lgbtfest posting for minisinoo May We Walk in Beauty
Title: May We Walk in Beauty
Author: siDEADde
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing/characters: Leah/Jasper
Rating: T
Disclaimer: All characters in the story belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copywrite infringement is intended. Title is from a poem by Paula Gunn Allen. Again with the copywrite infringement.
Prompt: Leah is not just the first female werewolf, she's also winkte (to borrow a Lakota word). The older she gets, the more she realizes she misses the stability and familiarity Sam had offered, but not the sex. It's women who turn her head.
Summary: A few years after the epic battle that wasn't, Leah has found herself more and more unhappy. She turns to the only person who seems to notice her pain, but will she be happy with what he has to say?
Author's Note: I will have to say that this piece was a challenge. The research took me a ridiculously long time, and then I found I was a bit soured on what I had originally intended. Here is what a Twilight reader should know: This is OOC, and actually a fanfiction for a fanfiction. To get the most from this ficlet, one should read Cowboys & Indians BEFORE reading this. It will make MUCH more sense. The vignettes, like the chapters in Cowboys & Indians, are out of sequence. It made more sense to me to write them as I thought of them. It seemed more natural.
This is the poem mentioned at the end of the story:
To the Woman in the Earth
Who is my first and ever beloved
Whose smiles and rages and storms and weepings
and tremblings and lashing and eruptions
and ripenings and witherings and musings
are my life, my terror, my thought, my wild joy
and all of beauty I ever want to know
Who takes me into her after every journeying
Who is my source, my end, and my obsession
To my Rainbow Warrior Women
May we walk in beauty
To Minisinoo: I copied. Blatantly. I asked first, but once I finished I realized I stole more than I had intended. I'm sorry. I blame the fact that C&I Leah, is THE Leah for me. This is a tribute to C&I and its motivating powers. Thank you for the prompt.
May We Walk in Beauty
The run did absolutely nothing to clear the hornets’ nest buzzing in Leah’s mind. “Two-spirit,” he had said to her and then had the gall to tell her to look it up when she didn’t know what he meant. She scowled, sprawled in a sweaty heap under a monstrous cedar. Look it up she had, and the resulting shock and shame almost caused her to phase instantly. She didn't even get through the first paragraph on the website. How dare he? The fear of the pack knowing was the only check that had kept her in human form. So she had run on two legs as far as they would carry her away from the rez and towards neutral territory. She didn’t want to talk to Jasper right now, not after his little suggestion, but there was just no one else to turn to.
Her breaths still came in gasps and her heart thundered in her chest as she let her mind wander. Why had he called her to the diner to tell her this? Why did the whole idea affect her so deeply? She was Leah Clearwater, eldest child of Harry and Sue Clearwater, and sister to Seth. She knew who she was. She was Sam Uley’s ex-girlfriend. Sam had been the love of her life until he had imprinted on her cousin and best friend, Emily. It used to burn to say their names together, but now, after a few years have passed, it was only the thought of her father that still brought tears to her eyes. They were quick tears now, lasting only a blink before they washed the lump back down her throat to the pit of her stomach. Two-spirit. The lump returned, lodging itself stubbornly against all of her sniffing and swallowing. Tawkxwa´nsix. It was a Quinault term stolen because Quileute didn’t have one of its own, at least not one that Leah had ever heard. It wasn’t a pleasant word, hurled at both white and red women alike when the advances of the reservation boys were spurned. Dyke. Leah growled. Such ugly sounds tawkxwa´nsix when twisted around the drunken tongues of the man-boys she had grown up with. They had never been said to her face before, at least not until now. Two-spirit. It sounded just as ugly, just as white and stupidly PC as Native-American. How dare he? Leah quit fighting the pain in her heart and her throat and let the confused sobs come.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leah would have never in a million years predicted the gigantic snafu that was now her life. “Hey Leah, guess what? Remember those legends about the cold ones? Yeah, well they aren’t legends. Now your boyfriend is a werewolf, and by some freak phenomenon has fallen out of love with you and madly in love with your cousin. She won’t refuse him (for some godforsaken, unknown reason) and now they’re just perfectly happy together. All of the males in the tribe are popping up wolf. Don’t worry, they’ll take care of the problem.” She sighed, pushing the broom half-heartedly around the kitchen. She hadn’t worried, until the day her own personal hell had come to a head, and she phased for the first time. Leah knew it was the shock of her changing that had caused her father’s heart attack. She had killed her father. How very Oedipal of her (as if women could be Oedipal…Leah rolled her eyes at the lack of classical allegory to describe her situation.) It had been downhill since. The battle against the redheaded leech and her minions; the wedding of the two most self-centered beings on the face of mother Earth. There was the fracture of her pack and her decision to leave Sam and follow Jake, the birth of Bedward and Ella’s freakish spawn, and finally the immense let-down of a “final battle” that was more of a “stern talking-to.”
