TIMELINE FOR JESPER'S DEMIGOD VERSE.

tada! here's the post that i was talking about early -- this post primarily covers the years that the percy jackson series covered, considering that i just finished my reread, but i do eventually want to drum up a prophecy for jesper and the rest of the crows to embark on after the events of heroes of olympus. there is a little bit at the end where i discuss what jesper was doing during the events of the lost hero and a few months after that, before the son of neptune.

from his birth all the way to being about fifteen, jesper was mostly on his father's farm. he remembers seeing monsters at the boundaries of the farm for as long as he can remember --always there, always lingering, but never crossing into the actual grounds of the family farm. aditi sometimes went out to shoot them, and she tended to return safely.

there was a day when she didn't. there had been a girl that she had been trying to protect. that was the very same day that jesper fahey plunged into the woods beyond their family farm, picked up the gun that was with aditi hilli's mangled body, and shot the karpoi that had killed her, all point blank in the forehead.

some notes about this period of time between 0 - 15:

the fahey family farm is a safe haven, and as a result jesper wasn't ever attacked inside of its boundaries. however, the monsters would brush up against the very edge of the boundary in attempt to snag jesper when he was running errands for his father.

colm had tried to send jesper to school after his mother died, considering the fact that she was homeschooling him and colm didn't have the time for that.

colm explained away the monsters as rabid animals, and although jesper really didn't believe him, it was the only way he could come to understand what happened. he heard a lot of growls and noises while he was tending the fields, and usually the farm animals seemed skittish at all times.

a lot of jesper's abilities didn't really strike colm as odd as they weren't too obvious as they manifested.

aditi's guns had twelve rounds, each with celestial bullets. they are a gift from hermes. the gun that jesper carries on her left hip has a sonic ability, letting out a boom loud enough to be heard in a giant radius and affecting monster (and usually halfblood) hearing. the gun on the right has the ability to confuse and disorient whatever it hits, their internal sense of direction and balance becoming jumbled. both of these abilities can be tied to one bullet in a full chamber of six, so jesper only has one shot at both abilities until she needs to reload and bind it to a particular bullet again.

at age fifteen, jesper was sent off to the united states as an international student. due to his skills and intelligence, he got accepted to a university that primarily specialized in taking in people with ADHD and other neurodivergences. when jesper was out at a gambling den, he was attacked by monsters.

he joined up with other half-bloods before even knowing exactly what they all were yet. she went on the run with kaz brekker and inej ghafa, traveling across the entirety of the united states for about a year to a year and a half before they stumbled into a satyr.

inej and kaz are both half-bloods, but none of them exactly know it. they just stick together and run. none of them have nectar and ambrosia while they're moving, so any injuries that they mantain are ones that they have to shoulder and keep moving with, including kaz's leg.

they all have weapons that they can use to fight monsters. jesper has to be particular about wasting the bullets in his chambers, since they only have twelve, so a role they also play is bait/traps/etc. in addition jesper mentally has a pull towards the east coast so he offers to navigate, although they're not exactly sure where they're being pulled to go

jesper does try and call colm a few times which unfortunately sends up a giant flare to their location said few times.

at age sixteen, jesper and her friends are finally led to camp half-blood. all three of them are shoved into the hermes cabin, and while jesper is claimed in the first few days, kaz and inej take longer. inej is claimed not soon after, and kaz not at all. while jesper easily makes new friends at camp, there's a certain sort of... wariness that she has with interacting with the other campers. it's a lot of information, but she has no problem befriending anyone. she's a charmer, that's for sure.

she keeps hearing whispers about luke. it's hard not to, when you're in the hermes cabin.

she arrives at camp halfblood in the summer of titan's curse, which is about six months before the events of that book actually take place

although i think jesper would technically be the eldest demigod in the hermes cabin, he doesn't feel comfortable with that role, especially not since she just arrived at camp, so it doesn't go to her

in the few days before she was claimed, there was some ideas ruminating about jesper being a son of apollo due to their skills with a bow and arrow after they adjusted to not using a gun. while jesper still has the guns with them, they kept them a quiet secret from majority of the camp goers for quite a while. the exception to this was the hephaestus kids, as jesper was working with them to make more bullets melted with celestial bronze. due to their engineer-like brain and their skill with those types of task, there was also some thought of them being a hephaestus child

