Posted 2024-01-04; Beta'd by Eeyorefan12
Coming downstairs, Bella paused at the much-transformed dining room where the table had been stripped of its tablecloth, the drapes fully opened, and the heavy chairs pushed aside. A bolt of fine creamy fabric, a pin cushion, thread, and scissors sat on a tray at one edge of the heavy table.
Esme bustled in from the serving door and stopped. "Good morning, Bella. Don't go into the kitchen."
"Uh, okay. Good morning."
"The girls are making your lakoodya—your bridal sweets, and you shouldn't see them before you're settled in the mating house."
Bella touched on each of the terms, thinking she understood most of what Esme had said.
"Of course." She eyed the table. "New sewing project?" Normally the women sewed in the kitchen where the morning light was best.
"Yes." Esme smiled, flipping over the bolt and smoothing out the fabric. "Your ceremonial dress."
Bella smiled, feeling sheepish. Of all the ceremony-related questions she'd asked Edward, she hadn't thought to ask what she'd wear, and he hadn't mentioned it. Maybe he'd assumed the women would discuss it. He'd been forthcoming about everything else.
A mating entailed several parts. There was the family announcement with dentrogonisi flowers, the formal announcement to the assembly, the ceremony recognizing the mating, and then, traditionally, several celebrations of the newlyweds with family and friends. The actual mating—the procreative rather than sexual act for pleasure—usually came decades later. Necessity dictated a much shorter timeline for her and Edward—from years to days.
Days away.
Feeling her cheeks warm, Bella centered herself with a slow breath.
Esme glanced up at her, then looked back at the fabric, her smile replaced with a neutral expression. "I'm afraid we'll have to make do with last year's dye. There just isn't enough time, but I don't think anyone will notice, and if the weather holds, it'll be ready in a few days. I am sorry, Bella. Please don't think the shortcut is one I prefer."
Bella wasn't thinking anything of the kind, but seeing Esme's concern, she refocused. Despite her limited knowledge of Sabellian traditions, it was obvious to her that the design and color were significant, and she saw a way to both ameliorate Esme's stress and to make her own contribution.
"Actually, I'd hoped we could include one or two of my own traditions, at least with the dress, if that's alright?"
"Of course. What are they?" Esme's smile was back.
"Where I'm from, a bride wears white or cream for their wedding. That and a veil."
"White?"
Was that a note of disapproval in her voice?
"Yes."
After blinking at the air for a few moments, Esme spoke again. "Okto. If that's what you'd like to do, we'll do that. Now, a veil—over the hair? Face? Short? Long?"
Half an hour later, Esme's scrip was on the table, the open page full of her detailed drawings and notes. "I'll see if I have some lace to trim the veil. You're certain you want a transparent material?"
"Well, I would like to be able to see through it."
"Most peculiar for a veil," Esme murmured, making a note on her scrip. "No," she said abruptly, "I haven't. Isn't he out with Vanko at the second grove?" She paused and then erased something. "Bella, would you mind walking down to the end of the fenceline? It appears Jasper and Vanko forgot the strippers—Alice just found them in the kitchen."
"Sure . . . I mean, of course." It was an unusual request, but one Bella was happy to take up. If Esme was asking her to take on work rather than sending her to rest, they really must be short on help.
Walking down to the kitchen, she nodded to Alice, who smiled and handed over the oddly shaped shears. "The second grove is—"
"Just past the fenceline, that way?" Bella pointed.
"Yes."
It was a few minutes' walk to the grove, during which Bella watched the near and far workings of the estate. Emmett had left early on his mission, and with Edward away also, they would be short-handed, especially with the labor-intensive glyko harvesting.
As she arrived at the grove, Jasper was climbing down a thin trunk with his back to her, springing off ten feet from the ground. Bella quickly stepped aside and and right into a spray of glyko stems, causing a loud crunch.
Jasper whipped around, leapt forward, and shoved Bella out of the way. She landed hard on her backside just as a rain of heavy foliage thudded down around them. Jasper deflected some of it with his arm, including a large branch which missed her by inches.
