Twilight Canon Fodder Challenge

Title: Post Proelia Praemia

Contest Category (Rookie/Vet): Rookie

Character(s)/Pairing: Jasper

Rating: M

(Book/Movie): Book

Disclaimer: I'd love to own Jasper, but alas, he's Meyer's.

Summary: Pre-Twilight. At the height of his emotional nadir, Jasper struggles to break free from the hideous predator of which he is. Can he achieve his quest for salvation?

To see other entries in the Canon Fodder Challenge, please visit the C2 page:

(www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/u/2277143/TwiCanonFodder)

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

- Abraham Lincoln

"You are such a fighter, mi amor. You never accept defeat. It's entirely like you to rage against it the way you rage against everything else."

The seductive euphony of her voice turned me away from the roaring bonfire, breaking me from the hypnotizing sight as they extinguished the remnants of yet another group of newborns I'd been ordered to destroy. The sight of the destruction I'd left in our wake struck terror and dread. I was raw. Bitter.

"Maria," I said. The name of my maker, which I'd uttered in supplication so many times, now held the distinct taste of something arsenic. "I can't do this anymore."

I felt her finger lift my chin so my face met hers. Her expression was one of wholesome tenderness, so easily colliding against the anguished misery that clouded my own.

"My poor Jasper." Her palms splayed across the expanse of my chest, and a familiar, but great, whiplash of sensations coursed through me. Her touch was like poison, yet it ignited the lust-crazed fury she had infused within me so many times.

"Jasper," she simpered, her lips ghosting over mine, and I couldn't help but adhere to her soothing touch and beckoning caresses. My nostrils flared slightly as the scented sweetness of her washed over me. Her long fingers toyed with the buttons of my tunic, the bulge of her breasts pressing against me. Maria. My mother. My teacher. My comrade. My friend. My lover. My everything.

She whispered in my ear, eliciting a groan on my part. "Why do you fight it? You're no different than I am. Just look into the fire and you'll see evidence of that."

She pulled away from me then, shattering the empty mirage of passion between us. Her cruel laughter rang through my ears in a parting symphony as she receded into the shadowy darkness, leaving me engulfed only in flames. Leaving me empty and alone and helpless.

I stood there for years it seemed, watching the fire until it burned itself out. I don't know how long I remained in that spot before they began to near. I could feel the approaching emotions of anticipation and expectation and worry, before I heard the footsteps that accompanied them.

"Come with us, lad," a familiar voice called to me. I turned.

"Peter," I said, acknowledging my former companion and his mate, Charlotte. "What are you doing here?"

"We came for you."

"I don't understand," I answered. Or maybe I did. I should have expected to see them again. My lasting, yet secretive friendship, with Peter and Charlotte had been borne out of my decision to let them escape Maria's destructive wrath. I'd saved their lives. And sure enough, they wanted to return the favor. As if they could feel my anguish throughout the passages of time and knew, I was in my hour of need.

"You can come with us," Charlotte intoned.

"Where would I go?"

"To the North," said Peter. "Where we can live by ourselves as nomads. We only hunt to feed, not to kill."

I gazed into the dying fire, Maria's words coming back to me, over and over. I could have brought it back to life if I had flung myself into it, just to end the agony.

But I had no intention of doing so. Maria was right about one thing: I was a fighter. I didn't need to lose myself in this oblivion. Not unless I wanted her to maintain her power over me. A power, one that initially promised me the joys of passion and rewards, instead had always left me feeling used and empty and full of anger.

An alien calm crept slowly over me. I was dark, full of bitterness and growing fascination.

I didn't need to feed off Maria's strength. I had my own.

At last.

That was all that went through my head. The misery and the hate and the senseless destruction. I would no longer have to be a part of it. And I wouldn't be alone.

At last.

As I crouched there thinking about it, gazing at the dying embers, I felt an immense strength gather from within. I could do this. I could free myself from the emotional shackles that came with the burden of constant, senseless killing.

"Let's go."

I turned and fled from it, from Maria and her madness, before it unhinged me entirely.

I would never go back.

Not if I wanted to keep my sanity.

The city was a sprawling metropolis.

From a window, I stood looking out, watching in silent awe. The heart of New York with its wilderness of little lights waned not in darkness but rather, a subdued indigo mist. The snow everywhere was luminescent, melting. Rooftops, towers, walls, all were myriad facets of colors. Everything was alive, it seemed.

