log; not finished, but not open either, as far as i know
who/what: more discussion between Ulf and Vincent, some hours after this.
Ulf didn't really sleep, and he had to shift a couple times while the priest did, although it wasn't bad with the guy leaning on him. The warmth and the contact was nice after so long without, but he didn't take advantage of it. Ulf was sort of an empath, and Vincent had been through enough already, and there was a lot more to do in the near future; let the man have his sleep.
Besides, he didn't really like Ulf, did he? The demon pondered this situation for a little while, then thought about the hospital, and how they'd function if everyone gathered at the church instead. After that he started thinking about the visions he'd seen here, and tried to understand them. In the end they meant nothing, he realized. And if they meant nothing, then they'd have no effect on him, one way or another. It was vapour and reflection and light and shadow. He got to thinking that the town might not be able to hurt him so much like it was everyone else.
Vincent's sleep was troubled. He was shifting around because he was having nightmares; of course this was to be expected, considering the type of place the Hill was. When he was done squirming in discomfort, his default position shifted anyway; the priest huddled his shoulders and brought his legs up, apparently trying to take up as little room as possible.
Unfortunately, on a thin bench like this that meant he was hanging half off into space....
Ulf moved to try and make room, but there just wasn't enough. He had a wing around the guy already, so now he put his arm around him. "Hey... wakey wakey. Y'know, before you fall off the bench..." It was either that, or Ulf would have to grab him and hold him up, just like he'd carried Curt here. "Padre?"
Vincent didn't so much yell as give a sort of freaked out whimper. He looked around, not taking in his surroundings well. Finally it came to him. He looked around for his glasses, which he had tucked in a pocket, and put them on. "Oh," he said a little groggily, "I'm in the hospital again."
"Again, still... yeah. Nightmares, huh? You got a few hours of sleep, anyway." Ulf took this moment to move his wing and his arm, and then got up to stretch. His wings, especially; they were pretty big, and there were a few downy black feathers on the leading edge. He eyed them and plucked them out, annoyed. "So... ready to save the world? Or should we have breakfast first?"
Vincent looked nervous at that, and if there was ever any doubt as to the slightness of his stature, he certainly dwarfed next to Ulf's wingspan.
He was still carrying himself as if expecting some sort of terrible blow to fall upon him; it already had, certainly, in the events that had happened earlier.
In this light Vincent was no more a man than Fakir. He was a scared boy well out of his comfort range and unsure what to do next. "I...wish Alessa was here." he muttered, "she'd know what to say to Curt."
Ulf might've been big, but he was pretty harmless. He looked at Vincent halfway through his stretch - the sweater he wore was a bit short and had ridden up a little, exposing a white, flat belly - and realized the guy was cowering. Thinking it was because of the wings (and partly right), he shook them out and folded them, tugged his sweater down, and tried to hunker a bit. "Well. Maybe you should go talk to the guy. What do you want to say to Curt?"
He felt a little bad about brushing off Alessa's death so easily, but she hadn't known the girl at all. It was sad, sure. He had known Snape, however, and once again thought about the tea service.
"I...don't know," Vincent admitted. "I like him, certainly..." Ulf would already know the bottle-blonde rocker boy was easy enough on the eyes and very hands-onnish about anyone who caught his attention. "but he's awfully high maintainance. I guess I shouldn't care. He says the most shitty things to me sometimes. Yesterday not withstanding." Vincent looked miserable. "I'm not sorry I told him to fuck off." he said, "but I'm sure he expects me to grovel nonethless."
"I wouldn't. I say let him come to you. If he doesn't.. then he's not worth it. I don't know exactly all that went on between you two... and hell, I'm not all that great at this sort of thing anyway. But you can't spend all your time pining for someone who doesn't reciprocate." Like Ulf should talk...
"well. he reciprocates in bed, except recently, but then he's been hurt, so I didn't really expect anything vigorous..." Vincent pondered this. "but I suppose it is a bit of an abusive relationship in its way. He's a bit too...crude. to be nice, I think." Vincent was probably venturing into the TMI zone, but hey! Ulf had asked.
