𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬.
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𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻 / 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗗𝘂𝗻𝗲
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A decision she made for the sake of Alice.
Coraline never thought about leaving her coven by choice, even if it was just a short time for she didn't want to be alone in a cruel world where everything and everyone dies around her. It's a sad way to live, a way she didn't want to go to. Not when she has family who expects her with open arms.
But she wouldn't burden them to her distasteful emotions. Coraline wanted time, as much as she can siphon and enough for Alice not to be waiting for too long. Love is what she fears but wants to heal to experience it. Would her returning to Rome be such a bad idea to begin?
In the clearing where they all agreed to fight battle in is empty. The Cullens are still on their hunting grounds, claiming strength by every animal they fed on and killed. Even then, Everleigh's family had arrived an hour earlier than needed after they fed in Seattle. The numbers increased heavily but it was needed much to their dismay.
"You've decided to leave?" Aspen gapes shockingly, unamused and her tone is definitely not as appealing as it sounds. "Us. After this battle is done, you're going away?" She repeats again, wanting to hear incorrectly but she heard right.
"It's what I've decided. Just a few months, hopefully." Coraline would merely sound like a fool if she said the reason out loud. But judging by how Everleigh and Caspian seem to take her news, they didn't at all seem surprise and just accepted.
"You're doing yourself a great favor, Cora. We can't ever deny you of that for wanting your mate." Caspian says gently, a hint of boastfulness in his glinting orbs.
"With Alice?" Everleigh hoped, wanting to be correct of her assumption but Coraline shakes her head much to her disappointment.
"I wouldn't want to pull her away from her family."
"Yet she's pulling you away from yours." Aspen snarls, find it hard to believe that a simple finding of a mate and Coraline was beginning to change. Change in a way no one would want to but they held no obligation to prevent her from being happy. For wanting to be better for Alice.
"Aspen." Everleigh sharply calls her name, knowing that Aspen has been a bit upset by Rosalie and Emmett. All because of love, Aspen was bitter she can't have that as well as people around her.
"You don't approve?" Coraline asks, hiding her fear of her own sister not wanting her to pursue what she wants.
"I don't!"
"Aspen!"
Coraline wouldn't blame her. If she was in Aspen's shoes, she would be angry as well but she claimed those outburst as a normal reaction. Afterall, why should she deserve someone as good as Alice Cullen is?
"We should've never agreed to help them fight this battle. It's done us nothing but damage." Aspen claims heavily, remembering the lost love she let slip away from her and has to live with it. No matter how much she tells them that she's fine, Aspen would never be fine. She gets to see the woman she loves with another man. Another suitor who is far better for her and that frightened Aspen.
"Aspen, we would never turn down a friend's help." Everleigh was now standing in front of her, seeing the guarded and remorseful look on her face. Remorse because she should've fought harder to convince her coven not to help Carlisle and just move someplace else.
"I understand why you disapprove. We would leave sooner than you'd think, it would give you the time you need away from Rose." Caspian did his best to lay it out gently. He really did but even that isn't enough.
"This isn't about me and her." She snarls.
"What did she told you when she came to see you in that graduation party?" Coraline questions, hands clasped together in front of her in an attentive and focused stance.
Aspen's eyes flashed a sense of pain, "I evaded her." She looks away.
"We both know that's not true." Rosalie is persistent, always got what she wanted and Coraline was sure the two of them talked. She just wasn't sure about what and seeing Aspen with enraged emotions might've given her an answer.
Out of insensitivity and madness, Aspen launched forward and evaded Everleigh who tried to stop her. Even if Coraline had seen her coming, she didn't stop Aspen from shoving them both down on the hard floor with a harsh thud.
"Aspen, enough!" Everleigh demands, sped forward but a visible form of shield stops her and Caspian from stopping them. Even when she slammed her hand against it with such force, it didn't falter. "Aspen!"
"She resented me when I pleaded Carlisle to save her when Leigh didn't want to. You thought it was a bad idea to turn Rosalie — I saved her and. . ." Aspen's eyes filled tears, stinging her vision while grabbing the collar of Coraline's hoodie very firmly. They were on the ground, a dangerous proximity of a fight neither would ever think they will do.
"Aspen, let your sister go — be rational!"
"What did she say?" Coraline asks, her head upheld and didn't push her sister away in seeing her eyes form tears that cannot drop. Their conversation is a mumble, a shield away from impending ears to listen to and they could hear Caspian and Leigh's voice of protests, hands slamming on the bubble formed around them.
"She didn't love me anymore." Aspen whispers, barely recognizing her own voice as it was so unusual. "I expected it but. . . I didn't know it would hurt so much."
Aspen resented herself as well for being so selfish and condemning Rosalie to such a life. It was hurtful to know that she was holding false hope the entire years she's departed away from Rosalie Hale that day. Even without a goodbye, Aspen Dune's heart shattered and expected to be mend but it isn't the simple as she thought it would have been.
"Nobody deserves what you feel, Aspen. It's rightful of you to be angry at everyone. Just don't force love because it isn't meant to be treated in that way." Coraline felt her hand weaken hold on her clothes, wrinkling her hoodie.
The shield slowly fades into oblivion and their defeaned ears return to worried immortals. The shield worked too much and Coraline was taken aback when the Cullens arrived as well. Aspen was pulled to stand by her adoptive mother, holding her by her shoulders and away from Coraline who was helped to stand by Alice who was seemed worried.
Growling wolves were at the edge of the treeline, watching the scene happen and they wouldn't aim to get close to a vampire fight that didn't involve them.
"Let's talk in a private setting." Everleigh was beyond furious, never in her years has she seen any of her own family fight let alone physically. It was justified, knowing she was really mad when she didn't acknowledge the Cullens and left to go into the woods, forcing Aspen to go with her.
"I was worried she'd kill you." Alice admits, not paying much attention to Caspian who caught the Cullens up to speed of what happened near them. Alice holding Coraline's shoulder, afraid to let go and she'd get hurt like that again. It was a defensive trait she didn't know she has. But Coraline didn't seem to mind.
"You've seen it before?" Coraline asks, could already see the guilty emotion in Alice's goldened eyes who nods.
"Earlier in the car. I could've warn you but you left so quickly." Alice merely grins in the dark. "I could've prevented it too but I think Aspen needed to hear what you've said."
"More than others." Coraline looks past Alice, seeing Rosalie who was looking at the direction where Aspen and Everleigh disappeared into. "Now, about that fight you mentioned earlier. . ." She begins, not wanting for Emmett and Rosalie to overhear.
Alice smiles sadly and brings her hand back to her side. "It's still going to happen. Even more now than before."