There were bright spots in there as well, places where the downhill slide slowed to be more of a scenic tumble. Her blossoming friendship with Jasper had been the only stability in her tenuous world. Poison no longer tainted her thoughts when she turned them to the tall vamp. The others she could gladly live without, but Jasper was Red now…well pink at least. His eagerness to devour and digest the native experience told first hand had originally put her off: Who was he to assume he understood. That he even had the right to understand? But he had tolerated her bitterness, carefully turning it traitor to its mistress. He had seen value in her culture, in her mind, in her. This was no small feat, beings as she, herself, hadn’t been able to find value in anything during the turmoil. The pow-wow roadtrip had been her saving grace, and returned to her a sense of self.
Years have passed since that trip to Texas, since the completion of the vampire “family”, and the scare from Italy. Leah was floundering again, lost between worlds. She leaned the broom against the breakfast table, leaving a modest pile of dust from the half-swept floor. She needed to talk. Now. Before she stuffed her feelings away, or tried to run them into submission. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and replied to the last apologetic text she had received.
I need a cup of coffee.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The wheels lublubbed over the grooved highway providing a heartbeat to the mechanical purr of the Mustang’s engine. The sounds helped fill the stony silence that filled the vintage car’s restored interior. There were only two along on this ride; Leah had insisted that she didn’t want Seth’s company. The adamant refusal was the only conversation she had spoken to Jasper, so he was surprised that she had agreed to go along with him. He owed her a debt he wasn’t sure could be repaid. How does one show thanks for the return of humanity? Leah had challenged him, forcing more than just superficial empathy from a one hundred year old empath. She had made him think, and for the first time since his change he had had to force himself to feel what another had experienced. She had caused him to see a side of himself that he was sure had been lost.
He looked peripherally at her profile against the sunlight streaming in through the open passenger window. Her pain and chaotic emotions would have been obvious to anyone, but Jasper was in agony right with her. It was times like these that made him wish that he had Edward’s power instead of his own. He would have happily given his right arm to know what was running through her head right now. The lack of chatter was not usually a problem for vampires, especially not for his usually pensive self, but he doubted that he could last the twenty-two hour drive awash in her sullen silence.
“Leah,” he began, strangely hesitant to break the stiff stillness that was bothering him, “we’re only in Oregon. I can still turn arou-”
“Just shut- up and drive.”
He smiled a little, her snapping reply easing him mind and letting him know that the Leah he occasionally thought of as his was still there under the hush. He was patient. She would let him have it eventually, both barrels, and then he would do his best to explain. He wanted to apologize for how he had told her. He wanted to explain how he noticed that her feelings changed when a pretty girl walked by. All women checked out their competition, but Leah didn’t have the same emotions floating around her that Alice or Rosalie or even Bella did when they were in the same situation. He had even tested his theory, almost amused by his own meticulous caution, taking Leah places with Alice or Bella to gauge their reactions. The sensations that had radiated from her subconscious had been the same as the teenage boys sitting near them. When Alice looked at other women it was to judge and compare, when Leah looked there was more…
He’d thought perhaps she just didn’t want to tell anyone, but noticed over time that Leah didn’t even realize what she was doing, or why she was so unhappy. There was so much that went on after the start of their friendship that she couldn’t control, and as Jasper watched, powerless, she started to fall apart.
He had noticed that Sam’s presence really didn’t affect her anymore like it had when the wound was fresh, that she closed herself off from everyone more and more, the confusion slowly chipping away at her sanity. She had told him once that she didn’t know why she had phased. The only female shapeshifter in the history of the tribe. He had wanted to lift that burden, to try to help her find her niche. So he had done what he did best. He researched. He read books that he would bet even Leah herself hadn’t read and scoured websites that he was sure she had never thought to look for. Two spirit. When he had stumbled across the website, he had gotten so excited that he texted her to meet him right away. When they met, it hadn’t gone as planned. She didn’t know the term or the significance behind it. His disappointment was evident, and she had stomped out of the café towards home and her computer. Then he didn’t hear from her for two weeks. After all that time and not a word he sent a text message: Please come see me, I want to take you somewhere you’ll be understood. You can bring Seth even, it’ll be like old times. Another week had passed before he got a response.
