#alice's creator

[jessicanjpa]

Which is your favorite Twilight short film (The Storytellers: New Voices of the Twilight Saga)?

Consumed (Jane and Alec)

Turncoats (Carlisle meets Garrett)

Sunrise (Benjamin/Tia)

The Mary Alice Brandon File (Alice backstory)

The Groundskeeper (Alice and her creator)

We've Met Before (Alice/Jasper)

Masque (Carlisle/Esme)

Voting ended onNov 4, 2023

(You can find the short films here and learn more about the project here.)

[seireneozsstuff]

Ok but ever when i think on Alice and her creator, i think on this:

[volturialice]

three christmases

last fic of the decade? last fic of the decade! 

this is part 1/3. had planned to release all 3 parts together but then a huge unsaved chunk got deleted (oops.) parts 2 and 3 will be up tomorrow!

summary: three very different christmases in the life of alice cullen.

rating: mature (but this part is gen. mature stuff later)

pairings: alice cullen/jasper hale

length: 1.3k out of ~6k

part 1/3

i. christmas 1919

He appears at her window at half past ten. The air is chilly enough to raise gooseflesh on the exposed back of her neck as he whisks her away, through the grounds, over the wall, and into the forest—but Alice doesn’t complain. She lives for these nighttime jaunts. She focuses on keeping the little bottle hidden from Aslam, though of course he’s noticed that she’s holding on with one arm instead of the usual two.

“Something wrong, child?” he asks, when at last they reach their clearing. He sets her down, eyeing the arm concealed behind her back with amused suspicion.

Alice laughs. “No. I brought you a present.” With a flourish, she produces the tin, offering it to him. He takes it, turning it over in his weathered stone hands.

“Shoe polish?” his voice is amused.

Alice crosses her arms. “There are only so many things I get the chance to steal. It was this or a hunk of stale bread,” she pouts.

Aslam’s laugh rumbles through the clearing. “You are right,” he chuckles. “I have more use for shoe polish. Do not misunderstand, little one—I am grateful for the gift. Only confused as to the occasion.”

Alice plucks up a handful of twigs, tossing them into the ashy remains of the fire from last time. “It’s Christmas!”

Aslam blurs out of sight for a moment, then reappears with his arms full of sticks. “Ah. Is it indeed? Your countrymen set much store by this holiday, I have observed. The traditions are…strange.”

“I suppose many traditions are, if you didn’t grow up with them,” says Alice, taking the sticks and adding them to the pile. “But I could explain Christmas, if you want.”

“Very well, child. What do you remember?”

“Well,” Alice chews her lower lip thoughtfully, “The dull part was going to church. I never liked sitting still for all that time.”

Aslam is piling up more kindling. He darts away for more dead branches, but Alice doesn’t doubt that he’s still listening, even when he’s out of sight.

“What did you like?” he asks, reappearing again.

“I liked all the singing,” explains Alice, and hums a few bars of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.”

Aslam smiles. He has a wonderful grin. When his red eyes crinkle up at the corners, they transform the austere handsomeness of his face into something almost approachable.

“What else?” he prompts.

“I liked decorating the house. There are all sorts of ways—most anything can be turned into a decoration, if you use it right. I’m good with a needle, so I made a lot of cranberry garlands.”

“Red berries, on a string? I have seen those,” observes Aslam, “and wondered at their purpose.”

“They don’t have one!” laughs Alice. “But I think they look festive. The best decorations are pine boughs, though. They made the house smell divine. And the tree. I liked smelling the tree.”

Aslam pulls a matchbox from his pocket, and strikes one. “Ah, yes, the tree. Does the tree have a purpose?”

Alice shrugs. “It’s something else to decorate. I always wanted to put the star at the top, but I was never tall enough.”

In the light of the single match, Aslam looks contemplative. His red eyes flicker from Alice to the wavering flame before he blows it out with a decisive huff. The next second, he’s on his feet, offering her a hand up.