"Halt, Vanko!"
Bella didn't hear the called reply, still trying to catch her breath as she got to her feet.
"Do you have no sense?" Jasper snapped. He waved his hand towards the treetops.
Her cheeks flamed. It had been stupid of her, she realized. "Sorry," she muttered. "I wasn't thinking."
"Well that's nothing unusual, is it," Jasper muttered, sweeping bits of glyko leaves off his shirt.
The insult stunned her. Clearly, she'd caught him at a bad time.
"Alice asked me to bring these to you." Bella held out the strippers.
Jasper snorted. "If I needed them, I'd have brought them."
Fine. "I'll take them back, then."
Jasper yanked the shears out of her hands. "Please thank my wife for sparing us the trip." He sounded anything but thankful. He yelled up to Vanko, "There's another spray just to your right. It'll need a hard hand. Yes." There was another loud thump.
Bella turned around, ready to return to the house.
"If my wife sends you on any other errands, Miss Swan, try not to endanger yourself in completing them."
Miss Swan. So they were back to the formal address.
"Unlike my brother, not everyone enjoys playing master and keeping you from harm."
She paused mid-step. Jasper had never been friendly, but this hostility was miles beyond his normal coolness. Master?
She and Jasper were family now, and as horrible as he was being, it was better to try to broker peace.
"Jasper, I don't expect us to be friends—"
"I'm glad your goals are realistic." Jasper gathered the stemmed glyko, wrapping them in a rough twine and tossing them into a basket.
Bella struggled not to glower at him. "Clearly, I've offended you, but I've no idea how. There must be some way to make peace between us."
Jasper gave a dark chuckle. "You likely won't believe it, but I've tried very hard to hold favorable perceptions of you, Miss Swan. You've made it quite difficult."
Well suck your sour grapes then, buddy.
She kept her expression neutral. "And how have I done that?"
"Disrobing in public? Making repeatedly ignorant and offensive attempts at humor after being told not to? Welcoming the wasting of limited resources on you?" He picked up a machete, hacking at the thick stems, removing the pod ends. "Not that any of my family would be so impolite or pragmatic as to say so, but making you a daughter of the house has drawn heavily on resources already drained by that gashte committee's work." He made an angry thwack at another glyko bundle.
She'd known the process would mean money spent but hadn't known how angry Jasper felt about it, or that it had impacted their finances so profoundly.
"I'm sorry. I didn't—"
"Know? Realize? Understand?" he mocked. "Of course not. That's your perpetual excuse, isn't it? Your ignorance. But you're no fool. If you're scholar enough to be of use in the archives, it isn't intelligence you lack, Miss Swan, it's the ability to bear the weight of your choices. I find your show of sycophantic innocence off-putting."
Thwack. After severing the glyko heads, Jasper pointed the machete in her direction, and while she didn't think it was meant as a threat, she took a step back anyways.
"And of course you're trying to help, aren't you? I'm sure you feel you've done so much carrying those shears out here. Or Edward's harness to the cellar. Or doing any other such thing an infant could accomplish." He resumed thwacking at the glyko, each strike punctuating his words. "But I forget. There's your promised work in the archive. I'm sure you'll do that until you fruit, in the meantime shackling my brother to you as a mate, humiliating the poor fool in the process, and compelling the rest of us to breed before our time. No doubt, you'll express your useless remorse for the trouble you've caused." Thwack! "The committee couldn't have picked a better figurehead for their movement. The hapless human, victimized by our kind, indexing useless records for a useless purpose. It's no wonder they played so conservatively with the severance dates. They should have sent you back as soon as they found you, refraction be damned."
What? "They said they couldn't."
He gave a humorless bark of laughter. "Of course. Given a choice, why would they return you, when your presence is so useful for their fundraising? You'll be on show for all their supporters. Their ritualized victim, forever linked by both lace and blood to the family of the great and selfless Carlisle Cullen, their veritable fool of a god on his pointless mission. Of course, they didn't think your presence would be adverse to their ends, did they?"
