Wake of the Dead | Three

Chapter Thirty-Four | Jasper

Phoenix stared wide-eyed at Takeo as the stallion bent down to sniff her. The horse pressed his nose against her body, his nostrils snuffling. "H-he's really big..." The small girl said anxiously, holding onto Jasper's hand. If I was that tiny I'd be scared of him too. Jasper thought.

"Don't worry, he's nice. He just wants to know who'll be riding on his back is all." Carefully taking her hand, he guided it forward to lay on Takeo's snout. Phoenix pet the horse and Jasper's heart fluttered when he saw her pout turn into a big smile. "See? He likes you." He packed up the rest of their supplies and set Phoenix up on the saddle. The girl's eyes widened, he imagined it was strange for her, being up so high off of the ground.

Jasper joined her, sitting behind the small girls and picking up the reins. "Here, you hold them like this." He said, showing her how. "Now, squeeze with your legs, or else you might fall off."

Phoenix giggled. "My legs are too short."

"Well, just hold onto me then." Jasper ruffled the girl's hair as she wriggled back against him, holding onto his jacket sleeves. "We should find somewhere to either wash your clothes or get you some new ones," he said idly. "That blood on them has to make you feel a bit icky." Icky? Since when have you used that word?

"Mhm." Phoenix said. Jasper watched her eyes wander, staring at all of the nature around them. He didn't take the time to admire the outdoors nowadays, it was something he missed, having the opportunity to just sit down and relax. But there's no time for relaxing now. I've got to find Killian and the rest of the group. He reminded himself.

"Hm?" Jasper looked down as Phoenix had stretched up, poking at the brand on his neck. Once she realized he'd noticed her, she flushed with embarrassment.

"I—I just saw you had an ouchie." Damnit...my heart. It's melting. "Did some bad people hurt you?" The small girl continued to ask, sitting up and setting her hands on his chest in an attempt to balance enough to get a closer look at it. "They cut your ear too!" They did? Why am I not surprised.

Jasper was careful to keep Takeo moving at a slow pace so Phoenix didn't fall off, even when he was itching to get going as fast as possible. How am I supposed to explain literal torture to a child? I don't want to lie to her. What if she finds out what I've done? Would she be afraid of me? "I...spent a lot of time with the wrong people, when all of this started." Jasper began carefully. "They made me do things I really hate today, I hurt people sometimes, innocent people. I feel really bad about it now, but that won't bring them back."

"When I finally knew they didn't actually care about me, I realized what I did was wrong." Jasper said. "And when you know something's wrong, you've got to stand up for yourself and make it right. That's what I did, but they didn't like that. So they hurt me, a lot." She doesn't look scared...I don't know if that's good or bad. "Now I try to do good things to try and make up for the bad."

"Well, now you know what you did was bad." Phoenix said, tilting her head to the side. "And you said you want to be good now, too. So I'm not scared. You're good." She smiled. "And you know, you've got to be good to know when stuff is bad too, right? So you were always a little good." She frowned. "I remember in school there was this really mean girl I was friends with. I started being mean to everybody else. Until the teacher said it wasn't nice. Then I knew my friend was the bad one that made me want to be bad." Trust a child to make things simple. If only I could think that way.

But no matter how much Jasper thought about all of the good he had done in his life, it would never amount to what he'd done when he was with The Silence, when he was with Luke. I'm a grown man. I should have known what was happening...I knew better. But I hurt all of those people anyways. Nothing I can do will ever get this blood off of my hands...I'll pay for it some day. But until then, the best I can do is do right by others for the people I did wrong.