To the guest who left a review on 1/29/2020 for Chapter 8: as someone who likes to write crack ships/rare pairs, what's music to my ears is someone saying something along the lines of "I was skeptical about this pair at first, but you make it work." That's the best thing you could say to a rare pair writer, I think. So thank you very much for that!

I told this to another reviewer, but I'll go ahead and say it here, too: Putting Seth and Jane together opens up so much relationship potential to dig into. Seth thinks "the world is beautiful, there's a lot I don't know about it yet, and there's so much to explore" while Jane thinks "the world is ugly, I've seen enough of what it has to offer, and it deserves to burn." Putting together people from such different backgrounds and outlooks on life, and see what I get out of the result, is like mining for gold. It's so much fun.

Divine Comedy (9)

Jane

The Cullens decided to take me along and show me their way of hunting. I wasn't particularly thrilled to get a taste of pure animal blood. On the bright side, the coven seemed to extend a gesture of trust as they let me hunt without Bella breathing down my neck. The Cullens did not hunt in a single group, but split into pairs or groups of three. This made sense—fewer vampires in a group meant more prey to share. On my first day of hunting, I was grouped with Alice and Jasper.

"What do you have a taste for today?" Jasper asked his mate. "It's your call."

Alice made a thoughtful tilt of her head. "Hmm, I'm feeling black bear." She glanced back to where I was standing behind them. "You're up to it?"

"I'm up for anything," I replied with smooth confidence. Perhaps she thought I would be intimidated by confronting something large and fierce like a bear. I almost told them that I had singlehandedly taken down a herd of angry, stampeding elephants, but I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut.

Jasper and Alice, familiar with the scent of black bear, took the lead. It turned out that black bears were common in this area, so it didn't take us long to stumble across one. Or rather, four. Peering down from a rocky ledge, we spotted a black bear lumbering through the forest, followed closely by three cubs.

"Let's leave them alone," Alice murmured.

Jasper nodded in agreement. "Way more fish in the sea."

The mother bear hadn't caught wind of our scent yet, otherwise she would have reared up on her hind legs, foaming at the mouth and ready to defend her cubs. For all her ferocity, a mother bear still wouldn't be able to survive an attack from us, so she wasn't spared because we were cautious. Alice and Jasper wanted to leave the family alone out of kindness. Neither looked like the type that would kill a mother bear in front of her cubs.

We continued our search, and soon we came across a bear that had just finished swimming through a shallow river. It barely had the chance to shake its dripping fur dry when Alice pounced.

That bear must be three times her size and five times her weight, yet she took it down with deft twist of its neck. A quick, merciful kill. The only sound coming from the bear was the snap of its neck bones. It was dead before Alice lowered it to the ground. I couldn't help but admire the experienced grace that she possessed. Clearly the Cullens have hunted animals long enough to make it an art.

Jasper made an inviting gesture to me. "After you."

I nodded in thanks. He was quite the gentleman. I could see why Alice took a liking to him. We joined her to kneel over the bear's body. First I watched Alice to observe how she fed. To my surprise and disgust, she sunk her teeth right into the bear, hair and all. I hesitated long enough for Jasper to join her, even though he had offered to have me feed before him. I thought they would have at least brought a knife or a razor to shave off the fur. Perhaps I was spoiled by centuries of exposed, bare human necks.

Finally, I bit into the bear's throat. The hair was bad enough, but that wasn't even the worst part. I nearly gagged as a mouthful of bear blood washed over my palate. There wasn't a drop of human blood to improve the taste.

I pulled back with a grimace and spat on the ground several times to get bear fur out of my mouth. "How on earth do you drink from this?"

Alice looked up at me with an amused grin. "You get used to it."

I felt some hair stuck between my teeth. Absolutely disgusting. Note to self: bring along toothpicks for animal hunts. I tried drinking more of the bear's blood, but the second attempt didn't taste any better than the first. I couldn't bring myself to fill my stomach on this alone. I stepped back to let Alice and Jasper have the rest of the meal.

"I'm going to need Carlisle's mix when we get back," I admitted to them. I lowered my voice to an embarrassed mutter. "I'm not cut out for this yet."

