by Alicorn
I sighed. "I'm going to go through so many clothes. Maybe I should start carrying peroxide with me when I hunt, so it won't stain..."
"Alice is completely thrilled to serve as your personal shopper while you can't go into town," Edward promised me. "Even when you tell her to stay away from the satin and organza and lace. And you aren't going to hurt our finances by being a messy eater. Don't give it a second thought."
"All right, I'll just try to avoid wearing anything I'm particularly attached to, then," I said. "It's lucky that Alice's taste is a bit off-center from mine. Unless she's really agonizing over every item and checking up on my reactions, I probably won't fall in love with her entire shopping trip."
"Esme knows your aesthetics better, I suppose," said Edward. "Judging by your reaction to the house."
I nodded. "You've got a pretty good sense of my musical tastes, though," I said. "I want to hear music, like this..." I waved at my ear. And then I stomped on the ground. "I keep letting time escape without reading my files! I keep being annoyed that I can't remember things, or that they're too difficult or dim or blurry, and I have asolution, and I keep being distracted, and what good are twenty-four hour days if I can be distracted for half of them by how pretty colorsare?"
"Well, then, perhaps that should be next," Edward said reasonably.
"I have to get clean, I'm covered in blood and moose spit and moose hair," I growled. "Why do we not just open a butchering facility? Those usually slit the animals' throats anyway and drain the blood, don't they? No one would care what happened to the blood afterwards. We could just drink it."
"We've considered it," Edward said, and he put his arm around my waist as we started walking back to the house. "It could be done, but one of us would have to be on site to retrieve the blood without arousing suspicion by asking a human employee for it. That means staying in one place as long as we want to use the facility, or at least within a close radius. Since we like to live fairly close to humans most of the time, that's untenable."
That seemed like a solvable problem, if I thought about it - but no, I had other things to do, and all the time in the world was suddenly looking likenot enough. "Ah," I said, setting the problem aside for later, if the annoyance of hunting ever grew to the point where it was the best thing I could be doing.
* * *
Back at the house, I showered, changed into one of the serviceable outfits Alice had brought home for me, and then I unpacked my computer. Someone, probably Esme (responsible for whipping the house into shape) or Jasper (resident electronics guy) had already set up Internet.
I composed e-mails. One to Renée, apologizing for my incommunicativity: "I've been the sickest I've ever been," I said, not entirely untruthfully. "But Norway is amazing. I absolutely love it here. We're going to Ukraine next." Foreshadowing, I thought, and I chuckled softly to myself. Charlie got an almost identical message.
Gianna was the other person I wanted to contact. And she got more information. Maybe, with me a vampire, she'd think I was an appropriate audience for more details. I told her I'd turned, that it had sucked but afterwards everything was awesome, that I was going to get married on Wednesday.
Then I read my entire folder full of compiled notes and diary entries. This took me about five hours; I could read nearly as fast as the computer could page through the document for me. Once I'd read through it all, I effortfully forced myself to retrieve as much as I could directly from memory to attach to each line from the documents. That took twelve hours. When I had finished all of this, my parents had both e-mailed me back with requests for pictures of fjords, and Alice had e-mailed me pictures of fjords. I attached the pictures to my replies to Renée and Charlie, yelled a thank-you to Alice, and then shut my laptop.
I found Rosalie lounging on a towel. On the roof. She was sunning herself; she couldn't hope to tan, but she could reflect tiny rainbows and set up a mirror to look at herself. I wandered around the house, wondering if she'd used a ladder or if there was a trellis or something, but found no convenient way to climb up. I might actually have been able to make the jump, but would probably have reflexively caught the roof's edge if I'd just barely missed a neat landing. So instead I climbed a tree and sprang from that vantage point towards my sister-in-law-to-be.
"Hi, Bella," said Rosalie, glancing at me as I landed on all fours beside her. Her face was neutral, so I didn't know if she still felt bad about having considered killing me, but I decided to bring it up anyway just in case.
"I wanted to let you know that I don't blame you for what happened while I was turning," I said, arranging myself into a sitting position and hugging my knees. "Please don't feel bad about it, whatever Edward says. I did ask."
Rosalie regarded me evenly. "I don't think he told you all of it," she said, finally. "But I'm not going to, either."
Well... that was frustrating. But I did have other things to talk about with Rosalie, and did not want to spend the next thirty minutes running around and kicking things, so I told myself that Rosalie probably had a good reason to want to keep this to herself, whatever it was; that if I ever decided it mattered very much, Edward thought I was the most persuasive creature on Earth and knew all about it; and that regardless of the detail I'd missed, I was now alive and a vampire and in fine fettle.
Once I'd managed to get that emotion under control, I said, "There was something else I wanted to talk to you about, too." And I explained my project to learn from the best about how to prevent myself from eating anyone.
Rosalie's reply was more or less what I'd expected. She had hated the men she'd killed - well, not the guards, but they were protecting the one she'd hated most of all. She had not wanted to accept their blood as fuel. Rage and contempt and loathing had overwhelmed her thirst.
"What about the people you'd have passed on the way to them?" I asked. "They lived in Rochester, it's not a tiny rural community."
