𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓:
Hope Blooms
(1970)

(AN: I recommend listening to skin and bones by David Kushner & work song by Hozier while reading this)

JASPER WHITLOCK lost a sense of his humanity when he became a vampire. When he was human, he recalled how difficult it was for his mother to make ends meet. At the mere age of 12, he helped his mother sell her home-baked goods and her sewn fabrics and worked in the farm fields while working in the horse stables to feed his siblings.

As the eldest of three, he had a duty and held a certain responsibility to raise his family; he became the man of the house when his father couldn't take the role because of his intoxicated state–his father never managed or cared enough to stay sober. Living in poverty was not what Jasper wanted for his family, so he aspired to do more.

Jasper had grown bitter over time; whenever he saw his father lay a hand on his mother, he felt he had no control to protect the only parental figure in his life. He felt helpless and defenseless. He had no choice but to endure. Yet his mother continuously reminded him to never lose hope or grow cynical of the world and of love because living a life of bitterness was not what she had wanted for him.

He held that hope in his calloused hands and encased it in the four chambers of his heart, never daring to let it go.

When the Union Army gathered and recruited troops in their town of Houston, Texas, he didn't hesitate to volunteer. His mother opposed it because when it comes to war, there's no certainty that he'll come back alive; though Jasper knows he can do more, he is not ignorant of the treatment of African Americans in the South. Jasper worked alongside them for well-heeled families who did not receive the same respectful treatment as him even though they served the same. Jasper couldn't see the difference because there was nothing; the color of one's skin should never be the reason for indifference because they bleed, breathe, feel, and hope all the same.

What Jasper saw within his peers was determination and perseverance. The firm will to fight for their rights. Jasper wanted their liberty for them because they treated him with nothing but kindness when they aided him in permanently extracting his belligerent father from his mother and siblings' lives. So when his peers informed him of the upcoming war, he wanted to be on the right side of history, and on the right side of the war, there was no time for neutrality. He tried to fight for what he believed in—that one's morals reflect one's life and how one will view, respond, and interact in the world from one's righteous perspective.

He always had a distinctive charisma and effortless persuasiveness, even at a young age; he managed to lie to the recruiters that he was twenty years old. He was tall and mature enough to get away with it. Though his military career grew short-lived, he learned enough to teach himself to read, write, and familiarize himself with map coordinates and Morse code. He is, to this day, a quick learner.

Jasper now knew why, at the time, many seemed to like him, always listening and attentive to what he had to say. He was a natural-born leader and a warrior. With his skills and knowledge in battle strategies, he was quick to be promoted to spy for the Union, which he accepted with honor. The Confederate army was new and scrambling to organize itself; he rose through their ranks and was considered the youngest Major General in Texas, not even acknowledging his actual age and motives.

They never seemed to unveil the true identity of who was the one who betrayed the Confederates and managed to uncover and relay their strategies to the Union, which resulted in the Confederacy's defeat.

Jasper finally had the means to support his family; he always managed to visit his mother and siblings for a short amount of time; he didn't even know that it was the last time he'd ever get to see them again. After the Union told him to evacuate the women and children from the city of Galveston. He was prepared to go back home to Houston.

Until that night altered the course of his life forever. He lived a life full of vengeance, bloodshed, and hatred, and he loathed his existence more than anything because Maria told him that it was their only form of life and that none existed outside of it. He knew nothing of their kind when he was turned, so he listened to her, to his creator. Some part of him was afraid of knowing the truth about their kind—the terror of truly settling with the fact that it is nothing but agony and misery.

In the Southern Vampire Wars, time passed quickly. Weeks felt like a second, a month felt like a minute, and a year felt like a day. He lived a life of violence, and he wasn't fond that he earned the title of the God of War during the Southern Vampire Wars, not when he gained it through killing thousands of innocent lives—of how many vampires he turned, how they too were human and had a family waiting for them to come home, and how he felt emotionless when he disposed of them once their existence was no longer needed.

He again felt the warm burning feeling of hope when Peter arrived and proved himself worthy to be part of the army. Jasper liked him because of his civilized nature, and they became friends.

Jasper knew that Peter had found his mate in Charlotte. He felt it. He also felt how miserable and grim Peter became as Charlotte's time shortened. He tried to persuade Maria to keep Charlotte, but the woman didn't see anything special about Charlotte and ordered him to eliminate all the newborns. So when Jasper told them to run, Peter and Charlotte didn't hesitate to leave.

Mates are not welcomed in the army; it's considered a weakness, but Jasper craves it more than anything. The thought of being destined to someone, to love, understand, and accept with no qualms, was what he always wanted. He clung to the idea of it.