Beyond, I saw the unmistakable movements of people meandering about in the streets below. With it, the deliciously potent smells of blood pulsed in the air, the familiar sounds of heartbeats singing to me like muted throbs of bells.

My mouth began to salivate. The profligate aroma of blood was absolutely euphoric.

"Let the hunt commence," I heard Peter say, taking Charlotte's hand into his own as they leapt down unnoticed. I laughed, descending down to the dampened earth to join them.

I sifted through the miasma of scents while my eyes catalogued the unsuspecting, nameless victims. Couples silently passed me on the street, women cradling their infant children in their arms to conceal them from the cold, old women sewing by the feeble light as I passed by houses. I saw the occasional drifters, vagrants and prostitutes loitering in the alleyways. I waded through their emotions, passing through feelings of joy to frustration and loneliness and self-gratification.

A man came slowly into my peripheral view, going about his merry way. Focusing intently, I picked up the sensations that emanated from him—expectation and self-worth. He was tall and almost picturesque, looking slightly out of place in a worn coat and a pair of cavalry pantaloons. He was holding a bouquet of flowers. Clearly, he was on his way to meet a lady that held his fancy. As I focused on my prey, I could feel the emotions coursing through me, getting stronger until they filled me almost completely. Compelled by these feelings, I moved to trap the stranger.

I moved into his way, purposefully. "Good evening." I herded him into a corner.

The darkness had not allowed him to see the unnatural crimson of my eyes.

He grew immediately nervous, almost irate at my unexpected presence. "What do you want?" he demanded, mistaking me for a thief. Now there was the fear.

I didn't say anything. Instead, I instilled a wave of calm within this mortal, staying his trembling nervousness with the illusionary feeling that I won't do him physical harm. With some hesitance, he relaxed visibly even as I neared. My hand reached out to grasp his own as though in friendly greeting. Then I closed in on his personal space, the venom pooling at the corners of my mouth.

I pulled him to my lips. I tore at the bulging artery in his neck, letting the blood hit the roof of my mouth. I could taste the richness of his warm blood, hot and pulsing. He gripped my arms, struggling to break free, but his strength was a futile match against mine.

I heard his heartbeat still, and I watched as Death claimed him into a state of eternal slumber. The flowers slipped from his fingers, and fell mercilessly into the barren snow.

And with it, another emotion encompassed me:

Despair.

I clenched my jaw, the taste of his blood still thick in my mouth. It was the same feeling I had felt when Maria and her sisters had robbed me of my mortal life.

When we were sated from our meals, we retreated to the confines of our temporary home at a rented inn.

A thin wisp of clouds moved like a veil over the rising sun, causing striations of light to glisten off the glass windows. It looked like it would be cloudy today. We would be free to roam around and explore the city if no sunlight came. Before we moved again.

Then I heard Charlotte's trilling laugh followed by Peter's deeper one. They were gazing into each other's eyes; if they were aware of my presence they didn't acknowledge me. I was nonexistent.

I studied them. Observed them in the way they held each other, her white-blond features matching his. I sampled the aura around them, and it conveyed to me an irrefutable testament to their love. It was powerful, unyielding and unlike anything I'd ever felt. For the first time, I felt like the outsider looking in. Watching something that was out of reach, forbidden to me.

His mouth grazed hers. I caught the throes of arduous passion that passed between them. The stirrings of envy that washed over me were not the first, nor the last, yet the ongoing onslaught was almost too much for me. I'd witnessed their love before, but never anything with such a remarkable magnitude such as this. I admired and loathed it at the same time. Their bond had an intensity that I'd never known, let alone experienced.

I left them to their privacy. When I returned, I found Charlotte long gone, having left to scope the various shops for some new ladies wear. Apparently, bonnets and corsets were still the latest fashions. It was Peter who greeted me, a look of blatant mischief in his eyes.

"Did we scare you away?"

I allowed myself to laugh a little. "No. I figured you two needed some quality time. I don't imagine you're used to having a third person in your company."

"Don't be that way, chap. We're grateful to you for everything you've done for us," he said, casting me a meaningful glance. "If you hadn't been there when Maria--" A muted shaking of his head conveyed the ending to that sentence. "Ah, Charlotte. I've never known anyone like her."

"Well, brother," I said jokingly. "I suppose it's a good thing I didn't follow Maria's orders then, hmm?"

