"I have just realized that the stakes are myself

I have no other

Ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life

My spirit measured out, in bits, spread over

The roulette table…"

Revolutionary Letter #1

Diane Di Prima

Journal of Edward Masen

November 20, 2010

I don't know what to make of the events of the last twenty-four hours. Nothing could have surprised me more than finding us in the position that we are currently.

This endless, changeless existence doesn't prepare you for these kind of universe shifting events, and I admit, my experience has definitely made me so jaded as to be dumbstruck. When you live through the dull agony that my last six decades have brought; the paranoia, dissatisfaction and frustration, to suddenly have your worldview turned upon it's axis is disorienting at best.

It began with finding my family and I facing what looked like our end at the hands of the Volturi with unlikely allies like Alice and her mate, not to mention Demitri.

Demitri. How do I categorize my feelings towards the former member of the guard, former lover of the creature with whom I have been obsessed? I feel pity and anger and a strange sort of empathy, a type of brotherhood. I suppose it would be offensive to suggest that he and I start a support group for men who have been unable to possess Isabella Swan to the degree to which they would like. It is a painful joke to make, one that catches in my throat. But he sees my understanding, and he looks at me with the same sympathy I give to him. We have an unspoken, uncomfortable fellowship.

I am sure that his eyes were drawn to the same place mine were: Bella, standing next to a smiling, satisfied Aro. She looked uninterested, a response that was surely contrived, given that there were upwards of thirty immortals facing each other in an imminent confrontation.

Carlisle stepped forward cautiously.

"Aro, Caius, Marcus. Welcome." he said, glancing at each of them deferentially.

"Carlisle," Aro spoke. "I was hoping to see you again under less…traitorous circumstances." I could hardly contain my ire; Aro knew that we hadn't come together with intention of defying the Volturi. I could see in his thoughts that he was pleased with himself that he had been able to convince Marcus and Caius that we had.

"Aro, I…" Carlisle attempted to speak but Aro cut him off.

"There could be no other reason for you to be here. We have made it clear that Cyril and any who join him are enemies to us." I could see that Aro was careful not to look at the Greeks and that he had carefully positioned himself as far away as possible from them.

Appalled by his ploy, I started to rebut what Aro had said by mentioning that we had never even been aware of their existence, but Alice's voice in my head stopped me.

"Wait!" I met her eyes and she nodded slightly.

"We will, of course, discuss this before handing out punishments, but I think it's fairly clear what is happening here." Aro crossed his arms casually and gave Bella a quick glance. He was making sure she was watching his performance. To my surprise her eyes weren't on him but on me, only for a split second, but long enough for me to see a look I'd never seen on Bella's face. It looked like…longing and determination and concern, all at the same time.

The look passed as soon as I took note of it and Bella still stood impassive, frozen in place. But as he turned away she moved, so quickly that even the circle full of vampires couldn't anticipate it. I saw it a split second ahead of time in Alice's thoughts, but I was still astounded at what I saw.

As Aro turned away, Bella grabbed onto his upper arms from the back as she kicked his legs out from under him. She grabbed onto his other arm as he fell to the ground and she positioned herself on his back, pinning his arms down with her knees. She landed so hard on his back that we could all hear a cracking sound and then we heard the sound of vampire bones and cartilage tearing again as she grabbed his head between her hands and twisted it hard, farther than his head would have turned naturally.

The thoughts of every immortal in the circle shrieked surprise with the exception of Alice but no one moved. Not Aro's brothers, not his guard, not a soul came to his defense as Bella twisted his face towards hers and flared her nostrils slightly, a determined, furious look on her face.

"Bella/" the firm, quiet voice came from the last place I would have expected. Cyril stepped forward and held out a hand to pull her attention away from destroying Aro. She looked up at him, glaring, shocked.

"It's not your revenge, Bella. Your claim is not the greatest here." She flared her nostrils at him and her mouth twisted into a sneer but she paused.

Next to me, Demitri took a tentative step forward. Cyril looked at him with that compassionate, ancient gaze. Alice screamed in my mind: "Not him! It's can't be him!" and I saw an image of the Volturi launching themselves upon us en masse.

But before I could intervene, Cyril shook his head gently at Demitri and shook his head.

"Killing your mortal family should be avenged but when you separate a vampire, an immortal creature from his mate for eternity, that is a greater trespass." Absurdly, nonsensically, Demitri's eyes flickered to me and the image that filled his head…I struggled to comprehend it. It was Isabella and I, as we had never been, in a relaxed embrace, her head resting upon my chest as she lay between my legs. There was something fuzzy and indistinct about the image, like the memories of a human or something seen through a haze.

When I regained my composure I shook my head at Demitri and started to rebut his vision.

"Demitri…that never…we're not…" but I was cut off my Cyril's deep, dusty voice.

"Marcus, my friend.." he summoned the oldest, most disconnected of the brothers. Marcus turned his attention to Cyril slowly, as if coming out of a dream. Recognition lit his face slowly. It was as if he hadn't even been aware of where he was.

"Cyril…" Marcus' face took on a sad smile and then he winced. "I couldn't argue against them, Cyril. To amass such a large group." Marcus waved his hand feebly to the assembly on our side of the circle.

Cyril smiled and waved his hand dismissively. "You did the right thing, coming here." He beckoned Marcus closer and walked towards where Bella held Aro pinned to the ground. It would have been almost comical if it weren't so confusing, to see these two men addressing each other with such courtesy while a furious vampire held another to the ground, twisting his head back beyond it's supernatural tolerances.