I need a cup of coffee.
He had beaten her to the café.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leah couldn’t remember when Sam started loving Emily. She figured they must have already grown apart by then, only the inconvenience of leaving holding them together. Leah remembered the smothering sadness and nightly crying that gradually tapered off once she grew comfortable with being alone. After that it was her pride that stung, and turned her into a bitter husk of her previous self. Her quick temper wasn’t her biggest fault; her father had warned her over and over that her temper got her into trouble, but her pride kept her there. She had never lost anything before, and she’d be damned if she was going to give up without a fight. By the time all of the shit had hit the fan, she had been fighting for its own sake.
She realized now that it hurt more to lose the fight than it did to lose Sam. She missed the routine, missed the assurance that someone loved her, but she did not miss him. She realized this now that she had Jasper to lean on. Now that she could be loved and to love with no sexual expectations, no strings attached. Leah reveled in it. Life on the reservation had been pretty rotten lately, but Leah couldn’t really pin down why. She had been so unsettled, and it only upset her more trying to figure it out. Her mother had suggested seeing a doctor, who then in turn suggested medication. She had so far refused. Leah sighed and pushed back the wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail. Her phone chirped and she couldn’t stop the smile that came unbidden at the text. He always seemed to know when she needed cheering up.
Usual table. I’ve found something I think you should know.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Twenty-two hours. It was what the online map had said, but Leah knew better. She’d been sure that Jasper would shave off several hours while she slept. Still, she had not been sure if she could be in a car with him that long as hurt as she was. I could always tell him to stop and let me out. She settled herself against the leather seat and wound down the window, resting her chin on the arm propped in the opening. She closed her eyes as Jasper leaned down to kiss Alice goodbye, and didn’t bother opening them again until they were on the highway.
He had tried to apologize at one point, but Leah wasn’t ready to hear it. Just drive, please. I don’t want to talk now. Her spoken words held the now expected Leah-tone; thank the gods that the mind-reader hadn’t come. He would have heard the hurt and confusion running through her head.
Had it always been like this? Leah tipped her head back against the seat and let her eyes drift closed. Wouldn’t she know if she were gay? She cringed a little at the word, and felt as Jasper turned his head to look at her. She didn’t open her eyes. Think back Leah, think. She had always been more comfortable with the guys, but she knew plenty of other women who were too. She wore make-up and dresses, and although not frequently, it wasn’t something that she dreaded. As she mentally crossed off every stereotype she could conjure up, little memories slipped in. For her fifth birthday, her mother had taken her to see Aladdin at the theater. The movie had captivated her, and when they had left she had turned to her mother and told her that she wanted to marry Jasmine when she grew up. She was the most beautiful girl Leah had ever seen. Her mother had laughed and explained that girls marry boys when they get older, and that one day she would find her prince, just like Jasmine did. Weeks afterward Leah dreamt of her future wedding, but it was always Jasmine who stood at her side.
Leah smiled a little at the memory, and her apparent naïveté. Her eyes, open now, followed the flashing scenery as she continued to let her mind drift. Two spirit. She was sure now that Jasper hasn’t intended harm. There were so many things that vampires just weren’t good at, and Jasper was a man to boot. She knew he had been affected by her gradual disassociation, but being surrounded by happy, mushy, couples just emphasized her own discontent and solitude. Her mother had Charlie, the bloodsuckers were all paired off like Noah’s animals, most of the pack had imprinted …she couldn’t expect Jasper to be at her every beck and call. He had done what most men do, he had tried to fix everything for her.
Leah sighed and shifted her from the fetal curl against the door. She needed to quit taking this out on him. Like her father, he had acted in what he felt were her best interests and had succeeded in infuriating her instead of making her happy. Dad, I’m sure you had a hand in this somehow. Planting ideas into his head, no doubt. This whole situation stinks of a Harry Clearwater plot. The thought eased her mind a little more, and she waited patiently for him to explain.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
If there is one thing that Leah wasn’t, it was easily intimidated. She had always ran the show, at least until the phasing and then being forced to have Sam alpha her around against her will. Now however, she stood outside the Mustang in a cloud of apprehension and uncertainty. Jasper leaned across the bench seat to crank down the window.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” he tried to keep the amusement out of his voice, but it was difficult when the image that kept coming to mind was that of a large, intimidating dog with its tail tucked between its legs, “We will have to come a bit later though, closer to sunset. I didn’t bring my sunblock.”