Without Peter, Jasper had grown deeper into his depression. He was tired of living and feeling devastating emotions—this alteration of emotion alerted Maria. Jasper knows Maria more than anyone; he knows her mind and her every thought, tactic, strategy, and move.

Jasper planned to destroy Maria first, but Peter came back for him and informed him that he and Charlotte had peacefully been living in the North for five years and that several covens coexisted. Jasper immediately left with him, but not without the tremendous amount of money he made while he dealt with the business he managed in their territory—he couldn't care less if Maria learned that he stole from her because he was the one who earned the wealth they acquired throughout the century.

After all, the Volturi was slowly closing in on them. It was only a matter of time before they decided to eliminate Maria's coven and the other covens in the South that sought constant brutal battles, thirst to acquire territories, and never a moment of truce. A simple plague or disease won't cover the large number of deaths and missing persons in the area anymore. Humans were beginning to think a supernatural entity was involved—the Volturi would not be pleased.

Jasper didn't want his second life to end in meaningless tragedy. Peter gave him hope that there was more to immortality than what Maria instilled. He felt immensely proud of himself for breaking away from Maria's grasp of manipulation and control. But it doesn't mean that he had moved on from what he felt whenever he eliminated the innocent newborns that Maria used in their battles or the innocents that he killed for blood.

He sought redemption for the things that he had done and what he didn't do. Jasper is grateful for Peter's aid, but he knows that Peter and Charlotte want to live in peace, and Jasper doesn't want to disrupt it with his misery. Even though Peter and Charlotte assured him he was welcome, Jasper didn't stay with them and wandered independently, wanting to find new ways to survive. He failed by trying to kill less often, but the thirst was too overwhelming to ignore, and he resulted in killing criminals instead.

He soon accepted that being a vampire, the only means of survival is to kill for blood.

His only regret was not leaving the Mexican Coven soon enough, resulting in going against everything he believed in. He felt utterly lost and alone in the world and wanted a soulmate, a companion. He wanted the love that Peter and Charlotte shared.

A love that would bend heaven and hell.

A love that his mother described when he was human.

Jasper wants to feel love because he has already felt everything else.

When he encountered Alice in a cafe in 1943, she approached him like they had been lifelong friends. At first, he was wary and bewildered, but then he felt her emotions. She wanted a friend as well. Alice told him that ten years after she had transitioned into a vampire, she saw him and his mate live a life of contentment, satisfaction, and full of burning passion, but it wouldn't be an easy feat.

Jasper didn't particularly care for the coven that Alice desperately wanted to be in. He was hesitant. After being part of the Mexican coven for decades, he had doubts about a coven with a large number and no animosity and territorial instincts, but he was proven wrong. He's glad he had been mistaken because even until now, he held no attachments to them; he respected and held them in high regard; in a way, he found a true family in them that he didn't know he was looking for in the first place.

He agreed to join Alice and change his diet, even though he sensed the shift of his gift—his grip on his gift had loosened when he switched from drinking human blood to animal blood.

But he didn't waver from it. In fact, Jasper made it his mission to be a better man for his soulmate. He found that his existence mattered because of her. That his purpose in this universe rotated on her. He understood why Icarus was so drawn to the sun because, for Jasper, the sun is in the incredible and brave form of Corazon Cecelia Salvador that grounded him to the earth because of her he wanted to live again, and he felt accepted. She understood the pain of war and the damage it left in his life because she, too, knows the challenges of dealing with the aftermath of surviving a war—even though they weren't supposed to be survivors in the first place. When they first met, Corazon wasn't bothered by the bite marks that littered his skin; she was more interested in his morals and values than anything.

He is perfectly more than okay being at her mercy even though Corazon knows nothing of the scale and essence of his devotion to her. At the very first moment, he was already hers, the familiar and caressing warmth of hope that bloomed in his human heart that reminded him that there was more to the life that he had been living. Corazon is the beacon of hope that he has been feeling all along. Having her near, for the first time in his life, he felt content as the hope in his heart scattered and embedded itself in his bones, marking him undone as it consumed and devoured him whole. god, Jasper found his redemption in her.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

━━ I am establishing a new rule that I won't update any chapters until the previous chapter I posted isn't receiving the amount of attention/hype (comments & votes) I would have preferred, so this time I know that ya'll actually want to read my updates. This might get a weekly update if I am satisfied with the feedback!

━━ Hello! I've been feeling a bit mentally exhausted for the past few weeks, and I've been on a writing slump. I'm deciding to take a break and not be active on any social media accounts! I hope you all understand. Thank you! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter for today!