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Jasper didn't have a soulmate. In life, this had bothered him quite a bit. After all, who didn't want to have a person to whom their very soul was connected. One other being whose heart perfectly matched their own. It was a poetic notion, in life though, Jasper had been a romantic.
In death, it made more sense. With his rebirth, Jasper understood his true nature. The true animal who lives within all humans living or vampiric that wants only to survive. Jasper knew he didn't have a soulmate because no one deserved to be connected to him. Not with the atrocities he had committed as part of Maria's army. Jasper knew very well the pain of his victims, their betrayal, and absolute horror that was all they knew in their final moments. Though Jasper frequently regarded it as more of a curse, his gift allowed him to experience firsthand exactly what the newborns endured as he went in for the kill ending their second lives on Maria's orders. Jasper hated every moment of it, loathed his very existence. The ceaseless battle for territory, for the precious blood that sustained their being. For fifty-plus years, it had been all he'd known; there was nothing else out there for him. Nothing but the fight.
At least, that was what he had thought until Peter came back with tales of life in the north. Vampires kept to themselves; there was no battle, no armies. Peter claimed that the daily threat of death they'd experienced in their days with Maria was non-existent. He wanted Jasper to come with him, to run away. Peter felt his friend might find peace in the north with him and Charlotte. Jasper did consider the offer, but what exactly would he be running to. He didn't have a soulmate like his friend. What purpose would there be in leaving? Would it be worth it to paint a metaphorical X on his back? To invoke Maria's wrath over something so trivial as the possibility of happiness? Life in the south was miserable but familiar, and so he declined Peter's offer.
The man repeatedly returned over the years, risking his own life every time to do so. Jasper failed to understand why the man refused to accept that his friend was okay right where he was. That after everything he'd done, the idea of being happy seemed too far out of reach. It wasn't until 1905 when Jasper began to doubt his place with Maria. He'd been changing his shirt, a rare practice reserved for only the most gruesome of battle or to keep up with the times when he saw it for the first time. A thin rose vine on his left shoulder blade. This was the first indication that there was something better out there for him. A soulmate. To Jasper, that rose vine signified hope, something he hadn't felt in decades. The next time Peter showed up prepared for a long go of trying to convince his friend to leave with him, Jasper had already packed a bag.
Jasper made an honest attempt to stay with Peter and Charlotte. While the fighting had ceased and the disposal of Maria's rejects was fading into mere memory, feeding in itself was still a struggle. Jasper was happier overall sure, life was much better, but matching emotion with his victims as he drained them still took a significant toll on Jasper's psyche. He could feel their fear, their sorrow, regrets, and confusion as he fed. Their horror mirrored itself in his own demeanor, and Jasper knew he was bringing his only friends down. His own suffering was affecting the two who'd been so kind as to help him break free and taken him in. It wasn't fair to them, and so Jasper left to test his luck alone.
In 1920 his soulmate had been turned; Jasper knew as he watched the rosebud surface on his neck, the hues spilling out like watercolours across his start pale skin roughly the same size and shape as the same scar on his own neck. Most would have been grateful in his position, would have rejoiced in the knowledge. His soulmate, when he found them, was now an eternal being just the same as himself. Jasper, however, was saddened. He'd never met this person, didn't know their name or anything about them. He did recognize that the creation of a new vampire rarely, if ever, happened under happy conditions. What sort of life had this unknown person lived? What circumstances had led them to this fate?
Maria had preyed on those without any loved ones to return to. Those with nobody back home to question their disappearance. The handful of fellow vampires Jasper had met in his travels wandering the northern half of The United States had similar stories. Some were victims who hadn't been fully drained; most were plucked from the fringes of society changed on the whim of some lonely vampire seeking companionship. Never had he met someone whose human life had been good, the people who lead happy lives didn't end up like them.
Jasper wandered the country alone for years, constantly on the lookout for his soulmate. Eventually, he befriended a woman called Clara, who rode train cars across the country, picking her meals by means of fellow stowaways. Clara had an affinity for stories, always requesting of those singled out as a potential meal share their most fantastic tale. Terrible stories resulted in Clara feeding for the night, good stories in the victim being left alone. The very few who told the best stories, however, were turned. Permanently cementing their knowledge and experiences in eternity.
Jasper was riding with Clara and the latest newborn in her care when Peter came for him in an excitable state. He had news of a woman whose skin was covered in flower marks. Furthermore, the woman only had two scars from her human life. A long curving line down her left shoulder blade and one on her neck the evidence of her creation. Peter informed Jasper that the woman was searching for her mate, and as luck would have it, when she showed the cars to the couple she was residing with, they knew of someone with marks matching her scars exactly. Jasper.
Jasper asked his friend to have the woman meet him at the nearest train station. Once there, the reality of the situation settled in. He gazed down at his arms covered in overlapping silver scars. The woman was sure to have marks in the same places adorning her own body. How hard must her life have been living in a society where those blessed with a soulmate were looked down upon in jealousy. There wouldn't have been any hiding her marks, not when Jasper had been bitten in such prominent places. His hands, neck, even his face.
A set of soft footsteps to his left captured his attention. A woman was approaching him with hopeful eyes and a calm and inviting face. Jasper felt his insecurities wash away. She was so much more beautiful than he'd ever imagined. She was a short petit little thing, covered from head to toe in flowers. Had he known what he was doing to her, he would have left Maria ages ago.
She introduced herself as Alice, reaching out a hand, her voice a musical tone he wanted to hear for the rest of his life. An existence, should she let him, he would spend making up to her all the pain she must have endured.
And so, taking her offered hand, he responded. "Jasper, pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am."