Leah smirked a bit at this. She knew he sparkled like a Richard Simmons outfit; he’d been brave enough to show her once. It had taken everything in her not to burst into laughter. He had sensed her mirth, but wasn’t offended. He had merely winked and muttered something about being a girl’s best friend. Now she turned back to the car and shook her head slowly.
“No, I need to do this myself.”
That wasn’t exactly true; it was a want more than a need. But Leah was nothing if not a perfectionist. If she was going to go into this gathering of Two Spirits from across the continent, she was going to ensure that there would be no witnesses to her awkwardness; or at least witnesses who would be able to hold it over her head.
She took a deep breath and stepped towards the convention hall. She made it five paces from the car before she hurried back and dropped parallel to the open window.
“I just want you to know, that even if this is wrong, even if I come out of here more unhappy than when I went in, I do appreciate what you are trying to do for me.”
She turned again and hurried off before Jasper had a chance to respond.
*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leah was angry. Again. She could tell Jasper really wanted to try to explain himself, if he spoke a bit faster and increased his pitch his voice would reverberate in the interior like that of his wife’s. She tried concentrating on his tone, as a diversion, but her mind returned again and again to a detail that she was sure, Jasper felt insignificant. The two-spirit was a person revered by his or her tribe as a mystic, a person whose split spirit (both male and female) allowed them to commune more fully with the earth and gods. The tawkxwa´nsix (he had even looked up this particular word after hearing it around Forks) was a woman who was compelled by the second spirit to undertake tasks usually done by the men. The word itself meant “man-acting”. This woman hunted, she danced, she rode out with the war party and counted coup. She was valued by her culture. All of that changed because of the white man’s homophobia. It spread, like smallpox, killing the reverence, respect, and eventually even mere tolerance. It twisted a word that stood for something valued into an epithet.
He felt her seething fury and stopped talking, worried that he had indeed offended her too greatly to ever repair.
“Leah. I’m sorry. You deserve happiness, and I thought I could bring it to you. Alice warned me that I was going about it all wrong, and it wasn’t even a vision that told her that. It just…it just made sense, your phasing especially. I thought maybe with all of our support you would finally find some peace.”
And there it was, an offering of peace. Leah was tired of fighting, tired of the constant battles, tired of the anger that woke her in the morning and the confusion that went with her to sleep. If this was her… It was a big if. The Two-Spirit convention was being held in Denver, a chance to meet people confident in who they were, or if not confident they had at least made the trip from dee Nile to dee closet. Leah hadn’t even gotten that far yet. Her mind had drifted again, away from the hot anger to a cooler numbness. Jasper’s quiet words brought her back.
“Reparations, Leah. I’m trying to make reparations. I read everything you gave me and more. I can do little for the Native experience as a whole, but I’ll do whatever I can to make up for all the wrong done to you.”
“Okay okay!" She raised her hands in surrender, "I said I would go. Maybe I’ll learn something there that you don’t already know.”
Her tone was gruff and the sarcasm that dripped off the end of the statement put out her angry flames. She hoped she would learn something, at least about herself.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leah sat in on speakers, she participated in workshops, but the most helpful was just talking to others her age who were as lost and confused as she. There was a group with a booth selling t-shirts printed with a poem by Paula Gunn Allen. The verse was captivating, yet neutral enough that Leah felt comfortable purchasing one. The poem was filled with hope, much like the women running the booth. Leah spoke with all of them, but the last girl she talked to left the biggest impact. She had come out to her mother, and thirty minutes later her few possessions were out on the front lawn. The girl was hoping to learn something here at the gathering to bring home to her tribal council. With their approval, her mother would let her move back home.
“It’s easier said, but when you can quit worrying about how others will deal with your identity. You are you, and if you try to be who they want you to be you’ll never be happy.”
Even with all of the dire situations, Leah felt liberated. I am gay. It was still frightening to say, and so far she had only been able to whisper the phrase to herself. It was a step in the right direction though. She looked at those around her: activists, elders, councils, and chiefs. She planned already on making the journey again next year when the gathering will be held in Winnipeg. She would be braver in a year, perhaps even bringing information back to her own tribal council.
Tawkxwa´nsix. She wanted to take the word and bend it back to its former significance, so then, when someone said it to her, she could wear it like a headdress and dance.