Actually, he hadn't. But Ulf didn't care. And he thought maybe it was good that Vincent was getting a few things off his chest. It'd make room for the rest of his burdens. "Could be. Leave it for some other time, then," he murmured, giving a one-shouldered shrug. "You got bigger fish to fry." Maybe it wasn't a great idea to keep reminding him of this, but mooning around about Curt all the time wasn't helping either. "C'mon... I'll give you a hand, since I don't have anything else to do."
What, what can I possibly do?" Vincent groaned, but on the tail of that, he knew.
"Wait...there IS one thing..."
Ulf sort of leaned in closer, eyebrows raised. Waiting. "Hmm..? What's that?"
"Konyv -bol lopott lelek. ((note: there were special accents and umlauts and crap, but they don't work in my client, so they are gone!)) The book of forgotten rituals.
I'm the only one who knows where to find it. As the only priest left of the old Order I'm the only one who can open it." he frowned. "at least that's what it told me in the dream I had about it."
Ulf pursed his lips, thinking. "Okay. You need the book, hmm? There's something in there that'll help with all this?"
Vincent shook his head. "I don't know,"he admitted. "last time I used a ritual from it it imbued Henry with power. but...Walter wanted his power back, so in a way it's also what got Henry killed."
"So then its not a good idea..." He stood back, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, the sweater riding up again. Ulf was too busy thinking to notice, though. "Unless you just read it wrong? Or were you in a rush or something? Where is the book?"
"Under the floorboards of a wrecked building somewhere." Vincent replied a bit too upbeat about it. "I've never set hands on it in waking life.
In the dream the hole I'd found it in was supposed to be my grave."
"Well that's cheerful. Planning ahead, were you? Anyway, that's not incredibly specific, is it." Ulf seemed a tad bit disheartened about it. Even moreso when he realized "You only dreamed about this book? Then... how did you use it?"
When my Ma-- when Xuchilbara realized it would be useful to him," Vincent corrected himself. Xuchilbara was neither his master nor his lover anymore. He was cut off from the god. cast out. "he encouraged me to delve deeper into the dreaming. I kept a notebook by my bed, and slept for weeks, writing down what I had read."
Ulf grimaced; it sounded a bit... well. Not like anything Ulf would want to do. Weeks?
He'd sat down again, although this time so his wings had some room, and planted his chin on his hands. "So... you wrote what you remembered from the dream... but maybe Zuch.. uh... whosits... maybe he wasn't bright enough to realize something. Y'know. Maybe you need the actual book for the rituals to work properly."
"The ritual I did worked." Vincent said, a little defensively, "I may be debauched but I'm not a bad priest. My knowledge of the arcane workings is good, and my faith is strong.
The problem was the ritual was one to steal power. and the man from whom the power was stolen reclaimed it. That was all."
"Oh... well. Hey, no offense, right? I didn't think you weren't good at whatever you do. I just thought that perhaps actually holding the book would strengthen whatever ritual you needed to perform... perfect it. Just a thought. Not sure people what people would think if you took a few weeks off to sleep, though." Just a thought. Ulf was beginning to think that he and the father might end up going on a book hunt. If it was here in town, anyway.
"I couldn't reach it that way again anyway," Vincent muttered. "by now Morpheus probably knows I had a loophole into the dreaming, and he'd send Cori to wring my neck. I doubt even Death could stand up for me in her brother's realm." of course, Vincent didn't realize Ulf would have no idea what he was talking about... "I've given it thought, and I'm pretty sure it might be the Historical Society the book is buried in."
"And that's in town? Well..." Ulf shrugged again. "Let's go get it." He smiled and got to his feet, held out his hands as if to say 'what are we waiting for?'
Vincent was nervous. It was one thing to have dreamed of the book. Another entirely to realize he actually might be able to touch it.
and then, of course any other Order members- any other magicians or occult savvy sorts, period- might want to take it from him... still. it was a heady feeling to realize something rare was out there, waiting for him to claim and decipher it.
This might ease the ache of losing his stash of aglaophotis, anyway.
Ulf realized they were still waiting, and gestured to the door. "Yes? No time like the present..." Vincent seemed unable to believe they were going to do this, so Ulf started for the door. "I'll be waiting outside for ya," he said.
Vincent followed quickly after.