"I was very single-minded," she told me. "I didn't focus on little sensations and tasks like you've been doing - I only wanted to do one thing. The other humans were tempting, but the death I wanted to deal for its own sake was urgent."
Interesting. That was useful. If there was just something that I couldn't bear to interrupt, maybe I could ignore humans whose consumption would distract me from completing it.
That seemed to be all the wisdom she had to impart. I thanked her, and tumbled gracefully off the roof, spinning three times and landing on my feet without a stumble.
* * *
Carlisle was in his study, reading. His door was open, so I went right in, and he put down his book. "Hello, Bella. What is it?" he asked, looking at me in a very paternal manner.
I couldn't think how to feel about that. I had a father... on another continent who I hadn't grown up with and who I wouldn't be able to see in person for months, if not years, if ever. I supposed I could start thinking of Carlisle as my father-in-law, just a little in advance.
Come to think of it, hadn't Rosalie had living family when she'd been turned? Had she simply cut them off? What about Emmett? Edward's parents had died in the same plague that had nearly killed him - but Esme's? Carlisle's relatives were surely long dead by 2005, and given the origin story I already knew for him, I didn't think they'd have received him well after he was a vampire. I didn't know about Jasper. Alice still had plans in the works, yet untouched, to dig up her origins from the information I'd funneled her from James, but she wouldn't remember any kin she found.
But Carlisle was looking at me expectantly, and I filed away those questions for later. "I'm trying to pick up tips on how to not eat anybody," I told him.
Carlisle's story began with self-revulsion and a series of suicide attempts, which he described in low, calm tones entirely unsuitable for tales of jumping from heights, trying to drown, and even seeking death by starvation. That last was what had led to the epiphany: he'd gotten thirsty enough that a passing herd of deer had compelled his feeding, and he'd found that they could sustain his life. Fin
ding this preferable, he'd exercised sheer strength of will to gradually develop what amounted to an immunity to the temptation of human blood.
I stared at him. That was no help at all. I lovedbeing a vampire. I couldn't look at my moonlit skin with disgust, I wasn't repulsed by my speed and power and beauty. A solution to the bloodlust that relied on self-directed speciesism was not the one for me.
I thanked Carlisle anyway, and made my exit.
* * *
On Monday, it was decided - Jasper the lone holdout against unanimity - that it was a good idea to test my ability to hold up around actual humans in a lower stakes situation. Demonstrating my lack of control, if it was going to be a problem, was better handled under friendly circumstances and not in a courthouse somewhere in Ukraine.
Various ways of getting a test human to the house without arousing any suspicion were considered: requesting missionaries, ordering pizza, hiring a repairman for the master bathroom's sink. (It really didn't work, although Esme was capable of fixing it and had it on her list of improvements.) Eventually it was decided that none of these were sufficiently anonymous if things did... go wrong. The address of the last known destination of the deceased, should I eat our visitor, would be on record.
Until Jasper mentioned it, no one considered the possibility that I'd lunge for the human and be restrained successfully. I was stronger than any of the others, even Emmett, in my newborn year. While it was feasible to restrain newborns anyway, the techniques known all involved things like ripping their arms off. (Jasper's mood alteration could help, and I authorized him to use it if I looked dangerously lunge-y, but it was not powerful enough to even slow me down if I got going.) I was all for whatever newborn-wrangling tricks were available as an alternative to murder, especially since detached vampire limbs could be put back. But Edward snarled when Jasper made the suggestion. I couldn't calm him down until all of the others promised that I was not to be dismembered.
"Edward, do you think I am going to try to eat my experimental subject?" I asked testily.
"No, of course not, love," he said soothingly, switching instantly into reassurance. He patted my hand.
"Okay, so if I'm not going to try to eat him or her, then it doesn't matter what would happen if I did try, right?" I said reasonably. I wasn't so confident in myself, and wanted the precautions so that I could be stopped in the worst case. But if he was convinced I was perfectly self-controlled, then I could reason the same result out of him.
Edward scowled at Jasper, who must have been thinking some unapproved thought. "Bella, I have to listen to them thinking it, if they're planning to do any of those things," he said. "I have to see it -"
I remembered his roar at Rosalie. "So get out of range, don't watch," I said. "I don't want to kill anyone. If I have to spend four seconds without one or both arms to not kill anyone, then that isbetter than killing someone. If you can't stand being aware of that happening to me, then don't. But it is too important that I leave our visitor alive."
Edward hated the idea, but with the situation presented this way, he reluctantly acknowledged that, in fact, it was a poor choice to increase the risk of my killing my first sapient snack. He didn't protest further while Jasper told the others how to incapacitate me if I went for the human's throat.
The discussion returned to the provenance of the guinea pig. Eventually, we agreed that Alice should run out to a highway and pretend to need a ride home. She invented an elaborate little story about how her car had been stolen, full of narrative filigree and affected sad faces, which would probably convince anyone who stopped for her in the first place. Alice was the right choice for the job because she could see who was coming and reject cars with more than one occupant, keeping the scale as minimal as possible. She was also small and cute and could look helpless more readily than most of us.
