hers. "Mother?"
Aspasia exhales and inhales. She looks down at the entwined fingers. "Yes?"
"Look at me, please."
Aspasia stares at her daughter.
"Would you be there for me?"
"Yes." There is an expression of hurt, as if the very fact that Jessica would ask becomes a fresh wound.
"The love for a daughter guides your words?"
"Not always." The Amazon answers.
"Then what does?
"My beast, Jessica. My envy, my hatred. My desire to drink vitae. The darker musings of my soul." Aspasia’s expression is flat.
Things I would confide to one other.
*No. Two. *
"It is not what you are mother, it is not what I know you to be." Jessica continues, "I know of a creature pure of soul and heart. Fighting deep within you, for love, for justice and most of all for family."
"It is both. That is what comes of being vampire."
"No beast can tell us who we are. It is the choices we make that lead us on the paths we take."
"And your path goes on walkabout soon." The Amazon counters.
With Exodus and his brother-son.
*Envy.*
Jessica replies, “That may change. I have more important things to consider.”
Aspasia nods. "As you think best."
"And your path?"
"Relies on people not in this conversation."
Jessica looks as if she has taken a punch in the gut by her sire, "You do not feel I speak
truth?"
"You do. But words here will not direct my choices, Beloved. That lies with another." The Amazon's voice gentles in tone.
This time Jessica cannot help her reactions, pulling her hands away from Aspasia, Jessica closes her arms around her body. Head low, she steps back mumbling, “I was wrong."
"Wrong about what? Would you rather me lie?"
"No. You’re right, being honest is much better." Jessica wraps arms about herself, in a defensive posture. “I came here hoping my instincts that lead me to you were the right path to follow. Urvi had told me about what happened. My mistake though in thinking that you would still see that family comes first. No matter what they can always be there for each other, that they can look past differences and fix things for themselves.”
"She betrayed my trust.”
Destroyied a possession of mine.
Did not consult, ask, talk. She made the decision for both of us.
Aspasia interrupts, “She hurt Charlotte and I am not simply going to forgive that. And it is not reasonable to ask me to do so. In time, yes, but not now."
"…you’re going to abandon the one person I know you to claim as sister, because she was trying to save you? Because her actions were guided with love?” Jessica shakes her head, and lays flat on the ground, looking to the numerous stars in the sky. "The gods look down on us and guide our steps, they know what paths should cross and why. Could it be that Charlotte happened to be there for a greater purpose?”
Aspasia interrupts. "Speak no more on this tonight or I leave, Jessica."
"My words are heard on deaf ears anyways. Shall I call Raven and have him say it instead?"
Aspasia jerks back, clearly reacting to the invocation of her former lover’s name.
Taking out a small black phone, she tosses into the grass in front of Aspasia. “I’ll even let you dial the number if you like, it’s under James Grey."
Aspasia looks at the phone and then at Jessica. "We're done now, Daughter. He," She gestures to the device, "would respect that if I asked to speak on other things for the measure of a night - he would understand.”
Loss.
With that, the Amazon picks up her bag, and shoulders it, running hands through her hair out of habit.
Jessica stands up, hands closed in fists at her side. "It is out of respect and honor I hold my tongue this night. For my thoughts and would be words are disrespectful and should not be spoken at this moment."
"Then best we part for a time. You to your path, and I to mine."
"May I ask one last question before you wander off into the night?"
Aspasia inhales. "Yes."
"Sometime this century do you think we can have a conversation where we don’t fight?"
"Yes. It has happened before. It will happen again, Daughter."
She gestures to the phone. "You properly belong where your fosterline-to-be is. Give my greetings to Exodus and his son, when next you see them."
*Why not your love, Amazon. For that has not changed. *
Anger flashes through Jessica's eyes, as she clenches her jaw hard. Taking in a deep breath, Jessica exhales slowly and controls herself. Ultimately, she speaks. "Goodbye mother, it was lovely seeing you tonight."
Aspasia tilts her head to the side, nodding once. "Good night, Jessica." And she moves off into the dark.
This is a mother-daughter chat.
