My Name is Jason.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

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[Party in the forest at midnight]

The Tower.

Of course she drew The Tower.

The cards told him exactly what he already knew. He didn't know what he expected. What foolishness, falling for the sin of hope. Wistful thinking that everything would be okay all on its own. Everything he had he worked for, and the solution to his problems wouldn't come so freely as asking a diviner what would happen. He knew what would happen. He knew. The cards knew.

But she continued to speak, disrupting his racing mind as it dug deeper into itself.
What is built will fall. But something new can be rebuilt from it.
The potential of something new, something better, something stronger.
Something he preached to others and often argued for.
Strife, the card was Strife.

And within himself an old conflict boiled to the surface of his mind once more.

Fear was sin. Only One was to be feared. Long had he asked himself, did he cut the line too close between caution and fear? Was he too stagnant, did he hold himself back too much out of fear of what would happen? He had success early on, but that had long since dried up into frustrating stretches of nothing. And the few things he did have now were being ripped apart by a vampire he couldn't drive off without using his holy symbol.

Holding back wasn't going to cut it this time.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

All he wanted was his own little corner of the world.

That was it.

It was that simple.

And yet it became increasingly more frustrating to hold onto. There is one truth and it is that if it can be taken from another, it will be.

He had long watched them, trying to discern if any peers were among them. He didn't necessarily want to step on their toes, they were fighting a war of their own. But things were going too far, he had to treat them as though they were exactly what they seemed to be. He wasn't about to end up with his throat slit upon an altar, and every day that future marched closer.

He would fight to hold onto what was his. His property, his people, his corner of the city.