496-483 B.C.E
It starts like this.
In the sacred realm of Delphi under the cool morning sun, when a poor daughter of Apollo is born on the seventh day under the stars of the war god. When her round eyes first open and her mother sees within them the power of the gods.
"Aletheia" she is called, to reflect the truths that her patron god entrusted her with.
Her mother takes her to the temple every morning to pray to Apollo, and to thank him for blessing her child with his gift just as he had her mother before her.
They were things that only she could see and divulge unto others. She sees lovely things, visions of her dancing in the olive grove with her baby sister come summer.
She sees strange things, of mysterious red eyed creatures in their foreign garb and speaking different tongues.
She sees terrible things, and knows the darkest truths of man before she is old enough to speak them outloud.
Like when her parents die - killed by a plague she knew was coming.
Then, as an orphaned waif caring for her young sister, she knows Kynthia will leave her one day and that she has to protect her until that day; because it is what older sisters do. The streets of Delphi grow cold at night, but there is so little to constitute as shelter and they have to make due with the old linens Aletheia nicked from their old home before the city seized it.
They are so little when the priests of Apollo finally find them, and when they realize Aletheia has the Sight they are quick to whisk the pair away to the temple for a new life once more.
Robes of a pure maiden in a dark room, vapors of the Python's corpse rising from the ground, making their way to Aletheia's bloodstream while visions flicker through her head clearer than ever before.
Days that leave her gasping for breath with numb extremities and burning lungs. She feels as though she is choking up her own blood; but that is the price she pays for the knowledge she has been gifted. She lives to repay the gods and if her flesh shall return to Gaea rotting with poison, then so be it.
The day Kynthia decides to leave her behind is a day of cool resignation for Aletheia. She cannot blame her sister for wanting to see the world outside of Phocis - but she fears she will always resent that she had to abandon her in order to do so.
The Pythia is not meant to maintain familial connections though, so it is for the best when Kynthia leaves with huntresses of Artemis for lands uncharted and untamed.
Life alone suits Aletheia just fine; the days of plastering her optimism over her face for the sake of those she loved have long passed. It is a terrible world they live in, and she has nobody left to show hope for, so apathy becomes her friend.
482 B.C.E
She doesn't realize how everythings changes the day she sees a blonde Spartan dying in battle. He is injured so gruesomely before his final breath, and she doesn't know why she is seeing such a beautifully tortured face in a land so far away.
That is - until he appears before her in the flesh, eyes alight with intensity and a thousand stories carved into his skin. This is when she understands that the man standing before her is meant to rewrite her life in ways she doesn't yet know.
He is important to her, or he will be, and it is up to her to find out how so before he dies.
He is accompanying one of the nobles of Sparta to see the Pythia, and once her job is complete for the day she finds the strength in her weakened body to approach him.
She doesn't understand the fire that races through her veins when he focuses his gaze on her, nor the stirrings in her belly when she hears his name spoken for the first time - but he is a drug that she has suddenly found herself inextricably drawn to. More addictive than the vapors of the temple, she craves his presence more than she has ever craved any other.
Jasper recognizes her as the small oracle he had just seen and is immediately apprehensive of what business she could have with him. She reassures him that she is just a regular peasant girl outside of the temple though, and his eyes dance with amusement at her request for his company.
He has a gentle predisposition with her, despite calluses on his hands from years of handling deadly weapons and the harsh militarized reputation of his nation - and she finds shards of her old hopeless cheer return when she speaks to him.
It is a sin for her to taint her body but she thinks of how easy it would be for her to slip off this holy path of hers and fall into his arms anyways. She would run away from Delphi just like Kynthia, to the lands of Lakonia with him and find a way for them to survive together.
But she doesn't do that and she leaves no room for him to believe it is what she wants. A feeling in her gut tells her of how disastrous this result would be, and she would always be wise to heed the warnings her gut tells her.
Aletheia didn't see that Spartan soldier very often, but she always knew when he was coming by Delphi. It was a very specific feeling that settled in her gut and she'd learned to associate with Jasper. She sees him a mere handful of times in the passing years, but she treasures each one as if it is the last memory she will have of him.
He only ever came when a Spartan ambassador was visiting the Pythia for guidance, and he would spend as much time as he was allowed just sitting and listening to Aletheia chattering on happily about what had happened since the last time they met.
He was a man of few words, but Aletheia didn't mind. She always found words bubbling up in his place to fill their time, and they are content to sit in silence if need be. She can't see into his mind, but she hopes he is as at peace with her as she is with him.
The only vision of him that ever fills her mind though, is of the day he will die, young and painfully. It hurts her heart and she wants to tell him about it, but she knows enough about self fulfilling prophecies to fear doing that. The vision is so solid, she has a feeling that it will happen no matter what she does.
Aletheia didn't know much about love, but she couldn't help but feel that in a different life maybe she and Jasper could be happy together.
He was such a calm presence in her life, always soothing away her worries with no more than a soft smile in her direction. It broke her heart to think about just how limited their time together was.
This life just wasn't the one for them. After all, she was to live and breathe prophecies whispered to her by Apollo himself; and he was to die a warrior's death in the middle of a gore infested battleground.
Because maiden demigods couldn't love and neither could dead Spartans.
"Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the others came to know I visited the Pythia outside the temple." Jasper mused quietly on a cool day when he was travelling through the area.
"They'd probably demand you to ask me extra questions." She smiled at the back of his head from where he sat a little bit in front of her on the fallen tree they'd found by her home.
Being the treasured Pythia, she was granted the most luxurious home in Delphi, with privacy from prying eyes. Despite that, she still preferred to wander the forested hills of Phocis and enjoy the serenity of lands untouched by man.
"Is that a fact?" Jasper asked her, turning his head to shoot her a knowing grin.
"Just a guess." She returned his grin playfully.
These were the easiest days of her life; days that weren't plagued by priests or poisons or premonitions. Just the boy she loved and careless banterings that they could throw at each other with ease.
"I'd answer extra questions for you, but not for Sparta." She added.
"What do you have against Sparta?" He leaned back on his log before finally turning around to face her, his knees brushing against hers.
"Nothing." She grinned again. "I just have no emotional attachment to it like I do you."
He smiled warmly at her confession.
"Then will you answer me this question?"
"Of course."
"Do you believe in reincarnation?"
Aletheia blinked in surprise at his choice of question before pondering her answer.
"I suppose I do, in a way. I hope it's real, but I can't know for sure." She finally said, staring down at his hands.
"I hope it's real too." He mumbled.
"Why's that?"
"Because I'd like to know you in more than one life." He answered, and she had to stop herself from squealing and throwing herself at him.
The time for him to leave soon came and she had to bid him goodbye before returning to her home. Her throat felt constricted while he walked her to the back window she snuck out from (the priests would throw a fit if they knew she was seeing a boy alone).
"Goodbye, Jasper. Safe travels." She said at last turning to see him off.
"I'll see you later, Aletheia." He bid and she just about choked a sob at that. She knew she'd see him again, but there would soon come a day that he uttered those words and she would never see him again. It hurt.
480 B.C.E
Her lungs hurt.
They always hurt these days.
Even in the fresh morning so early into the dry season's cool air, her lungs ache and burn in every movement she makes.
It was a side effect of the fumes she had to breathe once a moon in the temple of Apollo, the ones that rose from the corpse of the Python to provide her a medium with which to view her prophecies.
Tomorrow would be another one of such days for her to prove her worth in this place.
