Enjoy.


Waning Patience


It was frustration and the helpless, useless feeling that came along side it, of course to any mortal it would look like Vladimir and Stefan had so much patience considering the many, many years it took for any of their anger to resurface since the loss of their home and mates. However vampires have all the time in the world to brood over things and this amount of time to them was nothing, to each other; it didn't seem like they were patient at all.

The Volturi usually send a few of their men after them every few decades or so; it became a sort of tradition, like clockwork and always around the same time. Of course they always ran so as to keep themselves off the map to their Italian enemies.

And it was at this particularly junction in time, after they had evaded their enemy trackers once more for another decade, that they had had enough.

They had stopped near a small village and were sat on a crudely made bench, contemplating and watching the bustle of mortals around them.

"I find my patience-"

"Waning. As is mine, Stefan," Vladimir finished his friend's sentence.

He was resting his elbows on his knees as he disinterestedly observed human behaviour and the routine of their daily lives; he had seen all of this before.

"How much longer must we wait," Vladimir muttered to himself even as he heard his own words from the past declaring they would wait for however long it would take for the Volturi to show weakness or to be challenged.

"It is irrational; we both know this but..." Stefan sat back against a wooden wall of a house that classed as the back of the bench and looked grumpy.

"But it is a very," Vladimir looked moodily at the mud on his shoes. "Very long time."

They had waited and waited; fed, waited, ran, waited, ran out of conversation and waited, attempted some form of hobby they could do to past the time but got bored and waited.

They both felt weary and tired. They wanted vengeance but the years had taken its mental toll.

It had been eight hundred years since the last battle, since they realized they were the only two left and from then they had travelled all around Romania, re-travelling every few hundred or so years to discover new things that had arrived in the future.

Some children ran out of the village, laughing and joking with one another, into the forest that surrounded the village.

"We could get some dinner I suppose," Vladimir wondered out loud, eyes unenthusiastically following the kids trail through the trees.

Stefan simply grunted at his half hearted proposal.

Another five minutes had dragged on and with it more weary boredom; Vladimir had been about to force himself up to go feed on those children for the sake of having something to do when something caught his eye in the far distance.

Almost as though he had read his mind; Stefan's head whipped to look to their right.

Another Volturi tracker?!

Looks like they had broken tradition to catch them off guard.

Stefan felt minor annoyance but he supposed it was a good thing in a way; some form of excitement at least. Vladimir was mostly irritated that they had been taken by surprise; the tracker was only a few miles away!

"I am getting agitated," Stefan spoke through gritted teeth.

"Let us leave then," Vladimir answered.

They both stood and strode casually and calmly to the opposite side of the village, away from the tracker, and towards another exit/entrance past the fence the mortals had built around their homes. Keeping out of the eyes of the Volturi also meant hiding their presence from mere mortals as well, was almost laughable at the memories of how they used to rule them, of how something like the two of them were walking to freely among them and the humans had no idea how easily-

No. Keeping tempers and patience in check, thinking of such things now will not help.

Moment they had left the village and entered the forest and were away from prying eyes, a burst of supernatural speed and they were gone, running as fast as they could.

Stefan turned to glance back at their 'friend' as they ran from him.

Ah, they had sent Demetri again.

He was an exceptionally good tracker, a gift obviously so, however he could find the last remaining Romanians but it certainly did not mean he could catch them.

Two days of constant running, tire none of them did, at least they were getting some exercise Vladimir had concluded thoughtfully however Stefan was simply not in the mood for any of this.

Vladimir was prone to grinning happily in a fight or when chasing or chased as he loved the action, the fight and the movement, Stefan was more liable to slow down and take a more scholarly-like interest in whatever his surroundings were at the time, not to say he too did not love a good fight and Vladimir was a fan of good literature, was simply to say out of the two of them; Vladimir was wanting to be more active.

Maybe not to a mortal but that is because of the lack of time they have and vampires do have.

It was odd but it was like over the years they spent together in each other's company, they had gained the others quirks; tone of voice, habits, sense of humour and so on. Most of the time they didn't even need to speak and one knew the other's thoughts anyway.

It was the fourth day, around noon, that Demetri stopped following. Most likely had gotten bored and fed up from being too far away from getting anywhere close to attack and the Romanians had not made any mistake or slip up to allow him near.

Stefan could tell the attempts from the Volturi were getting less and less in number but also in passion, and as much as it bristled his indignation at the thought that they were not much of a threat to be bothered with.

He mentioned this to Vladimir as Demetri ran back in the other direction and it prompted narrowed eyes and a blank expression.

"We need to eat," Vladimir's words showed no emotion.

Stefan did not regret his earlier statement as it was honest, they had both, silently, agreed to never lie, to never be like the Italians, hence why Vladimir had not said anything back about his coven leader and friend's words.

It was probably a lucky thing that neither of them had been turned when they were younger; Vladimir had been a young man of twenty eight and Stefan had been forty, of course neither of them looked very old anyway thanks to their ageless venom running through them. If they had been hot headed teenagers that might have been a trait to have been frozen forever within them, neither of them would have the patience and calmness they had now.

As though to negate Stefan's thoughts, right on cue they passed by a dog that had wandered from another village that was less than a mile from them. Vladimir gave it a swift and gentle (for a vampire) kick to the rump as he ran by the German shepherd causing the dog to run yelping through the trees.

It was enough to make them both grin.