"Understandable," Jasper replied. "We didn't expect you to totally convert to animal blood by now. Today's more for showing you how we hunt, but you made good effort to try drinking straight from the prey with us."

I had heard that Jasper was the newest member in the coven to change his diet, and for a while, he had the least amount of control over his thirst. It made sense why he empathized with my struggle to adjust.

I returned to the Cullen house, prepared to ask Carlisle to mix a drink for me. I was not prepared, however, to come back to him and Esme presenting me with a gift.

As I received the small box from them, my fleeting look of confusion wasn't fast enough to escape Rosalie's phone camera.

"You've proven to be capable of making friends, so we thought it was time you better keep one of these in hand," Edward said.

I opened up the box to reveal a sleek, black smartphone.

"It already has all our numbers saved on it," Esme said.

Emmett quirked a dark eyebrow at me. "You do know how to use one, right?"

I almost rolled my eyes. "I know how to use a phone," I replied mildly. "I just never had one of my own before."

"Mom and Dad giving the teenager her first phone...now we can call ourselves a real family," Rosalie teased.

Jasper extended a hand to me. "May I see it, Jane? There's something I need to check."

Perplexed, nevertheless I gave him the phone. A few moments and a few swipes later, he made the sort of laugh that came out of his nose instead of his mouth.

Alice peeked over his shoulder, and she pulled away biting down on her lower lip.

"What's the fuss all about?" Rosalie came over to look as well, and she leaned back clutching her midriff as she laughed in earnest. "Oh, Emmett."

Emmett himself stayed quiet, though the muscles twitching along his clenched jaw told me he was doing everything he can not to laugh along with his mate.

I frowned. "Anyone care to clue me in on what could be so funny?"

Jasper handed the phone back to me without explaining. The photo album of a new phone was supposed to be empty, but Emmett had taken a thousand photos of himself making weird faces. There were probably three hundred photos of him scowling, around four hundred of him baring his teeth, and maybe three hundred of him sticking his tongue out. I was making rough estimates.

I kept a straight face, not even cracking a smile. But I turned to him and said, "I guess this is your gift to me."

"Yup." Emmett couldn't hold in his laughter after that.

Esme shook her head, though a light smile played at her face. "You all still won't stop teasing Jane, huh?"

"We can't help it," Rosalie said. "She's such an easy target."

At least this was a downgrade compared to the more mean-spirited teasing from before. Emmett's photos—selfies, they called it—were just a harmless prank. The Cullens teased each other all the time, as a family would, I supposed. I took that as a good sign that they were warming up to me a little.

I turned to Carlisle and Esme. "Thank you for the phone. I'll make sure to take good care of it."

My gratitude was genuine, and the two seemed to appreciate it as they smiled.

No one in the Volturi owned phones, not even the three rulers. We—or they, I should say—adhered to antiquity and only used modern technology if necessary, such as the occasional elevator in the castle. Aro still preferred writing and receiving letters. That was how he still kept correspondence with Carlisle over the years. Perhaps he was curious on how I was doing with the Cullens. I should write to him soon. I wish that I could call or text Alec, but I couldn't even write a letter to him. Only the rulers were allowed to receive letters.

As I scrolled through my list of contacts, I noticed that Seth's number was on there. Perhaps he had heard from the Cullens that I was getting a technology upgrade and offered to have his number on my phone. Ever since the incident, the Cullens had discouraged me from contacting Seth via Zoom, since he had to limit his screen time while recovering. Perhaps giving me a phone was their way of permitting me to stay in touch with him.

On that afternoon, I decided to make Seth the recipient of my very first phone call. He picked up almost right away.

"Hey, Jane, great to hear from you! I'm glad that the Cullens let you have a phone now."

"Yes. The other day, Alice and Rosalie took me shopping to get my own clothes. It's a different experience. I've never had my own things before."

"That's...that's kind of sad. Not having stuff of your own, I mean." He sounded genuinely sorry for me. "Are the Volturi like Jedi where you can't be attached to possessions or something?"

I frowned. "Jedi? What are you talking about?"

"Never mind. Star Wars reference." He made an embarrassed chuckle.

I didn't know what Star Wars was, but I let the subject drop. I traced my finger on the velvety armrest of the sofa. "Anyway, I was calling to ask how you've been doing. I haven't heard from you since...that day."