The seventh day following a full moon was always a busy one in the temple of Delphi. It was a day for answers and truth; for enlightenment and befuzzlement; for kings and messengers. For Aletheia though, it was a day for headaches and nausea.
Most would think of her power as a blessing and an honor to hold. But for this Pythia it was a crippling burden.
It really was a double edged sword, those vapors. Her visions came to her clearer than ever when she entered that state. But it was a poison - slowly corroding her small body until there would be nothing left.
It early enough that the sun still shone blue on them, but as with every new month, the marketplace was crowded with arriving travellers and ambassadors.
She had the option to send somebody else out to do her shopping for her, but with how little she went out as is she tended to treasure the few chances to venture into town that she got. She knew it made the priests nervous to have her out alone, but she was confident enough in her ability to go unrecognized in the streets.
There was an anxious tension in the air, and despite the reason being unspoken, she was all too aware of where it was coming from.
Stirrings of the arrival of the Persian army in the north had finally reached Phocis, and people were nervous about the battles to come. Delphi was expecting the arrival of emissaries from Athens and the king of Sparta himself, who were seeking guidance from the Pythia about the impending invasion.
The people of the town were excited to host such a famous person, and for the priests of Apollo it was all too routine of an event. For the small girl wandering the market though, the arrival of this particular king was enough to have her shaking with nerves.
She was the one, after all, who would have to tell him of the coming failures tomorrow.
King Leonidas was a bear of a man, from what her visions had told her. He was a wise and respected king, and her assurance that he would either die or doom his people was not going to be received well.
People knew better than to take it out on her of course - she was only delivering the words of Apollo - but it didn't make her any less nervous to know she was sending an army to their certain death when they could easily surrender and live.
She couldn't pretend to understand the workings of war and politics though, she was nothing more than a messenger between this world of man and god. So she would answer the questions she was asked and live the comfortable life she had found her way to until those damn fumes finally made her draw her last breath.
And she'd finally figured it out. That this war would be the one that Jasper fought and died in. They were nearly nineteen, and she knew when she saw him today or tomorrow that it would be the last time.
She was pulled from these anxieties when a larger body cast a sudden shadow over her from behind, and she whipped around to see who had approached her.
It is an unfamiliar face peering down at her, tall with a cool, sooty pallour. She took a step back reflexively when she saw the glowing red of his eyes.
"Sorry to interupt your morning, little miss. I couldn't help but notice you seem ill at ease, and wished to extend an offer of aid walking you about?" He asked in a voice tinted with the grace of a foreign tongue.
She was caught slightly off guard by his approach, but accepted nonetheless. It was about time she headed home to rest anyways. "That would be very appreciated, mister..?"
"Kumboh." He answered smoothly, and she cautiously accepted his arm to lean on, shivering against the coolness of his skin.
"Thank you, Kumboh. I am Aletheia." She introduced herself and began her walk towards her home.
"You are the Great Pythia, no?" He asked and she raised an eyebrow in question at his insight. It was not common that someone identified her outside of the temple, and she didn't remember ever meeting Kumboh before. With a hesitant nod, she confirmed his conjecture. "Your prowess is spoken of far and wide, you know. There are many I've met who are eager to meet this particular vessel of Apollo."
"I am aware." She answered softly, all too well aware that she is a gifted oracle even amongst her own.
She looked at Kumboh again and a flash of intuition told her that he would be a recurring theme in her life somehow. She could not help but associate great pain with his appearance, but it is not him that her mind's eye told her to be wary of. She did not often fear the future, but on this overcast morning she felt a flash of fear for what is to follow Kumboh's appearance in her life.
He was an omen of something, and she was not eager to face whatever it is once Jasper had gone from the world.
Kumboh walked her peacefully to her home, curiously looking at her every once and a while, and while she didn't comment on it, she felt him lean closer than appropriate to inhale her scent.
When he bid her goodbye at her home, she could smell the sweet, sickly vapors of the cave on his breath and her blood freezed in her veins.
Because the moment she recognized the poison on his breath, she saw a flash of the carnage awaiting her, at the hands of a pale red eyed creature so similar to Kumboh - with her own blood coating his tongue and her mutilated body on the other end of his wrath.
Her first visitor on the seventh day of the eighth month was an emissary of Athens, come to seek her wisdom on the behalf of the Athenian general, Themistocles. She confirmed for them what they needed to prepare for the battle of Salamis. She knew they'd win this war - but her heart was so heavy with the loss of the men in Thermopylae and Artemisium.
But it was later when King Leonidas visited her, escorted by a company of his trusted soldiers into the adyton that Aletheia waited in.
She had been dreading this encounter. She knew the question King Leonidas would ask of her, and she knew that the words she would deliver were the most condemning thing she could offer.
Her mind was already fuzzy from the sweet aroma that wafted up from the cracks in the ground, and the images that were normally dark and blurry came to her with a crystal clarity that left her head spinning.
She caught sight of the battle that would ensue at the pass of Thermopylae; of the slaughter that the Spartans and Thespians would meet against the invading Persians.
She saw the battle of Artemisium that would occur concurrently, and the devastating losses they would suffer there as well.
Her mind was already in two different places when the great king was led to the back of the temple, escorted by a company of soldiers and the lead priest who would be on standy by to interpret her prophecy if need be. She caught Jasper's eye but made no motion to acknowledge him.
Her nose burned with every inhale, poisoning her already-so-fragile blood even more with intoxicants. Her breath came in raspy draws as she listened to the question she was given.
"O' great Pythia, please grant me your wisdom." He said to her in the strong timbre of his voice. "How will the Spartans fare in the invasion of Xerxes' forces?" She knew the Greek city-states had recently gathered to elect the Spartans as the first line of defense in this great battle, but with the festival of Carneia beginning that very day, Leonidas' available soldiers were limited.
She took several long moments to let her mind be overwhelmed by the visions, her ears filling with the cries of dying men and clashing swords. She had long known the outcome to be a onesided genocide, but she could only hope to find one small semblance of hope for the brave Spartans in her cacophony of prophecies.
None were to be found for them though.
So she took a deep breath and began. "For you, inhabitants of wide eyed Sparta, either your great and glorious city must be wasted by Persian men," her eyes drifted closed and she saw once more how the great Leonidas would soon fall at the feet of his enemy, "Or if not that, then the bound of Lacedaemon must mourn a dead king, from Heracles' line."
She recognized the familiar numbness racing down her arms and legs, and was once again grateful for the tripod upon which she sat.
"The might of bulls or lions will not restrain him with opposing strength; for he has the might of Zeus." Aletheia continued, allowing her eyes to trace over the face of the yellow haired man that accompanied his king, a sudden sadness darkening her heart as she saw his lifeless body flash across her mind's eye. "I declare that he will not be restrained until he utterly tears apart one of these."
Silence rang through the hall with the end of her prophecy and she knew everybody was feeling the depth of her words. They would believe her, because she was the Pythia. And the Pythia was never wrong when she was used as a vessel of Apollo.
Aletheia had been the chosen Pythia for nearly eight winters now, and of all the dreadful prophecies she had delivered, she knew that this one here and today, would stand the test of time more than any other had. Her head was aching and she felt her body burning with the familiar exhaustion that came with sitting in this room.
Her head was still swimming with glimpses of the future when the king finally broke the silence.
