Worlds Clash
Chapter 1
Panting, chest heavily rising and falling, muscles taut from long exertion, the salty stickiness of sweat-moistened movements, and the sickening metallic scent of blood. Trees snap past, splitting open pale skin before the wounds close up just as fast and the heaving breaths dampen the forest noises.
She has to stop the chase.
Her prey had long gotten away anyway, the last wisps of the alluring scent vanishing in this damp wilderness.
She had been running pointlessly, trying to catch up to something that was already gone. She was fool anyway to give chase. How many times has her mentor told her to never go into battle alone if it could be helped? How many times has she ignored it and nearly been killed.
This instance was different though. This one creature had to die.
But she waited too long; the sky opened up and washed the evidence of his presence completely away. She had been tracking him all the way up the west coast only to lose him now!
She spins on the ball of her foot, splashing water that had gathered on the ground, tail lashing in anger. Her teeth gnash together with a feral growl, before her muscles relax and she slumps in defeat.
Dripping sweat and water from the crying sky, she adjusts the straps of her traveling bag to a more comfortable position. She forces her muscles to once again start moving in a slow walk through the wet underbrush.
With the heat of the hunt gone, a new chill starts to set in, caressing her bare skin like a mother's loving hand.
After some time, she comes across a cave in the mountains suitable for her purposes.
She pulls some coarse dear skin blankets from her pack and arranges them over the rocks into a good, soft palette to sleep on.
At sunrise, she will explore the area for any traces of her prey's presence. At high sun, she will hunt and maybe find a stream or river to wash off in.
The blood coating her hands, arms, and down her breasts is starting to make her stomach roll in sickness.
Curled up and protected from the elements, her tail softly flicks as she drifts off to sleep.
Sunrise comes with a soft grey light and though the water stopped falling, the air is so thick with humidity that just stepping outside of her cave has her skin damp.
She leaves her few possessions in the cave with the exception of her knife that is as long as her forearm and has a bone handle wrapped with a thick animal skin grip.
It stays strapped to the outside of her leg- easily accessible if she crouches in a defensive stance.
She darts through the forest in her most natural state of a half-shift, tail sweeping the wet leaves packed in by the water from the heavens, and claws sinking into damp earth or bark when she climbs a tree.
It's easy to loose herself in the smells and sounds of nature, the dampness cool against her naturally hot flesh, the feral glee of supernatural speeds.
All that is wash away, though, when she comes across a familiar endearing scent. It's fresh.
She instinctually twists in the air, easily changing directions and taking off along the new trail.
She slows as the trees open up ahead. The sent is thick and strong, and non-forestry sounds startle the peace.
She creeps closer at a crouch, silent in her clawed feet, and peaks around the moss covered bark.
Seeing the source of smell and noise, her shoulders relax in disappointment, but also fascination.
There is a large human home nestled there, with four yellow eyes playing.
She had, of course, heard of the yellow-eyed blood drinkers. The stories her mentor told her were vast with knowledge and her people's history. She had just always considered them rare. But here four were, playing like a bunch of kits.
A sudden shift in the wind makes her eyes widen as her hair is thrown in front of her shoulders and eyes. A fallen branch cracks as she takes a careless step in retreat, and freezes with an adrenaline thrumming heart.
Though everything on this ground is sodden, the snap was loud enough for even a human to hear.
"Who's there?" The musical voice of one of the males drifts loudly to her enhanced ears.
Should she reveal herself? Will they attack?
"Come on out," another says soothingly. "We won't hurt you."
Strange.
She lets her half-shift fall away to completely human. She feels so naked being completely without her cat, unnatural even. From the age of five when they are first able to transform, they naturally take on a half-shifted state. It's with enhanced senses and speed, sharper teeth, claws in the place of flat human nails, and a tail. Very rarely, if ever, do any of her kind ever fully shift back completely unless forced to cross a human inhabited area. Without any of the characteristics of the cat, her people are as vulnerable as actual humans.
Slowly, she emerges from behind the tree, looking over the expanse of short grass.
There are three males currently, and a female among them. They all wear the typical human garbs that both blood-drinker and human kind tend to use.
Four pair of amber eyes become seven as even more yellow-eyes emerge from the home. Her back stiffens in response to her training.
"Hello," the female with hair the color of fallen leaves says, slowly, concernedly.
All of the golden-eyes' eyes are wide as they look the newcomer over, lingering on the blood She has yet to clean off, and the scars across her torso.
The female with hair the color of the sun's rays takes a slow step forward with a face akin to being stricken.
The movement, no matter how small, has the naked girl crouching low in a defensive position with fingers brushing against the bone handle of her knife.
She knows logically that her blade will do nothing to their stone flesh, but it's an instinct long burned into her muscle memory with a possible threat.
The golden haired blood drinker raises her hands to show she meant no harm in her approach.
"My name's Rosalie," she says slowly, taking an even slower step closer. When the strange girl makes no move other than the constant moving of her eyes, she takes another. "Are you okay? What happened?"
Rosalie looks back at her mother figure and husband in uncertainty when the girl doesn't respond more than a slight shift on the balls of her feet.
Both give her encouraging nods so she faces back to the stranger.
"Are you okay?" She asks again, finally closing half the distance that was between them before stopping completely. "Would you like to come in and clean up? We can help; I promise you'll be safe."
She shoots a helpless look to her mind-reading brother, only to find that the matriarch of the family had ushered all the males into the house. The only one left was the worried looking smallest Cullen.
Again, she faces the intruder to find her slowly rising from her crouch with a curious expression.
Rosalie wants to flinch at the damage done to the young teenager, eying the biggest scar that runs from the left side of her neck, down between her breasts, and ending in a slight curve at the bottom of her rib cage.
She takes an uncertain step closer to the beautiful blood drinker, before taking the hand offered to her.
The smile she gets in response is stunning as she's lead past the female with the hair the color of the sky on the night of a dark moon.
Her instincts scream at her as she enters the enclosed spaces of the home, and she knows it's foolish to let herself be led into the home of a blood drinker, even if they are yellow-eyes, but they seem genuinely kind and she's curious.
A/N: Hey, so if you know me and my stories, you might know that I am currently throwing almost everything I have out here to be read, regardless if I finished it yet, or am planning to. Reviews are always welcome and they do give me inspiration to get back to a story I have lost all interest in. I don't know when I will next update this one, so please be patient but please still read and follow.
~Silver~