Tribal Legends
Riding in Bella's truck to La Push the next morning, Jasper couldn't deny he was nervous. He knew the elders and the Quileute pack were gone, but it still felt wrong to be crossing the treaty line when it had been drilled into all of their heads so forcefully that they were never allowed to do so.
After jumping the battery and getting Rosalie's reassurance that it was in fine working order, although she did want to give it a tune-up before they drove it back to Montana, Bella had handed the keys to her truck to Jasper.
"Uh, why are you giving me these?" he asked. "It's your truck, not mine."
Bella had looked at him in surprise. "You'd let me drive?"
Jasper had just smiled and shook his head. "Okay, first, I don't 'let' you do anything, you're a grown ass woman and I have no desire to control you like that. Second, you drive my truck at home all the time," he reminded her. "Just because we're in Forks doesn't mean I'm gonna suddenly have a personality transplant and turn into Edward."
"Right," Bella had laughed. "Sorry."
Bella parked in front of the Quileute meeting hall behind Esme's SUV, and Rosalie pulled in behind them, having driven one of the cars the family left behind when they moved.
Seeing the nervousness on her mate's face, Bella reached over and took his hand. "It's gonna be fine," she assured him. "And if it's not, that's okay too. If at any point you want to leave, either tell me or send me an emotion and we'll scoot on out of here."
Jasper nodded his thanks and leaned in to press a gentle kiss on her lips. "Alright. Let's do this."
When they got out of her truck, Esme gave Jasper a reassuring smile. She knew he saw himself as his family's protector and that being on Quileute land made him anxious. She couldn't deny being a little nervous herself, but she trusted the wolves in her family. Because they believed this first meeting would go well, Esme put her faith in them.
The huge group of them - four vampires, three wolves, and two humans - met on the sidewalk so they could walk in together. Because Sue and Billy weren't around anymore to need a babysitter, the group as a whole decided Emmett should come with them. Yes, his size made people edgy, but he was a member of the family and they all wanted him to be there with them.
"So we're still on the same page? I'll start?" Leah asked, and everyone nodded their agreement. "Jasper, if anyone's emotions worry you or if it seems like trouble's gonna kick off, just give me some kind of sign."
"I will," Jasper agreed.
After talking it over for what felt like hours, they'd eventually decided that a staggered approach would be better than starting with a huge tribe-wide meeting. They wanted to be able to tell any families connected with the known protector genealogy lines first. Not only were they the ones most likely to be impacted, but part of this whole exercise was to enable the tribe to support any future shapeshifters. Knowing who they were was the first step in accomplishing that.
Leah and Paul had run to La Push the day before while Jasper and Bella were at Charlie's and snuck into the Clearwater house. Because Sue was an elder, she had a phone book with contact information for every member of the tribe. After carefully looking through it with Seth and Emily, the four of them had identified nine families they believed carried the gene, and they'd called each one and asked if they could meet with them the next day.
Leah had worried that people would be mistrustful hearing her name or Paul's, but that was pretty much the only positive that came out of the demand for secrecy the elders had. None of the elders or Quileute wolves could disclose why Paul and Leah really left. There was definitely some speculation, and Jacob in particular had done some trash talking, but none of the human members of the tribe knew the truth, and all nine families had agreed to a meeting.
Everyone took one last deep breath and walked inside.
The humans in the room looked surprised when all nine of them walked in, but no one had any uneasiness or suspicions as far as Jasper could tell. More than anything, they were curious, and some felt sparks of happiness at seeing Leah, Paul, and Seth after they'd been gone so long.
After helping move enough chairs for her family to sit against the side wall, Leah walked to the front of the room, back straight and head high. Jasper and the others had drilled into her that she and Paul had been the only wolves in Sam's pack to act with honor, and she'd eventually come to believe them and let go of the shame that had been heaped on her.
Being a protector was an honor and she wanted these families to know that right from the beginning.
