[Master Post] ---------
Having lived for 170 years or so - through the Civil War, the Roaring Twenties, the Beatles phenomenon - Jasper Whitlock had collected a trove full of memories. Random hazy snapshots would resurface every now and then during moments of quiet, like the smooth creamy taste of the peach ice cream made from scratch by his mother for his sixteenth birthday in 1858 several months before he joined the army; the moment when he first saw his transformed marble face...; the posture and smile Alice gave him as she waited for him with such confidence in that diner. Still, never would Jasper have thought that a chance meeting like this would ever be significant, that it would be the start of something that would set his shadowy life ablaze as it was meant to be.
It was a summer over ten years ago, one of those dizzying afternoons where the temperature seemed to shift drastically with the happenstance drifting of the clouds. Carlisle, Edward and Jasper were out hunting in a mountainous forest with news of coyote overpopulation. Jasper’s adopted father and brother were keeping a close eye on him as usual, for he still had not mastered control over his thirst for human blood. Even though it had been over 50 years since Alice and he had adopted Carlisle’s family along with his ‘vegetarian’ ways, any whiff of a human could set Jasper off like a ravenous lion when he was hungry enough.
Soon enough Carlisle’s white neck tensed and he inhaled strongly, closing his dark hungry eyes with concentration.
“There’s a small group of coyotes two miles East. They’re fairly large and should be enough to last us about two weeks.”
Edward took a deep breath, smelling them too. “Alright, let’s--” The younger one with auburn hair suddenly gave his curious attention to the one with the golden mane; he had heard his internal complaints.
“Jasper, what is it?” Carlisle encouraged.
Hating to sound inept Jasper gulped, “May I - may I go off and hunt by myself?”
Pushing aside his wonder Carlisle demanded, “Are you sure? Why alone?”
“I just want to… have some time to myself. Besides, we already scouted the perimeter for humans.”
The leader silently deliberated before finally consenting. “Alright, but stay within our earshot, okay?”
“Understood.”
“We’re trusting you, alright?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Edward shot one last glance of concern behind his back before darting off like lightning with their benefactor into the thick wilderness.
The lone wolf inside of Jasper breathed a sigh of relief. For once in a blue moon, his senses were all his own and not a muddled cloud of those fickle emotions around him. He lightly bound through the trees in search of a meal.
Much too easily, his hawk-like vision soon zoomed in on a deer gently lapping up water from a stream. The deer froze with ears perked in sense of danger. Jasper immediately pounced on it in one swift movement, not giving his food a second to dart away. In an act of compassion, he snapped the animal’s neck before it realized its death; the deer slumped to the ground without even one last bleat. Jasper sank his razor sharp teeth into its thick flesh. Energy returned to his marble body with each gulp of warm, thick blood. Although not as delicious as human blood was, it would do.
In the middle of his feast, Jasper heard a tiny gasp from behind him. His whole body became paralyzed - how had he not sensed a human approaching?! Mind racing with panic, he forcefully gathered from every nerve all the self control he possessed. After carefully wiping the crimson evidence from his lips he slowly wheeled around with shaking composure to see an inquisitive jeweled eye peeking from behind a shrub.
A little girl took tentative rustling footsteps from out of her hiding place. She could not have been more than five or six years old. Short, white blonde hair softly illuminated like a halo around her round face and her wide eyes stared up in awe at the striking, impossibly pale man towering over her. To her, she believed she had stepped into one of her fairy tales.
Hunger still greedily gnawed at Jasper’s half-filled stomach, but for some reason this child had no particular scent he could pick up on. It made no sense. The grinning girl hopped once forward, and Jasper jumped three feet back in bewilderment. Was she not afraid of him? To his dismay, this strange game of chase continued around the small creek.
Not wanting to risk the innocent’s safety any longer, Jasper stopped and cast a fog of fear in her direction in hopes she would run off. Suddenly, Jasper’s powers met with an invisible shield; he blinked violently and tried again, but it was like oil and water. The little girl simply giggled and skipped closer like a rabbit. In fact, he could not even sense her emotions. What was wrong with her? What was wrong with him? In all his years, he had never met one being - neither human nor vampire - that was impervious to his powers… until now.