His last few sentences barely registered.
I could have gone home already?
Edward had told her she couldn't. He knew she'd wanted to return. She thought back to what he and Mr. Othonos had said.
She blinked rapidly, breathing hard, all thoughts of peace-making with Jasper gone with her next epiphany.
"I would have died."
"What?" Jasper snapped.
"If I'd gone home." She felt numb, both at the possibility and at the callousness of Jasper's suggestion. "I would have died."
Did he want her dead?
Jasper looked away. She watched as he clenched his jaw, then shook his head and blew out a harsh-sounding breath.
Not dead, then.
He was still glaring when he looked back at her, but it was . . . she didn't know, less hateful? Maybe resigned.
Her own anger needled at her. "I think your brother might be better informed on matters pertaining to severance, having experienced it himself."
Jasper ignored her comment. "Yes, you would have died. So I retract that statement. My father wasn't entirely a fool. He was right about one thing: humans never should have been brought here, you included. Your kind is a scourge we can't seem to rid ourselves of."
The anger in his face had returned, and Bella took a step back.
In an instant he was inches from her face, spitting his words into it. "You don't belong here. Very little you can do will ever change how I feel, but you could at least minimize the harm you've caused."
Bella doubted there was anything she could say or do to change his opinion, and in the moment, she didn't care. Trying to get away, she stepped back, nearly tripping. For the second time that day, she felt Jasper's hand on her forearm, the grip tight and painful.
There was a loud thud as Vanko landed suddenly. Jasper let go of her arm and spun to look at him.
"I'll take a break here if you wouldn't mind cutting for a while." Vanko shifted his gaze towards the treetop where he'd been working.
Jasper turned without a word, moved to the tree, and began to climb.
Hands on his hips, Vanko watched Jasper ascend. To Bella, he spoke quietly. "It would perhaps be better if Mr. Cullen were left to his work."
Still numb with shock, Bella nodded. She began to turn, Vanko's soft words interrupting her. "Mr. Cullen's father used to say that very little that's good can be measured by gold."
Out of politeness, Bella nodded, tears threatening.
"If there's anything else that needs sending to us, I'm certain my wife would enjoy the walk."
"I'll . . . let her know," Bella said, her voice shaky.
With a curt nod, Vanko picked up the machete, turning back to the tree.
Bella was grateful for the length of time it took to walk back to the house.
She shoved Jasper's vitriol aside, trying to find another meaning in what he'd said about severance, her mind full of questions. Could she have been sent home earlier? Could she still, now? More distressingly, had Edward lied to her?
It was the last question that made her chest tighten.
Had they all lied to her?
Merely entertaining the idea stung, the feeling only heightened by Jasper's accusations. Was she the burden she'd feared being?
"I'm in no shape to think clearly," she whispered to herself, walking as briskly as she could.
As one pillar of trust fell to suspicion, others wobbled too. Had they lied to her about other things? About her physical state?
But that didn't make sense. The level of coordination between parties would be inordinate. The Cullens had all been shocked by what had happened to her. That was real, and she was certain, not their doing.
But the committee . . . and Edward.
No, she decided. Edward she trusted. If the committee had been misled, or had misled him, that was the only way there could be truth in Jasper's statements.
Jasper didn't want her here. And her presence was impacting him and all the other Cullens, something she had to accept, like it or not. There was little she could do about his bitterness, but she wouldn't let it poison her relationship with Edward.
At the house, Esme looked up from the dining-come-sewing table. "I've got the first pieces laid out, if you'd like to see."
What would not-upset Bella do? "Wonderful." She plastered a smile on her face, stopping to admire the pale chalk lines on the even paler fabric, their shapes meaningless in the face of her turmoil.
Esme stood up, chalk in hand, head cocked to the side. "That'll be Edward."
For Bella, there was a rush of feelings: apprehension, nerves, and . . . bizarrely, excitement.
Not bizarre, she told herself. You're upset. And . . . hormonal, if that's the right word.
Tears threatened again. He was her friend. Her only true friend here. And she'd missed him, even though it had only been a day.