absolutely a BEAST at capture the flag. good with horses as well

no interaction with hermes ever in their life, nor do they really care. they hear a lot about kronos' army and gathering strength and they see some deserters and while jesper isn't SUPER keen on the gods, they don't see the point of deserting either

pals with the stoll brothers <3 they bet and barter with camp chores all the time

at age seventeen, jesper goes back to ireland to visit his father, who has been worried sick about him ever since he got news of jesper not showing up for an entire semester at school. while colm hasn't been bothered by monsters ever since jesper disappeared, he's really missed him :( and yet, when jesper comes back, it's immediately his presence that starts attracting them back to the farm. as a result, after a summer, jesper comes back to camp half-blood and starts spending the rest of his year there, although seemingly with no interest of going to college.

instead, jesper spends the year prior to the second titan war being one of the scouts for watching kronos' army, considering their abilities and their skills. when kronos attacks, jesper fights alongside the hermes cabin.

jesper's hearing was damaged by a fight between several monsters and the hermes cabin. in addition to some damage already done by handling guns as their main weapon, both ears are affected so badly that they develop mild deafness in both ears.

after the events of the second titan war, jesper offers their skills in engineering for helping construct new cabins, particularly fun little things for the cabin interior. he also visits his dad in ireland again for a few months where he tells him the whole truth about what exactly happened over the past few years to him. in return colm tells him about meeting hermes, who jesper still has not spoken to at all yet

after the events of the last olympian, jesper still is in camp. they're starting to consider going to university again, especially because they feel like they've gotten a lot better mentally, until percy goes missing. for the events of the lost hero, jesper is off towards the west coast actively looking for percy, considering their skill with direction, and their father being the god of travelers and thieves, letting them go around generally undetected while keeping their wits about them. also i think possible as a kid of hermes she's able to keep a cell phone on her, used for emergencies, and her abilities let her scramble the transmission and signal a little bit if she needs to get an emergency voice message out.

it's here that jesper gets sucked into the curse of the lotus hotel and casino. it just happens. it's an itch that she needs to scratch, after attempting to . the world settles around her, the things that have been nagging her go away. it feels good to be at the tables, the same way it felt good all those years ago before everything went wrong. but it's okay. she's safe. she's not.

jesper spends a day and a half in there. the first day is her gambling nonstop, enjoying the adrenaline and enjoying the glee. her abilities as a kid of hermes means that people around her get good luck, so she made easy friends at the casino.

the extra half of a day is after she starts spotting glimpses of her (dead) mother in the corners of her vision, and she keeps getting calls from her father and her friends. for the first time in the entirety of the lotus casino's history, one of patrons has a meltdown right amongst everyone else having a good time. jesper absolutely cracks and staggers off to a private corner and starts yelling at himself, as well as other old harmful anxious habits. it takes her far too long to save herself from having a meltdown and an overstimulation episode. just as she's teetering on the edge, someone sits down right next to her, puts their hand on the small of her back, tells her to put her head down and breathe. she does.

it's the same technique jesper's always used to calm herself in these episodes. when she lifts her head: it's the first time she's stared hermes in the eye.

when jesper leaves the casino, it's been the equivalent of about three months since she was last seen or contacted. people had assumed that she died out there.

Prompt: “It’s not your fault.”

Fic-a-day February, day 5 -- unpolished, unedited, unmerciful. I looked at this prompt and thought, “Maybe Jesper and Wylan were playing around and broke an antique,” and then I went with entirely not that. This one draws on view of Grisha in the Wander Isle, according to TGT, but is entirely SoC-based.

Trigger Warning: Murder (not graphic but very much present), grieving a lost parent

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Jesper told himself things just worked out that way. Things just worked out that way – he needed to be sure Wylan was settled. (Never mind that Wylan had been saying, “I’m all right, Jes, you should visit Colm,” for months. Like the merchling knew anything about anything!) Things just worked out that way – Inej had stayed with them, briefly, then come home from her first voyage on her new ship. Of course he knew she saw Kaz first, but at the end of the day, even the Wraith liked a good meal and a soft bed. (“I’m so proud of you,” they had chorused, Jesper to the righteous pirate, Inej to the months-sober sharpshooter.) Things just worked out that way…

