#celestialalignment

The first one had been fine - he’d been outfoxed, but that was fine. There were plenty of people smarter than him. Odds were good that some of them were fighters, too. No real harm done, so that was that.

The second fight, though...

He’d felt the fire bubbling up in his belly, after he’d been cut. It wasn’t even a bad one. The leather of his coat had caught most of the slash, after all. Maybe that first loss had gotten to him, after all. Maybe the blade reminded him of another fight that had laid him up in the clinic for what felt like an age. Maybe Jaaster had just been looking for an excuse. Whatever the reason, blood called to fire, and it roared in answer. Jaaster won that fight, and he’d almost taken the other man’s head off to do it.

It had felt good, then. How could that be when he felt sick now?

The fire kept surging with the next fight, and it spurred him to greater speeds, greater violence. The other fighter was wily and used that eagerness to his advantage, turned the momentum in his favor, and won, knocking Jaaster silly to do so. In the wake of it, he’d thought the fire gone, fled with his senses only for those to return alone.

As the night progressed, however, he felt it simmering again, stoked with bits of fuel throughout the evening. The rich girl’s poking and prodding comments to his friends. The strange man and his fascination with bones - his bones in particular, it seemed. The flyer and its promise to ruin the lives of hundreds. All of it, feeding a fire that had never truly gone out.

A fire he couldn’t yet control.

That’s why he’d left the party. He’d wanted to find ways to help his friend and her neighbors, but his thoughts continued returning to one violent solution. He wouldn’t have been helping. Better to leave and let smarter people handle that.

“Oi, you! Drunk in public, eh?” Jaaster picked his head up and looked back over his shoulder, finally noticing the three Brass Blades approaching from behind, all Hyuran. The one in the middle nudged his compatriots. “Can’t have that, can we, boys?”

The lefthand Blade shook his head severely. “Not at all, 'specially when they’re wearin’ what looks like stolen goods.” The righthand Blade squinted in the dim moonlight, then recoiled, a parody of shock upon his face. “Right you are! Probably knocked over some upstandin’ shopkeep but a tick ago!”

The first Blade stepped forward, drawing a heavy club from his belt. “Well, then, we’d better bring him in! Don’t be too gentle, either, boys. After all, he was puttin’ up a hell of a fight, wasn’t he?” The other Blades hefted their own clubs with eager grins and advanced.

They made it all of three steps before flames burst forth and wreathed Jaaster’s wrists, the Coerthan turning to face them with a snarling grin of his own. 

...

Morning came, and a Brass Blade patrol finally came upon three of their own, each in a different part of the Lane. One of them was laying near the mouth of the Lane, left after a failed escape attempt. Battered, bleeding, and broken, none of them would ever wield a weapon again, and two would require the best that Frondale’s Phrontistery could offer to even walk. 

Outside Ul’dah, Jaaster was on his knees behind a cluster of bushes, still retching even after anything had stopped coming up. The fire was cold, now, its fuel spent in that furious blaze. He still felt sick, though. He could still feel their armor, then their bodies breaking against his fists. He could still hear their cries of anger and panic, and the moment when those cries turned to pleas for mercy before silence finally fell.

That moment sounded a lot like another moment, back in Coerthas. He’d left home after that.

That moment was almost identical to another moment, this one in Gyr Abania. He’d left his training with the Fist after that.

Tears came unbidden to reddened eyes even as he shook his head. It was different this time. No one had seen him. He’d have noticed someone else there...right? Had someone else been there? What if they told the Blades about him? What if they were looking for him right now? What if -

He didn’t realize he’d stood and started running until he felt the wind on his face, and he skidded to a halt, gulping air like he’d already run for malms. As he fought to calm his breathing, he also fought to calm his mind. Nothing would be gained from panicking over wild guesses. Nothing would be gained by running away from this, either. In fact, he stood to lose quite a bit from running. More than he could live without.

Another sigh, and he finishes off his second bowl. “[Do dogs even drink soup?]” he muses at the animals, though he still doesn’t turn to face them.

He rises to his feet and the action is greeted with a new chorus of excited yips, followed by the hectic clicking and clacking of claws on the floor as the pups pace excitedly in their space.

He sets his bowl on the counter and pulls out a small bowl in which he deposits some prepped food. Then he pulls out a few larger dishes and deposits some food into those as well. 

He places the bowl in front of the the cat, who flicks her tail, and he could swear she gives him a look of disapproval as though she finds it unfair that the amount of food in her bowl is not equal to that in the dishes he’s about to set out on the floor. But she accepts her paltry meal (which is, in fact, a perfectly sufficient amount of food for a cat her size. An amount that she’d never had a problem with - and sometimes didn’t even finish the entirety of - up until now). 

Amba sets the other dishes out on the floor before turning to the couch. The mother - the only one of the dogs not currently confined to the makeshift pen - hops off the couch and makes for the food with a lazy gait, and Amba moves for the chair that keeps the pups penned in.

His approaches in greeted with a flurry of fur and a cacophony of excited yipping, and as he pulls the chair away form the couch there is a moment where the dogs seem infinitely numerous as they cascade out from the opening. 

The pups all settle in to their meal in no time and Amba slumps onto the couch, rolling his head back toward the ceiling. He closes his eyes and as he listens to the chomping of nine different mouths he sends a silent prayer that Ayla and Esen aren’t the only ones who want a dog.

Seven pairs of eyes watching him eat is better than nine, but it’s still quite a few eyes too many.