Jasper (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
keptherwaiting) wrote2020-06-19 04:38 pm
keptherwaiting) wrote2020-06-19 04:38 pm
[Origins] 1863 Texas - "I shouldn't love you. Vultures circle above you."
What Jasper knows: He's dead, but he doesn't feel it. He feels everything.
What Jasper learns: Maria had explained the wars to him, the covens, the need to control, how her last coven had been utterly destroyed by another. How she'd found Nettie and Lucy who'd been in the same and who now wanted to take back the lands that are rightfully theirs.
What Jasper is: A vampire. A soldier for Maria.
This is how it is.
The thing is, Maria is captivating.
Watching as she deftly lays out plans to Nettie and Lucy. As she takes charge of a room. As she becomes the room.
Her gaze flits to him then, meeting his from across the room, her eyebrow twitching in question, and he looks away, ashamed.
"Si tienes algo que decir?" she calls to him, mistaking his interest in her for the plan. For wanting to interject. To give his thoughts. "Jasper?"
Nettie and Lucy are staring at him now too.
Fortunately, he knows a thing or two that won't betray his thoughts. He moves toward the map that Maria has commandeered from a Confederate soldier who lies dead at her feet.
"We can take New Braunfels by summer, but we'll need more."
Lucy hisses, "We know. We can't - "
He fixes her with a level stare. "Because you keep finishin' 'em off just as soon as you turn 'em. We'll use those already turned."
Nettie opens her mouth to argue because how could they possibly use those already turned? But he can feel Maria staring at him. Calculating. Knowing.
Her gaze is intense as he turns to meet it with his own. "I can help. I can control 'em."
The whole camp is a slaughter. Not one soldier left alive. Lucy truly doesn't not have an ounce of control, but she wasn't alone in the taking of the camp.
For among those that died at Lucy, Nettie, Maria's hands are the soldiers that Jasper helped to fell too. That the three other newborns Maria had turned too. All helping like the coven they are now.
He's staring at the bodies as he waits for Maria, sent outside, to the other side, so the woman could talk.
The newborns are satiated. The dead are quiet.
Jasper has found he likes it. It helps him to forget the rest.
The rest being when he could feel the pain with each bone and neck he broke. The confusion when it began. The terror and fear when the confusion gave way to an understanding.
Emotions are loud. The dead are quiet.
His gaze shifts back to the tent when the canvas moves and then Maria is walking across the camp to him. The bodies don't seem to bother her. She steps gingerly over each without a care.
"Tu plan es interesante," she says as she draws near. "Nettie y Lucy están dispuestas, si puedes demostrarlo. Pruébamelo. Follow me."
It's just the two of them. If Nettie and Lucy had come, they'd be sure to be caught. And this territory belongs to Tomás. Tomás, Nettie'd demanded, was not to be messed with. Not yet. But soon.
Maria and he dared not go further than the outskirts of what marked his territory. Not that they'd needed to go further.
There were two scouts, and two were enough.
"Practically decrepit," Maria had hissed in his ear as he caught their attention with something akin to curiosity to draw the scouts nearer to them. "They must be at least a year turned."
She'd been trying to distract him.
He flooded the newborns with the same desire he'd felt for Maria earlier.
They came.
"What are you thinking when you look at me in that way?" Maria asks as they trudge back to the camp with the two newborns in tow.
Jasper, confused, keeps his focus on them. He's not looking at Maria?
"In what way?" he asks. He thinks the two newborns look like foals following after their mare.
"Earlier, in the tent."
She'd only looked once to ensure the newborns were following and then led the way with confidence brimming.
He'd thought that escaped her notice. He should've realized.
"I apologize," he murmurs,
Maria snaps: "No. What?" She wants to know. Demands it. He can feel the insistence pushing at him.
It makes his control slip on the newborns and he has to refocus once more before he can answer her command:
"Eres hermosa."
He stops as she stops, moving to meet his gaze head-on.
There's an intensity there. An interest, in her gaze. In her, brimming.
She draws her bottom lip into her mouth.
He wants to touch her in that moment. He wants to -
He reaches out, and she withdraws with a hiss.
"I - I apologize," he says, drawing back from her. "I thought - "
Her eyes dart away with enough weight to interrupt whatever the thought.
"Watch your quarry," she says and she marches ahead again.
Lucy and Nettie are besides themselves.
"Bringing them back to camp hardly proves he can command them," Lucy says, circling the newborns. She's skeptical but curious.
Nettie agrees: "And they're old."
"It proves their loyalty is nothing with Jasper," Maria snaps, "They left Tomás' territory without a second thought."
"Qué has hecho?" one of the newborns demands as if waking from the strange dream that Jasper had put him under.
Lucy takes this as a sign: "You were saying, Maria?"
"Jasper. Kill them."
He can feel the shock from Lucy and Nettie, the betrayal, but he knows who Maria means.
"Qué has hec - "
The demands from the newborn are cut off by an inhuman snarl from the other as Jasper fixes her with his gaze. He lets the feeling that took over him when they had descended on the camp flow through him, toward her.
His gaze flits, directing that same feeling to the other newborn who dares to question Maria now.
Nettie and Lucy are pleased. Maybe even gleeful, he reckons. Perhaps too much, as they pick through the wreckage that was the newborns and throws the body parts onto the fire they'd started.
He doesn't care. He's looking at Maria, whose staring back at him.
"He'll need to work to refine it."
Nettie is sure.
"We'll have New Braunfels."
Lucy is ecstatic.
"Si."
Maria is eager.
A stunned quiet falls on the camp as the tree he's shoved against cracks and groans from the pressure. Not that Jasper cares. Maria's lips are on his own.