Staring at the fabric, she swallowed. She couldn't confront him with what Jasper had said. Not right now. Smoothing her features, Bella composed herself.
Edward arrived moments later, greeted at the door by Esme while Bella hung back, not certain her agitation was sufficiently hidden or what was appropriate given her new status. Were there protocols she was yet unaware of? She didn't want to give offense.
Jasper's accusations clung like smog. Her confidence was well and truly shaken.
"It's good to see you." Bella felt silly as soon as the words left her mouth.
"I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling so," Edward said softly, looking oddly shy as he held up a small bouquet of yellow flowers.
Bella took them. "Thank you. They're . . . really pretty."
"Why don't you two go sit in the parlor while I get some work done." Suppressing a smile, Esme waved her hand towards the dining room table, and Bella had to resist the urge to cover Edward's eyes.
"Don't look," she said, waving him away from the dining room door. The impulse was almost instinctual, and it felt stupid in the moment. "It's meant to be a . . . surprise."
"Your dress?"
"Yes."
"Bella has asked that we include some human traditions, which I think is appropriate," Esme said.
"Did she?" Edward looked surprised and pleased as he glanced her way, and he nodded in approval. "I'm glad."
"Though you didn't say anything about keeping it a secret," Esme told her. "Should we? From everyone?"
"No, just from Edward."
"Oh, well—is that what's done? Excluding the male mate from the mating preparations?"
She'd never thought about it that way but realized that, yes, that was exactly what was done. "Well, uh . . . it's just bad luck for the groom to see the dress beforehand."
"Groom?"
"The male mate," Edward explained. "And I'm happy to follow Bella's lead in this."
"Ah." Esme reached for the bouquet in Bella's hands. "I'll find a vase for these." With a quick touch to Edward's arm, Esme disappeared back into the dining room.
Edward waved Bella ahead to the settee, where she sat down, fidgeting with her hands.
"How're things with the Hatzis?" Bella asked quickly.
Edward responded with a tight smile.
She'd hoped the tensions of the night before would fade, but it had been a thin sort of hope, stretched out over flimsy pretenses. Stolos had appeared to be an old friend, but his parents had felt comfortable enough to express prejudices that had made even Esme squirm.
"I helped Stolos with his dragons this morning, which was pleasant. Mrs. Hatzis insisted I come visit for a few hours." The smile was easier as he reached over and touched her hand. "Though I will need to go help Jasper and Vanko. They'll be short with Emmett gone, and my brother is always ill-tempered during harvest season—especially when it arrives earlier than expected."
If only that were the sole reason. "Is he?"
Edward tilted his head. "Did he say something unkind to you?"
Bella swore silently at having reacted but shook her head. "He did seem out of sorts when I took the shears out to him."
Edward stared at her, clearly unconvinced.
"I hadn't appreciated how much work the glyko are to harvest," she added quickly.
"They are. Which grove were they in?"
As the conversation moved to more pragmatic matters, Bella breathed a little easier. They talked a bit about the harvesting, Edward's success in gentling one of Stolos' new dragons, and a little about the upcoming ceremony. Edward seemed anxious she know exactly what would happen and be expected of her.
Perhaps she had embarrassed him after all, and she'd been too oblivious to notice.
And he'd been too polite to say so, just like Jasper had said.
"Bella, you seem . . . anxious today. Did something happen?"
"No," she lied. "I'm just a little nervous about the ceremony. I don't want to embarrass you."
He reached over and squeezed her hand. "You've never embarrassed me, Bella."
Was that true? Or just a lie told in kindness?
Ugh! Jasper's words were insidious. She looked at Edward, willing herself to hold onto the trust they'd built. "Thank you for saying so. Sometimes . . . it's easy to doubt."
She saw a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, but he didn't comment further.
She managed to continue the conversation without triggering any more concern on his part, and she felt a conflicted mixture of sadness and relief when he finally left to help his brother. Watching him go, she waved goodbye, forcing a smile even with Jasper's words still gnawing at her.