He let himself into the house, surprised by how different it felt. Wasn’t he returning home? Somehow Jesper was surprised to find it wholly unchanged. He felt like he had stepped back into his memories, the same place but the wrong time. It had only been two and a half years, but all that had changed was Jesper. He no longer fit the shape of the space he left behind. Jesper shook his head. What was that nonsense? Banishing the inexplicable melancholy, he set down his bag and left the little clapboard house. Briefly, Jesper glanced at the cherry tree. Then he headed out to the western field. His da would’ve spotted him, if he had looked. If he had known to look. As it was, Colm was so engaged in his work he only noticed when Jesper was nearly beside him. Then Colm about leapt a foot off the ground. “Jes!” He grinned and, like he had in the Boeksplein, hugged his son tightly. This time, there was no relief in his eyes. He was happy, surprised, but he hadn’t been worried. This time, Jesper didn’t mind having the breath hugged out of him. “I missed you, too, Da.” Jesper hadn’t been in Ketterdam a month before his sensible, well-patched farmboy clothing was long forgotten. He hadn’t worn drab colors voluntarily ever since. When he clarified precisely what he expected he’d be doing, Wylan had asked, “Are you going to get new clothes for the trip?” He did that sometimes. He said something that reminded Jesper what a privileged life he had led. Times like that, it was tough not to tease him. So Jesper had teased him. They worked together until the sun dipped low to the horizon. Jesper hadn’t done this sort of work in years, but his body remembered even as his mind began to wander. Hard work wasn’t the same is interesting work—but he was needed here. Useful. And he was better, he reminded himself. It was worth it when they stopped for the evening. The smile Colm gave Jesper was worth everything. For the best part of a week, they worked together. They didn’t talk much. Colm would offer the occasional, “All right, Jes?” or “It’s good to have you here.” Sometimes, Jesper’s attention wandered back to the cherry tree, but there was work to be done. And that was that. One morning, Jesper’s eyes drifted open, his mind scratching at the reality surrounding them. It was late—not so late at home with Wylan, but by farm standards, they were wasting daylight. Why had Colm let him sleep? Then Jesper realized it must be Sunday. Colm had gone to church. More, he had left Jesper behind. Colm Fahey was a religious man whose previous attitude was that when you lived under his roof, you showed respect to the Saints, and that didn’t just mean swearing by them. Jesper stretched, wriggled his toes, and decided he might as well get up. Might as well make himself useful—maybe he didn’t live here, but he wasn’t a guest, either. He made the bed. There was a trick he had learned, one his ma used to do. He pulled the dirt away from clothes with his gift. Everything still needed a wash, but not so desperately, enough for Jesper to have everything clean and hung out to dry in under an hour. He made biscuits without burning them. After making a few twitchy rounds of the house, resettling things, struggling to busy himself, Jesper swallowed. He left the house. It was an almost cruelly beautiful day, a breeze slicing through the blistering heat, the sky unfathomable. Laundry hung on the line, half-dry already. The fields were swiftly becoming bare. Jesper took pride in that. He took pride in how much work they had done together. Though he had no desire to stay on the farm, knew he was destined for grander things, but this place would always hold his heart. There had been a time this was all the world he thought there was to know. His childhood had been here. His da was here. Jesper stopped under the cherry tree. It was a healthy tree, its leaves glossy-green. He couldn’t remember precisely the right spot and shuffled back. He didn’t want to stand on… on the wrong place. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Then took one out to rub his neck, then his nose was itchy. He ran a hand over his hair. Bounced a Kerch penny across his knuckles. He squatted close to the ground like somehow being five feet closer would answer all his questions. Or at least tell him which ones to ask. Jesper was standing once more, staring at the ground in something like confusion, when Colm joined him. They stood together quietly for a few moments. “She’d’ve been proud.” “That’s why Wy says.” Jesper hadn’t made much mention of his boyfriend on this trip, but it was true. Whenever Jesper couldn’t help saying a word about his ma, that was what Wylan said. She would be proud. Really? She would be proud her only son went a whole six weeks without a slip-up visit to the tables? She would be proud he was so confused about his gift that he spent years hiding it, even after he became sick with the effort? Colm nodded. “Jes, I… what happened that night…” Jesper remembered the words he had sobbed out too many times. I should have known. I should have saved her. And every time, Wylan held him, stroked his hair, rubbed his back, promised that this wasn’t Jesper’s fault. Wasn’t it? Ma used her gift to save someone’s life. Jesper could barely manage the wash. His tiny spark of magic wasn’t much, but it would have been enough. If he had been trained, it would have been. Colm cleared his throat but couldn’t find the words. So Jesper found his. “I know,” he said. “I know it was my fault, Da.” “Your fault?” Colm asked, genuinely surprised. “Ma… Ma was training me. I didn’t know what it meant. She didn’t want to worry you with it, but if I had understood, if I had been more serious and not just wanted to shoot because it was fun—” “You