"I've been getting better," Seth replied cheerfully. "Sometimes I still get headaches, but nothing crazy like before. Sometimes I get tired too, and I'm so glad that Mom lets me nap whenever now. She used to get on my case about taking long naps in the afternoon."

Feeling tired, taking naps...I haven't the slightest memory of what that felt like. Sleep seemed like such a bother and a waste of time to a vampire like myself, but I supposed it felt like a relief if you need the rest.

"Good for you that you're getting the amount of sleep you want," I remarked.

"Yeah, for sure." There was a pause on the other end, then he said, "So, Jane, I was thinking...when I get totally better, I want to celebrate. And...and I want to show you how to have fun. You know, have fun like a human. Being in the Volturi sounds like all work and no play. If you want to have a life outside of the Volturi, I think you should learn how to have fun."

"That sounds...interesting," I finally said. "What do you have in mind?"

"Uh, I don't have everything planned out yet. I'll have to get back to you on that one. I'll try to find things around town that we can do..." Seth fell silent, but only for a moment. "Oh, we could go to a theme park! Ride roller coasters, play games to win those giant stuffed animals, stuff like that. Bet you've never been to a theme park before."

His enthusiasm bubbled out of him like water from a fountain.

"You might be getting ahead of yourself here. What would your fellow pack members think if they hear about this? What would the Cullens think?"

"They can all come along," he said. "Of course it won't be just you and me. It's not like I'm asking you out." His last statement came with a fair bit of stuttering and embarrassment clear in his voice.

I was not the most informed on contemporary lingo and turns of phrase, but I picked up enough context to know that he didn't want us looking like we were going as a romantic couple. I agreed with him there.

"I'll go ask the guys and my sister, then. Talk to you later!"

When he hung up, I told the Cullens about Seth's plan for an outing.

"That's so nice of him to invite us," Esme said.

"Theme park, huh? Like Sol Park down by the coast?" Bella smiled at that. "I haven't been there since that one time in high school."

Renesmee's little face lit up. "It sounds like fun. I want to go!"

"It's been a while since we all went out together like a family," Carlisle said. "It'd be nice to go somewhere that isn't the house or the hospital."

The coven seemed to be in enthusiastic agreement about going to this theme park. They would be less willing if Seth wanted to take only me along. They didn't trust me enough to go completely without their supervision. I didn't really mind. Thinking of that bleeding hiker on Mount Rainier reminded me that it was wise to have others around, in case something went awry.

Having the wolf pack accompany Seth would serve as another buffer between me and him, so their collective wolf musk would make me less tempted to salivate over Seth's blood. I was sure that they would agree to come along for that very reason.

I had no idea of what to expect, since I didn't really have any idea of what humans did to have fun these days. I expected, however, plenty of surprises.

Seth

It took me almost two weeks to fully recover, ditch the cane, and stop using Paul's snapback. My hair wasn't quite back to the way it was before the incident, but at least I wasn't bald anymore.

Leah, Jake, and the guys agreed to come along for the big wolf-vamp hangout.

"Someone's gotta keep you out of trouble," Sam had said gruffly, but the others didn't bother to hide their excitement. They wanted to hang out at Sol Park as much as I did.

There had to be some planning and coordinating involved, since the pandemic made it harder for a big group like us to just show up at places like the theme park. We had to buy tickets in advance and make reservations. And of course, I made sure to pick an overcast day, out of consideration for the vampires.

We all met up at Sol Park around mid-morning, when the crowd was at its thinnest. The Cullens showed up wearing hats, coats, and scarves, which weren't out of place because of the fall chill. To keep up appearances, they also wore masks that they didn't need. What surprised me was seeing Jane out of that dark fur-lined coat she had always been wearing.

"That outfit looks really good on you," I couldn't help saying to her.

"Oh. Thank you." It took Jane a moment to look down at herself and acknowledge my comment, as if she had forgotten that she was out of her usual getup. Now she had on an off-white cashmere sweater with a red skirt and black leggings.

The Volturi coat she used to have made her look elevated and regal, almost like a princess of some dark, evil kingdom. Now she looked like she could fit in among humans, more like an ordinary fifteen year-old girl. It was a nice change.