Ulf didn't have to wait long. He smirked and held out his arms for Vincent. "You're gonna have to shout directions at me, of course, since I don't know the way. Might get a bit chilly, too." His arms were out, and now he spread his wings again, and you might think they wouldn't be enough to carry two grown men aloft.
Vincent looked at Ulf, unsure how they were to go about this. For one thing, he couldn't exactly heft himself up so that Ulf was carrying him lying down, as he had done for Curt. Instead he encircled his arms around Ulf's shoulders and waited to see if Ulf would take up his legs, or if he'd just sort of have to dangle somehow...
Dangling was too tricky. Ulf bent and hooked a leg under Vincent's knees, lifting him easily. "Would've been better dropping off from the roof, but this'll work. A bit bumpy at first, though," he warned, carrying Vincent out to the street. At least there he'd have a bit of a runway. Which is what he did, and why it was bumpy. He ran, wings spread, then leapt up as his wings beat downwards, the talons at the tips scraping on the pavement. There was a moment where it looked as if he'd just fall right back down again, but after a few strokes they were up in the air, heading over the river and into old Silent Hill.
Vincent clung a little too tightly for a few, but when he got used to the view he calmed, looking down at the town with some interest. "You can SEE up here..." he muttered, almost to himself. After all, down below in the endless fog you often could not.
After a few he muttered, "there are more monsters than I thought there were."
"There's a lot," he said. "More each time I've been out and about, in fact. Another good reason to keep people together; its too dangerous to be wandering around. We're not even safe up here." The screechers seemed to congregate over the chasms cutting the town in pieces, but they weren't exclusive to that area. He was keeping an ear out for wingbeats other than his own, which were thankfully quiet. "So... which way to the Historical Society, sir?"
Vincent let go a moment to point, panicked and hung on again too tightly, and then finally dared try it again. "That way," he said matter of factly. "straight on down that road and out towards the lake."
"I gotcha," Ulf said, giving Vincent a bit of a squeeze just to let him know he wasn't in any danger of falling out of his arms. He banked, which might make the priest cling anyway, then straightened out again over the road Vincent had indicated. "So... towards the lake... is it on the other side? I think there's still a few people down there..."
Ulf didn't really sleep, and he had to shift a couple times while the priest did, although it wasn't bad with the guy leaning on him. The warmth and the contact was nice after so long without, but he didn't take advantage of it. Ulf was sort of an empath, and Vincent had been through enough already, and there was a lot more to do in the near future; let the man have his sleep.
Besides, he didn't really like Ulf, did he? The demon pondered this situation for a little while, then thought about the hospital, and how they'd function if everyone gathered at the church instead. After that he started thinking about the visions he'd seen here, and tried to understand them. In the end they meant nothing, he realized. And if they meant nothing, then they'd have no effect on him, one way or another. It was vapour and reflection and light and shadow. He got to thinking that the town might not be able to hurt him so much like it was everyone else.
Vincent's sleep was troubled. He was shifting around because he was having nightmares; of course this was to be expected, considering the type of place the Hill was. When he was done squirming in discomfort, his default position shifted anyway; the priest huddled his shoulders and brought his legs up, apparently trying to take up as little room as possible.
Unfortunately, on a thin bench like this that meant he was hanging half off into space....
Ulf moved to try and make room, but there just wasn't enough. He had a wing around the guy already, so now he put his arm around him. "Hey... wakey wakey. Y'know, before you fall off the bench..." It was either that, or Ulf would have to grab him and hold him up, just like he'd carried Curt here. "Padre?"
Vincent didn't so much yell as give a sort of freaked out whimper. He looked around, not taking in his surroundings well. Finally it came to him. He looked around for his glasses, which he had tucked in a pocket, and put them on. "Oh," he said a little groggily, "I'm in the hospital again."
"Again, still... yeah. Nightmares, huh? You got a few hours of sleep, anyway." Ulf took this moment to move his wing and his arm, and then got up to stretch. His wings, especially; they were pretty big, and there were a few downy black feathers on the leading edge. He eyed them and plucked them out, annoyed. "So... ready to save the world? Or should we have breakfast first?"
Vincent looked nervous at that, and if there was ever any doubt as to the slightness of his stature, he certainly dwarfed next to Ulf's wingspan.
