The impish grin that donned across my sumptuous brims was voluminous, beaming with contentment over the delectable gifts I'd received from Aro the day prior. Such an exhibit of his kindness and admiration in regards to his wife was enough to restore my faith in his abilities, in spite of the danger that was approaching. Aro's explanation of the intruder was brusque and surly, but enough to set me on my toes again. Furious with the guard that displayed the insolence to accompany me on a saunter through the gardens, only to abandon me shortly thereafter, Aro dealt a fatal penalty. Someone so insignificant could afford to be lost, but truth be told, I did indeed experience a tinge of guilt for my hand in his fate. Nevertheless, without the beneficial endowment that Corin advertised, I was content on my own, and this said a lot.


The nightfall that graced this domain had arrived once again, abstracting the resplendent radiance that emanated from the flare to an accommodation that was undistinguished to the individuals that inhabited this cosmos. Even after the duration of a millennium, acquainted with this manner of existing at the hands of my husband, I was inefficient in my impaired expertise of disclosing the ambivalence that lingered upon this earth, a daunting souvenir that even the primeval and enlightened creatures were perplexed as to what the ascend of another sunrise would bring accompany with it. Others would have regarded my curiosity with benevolence, but they were not knowledgeable of my endurance, the disheveled perseverance in which I'd been given no other alternative than to bear hardship to. Since the incident; a term in which I'd labeled my drifting about in the gardens and the demise of a guard that was continuously stationed before the egress of my bedchambers, I'd undergone a consequence as a result of my "imprudent conduct", as Aro had spat in a garish of animosity, but it seemed as though the entirety of my animation, the extent of time following the formidable death of Didyme, had been punishment enough. The temperate pellets of liquid that cascaded from the somber sky overhead had been the only impression of companionship that still remained while Aro was still tumultuous with me. With certainty, Caius had interfered with this exclusive situation meant only for my husband and myself, insinuating that I had the potential to become an abominable influence upon Athenodora. With a gyration of carmine optics, I reciprocated my gaze through the capacious aperture etched into the stone that overlooked the perennials outdoors, a lament of acerbic respiration surfacing from my opulent petals. Now more than ever, I was coveting the beneficial ascendency that accompanied Corin's gift.