"You're not looking so shabby yourself," she said. She didn't smile, but the sincerity in her voice was genuine. "I'm glad to hear that you've recovered."

I beamed at her. "Yeah, today's for celebrating. Commence Operation Human Experience! C'mon, let's get on some roller coasters!"

I was so excited to show Jane around that I took her hand and pulled her along to get right in line for my favorite ride, the Boardwalk Bullet. I knew that vampires were cold to the touch, but feeling it for myself always surprised me a little. Holding her hand was like pulling along a little marble statue. Her coldness sent a shiver down my arm and up my spine. My hotness must make her feel like fire grabbed her hand.

She didn't resist, though, and only looked the slightest bit amused at my excitement. Standing in line made us wait in the wooden underbelly of the ride's structure. The roller coaster roared above us, and with it came screams from the riders.

Jane looked up and raised a delicate eyebrow. "This is what you humans like to do for fun? Strap yourself into a machine that drops you from the air and spins you around for under a minute?"

I laughed. "Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound that fun, but you have to try it for yourself."

Roller coasters were like cliff diving without getting wet. Like the rest of the guys, I loved the adrenaline rush. Pretending to fly, even if just for a moment, was something that couldn't be put into words.

Most of the guys and the Cullens got in line with us. Carlisle and Esme waited for us outside. I guess they weren't into the rush of rides. To anyone else, it looked like we were social distancing because of the pandemic, but the pack and the Cullens kept some distance between each other for another reason. Despite our peaceful alliance, there would always be some instinctual tension and repulsion between natural enemies.

Leah, Jake, and the guys seemed to grill Jane with their eyes as she stood in line next to me, but she seemed to handle being around me well enough. Surrounded by wolves, and wearing a mask covered in Jake's scent, she wouldn't find me very appetizing today. It was like holding a plate of fresh food while sitting inside a dumpster. Hard to drool over that plate when the smell of trash overpowered everything.

"Are you really not afraid of me?"

Even with my good hearing, I almost couldn't hear Jane over the whoosh and roar of the roller coaster.

"You say you're not afraid, but I still have a hard time understanding your line of thinking," she went on. She trained her gaze on the wooden ramp beneath us. "You are a wolf, an apex predator. Under most circumstances, anyway. Now there's something higher on the food chain. Now you are the prey. Aren't your instincts screaming at you to get as far away from me as possible?" Jane finally looked up at me, and confusion swam in her dark red eyes. "How can you even stand to be around me now, thinking of jumping on this ride, when you should be thinking of fight or flight?"

I shrugged. "I mean, my inner wolf isn't exactly jumping up and down when you and me are standing this close together. But I think you're being a little too reductive, Jane." I smiled at her to show that I wasn't offended or accusing her. "I'm more than a wolf. I'm a guy who can turn into a wolf. And you're more than a vampire. You're a vampire who used to be a fifteen year-old girl. Sometimes you remember what that's like, and the girl shows herself when you want her to. In that way, shapeshifters and vampires aren't so different."

Jane just stared at me, taken aback. She must have never thought of it that way before.

"You and I can think beyond our instincts. We can rise above them. I know that because you found it in your heart to save me, and I found it in mine to be grateful for that. I know that you didn't like to hurt me, and I know that you'll do your best not to do it again." I leaned against the rail, not looking at all like I wanted to run away from her hollering my head off. "That's why I'm okay with being around you. How's that for an answer?"

She crossed her arms and returned her gaze to the wooden planks at our feet, like searching for a refute, but she couldn't come up with anything.

Before we knew it, we were at the front of the line, ready to hop into the ride. "Come on, Jane, let's get the front row! Those are the best seats in the house." I'd been on this a hundred times, and every time it got my heart hammering against my chest.

As we strapped in, waiting to launch, Paul let out a piercing, high-pitched scream from the back. Emmett did the same thing. That made us all laugh. Even the strangers strapped in with us laughed. The ride hadn't even started yet. Those two were just doing it to be silly, because hearing big, tough-looking guys scream like sissies was hilarious.

The roller coaster chugged away and up the ramp. The Boardwalk Bullet had the highest, steepest drop of all the rides in the park. Sitting across from me, Jane actually looked paler than usual as we climbed higher and higher. I don't think I had ever seen her look scared before.

