Fuil 'o mo chuislean Chapter 14, a twilight fanfic

Fuil 'o mo chuislean

Twilight characters and universe are not mine, but the original characters, storyline and wording are mine.

Started this chapter as soon as I'd posted CH13. Wonder how long it'll take to get it done and online. I guess we'll see :) As always, huge thanks to all who review and follow the story! I try to answer every single one, but if I miss one feel free to throw something at me.

And holy crap I've been nominated for an award in the non-canon awards on wordpress! Am currently in the running for best Bella/Other in the nomad pairing section. Thank you to whichever kind soul sent in the nomination!

Broken stones, broken lightning

This house of doubt is all we know

Chasing down the silver linings

Of wounded minds and wounded souls

Dotan - Home II

Chapter 14

Bella POV

A fresh drop of blood oozed each time I wiggled the big toenail that now hung by just a narrow ribbon of connective tissue, replete with offended nerve endings. I worked it back and forth with one fingertip, the twinge each time it reached the limit of its arc making me taste the back of my own throat and swallow reflexively as each morsel of flesh gave way. Finally it came away to lie in my palm like a dormant dragon scale. I held my hand up to offer the small part of me to the wind, and it took it, silently, with a small tug that left my palm empty.

I would have leant over the parapet to let the little flutter of bile I couldn't contain fall to the ground if I hadn't been terrified of tipping too far over. No matter how much I wanted to quit this place, the wall was no longer an option as far as my courage was concerned, having been completely spent, along with any and all energy I possessed.

I bent my injured foot close, hunching over it. I didn't dare try to cover the rawness of the wound; I had an instinctive and certain knowledge of the kind of pain that would bring. Instead I tried to cup my shaking hands to shield it from the bite of the wind. So intent on this private universe of second-rate agony, I didn't hear the approaching whistle of wide wings until it was too late.

I looked up to find myself face to face with an enormous bird, a golden eagle I think. Intelligent eyes took in my dishevelled appearance without judgement. I was thankful for that as I still remembered all too clearly how small Alistair's censure had made me feel. I didn't think it was a shape shifter like the wolves, but something about the steady gaze made it seem more than what it was.

It looked around and I realised it was looking for my captor. It obviously wasn't a pet, but was perhaps a companion, of sorts. I couldn't imagine this regal creature putting up with any of his crap, though, so it would be interesting to see who wore the pants between the two of them. It was a close call, I thought; Alistair had immortality on his side, but he didn't have nearly as many pointy bits and couldn't fly.

Fuck I really hope he can't fly.

Think of the devil.

I refused to look up as his heavy footfalls approached. I would rather keep my gaze locked with that of the bird, seeing as it had no comment to make on my many failures.

"I dinnae think escape is meant to bring ye back to where ye started off," he said, just a touch of sarcasm curling his lips. I couldn't see that, of course, but I could hear it. Sure enough, a quick glance showed a cocky tilt to both his head and his mouth as he looked down at me. His body language was relaxed; he knew as well as I did that I was not going anywhere.

"Sent your overgrown budgie to keep an eye on me, did you?" I tossed out at him, insolence my only weapon now.

"Ye should be nicer to Wadjet. He's the one who fetched yer dinner, no me." The bird dipped his beak in seeming agreement with that statement.

"Fine. So he's a useful overgrown budgie." I wouldn't give either of them the satisfaction of gratitude. But I was rewarded only with silence, which made me shift uncomfortably. It wasn't enough to have imprisoned me; the burden of making conversation was apparently also mine. I surprised myself by obliging, even if it was to goad my captor once again.

"Wadjet was a snake goddess." I nodded toward the tawny head that cocked between the two of us, following the exchange with apparent interest. "He's a boy and he's a bird."

"Wadjet was also the goddess of protection. I named it for my sister. Because he's the closest thing I have to a guardian angel."