"Great Pythia, we have heard your wisdom and humbly thank you for your words." Leonidas spoke softly. Aletheia nodded her head once, trying to anchor her mind in the present. She felt her breaths come out in ragged pants, feeling already like she's just run a marathon.
"My king, you cannot be considering sacrificing yourself?" One of the Spartans asked, a great urgency colored his voice.
"You have heard the Oracle yourself, Aristodemos. What is to be expected, if I'm to protect my people?" He said so seriously, and she admired the calm front that he showed upon hearing of his fate.
"King Leonidas, if I may?" Aletheia couldn't help but gasp out. She was not expected to answer any questions that hadn't been asked or to provide any insight on her prophecies; but she had a sad desire to not see this man die so fruitlessly. He nodded at her question and allowed her to continue, "I can see great sorrow upon your death; but let it be known that the memory of your battle will not be forgotten in millenia to come. You will save many."
"Then it is decided. Thank you, Pythia." King Leonidas nodded at her bleak reassurance and she saw the possibility of the Persians making their way to Sparta disappear with his firm resolution.
"Wait, but that cannot be! How will they defeat us?" Aletheia saw the indignant soldier and immediately was greeted with the sight of his torn skin, waiting to be pierced by Persian arrows. Her hands shook with each new death and she saw the high priest taking careful steps towards her, noticing her distraught composure.
It wasn't uncommon for the Pythia to experience violent fits after a prophecy, and while Aletheia hadn't yet been dragged that far from reality, she knew her complexion was only growing frailer and weaker.
"We have received the guidance of the great Pythia, my men. It is time to discuss what we shall do elsewhere."
And with that, the company of Spartans left the temple of Apollo, off to savor the last days of their lives.
The rest of Aletheia's day had been exhausting, as it usually was to sit in that awful, holy room and let her mind drown in visions of the future.
It left her winded and aching, and she had to have two of the priestesses guide her home to rest.
Jasper would sneak in tonight and she would be able to say goodbye to him before he was off to face Hades.
Knowing that it would be the last time she'd ever see him left her feeling oddly empty. She'd been keeping the grief at bay for so long - distancing herself emotionally with the truth that now she was left to face it at last and she felt like she was breaking.
Jasper was all she had left and her time with him had been heartbreakingly short.
Sure, Kynthia was alive out there somewhere, but she'd not once come to Aletheia in favor of roaming the world with her sisters. She'd abandoned her under some misguided notion that Aletheia would be fine on her own.
She'd abandoned her in the place they'd lost their parents.
Aletheia had never dared to imagine the future beyond Jasper, but now that it was all that was left she found it too painful to breathe. Her only comfort was that it was only a matter of time before her body succumbed to the stress of being Apollo's chosen, and she would die like those before her.
She felt with every new month, her body weakening more and more, and she knew her own days were numbered.
If her ailments didn't kill her, she thought of the strange red-eyed killer that would. She couldn't help but feel that the man from the previous day, Kumboh, would be the one unknowingly leading her killer to her.
We really are a tragedy, she chuckled to herself, thinking about how the fates had given her and Jasper such an awful existence.
When Jasper finally came to visit her it was late in the night, long after everyone had gone to sleep. It was a stolen moment between them, and they spoke in hushed whispers.
"I guess I'll be going on ahead of you then, huh?" He'd joked and she felt the floodgate crack open at his own cynical acknowledgement of his death.
"I'll follow after you soon enough, I won't keep you waiting." She promised. He frowned and pulled her closer from where they sat on the floor in the quiet of her room.
"Don't speak like that, Alis. You have to live a long, long life and put me to shame." She cried even harder at that.
"That won't happen, Jasper. The Pythia is killing me as well. I won't be very long." He nodded solemnly in understanding. He knew the fate of the Oracles of Delphi. He knew what she meant, and she would not tell him of the fate that Kumboh's kin would give her.
Quicker than she could prepare for, he had leaned forward to capture her lips in a chaste kiss and her heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces. She returned it desperately, but the moment was too fleeting to last longer than a few seconds.
"Then I'll wait for you in Elysium." He gave her a small smile and pulled away to leave. "I'll wait forever if I have to."
The Spartans at Thermopylae provided hope for the entire Greek world, despite the cold, hard decisiveness of their slaughter at the hands of Xerxes. It was over as quickly as it had begun - with heavy losses in Artemisium and Thermopylae but a decisive win in Salamis drove away the Persians.
Meanwhile she stayed safely tucked in her little valley, protected by those that worshipped her power, and she watched as the world burned around her. Visions came to her unbidden with a new urgency, of strange unknown lands that a cloaked figure would run through. Like they were running from something, trying to escape an approaching fate.
Time seemed to slip through her fingers after Jasper died.
Every passing day she grew weaker. The Pythia never lived very long lives, and she was so little, her lifespan was nothing more than a blink in the eye of Apollo. She thought with irony how he could hand select a messenger, only to let her die before her twentieth year.
Her eyes began to fail her as well, coating her world in a dim curtain that grew darker each day. Soon enough all she would know was darkness and the flickering images that her mind still conjured.
As if actively withering away wasn't bad enough, Aletheia could feel her memories slipping away, one by one. First it was of her parents, then she slowly began to lose sight of Kynthia. Nobody was there to remind her of these precious people, and the days long past were gradually disappearing.
There was one particular person she had lost, but by the time her 18th spring came around she had forgotten their face the same as everybody else.
Visions grew strange.
She saw glimpses of a red eyed monster coming to visit her, of him carrying her off into the heavy forests of Phocis and subjecting her to a horrifying fire that she knew words would never do justice.
She saw a familiar blonde face in strange clothing, tearing these same monsters apart limb-from-limb and throwing them into blazing desert flames.
She saw herself, also red-eyed and haunted looking. She was paler than the mediterranian sun had ever allowed her to be before, and she was more beautiful than she'd thought possible.
It scared her a little.
477 B.C.E
She was floating, far, far away, and the only thing anchoring her was the inexplicable feeling that she was searching for something. Something important that she had forgotten, that was lost.
The past was lost to her; but she could search for her answers in the future. One of those answers was Kumboh.
When the monster named 'Kumboh' visited her once again, Aletheia had no recollection of who he was. The only thing he brought with him were visions of the hunter that was going to kill her, and she unknowingly realized for a second time the importance he would play in her life.
She could hear his footsteps enter the chamber, almost apprehensive, and she saw his decision flickering between futures.
"It's okay, Kumboh. You're welcome here." She called out, and through her hazy visions, seconds ahead of real time, she could see the confusion cross his face before it smoothed over.
"You seem to be a rather gifted human, even for those of your kind." He commented, watching her with a quiet fascination. She didn't find it unnerving - in fact it reassured her that Kumboh was on her side. He was keeping a careful watch. "I didn't know if you'd remember me."
"If we've met before, I don't remember." Aletheia said, having come to terms with her horrible memory. "I just know you're going to be my friend."
"Friend? Not sure I've been called that before."
"Why did you come to see me, then?"
Kumboh hesitated before answering. "Because a different monster is watching you now."
This, Aletheia knew to be the other red-eyed creature that was hunting her. "You'll protect me though. I know it." Her tone left no room for argument.
She didn't quite know how long Kumboh had been watching her, but he seemed almost amused by her confidence in him.
It was in those following weeks that she saw Kumboh several times, and he never appeared in the temple again - instead preferring to visit the small "temple" she called home. It was strange
"I brought you something, Alis." He said one of these nights.
"Alis? Are you too lazy to call my full name?"