He was still carrying himself as if expecting some sort of terrible blow to fall upon him; it already had, certainly, in the events that had happened earlier.
In this light Vincent was no more a man than Fakir. He was a scared boy well out of his comfort range and unsure what to do next. "I...wish Alessa was here." he muttered, "she'd know what to say to Curt."
Ulf might've been big, but he was pretty harmless. He looked at Vincent halfway through his stretch - the sweater he wore was a bit short and had ridden up a little, exposing a white, flat belly - and realized the guy was cowering. Thinking it was because of the wings (and partly right), he shook them out and folded them, tugged his sweater down, and tried to hunker a bit. "Well. Maybe you should go talk to the guy. What do you want to say to Curt?"
He felt a little bad about brushing off Alessa's death so easily, but she hadn't known the girl at all. It was sad, sure. He had known Snape, however, and once again thought about the tea service.
"I...don't know," Vincent admitted. "I like him, certainly..." Ulf would already know the bottle-blonde rocker boy was easy enough on the eyes and very hands-onnish about anyone who caught his attention. "but he's awfully high maintainance. I guess I shouldn't care. He says the most shitty things to me sometimes. Yesterday not withstanding." Vincent looked miserable. "I'm not sorry I told him to fuck off." he said, "but I'm sure he expects me to grovel nonethless."
"I wouldn't. I say let him come to you. If he doesn't.. then he's not worth it. I don't know exactly all that went on between you two... and hell, I'm not all that great at this sort of thing anyway. But you can't spend all your time pining for someone who doesn't reciprocate." Like Ulf should talk...
"well. he reciprocates in bed, except recently, but then he's been hurt, so I didn't really expect anything vigorous..." Vincent pondered this. "but I suppose it is a bit of an abusive relationship in its way. He's a bit too...crude. to be nice, I think." Vincent was probably venturing into the TMI zone, but hey! Ulf had asked.
Actually, he hadn't. But Ulf didn't care. And he thought maybe it was good that Vincent was getting a few things off his chest. It'd make room for the rest of his burdens. "Could be. Leave it for some other time, then," he murmured, giving a one-shouldered shrug. "You got bigger fish to fry." Maybe it wasn't a great idea to keep reminding him of this, but mooning around about Curt all the time wasn't helping either. "C'mon... I'll give you a hand, since I don't have anything else to do."
What, what can I possibly do?" Vincent groaned, but on the tail of that, he knew.
"Wait...there IS one thing..."
Ulf sort of leaned in closer, eyebrows raised. Waiting. "Hmm..? What's that?"
"Konyv -bol lopott lelek. ((note: there were special accents and umlauts and crap, but they don't work in my client, so they are gone!)) The book of forgotten rituals.
I'm the only one who knows where to find it. As the only priest left of the old Order I'm the only one who can open it." he frowned. "at least that's what it told me in the dream I had about it."
Ulf pursed his lips, thinking. "Okay. You need the book, hmm? There's something in there that'll help with all this?"
Vincent shook his head. "I don't know,"he admitted. "last time I used a ritual from it it imbued Henry with power. but...Walter wanted his power back, so in a way it's also what got Henry killed."
"So then its not a good idea..." He stood back, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, the sweater riding up again. Ulf was too busy thinking to notice, though. "Unless you just read it wrong? Or were you in a rush or something? Where is the book?"
"Under the floorboards of a wrecked building somewhere." Vincent replied a bit too upbeat about it. "I've never set hands on it in waking life.
In the dream the hole I'd found it in was supposed to be my grave."
"Well that's cheerful. Planning ahead, were you? Anyway, that's not incredibly specific, is it." Ulf seemed a tad bit disheartened about it. Even moreso when he realized "You only dreamed about this book? Then... how did you use it?"
When my Ma-- when Xuchilbara realized it would be useful to him," Vincent corrected himself. Xuchilbara was neither his master nor his lover anymore. He was cut off from the god. cast out. "he encouraged me to delve deeper into the dreaming. I kept a notebook by my bed, and slept for weeks, writing down what I had read."
Ulf grimaced; it sounded a bit... well. Not like anything Ulf would want to do. Weeks?