“All right, little one,” he says, turning away and sinking into a crouch. “Climb on.”

Alice obeys. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

He runs and runs, for what must be miles—much farther than usual. The cool air whooshes past Alice’s face, colder at this speed—she shivers and shrinks down against Aslam’s back, out of the wind. If only he had body heat. If only Alice didn’t have body heat. If only she were strong enough, fast enough, to run beside him.

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear is still running through her head, so after a while she picks it up again, hums the rest of it to herself. Aslam doesn’t mind; he likes to hear her sing. Once he taught her a song in Hindavi. She hums that one next, and thinks it makes him smile but it’s hard to tell from her perch on his back.

The trees that blur by grow taller, the branches overhead thickening until they blot out the patches of sky. Aslam’s fleet footsteps fall silent as the dry leaves and underbrush give way to a carpet of pine needles. There’s a heavy scent in the air—pine sap, crisp and fresh and pungent, searing the inside of Alice’s nose. It smells like being clean.

Aslam whips to a stop at the base of what must be the tallest tree in the forest, its trunk almost broader than he is tall. “Close your eyes and hold on tight,” he orders, and then they’re flying again, nearly as fast, except this time the swooping sensation in the pit of Alice’s stomach tells her they’re climbing up.

There’s the lightest of rustling sounds as they stop. “Very well,” says Aslam. “Open your eyes.”

Alice does, and blinks in the sudden wash of blue brilliance. They’re so high up that there’s nothing to come between them and the moon, the heavens. The sky spreads out like a great glittering bowl above them, every star clear as a diamond in the crisp winter air. Below them the forest canopy is a dark ocean, pointy conifer tops stretching on for miles in every direction.

Gingerly, Alice relaxes her grip enough to climb down onto a branch, careful not to scrape her feet on the rough bark. From here, tucked against the trunk, the view is spectacular.

“There you are,” says Aslam. “Pine boughs, and a tree with a star at the top.” He points up, to where a bright bluish star shines almost directly above them.

Alice laughs, craning her neck to look up. “Lots of stars! You’ve spoiled me.”

They stay there for a long time, soaking in the view and the scent and each other’s company until Alice’s fingers start to go numb around her branch. Then she has to close her eyes again as Aslam descends in a single bound, the exhilarating rush of the fall making her giggle.

On the run back to their clearing, he tells her in a low voice about the stars they were looking at, and how the people where he comes from believe they govern fate. “You would be very popular there, with your dreams,” he assures her. “Your gift would be cherished for what it is.”

There’s a longing in his voice when he says it. He wants greater things for her, even if he doesn’t have a plan yet.

Alice switches the subject back to traditions when they reach their clearing and coax the fire to life, asking Aslam about the holidays they celebrate in India. Between all the different religions and cultures, there seem to be a great many—he tells her of prayers and fasting, dances and feasts, candles and colorful artworks made from powder and petals. She falls asleep to the tale of a great demon burned in effigy, imagining as her eyelids drift closed that she can see a faint figure twisting in the flames.

She dozes dreamlessly, warmed through by the fire. Aslam watches her with eyes redder than the blaze, and thinks about the stars, and fate, and the frailty of humans—their narrow minds, their fickle hearts, their brittle bodies crumbling beneath his hands—so fragile. Not like this girl, whose resilience runs deep. He feels—no, he knows, with all the conviction of one who has lived for centuries—she isn’t meant to be human.

“Happy Christmas, little one,” he murmurs. His decision is made, at long last.

Alice does not wake, but begins to dream.

.

stay tuned for part 2: the dream (we’re doing like a cloud atlas nested story thing just go with it)

[jessicanjpa]

Okay but if James was such a good tracker, why didn't he find Alice after he killed her creator?

I seem to remember something about it not being a fun challenge anymore since she was already changing (was that in the book?). Which... wouldn't he just wait for her to wake up and then resume the chase? He's lost out on the blood, but her newborn speed and visions would make it even more challenging.

