Funerals were dark days, followed by a wake where those feeling loss stumbled about in a daze, mumbling thank yous to apologizes and condolences that barely registered. At least, that was how Elizabeth Tempus felt, opening the door to her car as she moved to sneak out before the line of mourners reached her. Their words pricked her ears, scathing and untempered by knowledge that she could hear them, "They had just gotten engaged…." "College sweethearts, how sad…." "She's holding up rather well, all things considered…" "I heard she grabbed the wheel…."

"Eliza!" A dark beauty looped her arm through Elizabeth's own,the two women shrouded in black, both in dress and from the looming shadow of the vehicle. She gripped the handle on the car door, briefly musing over whether it would be appropriate to simply slam the hunk of metal into her sister's side and flee.

"Tory." Eliza replied, keeping her face blank. Victorya pouted before pulling Elizabeth away from the driver's side, shooing her towards the passenger's side instead. "I'm fine to drive…" 'the doctor cleared me to drive….' She dared not finish the sentence, knowing how her sister would react. No one trusted the handsome blond doctor, especially not after Bella Swan married into the family and promptly disappeared, leaving Jacob to trail after her and the entire reservation to buzz with gossip. Eliza had been gone for university at the time, falling love with a corpse now buried beneath the ground. She shook her head of the memory, tumbling into the passenger seat of her own car, kicking off the painfully tall black pumps off of her feet and curling into a ball once her seatbelt had been buckled.

Victorya turned the car engine on, letting it hum a rattling breath as it warmed up in the cool atmosphere, melting the snow around them ever so slightly. Silence reigned for a few long breathes before the younger sister turned on the radio from the driver's seat, Adele screeching from the speakers for a moment, "Hello, it's-" Eliza slammed her fist against the power button on the radio, surprising herself with the force behind the action, she was so tired all the sudden.

"Alright then." Tory's voice was crisp, a silent accusation in her words, though there was no fire in her eyes like Eliza suspected.

"I'm sorry, I…" Eliza did not know how to form the words, how to explain that the song reminded her of things better left forgotten, buried away and concealed in the past. "She loved that song..."

"Oh…" Tory sighed softly, unsure of what to say, or handle being the adult in a situation that involved her elder sister. Elizabeth was the oldest sibling of three, a true mother hen when it came to her brother and sister, though now it seemed the roles had become reversed. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

Eliza flinched, a flash of a memory sharp and aching through her mind, a man with eyes the color of blood in the middle of the road, the desperate cry she let out, time reversing itself and making her feel a fool. "I want to go home and drink my way to oblivion." She had tried smoking at first, thinking cannabis healthier than alcohol, but it did not numb her in the way she needed to be, if anything it made her think more, dredging up memories she could not purge, Freud would be ever so disappointed in her.

"Or drink your way into a poisoned liver…" Tory mumbled under her breath, white knuckling the steering wheel of the car as they drove from the hill where the funeral was held and back onto the reservation. Eliza remained silent, resting her head upon her knees and closing her eyes for a moment, reflecting on the fact that her makeup was most likely ruined, smudged from the endless tears and thin-lipped smiles of the day.

"Well, would you look what the wolf dragged in!" Tory's face brightened at the sight of the group of men standing on the porch that served as their family home. Or rather, a certain member of the group standing on the porch. The car engine had barely sputtered off by the time Tory had ejected herself from it and into the awaiting arms of Seth Clearwater, her current boyfriend, though Eliza had no doubt he would have already proposed had it not been for Eliza's current situation.

The two melded into one another, embracing with an open intimacy that made Eliza want to cry, only she found she had flat run out of tears. "Hey, Lizzie, are you doing okay?" Seth asked with genuine concern, the men flanking him mirroring the expression on the youth's face.

"I...um…" Words died in her throat, she stood there barefoot and fidgeting with the shoes cradled in one hand and the damned flowers someone had handed her at the funeral in the other fist, though she was at a loss as to who even gave them to her now, the entire day a salty blur of tears and words of condolences.

