Alec and Kali are secret lovers. Kali has just discovered she is pregnant. She has asked Carlisle and Edward to come up and check for sure. At the place this is taking up on, Kali and Tatiana are talking about Tatiana's upcoming birthday. In Tatiana's mysterious past, she'd never celebrated her birthday before and Kali is explaining the concept to her.

Kali glared at Tati as she neared her. "If you even /think/ of using your power on me you won't live to see your next birthday." She warned crossing her arms over her chest. "A birthday is the day that you were born. And each year, on the day of your birth, it's sort of customary to give said person presents, perhaps have a party. Etc. etc..."

Tatiana looked at her with a slightly confused expression for a moment, then quickly changed to a sly grin. "The thought of using my ability on you hadn't even crossed my mind, Kali. But now that you mention it..." She stepped back to her original place then shook her head a little and looked back at Kali. "No, I wasn't actually going to do that, I promise." Tatiana stared into space for a moment. "So tomorrow, seventeen years ago, I was born? Doesn't celebrating the birth of yourself seem a little... Self-centered, I suppose?" she guessed trying to find the words she was looking for.

Kali paused a moment before answering. Now that she thought about it, yes, it did. But the tradition had been around since before /she/ had been born, and things certainly weren't going to change now. She shrugged in response. "I suppose it does. But it's nice, to be celebrated, don't you think?" She said shifting her weight to her left foot as she studied the girl before her. How odd it must be, to have never celebrated your own birthday. But then again, she had never known about it, so she hadn't really /missed/ it.

"But what reason to be celebrated for, if you have done nothing great?" she replied. This whole thing was confusing her. Her parents had taught her to never be self-centered if it was not all about you, which something should never be. She was taught to treat humans and vampires equally, including the vampire hunters and excluding the vampires that had gone mad and wanted nothing more than to destroy others around them. Those vampires have no purpose to life, she thought. " I don't think I deserve to be celebrated on a day. I've done bad things before. But so have everyone else. So why do we dedicate one day to ourselves? I mean, everyone in the world can't have their own day, there aren't enough. And some people would have to share it. So, your birthday may be the day of your birth, but it was the day of your birth when you were born. . .," she said thinking aloud. Tatiana was beginning to confuse herself. Maybe I'm looking too far into this, she thought. But it just doesn't make much sense. . .

"Whoa, slow down there girl." Kali said her eyes glittering with amusement and fascination. "You have a wonderful mind Tatiana." She commented lightly as she thought. Tati had made very many good points and she agreed with most, if not all of them. Birthday celebrations didn't make a lot of sense actually, but then again what did? Kali frowned to herself completely lost in her own thoughts. "On birthdays we celebrate and congratulate the person in question as if /they/ had something to do with it..." She said thinking her thoughts aloud. "But really they had nothing to do with it. They didn't choose to become a part of this world, their parents made the decision for them. So in reality, shouldn't the parents be the ones who are celebrated? Or at least congratulated?..." She trailed off rolling her eyes at herself. "See? Now look what you've done. You've got me doing it to."

Tatiana laughed a little. Her mind was almost completely consumed in her thoughts, though she could hear Kali clearly and respond almost instantly out of her thoughts, which probably weren't making much sense at the moment. "But if we celebrated our parents who though us up, then some people would never get celebrated. What if say I didn't want children, then I would never get to be celebrated," she said thinking that she was finally making sense of it. "Maybe they had birthdays that each individual person celebrates themselves, even though they had no place to celebrate themselves because they had nothing worth celebrating in their life, but at least they would be appreciated of their being of in the world, so they might do something great later in their lifetime and-?" She looked at Kali, who had an expression telling Tatiana that she had no idea what Tati was saying. "Oops. I think what I mean is that everyone celebrates themselves on their 'birthday' so everyone can be celebrated and no one gets left out. Right?" she concluded.

Kali grinned nodding. "My god, I think you've got it." She replied with a laugh moving to sit in a chair across the room. "Everyone's life is worth something, whether we know it or not. Maybe that's what birthdays are all about." She mused shifting so her legs were tucked underneath her. She knew how her father and uncles believed. That humans were literally nothing. Just a food source. Merely animals in their eyes. And while Kali had never experienced any guilt involving the way she ate, she did believe that humans did have potential.

Tatiana sat on the edge of the bed. "Right. And that is why I refuse to drink human blood. That would just be another person who didn't get to live to their full potential because I wanted a snack. Humans are strange, though. When I go hunting and I find an animal, I don't drain it completely. Or even near completely. There is something about animals that they can fully recover after being attacked by a vampire as long as they still have blood running through their system. Humans aren't like that, maybe it's because they are like, "AH VAMPIRE" and people accuse them of going crazy so the rest of their species just let them rot, as if they had no meaning left in life and..." Her voice trailed off. Whenever she thought of the barbaric actions that humans do, it made her think of how vampire hunters throw their life away to do nothing but destroy things that hadn't been a burden in the first place. It made her sad. It made her think of her parents and her brother.