"Thank you all for agreeing to meet with us. Before I go into why we're here, I'd like to first introduce my family," Leah started, then smiled at the surprise on everyone's faces. "Yes, my family. I'll explain more in a second. For now, I'll just make brief introductions. You all know Paul, Seth, and Emily, and some of you may already know Bella Swan. Her father was Charlie Swan, who I'm sure all of you knew before he died. Next to Bella is Jasper Whitlock, then Esme Whitlock, and on the end are Rosalie and Emmett McCarty. Jasper is the head of our little family, so I'll tell you right up front that Paul, Seth, and myself all go by the name Whitlock now."
One of the men frowned at that bit of news. "Why would you not want to be known as a Clearwater? Both of your parents were elders of this tribe."
"I'll get to that, I promise," Leah assured him, then hesitated for a second before taking a deep breath and laughing a little nervously. "I've thought about how to begin more times than I can count, but standing here now…" Leah trailed off and looked at her family. Jasper shot her a wink and sent her some confidence, making Leah smile and nod. "Right. I guess the easiest place to start is with our tribe's legends, which all of you know. What you don't know is that at least two of the legends aren't just tribal myths, they're very true and very real."
"Which legends?" one of the woman asked curiously.
"The ones about the Spirit Warriors and the Cold Ones."
A few eyes darted to the side where Jasper, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett were sitting. Some suspicion and disbelief grew, but nothing to an extent that worried Jasper just yet.
"The first thing I want to say before I go into any detail, is that both legends are true, but they aren't connected in the way some in this tribe believe," Leah continued. "Yes, spirit warriors are real, and yes, cold ones exist, but the spirit warriors weren't created solely for their destruction. They came about to protect the tribe against any threat."
"So… some of our tribe members really do transform into wolves?" the woman asked incredulously.
"They do," Leah nodded, then took another deep breath. "And I'm one of them. Paul and Seth are as well."
You could've heard a pin drop in the room even without super-hearing. If it wasn't such a serious topic, Bella would've been laughing at the shock on everyone's faces.
The man who'd asked about the Clearwater name looked at those sitting against the wall, and Jasper tensed slightly feeling his suspicion grow, along with some anger. "Are you going to tell us that some of your little family over there are cold ones next? That you brought them onto our land?" he asked Leah.
"They are, and I did," Leah answered, then held her hand up to quiet the outraged whispers. "Whitlock and McCarty are the names they go by now, but two of them previously went by Hale, and two by Cullen. And before you let our legends or the prejudice of the most recent elders influence you to believe that all vampires are out of control, soulless beings who slaughter everyone they come across, I'd ask you to please take a closer look. Do any of them look like they're just waiting for a chance to attack?"
One of the teenage boys smiled and pointed to Rosalie. "She looks a little pissed."
Rosalie laughed and smiled at him. "That's just my resting bitch face. I've actually never tasted human blood."
"Never?" the suspicious man from earlier asked in astonishment. "Are you a new vampire or something?"
"Nope, never. And I'm young compared to many of my kind, but I've been a vampire since 1933," she told him.
Jasper smiled at his twin, feeling her pride, then turned to address the room. "Most vampires have red eyes, meaning they feed on humans. All of us have gold eyes because we choose to survive on the blood of animals. The best way to tell if a vampire is angry or thirsty is how dark their eyes are. Black signifies that they're either really pissed or really thirsty," he explained. "Possibly both," he added after a second.
"Can I add something, Leah?" Bella asked, and Leah nodded and gestured for her to go ahead. "One of the reasons we've come to talk with you all is to give you useful knowledge for the future. You should be well-informed about both the wider world and the world of your tribe, but the secrecy of the elders made that impossible. So I just want to make a quick point. It's easy to make the assumption that red eyes mean danger while gold eyes mean the vamp is harmless, but that's not entirely true. There are absolutely some red-eyed vamps who are cruel and take pleasure in the hunt, but not all of them are like that. I've met many vampires, most of whom I call friends or family, and aside from the ones sitting here with me, all have red eyes. On the other side of that, me and all the vampires in this room have been betrayed in some pretty awful ways by vamps with gold eyes," she said, then had to stop as her eyes filled with tears and her throat felt too tight to get words past.