The travel to DC was not terrible from Tulsa, but long enough she felt the need to rest. Along the way, her blood could not help noticing her mother’s presence; mulling over in her mind whether her actions would be wise or not, she headed towards the faint draw of familiar blood.
Landing no more than 100 meters from the Amazon, Jessica waited in the darkness to ensure her presence would not be met with violence.
Meanwhile, Aspasia writes a few sentences into the journal on her lap, then shuts it, starting to scan the dark horizon.
What? …………….
The call of the blood. Anticipation and Tension.
It has the flavor of determination and trepidation.
A childe. For it is too strong to be one of the second circle.
The woman becomes still, waiting.
Jessica transforms into mist. Carrying herself with the wind, Jessica wills herself to find a place hidden in the blackness facing her mother’s back, checking on the Amazon’s movements before returning to her natural form.
Aspasia frowns slightly a look of concentration on her face as if she was thinking, or studying, although her gaze is fixed on nowhere, "Just do not stick a knife in your palm. I think that is a reasonable request." She murmurs to the night air, seemingly at no body.
A smile returns to Jessica’s face.
Aspasia tilts her head to one side as if listening to the sounds in the night air. But other than that her form is relaxed and at ease. "For what purpose are you here, beloved?"
The flavor is one of mischief now.
Who…. Jimmy? No.
Angelica? No.
It’s not Charles. It must be Jessica then.
Jessica calls on her blood to carry her steps with the gift of supernatural speed. Knowing her movements will not quick enough, but the attempt must still be made. She dives to tackle her mother...
It may have been surprise. It may have been acting, given how loose-limbed the Amazon was, but sure enough, the two women fall to the soft grass. Aspasia hits the ground first with a soft grunt.
Tumbling over the Amazon, Jessica lands face first in the dirt. Returning to her feet quickly, the younger Gangrel takes stance to defend herself. An odd look of seriousness is in her eyes as she waits for Aspasia to react.
This is different for my scholar daughter. Tag? Challenges? Interesting….
Aspasia wipes her hands on the outside of her thighs, as if dusting them off. "Well played." She smiles.
The woman gets up slowly, stretching her neck first by tilting her head to the left then to the right. Then, the Amazon settles into a fighter's stance, knees bent, weight on the balls of her feet. "What now, daughter?"
Using no gifts of the blood for this pass, Jessica concentrates on the perfection of her form. She attempts a classic feint, an invitation to spar. Clearly, the goal of this attack is not to damage but only to strike, make contact.
Her mother counters with the correct form, so that it becomes a dance rather than a fight.
"Come on, hit me." Jessica taunts, with a twinkle in her eyes.
Aspasia arches an eyebrow, a questioning look in her gaze. And she turns the sequence from being passive, the defender, to active with a touch more speed and heft to her blows, but still nothing to her full strength.
The sudden shift throws Jessica off slightly, but she recovers. It would be obvious to skilled observers that she is no match for her mother. However, stubbornness will not allow the childe to give up and she does get in some surprising blows.
This fashion of fighting continues between the two women in excess of a quarter hour, before the silence is broken.
Enough.
"Are you willing yet to tell me the purpose behind this?" Aspasia punctuates her words with jabs, and sideblows. Those strikes that make it past Jessica's defenses are sharp and swift.
"Do I really need a purpose to spar with my Mother?" Jessica replies, with a wrinkled nose as she gets hit each time.
“No, but if the fates crossed our threads tonight, I cannot imagine it is just for this."
I am certain you have some purpose in mind other than just missing my company, Daughter.
"I suppose that could be true, by the way how are you feeling?"
"I am well." The Amazon spins, with a low sweeping kick towards Jessica's knees.
Recognizing the movement, Jessica makes to jump high enough to miss the blow, but is not quick enough. Slamming to the ground with a loud hollow thud and a crack of her head hitting hard on a stray rock buried in the soft soil. Wincing with pain, she lays there a moment taking in the blow.
Aspasia kneels down beside her daughter, concern expressed unguarded in her face. "I think we stop now."
Shaking off the fall, Jessica coughs up a small amount of blood. Sitting up, traces of the vitae stream down the back of her neck, just under her hair. Spitting the blood from her mouth, she pulls herself together and heals her wounds. "It’s but a flesh wound."
