Chapter 2

Far Sight

I have no memory of being a mortal. Ironic, perhaps, that I can see forward but not backwards. I am the inverse of everyone around me.

Time slides differently for me too. I picture it like glaciers, smooth and still and stretching to the horizon at times, but suddenly cracking, rising, falling and crashing inside my skull, and as the white pain fades, my eyes take in a new landscape to which I have no compass or map.

I had three constant truths. One: my need for blood, my burning, consuming thirst that pinned me to a moment like a squirming bug on a needle. Two: my face in the mirror- that never agung, never changing, pixie face, carved from ice with faded gold eyes (that bore my occasional sins with a red veil). And three: the girl who would be mine.

I am sitting in Esme's car in this time and this moment. The meeting over, tempers freyed, emotions running high, everyone is heading to their cars.

They know now that war is coming to Forks. That vampires from all over the world will be gathering here to make their last stand against The Slayer and The Gift Stealer. And what all that means for the sleepy town of Forks? The truth of it is sinking in like fangs.

Jessica has locked up, leaving Buffy and Charlie talking outside in the dim light of the moon. I say 'talking', but few words are exchanged. Buffy says that is how it has always been with her and her father.

Finally, without an embrace, Charlie takes his leave of his daughter, and Buffy stands alone. I am about to call to Buffy when her attention falls across the way, to the darkened building next to the cafe. A huge, black metal wolf stands guard outside the wooden structure. Buffy walks to it, hand extended to tenderly stroke the snow from its muzzle.

I know who made it. I know what it represents.

I stab my finger onto the car horn and startle her. She looks up confused for a moment, before striding slowly over to where I wait.

She glanced back at the wolf before she got into the passenger seat. She didn't say a word.

And so we sat there. The silence stretched on, a mere tickling sound of tumbling snowflakes brushing against the glass. Neither of us breathed, nor shifted, our hearts lay still. Time distorts in moments like these, stretches out to the horizon. Like glaciers out to the horizon.

"What have I done?" She said, and at first I thought I imagined it.

I didn't say anything. What could I say? I wasn't Edward, I couldn't see into her mind. Not that even he could, when her strength was at its greatest. I tried to read her face, but she was a blank page.

Buffy looked at me then, as if for the first time in aeons. Her golden eyes catching the moonlight in a manner so inhuman, yet so utterly human my heart clenched in my chest. I reached for her hand, but she drew it away.

"You did what you had to do to defend us." I said.

"And you agree?"

"You should have talked to me first."

"Why? You know this is the only way to defeat Diana."

"Is it?" I said. She glared back at me. "Buffy, I need to ask. What Sue said. Was she right?"

"You mean, did I plan for the vampires arriving here to trigger more wolves being called?"

"Did you?"

Buffy's gaze hardened further, burning into me. She swallowed and looked back out into the night.

"Emily said the future depends on an alliance between our people."

"So it's true. You did. You set the stage of our last stand in Forks deliberately."

Buffy was silent.

"You told me once you resented being called as The Slayer. That it was forced on you. And yet, you did the same thing to those-"

"Spare me, Alice." She snapped. "This is war. We don't get the luxury to sit on the sidelines. We fight, or we die. I didn't make this decision, it was Diana. Or are you gonna blame me for that too."

"You wanted to know the truth, Buffy. You wanted to know what I saw."

That it is you that beheads Rosalie in battle, that it is your hands that tear Emmett's heart from his chest. And more, and darker deeds still I dare not voice.

Ice cracking and shifting. The future jagged and perilous. Decisions sliding into place, tearing up my world.

"And what future do you see now?" She says.

I shook my head and swallowed back the bitter taste of my blood where my stray fang catches on my lower lip when I get angry.

"I can't see the future when I am with you." I said. Her gift, her Slayer powers, designed to foil the gifts of my kind, to allow her to slip unseen into our world to destroy us, block mine, blind me.

Buffy huffs and pops the car door.

"Well, let me help you with that." She says, and before I can reach for her, she is gone.

And I am alone again. And for the first time since I saw that glorious vision in 1922, I am not entirely sure it is a bad thing.