"Why would a vampire need a guardian angel? You're already at the top of the food chain." I felt a trickle of guilt at the mention of his sister. Reminders that he was once a person, and possibly may still be, were something that did not sit comfortably with my need to view him only as my killer-to-be. I couldn't possibly be feeling sorry for him. I couldn't possibly be fighting the impulse to surge forward and hug him tightly as his voice struggled over the mention of a likely long lost sibling. I couldn't possibly.

"Aye. But sometimes we need to be protected from ourselves, even though we may no wish it at the time." Damn him for sounding so wistful. And damn his beautiful face for looking so lost.

"Are…are you going to kill me now?" I asked in a whisper, praying that his answer would not be in the affirmative.

"No. No I am not." He begrudged every word of it, to be sure, but he meant it.

"Are you going to kill me later?" He shook his head.

"Can I go now? Can I leave so I can find my family?" I was ashamed that my voice shook so terribly, but I knew what the answer would be and I dreaded this one more than the first.

"No. No ye cannae. Not now and not later." I let out the shuddering breath I had been holding, knowing that it made no difference to him whether I cried or not, but having held onto some kind of foolish pride in not having done so in the last hour or so anyway.

"You won't kill me and you won't let me leave." I was aware that my voice was again a whisper, but I knew that he would hear me anyway. "Why are you keeping me here if you're not going to eat me?"

The giant Scot crouched down in front of me, towering over me still, and brought his face within reach.

"I thought that ye were my singer. I dinnae ken how that works, but I try to kill ye and I cannae. Maybe it's not that yer blood calls me, maybe it's just…" He made a distinctly Scottish noise in the back of his throat as he gestured to me in a vague, accusatory fashion.

"...me?" I held my breath as one large hand reached out to me, changing its mind before it could alight upon my skin, instead moving to roll a thick tendril of hair between pale fingertips. It created a gentle tugging at my scalp. There was no force behind it, only curiosity, but it burned me. It burned me from the inside out to feel even the smallest pressure at his hands.

Although he had avoided touching me, I could feel every millimetre of my skin straining to rise up to meet him, magnetised. I bowed my head to hide the blood that crept into my cheeks, tingling and unbidden.

He noticed all the same, his eyes half closing and his whole form leaning towards me minutely. The frisson of awareness that flashed from the top of my head to the tips of my toes heralded an involuntary shiver, my arms suddenly covered in gooseflesh that had nothing to do with being cold, for a change.

"Ye smell wrong," he murmured, ignoring my indignant squeak. "Not like ye should. A chord of three notes ye should be, harmony true and clear. But only one ye are, and it is woman. Not a woman, but the woman."

I could only gawp as he lingered on the image behind his close eyelids longer than necessary. This was sounding less and less like a kidnapping and more like a seduction. And I liked that. God help me but I liked it.

He shook his head quickly. I could almost see the consternation fall away as he had bade it, only to be replaced with his previous indifference. You wouldn't know that it masked anger if it were not for the slight flare of his nostrils. He had felt it, felt my reaction, maybe even felt one of his own, and he resented either or both of them. Probably his the most; vampires were used to their prey feeling drawn to them. I was willing to bet that feeling drawn to his erstwhile prey was a thoroughly new experience for him.

"I need to sleep. I take it I don't need to ask whether or not ye'll still be here when I wake up?" It was a command, not a question. But in my surprise, I couldn't give the assent he expected.

"Wh-wait-what? Vampires don't sleep!" I was too shocked to avert my eyes as his brows beetled down over his eyes in an indignant frown.

"What do ye mean vampires dinnae sleep?" Oh crap. Stop making the immortal killing machine angry, self.

"Well, they just…don't?" It came out like a question. I couldn't back away from him any farther so I backed off verbally instead. A little.

"And how would you know that?" I think I preferred him pissed off. Now he sounded intrigued. And that seemed very, very bad. "Is it anything to do with the mark on yer wrist?" I palmed the scar tissue absently, watching his eyes follow the movement. "Aye. That one."

"Yuh-yes," I choked out, feeling the need to answer quickly, before the raised hand made its way around my arms or throat. But also just…needing to answer him because he wanted to know. "A vampire…bit me."

