Official Description:
As Jane burns at the stake convicted of witchcraft; she vows vengeance upon her accuser. Once she joins the Volturi, Jane’s sweet revenge is within reach – Indies Winner, 2010 Eddies Nominee M / graphic violence Canon
Warning: This story contains graphic violence and abuse.
Word Count: 11,628
Those of you who know me will know I am and have always been a fan of canon first and foremost. While I’m not a purist, and there are more than a fair share of AH stories I have and am enjoying, my first love will always be the pages that drew me in, lovingly cradled in black and red hard covers. My fannish ways harkens back more than twenty years, and my Achilles heal has always been the missing scenes that fans coax out of the dark nooks and crannies.
Sometimes the very best of these nooks exist in the past, back before the first page is turned. But there’s only one map to the past and that is to turn that initial page, learn the road, meet the people, follow the landmarks, and fall in love—even with the darkness. The darkness of Twilight is found in the Volturi and the vampires who make up that cast.
Among them is wee Jane, nothing more than a wraith with a deadly bite and an insidious gift. It was this character that spoke to LoreliD in Becoming Jane. LoreliD reached out and took that small, cold hand and invited Jane to share her story with us.
Back to Volterra of old, with streets filled with muck and the smoke of cooking fires, and righteous cries for salvation from the filthy masses gathered around a pyre. Jane and her brother Alec stand condemned to the cleansing fires of a small minded woman who suspects Jane of dark and evil influences of the devil’s doing.
Jane’s contempt for the townspeople, who have come to watch her and Alec burn, is as scorching as the fires lapping at their legs. She glowers past them, refusing to scream, in search of him, her savior: Aro. Sneering at the sky, glowering at a God that she refuses to cower before, she finds Sister Isabella in the crowd, the woman who condemned her.
Hypocritical heathens, every last one of them. I scowled as I peered out at them through the increasingly thick smoke. Retribution would come. Especially to Sister Isabella, whom I spied standing off to the side, her soft white hands clasped together reverently while her pale drawn lips moved in a hurried and fervent silent prayer for our souls. It was because of her contemptuous ignorant suspicions that Alec and I were tied to that stake, her fault that we had been convicted of crimes we didn’t even know the meaning of.
She’d always hated us, me in particular, and I vowed to myself that if he made good on his promise, I’d come back for her.
The flames climbed higher, flirting with the tattered hem of the flimsy broadcloth rag they had attired me in. The sickening smell of burning hair wafted to my nose, and I retched uncontrollably. The smoke stung my eyes; I cast them to the heavens in search of relief, and threw one last, desperate and silent prayer to the God that had forsaken me long ago. Their God. I glowered and returned my eyes to the crowd. I needed to see, I had to watch for him.
Seeing that name, I felt a jolt of connection and recalled Jane’s cold appraisal of Bella when our heroine first encountered the petite vampire. I wondered if perhaps Jane held any lingering feelings of retribution towards Bella for simply having the same name as Jane’s long-ago accuser.
LoreliD gradually teases out even more confessions from Jane as we learn about a nasty, albeit frightened kitten that takes a swipe at Jane’s nose. As a purveyor of justice, even at her young age, Jane decides to punish the cat by dropping it into a well, only to be foiled by Sister Isabella. LoreliD even discovers the origin of Jane’s psychosis at the hands of a brutal father. In the ultimate act of retribution, Jane punishes her own father for savagely beating her twin brother. Sister Isabella seems to guess at the depth of Jane’s own brutality and perhaps even the unfortunate accident that befell the twin’s father, and never lets Jane far from her sight.
When caught once again torturing small animals, Sister Isabella publicly condemns Jane to the church. Marked as heretics and witches, the church condemns the twins to purge their sins in the Lord’s cleansing fire. As Sister Isabella watches, Jane makes two promises: she refuses provide entertainment to the spectators by screaming and to exact her revenge on Sister Isabella.
The truly diabolical nature of Jane blossoms under the night sky under the caring hands of Aro, who nurtures little Jane and allows her small indulgences that would have otherwise drawn his wrath for violating his rules and the Volturi laws.
He came forward and extended his hand. It was an action I had come to understand well and I placed my hand in his. He bent over our joined hands and made ready to kiss the top of mine, but instead I felt his gentle touch transform into a pulverizing grip. I quickly broke free from him, owing to my newborn strength, and cast my eyes down to the floor. A nibbling fear began to chew at me.
“I never told you that I also have a gift, Jane,” he began in his usual overly polite tone.
“Oh?” I replied and the nibbling became an insistent gnawing.
“Yes. I know what is in your mind,” he elaborated. My eyes flew to his in panic. “You broke the law Jane,” he continued sadly … It seemed like several minutes passed before I felt his hand reach under my chin and tilt my face up to look at him.
“Ah Jane, I find myself powerless to deny you. But this must be our secret. If Caius and Marcus were to discover the truth, I would not be able to save you from their anger,” he warned.
So to all you canon authors out there… If you ever needed to get into Jane’s head more than SM ever allowed you in the books, then walk through the pages of the past as presented to us by LoreliD. Explore the dual nature of Jane, whose deep loyalty and love of her twin brother, combined with the cruelty rooted in her by their father, and placed in the cold stone hands of an ancient vampire like Aro, and you find the individual ingredients combine to make a curiously quaint, cruel creature like Jane.
I probably never would have checked this wonderful delve into Jane’s character out if it weren’t for gkkstitch sending me the review, asking if we had a place for it. I generally do not read many AU fics, and when I do, I look for darkward lol–canon makes me emo.
I decided to check this out and was immediately impressed with the incredible quality of writing and how much LoreliD really gets Jane.
My rage and hate and bitter resentment exploded within me, and I turned my baleful glare on her.
She screamed so loudly it actually hurt my ears. She thrashed wildly against the stone wall, her back arching out as if I were ripping her beating heart straight from her chest. Her legs jerked in uncontrolled spasms and her screeching rose in pitch as she writhed in complete agony.
Rage wasn’t the only thing that had overtaken me. Sister Isabella’s screams had inspired the deep tingle to grow and flourish.
Every thrash thrilled me, every garbled cry of despair excited me further.
I didn’t relent. I continued to stare at her, sending her shockwave after shockwave of unimaginable pain. And as her screams grew more desperate, my pleasure only multiplied, fed by her torment and I reached my breaking point.
If you are looking for an exploration in a character that we know so little about or just want to get your canon on, I highly recommend Becoming Jane.
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