A small part of me was screaming that this wasn't right, that if I needed to do a test than I oughtn't do a test, that I couldn't risk some stranger's life just so I could have my wedding a particular way and participate in society a little sooner, that it could wait -
It could wait, that was certain. I could continue to live in the middle of nowhere in Norway for a decade without ever seeing a human, if I liked. I could ask a Denali vampire to fly in and perform the ceremony. For that matter, I was pretty sure I could wear Edward down if I had to.
But in order for me to ever safely walk into a human society - if I wanted to go to college, or buy my own clothes, or have a proper tour of Europe instead of just the uninhabited parts -
Then I needed to do something like what I was doing. I couldn't just drive into Oslo and get out of the car and then discover, oops, I'm going to massacre that traffic jam full of tinned treats. Meeting one human in an isolated location, surrounded by more controlled vampires who would keep me in check if need be, was the safest way to test my limits.
The timing was still not forced. It didn't have to be this day. But Alice was as certain as she ever was of anything that I would be okay, and that decided me. Alice was never perfectly reliable, but at her surest, she was more likely to be right than guesses based on how long I'd been a vampire. She'd thought Emmett was all right, going to the last flying lesson his instructor ever taught, and he'd been past the newborn stage. If she thought I was all right now, then doing the test now wasn't significantly less safe than doing it in 2015. Since there were small reasons of convenience and preference that made me want to join the world sooner rather than later...
I closed my eyes and focused my thoughts on my strategies.
* * *
Edward's: hate the monster that feeding would make me, refuse to be that creature. Focus on everything but contemplating the taste. I had voluntarily cut culinary pleasures out of my life in exchange for the benefits of vampirism, and must not dwell on the loss. Must hold my breath. (Although I should take one small breath, when I thought I had hold of myself - I didn't know if I could get through all the vows in one lungful of air.)
Rosalie's: Urgently, intensely want something that wasn't compatible with drinking the human's blood. I was good at that sort of thing. What did I want...
I wanted to see my mother again. I knew it was only an outside chance that I'd be able to do it under the best circumstances - she'd know at once that I'd changed, when she saw me, and that wasn't safe for either of us - but if it ever became possible, I wanted to be able to go to her. If I ever ate anyone, even less than a week after turning, I'd never trust myself around any humans I cared about. Same with my father. If there was any possibility that they could be part of my life, properly, then I wanted to preserve that chance.
I wasn't too keen on the possibility of having my arms ripped off. I'd like to avoid that.
I wanted whatever hapless person Alice brought home to return to his or her family tonight, with no idea that they'd been in danger. I focused on imaginary characteristics of the person, knowing they were fictitious but finding them helpful anchors. Maybe she'd bring a mother of four, on her way home from buying the vanilla she needed to make her eldest a birthday cake. That vanilla needed to go in that cake and if I ate the poor lady, it never would. In fact, even if I didn't eat her, and she just saw something incriminating, she might not be safe - although if she didn't tell anyone, maybe it would be okay. But I shouldn't think that, shouldn't give myself leeway like that: she must not even see anything remarkable about my behavior.
I wanted a perfect record. Jasper had a hard time even with intact humans - everyone except Carlisle was iffy around exposed blood. If I failed this time, then it would be harder every occasion in the future. Getting it right every time was really the easiest thing to do, no matter how hard it seemed once there was a living breathing human standing in front of me.
I wanted control of myself. I wanted to, without Jasper's emotional help or physical restraint, to behave in the fashion I chose to behave. I wanted freedom from my instincts except when I endorsed their directives.
Was that enough?
I cast about for other things to add, anything that could bolster my resolve.
I didn't want to disappoint my family.
I'd started, tentatively, to think of them that way - my parents-in-law, my sisters, my brothers. My fiancé. I knew how they managed Jasper, I knew that they loved him in spite of his need to take such care. But I didn't want Edward to look at me the way Alice looked at Jasper when they were among humans. I wanted to be able to race around the world without needing to be babysat or worried about, without avoiding population centers.
I sucked in a breath and conjured a vivid mental image of the Cullens - my family - huddled around me, talking over each other in their eagerness to congratulate me for controlling myself so young, all of them full of pride and excitement. The smug grin Alice would wear, the vicarious fraternal joy in Emmett's laugh. Esme's warmly expressed delight, twin to Carlisle's quiet approval. Rosalie's wordless, wry acknowledgement and Jasper's envy. Edward's radiant admiration.
I wanted that.
"Alice is on her way," whispered Edward.
Esme fetched me a pair of brown contact lenses. "It's not quite your own brown, but they won't know that," she assured me quietly. "The contacts won't hurt but they will be annoying - there are imperfections in the lens and you'll be able to see them. They'll dissolve after a few hours but will last long enough." I popped the little hemispheres into my eyes, interested to discover that I no longer had any impulse to flinch away from objects approaching them. Little flaws in the contacts drew my vision and my eyes refocused disorientingly; I blinked. I could see past them well enough to function, although I wouldn't want to try anything fancy with them in. Esme also handed me a water bottle.
Everyone tensed up, waiting for the human, ready to take me apart if I made a wrong move.