Chapter 14

These two don't just show us the universe, Claire. I think they are the universe.

I remained completely still. The baby girl in my arms had closed her eyes again, and I felt her breathing deepen. I focused on that to keep myself from losing it completely. "Claire? Are you okay?" Quil asked, leaning his head around to look at me. I took a deep, unnecessary breath before nodding my head.

Quil, what do you think will happen from here? I asked mentally, still unable to use my voice. I mean, they can read minds, they can change their form, they can watch over the entire universe… I broke off there, unable to think about their possibilities anymore. Claire, I think that we should raise them as normal kids, and just let them grow up as they do. He said, trying to calm me down. "Claire, I think that it will be similar to raising Nessie, as they are smarter than they should be. I think that we are just going to have to watch out for them, and be loving parents. That's all that we really can do." He took his left arm from Orion, placing it around my shoulder. He pulled me into a loving embrace, further calming my raging thoughts.

We stayed in that position for hours, Quil falling asleep while holding me, the two werepire babies sleeping between the two of us. "Werepire huh?" Edward asked, coming into the room.

"Yeah. I used to play this one game, and there were these creatures called werepires. They weren't half-breeds, but wolves that had been bitten while transformed. I didn't like them much." I told him, just wanting to speak. I had remained silent for entirely too long, and I felt like my throat would seize up if I went much longer.

"Well, Claire, I think that it is entirely appropriate to call these two angels, for more reasons that they are beautif-"

"Guys!" Alice screamed from downstairs. Quil jolted awake, and Edward dashed from the door in mid-sentence. I carefully picked up Virgo, while Quil grabbed Orion, both of us careful about not jostling their still sleeping figures.

Down in the main living room, we found Alice lying on the couch, Jasper kneeling by her head with a worried expression. "What happened?" Bella asked, as the rest of the family appeared in the room.

"Demetri…" Alice said, her voice incredibly weak, especially for a vampire. Edward gasped at what Alice was showing him, and then turned to face us. "Demetri was in the area a few hours ago. He had decided to keep tabs on us while here, and Alice saw him feel the twins' birth. He decided to not make any firm decisions, but just now he left to tell Aro."

"So, why is Alice like this?" Emmett asked loudly, his raucous nature preventing much seriousness in his voice. Jasper glared at him while Edward answered, "Because, as soon as she saw Demetri touching Aro's hand, the entire future of the Volturi disappeared. Anyone who was ever a part of their group, is gone."

A buzz ran throughout the room, and everyone began looking, unable to locate it. A silent shout directed us all towards Orion, now sitting up in Quil's arms. "Whoa…cool kid." Emmett said, staring at Orion. Suddenly, an idea popped into my head, and I saw an odd look on everyone's faces, showing that they had gotten an idea too. "Did he just-" Jasper asked, looking shocked.

"Yeah…He did." Edward said.

"I think that's a pretty good idea. This kid's smart!" Emmett said.

"Only one problem." Carlisle broke in, stopping before the real excitement was formed. Orion looked over to Carlisle briefly, and his little face became a pout. I suddenly felt the knowledge of what Carlisle was thinking break into my mind. "Oh, yeah. Good point…" I said, looking at Carlisle. Everyone looked at the ground as this point entered their minds as well.

Orion's head bolted up just then, and the mood picked up as another idea was sent out. "Alright, can we stop this!" Alice shouted, sitting up from the couch. "Can we please get these ideas out in the open, just so that I don't think that everyone else is getting a different thing? It's killing my head, and my nerves which are already frayed from Demetri!"

The small boy glared at her, showing more emotion than even Nessie had, when she was this young. "Fine. Talking is boring though." He said out loud, much to everyone's shock. His voice was the very high soprano of a baby's wail, but it was ordered into perfectly articulated sounds. It even contained the tone of annoyance, almost as if he were whining for food instead of submitting to speaking aloud.

"Holy crap! What is with this kid?" Emmett boomed, voicing the surprise before anyone else. Orion turned his glare to Emmett, whose jaw clacked shut with a snap.