Jasper wrapped his arm around her and pulled her a little closer. "Both of Bella's parents were killed by vampires. Her mother was killed by a vampire with gold eyes, her father by one with red," he said quietly.
"Charlie was killed by a cold one?" a woman asked Leah.
Leah nodded, her expression serious. "He was, but the vampire who killed him wasn't the only one responsible. Paul and I both witnessed what happened and… one of the Quileute wolves also bears some responsibility. It's a long story, but we're all hoping you'll be willing to listen with an open mind. Some parts may be difficult to believe, especially because of the way the tribal legends are handed down, but we'll answer every question you have honestly. That goes for the vampires sitting here as well as the wolves, along with Bella and Emily."
After getting nods from everyone, some hesitant, some eager, Leah began telling the story from the beginning.
"That's why Charlie stopped coming down?" a man cut in after Leah got to the part where Bella's dad let Jacob sit in a jail cell overnight for sexual assault. "Because of what Jacob did to Bella?"
"Yes," Leah nodded. "It was also one of the reasons everything went so terribly wrong for Bella and her dad. Bella had tried to tell Jacob that if the pack needed help to run off the vampire who was hanging around, she could ask Jasper if he'd be willing to come give them a hand. It's not my place to tell anyone's history, but Jasper already made clear to me that I'm free to share anything about him that I think is relevant. What's relevant for this particular instance is that Jasper is a protector by nature, along with being one hell of a fighter. If he'd known about Victoria, he would've been here in a heartbeat to help us get rid of her. Unfortunately, Sam and Jacob, along with the elders, refused to entertain the idea of asking a vampire for help. This was when the rifts in the pack first started to show."
Leah then went on to tell them about the disagreements she and Paul had with the other wolves, and their determination to find some way to work around the Alpha command to leave Bella in the dark. Everyone in the room frowned at hearing the way Leah and Paul were treated.
"Why wouldn't your mom or Harry want Charlie and Bella to be protected?" one of the women asked in confusion. "Your dad was one of Charlie's closest friends."
"It wasn't so much that they didn't want them protected, because Paul and I were permitted to do some patrolling around the Swan's house," Leah clarified. "The Alpha command not to tell Bella about Victoria was because the elders and the pack were entirely against having a vampire help us. If Bella knew Victoria was trying to get to her, she would've immediately called Jasper for help."
"Better to let a friend of the tribe be murdered than ask a 'leech' for help," Rosalie grumbled in annoyance.
Leah smiled at her sister and then continued the tale, up to the night Charlie was killed.
"So you and Paul could both see Charlie's arm?" one of the boys asked. "You knew the vampire was holding him in front of her?"
"Yes," Leah nodded. "We were both shouting for Jacob to stop, trying to get him to wait for us, but he didn't even slow down. Bella screamed for him to stop also as soon as he came out of the trees. He ignored all of us."
"And the force of him slamming into the vampire meant they both fell on top of Charlie?" the formerly suspicious man asked. He was now filled with sadness and outrage rather than suspicion.
"Yes, and his neck was broken," Leah said quietly.
Paul walked up and joined her at the front then and he told them about helping Jacob kill Victoria, and that Jacob ran as soon as he realized he'd helped cause Charlie's death. He explained about Leah getting to the Swan's house and how they burned Victoria before calling the police, then stayed behind to help Bella.
"Wait, so that 'snap' you both felt in your minds, that was you separating from Sam's pack?"
Paul nodded. "It was. We'll explain that in a little more detail shortly," Paul assured them, then continued telling the rest of their story up until the moment the elders told them they had to leave La Push.
Jasper smiled a little at the anger and outrage in the group. Every single tribe member in the room was pissed as all get out that Leah and Paul had been treated the way they were by a tribe that should've been honoring them.
Leah saw the brief smile on Jasper's face and internally gave a sigh of relief, knowing that he was monitoring their emotions. If he was smiling it meant this was going exactly the way they'd hoped it would.
"I'm so sorry you both were treated that way," one of the women said sadly. "If I'd known, I would've tried to intervene."
