Content: The Volterra scenes in New Moon in Aro's Point of View. Starts a few minutes before Edward requests an audience.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of the characters, everything belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

Prologue in the Tower

I was bored. Incredible bored.

It wasn't the kind of tedium that affected Marcus. He was tired of life- nothing could hold his interest. Everything could hold mine.

It wasn't that I was superficial, but I was used to absorb everything. So my interest of everything came naturally.

I tend to see my mind as a huge enormous stock of lockers- thousands of feet high- reaching in length beyond horizon, containing so much more than 3000 years of vampire royality. Every locker had a unique code constructed of letters and numbers and signs. And I loved- no I craved and yearned filling them, adding new information, stocking the knowledge. To open new cases, create new codes.

But the last two months were worse than ever. I didn't remember the last time I moved out of my throne, has it been days or only hours? The only thing to look forward to was Heidi's arrival tomorrow afternoon. She had been to Rome to hunt down our prey, if one could call her method even a hunt. But also this was only a minimal break from the all day tedium. The guard usually a source of distraction felt the same lack of excitement and wasn't entertaining at all in these days.

I remembered a time when it was different, though. It was a time when my brothers and I functioned as an entity, as a whole. If I was the brain of our family, Caius was the arm and Marcus the heart. But his fire scrambled to ashes long ago. I extinguished it. I destroyed my brother. Did I bother? Yes. Did I regret it? No! It had been necessary then as much as it would have been now- to keep the power-to keep the body that were the Volturi function. And a body could not function without its heart- even when it was a cold one.

But I missed his happiness and my sister's joy. But I needed him too badly than I needed him to be happy- he may not leave me! He had a great sense of what I found difficult to fathom: The emotions behind the thoughts.

I sighed remembering.

The roller coaster that had been my favorite brother's and my biological sister's love, had undoubtedly entertained me and I missed Marcus' easy company and his attention not clouded from depression. Caius' company tired me, and so did his ever present rage and aggressiveness so close to the surface. Caius always was straight ahead. Not able to form plans that lasted longer than five minutes before put into action.

I sighed again.

That was the moment everything changed. The moment a tedious day changed into years of action and military strategy. It was the moment when Demetri entered the throne room and announced an unexpected guest.

Author's note: So this is my first fanfiction, and I would like to know what you guys think about it, so please feel free to review. I think this story will have about five chapters in case anyone is going to read and enjoy it, that is. I am not a native speaker, so if anybody wants to help me with this story feel free to contact me. Floreana