"Is that not what people have called you in the past?" He raised an eyebrow and she blanched at the sudden wave of heartbreaking nostalgia that she felt. He was right.
Someone very important had called her that.
"Well what did you bring me?" She continued after a moment's pause, deciding not to linger on that.
"I want you to guess what first." He said, and she knew he was once again testing her powers.
"This is ridiculous, Kumboh." She sighed but prepared herself to answer. "You've brought me a scarf? Why?"
He smiled at her correct guess before pulling out the burgundy fabric and handing it over.
"It's something I found near Sparta. I thought you were close to one or two Spartans, once upon a time?"
"I was?" Aletheia furrowed her brow. "You know I don't remember these things." But it weighed on her mind a bit, that she couldn't remember this particular fact.
There seemed to be a lot tonight that was troublingly evading her memory.
"Ah, I hoped it might help something." Kumboh explained and Aletheia shrugged to accept the gift.
She didn't really need anything, since she was already well taken care of by the priests. But she appreciated the little things Kumboh would give her.
She wasn't sure how she felt about the things that were happening to her, though. On one hand, she had nothing to keep her chained to this mortal life anymore, so the idea of death shouldn't have scared her.
But on the other hand, there was that tugging feeling in her mind that she had to find something important. That she couldn't go to the Underworld until she'd found it.
That's where she was left in the fleeting days that followed. She didn't realize how close the hunter was to her, until the day she returned from the temple to a dead crow on her doorstep and then she knew.
Her visions were powerful, but never powerful enough to have given her enough warning. And she was so stupid not to have noticed the physical omens forewarning her, too focused on her visions to notice.
Tonight was a lunar eclipse - and if she were to believe the things she'd heard - it was not a night for good things to happen.
It was in this panic that she began screaming for Kumboh, knowing he would hear her.
And when he appeared before her she started to fall apart in front of him - knowing with a sudden clarity that she did care about dying. She didn't want this hunter to catch her, and she cried the last tears she'd ever cry when she understood that in order to survive, she'd have to die first.
She explained to Kumboh what needed to happen through her panicked blubbering and he nodded along with her.
"Are you sure of this, little one? It won't be pleasant." She wanted to scream at him that dying would never be a pleasant thing, but she had more important things to do; one of which was pulling herself together long enough to tell Kumboh the possible outcomes.
And while part of her expected him to tell her no - it wasn't worth it - he didn't do such a thing.
Instead he nodded solemnly as a resignation filled his eyes.
"Fine." He said, scooping her into his steel arms without further prompting. "But I'll need to take you far away from here, so that your transformation doesn't draw attention."
Never having experienced this kind of speed before, Aletheia didn't know to close her eyes while he ran, so when they stopped somewhere in this thick forest of Phocis, it took everything in her not to vomit.
"Aletheia, there's no going back from this. Are you sure it's the only way?" Kumboh asked once more.
"Just do it! There's no more time!" She yelled, though her voice came out raspy and she was leaning heavily on Kumboh's arm since he had set her down.
And without further ado, he had leaned down enough to sink his teeth into the soft flesh of her neck, and all other thoughts left her mind.
She writhed in pain, not understanding why this hurt so much. Pain like this couldn't exist in the world, there was no way it could get worse than this feeling of her throat being torn out.
She was so, so wrong.
A heartbeat after Kumboh pulled away, she felt the fire rushing through her veins, like the molten heat of Hephaestus' forge was being injected into her body directly. It burned and burned and burned until she forgot everything those vapors had missed.
Behind her closed eyelids, she thought she saw people, but she couldn't call out to anyone.
Who had done this to her? Was this not the state of being that everybody was subject to since their creation?
It took so long, she didn't understand the passage of time anymore. After a while the figures disappeared, and with them her knowledge that they'd ever existed. She knew she was screaming somebody's name.
Her heartbeat was all she could really register; that and the scent of her own flesh sizzling away beneath the surface.
At some point voices began to accompany visions, blinding lights of scenes she'd never known. She saw decades, centuries, millenia, ahead of her world and could almost feel her mind expanding with each new piece she collected. It was overwhelming, to have to process so much information through the pain.
At times she felt herself chanting her mantra, "I can't do it I can't do it I can't do it." as the greek fire ate her bones and blood.
Other times she prayed to a god she wasn't sure was listening, "Please, Lord Apollo, save me from this pain." Her agonized pleas should have reached Mount Olympus itself. "Lord Apollo, why did you choose me? What did I do wrong?" If you can't make it stop then just kill me already.
He never answered. When Apollo ignored her, she prayed to others. To Lady Artemis; who watched over maidens like herself. To Lord Zeus; for the king of gods to put her out of her misery. To Lord Hades; that he could guide her at last to the gates of the Underworld.
She had to wonder what it had all been for, why Apollo would enchant her with his gifts if only to subject her to such torture in the end. Cruel gods, she decided.
Cruel gods to watch one of their very own chosen messengers suffer at the hands of this unending fire.
It was a long time before anything changed. At first she thought it was the vapors of the Python rising from the earth to bring blessed numbness to her extremities, that she was in the Temple of Apollo, finally being heard by her patron god.
As soon as she had that thought, the memory of it vanished. It was like her thoughts were being guided through a shredder - there was no permanence in her head in this state.
But ever so slowly, the numbness made way for feeling, spreading through her body and enriching her with senses she'd never dreamed of. She hadn't even opened her eyes and she swore she could feel every living thing through the ground alone.
The fire had found a home in the back of her throat, and it was only that lingering pain that could snap her out of the amazement of feeling once again.
"Alice."
The name was so familiar, yet unfamiliar to her, and it was the first sound she recognized after the burning faded.
It was the first vision that flashed across her mind that she could finally settle her attention on. The man who said that name (her name, she knew) had looked at her with his strange red-eyes and given her a look filled with awe and love and respect. It took her breath away, and the first emotion she felt was that very same awe and love reflecting back towards this scarred man.
His face was gone as soon as it had flitted in front of her, but she opened her eyes expecting to see him standing mere feet in front of her anyways, in his strange clothes.
Instead, she opened her eyes to the quiet, wooded expanses of a land she no longer knew, and the only thing she could do was pick a direction and walk.
? B.C.E
It's a godless world she's been born into, and she is left to wander aimlessly for a long time before any sign of direction comes her way.
She merely watches things for a while, with her gift. There isn't much to watch though - many things are too fuzzy for her to make out and she doesn't know anybody who's future she can watch instead.
Except for Jasper of course, but she can tell immediately that it won't be time to meet him for many years.
Besides that, she finds that empathizing with the bleeders is a dangerous line to walk. It's the strangest thing, whenever she is forced to kill one, that their life - or their future - literally flashes before her eyes in the moments before they die.
She has no explanation for it, and while it's oddly painful to watch, the burn in her throat is a more painful thing to let linger. So she drinks and kills and wanders.
Empathy is buried under it all, and she's okay with that.
She doesn't know how to keep track of the passage of time - only using the people she kills as reference points.
So when a vision of the cloaked coven comes her way, she is almost eager to pursue the intersection of their fates.
After all, she's watched nothing for so long that even this dubious clan is a welcomed vision.
Part of her hopes that they'll lead her to Jasper.
Yet it still takes her a long time to realize she must draw their attention to her and let them find her instead. She's been so careful with her kills - not wanting to take anymore than necessary and scare off the population - that when the idea of letting loose for a little while comes to her it's almost a relief.