"Thank you," Paul smiled. "And that's one of the reasons we're standing here now, and why we plan to speak to the rest of the tribe also. Jasper pointed out his belief recently that if the tribe knew about the protectors, it was far less likely that the elders and Sam's pack would've gotten away with what they did. We're hoping that any future protectors will have the support of the entire tribe."
Everyone nodded their agreement.
Paul went on to explain that Bella had offered them Charlie's house to stay in once they had to leave La Push, but that she called them only an hour later to give them the address of a house in Montana they could move into if they wanted to get out of Washington, and that the house belonged to Jasper and his two coven mates, who he considers his brother and sister. He laughed when he told them how he and Leah had been so shocked that it took them some time to find their words.
"Why would you offer that?" someone asked Jasper, who looked surprised by the question.
"Why wouldn't I? They helped Bella through the worst days of her life and were being kicked out of their homes for it. Why wouldn't I offer them a safe place to go?"
"See?" Leah laughed. "Not all vampires are the cold ones of legend."
Jasper just rolled his eyes with a smile.
"This is where my part of the story becomes more relevant," Bella said as she hauled herself to her feet and started moving her chair. Jasper smiled and stood up, taking the chair from her and putting it at the front of the room. "Thanks," Bella laughed. "I hope you'll all excuse my bad manners, but standing in one position for any length of time gets uncomfortable."
Bella went over the events in Italy, although she was far less detailed than Leah or Paul had been. What was most important was Edward's decision to get 'revenge' on all of them, because it led to him enlisting the help of the Quileute wolves.
This was where all of the Whitlocks got a little nervous. They felt the tribe was entitled to the whole truth, believing it was the only way to lay a foundation of trust, but they weren't all that sure what the reaction would be.
Rosalie took pity on her nervous human sister and went to stand beside her. "One thing it's important to know about vampires is that we are incredibly instinct-based. And one of those instincts is the need to protect those we love. I'll be honest with you right up front, this part of our story isn't pretty. But we want more than anything to build trust with all of you, and that means telling you everything, even the parts that reflect poorly on us."
Rosalie very matter-of-factly explained that once they knew Edward was going to appeal to the wolves for help that they hatched up a revenge scheme of their own.
"Bella, Leah, Paul, and Seth are my brothers and sisters in every way that matters," Rose said. "That they'd lost everything because of the elders and Sam's pack infuriated all of us, and that's where those vampire instincts come in. We wanted them to hurt as much as they'd hurt our family."
"Wait," one of the boys interrupted a few minutes later. "The wolves from the tribe agreed to go to Montana?" he asked in confusion. "I thought they were supposed to be here for the tribe's protection."
"They were," Bella nodded. "They never should have agreed to go with Edward, and the elders never should have given them the green light. They travelled nine-hundred miles outside their territory because they hated the Cullens. Vamps aren't the only ones interested in revenge."
Jasper felt the mood in the room shift as Rosalie and Bella started telling them about the events in Montana. No one was feeling anything that overly worried him, but there was definitely a whole lot more discomfort.
"May I cut in?" Emily asked quietly as she walked to the front, seeing that some in the room were looking at them suspiciously. All the Whitlocks nodded, so she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Before we go into what exactly happened to the wolves and elders, I'd like to explain something called imprinting," she said, then went on to tell her part in the story and how Chelsea broke her bond, essentially freeing her.
"They wanted Sam to hurt you just so you'd be his girlfriend?" one of the boys asked incredulously, his face scrunched up in disgust. "That's…"
"Evil?" Rosalie offered, and pretty much the whole room nodded.
"I think all of you know where this part of the story leads, at least when it comes to the elders," Emily went on. "I want to make very clear that it wasn't just the vampires, or just the Whitlocks, who let events unfold the way they did. Every single one of us in that room had a voice, and Jasper had already shown me that every voice mattered. If one of us wanted to stop it, all we had to do was speak up," she explained quietly, then took another deep breath. "None of us chose to do so, including me. Billy and Sue had done so much damage to so many people, and not one of us believed they were capable of changing. One of the things Bella and Rosalie left out was that Billy aimed a rifle at Paul and had his finger on the trigger. The only reason he didn't shoot a boy he'd known almost from his very first breath was because Jasper moved fast enough to take the gun from him before he could. Leah, Paul, and Seth, along with the other Whitlocks, had repeatedly attempted to help Billy and Sue see the error of their ways. They refused."