I had to raise my voice over the wind. "Don't worry, I'll still be right beside you."

We peaked, and then we plummeted like a stone. I threw up my hands in the air and whooped. We zipped through twists and turns, through two vertical loops and another big drop toward the end. The drop in my stomach, the wind pulling at my hair, the thrill of surging at highway speed...I lived for that stuff. Before I knew it, it was over. We skidded to a halt, and I looked over at Jane as we got out of the harnesses.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked.

She smoothed back wind-swept hair and the ruffles on her sweater. Her voice shook a little. "That was...I can see why humans like these rides so much. It's exhilarating."

I wanted to pump my fist in victory. "I'm so glad you liked it!"

"It's over so quickly, though."

"See, that's where they get you. Makes you wanna ride it over and over again, huh?"

"Didn't you say that the Boardwalk Bullet has the biggest drop? If I could handle this, I could handle all the other rides around here."

I had to smile at her confidence. "For sure. We'll definitely go around on all of them today. Come on, I'll take you to my second favorite one."

The line to Boardwalk Bullet zigzagged up several flights to the ride itself, though the line to Riptide curved around in a circle.

"This one has no big drops, but it spins you around and around like a Beyblade," I said.

"Like a what?"

I laughed. "Never mind." I had to stop with the geeky references, but I couldn't help myself.

The looping line around Riptide, with only metal fencing between those waiting and the bystanders, meant that Esme could come up to me with no problem.

"I took a couple of pictures of you all at the big drop," she said, and showed us her phone. She had caught me with my hands in the air, and Jane had her eyes squeezed shut. Several carts behind us, Emmett and Rosalie had actually looked right into the camera, posing with winks and thumbs up.

"These are so great," I told her. "Could you please send them over to my phone?"

"Of course."

Jane peered unhappily at herself with her eyes closed. "Delete that one."

"No way, you look adorable," I said.

"It looks embarrassing," she shot back, and put her hands on her hips. "Next time we get on Boardwalk Bullet, I'm going to keep my eyes open."

"That's the spirit!"

When we got on Riptide, I made sure that Jane sat inside, closer to the center, while I sat outside. The ride spun pretty hard at the end. As the bigger, heavier one, I didn't want to crush Jane if we switched spots. As the Riptide spun to life, my world quickly became a blur flipping between blinking lights and a gray smear from the overcast sky. At the last big spin, the centripetal force made Jane slide up against my side.

With everything else swirling out of focus around me, her face was the only thing I could see the clearest. She was squinting against the wind. Strands of her hair came free from the tied ribbon that kept them back. The mask hid the lower half of her face, but with my sharp hearing, I caught the faintest breathless laugh from her. She had the most musical laugh, kind of like the tinkling of a wind chime, and that made me grin from ear to ear. Seemed like she was having fun. Operation Human Experience was going well.

I came out of that ride with my head spinning, but not spinning so much that I was unable to walk straight. I was going to jump onto the third ride, but my stomach growled to remind me of food.

"I'm gonna grab a hot dog, then we'll walk around and check out the carnival games," I told Jane, and she nodded. Much as I loved rides, I needed a little break in between.

Leah and the guys looked like they would rather enjoy a little break too. We formed a long line at the hot dog stand. Jared and Embry liked to get super competitive, and already they shot off to make bets against each other at the games.

At the stand, I watched the guy behind it pile everything on my hot dog, just the way I like it.

"It's too bad you can't eat," I said to Jane. "If you could, I definitely would have included it as part of Operation Human Experience."

It really was too bad that she had to miss out on eating and drinking, the simple pleasures of human life. It would have been neat to show her a revolving sushi bar, Korean-Mexican fusion, or liquid nitrogen ice cream.

I pulled off my mask to take a first big bite out of my hot dog, which sent my taste buds straight up to heaven. "Mmf, this is the good stuff."

Jane stared at all the ketchup, mustard, and relish that almost ran down into my fingers. "That just looks like a steaming hot mess to me."

I fumbled for a napkin. "Yeah, hot dogs can get kinda messy, but it's worth the mess."