I'd no sooner uttered those words when I caught the flicker of darkness that transformed his expression. The look was a fleeting reminder of the faces I'd witnessed in my days as a comrade, warlike and revolutionary. What Peter had just shown me was the definition of absolute, unending love. A passing yet brutal glimpse of unforgiving devotion.

A mate fought for that, killed for it willingly, sought to keep it guarded and safe.

You never, ever let it go.

I'd never had that with Maria. The realization of it, though it had filled me acutely on occasion, was now exponentially clear.

I turned away. The pain I felt was abysmal.

My next meal, though unintended, was a whore in whose bed I devoted my passion.

I stretched out languorously in the bed beside her while she traced the outline of my face, my body, observing the ring of scars I bore on my left arm with studious caution. She seemed to know my pain, or at least, feel a semblance of it.

So pretty, she was. The symmetry of her face was perfect, not yet marred by time or illness. Her thick hair, a rich shade of sable brown, spilled over her shoulders and splayed across my chest. There was the faintest hint of pink on her cheeks, serving as a personified reminder of the sweaty, gasping pleasure I had shared with her. And I dreamed—did vampires dream?—that she could have been mine. A warm delusion that I was mortal again, that I was untouched by war and bloodlust. And oddly, as I was with her, I felt that things were all right again, that everything would be really, truly all right. There was no death. No terror. This was happiness and joy. Absolute security.

She enveloped me in her arms, her breasts pressing into my chest. If she noticed how cold I was, she didn't seem to pay any mind to it.

"Take me with you."

I felt her fingers become entangled in my hair. She didn't have to say it. I'd already felt it through the warm sensations that radiated from her. She was radiant and she was mine. There was only an outpouring of love.

With my dream came the deepening awareness that everything I had endured alone, had done alone, I could now do with her. She would watch my actions and learn from me. I wouldn't be alone in my suffering, in my guilt, doomed to walk the ends of the Earth with no one to share my turmoil. The intimacy of it all, of having a companion, of having what Peter and Charlotte had, nearly propelled me into a state of sheer happiness.

I leaned forward and kissed her open lips. The heat that emanated from her was almost palpable, and the steady flow of her heartbeat thrummed deliciously against my chest like a striking melody.

The essence of her life beckoned to me, and I buried my face into her neck, breathing in her scent. She smelled of musk, of me, of violets and lilac in their wafting fragrance. She smelled so rare and so delicate.

My arms slipped around her lithe form, and I pulled her tightly to me. I'd no sooner done that when my insatiable lust for blood jetted into the current, taking in all of her under the pressure of my lips and fingers. I drove my teeth into her, feeling her stiffen under my grasp, gasping for the air that was denied from her as I depleted her life supply. I sucked at it greedily, desperate to catch every last drop of the hot liquid when it spurted forth.

Betrayal, hurt. The aqueous odor of tears shattered me from my euphoric state. In a daze, I snapped my head to look at her. She was dying. And she was looking right into my own eyes. The dim light of the lantern seemed to flicker and intensify; its brightness revealed the colors of my irises, now as obvious to her as daylight.

There was a quick gasp, and her eyes were reduced to gelatinous orbs that stared into mine as the life slipped from her.

What had I done?

I struggled to absorb what had just transpired. The dream had been shattered. All I could smell was death and decay. The lovely elixir I had drunk had been my undoing.

I cradled her in my arms and let out a mournful cry.

I never learned her name.

Sorrow. Pain.

Agony. Grief. Rage.

Each victim whose blood I devoured to satiate my needs always propelled me into an abyss of hollow emptiness. What could quell my lust also thrust me into a state of constant burden; each life I claimed was more consuming than the last. The satisfaction I gained from my thirst was eclipsed by pain and sorrow.

Man. Woman. Child. Lover. Husband. Wife. Friend. It was always the same, whether it was male or female, young or old, rich or poor.

I gazed down at the prostrate body, rigid and immobile. Eyes open, forever transfixed into a blank-faced stare. No blood. No trauma. An exact replica of the countless conquests to which I laid claim to.

Once, I felt nothing. How couldn't I have felt anything when I was a newborn, when these emotions gripped me so powerfully?

I was lost. Consumed with my self-loathing.

I needed to leave.

"Will you not stay?" I could hear the disappointment in Peter's voice as he spoke to me, while Charlotte remained by his side; her expression contorted with worry and concern. They couldn't understand my guilt, my constant state of depression, which worsened over time. How could they? They didn't, couldn't feel the things I'd felt. They were blessed not to. Not having a conscience was easier.