were a child,” Colm interrupted. He sounded almost angry. “I was… you know what I was.” He nodded. “Grisha.” Jesper turned to his father in surprise. It had been Colm who banished those words from the house, Colm who insisted the only way Jesper could be safe was to be not that. Jesper remembered the day Leoni’s father offered to take him to train somewhere else. He had decided to stay to be with his father, even knowing… The words were out before Jesper could stop them: “I didn’t think I could be Grisha and still be your son.” Not resentful, just a fact. Colm’s head snapped up. “Jesper!” “I know you changed your mind since then, but you didn’t want me to be that way.” “I wanted you safe. I—” He cut himself off. Ran a hand through his graying hair. “I made mistakes, but you will always be my son. What happened to your mother was not your fault.” Jesper nodded. He wanted to say it wasn’t true, but he only wanted to say that because he heard pain in his da’s voice. He didn’t want to say it because he believed it. He didn’t believe it. It didn’t mean Jesper loved him any less, but he knew his da made mistakes. They stood for a long, quiet moment, both thinking their weighty thoughts. The truth was, Colm’s response to Grisha power—to Jesper’s and Aditi’s both—had shaped Jesper’s early adult years. It was Colm’s fear that made Jesper fear and hide. Maybe it made him more susceptible not just to the dice and the cards, but to someone like Kaz, who could draw him into a thrilling world where Jesper never truly belonged. He accepted his own responsibility, too. Another gusting breeze blew the worst of the afternoon heat off him, but it couldn’t assuage the gnawing shame. He was fundamentally at his own fault. Jesper accepted that as he stood there, looking at the patch of grass where his ma rested. For all Colm had failed, overall, he hadn’t, not overall. He had loved his son. He forgave him in Ketterdam, had come out here to stand with him beside the cherry tree. “I’m the youngest of the five of us.” Jesper turned to his father in surprise. The youngest? The five of who? “I never counted Meirion, he died too young, but my parents did. You’ve an uncle, my brother Pryderi. Still works the old farm, as far as I know.” Jesper’s eyes might as well have dropped out of his skull. He caught himself gaping and closed his mouth, but… still! He had never thought much of his father’s life Before. Before Ma, Before Novyi Zem, just in all the Before. He all but believed Colm Fahey sprung up a grown man and had no childhood at all. Colm encouraged it by never offering details about his life before. With an almost confused shake of his head, Colm said, “You must’ve known I had a reason to leave the Wandering Isle.” “I thought you killed a guy and were fleeing the authorities,” Jesper replied without thinking. When it doubt, aim for a laugh. Unable to deny his curiosity, he asked, “So one’s dead and one inherited your father’s farm. What do my other uncles do? Do I have cousins?” “Pryderi’s got two sons and a daughter. Gruff was like you. Gruffud, but we called him Gruff.” Colm ran a hand through his hair again. Jesper saw the pain in his father’s face and knew he ought to say he didn’t need to know. But… he did. And he sensed if he didn’t know now, he’d never learn. “Gruff and Glyndwr were twins. Glyn was like the rest of us, but Gruff was a healer. My brother never meant any harm to anyone. He was as kind a soul as ever lived.” Jesper suspected exaggeration, but he had a guess now where this brother was. In case he was right, he did not challenge his father’s claim. Something tingling on the edge of numbness coursed through him. “The Kaelish believe—not me. And he should’ve known better. I was a little younger than you are now. He wasn’t yet twenty. The Kaelish believe people like you are something not human, something fae. It wasn’t out of hate. They… Saints, you don’t need to hear this.” Jesper thought of what he had seen in Fjerda. He never told his da the full truth about that, this time not out of shame, but fear it would give the man a heart attack. He thought of the gruesome banner of red, blue, and purple kefta scraps; the charred corpses, and the one who hadn’t been a corpse yet; he thought of the kherguud, twisted past human. They weren’t memories he liked to carry, but he didn’t know that he could be whole without knowing the truth. “I think I do need to hear it, Da,” he said. “It’s my history.” Colm nodded. “All right. All right, then. They bled him. It’s what they do in the Wandering Isle—what some do. They believe Grisha blood can—they’re old folk with old ways, Jes. He wasn’t even twenty, my brother. Kindest man you could ever meet. Shy. When I saw what you were, I saw him again. I saw you in his place. I thought I was protecting you, you and your ma both. As though she ever needed my protection. I should’ve known the best I could do to protect you was let you be as strong as the Saints made you.” “Da.” In Ketterdam, Jesper had seen his da through different eyes. He had seen him in the Boeksplein and thought he looked like an obvious pigeon. He had seen him look so aged and so, so weary in the Ketterdam Suite. For the first time now, not only did he see his father differently, Jesper saw himself differently. Instead of cracking some dumb joke, he just stepped over and put his arms around Colm. “It’s not your fault, either,” Jesper said. “Not your brother and not Ma.” It was just uncanny, seeing that Colm felt what Jesper did, that they both looked at this tragedy and found some way to make it their own. He didn’t think he could absolve his da without absolving himself. Since he couldn’t let his da hurt, he didn’t see any choice. Anyway. It was what Ma would’ve wanted.

