I feel I've lived so long, and went through so much, that all I want is calm and rest.
~ Moshe Dayan ~
*~*~*
Alice is having fun.
I sit on a branch in the old oak tree, a mile from our new home, and watch as Alice leaps from one tree to another, as graceful as a ballerina. She lands delicately on a high branch in a nearby cedar, and then daintily hops down to where I am seated, a few yards away. Smiling, the pixie lays in my lap, looking at me with sparkling topaz eyes. The picture of innocence, if it wasn't for her rapidly changing emotions.
"Alice, hon, that makes you look like a spider monkey." I say, playfully pulling her closer. She smirks, her eyes glinting, then leaps out of my arms like a cat, landing on a tree branch 25 feet below us – I am about 60 feet in the air – and gives me a "come and get me" grin, that for some unknown reason she absolutely loves torturing me with. I leap down, landing right below her, and I look up to see her standing proudly. There is sudden mischievousness in the air, and she smiles evilly.
"What are you doing?" I ask, somewhat concerned. She jumps, looking similar to a mountain lion, throwing herself at me. We tumble to the ground, with momentum equal to that of a semi going at 60 miles an hour down a hill, crashing through tree branches at a ridiculously rapid pace. I land on top of her, in what would be a very awkward position if not for the fact that she's technically my wife. She disappears, sprinting through the trees, and all that is left is the breeze from her evaporation, and the grass blades quivering. I jump up and I'm soon on her heels, shouting in wordless gibberish. Calculating the distance, I jump again, and I catch up, leaping and tackling her on the front lawn of our house.
She rolls over, now pinning me down, so I quickly pull her in a headlock. She retaliates by seizing my arms and flipping me onto my back. Contrary to how it most likely looks to outsiders, we enjoy our little rendezvous.
Lying on the ground, I manage to grab her wrists and pull her to me. She lands on my stomach, looking mildly dazed. We continue like this for five minutes - until we hear a throat clearing. Both of us look towards the sound. Renesmee's standing on the porch, sketch pad and pencil in one hand, her eyebrow raised, a look of incredulous shock on her face. Alice is extremely embarrassed, that's all I can say. She is on my back, one hand around my neck, another clutching the collar of my shirt, one of her legs somehow over my shoulder, and the other wrapped tightly around my waist. She has her mouth open, about to bite my ear. I have the arm being used as a footrest bent backward, wrapped around her waist and grabbing the waist of her skirt, my other arm holding her ankle, and I am also about to bite her, though I am currently just kissing her wrist.
Renesmee blinks, trying to figure out what to say.
"This looks weird, doesn't it?" Alice asks, caution in her tone. Renesmee nods, taking a step back.
"If you guys are doing something, don't let me interrupt." She finally says, throwing her hands in the air in mild innocence, then turning to walk back in. Alice slides off my back. We look at each other, trying to figure out how to respond to the audience that will probably come outside soon. And to nobody's surprise, it gets worse when Emmett and Edward come out and sit on the porch, staring in expectation.
"What?" I ask.
"We heard from Nessie that you two were having sex, and we wanted to see if it was true." Emmett says casually.
"We were fighting. That's all." Alice would be blushing like crazy if she could. I can tell that everyone's embarrassed now, especially us. An awkward silence fills the air. The entire house and the surrounding area goes dead silent. Further filling the cliché, a lone cricket starts chirping until Alice picks up a pebble and throws it at the poor creature with more force than an NBL star pitcher. The cricket's chirps slowly die down.
"Does anyone else want to go hunting?" Edward suddenly asks, breaking the hush that has fallen over everything, albeit the dying cliché-cricket. In an instant, Renesmee is on the porch in a hunter's crouch, brown eyes sparkling with abrupt excitement.
"Hunting?" She asks, very energetic and curious. I can honestly picture a giant question mark floating above her head, and I wouldn't be surprised if one actually shows up.
Edward nods, not willing to break the silence that seems to have gotten even thicker with embarrassment and confusion and excitement. Renesmee smiles with extreme, inhuman, ridiculous happiness. She dashes back inside, and returns seconds later with khaki cargo jeans, a black Nine Inch Nails concert t-shirt, steel toed boots, fingerless black leather gloves, and a black ski cap with an eagle on it, rolled up to show her face, compared to her old outfit of denim shorts and a white tank top. As quickly as hybrid-vampire-humanly possible she puts her hair under the ski cap.
"Yet when we say to clean your room, it takes you four hours." Edward says in mock astonishment. Actually, it probably is real astonishment, since Renesmee does take forever to clean her room. She has a tendency to get distracted by everything.
"Hey, those are my clothes!" Emmett suddenly jumps up in realization. "Just how tall do you think you are, shorty?" He snaps, now running towards Renesmee, who jumps onto the porch railing, and then onto the roof. They look like squirrels fighting over acorns.
"I am 5'11" and still getting taller. You're only 6'5"!" Renesmee pulls herself up to full height, putting her hands on her hips and smiling triumphantly. Alice grumbles incoherently. She isn't pleased with the fact that everyone is taller than her. She is only 4'10", and it's really good she's strong – for her, at least. For others…not so much.
