(no subject)
Title: Five Things Rosalie Lillian Hale Wishes Have Never Happened To Her
Fandom: Twilight
Characters: Rosalie
Rating: PGish?
Word Count: 898
I. Being betrothed at birth
She cannot believe what Mother is telling her. She has only turned ten for two hours and already she has to behave like an adult. Mother says that William David Philips is from a very, very respectable family in Manhattan. Her family and his have known each other for the past five generations. They are going to take her in as if she were their own daughter and treats her like the princess that she is. When the time comes, of course.
That means eight more years.
Rosalie doesn't care. She doesn't care if that William David Philips is from the richest family in New York. She doesn't care if everyone says he will be the President of the United States one day, and oh, won't she be such a lovely and proper First Lady. She doesn't care that he is the closest to a prince any man will ever come, and will give her the fairytale ending she has always dreamed of.
Betrothals are not fairytales. Princesses have a choice. Princesses have freedom.
And hers end in eight years.
That has to change.
II. Dying of a mortal death
Call her a coward. Go on, it's easy, just say it. "Rosalie Hale, you are a coward." There.
She is a coward and she is afraid of death.
All the fears - of death, of heights, of the pigeons that are resting on the perch of the rooftop where she now stands - go out the window as she considers her destiny.
Eight years have been too short. She surprises herself - and chides a bit too - as she convinces herself that this is the best plan. The only plan.
This will be her destiny.
She jumps.
III. Meeting Emmett McCarty
She wakes up, not remembering a thing. The three others assure her that it will be okay.
Eventually, she remembers, and learns, and realizes. Two years later, she begins to suspect that they may be right.
She can't tell what made her venture into the woods alone that night. All the way in Appalachia, no less. She isn't thirsty; if she were, she would have asked Esme or Carlisle or, God forbid, Edward to join her. Instead, something is calling to her. She thinks maybe it's someone crying out to her; two years later and she has finally adjusted to her enhanced hearing. Then she recognizes that the voice isn’t calling out to her ear, but to her soul.
Her unbeating heart almost leaps out of her chest when she spots him lying amidst twigs and wilting leaves. Without evaluating her options (there is no time for such hesitation!), she heaves him up and carries him home, all the while imagining she cannot run fast enough. Carlisle can help him, she repeats to herself, yet she doesn’t know how. He just has to!
She wishes she had never met Emmett McCarty, never doomed him to this life.
She wishes she had never fallen in love. It certainly would have made things a lot easier.
IV. Understanding Edward Anthony Masen
She can’t comprehend how they can ever assume she would be good for him.
There has never been an accord between Edward Anthony Masen and herself. He is older than her, wiser, even though she has lived slightly more human years than he has. They come from different worlds, his human self suffering poverty with his former family while she has everything she can ever want. He is solemn and pensive and withdrawn; she is impulsive and reckless and vacuous. Or so they believe.
When he first talks about the girl with the rest of the family, she feels betrayed. She can't grasp why he would do something like this to them, especially for a human girl. Why, and how. Doesn’t he know how dire the consequences will be?
She loses her temper one night and speaks her mind; he won’t have any of it. He slams his door in her face and that's that.
It isn’t until she sees him sitting with her in the cafeteria one day. She sees the way he looks at her. She sees that something in his eyes.
Oh.
V. Liking Isabella Marie Swan
Grimacing is unattractive. It brings out the wrinkles, even to the undead. Nevertheless, she catches herself doing it when she sees the girl, or when someone talks about her, or even when she thinks about her.
Isabella Marie Swan doesn't know what she’s getting herself into. She has a choice, yet she throws it away.
And Rosalie hates her for it.
It doesn't help that, once her family gets acquainted with the girl, everyone takes a liking to her. Alice is happy to find a personal Barbie. Jasper is amused by how much of a teenage boy Edward becomes whenever Bella is mentioned. Even Emmett sees the girl as a little sister, someone he wants to protect, like any other member of the family.
It frustrates her to no end that the excitement of Bella becoming one of them blinds them all to the fact that she has what they never have. She’s been blessed with an option. Her stubbornness gets in the way. Her persistence. Her effort to fight for her own destiny.
At that moment, Rosalie sees herself in this girl.
“No.”