As Marcus and Cyril approached from different directions Aro's face twisted with fear even more and he attempted to call out to his brother. But at the first sound of his strangled voice. Bella jerked his head in warning and he fell silent. I could hear his panic, though, he was desperate to not let Marcus and Cyril speak.

But that is exactly what Cyril intended, and he and Marcus stopped just feet from the imperiled head of the Volturi.

"Marcus," Cyril asked gently. "Who killed Didyme?" Marcus jerked away sharply at the question and his head filled with the images that he had clearly been trying to avoid with his gentle stupor: his dark-haired wife, the two of them laughing, his despair since their death. I found myself filled with compassion for him, he had been suffering her absence so long.

"Who killed Didyme, Marcus?" Cyril prompted again and Marcus flinched less this time and he tried to speak.

"I don't…" his eyes shot to Aro and them back to Cyril, filled with uncertainty. "I don't know…I'm not certain." I could see the thoughts now flying in Marcus' head. It was dizzying for him after being in his self-induced fog for so long. He suspected Aro but he couldn't prove it and couldn't do anything about it. He had hidden the issue from himself in his fog and he was angry at Cyril for waking him up to feel the pain again.

"Aro," Cyril's voice was sharper. "Who killed Didyme?"

Aro's eyes went wide and his mouth opened and then closed. I could see his act in his head, how he caught Marcus' wife alone in an uninhabited part of the city, how she greeted him warmly, even his twinge of regret as he tore her head from her body and set her body on fire. How he lied to Marcus and comforted his brother over the loss of his mate.

"You know who did it, Marcus." Cyril spoke gently again and Marcus nodded slowly, turning to Aro.

"Marcus, she would have turned you away from your brothers!" Aro's voice came out panicked and desperate. "She was a danger to us!"

Marcus regarded his brother sadly. "She was my mate, my wife, Aro. You know what it feels like to lose your mate, you've seen it in my head." There was no surprise in Marcus' thoughts, just resignation.

Marcus turned to Caius without waiting for a response from Aro. Caius paused a second and then nodded his head at Marcus. Then Marcus looked to Sulpicia, Aro's wife.

"Sulpicia, if you say to spare him, I will." Suplicia's face twisted with emotion but she nodded as well and made her way from the back of the assembly to where they stood.

"Marcus, I…what Aro has done is wrong…all of it." She waved her hand at the assembled immortals. "But you have to promise to do the same for me." She gestured to Aro. I was amazed to see…relief in her thoughts. Her mind flickered through a series of increasingly brutal acts on Aro's part; driving Cyril out, convincing Caius to come after my family.

"Sulpicia, you can't…" Sulpicia held a hand up to Marcus to stop his words.

"I am tired of this life, Marcus. And I have seen what it's like for you to live without your mate. It would be a mercy."

Marcus nodded slowly and then he turned to Aro. He gestured for Bella to release him. She did so, reluctantly and Marcus pulled on his brother's body until he was on his knees.

Aro began to struggle and look around at his guard. "Surely you won't do this? Jane? Felix?" I could hear a mixture of impulses in the thoughts of the guard, and then I hear Alice giving me a direction.

"Emmett. Demitri." I got their attention just as Felix launched himself from the still crowd towards where Marcus and his brother were still connected.

My brother and Demitri sprung forward and managed to catch Felix by the legs as he reached his master. They managed to get him subdued, Emmett on his legs and Demitri at his head and they looked to me. I paused for a moment to get direction from Alice. I simply took the tasks I saw being done in her head and delegated them.

"Andreas. Nick. Start a fire." I gestured to an open space outside the circle. "Bella, hold Aro still." It was the first time I had addressed her in three decades and her name felt strange in my mouth, unwieldy and textured. I nodded to Emmett and Demitri.

"He won't change his mind. Destroy him." The commands felt weird coming out of my mouth although they would have been even stranger coming from Alice. I felt bellicose, uncaring. I wondered how the assembly perceived me. I wondered how Bella perceived me.

I got the next directive from Alice. I approached the twins, Jane and Alec. They were the last to hold onto allegiance to Aro but they were wavering. They weren't willing to die to defend Aro, but they weren't sure they would follow whoever was left to lead. They feared that Carlisle would take command and that they would be forced to abandon their diet of humans and to integrate with the humans who had persecuted them in their human lives.

I imagined a compromise and Alice nodded.

"You can go." I said to them. "Don't try to avenge Aro, be discreet. We won't follow you." The twins looked at each other and then Jane looked back at me and nodded. In unison, they took of their robes and dropped them on the ground. They turned and wove through the assembled members of the guard and left the circle.

There were still mixed feelings among the assembled crowd when it came to the execution of the three immortals, especially Sulpicia. But she begged and convinced Marcus and Caius that it was an act of mercy and kissed his hands as he grasped her head and prepared to separate it from her body.

We burned their bodies and sat down to decide what would happen next.

Bella refused to take part in the discussion and I wanted to seek her out, find out the reasons why, get my questions answered, but my presence was required at the negotiations because of my abilities.

So I talked and listened and negotiated and wondered what would happen next.

a/n: Again, it takes me three weeks to write this and EverlastingMuse and Liz3615 get it back to me in hours. They're that good. I also want to thank DarkBlueBella for recc'ing this in her sublime and mystical story: "The Selkie Man." If you're not reading it, well, I just don't know what to say. Just don't complain that there's a lack of original and inventive fan-fiction plots.

I'm on Twitter as badjujube if you want to read my tweets about baseball, prog rock, nail polish and (occasionally) fan-fiction. Also, if you're into this sort of thing, which clearly I am, two pieces of music that have a big influence on this story are Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" and Pink Floyd's "Dogs".

Thanks for reading! xoxo JuJu