In the name of the father and the son... | Eric Self-Para

23rd October, 2008 - Grand Island, Nebraska

“I knew it! I knew she were trouble minute I saw her, I god dang knew it!” Arthur Rush had the voice of chewed up tobacco, rolling in age and abused by the years. The lines of his face were so engrained they ran like veins through parchment, as if woven into his very essence as years in the sun darkened them against his burned mistreated skin. It was hard to really look him in the eye, those dark blues couched so deeply set within their sockets that they seemed to stare into your very soul, judging you like Jesus on the cross. It amazed Eric to this day, how the years had only made his father even more powerful when for many men it was a thing of weakness.

The words pelleted him, filling the immense silence that no one else dared to break. His mother Gwen threw her a son a look of apology but offered nothing else, and he could feel his younger brother Orlan merely watching from the doorway. There was no stopping Arthur, not when he was like this. It took a welling of courage for Eric to finally speak and even then, at the age of thirty-one he felt like a whining child rather than the respectable adult he was. "Don't put this on her, this is nothing to do with h-”

“Son. You cannot sign those fuckin’ papers, you understand me aye? That is sin, I won’t allow that from my children!” The old man’s voice roared as if to be heard by the heavens themselves and cast down at his son. Eric met his father’s eyes, trying to plead, but the only thing that met him back was stone. He knew in that moment that he would never be the same before his father’s eyes, no matter how hard he argued, how much he tried to make the stubborn fool understand.

That was the last time Eric had seen his father, a whole five years ago, spluttering fury and burning guilt the only thing that had followed him out the door. Now, as he stared ahead, he could feel tears well up in the corner of his eyes at the parade of black. The mid-October sun hazed through the thick grey clouds and solemn Irish folk music bleated across the mostly empty graveyard plain. Three generations of Rushes had been buried here and with his father’s death, it would now be the fourth. 

He had five years to say goodbye and now it was too late. That was the truth, now woven into the soil and the world below, an irrefutable fact that work mark itself into Eric’s psyche for the rest of his days. So like a lonely stalk, he just watched from afar, studying the huddle of his brothers and sisters, the frail shape of his mother swaying with emotions and wind. He wasn’t a heartfelt man at the best of times, but when it came to his family, he gave all he had. That’s what it meant to be Irish. No matter how far you stepped away from your community, your roots and your features, you never scrub your origins away, it was written indelible across his very soul.

The ceremony took a few hours, his brothers making speeches in a mesh of Gaelic and English before each of the seven attending Rush children moved to cast dirt onto their father’s lowered grave and say their final prayers. Eric couldn’t hear it all, but he didn’t need to, just sat under the willow tree across the way and imagining vividly exactly what would be said. Orlan would be sober and polite, rolling Nebraska accent thick with hurt, while his eldest brother Conor, a barrelling giant of a man would make some humour laden obituary talking about how it wasn’t the beers that got to Arthur but the bacon in the end. 