Author: siDEADde
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing/characters: Leah/Jasper
Rating: T
Disclaimer: All characters in the story belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copywrite infringement is intended. Title is from a poem by Paula Gunn Allen. Again with the copywrite infringement.
Prompt: Leah is not just the first female werewolf, she's also winkte (to borrow a Lakota word). The older she gets, the more she realizes she misses the stability and familiarity Sam had offered, but not the sex. It's women who turn her head.
Summary: A few years after the epic battle that wasn't, Leah has found herself more and more unhappy. She turns to the only person who seems to notice her pain, but will she be happy with what he has to say?
Author's Note: I will have to say that this piece was a challenge. The research took me a ridiculously long time, and then I found I was a bit soured on what I had originally intended. Here is what a Twilight reader should know: This is OOC, and actually a fanfiction for a fanfiction. To get the most from this ficlet, one should read Cowboys & Indians BEFORE reading this. It will make MUCH more sense. The vignettes, like the chapters in Cowboys & Indians, are out of sequence. It made more sense to me to write them as I thought of them. It seemed more natural.
This is the poem mentioned at the end of the story:
To the Woman in the Earth
Who is my first and ever beloved
Whose smiles and rages and storms and weepings
and tremblings and lashing and eruptions
and ripenings and witherings and musings
are my life, my terror, my thought, my wild joy
and all of beauty I ever want to know
Who takes me into her after every journeying
Who is my source, my end, and my obsession
To my Rainbow Warrior Women
May we walk in beauty
To Minisinoo: I copied. Blatantly. I asked first, but once I finished I realized I stole more than I had intended. I'm sorry. I blame the fact that C&I Leah, is THE Leah for me. This is a tribute to C&I and its motivating powers. Thank you for the prompt.
May We Walk in Beauty
The run did absolutely nothing to clear the hornets’ nest buzzing in Leah’s mind. “Two-spirit,” he had said to her and then had the gall to tell her to look it up when she didn’t know what he meant. She scowled, sprawled in a sweaty heap under a monstrous cedar. Look it up she had, and the resulting shock and shame almost caused her to phase instantly. She didn't even get through the first paragraph on the website. How dare he? The fear of the pack knowing was the only check that had kept her in human form. So she had run on two legs as far as they would carry her away from the rez and towards neutral territory. She didn’t want to talk to Jasper right now, not after his little suggestion, but there was just no one else to turn to.
Her breaths still came in gasps and her heart thundered in her chest as she let her mind wander. Why had he called her to the diner to tell her this? Why did the whole idea affect her so deeply? She was Leah Clearwater, eldest child of Harry and Sue Clearwater, and sister to Seth. She knew who she was. She was Sam Uley’s ex-girlfriend. Sam had been the love of her life until he had imprinted on her cousin and best friend, Emily. It used to burn to say their names together, but now, after a few years have passed, it was only the thought of her father that still brought tears to her eyes. They were quick tears now, lasting only a blink before they washed the lump back down her throat to the pit of her stomach. Two-spirit. The lump returned, lodging itself stubbornly against all of her sniffing and swallowing. Tawkxwa´nsix. It was a Quinault term stolen because Quileute didn’t have one of its own, at least not one that Leah had ever heard. It wasn’t a pleasant word, hurled at both white and red women alike when the advances of the reservation boys were spurned. Dyke. Leah growled. Such ugly sounds tawkxwa´nsix when twisted around the drunken tongues of the man-boys she had grown up with. They had never been said to her face before, at least not until now. Two-spirit. It sounded just as ugly, just as white and stupidly PC as Native-American. How dare he? Leah quit fighting the pain in her heart and her throat and let the confused sobs come.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leah would have never in a million years predicted the gigantic snafu that was now her life. “Hey Leah, guess what? Remember those legends about the cold ones? Yeah, well they aren’t legends. Now your boyfriend is a werewolf, and by some freak phenomenon has fallen out of love with you and madly in love with your cousin. She won’t refuse him (for some godforsaken, unknown reason) and now they’re just perfectly happy together. All of the males in the tribe are popping up wolf. Don’t worry, they’ll take care of the problem.” She sighed, pushing the broom half-heartedly around the kitchen. She hadn’t worried, until the day her own personal hell had come to a head, and she phased for the first time. Leah knew it was the shock of her changing that had caused her father’s heart attack. She had killed her father. How very Oedipal of her (as if women could be Oedipal…Leah rolled her eyes at the lack of classical allegory to describe her situation.) It had been downhill since. The battle against the redheaded leech and her minions; the wedding of the two most self-centered beings on the face of mother Earth. There was the fracture of her pack and her decision to leave Sam and follow Jake, the birth of Bedward and Ella’s freakish spawn, and finally the immense let-down of a “final battle” that was more of a “stern talking-to.”