She doesn't like having to hold back, so when she realizes that she must gain their attention somehow she is quick to break those barriers and let loose on the bleeders' population a little bit.
This is why when those foreseen figures approach her on the outskirts of a town, she makes no effort to run and doesn't show any nervousness.
The beginning explanations may be tough, but once Aro sees her mind he'll understand.
"Hello there, little one." He croons, and she sees clearer visions of herself going with him. "It isn't very often that I meet one of our kind wandering so close to the bleeders."
"I have no particular reason to avoid them, Aro." She says, looking skeptically over his white face and glowing eyes. The moment she says his name, she watches his eyebrows raise in surprise.
"Well, it seems you already know me. Might I ask for your name in return?" He questions, and for the first time since her awakening she realizes she's never said her own name aloud.
"I don't know." She says, a strange reluctance to speak aloud the name Jasper spoke clouding over her. "I don't remember."
"How strange." Aro muses.
"You've been causing quite the stir amongst these humans recently. We're not particularly fond of such disturbances in our territory." One of the others says, a cold edge to his voice that she immediately knows she dislikes.
"Now, now, Caius. Let's listen to what she has to say first." Aro catches her eye, and she can already see the glint of fascination growing in them. "You are not a newborn?"
"No. I didn't know how else to get your attention." She explains plainly, and she watches Aro tilt his head curiously and step forward to grasp her hand. Her visions reassure her that he won't do anything unsavory with this motion, so she accepts.
It takes her only a moment to realize he is reading her thoughts.
"There are others of us with gifts?" She asks in surprise and watches his eyebrow raise before their hands meet and she knows he is reading every thought she'd ever had.
"You!" Aro gasps in realization, and she yanks her hands back reflexively at his exclamation. "You are the famed oracle I had searched for all those years ago, aren't you, Aletheia?"
"What? I don't know." She draws further back in confusion, visions flickering across her mind in an attempt to piece together what he was talking about.
"Ah, you pitiful dear, you don't remember anything. I would gladly take you in, to show you the life you've been reborn into." He offers, a new excitement gleaming in his eyes at the realization of the powerful gift he'd just stumbled upon so conveniently.
"You heard about me...before all this?" She asks, her mind still lost in future explanations he might have given her.
"Yes!" He reaches forward for her hands once more. "Fascinating, Aletheia! Never before have I encountered a being as gifted as you. I truly wish I could thank your creator for bringing you to this side."
She doesn't know what to say. She never knew that when she first saw a vision of them that they would have known who she was already. Her long buried desire for belonging feels rekindled, and she is almost happy to have found another like her.
"I am glad you find joy in our meeting as well, Aletheia!" Aro proclaims at her thought. "Please, come back with me, I'd really love to give you a home and a place on my guard."
And because she has nothing else, and no idea what she is, she accepts this overeager bloodsucker's offer of comradery.
They call themselves the Volturi, and in this new world they are the only thing she has to fill the gaping hole left behind by her memory loss.
Aro is amazed that she could have forgotten truly everything from before the burning. His power allows him to see every thought she's ever had, but according to him her fading memory as a human has eluded him. All he has to tell her is what little she retained before she died, and it isn't much. And she could tell that he held back a lot from her.
He'd said her name was Aletheia, but all she could remember was the way Jasper had called her "Alice".
She knows she was a powerful oracle, that she could pluck visions of the future out of thin air and see the events that were most likely to occur in her mind's eye without even trying.
She knows that it was her reputation as a human that had drawn Aro to her, that her power had been unprecedented and he'd wanted to use her powers for the greater good of his coven.
She knows that she killed people in this new life. That she had to, to ease the constant burn in her throat. She could only survive by drinking their blood or be driven to madness.
It was unheard of for her to not recall her human past, but Aletheia had nothing to really miss - so she didn't pursue answers. All she wanted to know was what she was, and how to find Jasper.
They were a coven of creatures that needed to drain the blood of humans to live. They were daemons that could never grow sick, never age, never grow weak; they were destined to walk the earth forever in search of lives to take. Just like the stories she'd heard once before of the feared empusa and lamia - they were monsters of the night that could only live by stealing life from others.
Caius had laughed when she said that outloud. They were not just stories, he'd said, and there were no gods to watch over them in this world.
Aletheia believed him when he said that. What kind of god could have allowed this to happen to her?
She found herself glued to Aro's side - much to the dismay of his mate, Sulpicia. He wanted to have constant access to her visions, even the most trivial of which delighted him.
The blonde man she'd seen reappeared at the strangest of times, and Aro was there nearly every time - privy to what she felt like were private moments. Moments he had no right to.
"Amazing…" he utters once again, the first time he'd been grabbing her hand when the man appeared. "You've even seen your future mate."
Her head snaps up at that, staring curiously at him upon that foreign word leaving his lips.
'Mates' were for people like Aro and Sulpicia or Caius and Athenodora. Excitement and dread fills her silent heart at the realization that she could have what they had.
Excitement that she'd be able to actually meet him - Jasper - and reciprocate properly the love he showed her in her visions.
Dread because she knew that until she met him, she'd only be like Marcus. Withered, and sad, and chained to Aro like a dog that had no other home.
And she knew that she'd be waiting a long, long time.
Winters come and pass and Aletheia never once feels the chill they bring with them.
Instead, she watches war ravage the land over the years, and sits unchanging in this stone body of hers while it all passes her by.
Greece changes. The people, the places, the clothes. She watches it peak and she watches it fall. People die, leaders are assassinated, buildings are burned to the ground and all Aletheia can think of was what a sad existence these humans were destined to live.
The Volturi moves, and it's the same story all over again in Rome. A new empire with laws and legend so painfully similar to her homeland's. Their coven grows, and new powers are obtained.
It doesn't take her long to see the obsession in Aro's eye, the possessiveness he holds over her and all his other gifted ones. She sees the cruelty in Caius' eye and the apathy that follows Marcus everywhere he goes. She tolerates it, only because she has no other place to be.
The Volturi is all she's ever known, and she would follow them because it is what was expected of her. She was the jewel of Aro's collection - even when he'd obtained the cursed twins, and his own personal shield. His hold over her never loosened, and she never tried to shake it.
She was still waiting, after all.
Waiting for Jasper, and Aro knew this. He knows that the moment her mate enters the world he'd lose his grip on Aletheia, and it was a terrifying thing to be his fixation for so many centuries.
"Aro." She eventually tells him on one occasion, "You understand I will leave this place, don't you?"
He stiffens at her choice of topic, and she can see the panic flare briefly in his eyes. Other members of the Volturi fear the taciturn oracle that holds everyone's future in her tiny palm - their anxiety was palpable whenever she was near. She sees Caius freeze as well, and the icy glare that Jane shoots her.
"What is the cause of such a question, my dear Aletheia?" He forces calm over his voice and beckons her forward, so that he can grasp her hands and see into her head. She remains where she stands, content to maintain a distance between them. This, she knows, frustrates him.
"Because you seem to have grown a bit too comfortable with my constant power at your disposal." She informs him simply.
She watches from the corner of her eye as Jane steps forward menacingly - preparing to attack if her master orders it like the doting mutt she is.
She was changed too young, Aletheia thinks. She is still naive to think she'd be rewarded for such needless behavior. Naive to think Aletheia won't kill her regardless of Aro's wishes.