Kali cocked her head to one side as she watched Tatiana. "You don't drain them completely?" She asked entirely fascinated. "How do you manage that? For most vampires, and even Ali and I, it's near impossible to stop feeding once they taste blood." She couldn't imagine how it could be done. A vampire, or rather, a half breed who didn't /need/ to kill to survive? Vampires had always been murders, preying on the innocent to live. But what if that didn't have to be?

Tatiana shrugged. "It takes practice. But I suppose it is easier for me. . . I just never had any intention ever to hurt a living thing, so I found a way to survive while doing that," she said nonchalantly. Then she remembered something her father had taught her what seemed like had been so many years ago. "Would you like me to teach you to drink from a human without them seeing you? Then you don't have to drain them completely. And there is a secret to not draining them all the way." She thought how useful that could be for Kali and maybe Ali. She knew Ali preferred human food, so she wouldn't worry about her. And she wasn't going to tell Carlisle and Edward. They had the animal diet down and Tatiana didn't want to screw it up for them. Maybe I will tell them later if they'd like..., she thought.

Kali's eyes widened in surprise at her offer. "Would you really?" She asked surprised to find she was excited at the thought. She wondered what her parents, and Caius would say if they knew of this. Would they encourage it? "Yes...yes I'd like you to show me." Kali had no problem with killing humans, but that wasn't to say that she /enjoyed/ it really. She wouldn't "play" with her food as Jane would, drawing out the process as long as possible. She shuddered thinking about the last time she had seen it. She loved Jane dearly, they were best friends, surprisingly, but she was sometimes frightened by the girls sadistic nature. "Can we do it soon? I'm quite thirsty as it is." Kali probed gently. It was true, her eyes had almost completely faded from their usual blood red to their natural silver, and the burn in her throat had become increasingly more noticeable.

Tatiana smiled. She was glad Kali was open to this idea, given that she was a part of the Volturi and they rarely showed humans mercy or cared what they say. "Sure, but don't be disappointed if you accidentally drain the human right away. Or would you rather try on an animal first?" she asked. She knew a way to get some human guinea pigs if Kali was craving human blood. Maybe I should go hunting later, Tatiana thought. It hadn't been long since she hunted or anything. But she wasn't used to being around human blood as much as she might be during this process. She would need to hunt more often.

She frowned a little. The thought irritated Tatiana. She usually waited until it was absolutely impossible for her to bear another second without blood, like when Felix and Demetri had made her angry and nearly bit Leo when he had kissed thought made her smile. She would need to call Leo later and explain why Felix had followed them to the park...

She trailed off into her mind that was all focused on Leo.

Kali couldn't help but make a face of disgust when Tatiana suggested she practice on an animal. The idea was just plain revolting. Although her opinion on that may only be due to her upbringing. She had always been taught to take lives without a second thought. It was just how the Volturi lived, how /she/ lived. When Carlisle had lived with the Volturi for a few decades it wasn't a big secret that the leaders didn't approve, and often warned Kali and her sister that the way he lived was wrong, against vampire nature. And she believed it. Why would he fight so hard against what he was? He was a vampire, a killer, he couldn't change that. He may not being killing humans, but he did kill. Kali began to have second thoughts. "Um, Tatiana, I'm not too sure about this..." She stopped herself, what was she doing? She had never been a good girl in particular. Some called her a rebel, which was entirely true. And right now she was passing up a perfectly good chance to rebel. "Wait, no, never mind. Let's do it. But no animals. Ew."

Tatiana snapped back to reality once she heard Kali say something with doubt in her voice. She opened her mouth to protest when Kali said she /did/ want to do it. Tatiana shrugged. "Okay." She looked at the clock on her cell phone. "Heidi should be back with more humans in about thirty minutes. I want to go hunting first, so I'll be back in approximately 2o minutes. Maybe 15.. Depends on if all I find are deer again..," she said with disgust. Deer, deer, and more deer. That's all that lurked around the castle. She slipped on her sweatshirt and began putting on her shoes and tying them. "If Felix comes back while I am gone, cover for me please. He doesn't allow me out in the dark." She rolled her eyes. "Half-vampires' eyesight is just as good as full vampires in the dark," she grumbled to herself. She got up, closed and locked her door, then left through the window.

/Side note: Neither Sarah or I own any of the Twilight characters. All Twilight characters mentioned in these stories belong to Stephanie Myer and her alone. The original characters created in theses stories belong to Sarah and I. We made them up, we own them. We also give credit to Britney who came up with her share of characters./