The names Alec and Jane were not common in their language back in their time; and Alec and Jane of the Volturi didn't really exist until fifteen years or so after they were born. It's been a very long time indeed, and the faces of their childhood are hazy, but once...once, they were called Alexander and Johanna. They ran through grassy fields when they were four, they hopped over stones through the creak, they found a strange sense of solace in the woods unlike the other children who were afraid of the dark towering trees. They slept curled up in each other's embrace every night, refusing to use different cots. They were stubborn like that. They felt the safest if the other twin was nearby.
They were engaged to be married, between the two of them after they turned six, because that way they knew they could live together forever. Nothing would change, and nothing else mattered. Alexander had told their grandmother this three days after they made the promise, and all he felt afterwards was the humiliation of learning it wouldn't happen. He could never marry his sister in the future because that was not how things were done; it was forbidden, childish nonsense, wishful thinking. She said he would understand better when he was older. The world outside was big and they would surely find husbands and wives elsewhere. Johanna frowned at the injustice when Alexander passed on their Grandmother's knowledge to her. And sadly, they both agreed to just move on and leave that promise in the past to avoid the risk of actually being taken away sooner than that.
They still remained in each other's reach at all times, even by the age of nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Their bond had not weakened, and neither had their fears of being separated. Late at night, Johanna still had the habit of waking up and sneaking into her brother's bed, shivering and lonely. And Alexander was able to control a hornet with his mind one day, making it sting a boy in the neck who was yelling hurtful words at his sister.
Thirteen. Fourteen. They walked down the street, hand in hand as the village people would stop and stare, judging them. Nobody liked the fact that they were twins; twins were rare and unnatural.
When they finally became of age, more or less, that was when the usual rumors grew into hateful assumptions. Alexander and Johanna knew they were different, and their village had known it too. That became a wall, a barrier cutting them off from the rest, and the only strands of comfort they gained was from each other. They supported each other and relied on only themselves to survive day by day. They trusted no one. They were not to blame. They were not the wicked ones. When the witch hunters came to collect them, they both struggled against the angry screams, their hands reaching—reaching—reaching—for each other, but they scarcely touched fingertips before the coils of rope bit into their skin, fastening them down against the wooden stake.
And like everything else, the pyre had consumed them. The fire swallowed Alexander and Johanna up, and when they were somehow ripped down from the stake by figures dressed in black and they laid there on the ground suffering, all they had left were mere fragments of human memories, and broken syllables of two old names they could hardly choke out from the smoke clogging their throats.
"Can you hear me, child? What is your name?"
They heard voices calling to them from a darkness growing in their minds.
"Al...Al..Ale..."
"J...Jo...Jah...Jo..."
I liked working on this collection...and I still love Jane and Alec even though I'm not in love with the Twilight franchise itself. But, I do think for now, this story is going to be tagged as 'completed' because after I finished this chapter, I felt like everything else here came back in full circle and it's a good place to stop.