"You know, your mate would be welcomed into the Volturi the moment he is found. You don't need to fear being separated." He tries to reassure, but Aletheia knows it won't work and he knows it too. Caius seems confused by this sudden talk of Aletheia's unknown mate and is quick to question it as well.
"What is this speak of our oracle's mate? I wasn't aware such a person existed?"
"He doesn't." Aletheia addresses him, "Not yet at least. But I have seen it, and if I bring him with me to you we will both die here." Aro raises an eyebrow. Again, his hands twitch as if he wants to grab her and see for himself what she means, but she refuses. "I just wanted to make sure you were preparing for that reality, Aro."
With that, she quickly moves on, content to leave reminders for him every now and then that her power was not for him. It had never been for him, and it was only with her compliance that he found himself able to use it.
600 C.E
It's the slaughter of the Romani coven that finally drives her away from the Volturi to seek out the world on her own.
Aro isn't happy to have her leave but a few well placed threats and finding the perfect timing to slip away gets the job done.
She is glad to be rid of Caius and the twins' penchant for violence. She sees what the constant exposure to fighting would do to Jasper, and she wisely decides she shouldn't be broken herself when she meets him - it would only make things harder if they were both traumatized and desensitized.
Leaving the Volturi comes easier than it ever would have in centuries past.
Maybe it is a complacency that Aro has grown to with the idea that she will leave.
Perhaps he caught a glimpse of the slaughter Aletheia promised upon them should she be kept from Jasper by him.
Whatever the case, when she leaves, it is a quiet night in Volterra and she slips away undetected to find her way across the continents.
She leaves behind everything; she feels no desire to bring the baggage of her old, unwanted life with her.
It has been over a thousand years since her transformation, and she has lost so much of herself. She often wonders who she might have been if she hadn't forgotten who she was.
Sometimes, flashes of a human life flicker their way across her mind.
A young sister, a sweet smelling cave, a field of olive trees.
An image of Jasper dressed in the armor of a dead soldier finds its way to her, and she cannot tell if that is something long gone or something yet to come. It makes her wonder if Jasper is not just a dead man, or if he is truly someone she has yet to meet.
In a world of monsters and gods, who is to say that he isn't both?
The New World is a strange place.
It is full of foreigners, full of potential, and full of new identities waiting to be crafted. It is difficult for Alice to be around so many hopeful, blood-pumping creatures, and so she spends most of her time wandering the thick forested areas of the north.
She searches for nothing, but knows she will find everything in this place.
1843 C.E
It's a blue morning in the dead of the dry season when she sees him once more. Wandering through a northern forest, far away from any bleeders, a vision traps her in a vice grip as victim to the future's whims.
She hasn't seen him in a long, long time.
His honey blonde hair and glowing red eyes, peering at her through the darkness of the night. The scars that litter his beautiful face and body, and with them the reminder that she will never be able to save him.
It isn't any different than the first time she saw him, all those seasons ago, when she opened her own piercing eyes for the first time. He still takes her breath away, and she still aches with longing once the vision vanishes from her sight.
The forest is eerily silent, but it always is when she was near.
Creatures of the earth and sky knew better than to approach the damned, and she is, without a doubt, the most damned of them all.
She hasn't kept track of the years passing her by. She doesn't know where she is specifically either; she just knows she is far north in the New World, many, many years after she arrived.
Excitement races through her paralyzed heart, and she knows that the moment she has anticipated for so many years is approaching.
She sees the hot heat of the desert where he will be, and despite the fact that it is only the beginning, she feels a fragment of an old piece of herself return to the place where it once was, in her chest of beating flesh.
There will still be time spent waiting, but she has grown very good at wandering, and very patient.
What is a hundred more years to a creature that has already spent an eternity in hell?
1847 C.E
Despite the uncertainty of the consequences for such a decision, she finds herself travelling down south.
She has never been this far south, always careful to avoid the dissonance of her kind when they gather in hoards of violence.
It is very possible that she might accidentally stumble upon a stray or two while she is here, but she can't bring herself to fully care about these possibilities.
She is tired of waiting, and all she wants is to see Jasper.
So when she sets her eyes upon a toddling boy, skin flushed with life and hair unruly, it is enough to keep her going for a thousand years more.
He is there, and he is alive, and even if she should be tortured by newborns, at least he will still have a future to look forward to.
She cannot find the words in her to actually approach him, so when she finds a perch in the tree to the edge of the small wooded area she is content to rest in her thoughts while he runs around so close to her.
She closes her eyes to dream of the millions of memories he will form in the coming years - being so close to his beating heart has just opened up his future to her like never before. What was once just shadowed glimpses of their life together suddenly becomes a full storybook of a life yet to be lived. It's amazing to have so much more information about him at her disposal.
So lost in her thoughts, she doesn't even notice the child clambering his way up the tree and stopping to gawk at her from his own perch.
"Who're you?" he asks, and her eyes snap open in surprise. An incredulous grin makes it way across her face. Of course he would be one of the only people to ever surprise her.
"I'm just a traveller, passing by." She answers, returning his curious stare. His eyes are a hazel color that she never imagined to see on him, with a wash of warmth over his skin that is so bereft in what she is used to seeing. She savors the fact that he is so little now; he can't be any older than four. She knows he will tower over her, so she is amazed to see him so small and full of that childish roundness.
"You talk funny." He says and she laughs lightly without thinking. It's a foreign sound that she hasn't heard in centuries. She actually can't remember the last time she laughed. "Why're your eyes red?"
"Why are your eyes hazel?" She asks in return, a pleased smirk making its home on her face when she sees she has stumped him.
"I dunno." He concedes. She holds back another chuckle at the adorable childlike displays she is seeing. His blonde curls fall into his face in such a familiar way and he doesn't bother brushing it away; she notes with a sense of amusement that this will be a habit to follow him into adulthood.
"That's okay. You don't have to know. I don't know either." She reassures and he grants her an unsure grin in return, cocking his head to the side. He opens his mouth to say something but is quickly cut off.
"Jasper!" A woman calls from near the small house laying across the fields. His head jerks in the direction of the voice and he begins to scramble down the tree.
"Sorry, ma'am, I've gotta go now." he explains as he clambers down. She smiles again and nods.
"I'll see you again soon, Jasper." She says and she is gone before he can turn back to reply.
She can't resist seeing him again a few weeks after that. Maybe it's because loneliness has been her only companion for so long, but she can't help but return to find herself lurking around that same wooded area.
He finds her, of course, and his eyes light up with recognition when he sees her.
"You're back!" He declares and she smiles at him from where she sits against a tree.
"I am!" She laughs at his childish excitability. His joy is contagious, and again she finds the most genuine happiness flooding through her. He has dirt smudged on his cheek and bares all the signs of a rambunctious child having been left to his own devices. It's adorably endearing to her.
"You never told me your name, miss." He says.
"I don't really have one." He frowns sadly at her response.
"Well, why not?"
"I left it behind a long time ago. You can pick a new one out, if you'd like." She offers and his eyebrows furrow in thought for a moment.
"Alice?" And she swears if she hadn't seen this conversation already, her dead heart might have started beating just so that it could stop again upon hearing the name he chose. It's a beautiful thing, to be granted a new name by someone who will be so dear to her in the future.
"Alice?" She parrots and he nods in confirmation. "I love it! What makes you choose Alice?"
"It's the princess's name. You look like an Alice." He shrugs and she can't help but laugh at his logic.
"Well, I think I'll keep it."