None of them had called to let the middle son know his father died, and they had little reason to believe he would attend. It was his mother Gwen, perhaps the only person of the lot that still had a willingness to speak to her son, that had passed a simple messaging explaining that Arthur had passed and when the funeral would be. Eric had to wonder if she had really even wanted him to come either, or if she simply feared God’s wrath should she deny a son his father’s passing. The rest believed that he was an outcast who had not only cast aside their binding religious beliefs but had allowed a woman to get the best of him and introduced her a-religious muck into the family home in the first place. 

Eventually, they drifted away and the undertakers took over. Eric wasn’t sure how long he stayed sat there, dark coat pulled close as he just stared ahead. It didn’t feel real. Arthur Rush may have been an enormous arsehole right till the end, smoking a pack a day, drinking like it was out of fashion and not even making the basic attempts at exercise, but he was invincible. A larger than life soul that just seemed to envelop any space he was thrust into. Always ready with a whip, a smile and a firm shake, and intelligent beyond his means, filled with a depth of world war one and two knowledge that would make most college graduates blush. 

How could something so certain, so solid and looming so huge just...disappear? It felt like an impossibility of the world and yet it was the truth. 

Finally, as the sun began to set, everyone had left and all that remained was the polished marble headstone of Arthur Rush. Eric drew himself up and made his way slowly towards it, his hands brushing over the still shiny surface. It was expensive firm materials that would survive the decades handily, and the lawyer immediately knew that his siblings had spared no expense despite the fact none of them were very well off. 

“Dá fhada an lá tagann an tráthnóna...” It had been a long while, but the Gaelic still ran off his tongue as if he’d never stopped speaking it. No matter how long the day, the evening comes. Or, all bad things come to an end. It was a saying his mother always espoused when they came home with poor grades or tears in their eyes. A simple statement that eventually, the time would pass to let it all go and move on.

Eric crouched down, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a flask. It was an old battered thing, glinting in the horizoned sun, the scratched surface crisscrossing over three embossed initials. E.C.R. His father had given it to him as a gift after he’d passed the bar. He could still see Arthur now, broad grin beneath his bushy moustache as his large hand clasped his son’s shoulder.

“I hear that lawyerin’ business is hard, so here’s for a good ole stiff drink when y’all need it.”

He screwed off the top and tilted the container, a rich stream of brown bourbon dripping down. Irish whiskey, his father’s favourite. He whispered to the newly turned earth, fingers reaching in and carding between the brown soil as if he could feel his father beneath it all.

“Here's to beefsteak when you're hungry. Whiskey when you're dry. All the women you'll ever want. And heaven when you die.” 

“What the feck are you doin’ ‘ere?!” It was hard to miss Conor’s voice. It boomed like an echo of their father’s, all chest and gruff, ready for a fight at the drop of a hat.

Eric got up slowly, putting his flask away and rolling his shoulders back as he turned to face his brothers. They stood in a line, as if an Irish firing squad, a row of sharp blue eyes they’d all inherited from their father. Only Orlan, the youngest of the boys and the closest to Eric, seemed to falter in resolve, biting his lip and glancing away as he had all those years ago before Arthur.

“I’m a son just like all of you, I have a right to sa-”

“A right?!” It was Fergal this time, the firepit of the family. He always had this deranged look in his eyes ever since they were young and if you ever found trouble in Grand Island, it wasn’t crazy to suspect Fergal Rush was behind it. One time, in a play fight gone wrong, the mad bastard had actually chewed part of Colm’s ear off, which as stitched back on (poorly) by their mother. 

Said cock-eared Colm was the next in line, though as usual, he was quiet and pensive, just gazing down at Eric and giving nothing away. Though it wasn’t like any of them had much chance as Conor wound up to continue his bravado. “You got some nerve comin’ ‘ere after all these years. Pa didn’t want you around the house and we don’t want you ‘round his grave. You ain’t one of us, not ever since you picked that lady over your blood.”

“Now git gone.” At those last words, Conor squared up to Eric. He was a head taller and made of all the farming muscle one could muster. He’d always been the toughest in the family and there was little down he could knock his little brother another set of teeth if he wanted. 

“I’m not leaving.” Eric didn’t move, his face set in granite as darkness swept over all of them. Only a harsh breeze remained, whipping their clothes around as they stared at each other in some twisted Irish Mexican standoff. You could swear you could ear the protesting creaks of the dead around them, beckoning the living intruders to leave and be done with their nonsense. 

