Heath Ledger died. My life is now over forever. Who will be my Carlisle in shining armor? Life is just unfair. But really, Brokeback Man is selfish. He has a two-year old daughter and he decides to off himself? I feel for the girl, I must say. But then, Hollywood is the Devil's Playground. Bad things are bound to happen.

Lucky for me I live there, eh?

I See Your Heart Pinned To Your Sleeve

I followed him down the corridors, moving time with his steps. There was something hypnotic about his walk, as if he were always stepping over broken glass and eggshells. His sister in law, Alice, moved in much the same way—her shorter stature allowing her to be slightly more like a dancer than the ice skater Edward mimicked.

Edward bore no resemblance to his father, but they shared the same eyes. Even Alice, who had no blood relation to them, had the same golden rod irises lining her severely black pupils. And Aro's were red—but then, Aro was a mystery with or without strangely colored eyes. I couldn't shake the thoughts of their peculiarities, even when we reached the kitchens, and Edward ushered me inside.

He called out to a maid who was busily working, her slacks covered in flour. She moved towards us, wiping her hands on her apron, giving Edward a shaky, unsure smile.

"What can I do for you, Sir?" she asked—her voice meek. I smiled at her reassuringly, wishing that she wouldn't show her fear so openly. The last things the family Volturi needed was a boost on their ego, power over those who were not royalty, not nobility. And only a victim's terror could create that power.

Edward shrugged, looking down at me over his shoulder. I stepped forward, "Whatever you have left over from lunch is fine," I told her kindly, "and a glass of water, please."

She bowed her head, scurrying back across the expansive kitchen, and through another door. The silence Edward and I shared was stiff, my body uneasy in his presence. I could feel his chill as he stood behind me, his eyes boring into my back.

"You're much too humble," he finally grumbled, and the tension was broken with his words. I moved my head to the side as he took the step to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, looking at him scathingly.

"Humility is a good trait to have," I responded, trying to suppress the bubble of irritation that seemed to be coupled with speaking to him, "it keeps you modest, but I suppose you would know nothing of modesty."

He growled low in his throat, and my skin prickled at the sound, "I don't bow to those below me, no. You shouldn't either. Perhaps you'd still have your lands."

"I still walk on these lands, don't I? Besides, these planes belong to no one, they belong to themselves. Perhaps," I mocked, "you and your family should accept that. Perhaps then you'd be better off. This world would be better off."

Edward angled his body towards me, crossing his arms over his chest, "They belong to themselves? Someone has to own them; you're just sour it isn't your father anymore."

I dropped my hands, letting them fall to my sides, "If respecting these lands and loving our people is what put us off the throne, then so be it. We rather be true leaders, a royal family that people worship and love, than dictators."

He huffed, annoyed already, "Such a Highlander."

I nodded, satisfied with his conclusion, "Yes."

The maid returned with a plateful of food before he could respond, successfully cutting off our argument. I took it from her, nodding my gratitude, and sat down at the counter. There was a Cornish hen sitting on the plate, decorated with parsley and onions. I poked it with my fork, taking a large bite.

Of course, it was delicious. Gruel would have been delicious right then.

Edward watched me, and the flicker of a smile passed over his lips, "Hungry, are you, Isabella?"

I wiped my mouth with a napkin, an unwilling blush spreading onto my cheeks, "They don't feed you very well in prison."

Alone again in the foreign bedroom, I watched the moonlight cascade through the window. Edward had taken up residence in the room across the hall, but I was glad to be finally rid of his presence. He wasn't looming, but he set me on edge, gave me the feeling that Aro had his eyes on me even when he was nowhere to be seen.

In ways he was a robot of the enemy, but I sensed something deeper in him, something individual. I knew he harbored his own thoughts, his own perspectives, and I craved to know what he truly thought of this ludicrous war. Really. His words today were recycled, not his own. At least, that's what I hoped.

We'd barely grazed the surface of conversation about war, Edward subtly avoiding it wherever possible. We had touched upon ownership, however, and I detested where his thoughts lay. The future had declined because of people like him—people who wanted to own everything, who believed man was the sole occupant of the universe. People who did not respect the land, the wildlife, nature in general. Those mindsets are what got us here, stuck back in Medieval Times when we should have been prospering with airships and cities on the moon.

I rolled over on the plush, queen sized bed, facing the ceiling.

Nothing made me quite as angry as The Descent (as the scholars and philosophers had so cleverly named it).