The pack, as they described themselves and Eliza had begun to mentally refer to them as due to the way they moved as a cohesive unit, watched the woman sprint past them and into her family's home, only to be cornered by her mother, who stood in the kitchen, clutching a mug as if it were filled with wisdom rather than coffee.

"Elizabeth." Bayak Black was a woman whose name fit her rather aptly, for she was of dark coloring, from her stark black hair wound behind her back in a braid to her deep, brown-black eyes that tore the soul apart with a glance. Though Eliza's eyes were a dark brown, people often told her she had her mother's gaze, unyielding, unflinching. Bayak was beautiful, in a soulful sort of way, an unconventional, tribal beauty that her younger daughter had inherited, perhaps because Tory's father was Peter Black, the youngest of the Black siblings and Billy's brother, who was a handsome man in his own right, with dark features and a bright smile. "Elizabeth."

Caught up in her musings, Eliza did not realize her mother had to repeat herself until she met the elder's gaze, sharp eyes boring into her. "Yes?" Eliza asked dully.

Bayak crossed the room, depositing her mug on the kitchen counter and revealing she had something in her other hand, which she opened to reveal a necklace with a charm in the center in the shape of a salmon, whittled from the white bark that grew at the base of her favorite stream. It was a charm of protection, for the Quileute tribe had a tradition of returning the head and bones of the first fish caught in the spring under the belief that the great Salmon Spirit would protect the river and return the fish throughout the year for them to catch. She did not offer, simply tied the charm about her daughter's neck and whispered a quick, silent prayer of protection, that time would flow as smoothly as the river guarded by their ancestors, before stepping back and giving her a squeeze on the shoulders.

"I lost your father very early in our relationship as well." Bayak began slowly, deliberately pacing herself as if she knew of the weight of her words and the connotation behind them. "He bought a ring, but never had the chance to propose…"

"Perhaps it was better that way." Eliza bit back, a slight snarl in her words. She did not want to hear of her father, of the magic man she had never met, who stole her mother's heart and left her with but a fragment of it after his sudden death. Was this a stage of grief, this rage that suddenly fueled her? "He died and you never even had to deal with a body, but my fiance is in the ground now!" Her mind conjured images of worms digging into flesh, a mix of horror and anger fueling her as she pushed past her mother and reached up towards the cabinet that stored the alcohol, only to find it barren. Even the bottle of Bailey's that had remained untouched since a cousin brought it for Christmas morning years ago, arriving far later than he had planned and leaving the bottle behind, was gone. Her mother had stashed the liquids away, hiding them.

"Your grief controls your tongue, Elizabeth." Bayak replied with coldness, "And alcohol will only sharpen it." The woman stood, hands by her side, shoulders squared, as if confronting a demon rather than her daughter.

"Then let it be as sharp as the knife in my heart!" The words seemed trivial and a pathetic attempt at prose and embarrassment flooded Eliza once she spoke, for her mother grinned wryly.

"Six years of schooling, two degrees, and you speak like a child attempting to quote Edgar Allan Poe." Bayak laughed, finding her child's discomfort amusing before catching herself, and moved to hug Eliza once more. "You will make a great teacher."

"I'm sure the Italians will enjoy my musings." It was Bayak's turn to be surprised and it filled Eliza with dark satisfaction. The acceptance letter had arrived in her email nearly a month before, a program her mother did not know the existence of, a dream of teaching abroad that Eliza had never voiced. It was a dream that Eliza had shared with her sweetheart, to live abroad and explore for a year or two before marrying, before settling down. The tickets had already been bought, a small house on the outskirts of the city had it's deposit paid. "I'm going to Italy for a year, well, a school year, Volterra to be exact." The color drained from her mother's face, russet skin turning deathly pale.

"The cold ones live there." It was a statement of fact, not a speculation based on legends, this time it was Eliza who laughed.