— o — 0 — o —
Edward had been at the Hatzis for eight days. Barring his brief visits and their early-morning trip into town to formally announce their engagement, they'd spent little time together. Tomorrow morning would be their ceremony, followed by a public celebration in the afternoon, then a private one with family that would last the night. The following day would be their procession to the mating house, a small structure that sat on the property's edge, bounded by field, forest, and a small lake.
The distance was important, both giving the couple privacy and sparing the household members exposure to the powerful pheromones their mating would produce.
Bella's ceremonial dress and veil hung in her room, and she and Alice were working quietly in the kitchen. Alice was not talkative, but she was patient; without remonstrance, she had repeatedly demonstrated and then guided Bella through the steps to weave the cloth choker Bella would wear. Still elegant, the wide band of decorated cloth served to conceal the mate bite. It was something Edward had promised she wouldn't need, but it would be important to wear once she returned to society.
Over the last days she'd been even more careful to comply with societal expectations and rules, vigilantly watching Esme, Rose and Alice, trying to tease out any as-yet-unarticulated rules. She'd also avoided any unnecessary interaction with Jasper, keeping quiet at their communal meals.
"That's perfect, Bella," Alice said softly.
Bella smiled in reply.
They worked for some time, Alice on one choker, Bella on the other. Sewing was not something she'd had a lot of experience with, and no matter how hard she tried, her stitching was always uneven.
"I've missed hearing your voice," Alice said. "You've been so quiet the last few days."
It had been noticed then. Was that good? She hoped so.
"I wondered if you were missing Edward, or if perhaps you were . . . nervous?"
"A little bit of both." Bella didn't like lying to Alice, but there was no way she'd share the real reason with the woman.
Alice hummed thoughtfully. "Edward explained the mating process to you?"
Bella nodded, wondering where this line of conversation was going.
"I can't speak from experience, but I am knowledgeable. I'd wondered if you might want to have someone to ask questions of who isn't your mate, or Edward's sister or mother?" She gave a knowing smile.
Bella chuckled at this. "Thank you for the offer. No, it isn't ignorance that is making me nervous."
Alice nodded, and they returned to their work.
"I've only ever known Edward to be kind and gentle," Alice said quietly.
"That has been . . . my experience" Bella wondered at Alice's choice of words. Clearly, she was trying to reassure her, and Bella realized that perhaps this reassurance was logical, given Sabellian history. Humans had been taken as slaves, after all.
Ten slow stitches later, Alice spoke again. "You do know that all children are welcome, don't you?" Alice looked up at her, hands folded on her lap.
"I . . . do."
Alice held her gaze. "All children. At any time."
Bella swallowed, nodding. Were they, really? She sure hadn't gotten that impression from Jasper.
"We all have ideas about how our lives will unfold, and some of us make more rigid plans than others. Like my husband." Alice picked up her sewing. "Too tight a thread, you know?" She lifted her needle high, gently tugging the thread into place before plunging the point back into the fabric.
Bella furrowed her brow, not certain of her meaning. She stared at her own sewing. Was she pulling things too tightly?
Alice chuckled. "Sorry. I forget how cryptic we must sound with all our weaving talk. Too tight a thread is quite literal: the tighter we try to bind things, the weaker the whole piece becomes. I'm aware . . . I know it is unexpected that we'll have children so soon, but our only way forward is to embrace the change. Children bred in resentment"—she shook her head—"I'll never do that to a child. I've seen the damage it can cause."
Bella's choker lay forgotten in her lap as she considered Alice's words. "It sounds like you have some strong opinions on the matter."
Alice's needle moved like a wave up and down through the fabric even as she glanced at Bella and nodded. "My cousin is a kotravats. He's well cared for by the Matriarch and the tributes, but"—she snipped the thread and tied a neat knot—"he didn't have to be that way. I won't repeat my family's mistake."
If all the words weren't clear, Alice's point was. Bella's throat felt tight. She nodded, blinking back tears of gratitude. Perhaps Edward was not her only friend here after all.