/ the dark things you fear /
No one told Athenodora what had preceded her arrival in Velathri but then, she had never needed telling. Instead, she pressed herself into crowded corners and spattered shadows, gulping secrets down like blood. She knew how young she looked on Caius' arm, how gawky, but she did not mind. Casual confessions were spilled into her open palms, because a precious girl, a faltering newborn half in love, was no danger.
Marcus was the simplest to pin into place, so warm and glad and besotted with the apple-cheeked little thing whom he had wed. Theirs was the affection of lovers in fables, but Athenodora had no patience with stories. A quick look, and there it was—the shiver, the ugly desperation beneath his caresses. If I am very, very good, he seemed to scream, will you promise not to leave?
After that, she tried to be kind to him. Quiet and gentle, a child by a sickbed.
Didyme was another matter. She blazed, a flame cradled in glass, and did not care who noticed. Something about her—the cool edge of iron beneath her features, the ripe-berry sweetness of her smile—commanded breathless reverence. And she was watchful. Her gaze followed Athenodora with delicate precision and the same savage thirst that darkened her brother's eyes. Occasionally, when the pair of them fit their hands together and forgot to muffle their giggles, a convincing pantomime of girlish friendship, the silvery woman didn't restrain a shudder, pulling away so suddenly that it could not be overlooked.
And Caius, her fierce, too-harsh lover, had veins of uncertainty running through him, marrow-deep and obvious. When she made him laugh in the soft blackness of their rooms, she caught the blur of shock across his features that did not suit him at all. Athenodora curled around him then, permitting him to do what he wished with her. It startled her, every time, when his hands were tender, so light that he might have been touching treasure.
}-o-{
"Caius!" Aro sang, lilting and gleeful. "We have not spoken like this for so long."
The white-haired man raised a brow, his hands neatly pressed together on the edge of his companion's desk.
"Oh, do not look so sour. We both know that Sulpicia is better company than you are," he said, grinning.
"Why are you not with her now?"
Aro's expression turned sombre then, the hollows of his features stern and suddenly unsubtle. "I need your advice on a less-than-pleasant matter. Something with which I would not trouble my wife."
"Yes?" Caius said, turning his gaze to the blue-bright flutter of candlelight, wary of the regret in his brother's voice. Beeswax wept and pooled on pitted wood while the air dripped with the scent of curdled honey.
" How will we manage without Marcus and Didyme? They wish to leave us permanently," the black-haired man mused. It was the sighing inquiry of an affectionate sibling, but sharpness cut through the corners.
"Poorly." The half-truth came easily; Caius could not quite bring himself to praise Marcus' gift, nor malign Didyme's.
"Do you think we can, ah, persevere regardless?" Aro said lightly. The promise of a storm, an unsteady future, stole the light from the room.
"No."
"How concise of you." His laughter was frayed, too cool and high for sincerity.
"There is nothing else to say." For an instant, Caius viewed the world as his brother saw it, orderly and pristine. His darling little sister was dangerously out of place, a freewheeling, feral thing and that would not do.
"You are unexpectedly helpful sometimes. Did you know that?"Aro said, in dismissal and praise.
}-o-{
The dull curtain of rainwater whispering against red rock was so familiar, so meshed with memories of summery smiles and the slow sweep of strange surrender, that Caius almost grinned, dry and cracked and stripped of joy.
"Nothing changes, I see," Didyme said. Her gaze was a black shock after years of averted eyes and hurried conversations.
"And you are not content with that." No sentiment escaped alongside the words.
"You have no right to fault me for wanting to leave," she said. "And even if you do, I will not change my decision."
Time had not made her adept at turning her features to stone. Bitterness simmered beneath, as she wondered why no-one—not her brother, the lover she had once adored, the spun-gold creatures she called sisters—begged her to stay. Didyme did not know how to be an afterthought.
For a rushed and stinging moment, Caius considered pleading, falling on his knees and looking up, as a penitent mortal would. The gesture, utterly unlike him and shameful to contemplate, would convince her to remain in Volterra. Buy her life. Keep her safe from Aro's plans, insidious, poison-sugared concoctions to the last, ending with choking silence.
And then, he didn't. Her burdens had stopped being his a century ago.
Instead, he touched her chin, patience taking the place of gentleness. "I did not find you to fight with you," he said. "I only wanted to say my farewells."
Didyme's smile was a stroke of sunlight, a beautiful unravelling.
"You are altogether too dire, my darling Caius. I will visit Velathri at every opportunity."
"Of course," he agreed, pressing a kiss onto the soft swell of her cheek. Beneath his lips, her skin was warm, flushed the ghostly pink of crushed petals.
Caius broke away too soon, throat suffused with the phantom scrape of ashes.
[-]
"Athenodora?"
The rain was not enough to bring her indoors, but she slipped to Caius' side when he called, damp-haired and happy.
"We should go away for a while," he said. "Do you want to?"
He anticipated the glee in her grin, but not the swift clench of her hand around his.
"Are you certain?" she said, too knowing and a little afraid.
"Yes." Later, he would tell her that there were some things he refused to witness, that distance made lies easier to live and to repeat.
The departure was quiet and quick, devoid of goodbyes because timelessness had erased that need first.
}-o-{
The homecoming was wretched.
fin
AUTHOR'S NOTE: And we're done! Some thank-yous are in order. First, to Merina2 who suggested the principle pairing to me, and made a good case for it, besides "It's hot," which was my ever-so-nuanced interpretation. Secondly, to Arianna-Janae, who wrote a lovely recommendation-review of this fic on The LUV'NV. Finally, to all of you, who read, reviewed, favourited and put up with months between updates.
