The Brilliant Dance
by Aaydona
"It's beginning, isn't it?" said Alice. Her eyes shone darkly even against the blackness of the night as her fingertips skimmed my elbow, softly tracing the thin scars that crisscrossed there, but they were anxious, worried. Her body felt fragile against mine when we touched, I could not help but notice. It was all I could do not to manipulate her into going far, far away for this battle and not return until I had destroyed them all, if I didn't know that she would most likely find some way to outwit me towards the end.
"Alas," I replied in a relaxed drawl, but I could tell that my limbs were too tense, perhaps stiff enough to give the enemy a lucky advantage. "It is."
Alice… Her name is fresh on my lips, like her kiss. Her gaze was on me. "You'll be careful, right?"
I stared at her, and said, sarcastically, "I'll try." She pretended to swat me on the arm, while I cleared my senses to discover the bastards were trying to surround us. The dog—werewolves growled lowly, ears shooting up, alert. If they wanted a fight, they were getting one. "Can I trust you to be careful?"
Alice wrinkled her nose at me, appearing to be insulted to the utmost level. "Of course—"
"Not." I sighed, lacing my fingers with hers. What I'd give for her to be safe forever, to never have to fight as I did and bear the very same scars… "Just stay close to me, which, I do realize, is a mildly sexist thing to say, but better sexist than single, I have to say."
In response she squeezed my hand gently, and I could not react to that with any course of action than what I had in mind: I bent down and pressed my lips to hers quickly, wrapping my arm around her thin shoulders, feeling many pairs of eyes watching me as I did so. Damn dogs. "You are so overprotective."
I laughed, then stilled, for they were here at last, blundering into our territory like clumsy oafs. Deadly silence washed over the air like rain, when the wolves too caught the scents of the fledglings. I could hear the crisp blades of grass ripple against the night wind as I waited for something to set this battle off.
I waited, because I knew they were impulsive, and they would not wait for the right strategic moment to begin this fight. And correct I was. The first that came were the worst of the lot. A blond, broad-shouldered one—he could not have been than seventeen-years-old—flew at Alice, deciding to choose her as his primary target due to her size and demeanor.
I stepped in front of her, a shield between she and the fledgling. "Get away from her. Now," I snarled, seizing his shoulders, lifting him inches off the ground, and dropping him headfirst downwards with fury. Crimson blossoms of blood stained his crushed neck as the scent of savagery curled in tendrils around me.
Alice stared down at the corpse at her feet. "Is he…" The question lingered in the air until I nodded. I wanted to say more, tell her that there was a reason for all this bloodshed that wasn't in order for our way of life to continue. There never was a reason other than this very one.
Somewhere not too far off from here Emmett, eyes wild, roared his fierce battle cry and I kissed the sadness off of Alice's cheeks before the next fledgling came.
She took my elbow into her hands again and gazed at me tenderly. "I want to fight, Jasper."
"They cannot even remember what it was like to be human anymore," I protested, fending off the circle of vampires closing in around us like a chain.
She cried, "I don't want to stand on the sidelines while watching the people I love get hurt!"
"It will hurt me all the more of they hurt you. I cannot watch you in danger." And I could not, would not allow a battle to taint her as they had tainted me. "Please," I said, softly pleading.
"I can't."
I replied, "Nor can I." We fought to finish off the next opponents, but I could not voluntarily give her any part in it. It was just too hard.
---
I did not see the brown-haired female preparing to twist my arm as I fought the male intending to fight my love. I bit my lip when the female's nails dug into my elbow, ignoring the sting that was slowly spreading its way upwards into my left shoulder, and shoved the male away, pinning him to the ground. My head lifted from the male's body when I heard a sharp cry of pain from the female behind me, penetrating the calm, merciless mind-frame I had plunged into especially for this battle. "Stay back!" I shouted to her. The female attempted to throw a punch at her, but Alice was too quick, dodging the blow completely and appearing behind the brunette. As her small, pale hands closed around the female's throat, I snatched the enemy out of the way, crushing her neck with my own hands. Her blood painted my skin red and streaked across my cheek. I steered Alice to another direction immediately so she would not see the female's lifeless ruby eyes roll back into her skull.
The rhythm of the battle was hungry and incontrovertible. I fell into it with my entire being, hearing each step I take toward the enemy as a beat in my song. I strangled, and slashed, and tackled. I tried my best to ignore the beseeching spilling from her eyes. Each movement I took was a step in the dance, and the fledglings could not escape it.
---
I felt scratches on my skin, wounds of venom and carelessness that I'd taken as a result of taking six or seven of them at a time, the monster within me not to be taken lightly. I heard the last cries of the remaining vampires as I took more lives in one night than I had since more than a lifetime ago. I could barely contain my snarls and furious pummels to something vaguely civilized, little more than a beast.
"Jasper." My name was on her lips, but not in a way I would ever desire for it to be so, like anguish. She was the only one who would know that I was tearing my soul apart all over again, into bloody pieces, and that I could not stop anymore, not until it was finished.
I began to say, "I—"
Then, when I saw the tangle of orange hair drifting into the battlegrounds from afar, the vivid color of the waves the exact shade possessed by Victoria, the battle was over.
The last remaining fledgling had surrendered, and we were left with the aftermath.
"You overprotective fool," Alice whispered, her lips pressing against my neck, stiff and cold and all that I could want. Her hand was in mine and I could not let it go.
"I know," I told her, before I collapsed on the moist, blood-soaked ground.