He's an unbelievably charismatic child, she discovers. If she hadn't already known how amazing he was, she would have been immediately enraptured by his way with words, at just a mere four years old.
Just before she has to leave once more, he seems to remember something and reaches in his pocket to pull out a clump of wilting wildflowers.
"It's a gift. For you, Alice." He says when he throws the hand holding them towards her. She suspects they're something he gathered for his mother, but she doesn't say anything about that. Instead she gratefully receives them and lets a wide smile take over her face.
"Thank you, Jasper. I love them." She giggles, picking out one of the drooping pale pink flowers in the bunch and handing it back to him. "Here, help me." She crouches back down to his height and pushes her unbrushed hair aside, tilting her head so that he can easily tuck the flower stem behind her ear. "Is it pretty?"
"It's beautiful!" He answers, clearly thrilled by her liking of his gift.
It's with that contentment that she leaves him once more, with a daring kiss on his little cheek and cradling her dying bunch of flowers.
1848 C.E
She does not see Jasper again; she can't risk making any more of an impact on him than she already has. It hurts to know he is so close and she could watch him grow into the person she will love, but it is necessary.
She will remain the elusive fairy that he once dreamed of when he was a child, and she will move on to wander the world for a few more years before she returns to him.
She is unprepared for when Demitri finds her though, under orders of the Volturi, close to the salty coast.
Vaguely, she can remember the tracker that they had recruited in the last days she spent in Volterra and she recognizes him when he appears in her vision, too late for her to evade.
She curses herself when she realizes how distracted she had become by finding Jasper at last; she had neglected to keep an eye on Aro's decision.
When the feared Volturi guard appears before her, she knows all at once that escape isn't going to happen this time around. She can see clearly now, that if she should evade them they will kill Jasper.
She doesn't wish to pursue that possibility, so she doesn't know how they will find him - they'd probably track her scent to him. It's a risk she refuses to even humour taking.
Jane is waiting for her to protest or run or give an excuse for her to finally use her cursed powers on Alice, but she is only left disappointed.
Alice is not a fool, and standing here faced with eight of the most powerful vampires in existence, she is not about to challenge their resolve to bring her back alive.
"You're not going to struggle, are you?" Jane asks, and her voice is clearly tinged with dissatisfaction that she will not use her powers today. "You didn't see us coming?"
Alice doesn't want to answer to her, so she doesn't.
"Why has he chosen now to come find me?", is what she asks instead.
"Aro decided it had been long enough without your gift." Chelsea says, and Alice knows that she is poised and ready to sever any kind of emotional ties she might have formed to someone here. If she looked hard enough she might find Jasper, and that is how Alice knows with certainty she must go with them.
Her future with him hasn't yet disappeared, so she knows that all hope is not yet lost.
That is how she finds herself standing once more in front of Aro and his brothers.
It has been a long time since she stood in these halls, and there are several new faces for her to see. They crowd their masters and stare at her with an envious awe while she glides up to him, bitterness coursing through her veins.
"Aletheia, it is good to see you again, my dear." Aro greets and she feels a ribbon of pure, unadulterated disgust break through her careful wall of apathy.
"I discarded that name long ago, Aro." She says, and she is sure nobody misses how she refuses to address him with respect. "You would be wise to call me Alice from here on out."
He smiles widely, "A beautiful name. Alice, it is, then." And then he strides forward to grasp her hand firmly in his. Her mask is back in time to hide any hint of discontent she might have had, and he is swept away in her mind to see all that has happened in her absence.
She knows he sees the young Jasper granting her a name at last, and the years she spent waiting to see him.
They are cruel years that she will spend with them once more, and the future is discontent in her mind. It is an uncertain thing that she feels and she doesn't quite know what to make of it.
All she knows is that her days of waiting are far from over.
But she knew that long ago.
And she is very good at waiting.
1860s C.E
"Alice, was it?"
She turns her head to see a golden-eyed man standing by one of the rows of books, staring at her curiously.
She knew he would be here, and it was her own curiosity that guided her down to this dreary room to see what he would have to say to her. She is not normally shown visions of insignificant people, so his appearance in her mind tells her he will be of value.
"That's right, Carlisle." She knows his name the moment her intention to ask popped into her head, and she can tell he is slightly caught off guard by her knowing who he is. She sees him even pointing this out and is quick to reply before his words can take shape, "I actually don't know anything about you, besides your name."
She sees him debating his next words carefully. "Aro speaks highly of you. I can see why." She's slightly disappointed that that's the direction he chose to take the conversation, but she isn't all that surprised.
"He thinks of us as pets to dote on, that's why he pretends to be proud of our abilities." As if he's responsible for them manifesting.
"Either way, he isn't necessarily wrong about his assessment of you." Carlisle appears unphased by the darkness to her voice and she tilts her head to stare at him appraisingly. She notices the medical journal he holds under his arm and finds her curiosity once again piqued.
"You study human medical journals?" She asks, and he follows her gaze to see where she is looking.
"I do." He nods. "It's a hobby of mine. I enjoy practicing as a doctor for humans when I can." And she is slightly amazed at that answer.
"And their blood doesn't drive you mad?" She asks and that is when a strange vision enters her head of Carlisle and a woman drinking deeply from a pair of doe.
"I prefer to feed from animals rather than humans. It takes quite a bit of practise to resist, but I've yet to slip up" He explains and she is intrigued by the idea. His self control must be phenomenal for him to resist the allures of the bleeders.
"There are more like you then?" She wonders when another vision of him hunting again, with a bigger group appears.
"Not that I'm aware of?" He says like it's a question and she watches his eyebrow raise. "Unless there are some you have seen?"
"I have." She says, but she has no intention to elaborate. She instead gives him a crooked grin and allows her eyes to wander the room. "This place is a lot bigger since I last saw it." She says instead, and he joins her and takes in the expanses of the library they stand in.
"I'd imagine." He agrees. "When were you last here, Alice?" She hesitates before answering.
"I don't know." Which is true - she'd never kept track of the years that passed. "I was born before humans kept track of the years like they do now. I left just after the Romanian Coven was destroyed." Carlisle nods in understanding and she continues. "Either way, Aro and Caius weren't as interested in collecting books back then."
They stood in silence for a moment while Alice watched Carlisle toss around the question he clearly wanted to ask. She gave him a small smile to let him know she already knew what he wanted to know, and he seemed to sigh in relief.
"Aro won't say it, but I have a feeling you didn't come back here willingly, did you, Alice?" Her smile turned somber for a moment before nodding in confirmation. "Forgive me if I'm prying, but why did you return?"
Because if she didn't they'd find Jasper and kill him before he'd even really lived.
"There's somebody I can't afford them to find just yet." is what she says instead, and she knows her expression must be too melancholy for Carlisle to bear continuing to look at because he shifts his focus. "I'm going to get the hell out again when I get the chance."
1940 C.E
She stays much longer than she ever would have wanted to.
It's nearly one hundred years and she knows she is far too late to have ever protected Jasper from the horrors that life gives him. And it hurts to watch the entire thing pass her by.
She wants so badly to run back to America and to snatch him away from Maria's cruel grasp, but Aro's own hold over her is far too strong. He has only just gotten her back, and he is very careful to not let her out of his sight.
She knows his fascination with her drives Alec and Jane to jealousy, and it is on only one occasion that Jane finds an excuse to finally subject Alice to her powers.
It is short lived, and Alice is swift to remind the girl that her future will literally always dance in the palm of Alice's hand; there for the taking, should she wish it.