Breathing an irritated sigh, Orion said quickly, "Okay, the first idea was: Someone watches the entire Volturi group through me or Virgo, since Alice can't see them anymore.

"Then, Grandpa shut down this idea, thinking that it would be a huge hassle, as one of us would need to be awake all the time, and at least one person would be completely removed while watching.

"Finally, I proposed that instead of anyone of you watching them, we can just keep an eye on them. While we sleep, we can choose what we dream. We can choose to dream of what the Volturi are doing right then, and we will remember every detail with perfect clarity when we wake up. There, happy?" he said, finishing.

The entire rant had gone mostly unheard, only picked up in everyone's peripheral hearing. The full focus of the room was still on the child who was merely a few hours old, who had just spoken several full paragraphs more perfectly than a lot of human adults.

The room buzzed again, another idea floating out. "Humph." Orion grumbled in his tiny voice, continuing to speak. "No, Edward, we can't just 'make Alice see' again. I don't know why, but something bigger than me is blocking the Volturi. Hey! That rhymed! 'Something bigger than me is blocking the Volturi. Something…' " He trailed off, singing the silly rhyme several times out loud. He then fell silent, but was still doing a little baby dance to the beat of the new song.

We all sent uneasy looks around the room. "Okay, this kid's funky, that's for sure." Emmett said, voicing all the opinions once again. "Some-thing bigger than me, da-dum, is blocking the Vol-turi." Orion continued singing happily, breaking the words into more of a broken rhythm.

"So, the kids who are just born are going to be watching the most powerful force in the vampire kingdom. Wow, I feel incredibly safe now." Emmett said sarcastically.

xXx

Not even a week had passed, and already the Volturi watch was annoying. Orion spent most of the time with his eyes closed, while Virgo was forced to speak for him, since he couldn't really do anything physical while in Volterra. Virgo preferred to speak mentally, putting words into people's heads, instead of their ears. When she spoke for Orion, she spoke out loud so that she didn't have to say, 'Orion says…'.

Alice was lying on the couch just now, feeling completely useless. The Volturi had decided to not really do anything for a long time, but she couldn't see to tell us when that 'long time' was.

Virgo suddenly came sprinting out of the other room, running as fast as her tiny infant's legs could take her. Mommy, mommy! She called silently, jumping up into my arms.

What is it, honey? I asked her, thinking in her direction like I would for Edward. The great thing was, I didn't need to enter the twins' minds to talk to them. It saved a lot of time.

Mommy, look at what I can do! She said, holding her hands up in the air. She opened her mouth, and began waving her hands slowly, like a conductor of a band. After a measure, the sound of an electric guitar filled the room. After counting out a basic beat, an electric violin joined in. I stared at her in shock as it began playing a Christmas song.

The violin slowed down after about 10 seconds, and then several instruments exploded into the air. I immediately recognized The Trans-Siberian Orchestra's 'Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24. The instrumental chorus rang out, as though a live orchestra were playing straight from her mouth. Her hands had split off to conduct different things, her left hand holding the quickened tempo, her right hand instructing the invisible orchestra in the dynamics of the piece.

The electric violin came to the big finish, and I stared into empty space, utterly shocked. Quil walked in, his mouth dropping open as Virgo dropped her arms, no CD player in sight. Edward exploded down the stairs, his expression matching that of Quil and me. The other members of the family followed, clearly worried by Edward's confusion.

Isn't that song pretty, Mommy? Uncle Edward let me listen to one of his CD's, and I wanted to play that one. I made him teach me the right way to conduct it, so that I could play it for you. Isn't it a pretty song? Her tiny voice asked me in my head, completely oblivious to all the shocked family members behind her. Daddy! Isn't that song so pretty? She called over to him, breaking his frozen position. He crossed over to her, and I heard in her head, …Yes, that is a very pretty song, Virgo. I think that's wonderful that you learned it! Hey, I've got an idea, why don't you go and learn some more songs? I'm sure that you can do it, even without Uncle Edward's help. You're very smart. Did you know that? He asked, making her very happy.

