13

Aro's Assignment

1. Chapter "Jane's sadness or Aro's?"

„Master, could I have a word with you?" Jane had already entered the hall and she took her bow before of Aro. „Of course, dear one, what can I do for you?" Jane's gaze touched Caius and Marcus and she replied: „In privacy, please!" Aro searched for her childlike face with the red eyes, wondering what she was up to, but nodded. „Please, my brothers would you be so kind!" The older vampire and his blond brother sitting next to him left their thrones without a single word and Jane and Aro remained alone with each other in the big, silent, marbled hall.

The man with the pale, almost translucent skin and long, satiny black hair circled her with slow steps, waiting for the guard's speech. Jane was suddenly unsure if she would really have the stomach to bring forward her demand. But as Aro took his place on the throne again, she stepped forward and knelt beside him. "My dear Master, I'm very distressed about my situation. I never talked about it, but I feel lonely. Yes, I mean, there is Alec and we're very close to each other, of course, you know that for sure, but I mean I would like to have a companion." Aro was surprised; Jane never talked about affairs like these. Actually she was a very solitary person, apart from her brother she never talked to someone about her emotions. "Well, my dear, you know, you're like a daughter to me, I think we can handle this issue. I would propose, you're going to choose your companion during the following guided tour for tourists next Friday. What do you think?"

Jane was unsure how she could raise her objections. "Aro, I don't want to be with a man I do not know – even if he would have my physical age, he would be a child and not adequate for a relationship with me. I'm already 300 years old, and he would be only a new born and a boy! I feel so sad, because at the wedding of Edward and Bella I realised that I will never be an adult, not nearly – I mean, look at me!" Her red sad eyes captured his and she laid her hands in Aro's. "I look not almost like a teenager!" She struggled against the tears that were running down her pale and beautiful, infantile face. Aro took her in a deep and cold embrace and she noticed this strange sweetish scent which came from his strong, white and perfect body. "I understand your despair. Normally we do not change children, but this time it was an emergency." She sobbed and asked "How old was I when you rescued me from the flames?"

Aro tried to remember. It had happened more than 300 years ago; in the spring of 1699. He remembered that, because the treaty of Karlowitz had been concluded. A great war between the Christians and the Muslims had stopped for a couple of years.

Jane's transformation had happened in an old little village in England not far from London. Jane had been captured by the constabulary, because someone discredited her as a witch. She lived near the woods and was a child of nature. She feared no animals or the darkness of the night. Maybe that was the reason her neighbours had been frightened of her. The inquisitor had no mercy on her and Alec - Jane's twin brother. Both were sent to the stake! At that time Aro had been more or less there by coincidence, because the Holy Roman Empire had expanded to the Eastern Europe, expelled the Turks and from then on there had been no place to hide in Romania from radical Christian missionaries and their bounty hunters. They searched everywhere for vampires and witches in order to burn and stake them all. So many vampires had no other chance to survive than to leave their homeland to seek shelter. Aro had fled to London and then to the countryside and found HER!

"I reckon you were around 13 when I changed you." Aro told her after disentangling himself out of the brushwood of memories. Jane closed her eyes. Tears were running diligently down her little cheeks and her fragile body rocked with her weeping.

After a little while Aro whispered with his silky voice: "Don't be so desperate. Let me see your thoughts. It would be very helpful to me." Jane, who had been nearly able to relax in his wonderful embrace, startled. Jane had never been afraid to let Aro read her thoughts and experience her feeling. She struggled between her loyalty and faith in her master and her fear he may interpret her feelings in the wrong way. She stammered "I don't know if..." Suddenly Sulpicia, Aro's wife, entered the hall and Aro released Jane very quickly out of their intimate embrace. Aro stood up and met his wife halfway in the middle of the hall. He bowed his head and greeted her. "Cara mia, come stai?" Sulpicia looked at her guard Jane with an odd expression in her face then concentrated her attention on her husband again. Aro commanded over his shoulder "Please leave us, Jane, I think we have finished our talk for now!" Jane nodded hastily and left the room.

Sulpicia made a bored impression – like most of the time. They had been bored by each other since not less than two or three lifetimes. Even Aro was one of the most erratic vampires Sulpicia ever met– the fire which burned for more than thousand years was irrevocable gone.

Since approximately two hundred years Sulpicia had spent much more of her time being without Aro than with him. And it wasn't like they were missing each other. Sulpicia spent most of the time in the library or travelling through the world. When she was in Volterra she spoke often enough only with Marcus, because she had the credo that he was in a confusing way her one and only soulmate.

Aro often thought about it as a kind of poetic justice for his murder of Didyme, his sister and Marcus' wife so long ago. In the end it didn't matter anymore. In fact he was very pleased with the situation. Sulpicia was never going to bother him; she was always capable of kill the time – per contra to him. He was very often bored and with every day that went by he felt the burden of his existence hammered against his forehead.

Sulpicia took a seat on Aro's throne and her husband stopped in front of her. "So what were you two talking about? An interesting matter?" Aro shook his head: "More or less, we talked about her everlasting childhood." He sighed: "Really, it's a pity, my darling. Jane is so desperate and sad. That makes me sad too." Sulpicia took his hand in a sympathetic gesture: "It bothers you, because you're the one who changed her as a child. Now she is a captive of her external childishness. And you're not capable of help her. She just has to accept her status. Do not try to feel with her and support her self-pity. That's the last thing that would help her." Sulpicia's face hardened. Aro pushed away his worried thoughts and smirked at his wife: "By the way, to what do I owe the honour of your visit?" Sulpicia's face got back to normal; she didn't smile at his sarcastic undertone. "I came only to remind you that I'll be flying to New York tomorrow in order to visit Athenodora, who is staying currently there." Aro clapped his hands "Eccellente, tesoro1!" His seductive Italian accent quickly filled the air. "Is Caius going to join you?" Now Sulpicia was the one who smirked: "My dear husband, you know as well as I do, that Caius and Athenodora are tired of each other like we are. Why should Caius be interested in meeting his wife?" Aro looked at her in surprise – he wasn't aware his wife had become so ironic.

Oh, that was actually a nice feeling, not to know what the companion, who had shared your life for so long would say in the next moment. He smiled: "Of course, my dear. I wish you a pleasant journey. Please be so kind and greet the New World from the vampires of the Old one." Sulpicia shook her head: "Well, Aro, that's ridiculous, but I'll do as you say. Goodbye my Love, I really need to pack. And by the way; maybe you should keep an eye on our childlike mate. Make yourself useful and distract her from too much thinking. Otherwise I guess she is going to be a problem soon."

With these last words, Aro's wife was on the way to her rooms. Aro only murmured: "Sometimes I ask myself who's actually in charge here!" This 'old-couple thing' was beyond all bearing!