He'd sat down again, although this time so his wings had some room, and planted his chin on his hands. "So... you wrote what you remembered from the dream... but maybe Zuch.. uh... whosits... maybe he wasn't bright enough to realize something. Y'know. Maybe you need the actual book for the rituals to work properly."
"The ritual I did worked." Vincent said, a little defensively, "I may be debauched but I'm not a bad priest. My knowledge of the arcane workings is good, and my faith is strong.
The problem was the ritual was one to steal power. and the man from whom the power was stolen reclaimed it. That was all."
"Oh... well. Hey, no offense, right? I didn't think you weren't good at whatever you do. I just thought that perhaps actually holding the book would strengthen whatever ritual you needed to perform... perfect it. Just a thought. Not sure people what people would think if you took a few weeks off to sleep, though." Just a thought. Ulf was beginning to think that he and the father might end up going on a book hunt. If it was here in town, anyway.
"I couldn't reach it that way again anyway," Vincent muttered. "by now Morpheus probably knows I had a loophole into the dreaming, and he'd send Cori to wring my neck. I doubt even Death could stand up for me in her brother's realm." of course, Vincent didn't realize Ulf would have no idea what he was talking about... "I've given it thought, and I'm pretty sure it might be the Historical Society the book is buried in."
"And that's in town? Well..." Ulf shrugged again. "Let's go get it." He smiled and got to his feet, held out his hands as if to say 'what are we waiting for?'
Vincent was nervous. It was one thing to have dreamed of the book. Another entirely to realize he actually might be able to touch it.
and then, of course any other Order members- any other magicians or occult savvy sorts, period- might want to take it from him... still. it was a heady feeling to realize something rare was out there, waiting for him to claim and decipher it.
This might ease the ache of losing his stash of aglaophotis, anyway.
Ulf realized they were still waiting, and gestured to the door. "Yes? No time like the present..." Vincent seemed unable to believe they were going to do this, so Ulf started for the door. "I'll be waiting outside for ya," he said.
Vincent followed quickly after.
Ulf didn't have to wait long. He smirked and held out his arms for Vincent. "You're gonna have to shout directions at me, of course, since I don't know the way. Might get a bit chilly, too." His arms were out, and now he spread his wings again, and you might think they wouldn't be enough to carry two grown men aloft.
Vincent looked at Ulf, unsure how they were to go about this. For one thing, he couldn't exactly heft himself up so that Ulf was carrying him lying down, as he had done for Curt. Instead he encircled his arms around Ulf's shoulders and waited to see if Ulf would take up his legs, or if he'd just sort of have to dangle somehow...
Dangling was too tricky. Ulf bent and hooked a leg under Vincent's knees, lifting him easily. "Would've been better dropping off from the roof, but this'll work. A bit bumpy at first, though," he warned, carrying Vincent out to the street. At least there he'd have a bit of a runway. Which is what he did, and why it was bumpy. He ran, wings spread, then leapt up as his wings beat downwards, the talons at the tips scraping on the pavement. There was a moment where it looked as if he'd just fall right back down again, but after a few strokes they were up in the air, heading over the river and into old Silent Hill.
Vincent clung a little too tightly for a few, but when he got used to the view he calmed, looking down at the town with some interest. "You can SEE up here..." he muttered, almost to himself. After all, down below in the endless fog you often could not.
After a few he muttered, "there are more monsters than I thought there were."
"There's a lot," he said. "More each time I've been out and about, in fact. Another good reason to keep people together; its too dangerous to be wandering around. We're not even safe up here." The screechers seemed to congregate over the chasms cutting the town in pieces, but they weren't exclusive to that area. He was keeping an ear out for wingbeats other than his own, which were thankfully quiet. "So... which way to the Historical Society, sir?"
Vincent let go a moment to point, panicked and hung on again too tightly, and then finally dared try it again. "That way," he said matter of factly. "straight on down that road and out towards the lake."
"I gotcha," Ulf said, giving Vincent a bit of a squeeze just to let him know he wasn't in any danger of falling out of his arms. He banked, which might make the priest cling anyway, then straightened out again over the road Vincent had indicated. "So... towards the lake... is it on the other side? I think there's still a few people down there..."