"Just because you're almost as tall as me doesn't mean you can steal my clothes!" Emmett shouts. Renesmee rolls her eyes and Alice mumbles something about freakishly tall former basketball players.
"Well I can't steal Jacob's…yet. He's 6'10"!" Renesmee climbs higher up the roof.
"Pshhh. 6'10". The world would be so much easier if everyone was short." Alice is grumbling, arms folded, glaring at the ground.
Emmett is climbing onto the roof, obviously determined to get his stolen clothes back. Renesmee climbs to the highest tower of the house, perching on the point, then leaps into the nearest tree. Emmett jumps after her. We stare as the branches crack and the two crash down. Renesmee runs to the garage. An engine revs up, and then a 2010 Mazda RX-8 drives into the yard, onyx paint glinting in the faint rays of sunlight. Renesmee is at the wheel, and Edward finally jumps up, trying to stay out of the way of Esme's car. Renesmee is only 15, physically, at least, and this wouldn't be the first time she stole a car.
Alice sighs, finally frustrated to the breaking point, and walks to the car door, pulling it open. Despite Renesmee's objections, Alice pulls Renesmee out without much effort.
Carlisle chooses then to walk out of the house, followed by Esme, Rosalie, and Bella. He glances at the scene at hand: Emmett sitting on the ground in front of the Mazda after nearly being run over, Edward in a hunting crouch by the door, Alice holding a struggling Renesmee, and me, standing nonchalantly and attempting to have nothing to do with anything. He shakes his head in disapproval, muttering something about "Incompetent teenagers". Emmett stands up, dusts off the grass that is stuck to his outfit, picks up the Mazda as if it weighs as much as a Matchbox toy car, and walks to the garage. Carlisle starts to say several things, but stops each time. Giving up, he simply walks to the garage.
*~*~*
"The beach." Bella says. We are discussing where to hunt, and everybody has come up short. Among the places listed are Los Angeles, the nearby zoo, Mount Rainier, British Columbia, and another zoo.
"Bella, you've already reduced the great white shark population by 80-something percent in the time we've been here. Besides, did it ever occur to you that we're in Portland?." Carlisle says calmly. Why does he always act Buddha-calm?
"I dunno. Seafood sounds pretty good." Alice pipes up, grinning widely.
"We could always go to La Push." Edward suggests, only to be met by glares and a simultaneous "NO!" by Bella and Renesmee.
"Toronto." I suggest. "The grizzlies there taste delicious." Cue the maniacal grin.
"Jasper, you and I both know you aren't allowed there anymore." Esme says.
"That wasn't my fault! Those two newborns just had to blow up the stadium, didn't they? I was trying to stop them. Granted the fact that half the city was annihilated…" I trail off at the last sentence, clearly not winning. I fold my arms and lean back into the seat, fake pouting. Alice giggles and punches me lightly. I stick my tongue out at her.
The Jeep turns off into a dirt road leading into the forest. I smile as I feel their emotions. There's a feeling as if there's an imminent catastrophe in the air, but it's nothing.
*~*~*
Walking back, everyone is laughing, due to a mild incident with Emmett, Nessie, and a grizzly bear. Emmett's clothes never stood a chance. It's one of the lightest, happiest moods I have ever felt, and it feels like nothing can stop it.
But as we run through the thick to the Jeep, Alice freezes, sudden worry radiating off of her. Her breath stops, and her eyes go wide with panic, slightly glazed over. She is seeing something very different than us, and by her emotions, it must be horrible. Everyone stops in their tracks to look at her, now concerned. With a start she gasps and collapses to the ground, then pulls her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth. I fall to my knees beside her, putting my arm around her shoulders, trying to calm her down. She turns to look at me and grabs my hand, pulling it to her face. I curl my hand into a fist and she puts it against her mouth, her lips on the fleshy crease between the bones of my hand and my thumb.
"Alice, what's wrong?" I ask, trying not to panic, though it's not really helping that Alice is at a state of panic that would send most humans screaming frantically as they ran for the hills. She looks at me, horror in her eyes, clouding her face, the light that was in her golden eyes now gone, replaced by desperation. Looking like she has just been in a torture chamber.
"There's no way. There's no possible way." She says, more for her reassurance than mine.
"What, Alice? What is it? You have to tell us!"
She pauses, sorting through her options, looking towards the ground.
"Alice!" I say once again. She looks up, right at me, and I have never seen her so scared before.
"Antivenom." She whispers.
*~*~*
A/N: The first chapter! And… the only one that's on my computer. Which means that now I'm gonna have to start typing up all the rest…crap.
Okay, the songs I listened to for this chapter were Angel On My Bike, by The Wallflowers, and Intimacy, by The Corrs (I won't kill you if you haven't heard of them. They're not American)
I only got 1 review for the last chapter… so how about 5 for this one. Please? I know that at least 5 of you have this on story alert. Not to mention those of you who have me on author alert!
