Thank you to manielle and Seras196 for reviewing! In response to both, I don't think [Isa]bella will be paired to anyone yet. She is most definitely not going to be paired to Edward, as he will become an integral part later with a different mate, but I have been thinking about others. The other key pairs are probably Jane/Demetri and Alec/Renata. Also, just to let you know, I've already written almost ten chapters so far xD If you ask a question about the next chapter, I'll probably just ask you to be patient for me to upload.
Have you heard the tale of the juniper tree?
Once upon a time, long ago—or not, depending on when you were turned—there was a woman, a beautiful woman, with a husband and a heart full of love, but no children.
How she yearned for a child, for a being that she made with the love she shared with her husband!
But she never got it.
And one day, under a juniper tree, she made a blood sacrifice. See, God only knows you're there when you do something drastic, even if it's just pricking your finger accidentally with a needle.
She watched her blood spill on the snow and voiced, once more, how she yearned for a child! And He finally heard, amongst the white noise of everyone's prayers in the entire damned planet, and he finally gave her one. In the night she shared with her husband, God came in and planted a seed in her womb, a seed from her husband.
And the seed sprouted, and she gave birth to a boy that was white as snow, but red as blood, for that was what God remembered from that day.
And then the woman died of happiness. They usually do.
And the man remarried. And his stepmother was a shrewd woman. She didn't need God's blessing to make a child with the man: she had a fair-haired, light-hearted daughter.
You can guess how the story goes. The woman wants her daughter to have everything, she plans to murder the son.
But this time, she actually does.
Granted, she doesn't do so on purpose. Her daughter runs in, asking for the fruit of an apple tree, and she decides to wait for her stepson to return first. She sets up the chest of apples so that the son must stick his head in himself and choose his own fruit. She walks in and the demon inside her, just like the demon in all of us, whispers in her ear, and she listens, and throws the trunk lid down on top of his neck, and his head comes off into the apples, and I guess that is why apples are red.
That's not the moral of the story; that's just my interpretation.
She ties his head up in a kerchief and props it up on his body, and makes her daughter believe that she killed him. And the loving mother cooks her son up in a stew and feeds it to her husband, all while her daughter is watching. And the daughter takes the bones out to the juniper tree, and by some witchcraft, he turns into a bird.
It wasn't our doing, I swear.
And the bird flies about, and gets a golden chain and red shoes and a whetting stone from the village locals. And he comes back home, somehow carrying all three, and he calls out to the family. He drops the chain, whhooooo!, onto his father's neck, and drops the shoes, wheeeeeee!, in front of his sister, and drops the stone, whooooo—PLOP!, onto his stepmother's body. And by some magic, he gets turned back into a human at the stepmother's death, and his father and sister and he all celebrate by going inside.
Can you tell me what's wrong here?
You can?
That means you still have a conscience.
We'll have to rid you of that.
Isabella dragged her siblings back to the village. They had rambunctiously played in the clearing, scattering wood everywhere, and now she was returning rather late and they were still fooling around. "Alec, Jane!" she snapped at them. "We have to get home before dark." The two twins gave her mutinous looks, but seeing the genuine anger in her eyes, they quieted down and murmured apologies.
Upon returning to the village, Isabella chose the sticks that she and her siblings would use for the night. She took the remaining wood and ventured out to the streets. She knocked on doors and offered the firewood, and received barley and vegetables in response. At one house, she even received a precious bag of almonds that she took with tears in her eyes, tears of joy and gratitude. The villagers loved to treat her with these things, for she did not know just how much she deserved the goods herself.
Isabella had only three sticks left when she began to trudge home. By that time, the sun had set and twilight descended across the land. The time when the sun dies for the day and the moon comes out to play, Isabella pondered. The folk rhyme was an odd one, one that only the people of her specific village knew, but she heeded it well. The moon was never a good omen to her; her mother had stared at it with hunger, watching the passing times.
The girl heard the whisper of feet behind her and whipped around, trembling. She saw nothing. Shadows began to creep along the floor, and in her bewildered eyes, they reached towards her. Their rapacious fingers drew nearer and nearer. She suppressed a panicked scream and turned back around, walking quickly and purposefully back home.
Behind her, two cloaked figures followed. One had a cloak the color of the darkening twilight sky, the other a cloak of near black. "Chelsea," the first rumbled; it was a man with the same crimson eyes as the girl Sulpicia from earlier. The smaller figure glanced at him. "Afton, that was them," she said offhandedly. "Or, at least, one of them."
"Who is she bound to? Who would care if she died?" he asked her. Chelsea closed her eyes. Unlike her companion, her irises were beginning to turn black. They were currently a glowing burgundy, not nearly as potent as Afton's. She reopened them, exposing their luminescence to the waning light. "No one. She is bound tightly to her siblings and only superficially to the villagers in this town," she responded.
Afton chuckled. "And I assume that the siblings are what is stopping Aro right now," he said, a statement more than a question.
