Hello there! Shriayle here, just wanted to thank anyone who has favorited/reviewed/followed this story! This is my first Twilight based fanfiction, so thanks for the attention, I guess xD I actually wanted to write a story about Jane and Alec only, but Isabella snuck in here somehow, darn her. She will be OOC from the book (AKA she will be more of a BAMF if I do say so myself) so if you want a spineless protagonist and love triangles, this definitely isn't the story for you! Just some warning.
Also much of what I say is powered by some form of energy I receive at midnight, so let me know if there are any mistakes so I can correct them! Thanks!
White Blood 01: Probably not; I'm planning on keeping the main book plot the same, only with Isabella as an additional Volturi guard. There will be another girl instead of Bella, though.
Time passed. The mother watched at the moons grew and shrank from black voids to perfect white circles stuck in its sphere. Her hair grew gray and whitened, and her strength waned like the moon, but did not grow back. She gazed fondly at her children with gradually fogging eyes, until her youngest two reached the age of seven years before dying of stress and the ague.
Isabella had grown into a healthy young girl. She still had her pale, soft skin and her glowing brown eyes, but her hair lightened and became the color of a fine table worthy of being owned by only the greatest of lords. She had grown willowy but strong, and she ran about bare of foot and easy of mind. No one doubted her warm heart or her innocence; rather, the entire village became a haven for the orphaned child. She would walk into the Church and ask the clergyman sweetly for a copy of the Holy Book so that she could read the story of Esther once again.
Her siblings were another story. Alexander, or Alec as the villagers would call him, saying that his mother was a heretic enough, was also a sweet kid. He was somewhat slower than his sisters, physically, and some strangers would even say mentally. However, he was much smarter than his twin, almost as smart as his bookish older sister. He was the kind of person who would just stop what he was doing and stare into the sky. Not many people outside of Jane and Isabella really knew how to construe the odd behavior; some would tease him, asking which birds he wanted to shit on his face, and others would just shake their head in bewilderment and walk on.
Jane was the one that the other villagers were scared of. While she looked positively angelic, with her long, flowing hair and her wide, blue eyes, the people whispered that she was the reason for their mother's agony and eventual death. They said that she was a demon straight from hell, that she was Lucifer's spawn and should be treated accordingly. She had a sadistic streak, it was true; she would pilfer pieces of glass from the lord's house, somehow, and contently sit burning ants with the reflection. Every time an ant began to smoke, she would grin, and upon every pain-induced death, she would clap her hands and chortle before starting again with a new victim. Isabella tried her hardest to keep the glass away from her sister, but Jane would just find another piece from somewhere.
So the villagers nervously watched as the orphaned children, whose father was a soldier that had come to the Anglo Lands after serving the Franks. No one knew why he came, but soon after Jane and Alec were conceived, he had vanished, and his corpse washed up later. No one had the heart to tell the already ailing mother of his untimely death.
As the siblings grew, the villagers noticed Isabella beginning to care for Jane and Alec. When Jane ran in, bawling that one of the other children had shoved her into the mud, snarling, "Witch!", Isabella was the one to hug the girl and storm out to confront the unfortunate lad in question. When Alec wandered into the hut and asked about how the sky was blue, Isabella was the one to quietly quote scripture, reciting how in Genesis 1:6-8 "God made the expanse and separated the water above it." She was the one to bathe them, feed them, and clothe them, all while never taking more for herself than she needed. And the villagers chose to help her in her endeavor. They would drop by and give her some of the sub par crops that the village had to deal with, and she would always graciously accept the head of cabbage or small bowl of rye a villager gave her with a "God bless, good sir" or "May your children be blessed, ma'am." The village clergy recognized her sweet soul and helped her in caring for the children when she herself couldn't.
And so, Jane and Alec and Isabella grew strong and fit in the community, and all those who helped them found themselves blessed later on. The boy that helped Jane up when his friends decided to shove her into a pile of manure later found that his crops grew bountiful and well while the other boys' grew weak and feeble. The clergy that helped Alec learn to read and write got twice as many coins from the Pope for work in the village. And those who helped Isabella, those who gave her those crops and care, they found their work given back to them twice-fold and they were able to send their sons to towns to become apprentices.
The children themselves grew strong, despite inheriting their mother's short stature. Alec found himself growing taller than Jane, much to his amusement and her chagrin. Isabella was only a few inches taller than Alec, despite her two year advantage; the villagers predicted that he would cease growing soon enough, since they couldn't remember his father's height and just figured that he would be like his mother anyways.