And then Lucy laughs, Nettie following.
But for Jasper, it's just Maria now.
What Jasper learns: Maria had explained the wars to him, the covens, the need to control, how her last coven had been utterly destroyed by another. How she'd found Nettie and Lucy who'd been in the same and who now wanted to take back the lands that are rightfully theirs.
What Jasper is: A vampire. A soldier for Maria.
This is how it is.
The thing is, Maria is captivating.
Watching as she deftly lays out plans to Nettie and Lucy. As she takes charge of a room. As she becomes the room.
Her gaze flits to him then, meeting his from across the room, her eyebrow twitching in question, and he looks away, ashamed.
"Si tienes algo que decir?" she calls to him, mistaking his interest in her for the plan. For wanting to interject. To give his thoughts. "Jasper?"
Nettie and Lucy are staring at him now too.
Fortunately, he knows a thing or two that won't betray his thoughts. He moves toward the map that Maria has commandeered from a Confederate soldier who lies dead at her feet.
"We can take New Braunfels by summer, but we'll need more."
Lucy hisses, "We know. We can't - "
He fixes her with a level stare. "Because you keep finishin' 'em off just as soon as you turn 'em. We'll use those already turned."
Nettie opens her mouth to argue because how could they possibly use those already turned? But he can feel Maria staring at him. Calculating. Knowing.
Her gaze is intense as he turns to meet it with his own. "I can help. I can control 'em."
The whole camp is a slaughter. Not one soldier left alive. Lucy truly doesn't not have an ounce of control, but she wasn't alone in the taking of the camp.
For among those that died at Lucy, Nettie, Maria's hands are the soldiers that Jasper helped to fell too. That the three other newborns Maria had turned too. All helping like the coven they are now.
He's staring at the bodies as he waits for Maria, sent outside, to the other side, so the woman could talk.
The newborns are satiated. The dead are quiet.
Jasper has found he likes it. It helps him to forget the rest.
The rest being when he could feel the pain with each bone and neck he broke. The confusion when it began. The terror and fear when the confusion gave way to an understanding.
Emotions are loud. The dead are quiet.
His gaze shifts back to the tent when the canvas moves and then Maria is walking across the camp to him. The bodies don't seem to bother her. She steps gingerly over each without a care.
"Tu plan es interesante," she says as she draws near. "Nettie y Lucy están dispuestas, si puedes demostrarlo. Pruébamelo. Follow me."
It's just the two of them. If Nettie and Lucy had come, they'd be sure to be caught. And this territory belongs to Tomás. Tomás, Nettie'd demanded, was not to be messed with. Not yet. But soon.
Maria and he dared not go further than the outskirts of what marked his territory. Not that they'd needed to go further.
There were two scouts, and two were enough.
"Practically decrepit," Maria had hissed in his ear as he caught their attention with something akin to curiosity to draw the scouts nearer to them. "They must be at least a year turned."
She'd been trying to distract him.
He flooded the newborns with the same desire he'd felt for Maria earlier.
They came.
"What are you thinking when you look at me in that way?" Maria asks as they trudge back to the camp with the two newborns in tow.
Jasper, confused, keeps his focus on them. He's not looking at Maria?
"In what way?" he asks. He thinks the two newborns look like foals following after their mare.
"Earlier, in the tent."
She'd only looked once to ensure the newborns were following and then led the way with confidence brimming.
He'd thought that escaped her notice. He should've realized.
"I apologize," he murmurs,
Maria snaps: "No. What?" She wants to know. Demands it. He can feel the insistence pushing at him.
It makes his control slip on the newborns and he has to refocus once more before he can answer her command:
"Eres hermosa."
He stops as she stops, moving to meet his gaze head-on.
There's an intensity there. An interest, in her gaze. In her, brimming.
She draws her bottom lip into her mouth.
He wants to touch her in that moment. He wants to -
He reaches out, and she withdraws with a hiss.
"I - I apologize," he says, drawing back from her. "I thought - "
Her eyes dart away with enough weight to interrupt whatever the thought.
"Watch your quarry," she says and she marches ahead again.
Lucy and Nettie are besides themselves.
"Bringing them back to camp hardly proves he can command them," Lucy says, circling the newborns. She's skeptical but curious.
Nettie agrees: "And they're old."
"It proves their loyalty is nothing with Jasper," Maria snaps, "They left Tomás' territory without a second thought."
"Qué has hecho?" one of the newborns demands as if waking from the strange dream that Jasper had put him under.
Lucy takes this as a sign: "You were saying, Maria?"
"Jasper. Kill them."
He can feel the shock from Lucy and Nettie, the betrayal, but he knows who Maria means.
"Qué has hec - "
The demands from the newborn are cut off by an inhuman snarl from the other as Jasper fixes her with his gaze. He lets the feeling that took over him when they had descended on the camp flow through him, toward her.
His gaze flits, directing that same feeling to the other newborn who dares to question Maria now.
Nettie and Lucy are pleased. Maybe even gleeful, he reckons. Perhaps too much, as they pick through the wreckage that was the newborns and throws the body parts onto the fire they'd started.
He doesn't care. He's looking at Maria, whose staring back at him.
"He'll need to work to refine it."
Nettie is sure.
"We'll have New Braunfels."
Lucy is ecstatic.
"Si."
Maria is eager.
A stunned quiet falls on the camp as the tree he's shoved against cracks and groans from the pressure. Not that Jasper cares. Maria's lips are on his own.
And then Lucy laughs, Nettie following.
But for Jasper, it's just Maria now.