Chelsea nodded in agreement. Afton stretched his shoulders out discreetly, trying to hide his skin from the light. "Well then, our work is complete," he said with a sigh. Chelsea nodded again and the two vanished into the night.
Meanwhile, in the house, Jane and Alec were fighting over the almonds. "Can't I have one now, Jane?" Alec practically begged, trying to take one of the three in Jane's palm. She snatched her hand away, closing her fist around them, and glowered right back. "No, Alec! Didn't Isa give you any to eat?" she growled right back. Isabella sighed and said, "Jane, I told you to share."
Jane pouted and reluctantly gave Alec two of the nuts; Alec thanked his twin and hugged her, much to her chagrin. Isabella chuckled at the twins' relationship.
There was a knock at the door. Isabella glanced at it, her eyebrows furrowed.
"Who is it?" she called out.
There was no response.
"Hello?"
She opened the door to see a man standing there. He wore a cloak that blended into the pitch-black night. He looked about nineteen and stood stock still in the doorway. Isabella immediately felt that something was quite wrong with the situation. She immediately became suspicious.
"Jane, Alec," she called out, her gaze never leaving the stranger's. "It's time you slept."
"Isa! We're not tired, right Alec?" Jane whined in response.
Isabella finally broke her stare to glare at her sister. "Do it. Now, Jane," she responded. The female twin sighed dramatically before dragging her brother to a pile of blankets in front of the makeshift fireplace they had.
Isabella quietly stepped outside and closed the door behind her. She stared into the stranger's eyes again; this was a practically impossible task for her, given that he was at least a foot taller. He immediately broke into a grin, despite his previous mournful expression.
"Bonjour, ma chérie," (Hello, my dear)he crooned. She raised an eyebrow. "Excusez-moi, monsieur, mais est-ce que vous êtes un noble?" (Excuse me, sir, but are you a noble?) she responded.
The man laughed out loud for the first time in a long time. His laughter was like chimes ringing, but Isabella was immediately put on guard. "Parce que," she tried again, "il y a personne ici qui parle le français, sauf le clergé. Le français est la langue des nobles, et pas celle des paysans comme nous" (Because…no one speaks French here, except for the clergy. French is a language for nobles, not for peasants like us.)
The man shook his head. "Non, nous ne sommes pas des nobles," (No, we're not nobles) the man responded. "Nous sommes des simples voyageurs à la recherche des...amis." (We are simple travelers that are searching for... friends.)
Isabella was still rather suspicious. She made a slight bow. "Nobles ou pas," (Nobles or not) she said, "je ne vous veux pas ici auprès de mon frère et ma sœur. Je suis désolée mais je voudrais que vous vous en allez, Monsieur." (I don't want you here, near my brother and my sister. Sorry, but leave, sir.) With that, she bowed her head slightly before reentering the hut, still wondering about the stranger's odd cherry-colored eyes.
The man blinked after the girl had closed the door in his face. He stood at the doorway awkwardly for a moment more before moving so swiftly away that the neighbors swore a sudden gust of wind picked up. He rejoined his companions in the woods, where they could speak Latin in peace and not worry about small girls telling them off for wandering so close to human civilization.
Aro's eyes darted up when he heard Marcus approach. "Brother," Aro called out. "What have you learned?"
Marcus's eyes flashed in amusement, much to Aro's shock. "Not what you wanted to, brother," he responded, laughing to himself yet again.
Aro's eyebrows furrowed. "What is the matter?" He quickly grabbed Marcus's hand, amid Marcus's protests. Aro saw the golden bond between the three children; he saw the love and protection that the eldest harbored for her siblings and the ferocity of her intent to protect them. He saw the connection between the twins. He saw how they viewed the older girl as a beacon of safety; when she was around, they were safe and content. He saw the twins pout at their sister's commands, but he also saw the flicker of gratitude in the girl's eyes. She did not want to deal with Marcus, Aro realized, and she was glad when their sister sent them away.
He withdrew his hand. Marcus snatched his away, giving Aro a scathing look before wandering off, his eyes clouding and becoming guarded.
Aro wanted the children under his control. The powers that they would have…
He wasn't a senser. He didn't know of these things. But he could somehow understand that the twins had some odd aura about them; he had heard in the village of how they were supernatural, the boy almost an angel, the girl almost a devil. He heard that if a person helped a twin, they would find themselves somehow rewarded, but if they harmed one, they would find both an angry older sibling and misfortune tailing them.
He had even learned their names. Jane. Alexander. Isabella. Such beautiful names, ones that reminded him of the Italy he was forced to leave.
Yes, these children would help him. They would somehow be the secret weapons that he used to wrest his home back, as well as his rule. Aro smirked at no one before vanishing in the same direction that Marcus had only moments before.
Before you ask, I do know my way around basic French (I've been taking classes for about three years), so I didn't really use Google Translate or anything. However, if there are some mistakes, please let me know. I'm not perfect.
Thanks for reading!
~Shriayle