Sometime before Jane and Alec's tenth birthdays, Isabella had ventured into the woods. It was a risky move, one the villagers balked at, but she had found a small clearing where the wood was firm and mostly dry, which she would haul back and give to her neighbors in exchange for food. It was an odd arrangement, but wood was scarce for the cowardly villagers, and they accepted it.
Isabella ventured through the brush, following her invisible path. She quickly and quietly walked through the trees, but soon stopped and turned around. "Jane? Alec?" she called back, and after a moment of silence, the two twins sheepishly emerged from the bushes they had been hiding behind. "What are you two doing here?" Isabella asked, her stern expression marred by the hint of a smile dancing around the corners of her mouth.
"W-we wanted to help, Isa," Jane muttered, fidgeting slightly. Her blue eyes were downcast. Alec stared down as well, but he just stood still, unlike his restless twin.
Isabella glanced towards the sky, checking the sun's position. It was spring, but the sun had already climbed almost to high noon. She let out a breathy sigh.
"Well, there's not enough time for me to take you back to the house," she admitted. Jane perked up a little bit and glanced up. Alec didn't move.
"Come along," the twelve-year-old girl said, beckoning for her younger siblings to follow her. Jane and Alec exchanged a happy look before darting along behind their sister, following her like loyal dogs. The trio made their way to the sunlit clearing.
Unbeknownst to them, another figure was watching them from the shadows of the forest. Crimson eyes glowed from the darkness as a girl, one that looked only slightly older than Isabella, observed the three with an interested glance. Their sweet scent curled over to her, and she began to salivate, but she held herself back. She flicked a single strand of hair away from her face nonchalantly, watching the dark brown curl slowly join its compatriots. All the while, she thought of the children that danced before her.
The girl watched as Isabella, Jane, and Alec began to gather sticks. She watched as the boy picked one up and jabbed his twin sister with a devilish smile. She watched as the girl grabbed one of her own and the two began to wrestle. She noted the girl's obvious advantage: she wasn't afraid to wound her brother. She watched as the older girl laughed before calling out to them in an unknown tongue; why didn't anyone speak Latin or French around here? The boy stopped at his older sister's words, but the younger girl took a while to calm down, turning a moping face over to her sister. The older girl gave her a stern look before calling out again, and the twins (for they looked too similar not to be) reluctantly began to gather wood once again.
By this time, the girl had seen enough. She danced back to her own family, where her mate and sister and brothers, as well as some other people, were gathering. They prepared to hunt.
One man, one that looked almost nine years the girl's senior, looked up. His eyes lit up upon seeing the girl approach.
"Sulpicia, my love," he crooned out. The dark-haired girl smiled coyly and responded, "Aro, darling," before they embraced. The other woman, one that looked around twenty, rolled her eyes and snorted. "You two are disgusting," she snapped out before walking away.
Aro and Sulpicia broke their hug, glaring at her back. When the other woman had gotten out of earshot (that is to say, extremely far away), Aro pecked his mate on the cheek and said, "Where did you get off to, my little doe?"
She put her hand in his and stared into his eyes as he scouted her mind for new memories. Upon coming across them, his eyes widened and he let go in shock. "Three potentials?" he whispered. She nodded.
"They are so young," he breathed, still surprised that they had found anyone at all. "Yes," she whispered, "but so perfect, too."
Aro closed his eyes. Yes, he could see the older girl at his side, her siblings flanking him. He could imagine it all.
Sulpicia watched as her mate took this new image in. She looked at him hopefully. "Well?"
He nodded. "They will join. But," he said, cutting off whatever she was about to say, "they are too young. We have just implemented the immortal child rule."
"They are but my age," she protested, but she knew he was right. Having seen how the two younger children wrestled on the ground, she knew that if they got angry, whole cities could be demolished.
"Soon, my precious," Aro whispered. "Soon they will join us."
They say that others can't force you to feel pain.
They say that being robbed of feeling is the worst robbery of all.
But how can we even truly feel, if our hearts stopped working?
Chew on that.
Why should we care about your pain, if we have so much to gain?
And so much to lose, some may say, but what can there be to lose?
A soul?
We have none.
Our souls died long ago, as well as our humanity and our empathy and our sympathy.
We serve ourselves.
No one else.
This is our story, the one that tells of how three children grew in a time of relative ease. We don't have devices, or those applications and games. We found our own ways to amuse ourselves.
But pain is universal. We felt the worst pain.
So why should yours make us feel as bad as you think we should?
Only those with sympathy can truly know.
Too bad we don't have any.
