L'Etre et L'Ame CHAPTER IX A Twilight Fanfiction
A/N: It’s a short chapter this time. I originally meant for it to have another scene, but decided to post this so as to not keep my faithful, few readers waiting. Only 3 chapters left after this. Enjoy!
CHAPTER IX
Jasper had been well aware of the disadvantage of hunting with the wolves from the outset, but he had felt confident in his ability to deal with their anger before it could cause him any problems.
He just hadn’t expected this.
Grief was writ large across Jacob’s face, and was not any less stirring for being on the face of a wolf. That was easy enough for Jasper to ease, and Jacob’s eyes clouded momentarily as he siphoned away the young man’s pain.
“I’m sorry. I know was your friend,” he said soothingly.
Jacob turned a curious look on him. The grief, having been swept away, gave room for something else, and the force of it made Jasper step back. It wasn’t a fiery rage that had gripped Jacob, it was a sense of justice. Unemotional. Ineluctable.
Jacob was a Protector, and Jasper had broken the treaty. It was that simple.
Jacob lunged.
Jasper side-stepped smoothly as Jacob swiped the air with an enormous paw. A wind went with the blow, whipping Jasper’s hair. He was quick on his feet, and Jacob was being cautious and didn’t press for another immediate lunge. They began to circle one another. A slight breeze brought Jacob’s musky wet-dog scent to Jasper and he clenched his jaw against the stench. The hair on the back of the wolf’s immense neck straightened like hog’s bristles, and Jasper could feel the young man’s resolution. His determination to finish the fight. Jasper had been weighed in the balances and found wanting.
He circled round again, hands out, senses primed for any twitch of muscle any change of expression. “You don’t want to do this, Jacob. Bella wouldn’t want this.”
Jacob edged forward, sensing Jasper’s irresolution, and growling deep in his chest.
It was Jasper himself who didn’t want to fight. He had lost the lust for it as the sickly sweet scent of Victoria’s burning corpse had filled his head. Killing left a man empty, no matter how just the cause, and he could appreciate Carlisle’s reticence to kill even more greatly as the void threatened inside of him.
It would be the same for Jacob. The young man before him was merely doing what he thought was right, taking a life for the life of his friend. Executing the details of the treaty--an execution, not murder. Not to Jacob. The void would chill him afterward just the same though. And Jasper wasn’t ready to die yet.
“Jacob, please listen to me,” he said. He kept his voice low and placating, but Jacob stopped looking for an opening. He was patient. So patient for so a young man, Jasper thought. “I don’t want to hurt you,”-Jacob gave a sharp snort that Jasper ignored--“and I didn’t want to hurt Bella.” Jasper felt blind, groping in the darkness as if in the cave again.
He stumbled forward, metaphorically, relying on something more than base emotional manipulation. “But she’s well. She’s still Bella. She’s not gone.” The growl deepened, yet there was in it a faint, mournful overtone. This was the opportunity.
“Her life is smaller now, though. I admit it. I didn’t mean to . . .change her, but I did. We’re going to be all the family she’s got now. The Cullens and Alice and me.” And didn’t that make them all family some how? Jasper thought. And hadn’t they been for a while? He didn’t have time to analyze that, but dropped the thought and pressed his advantage. “Don’t take it from her, Jacob. And don’t make me take away one more person she cares for.”
Jacob snapped at him for that, the wide jaws crashing shut with a crunch and his ears lying flat against his head again. Jasper held his ground with an effort.
“She remembers you,” he said, trying not to rush, trying to let the words have their way, dropping and sinking into the depths of Jacob’s feeling. “When a person changes into a vampire, there are only so many memories that remain of the former life. She has no memories at all of childhood friends, Jacob, except for one. She told me she was on a trail near the Sol Duc in Forks. Charlie’s taking her fishing, trying to pass on the legacy,” he smiled lightly because it allows them a moment of levity, as he tried to smooth a path of understanding between them. Jacob merely blinks. “She fell behind, of course, and tripped, spraining her ankle. Charlie was too far ahead to hear, but her friend, whom Charlie had invited on the outing, is there. He hauled her up on his back and staggered to the river, without complaint.”
Jacob’s head dropped a fraction of an inch and the muscles of his shoulders gave slightly.
“He sat with her and talked and killed time while he might have been fishing,” continued Jasper. “He supported her over the slippery rocks so she could cool her ankle in the water.” He lowered his hands as he felt the slightest give in Jasper’s resolve.
“She remembers you, Jacob. And Bella needs all the friends she can get.”
Jacob stopped, eyes still fixed, still assessing, and Jasper stood still and let the silence work between them. The small mournful part of Jacob was expanding and changing, it was readable in his body language, not just in the flavor of his emotions. There was a deep compassion in Jacob, and if it welled in him in response to what has happened to Bella, it is well spent, Jasper thinks. And while the distrust was still there, in the careful set of his head and still-aggressive stance, it was mingled with a certain willingness to yield.
Jasper nodded at nothing, and Jacob gave a huff of breath.
A sudden shift of wind and a gust of smoke raced between them. Jacob’s ears pricked and Jasper startled, nearly dropping into a crouch to brace himself for the impact. Instead, the Jacob’s head snapped eastward and Jasper followed his regard, eyes piercing through the trees. Wolves, at least two, he couldn’t yet make them out, but he could hear them charging through the trees. Jacob growled softly, a steady hum in his chest.
“What’s going on, Jacob?” But this was ignored.
A branch cracked, and Jasper saw Quil first then another just behind, charging toward them. Not Paul, though. Not yet. Jasper wondered if that was what was happening. Would they take out Paul’s injury on him? He bent his knees, slowly lowering his center of balance. This was stupid though, he’d have no choice but to run if three or four wolves took after him.
“Jacob?” he demanded.
Jacob replied with a bark. Then rounded with several more directed at the oncoming wolves who, rumbled to a stop, kicking up fallen leaves and dried needles. There followed a volley of barking, sharp snarls back and forth. It sounded uncannily like an argument. Then, silence fell as the newcomers appear to have backed down.
It appeared to Jasper that he had been spared, and he was filled with the joy in the knowledge that he would soon be with Alice again. In the moment that followed however, the wolves bristle and sensing something beyond Jasper’s ken. It’s perfectly eerie to watch each wolf turns his nose slowly westward toward. . . nothing that Jasper can discern. It’s as if he’s looking up into an empty blue sky and his eyes won’t adjust to see the flock of blackbirds Alice insists is there.
Something was happening, he just didn’t know what, and before he can ask, the wolves are off in a blur of color, tearing once again through the trees, away into the distance.
“What the hell? Jacob!”
Jasper took off after them by sheer reflex, and found that he could keep pace relatively easily. He had no doubt he could outstrip them all, but having no idea where they were going, he was relegated to follow. They ran for five miles and Jasper grew increasingly more angry as Jacob didn’t reply to his punctuated demands for information. Jacob too is growing increasingly annoyed in turn, but still won’t pause. Jasper had all but decided that he didn’t need to follow the wolves, his work is done. He has upheld his end of the bargain. . . . When, all at once, a smell like tiny snakes darted up his nostrils and writhed in the sinuses under his eyes. With horror, Jasper looked and made out the smoke above the treetops, the color of poor quality amethyst in darkening sky.