I cringed at the rage that came rolling off Alistair in waves. And, for a fraction of a second, I saw the roll of muscles in his arms bulge and twist, before settling back into position under his marble skin.

"Why?" The hand that hovered between us curled into a fist and he forced it to his side, the effort it took to do so as plain as day.

"He wanted to kill me-" A snarl ripped from his lips and he flattened his palm on the ground, channelling the Earth's unbending mass with eyes downcast and back hunched as he strove to maintain control. Of what exactly I wasn't sure, but I saw the ripple play along his shoulders this time.

"Go on." He could barely get the words out, his jaw was clenched so tightly. It, too, bulged and thickened with pulses of what I now suspected to be his transformation into Cuch.

"He wanted to kill me but…he wanted me to suffer before I died. He was…torturing me beca-"

I didn't get to finish my sentence. He threw back his head and howled in anger as the larger form of Cuch replaced him in a choreographed tsunami of flesh and sinew. I had always been impressed with Jacob's ability to phase on the fly, but it was nothing compared to the grace with which Alistair unfurled his monster.

Kinder eyes now gazed at me without wavering as he picked himself off the ground and gave himself a shake, standing to his full height.

"So, Sassenach, he's no eaten ye just yet. What a surprise."

Cuch POV

I exist in all time at once; something Sassenach finds difficult to comprehend. Amongst the different scenes of what are differentiated by her kind as past, present, and future, I have to admit that the moments that involve her are the most interesting. If I explain to her that I converse with my host in the 1920s, find her on a castle rooftop in her present, enjoy the consternation of family members in the soon to be future, meet her for the first time, and witness an argument in the second half of this millennium at once, it would annoy her no end just trying to make head or tail of it. So perhaps I should...unless that's related to the time she force-feeds me dog food...

=OO=

I could feel my host's scandalised sense of propriety rocked to the core every time a young woman passed us in the street.

"They never swung their hips like that in my day, I can tell ye that."

If ye don't like it, don't look.

"How am I supposed to not look at…that? I can see their ankles for God's sake! It's indecent."

Times are changing, my young friend. Just wait until the miniskirt arrives.

"The what?!"

Nothing ye need to worry about for another half century.

=OO=

"-he's no eaten ye just yet. What a surprise." Her expression vacillated between being pleased to see me and wanting to stuff a fossilised bannock up my nethers. A very specific inference on my part, I know, but accurate nonetheless. "Would ye be more comfortable if I brought ye some of your things? Ye had some on the train, aye?"

"You can catch up with the train? I know vampires are fast but it must be almost at the other end of the country by now." She hugged her arms around her middle, bunching her pretty feet under her as far as she could. I couldn't bear to see her like this, but until my host took his head out of his arse, there was little I could do but ease her physical discomfort.

"Weel, no. No exactly. But being as I jump through time, teleportation is just sort of…built in."

"Why two gifts? What does one have to do with the other?" As wretched as she must be feeling right now, her intelligent eyes still sparkled with obvious interest. "Greedy bastard," she tacked onto the end, turning her head to hide the smirk that played across her lips.

"If I just jumped forward three months from now, I'd find myself in space. The planet would have moved on in its ellipse. If I didn't move where as well as when, I'd spend aye too much time as the world's least hardworking vampire astronaut."

Her breathy "Ooooh" of understanding was answer enough.

I pictured the train's journey and felt myself slide to it.

=OO=

"What? Ye said ye didnae want anyone around to hear the screaming."

"I know that. But where are we?" Carlisle's famous patience was sorely tested every time we held a conversation, it would seem. He dragged a hand across his weary visage as he waited for an answer, knowing that he probably wouldn't like it anyway.

"The question isn't so much where are we but when are we. And the answer would be, as far as I can tell, somewhere in the upper Cretaceous period."

A monstrous snarl erupted behind us.

"You have got to be kidding." Esme's exclamation came from the same direction, her form hidden behind some dense scrublike foliage.

