His Cat, Her Major ~ Jasper Hale

Introducing Maya Swan

Maya Swan was never what anyone would call a typical child. While all the other girls were at home having tea parties or playing dress up, she was running away from home. It's not that she didn't love her home life and her family, she did. She just also loved to get out and explore the world around her. Which often led to her sneaking out her window on weekends or after school. She would spend hours exploring both the city and the wilderness, going where ever her curiosity took her. Most people would think that this would be very dangerous, especially for a six-year-old. But Maya had one advantage that other children did not and it helped to keep her out of trouble; she was a shifter.

She was not actually Charlie and Renee Swan's biological daughter like Bella was. Charlie had been driving home one day from Seattle when he had passed by a car accident and being the police officer and good guy he was, quickly pulled over to try and help. Unfortunately, the adults had died on impact, leaving their year-old daughter the only survivor of the wreck. Charlie had gotten her out and followed the ambulance to the hospital where he had learned that the poor child had no other family.

He and Renee had been trying to have another child to give their daughter, who had just turned one, a sibling but sadly they had been informed that the chances of Renee having another child were small. As such Charlie brought Renee in the next day to see the child and they both decided that they would adopt her.

Renee had loved having two daughters. One with Charlie's brown eyes and hair and her facial structure, and the other with silky black hair and bright green eyes. What she did not love however was Forks, the small town in which they lived. So, when the girls were four, she packed them into the car and moved them to Phoenix, Arizona.

Maya was very upset about this, as she loved her father and the forest at the edge of their yard that she could spend hours playing in. As such, while Bella was happy only spending two weeks a year with their father, she spent the entire summer.

It was actually her first summer back that she and her father discovered that she could shift. It was after Bella had left and he had been in the backyard setting up the grill. She had climbed onto the counter trying to sneak a cookie when he had come in and startled her. Which caused her to unbalance and fall off the counter. What landed on the floor however, was not a child, but a small black kitten with bright green eyes in a tangle of her clothes. They had both panicked at this and had spent over an hour trying to figure out how to change her back.

Charlie had been shocked at her abilities, but did not love her any less because of them and from that day on he became her rock as she tried to figure out what exactly she could do. They spent everyday testing out her abilities and helping her learn to control them so she did not shift by accident. By the time summer came to an end she had enough control to not shift if she was startled or scared and could shift between forms at will. However, she still struggled to control her shifting when she got angry. Which could prove to be a problem as her dad had made her promise not to tell anyone about her abilities, not even Bella or her mom. He had thought that Bella was far to young to really understand it or keep it a secret and Renee was just too talkative to not mention it by mistake.

This meant that Maya upon her return to Phoenix, could only practice her shifting when she was alone which caused her to spend even more time away from home. This in turn upset Renee, whose idea of a perfect daughter was one that preferred to be home with her like Bella did. She eventually began locking Maya's windows from the outside in an attempt to keep her in, but Maya just kept finding more and more creative ways to get out. She honestly didn't mind it at all and actually considered it to be a fun game she played with her mother.

As for her relationship with her sister, Bella, well it wasn't going too well. Bella hated not being an only child and having to share her things and parent's attention. It did not matter to her that Maya was rarely inside or home and that when she was, she was usually happily curled up in her room for a nap. What mattered to her was that there was another child for her parents to even think about. As such she had made it her mission to remind Maya at every turn that her real parents were dead and Bella was the only true daughter of the family.

Maya had decided early on that she didn't really care what Bella thought. She thought that Bella was weird and boring and did not understand how she could hate the idea of exploring or spending time in the woods. In fact, the only thing she enjoyed about her adopted sister was her insults. She found it funny when Bella called her a "stray", not knowing that Maya was actually a cat. However, sometimes Bella got on her nerves and so to avoid shifting in front of her she would find herself going on longer adventures than usual.