"I can't, brother. The time has come for me to part ways."

"Do you think you can find what you are looking for?" His question reverberated like a distant echo in my mind.

I smiled tiredly. "After the battles come the rewards."

He nodded, hesitant in his response since he could offer little comfort to alleviate my inner turmoil. "Post Proelia Praemia," he reiterated the slogan back to me in Latin. "Indeed. Don't forget that."

Eighty-odd years had passed since my turning, yet time had not passed me at all. The caliber of changes the world had undergone was utterly meaningless to me; a life of silent ebb and flow without change had granted me immunity.

The wind raged and howled around me, snow caking the soles of my feet. I didn't feel it. Weather and the seasonal changes Mother Nature had timelessly wrought continuously evaded me and forever would, thanks to my damned existence.

I roamed through various parts of the world. Canada. Alaska. Across the Atlantic, too. I skirted around parts of France, Russia, the Netherlands. I came back to the States. In the end, I found Hell. Or at least my definition of it.

A solemn child, a little girl of no more than seven or eight, stood by a place on a river in St. Louis. I vaguely knew of it from various gossip and whispers of taboo. It was a bad place. It was the place anyone went to when no other people or place would welcome their ilk. It was a place for people who had lost whatever shred of self-respect they had left—a place for drunks, murderers, addicts, the insane and the like. It was a place that crawled with rats, vermin, infection and the diseased.

I approached the young child. There was no light to her face or in her eyes.

Only a single emotion emanated from her: Loss. Bereft of the hope and joy a girl her age would have normally felt.

She had no one waiting for her, nowhere to go. There was only me. I considered her silent proposition. Though I could not read her mind, it was obvious she was going nowhere nor made any attempt to. Children always tasted so sweet. Innocence was an essence in itself, so easily pillaged in a ravaged world. I felt the burden of this immensely, having claimed it myself from previous victims even younger than she.

The corners of my mouth contorted into something I once remembered to be a smile. She knew I was hungry.

With small, infantile fingers, she reached for my pallid hand. I allowed her to lead, my gait slow but deliberate with malicious intent.

But the girl had walked me to the end of the street, stopping just short of a nearby streetlight. Then she released my hand and left me there.

Immediately, I understood the gesture. The child had merely been a mediator; her navigation led me to a woman. I propelled myself toward the scene.

She was finishing off a drunken sailor under an illuminated streetlight, his cock sliding unceremoniously out of her mouth.

A tossing of pennies was cast on the ground for her servitude, but she made no attempt to forage through the slushy snow to collect the tokens, instead only disappearing inside. The man meandered on in a drunken shamble, common sense long gone as he left with his pants hanging open.

She was less than conciliatory to me when I made my presence known as I neared the flimsy shanty.

"What the hell are you doing here? Go away." I didn't pick up a shred of warmth from her. Only bitterness and hate and anger and resentment.

I made no attempt to leave. She reached forward to slap me hard across the face, but I was quicker in my action; I pulled myself back a little too far so her attempt was a weak one. I wasn't fazed. She was virtually a stranger, but in a strange way, I felt I deserved it somehow.

"I don't want you here," she said again, but seemed resigned as she moved over to sit down. I ducked and inched myself inside the poor excuse of a shelter, which was no more than boards stacked against a wall.

With trembling hands, she lit up a cigarette. Then she surveyed my tattered clothes, never minding how dated and worn they seemed. Or that my shirt was left unbuttoned yet I didn't shiver from the cold.

Oddly enough, in the flickering light provided by the cigarette, her face seemed softer, a tad girlish, even. The skin across her cheekbones had the tightness of someone who would die soon. Of what, it had no relevance.

"I remember my sister," she said then, now speaking to me as though I were her companion and my company no longer seemed to annoy her. "She always tried to take care of me. I'm Catherine by the way."

I remained silent, mere interest being the only readable expression on my face. She continued anyway.

"Our mama died young. We never had any money. Our only way of getting about in this world was findin' some stupid man with nothin' to give us but empty attentions and money." She took another drag of her cigarette. "I remember once, I was fifteen. I lived with a man that was about forty and she was lookin' for me. He bought me a dog. Then she found me. I hit her and told her to leave me alone. I told her I never liked her and not to look for me again."