The normally composed vampire stalked out of the bushes and straight towards me, only to pinch my ear in a vicelike grip and bring my face down to within an inch of hers. Her already dark eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"Would you like to explain to me why a tyrannosaurus rex just ate your brother? Well would you?"

"Uh. No?" In my defence, that was a full and honest answer. She rolled her eyes and stomped away, throwing an afterthought over her shoulder.

"Edward be a darling and stop fucking around."

"Yes, mother," came his muffled reply from inside of what I could only assume was a very confused, and soon to be very dead, theropod.

=OO=

Her flesh was almost as cold as mine. I had to wonder why she was passed out on the floor of the public toilets. I would have been able to smell it if she had poisoned herself with pharmaceutical garbage that was so prevalent in this age. So drug induced was off the list of possibilities.

Malnourished. Hmmm. I gripped a thin wrist, feeling the pulse, slow yet strong, defiant. It picked up with a little jump as her eyelids flickered open.

"Huh? Whad who're what you?" I understood perfectly that she wanted to know who I was, but there was no way I could explain even a fraction of that while she was barely conscious. Anyway, the sliver of scar tissue beneath my fingertips, a sliver that felt even colder than the rest of her, interested me too greatly to bother with anything but the simplest of replies.

"Alistair." I thumbed the crescent bite mark that could only have come from one of my host's brethren. "The question is, who, or what, are you?"

She cursed incoherently as her eyes rolled back in her head.

=OO=

"It's not fair, Jazz," moaned Alice. "Why did the Volturi ban us from travelling to the Kepler outpost?"

Her long suffering mate banged his head gently against the wall behind him instead of answering.

"I haven't seen Carlisle and Esme for thirteen years," she continued.

"None of us have, Alice," said Rose, leaning forwards to nudge one of her holographic chess pieces with a fingertip. "The Vampire Union is fighting with the Unseelie Council over lack of safety measures again."

"Apparently," Emmett said, appearing at his sister's shoulder, causing her to crane her neck back to look up at him. "Just because we don't need to breathe means we also don't need cryosleep to travel more than three jumpgates like the humans, or body armour to work with the laser outside the gravshield."

"Aaaand here we go again," I muttered, nudging young Bella with my elbow while she tried in vain to concentrate on reassembling a classic V-8 engine on the zero-gee bench.

"Oh for fu-"

=OO=

The train cabin was much as it had been before my host so graciously helped Bella take her leave of it. When Sassenach didn't show up for another meal, they likely thought she didn't want to be disturbed.

Poking around in a woman's things had never really been my style, but I was forced to now, if only to determine what I should bring to her and what I shouldn't. I ignored the toiletries spread randomly around the small cabin as all could be easily replaced. One glance in the folded over paper bag, however, told me it would be better to take it to her now than have to deal with a request to go shopping for certain items later.

Shoes. Shoes would be more than welcome, I imagined. Despite being a little ratty, the worn in trainers looked adequate, as did a pair of modest walking boots, newer and well made in dark leather. I stuffed those, some thick socks, and most of the less frivolous items of clothing into a large bag, and stuffed the paper bag of more personal items inside the backpack which had obviously seen many miles on the road with her.

I didn't stop to wonder why it smelled like meat and gravy.

A quick slide back to the castle, and my tuneless hum of satisfaction at a job well done stopped abruptly. I hadn't bothered to go back to the moment I left her. What could have happened in the space of eight of her minutes? I followed the smell of freshly spilt blood and looked, horrified, at the pale hand that protruded from beneath the body of a large wolf.

Both were unmoving.

As near as I can tell, outside the UK a budgie (short for budgerigar) is referred to as a parakeet.

I've done my best to show Cuch's non-linear existence in his POV. It's meant to be muddled/confusing in as much as we can't really know what it's like to experience everything happening either all at once or in no particular order, but hopefully it's also relatively clear that he's experiencing multiple points in time, and which of those relate to Bella's current predicament, boring linear being that she is.