The only thing to help her keep her sanity in this place are the visions of Carlisle - who left the Volturri shortly after she returned (perhaps driven off by the cruelty of Caius and Aro) - and of the family that he has put together over the years.
She is not positive why she sees him so frequently - until she sees herself and Jasper with amber eyes together with his family. It is then that she realizes that Carlisle's way of life will help Jasper more than she could ever fathom.
He is gifted, she finds. It is what helps him survive for so long, but it is what is breaking him so thoroughly in the heartless wars of the south that he is trapped in.
But as much as her heart is breaking watching him lose himself more and more with every day, there is nothing she can do from where she is. Aro will kill him, and Chelsea is always poised and ready to manipulate her ties of loyalty should the need arise.
It infuriates her, and when she is finally able to figure out a way to escape, she almost doesn't want to go through with it - just to deny Aro of the satisfaction of her services.
But it is the only thing that will work, and had she tried it any sooner he wouldn't have agreed.
It has been long enough though, he has seen how low she has fallen and he has shared her visions of the potential futures where he loses her or loses his life.
She has seen Jasper leave with Peter and Charlotte and she knows that he is wandering the world alone, just as she spent millenia before him doing. They are truly two parts of one whole; each destined to wander the world for eternity without the other there to guide them.
Though it is never addressed, he is unsurprised the day she comes to him and announces that she is leaving again.
Caius is outraged and Marcus is as indifferent as ever; but Aro is almost frightened that the day has come. The more ravenous members of the guard seem to be excited at the prospect of punishing Aro's favorite pet, but she brushes off their looks and stares Aro dead in the eye, knowing that he has only one option.
It's an easy compromise.
She will stay in contact with him, and he will still be able to use her sight; in exchange she will no longer be confined to his side and kept away from her mate.
"You know Alice, he would be welcomed to our ranks without question." He tries but they both know it is a lie.
Jasper's scars will create friction wherever he goes, and he will kill many prized members of the guard in his fits of anxiety. Aro will not forgive that, and Alice in turn will not forgive Aro. He will lose her abilities forever.
And if that is not the case, then Alice will kill Chelsea, and then Aro will have nobody left to use to trap her to his side. Alice might even kill him and his brothers in her desperation to escape.
But she doesn't need to voice any of this. Because Aro already knows every bit of it.
"I'll be in touch, Aro." is all she says before she finds her way back to the New World, off to find her salvation.
1948 C.E
And when she finds him at long last, it is in a human restaurant on a rainy day in the Northeast of America. He is drenched and she is wearing the same dingy and fraying dress that she left Italy in with no shoes to cover her dirty feet.
He is visibly surprised by her presence and she is nearly bursting at the seams with anticipation and joy.
She doesn't remember ever experiencing the emotions she feels when she sees his face in the flesh - it is such a foreign euphoria that overwhelms her senses and she knows with his gift that he will be confused and on guard, but she can't help it.
"You've kept me waiting a long time." are the first words out of her mouth, and that is the biggest understatement that has ever been spoken. Her chest is burning with the strength of the emotions she is feeling. She waited so, so long; So many years and decades and centuries and millennia spent in purgatory while she waited for the only certainly she'd ever had. If she could cry, she thinks she would.
"I'm sorry, ma'am." He says and his voice is like aloe after a throbbing sunburn - he fills the emptiness in her heart.
It takes every ounce of her self control to not tackle him and overwhelm him with every detail about her that he needs to know. She knows so much about him and he knows so little of her, she is anxious to fill the gaps in their new relationship. It is something she needs to constantly remind herself of, that though she has known him for centuries, he has only known her for minutes.
She somehow manages to explain everything in a way that doesn't scare him off; and he even asks if he could accompany her. She feels an ever-so-familiar stirring in her belly and feels an electric, charged nervousness. He catches her eye and she knows he's identified whatever emotion she's feeling.
It is when they first hunt together that she realizes how unequipped she is to help him. She has lived centuries in apathy for human life - she has no idea what the right words or perspective is. She tells him of Carlisle Cullen and his family, and how certain she is that they can help. They have a way of life that they will adapt to together. She thinks he is reassured that she - who had been feeding on humans for over 2,400 years - will be abstaining alongside him.
He kisses her for the first time later that same day and she readily takes the opportunity to ease his mind from the death of his latest hunt. He is so gentle, and she is impatient and their first kiss is a reflection of years spent longing and lonely. It is a release of frustration and love and Alice melts into his embrace, feeling like the last two millennia were more worth it than she ever could have known.
He will always be worth it.
"Jasper, what was your favorite thing to study as a human?" She asks because she loves him and wants to know as much as she can about him.
"Honestly, I don't remember much from my childhood. I don't think I attended school enough to have a favorite subject." he answers and Alice cocks her head to the side curiously.
"Why didn't you go to school?"
"I preferred to help out around the ranch, and the school house was always too cramped for my comfort," he explains. "Did you go to school, Alice?"
Alice has to laugh a little at his question.
"In Greece, two thousand years ago? No way. I lived on the streets until priests took me to become the new oracle." Jasper raises his eyebrows.
"The oracle? Like the mythical prophetess in Delphi?"
"Wasn't so mythical back then, Jasper." she smiles cheekily. "I don't remember how it was, but Aro had his eye on me when I was human so I only have his word to go by that I was good at what I did." She explains and his eyes darken at mention of the obsessive tyrant.
"The Volturi will continue to hunt you, won't it?" He asks and Alice feels solemn at the understanding that he is correct.
"Yes. Unless something changes though, they won't catch me. They'll just try." She makes fierce eye contact with him and he nods in understanding.
"I would die before I let them get you unwillingly, Alice." He says, reaching forward to grasp her hands in his larger ones. She loves him. She loves him, so, so much. And she holds nothing back when she tells him this.
"I'll be okay, Jasper. We'll be okay."
They will find the Cullens in 1950, exactly 2,430 years after Alice was bitten that cool day in the wooded valleys of Phocis.
To say Carlisle Cullen will appear surprised when they show up on his doorstep would be much of an understatement. In fact, Alice is sure that he will mistake her for an emissary of the Volturi at first, and she will be quick to dissuade him from this idea.
Explaining their appearance to Carlisle and Esme will be an easy thing, and though Rosalie is harder to convince, their amber eyes will be enough to have her putting aside her reservations and allowing them into her home.
Emmett is another easy case, when he'll arrive later with Edward, who should have been the easiest to win over with his ability to see into their minds, but will be surprisingly reluctant to let them into his life.
It'll feel as though, for the first time in her life - or unlife - Alice is no longer running from something, or toward something (unless one counted the bright and fulfilling future she was now running alongside, with her beloved next to her).
It is one thing to see the future, but for Alice to actively place herself alongside the visions she had always seen and take herself into consideration for the days awaiting her; it was an experience unlike any other. She'd never known that the future she'd always foreseen would be as warm and lovely as it was now.
She will finally be able to spend her days leisurely with Jasper. He will be with her, not quite dead, but more than alive enough for the both of them and she will bask in his happiness for all of eternity. It is with whispered words of love that she can peacefully lay next to him, fingers interlaced as if they have always been that way.
"Thank you for finding me that day, Alice." He will say to her.
"Thank you for waiting for me to find you." She will say, with the words a past version of him once said to her drifting through her mind.
And she will lean towards him and capture his lips in a kiss that is so heavy with hopes for their eternity together, and her still heart will be so full of love just as his is.