"We stop." Aspasia's tone brooks no argument, and she reaches out a hand towards Jessica's cheek, worry in her eyes.
She is trying to be like Hisa.
She does not understand that it I don’t expect that of her.
She is Athena’s votary, not Artemis.
"I’m ok ...really I am. Stop worrying so much." Taking Aspasia’s hand into her own, Jessica’s eyes close softly. Perhaps it is the touch of skin to skin. Mother to childe.
"Of course you are." Aspasia's voice is soft and loving. "Really we have to stop because my aged bones will start to creak and protest." She squeezes Jessica's hand lightly.
* Liar .*
*Because she is not a challenge. Because you could hurt her.*
" Age, mother?” Her daughter’s right eyebrow arches up in disbelief. “Or have you still not fully recovered?" Jessica's eyes open with a look of undisguised worry.
"It's been a harsh few weeks, Daughter." The woman shrugs, "Little time between meetings and other calls of need."
"Please don’t play coy with me."
"I bear no wounds to hamper me in combat. But I don not think that is what you want to speak on.”
"Mental wounds are just as hampering as physical."
*Truth*
"Emotional ones are worse." Aspasia sits back on her heels, still in a kneeling crouch. "So have you come to cross-examine me?"
Jessica reaches out to her mother’s knee and pushes her backwards. "No, I don’t do that anymore."
Aspasia twists like a cat, to catch her balance, with the flat of her palms to the ground. "So speak then, beloved."
"I want you to come with me."
"Where?" The Amazon gracefully stands up, wiping her hands along the curve of her thighs.
"Does it matter?"
"Yes, because surprises are not easy for me to manage right now."
"It’s no surprise mother, I can promise you. You know exactly where I want you to go with me."
Well, that reduces it to a select number of cities.
Aspasia exhales. "How long the trip?"
"However long it takes."
"I cannot just disappear, Jessica. I have commitments." A wrinkle forms over the bridge of the
Amazon’s nose.
"I’m not asking for you to disappear or to forego your commitments, to be fully honest. Shouldn’t take more than an hour. But with your stubbornness, could take an eternity. It’s your choice.”
Aspasia sighs and stands up. "Lead on, childe of mine."
Jessica waits for a measure of breath, before revealing. "Our path goes to DC."
Aspasia shakes her head, sharply. "No. There can be only two reasons for a visit there. Perhaps, three. None of which I am willing to deal with now."
"Oh? What is so terrible in DC?" Jessica says looking up from the ground, her hand holding her legs to her chest.
"Do not play coy, Daughter. There is the Prince, the Sheriff and the Hound. If the latter wishes word she can come to me for the other two,” She frowns, “- not now. On this I am immobile."
"May I ask you a question?"
The Amazon looks off into the distant night. “Yes."
"What is family?"
Aspasia starts to pace. "State what your issue is, Daughter. I have no patience for soul searching questions.”
In this she is Athena’s pure and true. And always at the most unwelcome times.
"Please answer the question." Her daughter’s voice is soft.
Aspasia looks sharply over her shoulder. "I am tired of questions. If that is all you have, then they can wait for another night."
Looking straight into her mother’s eyes Jessica searches Aspasia's soul. She looks away with an expression of sorrow and disappointment.
"Don't go the night without tending to your head, Daughter and be safe on the road." Aspasia walks over to her bag and the journal lying beside it.
Jessica stands, slowly approaching, then placing a hand on her mother’s shoulder.
Aspasia allows the touch, even as she tucks the book into her travel bag.
In Greek, Jessica speaks softly "Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, but in the feeling of happiness that dwells in the soul.”
Continuing on in the language, "I learned that from you. You taught it to me, when we spoke of family. Do you remember?"
"Yes, Daughter."
"What has changed?"
"Happiness does not require I speak, see or deal with those with whom I am at odds. And happiness does not reside in DC."
"You would be there for me no matter what I’ve done. No?"
Aspasia looks up. "I am not going to talk about her. And I think you are talking around the subject to lead back to that." Her expression is fierce. "Understand me. I AM NOT IN THE MOOD."