Conor stepped up, and jaw tightening and flexing like furious gills. His hands rose but Eric didn’t flinch, if was going to get punched, he’d take it on the chin like his father would have wanted. But those large burly hands slapped onto the sides of the lawyer’s cheek and forced him forward until Conor and his brows were touching.

“Blood is blood.”  Conor murmured, letting go after a long moment and setting his hand on Eric’s shoulder. And that was it. Acceptance. It had taken their father dying and five long years, but finally, he wasn’t alone again. He couldn’t hide the emotion that crumpled onto his face and his eldest brother just brought him into an embrace, the two of them laughing through tears.

“Once a Rush, always a Rush.”

Jesper’s mother was the one to teach him to ride a horse, bait a line, clean a fish, pluck a quail, to start a fire with nothing but two sticks, and to brew a proper cup of tea. 

aditi taught him to shoot, but she also taught him enough skills that he’d know how to get and prepare food as well as to make fire, all of that as a child. I think, in a way, that’s also a means to protect him, ensuring even at a young age he could survive if needed be. at the same time, what this tells me about her is that this isn’t a concern without reason. she knows all of those things because she needed to learn them --- and she teaches him that because there was no one who taught her any of that.

And she taught him to shoot. First with a child’s pellet gun that was little more than a toy, then with pistols and rifle. “Anyone can shoot,” she’d told him. “But not everybody can aim.” She taught him distance sighting, how to track an animal through the brush, the tricks that light can play on your eyes, how to factor wind shear, and how to shoot running, then seated on a horse. There was nothing she couldn’t do.

even when shooting, she taught him to hunt, which also fits in the more survival aligned skills. at the same time, some of those? seem a lot more like they were meant for a fight (like teaching him how to shoot running). because it’d be one thing to just teaching him to shoot for fun and that definitely doesn’t seem to be the case here imo.

fun little verse dump of a couple of verses i’m adding to my collection :] includes a brief description of pokemon au, twin au w/ @/pistolslinger, shapeshifter au, university of ketterdam au, + kh au! i also plan on adding a pjo au but i need to figure out what godly parent jes has bc im bouncing between like. four.

 if you’re interested in roleplaying with any of these, let me know in my interest tracker!

POKEMON AU: 

team: corviknight, toxicity (amped), garchomp, obstagoon, weavile, & gliscor. originally a trainer from johto from a farm just outside of azalea town. however, jesper was always restless, and he tried to put that energy into helping his da manage the farm with their pokemon. however, his da could find that it was driving him crazy and sent him out into the world. he’s visited various regions (hoenn, sinnoh, unova, and galar so far) but has since settled in galar for now, easily found in motostoke city, spikemuth or wyndon. the corviknight is in contact with his father.

TWIN AU:

elijah ronan fahey (eli, he prefers eli) is born two minutes after jesper fahey. he’s not zowa, but he thinks the same as aditi does - it’s a gift, and it’s wonderful, and it shouldn’t be sheltered away. even when aditi dies, even when colm almost seems like a ghost sometimes when the lights are running low, he keeps his head high. both of them help out around the farm, cook, keep things running when there’s a gaping wound - and eli agrees that it’s a chance of a lifetime that jesper goes to the university of ketterdam. he stays behind. he says that someone’s gotta watch da. 

SHAPESHIFTER AU:

a shapeshifter who had been warned not to use his powers so openly under the guise that someone might want to study him. jesper mostly stays in the same, human form, and many folks think that he’s entire human - except that there are instances where he shifts form/appearance to gamble on an endless tab. he has a capability to shift into an animal, but typically doesn’t unless he doesn’t want to be found. 

UNIVERSITY OF KETTERDAM AU:

this is pretty self-explanatory! this is an au where jesper doesn’t fall in hands with the dregs although he gets into some trouble on the streets sometimes. he’s still studying at the university, studying the grishaverse version of mechanical engineering with some interest in civil engineering. 

KINGDOM HEARTS AU:

originally from a smaller world where his da and him tended to a farm, jesper struck out on his own. although he’s tempted to jump from world to world, he’s in fact found himself in twilight town, the bustling place. he’s apart of an organization there that are all magic users, although he’s not an active member there and sort of does his own thing.