Catherine's face turned hard again. It was slightly promising, a flicker of hope, then it went out like a light, turned sour.

"I work hard, all the time. And I'm tired. I just want it to end." There was a short laugh. "I feel like I've been on this planet for ages."

Her comment earned a wry laugh on my part. Oh, if she had any idea…

My reaction prompted Catherine to give me a weary look. Her eyes told me everything. She was at the end of the line, the end of hope, at the end of her world. A world without history, without the love of family and friends. She lived in a world where she no longer existed.

Catherine took a final drag of her cigarette, hesitated, then suddenly grabbed my hands. She clung to them, caressed the marble skin, taking notice of its unusual texture with her own rough, dirty fingers. Then she looked at me, her face beseeching and despondent. Had she realized, just then what I truly was? Did she think me to be her maker?

"Can you hold me? Just until I sleep. Please," she begged. "Just until I fall asleep. I'm so lonely. I don't want to be alone."

Without forethought, I took her in my arms. And in the strange moment I gave her that: I cherished her. I needed her almost as much as she needed me.

"What a pair are we," I commented, my voice soft and morose. I stroked her brittle, unkempt hair, never minding the lice I could feel were embedded into her scalp. We were silent for a while, hearing only the sounds of rats crawling around our feet and the whooshing arctic wind.

"Why are you so good to me?" she rambled out of the blue, yet shifting her body so that she could bring herself closer to mine. "I don't deserve it. I'm home here. This is all that my life has been about. I found a place where I finally belong. And where I'll finally die."

"Everyone seeks retribution at one time or another. I suppose we're all looking for a way to relieve ourselves from misery," came my only answer.

"This is all I need," she replied. A pause. "You've come to take me away haven't you? You're gonna take me away from here. From this world."

I contemplated the proposition. I couldn't hear her thoughts, but the emotions told me all I'd needed to know. The want. The need. The expectation.

"What makes you so sure about that?"

There was the bitter, mirthless laugh again. "Nobody can save anybody. We both know that now. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here."

I nodded and leaned down to kiss her forehead. My gesture earned a sigh of longing from her. Her parting words came forth in a raspy whisper:

"When you're ready."

Without further pretense, I bit into her shoulder. There was a low, hoarse sound, but otherwise, no indication that she was willing to put up a fight. Instead, she held on to me, clung to me desperately. She wanted this and released herself to me completely.

I relished the taste of her in my mouth. It was coagulated, bitterly tainted with unnamed ills and venereal disease, but left a compelling aftertaste that was reminiscent of something sweet.

And with her last dying breath, a foreign sensation washed over me—a feeling that I had never felt before.

Everlasting peace.

So warm, so compelling and all consuming, it was a feeling that was unlike anything I'd ever known.

I embraced the full weight of it, clung to this much sought-out emotion for the fear it would soon disappear.

I savored it.

That's when I saw the entity. A white mist, an apparition descending. The being, this angel, this creature of light and air drew closer, the sort of thing I'd only heard about in legends, seen in religious artifacts and relics. I could feel the soft whoosh of its presence, could almost feel its warm breath on my cheek. Had it come for me?

Then I watched the being rise into the night sky, my arms remaining occupied as I held the deceased woman, her body inert like an abandoned and tattered doll. But perhaps it had taken her spirit with it, had taken her to a place where there was no darkness. A place that would be forever beyond my reach.

Then it was gone, vanishing into the night air as fast as it had come. Whether it was real or not, I couldn't be sure.

I had remained unredeemed, left with the dead and dying, as I was beyond saving.

But I was not beyond hope.

No. I felt freedom. Freedom from the guilt that came with claiming a human; rather, through granting her eternal slumber, I had given her the peace she never before felt in life. I no longer needed to prey on mortals like a maddened animal, but rather out of a primal need for survival without guilt. Of this much I knew. For me, taking Catherine's life had not been cataclysmic, but rather a gesture of kindness that I needed to give but never before could.

Catherine, this stranger, this tormented woman, had been my savior. Her death had become my salvation.

The heavy snowfall began to wane, and the wind lost its sting. The grey dawn was approaching. And when I could see the sun's early rays bathing the earth in all of its morning glory, I smiled.

All was not lost, after all.

I'd like to give a special thank-you to my betas for devoting their time and energy to this piece. I couldn't have done it without their help. Until this contest has ended, they shall remain anonymous. Thank you!