Rebel (Civil War Period)

Chapter 29..

No P.O.V.

Georgiana was the last to arrive on the clearing. Nobody had noticed her appearance until she was already standing in the first line - if she didn't want to be seen, she could avoid it.

The Volturi had arrived, and Aro was already talking with Carlisle, but it was nothing of importance, mere small-talk.

Georgiana let her gaze wander over her enemies, then she calmly but audibly said, with undoubted authority in her voice: "You have no justified right to attack, Aro. Renesmee is not a vampire. She grows and is not venomous. So what are you here for?"

Several vampires jumped at the sound of her voice, so cool and detached, interrupting the conversation Aro had been leading. That alone nobody would have dared. He turned to her, a smile on his lips. "Georgiana Ellwood, how very nice to see you here."

She raised her eyebrow. Both of them knew that Aro was anything but happy to have her present. "I'm afraid I can't say the same of you." Georgiana tended to be crucially honest, and she did not see why she should sweet-talk in what would be the last moments of her life. All pretending would be of no use, so why bother?

"I see that the child is not a vampire." Aro replied, something between a growl and a smile. "Therefore we will retreat."

Only Jasper and Georgiana did not relax at that. This was not the end. There was more to it, and Aro's expression was proof that he by no means had expected Renesmee to truly be a vampire. It had been nothing but a pretext.

Georgiana's muscles were tensed, and Jasper eyed their surroundings sub-consciously expecting an attack any moment. "What are they intending?" He hissed to Georgiana so that only she was able to hear.

"I've got no idea." She replied, but deep down she guessed why. And was not disappointed.

"But you see, Georgiana, we are not the only coven you have disgruntled. A woman like you tends to make enemies." Aro's voice was calm, almost as if he were inviting Georgiana for dinner. "Some you make as you go, others bear a grudge against you from the beginning..." His eyes lit up with malice, but there was also a subliminal note of indifference. For whatever reason he'd come, it was not to satisfy his own wish. He didn't care whether Georgiana lived or died.

Jasper saw her one second before Georgiana did. Maria.

"You!" Georgiana screeched, and nothing of her cool control was left, she jumped at the other woman the same instant she saw her - and Maria didn't seem disinclined for a fight. Seconds later the air was filled with screeches and hisses.

"Now, now, ladies." Aro shook his head reproachfully, but a smile on his lips. "Let's keep decorum."

"Don't you dare tell me anything about decorum!" Georgiana screeched, the look in her eyes heated and wild. For the first time in the days the Cullen family had known her, she seemed alive.

However, Maria and her moved apart, only to glare at each other over the distance of maybe two meters. Both of them had their hair ruffled and a scratch here and there, from only one minute of fighting.

While the rest of his family wondered what had triggered this in Georgiana, Jasper started to fit puzzle pieces together, and he had a vague idea what the whole picture would be.

"You shouldn't even be here!" Maria hissed spitefully. "You should have died then!"

"Well, you might want to do your job properly the next time!" Georgiana hissed back equally spiteful. "Would save the two of us a lot of trouble!"

"Trouble! What do you know of trouble?! Your life worked out exactly the way you wanted it to, didn't it? You had it all; perfect parents, perfect childhood, perfect lover, perfect husband, perfect everything! What did I have? Nothing!"

"Go on, maybe you will make me cry eventually."

Maria let out a shrill howl of anger. Jasper was reminded how dangerous she was - and he also realized that Georgiana intended to fight her. There was nothing that would hold her back. There never had been.

"I wanted to see what it was about you that made you so powerful - back then, it was said you could make any army be at your feet. I understand why, I do." Maria eyed Georgiana. "I admit you had something about you then. It seemed enough to make the general of the Confederates yours."

Jasper inwardly flinched then.

"When I changed him, I thought he would finally be mine. But even in death you managed to take him from me, to hold him captured in your wicked net!" Maria was talking like a madwoman, but there was a truth in her words that nobody could deny, and Georgiana tried to make out what it meant for her... she knew the man Maria was talking about. Slowly, everything started to fall into place.

There was no mistaking in her words anymore when she turned to Jasper. "And you! I would have given you anything, but you stayed loyal to her!"

That did it - both Georgiana and Jasper realized now what the truth was; they were married. Both of them had believed the other dead, while both had lived on as a vampire... Strange coincidences life played.

Neither of them were given the time to fully grasp the meaning of this. Even if they had been given a decade, it would not yet be enough time to really understand what cruelties life had done to them, what each of them has missed.

Nobody had a chance to say or do anything, when Maria already turned back to Georgiana. "They called you the eagle back then; proud, striking, strong. Cunning, skilled, superior. That was then, however -now you're nothing of that. Tell me, Georgiana, what does an eagle do when his wings are broken?"

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