And nothing interested me quite as much as Edward did, if only because I saw potential in him. A person I could converse with who wouldn't automatically agree with me just because my words sounded good. A person who would argue until he proved himself right—even if he was dead wrong. I admired that.

But he's my enemy. I sighed, sucking my lip between my teeth in a habitual show of anxiety. In any other world, it wouldn't matter if we were from two different places—but our families were in the midst of a war going on twenty years. He was Edward. I was Bella. But no one saw it like that except for me. To everyone else he was England and I was Ireland. Feudal, separated, warring countries that would never settle on a common ground.

There was an eternal battlefield between our two lands. The last men standing for either side would still fight—even if their countries had been demolished, even if they had no family to return to, no King to protect. Because it was a zealous hate, a dark aggression that drove this war, that fueled it.

A hate so strong that it seemed nothing could ease its pain.

The next morning dawned dark and grey, cold and desolate.

And Edward had me outside, my limbs doing a jig to the cold, watching him play polo with his family and friends. Nobles and neighbors. All people I wished not to see ever again for the rest of my short years.

Idiot.

I chose to shiver by myself, ignoring the crowd of onlookers who were, instead of watching the sport, watching me with hawk-like intensity. I didn't like being thought of as an enigma, something to be gawked at when out in public. I wasn't some celebrity.

Alice, who wasn't playing today, locked eyes with me across the field. She looked warm in her balaclava and fur rimmed coat, a pair of gloves on her hands. A man stood beside her, his arm thrown lovingly around her shoulder. He was much taller than she—with blond hair and, obviously, a natural resistance to the cold. He wore a light, spring jacket over a pair of black pants and a shirt that was fit for summer. I wouldn't have been surprised if his feet were bare—though I couldn't see them from where I stood.

It wasn't a shock that he was beautiful—the whole entire family was gifted with the trait, related by blood or not. I rolled my eyes at the thought—surely, beneath the glamour, they were just as egotistical and narcissistic as their faces depicted.

Or perhaps I was just being judgmental.

I'd always been the plain Jane, only few finding me worth glancing at twice. Jacob had always told me I had a unique beauty—fresh and inviting. But other than him, I'd drawn no one else's attentions. My lips were too big, my eyes too far apart, my hair boring and straight. There was no glimmer in my gaze, no secrets behind my smile, no shimmering waves in my long locks.

I was just… average.

The game wrapped up quickly, the weather creating a sense of discomfort throughout the nobles. None of the family Volturi seemed to mind the whipping wind or the sharp snow that was falling onto their skin. In fact, they looked more at home, more surreal within the snowfall.

"Come along, Princess," Edward had crept up next to me as I watched some of the peasants usher the horses into the stable, a few of them remaining to find the balls buried in the fresh snow. I turned away to hide my smile as a woman dressed in her maid's garb threw a snowball at one of the men fishing for a ball. He laughed as he fell, face first, into the blanket of white, reciprocating her actions in the next second.

Their laughter and screams faded away as Edward placed his hand on the small of my back, gently guiding me to a side door of the castle. My skin tingled where he pressed, but I dismissed it as a longing for touch. A longing for affection. Everyone loves to be worshipped once in a while, and I'd been in the Congressman's house for two years before this imprisonment, alone.

Suddenly, and very unexpectedly, Edward spun me around, pressing me into an alcove that was shielded by a hanging carpet.

I opened my mouth to protest, but he slapped his hand over my mouth, pressing himself closer to me. There was no warmth between us, since Edward radiated no kind of body heat. Strange, I thought. He'd been out in the cold all day, his body should have been trying to warm itself up. As a matter of fact, he should be running a small fever right now…

But I couldn't focus on the temperature of his body—only that it was pressed intimately close to mine.

Well I'm glad we got to know each other this way. But your kind of crushing my bones into dust here, my friend.

But Edward wasn't focusing on me; his eyes stared at the carpet, through the carpet. And it wasn't long before I heard the footsteps too. They halted on the stairs, it seemed, for they were hollow steps, and they sounded much different than they would on the cobblestone floor.

"It's ludicrous to keep her here, to invoke Charles' wrath further. I thought we were aiming for peace, Aro?"

I didn't recognize the first voice, but the second was easily distinguishable.

"Peace?" Aro chuckled without mirth, "there will be no peace with these barbarians, Carlisle. As soon as they find out what we are, what we do on almost a daily basis… brother, do you really think they will open their minds to negotiations? To treaties? I think not."