Jessica's hand slides down Aspasia’s arm to her hand, taking her hand into hers. "Mother?"
Aspasia exhales and inhales. She looks down at the entwined fingers. "Yes?"
"Look at me, please."
Aspasia stares at her daughter.
"Would you be there for me?"
"Yes." There is an expression of hurt, as if the very fact that Jessica would ask becomes a fresh wound.
"The love for a daughter guides your words?"
"Not always." The Amazon answers.
"Then what does?
"My beast, Jessica. My envy, my hatred. My desire to drink vitae. The darker musings of my soul." Aspasia’s expression is flat.
Things I would confide to one other.
*No. Two. *
"It is not what you are mother, it is not what I know you to be." Jessica continues, "I know of a creature pure of soul and heart. Fighting deep within you, for love, for justice and most of all for family."
"It is both. That is what comes of being vampire."
"No beast can tell us who we are. It is the choices we make that lead us on the paths we take."
"And your path goes on walkabout soon." The Amazon counters.
With Exodus and his brother-son.
*Envy.*
Jessica replies, “That may change. I have more important things to consider.”
Aspasia nods. "As you think best."
"And your path?"
"Relies on people not in this conversation."
Jessica looks as if she has taken a punch in the gut by her sire, "You do not feel I speak
truth?"
"You do. But words here will not direct my choices, Beloved. That lies with another." The Amazon's voice gentles in tone.
This time Jessica cannot help her reactions, pulling her hands away from Aspasia, Jessica closes her arms around her body. Head low, she steps back mumbling, “I was wrong."
"Wrong about what? Would you rather me lie?"
"No. You’re right, being honest is much better." Jessica wraps arms about herself, in a defensive posture. “I came here hoping my instincts that lead me to you were the right path to follow. Urvi had told me about what happened. My mistake though in thinking that you would still see that family comes first. No matter what they can always be there for each other, that they can look past differences and fix things for themselves.”
"She betrayed my trust.”
Destroyied a possession of mine.
Did not consult, ask, talk. She made the decision for both of us.
Aspasia interrupts, “She hurt Charlotte and I am not simply going to forgive that. And it is not reasonable to ask me to do so. In time, yes, but not now."
"…you’re going to abandon the one person I know you to claim as sister, because she was trying to save you? Because her actions were guided with love?” Jessica shakes her head, and lays flat on the ground, looking to the numerous stars in the sky. "The gods look down on us and guide our steps, they know what paths should cross and why. Could it be that Charlotte happened to be there for a greater purpose?”
Aspasia interrupts. "Speak no more on this tonight or I leave, Jessica."
"My words are heard on deaf ears anyways. Shall I call Raven and have him say it instead?"
Aspasia jerks back, clearly reacting to the invocation of her former lover’s name.
Taking out a small black phone, she tosses into the grass in front of Aspasia. “I’ll even let you dial the number if you like, it’s under James Grey."
Aspasia looks at the phone and then at Jessica. "We're done now, Daughter. He," She gestures to the device, "would respect that if I asked to speak on other things for the measure of a night - he would understand.”
Loss.
With that, the Amazon picks up her bag, and shoulders it, running hands through her hair out of habit.
Jessica stands up, hands closed in fists at her side. "It is out of respect and honor I hold my tongue this night. For my thoughts and would be words are disrespectful and should not be spoken at this moment."
"Then best we part for a time. You to your path, and I to mine."
"May I ask one last question before you wander off into the night?"
Aspasia inhales. "Yes."
"Sometime this century do you think we can have a conversation where we don’t fight?"
"Yes. It has happened before. It will happen again, Daughter."
She gestures to the phone. "You properly belong where your fosterline-to-be is. Give my greetings to Exodus and his son, when next you see them."
*Why not your love, Amazon. For that has not changed. *
Anger flashes through Jessica's eyes, as she clenches her jaw hard. Taking in a deep breath, Jessica exhales slowly and controls herself. Ultimately, she speaks. "Goodbye mother, it was lovely seeing you tonight."
Aspasia tilts her head to the side, nodding once. "Good night, Jessica." And she moves off into the dark.