He isn’t sure what his and Sera’s relationship was, either. They were kids, really, and there for each other in a detached way; just the way he prefers his encounters. They have been much the same his whole life, though this girl before him was the only slip, the only accident. Because that’s what she was, in his eyes at least - an accident.
He can feel her disappointment and her anger tumbling together around her, he can feel she is lost, and he lets her emotions wash over him, for a second, the twisting of his heart foreign to him, as unfamiliar as butterflies in his stomach would be. Emotions make you weak, he knows that; he doesn’t indulge, but being here, before his daughter, he just allows himself a taste. Other people’s emotions are, it seems, much more interesting than his own.
He isn’t surprised that Sera never told the girl his name. This man, this darkness, this shadow monster, it is not a father-figure. It is the mistake you make when you are young and foolish, when you fall in the wrong direction. Sera probably never expected this; never thought that Jasper would seek out the child they made. And she was right, in a way - the Jasper that she knew would never have done such a thing. But he has grown, he has come to see that family is important. And his family is more than Ellie, though he wishes often that he could wipe Draco off the face of Shaman, and do everyone a favour.
Don’t even start on the Mallos-Gwythr thing.
“I’m Jasper,” he tells her mentally, scanning her mind for any hint of recognition. “I’m not looking for Sera, I was … interested in how you were doing. In what you were doing.” In what you can do, he wants to ask, but stops himself. He knows she has some powers, he can sense them, but he does not know the control she has, the practise. Who she has practised them on.
He wonders if his proclivity for practising his powers on vulnerable fairies could have been passed on to his daughter. And if it has, he wonders if she would be interested in training together. He has enough experience, he could show her things she may never have dreamt of.
J A S P E Ri'm waking up.
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