Carlisle audibly sighed, and I could hear his clothes shifting around him, "These are good people. We should never have started this war, this massacre. Do you have no pity?"

There was a pause, "No. Only a need for power. I'm glad we came out of hiding, Carlisle," this time, Aro's laughter was full of dark humor, "the grass is much greener on the other side."

One of them, who I assumed to be Aro, continued down the stairs, walking in the opposite direction from where Edward and I paused in hiding. Carlisle made no movements for several seconds, but then retreated back up the steps in a flurry. When my eyes flicked back to his son, I was met with golden irises, staring at me with the same, brutal intensity they always held.

His hand slid away from my mouth, falling back to his side, and he took a tiny step away from me, pressing himself into the other side of the alcove. His fingers toyed with the hanging carpet, and he looked out quickly, pulling me along when he deemed it safe to emerge.

He looked back at me, eyes cold and desolate, "You will repeat nothing."

And for once, I could only agree. No arguments, no protests. Just a nod.

He began walking quickly down the hall that led to our rooms, and I licked my lips, "Wait! What…?"

Edward angled his head towards me, pressing his finger to his lips, "Later."

It was later. Much, much later. The clouds obscured the moon, making my room dark and chilly.

And we were locked in the fiercest, non-verbal battle in the history of time. He made me feel like folding up into myself and never coming out. His eyes said so much, thought his lips never moved to voice his words.

"Carlisle doesn't want this?" I whispered into the darkness. We were very close, our knees touching as we both sat cross-legged on my bed. He had insisted on the proximity. 'These walls have ears', he'd told me quietly, his cold breath caressing the hairs on my neck.

I noticed his demeanor change—from cold and secretive, to, not exactly open, but willing, and shy. I'd never thought he had the capacity to be shy. Perhaps he did know a thing or two of humility.

"Carlisle doesn't approve of war," he whispered, and I could hardly catch his soft voice, "he wanted the lands… at first. But he sees now, what power does, what control turns you into. Marcus sides with him, but Caius is as power-thirsty as Aro. We're a divided family, some of my brothers and sisters apathetic about the issue, and some, like me, who want to end this conflict—to go back to the way things were before. Instead of demolishing what's left of this world, we'd like to improve it.

He looked off into the darkness in the corners of my room, "I can't tell you more Isabella," he murmured, looking back at me with a new, but ancient sadness in his eyes, "but I'd like to. Your views, I'm sure Carlisle would appreciate," suddenly, he smiled, "I'm sorry about sounding like a clone before. I wanted very much to agree with you, but I didn't know then, that they planned on keeping you here. I didn't want you running off with a good impression of me. I'm meant to be the tyrant, remember. "

I bit my lip, grinning slightly, "I knew you weren't a robot."

He chuckled, running a hand through his hair, "No. Carlisle calls me the rebel to the rebellion. Though Aro would not like it very much… if he knew how I truly felt."

"So you won't act on your feelings? And neither will Carlisle?"

He shook his head, stoic again, "No. It would be fruitless. Aro would have rid himself of us instantly—and your countrymen would be worse off without Carlisle's sway over his brothers."

"But what about the killings?" I whispered desperately, "so many of my people have died. We won't win this war, Edward, we're a dying breed, us Highlanders."

He glanced down at his folded hands, "I'm just a Prince, Isabella, just a general. I have no say over the Congress, the Senate. And definitely no input when it comes to matters of this war. That lies solely with the brothers. And Carlisle is the youngest, the baby. His voice is considered nearly insignificant amidst all the rest. "

I looked away, sighing dejectedly, "It's Bella, by the way. Call me Bella."

I'd never seen a more handsome smile than the one that spread across Edwards' perfect lips, "Bella," my name rolled off his tongue, as if he were the only one ever meant to say it.

I frowned, "Aro said something else… about what you are? What you do? What did he mean?"

Edward jerked his head back to me sharply, his eyes, once again, piercing. For a long while, he just stared at me, his voice much softer than before when he finally spoke, "Understand, please, when I say that I cannot tell you that. If only for your own safety. And mine."

"My safety?" I asked, perplexed, laughing a bit, "is it so bad?"

He looked up at me again through long lashes, "Yes."

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear

You shout and no one seems to hear

And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes

I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

Don't get used to the niceties between these two. It's a temporary thing. They do have their differences, after all. Big ones. Review please. Spread the love.