Who: Bonnie and Ethan What: Casting the tabula rasa spell Where: Bonnie's cell Warnings: Blood magic and self harm
It was Thanksgiving and Bonnie was feeling restless. There were so memories of the day where her Grams had been in the kitchen baking pies and making turkey. Bonnie would always make the deviled eggs, it was her signature Thanksgiving contribution. But in the past year or so things had turned upside down. Grams was gone and chances were so were the last of Bonnie's family. Her mother was a vampire but it was impossible to know what had happened to her. She had never been much of a mother to Bonnie anyway. And with Elena being out of the prison and away, Bonnie wasn't much into the spirit of Thanksgiving even if the kitchen staff had done their best to accommodate everyone and make it feel like a special day.
She hadn't been able to locate Jeremy in the crowded cafeteria and so Bonnie had headed back to her cell instead. She figured she could do some reading and maybe come up with a spell for her and Phoebe to experiment with. Working with other witches wasn't an entirely new concept for Bonnie, but a hard one to get used to. It had never ended well before. Sitting curled up on her bunk, she was writing in her journal when an older gentleman seemed to linger near her door. "I'm sorry. Can I help you?" Bonnie asked him.
Ethan had been busy doing the job that he had been given as a condition of staying in the prison which was to say that he was performing the duty of a hotel maid. He pushed the little cart from cell to cell, trying to figure out who needed or wanted fresh sheets for their cots. Ethan wasn't completely certain where the things had come from, but he imagined that they had probably been part of the prison's general stock before the outbreak.
He reached the next cell; this one having an occupant who seemed busy with something. He knew from experience that it wasn't pleasant to have people come seemingly out of nowhere and startle your heart into your throat, so he gave her a moment to notice him. When she finally looked up and acknowledged him he stepped more fully into the cell.
"I'm just making my house-keeping rounds. Would you like some clean sheets?" a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
He might not like his newly assigned job, but he was certainly going to make the best of it that he could. He wasn't in a hurry to give any of the Sunnydale brigade a reason to shove him back out into the madness that the world had become.
"No thanks," Bonnie said, flashing the older gentleman a shy smile. "I'm Bonnie by the way. I'm on housekeeping too. So I usually take care of my own sheets. I know how much it sucks." Some people assumed the job that Bonnie took was some kind of insult to her power. She had brought people back from the dead, had used magic to do all kinds of insane things and instead of doing something glamorous like raiding or sentry she had taken the most mundane of all tasks. Because Bonnie desperately wanted to be boring. She wanted to be a normal teenage girl but the truth was, she just wasn't.
Her magic journal was laid out on the bed in front of her but she paid no mind that Ethan could easily read it over her shoulder. Most people looked at it and thought it was gibberish anyway. She was trying to get together a spell that would temporarily incapacitate Rebekah and Klaus. It gave her something to do besides worry about Elena who had decided for some reason to flip off her humanity switch and run off to Seattle. Which forced Bonnie to trust Damon to get her back on track and if there was one thing Bonnie hated, it was Damon Salvatore. She definitely hated trusting him. If she could just figure out this spell it would give her something else to spend her time on.
"Ah, well, good to know. I'll go ahead and leave a set for you just this once." he told her as he walked over and placed the set he was holding down on her cot.
As he leaned over while setting down the sheets he noticed the the book, and more importantly the writing in the book, laying on the bed before her. So, she was magically inclined. Young and magically inclined and by the looks of it somewhat inexperienced. All things that could be good for Ethan.
"That won't work on vampires." Ethan told her, wiggling a pointing finger at the page she'd been working on. "It's a 'living flesh' only kind of thing. Actually, most spells that will do what you're trying to accomplish are going to have quite hefty consequences. You will be better off with a curse. They also tend to work more efficiently against vampires as well."
He looked up from the book to her face and smiled again. "Assuming of course, that it's the vampires I keep hearing about that you're working on this for, of course."
Bonnie turned her dark eyes up to meet his. "Are you a witch?" she asked. She knew it was unfair of her to assume that he wasn't. He just didn't look very witchy to her, even though she knew they came in all shapes and sizes. Bonnie herself probably didn't look much like a witch. She looked like a teenage girl which was exactly what she was. But Bonnie had come from a long line of powerful witches in the Bennett family and had even gone so far as to bring her boyfriend back from the dead. That had had severe consequences but it was worth it, she thought to save his life.
"I'm just trying to figure out something to do to help. Those vampires are a menace and I have all of this magic. I just want to do something worthwhile with it. But it's hard when all I have is the family grimoire and my magic journal. Research isn't exactly as easy as it used to be." She smiled gently up at him. Before she'd had Cassie to share things with but teenage Cassie had been talented but just as inexperienced as Bonnie was. Phoebe was older and had more experience and Ethan looked even more experienced, not that she wanted to make any comments to his age. If he could help she would gladly take the assistance.
"I know the spell's not quite right. Do you have any suggestions?" she asked him. "And um, a name?" She realized then that she had told him hers but he hadn't told her his.