There were bright spots in there as well, places where the downhill slide slowed to be more of a scenic tumble. Her blossoming friendship with Jasper had been the only stability in her tenuous world. Poison no longer tainted her thoughts when she turned them to the tall vamp. The others she could gladly live without, but Jasper was Red now…well pink at least. His eagerness to devour and digest the native experience told first hand had originally put her off: Who was he to assume he understood. That he even had the right to understand? But he had tolerated her bitterness, carefully turning it traitor to its mistress. He had seen value in her culture, in her mind, in her. This was no small feat, beings as she, herself, hadn’t been able to find value in anything during the turmoil. The pow-wow roadtrip had been her saving grace, and returned to her a sense of self.
Years have passed since that trip to Texas, since the completion of the vampire “family”, and the scare from Italy. Leah was floundering again, lost between worlds. She leaned the broom against the breakfast table, leaving a modest pile of dust from the half-swept floor. She needed to talk. Now. Before she stuffed her feelings away, or tried to run them into submission. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and replied to the last apologetic text she had received.
I need a cup of coffee.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The wheels lublubbed over the grooved highway providing a heartbeat to the mechanical purr of the Mustang’s engine. The sounds helped fill the stony silence that filled the vintage car’s restored interior. There were only two along on this ride; Leah had insisted that she didn’t want Seth’s company. The adamant refusal was the only conversation she had spoken to Jasper, so he was surprised that she had agreed to go along with him. He owed her a debt he wasn’t sure could be repaid. How does one show thanks for the return of humanity? Leah had challenged him, forcing more than just superficial empathy from a one hundred year old empath. She had made him think, and for the first time since his change he had had to force himself to feel what another had experienced. She had caused him to see a side of himself that he was sure had been lost.
He looked peripherally at her profile against the sunlight streaming in through the open passenger window. Her pain and chaotic emotions would have been obvious to anyone, but Jasper was in agony right with her. It was times like these that made him wish that he had Edward’s power instead of his own. He would have happily given his right arm to know what was running through her head right now. The lack of chatter was not usually a problem for vampires, especially not for his usually pensive self, but he doubted that he could last the twenty-two hour drive awash in her sullen silence.
“Leah,” he began, strangely hesitant to break the stiff stillness that was bothering him, “we’re only in Oregon. I can still turn arou-”
“Just shut- up and drive.”
He smiled a little, her snapping reply easing him mind and letting him know that the Leah he occasionally thought of as his was still there under the hush. He was patient. She would let him have it eventually, both barrels, and then he would do his best to explain. He wanted to apologize for how he had told her. He wanted to explain how he noticed that her feelings changed when a pretty girl walked by. All women checked out their competition, but Leah didn’t have the same emotions floating around her that Alice or Rosalie or even Bella did when they were in the same situation. He had even tested his theory, almost amused by his own meticulous caution, taking Leah places with Alice or Bella to gauge their reactions. The sensations that had radiated from her subconscious had been the same as the teenage boys sitting near them. When Alice looked at other women it was to judge and compare, when Leah looked there was more…
He’d thought perhaps she just didn’t want to tell anyone, but noticed over time that Leah didn’t even realize what she was doing, or why she was so unhappy. There was so much that went on after the start of their friendship that she couldn’t control, and as Jasper watched, powerless, she started to fall apart.
He had noticed that Sam’s presence really didn’t affect her anymore like it had when the wound was fresh, that she closed herself off from everyone more and more, the confusion slowly chipping away at her sanity. She had told him once that she didn’t know why she had phased. The only female shapeshifter in the history of the tribe. He had wanted to lift that burden, to try to help her find her niche. So he had done what he did best. He researched. He read books that he would bet even Leah herself hadn’t read and scoured websites that he was sure she had never thought to look for. Two spirit. When he had stumbled across the website, he had gotten so excited that he texted her to meet him right away. When they met, it hadn’t gone as planned. She didn’t know the term or the significance behind it. His disappointment was evident, and she had stomped out of the café towards home and her computer. Then he didn’t hear from her for two weeks. After all that time and not a word he sent a text message: Please come see me, I want to take you somewhere you’ll be understood. You can bring Seth even, it’ll be like old times. Another week had passed before he got a response.