"I can't even remember what human food tastes like anymore," she said wistfully. "And even back in my day, when I could eat, food wasn't packed to the brim with flavor."

"Where were you from, Jane? Before Italy, I mean."

I walked along slowly while eating my hot dog, and she kept pace while staying a safe arm's length away from me.

"I'll give you a hint: even today my country has a bad reputation where food is concerned."

I chewed and swallowed before I took a guess. "Er, I'm guessing the UK."

"England, to be exact. But you're right, more or less."

"How come you don't really have an English accent anymore?"

"I have lived in Italy far longer than I've been in England, and I've traveled all over the world on behalf of the Volturi, so my way of speaking is all over the place."

No wonder why I couldn't place the accent when it came to Jane. She said certain words the American way, some words the British way, and other words under vaguely, miscellaneously European.

I was going to ask her something when two boys of about six or seven almost ran right into her. Being a vampire, she had quick enough reflexes to see them coming and smoothly step aside. They shot past us, still playing their game of chase. A woman, probably their mom, stormed after them and shouted at them in Spanish. I knew enough to figure out she was saying "Boys, for the last time, stop running in the park—" Then she noticed Jane and said "sorry" many times in heavily accented English.

"It's all right, don't worry about it," Jane replied in perfect Spanish.

We continued our walk. "Just how many languages do you know?" I asked. "You know English, Latin, and I heard Spanish just now."

She paused before answering. "That's a very broad question," she finally replied. "I've picked up many languages in varying degrees of fluency. The ones I'm most familiar with are English and Italian. Next in line are the romance languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian. Further down the list are the ones used widely around the world: Russian, Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic. German and Greek, I know a fair amount from plays and operas. I used to speak plenty of Japanese, back when Children of the Moon ran rampant in Japan. Now that they're nearly extinct, I hardly use it these days..." Jane trailed off as she caught me gawking at her.

"Okay, I take back what I asked. The real question is: what language don't you know?"

My disbelief probably made her smirk under her mask.

"For many centuries I've served as one of the Volturi's most powerful agents. That comes with acting as a sort of spokesperson to reinforce vampire law across the world. I had to make sure the message was very clear. In the pre-modern era, before technology made communication much easier, there were more language barriers to contend with. Nowadays, when English has taken over a more globalized world, I no longer have to be as versatile."

"Makes sense," I said.

Jane slanted a glance over at me. "What about you? Surely your tribe must have its own language. Do you speak it?"

I looked down at my shoes. "The Quileute language is extinct now."

"I see. No thanks to efforts from people who look like me, I assume."

I didn't say anything to deny her claim. There was no smugness in her voice. No outright sympathy, either. Just dry matter-of-fact. Speaking the truth. I hunched my shoulders and shoved my hands into my pockets. Learning about colonial history when I was a kid had always put me down in the dumps. Jane didn't pursue the touchy subject, and silence was like a third person walking between us.

Unlike with singing, she seemed to look at her skill with languages as more of a tool than a passion, just a means to an end. But I was still pretty impressed at how worldly and well-traveled she had been. Maybe I could study anthropology in college, and after that, go out to see the world just like Jane had.

I looked up at the sunset, at the twinkle of stars against a darkening sky. Thinking about just how much bigger the world was outside La Push, that little place I had known all my life, floored me sometimes.

I looked down and over at Jane. She had stopped to observe the carnival games. Embry howled in defeat over at the ring toss with Jared. Quil and Sam were trying but failing to beat Leah at shooting baskets. To anyone else, a girl like Jane didn't look out of place amid the food stands, roller coasters, and games, because teens loved theme parks. But I knew better. To be stuck in a fifteen year old's body and voice for at least a thousand years, to know and see as much as she had...that was both amazing and sad to me.

Maybe this was the first time in forever that Jane let herself loose, and let herself have fun.

Jane's proficiency with many languages is another headcanon of mine. It makes sense for me that if she's been going around enforcing Volturi authority all over the world, she had to have picked up a couple of languages to do her job. Not everyone spoke English, especially before phones and computers. Jane's comment regarding Japanese and Russian is foreshadowing, by the way. ;)

Sol Park is a theme park that I made up. Luna Park is a real theme park in Washington state that only lasted from 1907 to 1913.