Falling To The Sun | B. Swan + E. Cullen

soixante-dix

It passes in a blur. Well, mostly a blur, but it goes by fast, too fast, and before she knows it they're back in Forks freshly dressed as they run through the woods.

Roman would loathe to admit that it was fighting ware, something stylish and chosen carefully by Alice, pulled from one of the many backpacks that she hadn't even known that they had, and while Kachiri, Nahuel and Huilen respectfully denied the offer of new clothes, their small group looked incredibly put together.

She was in her regular hiking boots, the same pair that she had worn the entire time away as if for luck with a slim, dark windbreaker paired with a tight pair of pants. She looked very typical, very Roman, that she couldn't help but feel incredible and powerful -- hopefully optimistic with a rose-tinted view of how this was all going to go. She was ready and her romantic heart reared its head at the thought of being reunited with her mates and daughter, claiming that her coming in chancing the tides was so romantic that everyone else might actually be sick.

And goodness, the chance to see Seth -- her little brother that had been shoved to the back of her mind to keep the guilt from becoming dual waves of unbearable guilt only to have it resurface more and more the closer that they got.

Alice had explained that they were set to meet in the same clearing that they had faced Victoria's newborn army. This time she was allowed to come in a cruel, twisted turn of fate that made her so inconceivably distraught that she had ever wished to be there with them, to begin with.

After having finally finding Nahuel, Alice took the time to fully explain everything that she had planned down to the moment of them arriving and the importance of their timing. Kachiri was there to help Roman in the end in a way that Alice or Jasper hadn't been able to. Nahuel had been on the move, unpredictable in every way that she as a tracker was able to perceive, but with someone that was native to the land, they had been able to work out his path well enough to catch them both. From there, it had been a matter of convincing, of demonstrating Romulus and letting his mother, letting Roman herself beg for his help as someone that didn't want to lose her child.

It resonated with them quite well as they declared that they would come and prove that he was no threat to the existence of their species.

More than that, it was a moment that had brought Roman to her knees with dry sobs as she held her son.

Nahuel was 150 years old. His ageing had slowed until it stopped completely and as he was. Her Romulus was going to stay with her forever, just as she had always known, but now she knew, now she had the proof that had decimated every tiny, niggling shred of worry and doubt that had been left to linger in her mind.

He was the bringer of so many great things and Romulus absolutely loved the man.

Roman reached back to feel her son at her back, checking to make sure that he still held tight now that he was clinging to her as opposed to being ported around in the carrier as they had been doing the entire time. The boy had sited it to be embarrassing and didn't want anyone to see him like that, especially his sister.

Her frozen heart skipped at the thought of seeing her daughter.

"Steady yourself, Roman. You have to keep your thoughts steady," Jasper scolds gently, reminding her of the strained, rushed practice that they had done at hiding things away.

It was difficult at first, impossible to test and worse, gave her a terrible headache that she believed only possible as a human, but in eery predator there was the possibility for prey, and every prey had their own survival instincts. Disappearing from detection, hiding herself away completely to be overlooked, camouflaged to the world, was her sole defence. It wasn't the most spectacular bit of her gift, but it was enough for her to go up to face Aro when she arrived.