I need a cup of coffee.
He had beaten her to the café.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leah couldn’t remember when Sam started loving Emily. She figured they must have already grown apart by then, only the inconvenience of leaving holding them together. Leah remembered the smothering sadness and nightly crying that gradually tapered off once she grew comfortable with being alone. After that it was her pride that stung, and turned her into a bitter husk of her previous self. Her quick temper wasn’t her biggest fault; her father had warned her over and over that her temper got her into trouble, but her pride kept her there. She had never lost anything before, and she’d be damned if she was going to give up without a fight. By the time all of the shit had hit the fan, she had been fighting for its own sake.
She realized now that it hurt more to lose the fight than it did to lose Sam. She missed the routine, missed the assurance that someone loved her, but she did not miss him. She realized this now that she had Jasper to lean on. Now that she could be loved and to love with no sexual expectations, no strings attached. Leah reveled in it. Life on the reservation had been pretty rotten lately, but Leah couldn’t really pin down why. She had been so unsettled, and it only upset her more trying to figure it out. Her mother had suggested seeing a doctor, who then in turn suggested medication. She had so far refused. Leah sighed and pushed back the wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail. Her phone chirped and she couldn’t stop the smile that came unbidden at the text. He always seemed to know when she needed cheering up.
Usual table. I’ve found something I think you should know.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Twenty-two hours. It was what the online map had said, but Leah knew better. She’d been sure that Jasper would shave off several hours while she slept. Still, she had not been sure if she could be in a car with him that long as hurt as she was. I could always tell him to stop and let me out. She settled herself against the leather seat and wound down the window, resting her chin on the arm propped in the opening. She closed her eyes as Jasper leaned down to kiss Alice goodbye, and didn’t bother opening them again until they were on the highway.
He had tried to apologize at one point, but Leah wasn’t ready to hear it. Just drive, please. I don’t want to talk now. Her spoken words held the now expected Leah-tone; thank the gods that the mind-reader hadn’t come. He would have heard the hurt and confusion running through her head.
Had it always been like this? Leah tipped her head back against the seat and let her eyes drift closed. Wouldn’t she know if she were gay? She cringed a little at the word, and felt as Jasper turned his head to look at her. She didn’t open her eyes. Think back Leah, think. She had always been more comfortable with the guys, but she knew plenty of other women who were too. She wore make-up and dresses, and although not frequently, it wasn’t something that she dreaded. As she mentally crossed off every stereotype she could conjure up, little memories slipped in. For her fifth birthday, her mother had taken her to see Aladdin at the theater. The movie had captivated her, and when they had left she had turned to her mother and told her that she wanted to marry Jasmine when she grew up. She was the most beautiful girl Leah had ever seen. Her mother had laughed and explained that girls marry boys when they get older, and that one day she would find her prince, just like Jasmine did. Weeks afterward Leah dreamt of her future wedding, but it was always Jasmine who stood at her side.
Leah smiled a little at the memory, and her apparent naïveté. Her eyes, open now, followed the flashing scenery as she continued to let her mind drift. Two spirit. She was sure now that Jasper hasn’t intended harm. There were so many things that vampires just weren’t good at, and Jasper was a man to boot. She knew he had been affected by her gradual disassociation, but being surrounded by happy, mushy, couples just emphasized her own discontent and solitude. Her mother had Charlie, the bloodsuckers were all paired off like Noah’s animals, most of the pack had imprinted …she couldn’t expect Jasper to be at her every beck and call. He had done what most men do, he had tried to fix everything for her.
Leah sighed and shifted her from the fetal curl against the door. She needed to quit taking this out on him. Like her father, he had acted in what he felt were her best interests and had succeeded in infuriating her instead of making her happy. Dad, I’m sure you had a hand in this somehow. Planting ideas into his head, no doubt. This whole situation stinks of a Harry Clearwater plot. The thought eased her mind a little more, and she waited patiently for him to explain.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
If there is one thing that Leah wasn’t, it was easily intimidated. She had always ran the show, at least until the phasing and then being forced to have Sam alpha her around against her will. Now however, she stood outside the Mustang in a cloud of apprehension and uncertainty. Jasper leaned across the bench seat to crank down the window.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” he tried to keep the amusement out of his voice, but it was difficult when the image that kept coming to mind was that of a large, intimidating dog with its tail tucked between its legs, “We will have to come a bit later though, closer to sunset. I didn’t bring my sunblock.”
