Wandering Priest, Hidden Blade

Fingers ached as the Doman looked at Ishgard.

Spires of stone rose like lances - did they still think the heavens needed to be brought down, he wondered…?

The cold leeched like a shock into his soul from his lungs, feeling his vision swim as he leaned against a wall almost sluggishly, eyes dazed as he felt a rush and a roar in his ears, the world fuzzing like he was losing his hold-

When his eyes closed it was to a roar and a rush of cold wind and drowning waters, feeling his body slide down the stone wall he'd leaned on and fingers trying in vain to hold himself upright. Laughter, hissing and deep, rose like waters beneath his soles and the dark came with a cold so eternal that it stuck in his lungs with the last gasp of air he tried to steal.

Soft, whisper soft, were the words and the promises beneath the rising tide, the feeling of bone arms holding him as he sank deep deep deep below into the black, into the ice, into the darkness where not even a glimmer of light rose.

Hands up as the Doman blocked the sunlight, Jasper sat with his back against earth and rock and let the sun bake his bones. It felt like warm, curling candles of fire that sank from hair down, the heat battling the cold of the earth as he stretched out and relaxed.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Exist.

For a simple moment he was nothing more and nothing less than a simple presence enjoying the sun and warmth as he fought against the terror and fear just below the surface.

Sometimes Jasper woke with his nostrils filled with the stench, heavy and smothering blood and rot and filth that ate his thoughts and left him recalling the first time the dead had walked in front of him.

Sometimes Jasper heard the shouts, the frantic cries, the fearful screams - metal ringing out and the sound of cutting, of tearing, of dying and fighting and surviving - and his ears registered nothing while his lungs seized.

Sometimes a hand touched the Doman and he moved before he could catch himself and it wasn't with the priest's instincts that he reacted with but instead the shadow's as a dagger ended in his fingers, the brush in his hand one that could have, should have, had brought death.

Heart pounding, lungs aching, there was nothing glorious Jasper saw about battle as he found his mind stumbling painfully over and over into the graves of his memory.

It ached sometimes - a bleeding and gaping hole that tore at his resolve, at his faith, and left him shaken as he sank to his knees. What good were prayers when the kami knew the dead better than he, and when they were all he had left of friends, of comrades - these memories he wished would leave while he clung to them for the only moments they gave him.

Sometimes he felt and tasted the metallic air again, the sharp burnt earth as fire and explosions ripped and tore it asunder and distantly his ears heard the call for retreat-

The feeling deep in his soul that everyone wouldn't make it. The knowledge that if he broke his word and took up the stone and let it have control then he would, for a moment, be able to save them all. And the smile as he'd let go of himself, gave his life and body over to the auracite and what was inside of it as he swore they would all live-

The rally and survival he didn't know, still, even turns after. His fingers had reached for the auracite again and he had locked it away, a stolen piece of the past and of dreams that had helped save them all in Bozja, but it whispered every time Jasper looked at his friends and battles again. A promise that together they could keep saving them…

Winding hills, racing in the air like unfurled falcon wings. Twisting, diving, free as the sky beckoned….

It was easy to cast one's soul far and range wide with the earth offering endless grounding, the Doman with his eyes closed sitting under the shade of a tree.

There were strange kami here Jasper decided as the priest leaned back and sat on a distant hill as he followed the ebbs and flows of the aether of the land. They sang of different promises, different prides, but they were still something he listened to privately, learning as he fell deep in to the heart of earth that gave him no fear yet.

It didn't hunger to swallow, decimate and obliterate.

When Jasper closed his eyes as a little boy there had been silence. Slowly, other sounds had grown and come to the young Doman's attention when he meditated - uncles who moved around the temple as if they were shadows of the past who the young child never realized were just that. Conversations with the dead rarely ended well - some of them had been terrified of him speaking to them, others had raged.

One had asked and spoke to him kindly but they all faded away when the young child had mentioned them to his brother and father. One by one there were fewer, less spirits wandering and the ones who remained looked faint until even the last wisps were gone.

The temple being quiet was a relief but slowly Jasper had, as a curious young child, ventured away from the temple and down to the village.

And then in fear, he had left further and fled as an almost-man to seek safety away from his family and the quiet temple with no ghosts and no spirits - only the Mountain that consumed everything around it so that only it remained.

Lungs choking for air and gurgling as he fell into waters in the heart of the Shroud Jasper reached his hands into the darkness for something to hold on as he fell into darkness-

And in that darkness something rose from the depths of the waters, massive eyes staring at his soul as he slowly faded and died and it reached for him-

-and it took him in its hands, leviathan and darkness of water and ocean and sea and terror sinking as his fragmenting soul was cupped, coddled, held together and wrapped again into a whole body and in the water Jasper choked on he sat up as his eyes were endless depths and old knowledge and wisdom beyond even his priestly bones-

Green eyes tinged blue as he sputtered and then took a ragged breath.

Storms came quickly as Jasper closed his eyes against the dreams.

Dark, thunderous, with spumes of lava that broke the sky and fell as still-burning magma to the screams of those below.

When he opened his eyes it was to a pair of curious, brilliant green that shaded towards a brighter apple than his own and he smiled. "Ah, sorry! Just resting a bit."

Sitting up from the bed with the crack of sunlight filtering in from the window at the Sharlayan offices of the Freemasons, Daichi looked at the blankets that covered his legs and the bandages under them before he looked over at the chair and the dozing Doman sitting on it.  Reaching for the side he picked up a flower and when the Doman didn't stir he threw it until the bap of it made Jasper start and almost fall from his chair.

Daichi's laughter was short but bright when his younger brother glared up at him, the elder pulling himself up until he was in a comfortable seated position and arms behind his head as he leaned into the pillows.  "So."

It'd been a few suns since the eldest son of the Mountain had been pulled from the temple's lower shrine and while Jasper had been shocked at the time and almost dazed, he'd been quieter still while waiting for the resting and recovering Daichi to wake.

"So..."

"Hiro~" The sing-song voice was a younger sister, hanging off the hem of his hakama and tugging until the young Doman knelt down with a grin.  Iwayuki was the youngest of them all, being two years younger than Yasuhiro, and he was younger than Daichi and Sumire.

"Yuki, if Father sees you acting like a brat he'll tell mother to have you arrange flowers again!" But he didn't scamper off, instead kneeling down next to Iwayuki and putting a hand up, hiding the whisper he sent towards her braids.  "(Did you see Father last night though!  He was deep in his sake!)"  He laughed and Yuki grinned, grabbing the sleeve now and tugging him.  Plodding with only the mock of dragged feet as he sighed but followed, Yuki laughed until they were in the small copse of bamboo outside the Hall of the Voice.

The stone was silent for once, fitfully silent, but she held a hand up to her lips, a loud ssssshhhhh! before she started to hum.  The earth moved with her but while Yasuhiro watched the wind began to dance then too, a trail of fireflies that lit up the bamboo forest as beautiful gold swirled around Iwayuki in a graceful dance of leaves and wind and earth all together, his mouth dropping open.  She laughed - she was smiling like a child with a secret she was sharing and it was one, before she started to dance again, the wind following her whim like a fawning and exuberant friend.