Anyway that's boring. James tried to find her but her creator had buried her in rotten potatoes. Caretaker 1 James 0.

I mean it's canon that he fell for the Stinky Socks Subterfuge so.

[volturialice]

What are your hcs about Alice's creator? 🙈 Like, how do you picture him and have you thought about his background story or something like that? I for some weird reason always thought he worked on the asylum but as a doctor, not necessarily a groundskeeper

ok ok here goes. hc #1 has to do with this new moon quote:

see that? every thought. so when he touched alice’s hand, I think aro got all her human memories, including the memories of her bond with her creator.

and then he just…decided not to mention it. filed the info away for future use. (he’s hoping he can use it as an incentive to tempt her to join the volturi someday. “come to the dark side…we have cookies your memories”)

and it’s not a super detailed backstory, but hc #2 has to do with alice’s creator’s gift. I imagine he was some kind of healer in his human life, and his vampire gift was the ability to take away pain. when he bites alice and is about to go to his death, he decides his final gift to her will be to ease the pain of her transformation, so he turns his gift Up To Eleven and uses it on her, then leaves.

but he’d never used his gift at that intensity before, and instead of just taking away her physical pain and stopping there, it takes away all of her painful memories, which is—you guessed it—all of them. (even happy memories of her family and her creator are painful in hindsight because of her family’s rejection and her creator’s sacrifice. the gift is like a tumblr algorithm only it flags everything as BAD PAIN instead of “this post has been marked Explicit”)

I go back and forth on whether I see alice’s creator as a doctor or groundskeeper/hired help type figure, but I lean toward the second thing. First because I want carlisle to be Unique And Special, and second because I think if you eat humans you have to move around a lot to avoid suspicion so it’s tough to hold more visible jobs.

I kind of imagine him like saoirse ronan’s character in byzantium: the kind of human-eating vampire who specifically looks for people he can mercy-kill, prey he can put out of their misery. the poor conditions in asylums (malnutrition, disease, etc) led to high death rates, so it would make sense for him to “hunt” there.

[volturialice]

What do you think would have been of Alice had that vampire who turned her not died? And do you consider the short films canon or do you have you own regarding all that asylum thing?

I like short film canon! well, not so much the groundskeeper (too rushed and trying waaaay too hard to be a tarantino film) but the mary alice brandon file and we’ve met before were so good! truly…s/o to the short films for saying Jalice Rights

in the case of the groundskeeper, I think the medium of short film severely limited what would have been better told as a longer story. If I were going to tell the story of alice meeting her creator and her eventual escape from the asylum into vampire-hood, (and I…haven’t ruled it out, like I just may have already written something ;)))) I would take my time and really make it character- and emotion-driven.

I think if the vampire who turned alice hadn’t died, she would have had a really happy start, and a much more solid intro into How To Be A Vampire. she’d know all the rules, and her creator would take extra care to help keep her gift a secret so as not to attract the attention of the volturi (you can bet that dude is shaking his vampire fist at edward from the vampire afterlife for exposing her to them.) I think she’d still have her visions of life with the cullens and jasper, and whether or not her creator would be included in those would depend on his willingness to give up human blood. If he’s pro-vegetarianism? great, he joins the cullens as sort of a wacky great uncle. if not? he stays a nomad but comes back to visit alice all the time, sort of like peter and charlotte for jasper.

tbh, thinking about alice’s creator makes me Big Sad. I mean, this guy loved her so much that he literally died for her, and she can’t even remember him! it also makes me sad to think about alice alone for ~30 years, dreaming of the future, craving companionship and not knowing she was already so loved. as someone who was hardcore failed by her human father, she deserves not only one but TWO wholesome vampire dads!! Justice For Alice’s Creator 2k19

[jessicanjpa]

It actually would have been interesting for Carlisle to be friends with Alice's creator—they're the only two vampires that we know had a real job in the human world, right?