There was a minute of silence in the room after Rosalie told them what Billy and Sue's fate was, everyone far too shocked to say anything.
"Good riddance," one of the women muttered eventually.
"As much as it pains me to say, I agree with my wife," the formerly suspicious man said, then held his hands up when his wife glared at him. "I didn't mean it pains me to agree with you, honey," he laughed. "Just that I feel a little bad that I agree the world's probably a better place without them. Our tribe certainly will be if I have anything to say about it."
"Good," Leah smiled. "That's exactly what we're hoping for."
"What about Old Quil?" one of the other men asked curiously. "You keep saying Billy and Sue, but wasn't Old Quil there also?"
"Right," Emily nodded. "He actually died in the car on the way to Montana. The rest of us were so lost in our own anger or fear that we didn't realize he wasn't simply sleeping. Jasper had his brother and sister go into town and buy a canoe so they could give him a proper send-off."
"Not exactly proper," Jasper quickly interrupted, wanting to be clear. "We're a hell of a long way from the ocean where we live, so the best we could do was the river. I know it's not the same, but we were trying to follow the spirit of the practice, even if we couldn't do it exactly right."
One of the women actually waved her hand dismissively at that. "There was nothing honorable about his behavior after Sam Uley became a wolf. There's no reason at all he should have been given the honor of a canoe to the sea. What you did for him was more than enough," she said firmly.
Jasper smiled at her. "Thank you, ma'am."
"So what happened to the wolves?" one of the boys asked. "Did those Vutro… Volti… Italian vampires eat them?"
"Volturi," Bella smiled. "And no, actually. It was Sam who killed them."
"Sam killed his own pack?" he asked in surprise.
"He did," Leah nodded. "Sam became enraged that coming to attack us in Montana led to his bond with Emily being severed. Instead of taking responsibility for any of it, he blamed Jacob and the other wolves."
"So then who killed him?" someone else asked. "I'm assuming he's dead, anyway."
"None of us are entirely sure what happened, but we have reason to believe that because Sam so thoroughly corrupted the 'magic' that allowed him to phase, that magic was taken away from him," Paul explained. "After the human and the wolf began sharing a body, one couldn't survive without the other. When Sam's wolf died, so did he."
"That's…"
"Creepy?" Bella smiled.
"Yes, creepy," the boy laughed.
Jasper looked at his watch and realized they'd been talking for over four hours, so he caught Esme's eye and the two excused themselves for a moment and walked outside.
"How is the mood in the room?" she asked him quietly as she opened the back of her SUV.
"A lot better than I thought it would be, honestly. There have been moments of disbelief, anger, and suspicion, but they've passed for the most part. Everyone is truly disgusted at the way Paul, Leah, Seth, and Emily were treated by people they should've been able to count on."
"Good," Esme nodded as she stacked one cooler on top of another.
When Jasper and Esme walked back inside, Bella and Emily had unfolded three of the large tables that had been propped against the back wall and were pushing them together to make one big table.
Esme set her coolers down and began unpacking them. "We weren't sure how long we'd be here, so we brought some lunch just in case. It's not much, just sandwiches and salads, although Emily's salads have tempted me to eat human food perhaps more than anything has since 1921," she laughed. "She's an artist in the kitchen."
When Jasper helped Bella into a chair and handed her a tupperware full of the pasta she'd had three bowls of the night before, she yanked him down to give him a kiss. "Thank you. I thought I'd be getting a sandwich or salad."
Leah shot him a dirty look. "He hogged all the damn leftovers for you," she grumbled.
Jasper rolled his eyes and pulled another tupperware out of his cooler. "Did you want this or should I—" he cut off with a laugh when Leah lunged for it with a squeal of happiness.
"Best. Dad. Ever."