“Wh-what are you doing here, little one?” Jasper muttered apprehensively. His throat burned and his instincts urged him to attack.
“Camping.” she answered simply.
What stupid people would go camping when coyotes are running rampant? As if on cue, there was a chorus of wavering howls. Then, as quickly as they came, the clouds closed over us and darkened the evergreens. Jasper suddenly realized that this vulnerable child might look like food to the forest predators as much as she did to him. Even if he were able to scare her away, she might be attacked on her way back.
“Where are your parents?” he implored. He couldn’t stay with her for much longer; he had no idea when his restrain would snap.
The girl looked left, then right, and paused. “I’m not sure. I-I was just walkin’ and...”
Jasper threw a groan of distress up to the sky. He could hear and smell the beasts getting closer. They yapped to each other excitedly as they moved closer to their easy target. The little girl looked a bit scared now and helplessly turned to Jasper.
Then and there he decided that he could not let this child die. He had come too far from the monster that he once was. As if wading through a bog, Jasper knelt down and stiffly held out his arms.
“Come on.” he anxiously gulped. “I’ll take you back safely.”
She immediately scampered into his arms and he thought he had been slapped with a giant wave. Her scent, now right under his nose, gorged all his senses in a thick fog. Somehow she smelled like delicious, irresistible Spring, a fresh perfume that wound its way into his veins like none other before. After so many years, here was this tiny being taunting him to throw away my hard earned trust, his self dignity! Jasper’s eyes flashed with completely renewed thirst, bloodlust; he clenched his fists as tight as he could making an awful stone-crunching sound. The heavy scent in her hair tortured him as he held her gently and took off.
Jasper followed her intoxicating scent backwards along the path she had taken. Each of his bounding leaps was agonizing every muscle in his body screamed to attack. Venom was building in his mouth and his system reacted as it should have. He could bite her now and she would never know what had happened. However, her tiny arms clung even tighter around his neck and the lethal glint in his eyes softened. No, she trusted him.
Eventually, traces of other humans showed up on their course. The sun was starting to set, and people in oddly formal uniforms for the wild were running around with flashlights and calling out in search. With a sigh of relief, he realized he had endured till the end. Jasper proudly stopped just before the clearing and pried the girl off of him as gently as possible. But even when he set her back on her feet she would not leave!
“Are you a prince?” she asked in all innocent seriousness.
“Why would you think that?” he replied, entertaining this childish notion.
“In fairy tales... princes always save their princesses in the forest. And they’re always very polite and very handsome.”
“Ahh, that is true.” he felt himself grinning wryly. He quickly closed his mouth again - it was one step closer to biting her... “But don’t princes always have swords and big white horses too? I don’t have either of those things.”
She frowned slightly and cocked her head as she studied her hero. “I guess so. But even if you aren’t a prince...” She curtsied prettily, which brought out another smirk from Jasper. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“Pleasure is mine... princess.” He gave my best low bow with amusement, while still wary of his impulses. His eyes burst open as she promptly pecked him on the cheek and dashed away. Jasper stared at her with shock as she gracefully pranced back to the campsite with more elegance than a little girl should have, light and airy as a feather, white-gold hair glowing in the orange sunset. Her haunting scent lingered on his skin.
Back at the Cullen manor, the pixie-like one abruptly stopped mid-song as her eyes clouded with an oncoming vision. Alice's premonitions caught her off guard from time to time, and so the others took no particular notice. A moment later, she returned from the fog to the present. Her frightened amber eyes darted around in disorientation. It couldn't be.
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Several years later, Edward came to realize what Jasper had gone through that afternoon. That driving hunger that could not be satisfied because of the beauty it would destroy. Edward found love with the one thing that could hurt him, but that he could not live without - a human girl named Bella. He fought the same battle day after day, but at the same time he was completed because of it. Jasper had criticized his brother for this foolishness, for compromising himself and all of the Cullen clan with his choice of a mate.
But Jasper would soon begin to understand, more than ever. He would rediscover his true weakness that had materialized in his frozen life once before. Somehow by letting her destroy his walls, she would save him.