Leah smirked a bit at this. She knew he sparkled like a Richard Simmons outfit; he’d been brave enough to show her once. It had taken everything in her not to burst into laughter. He had sensed her mirth, but wasn’t offended. He had merely winked and muttered something about being a girl’s best friend. Now she turned back to the car and shook her head slowly.
“No, I need to do this myself.”
That wasn’t exactly true; it was a want more than a need. But Leah was nothing if not a perfectionist. If she was going to go into this gathering of Two Spirits from across the continent, she was going to ensure that there would be no witnesses to her awkwardness; or at least witnesses who would be able to hold it over her head.
She took a deep breath and stepped towards the convention hall. She made it five paces from the car before she hurried back and dropped parallel to the open window.
“I just want you to know, that even if this is wrong, even if I come out of here more unhappy than when I went in, I do appreciate what you are trying to do for me.”
She turned again and hurried off before Jasper had a chance to respond.
*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leah was angry. Again. She could tell Jasper really wanted to try to explain himself, if he spoke a bit faster and increased his pitch his voice would reverberate in the interior like that of his wife’s. She tried concentrating on his tone, as a diversion, but her mind returned again and again to a detail that she was sure, Jasper felt insignificant. The two-spirit was a person revered by his or her tribe as a mystic, a person whose split spirit (both male and female) allowed them to commune more fully with the earth and gods. The tawkxwa´nsix (he had even looked up this particular word after hearing it around Forks) was a woman who was compelled by the second spirit to undertake tasks usually done by the men. The word itself meant “man-acting”. This woman hunted, she danced, she rode out with the war party and counted coup. She was valued by her culture. All of that changed because of the white man’s homophobia. It spread, like smallpox, killing the reverence, respect, and eventually even mere tolerance. It twisted a word that stood for something valued into an epithet.
He felt her seething fury and stopped talking, worried that he had indeed offended her too greatly to ever repair.
“Leah. I’m sorry. You deserve happiness, and I thought I could bring it to you. Alice warned me that I was going about it all wrong, and it wasn’t even a vision that told her that. It just…it just made sense, your phasing especially. I thought maybe with all of our support you would finally find some peace.”
And there it was, an offering of peace. Leah was tired of fighting, tired of the constant battles, tired of the anger that woke her in the morning and the confusion that went with her to sleep. If this was her… It was a big if. The Two-Spirit convention was being held in Denver, a chance to meet people confident in who they were, or if not confident they had at least made the trip from dee Nile to dee closet. Leah hadn’t even gotten that far yet. Her mind had drifted again, away from the hot anger to a cooler numbness. Jasper’s quiet words brought her back.
“Reparations, Leah. I’m trying to make reparations. I read everything you gave me and more. I can do little for the Native experience as a whole, but I’ll do whatever I can to make up for all the wrong done to you.”
“Okay okay!" She raised her hands in surrender, "I said I would go. Maybe I’ll learn something there that you don’t already know.”
Her tone was gruff and the sarcasm that dripped off the end of the statement put out her angry flames. She hoped she would learn something, at least about herself.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leah sat in on speakers, she participated in workshops, but the most helpful was just talking to others her age who were as lost and confused as she. There was a group with a booth selling t-shirts printed with a poem by Paula Gunn Allen. The verse was captivating, yet neutral enough that Leah felt comfortable purchasing one. The poem was filled with hope, much like the women running the booth. Leah spoke with all of them, but the last girl she talked to left the biggest impact. She had come out to her mother, and thirty minutes later her few possessions were out on the front lawn. The girl was hoping to learn something here at the gathering to bring home to her tribal council. With their approval, her mother would let her move back home.
“It’s easier said, but when you can quit worrying about how others will deal with your identity. You are you, and if you try to be who they want you to be you’ll never be happy.”
Even with all of the dire situations, Leah felt liberated. I am gay. It was still frightening to say, and so far she had only been able to whisper the phrase to herself. It was a step in the right direction though. She looked at those around her: activists, elders, councils, and chiefs. She planned already on making the journey again next year when the gathering will be held in Winnipeg. She would be braver in a year, perhaps even bringing information back to her own tribal council.
Tawkxwa´nsix. She wanted to take the word and bend it back to its former significance, so then, when someone said it to her, she could wear it like a headdress and dance.