"Yes, and Doctor Cullen is a vampire, I know." The words dripped with sarcasm. The family had moved out of state just over a year ago, after Bella had married their son Edward. It was a stroke of luck that the good doctor was returning to his old home to pick up a box of items at his wife's insistence, a collection of kitchen appliances that the woman apparently could not live without.

"Eliza, you can't do this!" It was the first time in months that her mother had referred to her as anything other than her full name, a ploy at politics, no doubt. "You won't be safe!" Bayak's voice rose by three octaves, becoming shrill with panic.

The door swung open, revealing Victorya and her boyfriend, faces sheepish. Bayuk rounded on them, pale face turning red with rage. "You knew about this, Victorya?" Curses flew from the mother's mouth, code switching between English and her tribal tongue before she slammed her palm against Seth's shoulder, "and you! You know what they will do to her!"

"Ma'am, I tried talking her out of it!" Seth protested, raising his palms in surrender, it suddenly occurred to her that Seth only ever called her mother ma'am. "When Lizzie decides something, god help you if you try to discourage her from it." Elizabeth had her mother's stubborn streak, a trait her mother was not pleased they shared.

Eliza ignored her mother and stomped into her bedroom, or rather, her former bedroom. Her mother had kept it the same in her absense, and it suddenly felt childish and trivial. The decently sized room was bedecked in posters, ranging from bands to movies to musicals. No one was surprised when she majored in English with a minor in Theater during college, considering she had a CD of The Phantom of the Opera resting in a player, though lord knows how long it had been since she had actually listened to it. Tearing off her black dress, she threw on the clothes she had prepared earlier in the day: black and white sneakers, a pair of worn in jeans and her favorite red sweater. A part of her wanted to burn the sweater, it was what she had been wearing during the crash, but it was too sentimental to throw away, printed with her University's mascot on the front and decently warm for this time of year. She slammed her door just for the reminder of teenage angst, for she had done so many times when she was younger, she moved to exit the home.

"Elizabeth!" Her mother cowed, moving to physically prevent her daughter from leaving. Bayak ruled over her home, the queen of Mariposa drive, causing her daughter's abrupt departure to spook her to the point of panic. "Don't do this!"

"I'm spending the night at Emily's." She lied smoothly, glancing at Seth and Victorya, who had moved to rummage the fridge but stopped when Eliza entered, daring them to contradict her. Silence flooded the room, a mute standoff between mother and daughter, before Elizabeth grabbed her wallet from the table by the door and her keys next to it and storming off. It wasn't until she was in her car, glaring at the light slab of ice on her windshield she had to wait for her defroster to kill, that she realized her sister had made sure to put her wallet and keys by the door for her, as the younger woman had drived the elder home. 'Two more days, and I can leave Washington behind me.' She reminded herself, though it brought her little comfort.

Author's Note/Meet the Author:

Hello! For my lovely and loyal readers, I am sure you're thinking: "Night, what are you doing? You write ASOIAF fics, not Twilight! Worry not, lovelies, for I have decided to do both.

For those just joining this bandwagon, welcome! You can call me Night and I shall be your author for this lovely fanfiction! I am a Senior at a Cal State, where I am graduating this spring with my B.A. in English and for my classes I'm currently reading a bunch of magical realism and authors native to California, so I wanted to write a fic that incorporates these elements, while also being respectful of cultures and traditions. Hence the Great Salmon Spirit and what not, my internet research showed that to be an actual thing.

Quick overview of this story:

Elizabeth Tempus is the mate of the three Volturi Kings: Caius, Marcus and Aro, though despite the pull of the mate bond, her broken heart yearns for a person she believes to be dead. Though Elizabeth is no ordinary mortal, for the Volturi Queen has long been whispered about as the beginning of the end, the foil to the infallible three kings. Then there is the matter of her father, a man she has never met, but is he just a man?

Next chapter gives a little backstory on Eliza growing up and brings us just past this chapter in terms of the timeline, so chapter three will be when she gets to Volterra and the mating bond presents itself.

Please review, let me know if you like this idea, if I should continue it, that sort of thing!