Yay! Daddy thinks I'm smart! She called this out for everyone to hear, then scrambled down from my arms. I'm going to go learn My Song, the one that Uncle Edward plays for me! She called, running towards the stairs. She jumped up them, six at a time, and quickly disappeared from view.

"What…What was that?" Quil asked, turning to me.

"I have no idea. She just ran up to me, and started conducting towards the air. Then that came out." I said, waving at nothing.

"She was playing." Edward said, drawing everyone's attention. "She was focusing on each of the vibrations that my stereo made, as it played the song. I think that she then figured out how to copy those vibrations, exactly, with her vocal chords. She only conducts to help order her thoughts on what instrument plays where."

Eleven pairs of eyes stared at him in shock, absorbing the fact that she could do that. "She magnified the vibrations by making the air rumble in on a much larger scale. That is how the sound seemed to come from the room itself." Edward continued, oblivious to our stares.

"So…the kid can control the air now." Emmett said, breaking a silence that lasted almost a minute.

"Not only that, Emmett, she can control with such finesse, that she can make perfect sounds. There is no telling what she could do, if she became violent, with that level of control at such a young age." My eyes turned to Carlisle, who had spoken this last comment. "Carlisle, do you think that she knows what she is doing?" I asked him, but my answer came from Edward.

"Yes, Claire. She knows exactly what she is doing. That is how I know so much. She was thinking about it as she listened to the song, and then playing around with it a little bit, but I didn't really notice. Then she came out to you to show you, and it all became very clear."

A loud crash, followed by a scream, came from upstairs. We all burst up the stairs, nearly tearing the walls apart with our speed, into the room that Virgo's scream came from. We all stopped when we entered, frozen by what we saw.

Virgo was on the bed, crying and screaming, while pointing to the window/wall of Edward's room. In the center of the large glass wall, there was a huge hole, jagged and big enough for a full grown person to step through. "Honey, what happened?" I said, grabbing her up into my arms, trying to calm her down. Through her, I felt Jasper work his power, and she stopped screaming, but tears still ran down her face.

"I…I…I saw…I saw a…a bug." She said, sniffles breaking up her sentence. "It scared me, because it was yucky and brown, so I waved…my hand at it, trying to make it go away, but it wouldn't listen! I…I got mad…So I tried pretending to throw something at it, wanting…wanting to scare…scare it away!" She had calmed down more, but sniffs and sobs still interrupted her occasionally. "But then…then after I pretended to throw something, the wall…exploded out into the yard! It scared…scared me! I didn't want to break the wall! I…I…I…Waaaaah!" She began wailing again, burying her face into my shoulder.

I had just started comforting her, when a tiny hand pushed between me and Quil, followed by a whole body. Orion walked over to the window, and stopped to stare. He let out a large sigh, shaking his head.

The air buzzed, his silent thoughts telling us to watch. He raised his hands, palms up, and curled his fingers, as if inviting someone to come closer. Nothing happened. He grumble, then lifted one arm high above his head, and all of the broken glass rose up from the ground, entering our view. We gasped in shock, even the tiniest fragments floating beyond the broken window.

Orion then curled his fingers again, calling the glass forward. He began waving his raised hand in front of him, and the glass flew to different positions, rearranging itself.

After seven seconds, the window was nearly perfect, only cracks remaining of the damage. Little Orion then clenched his fist, and each crack began to glow a vibrant red, casting a light which illuminated the entire room. The whole broken section of the window then blurred together, the cracks melting and mixing with each other.

The glow then became white, blocking out even a vampire's view of what exactly was happening. As suddenly as it started, the glow faded, revealing an absolutely perfect window, as if it had just been replaced.

Orion turned around, walking back towards me. He climbed up my leg, hanging from my neck to tap Virgo's crying shoulder. I felt the buzz that entered her mind, and she looked at him. A second buzz directed her to the window, and she squealed in delight. Yay! Thank you, Orion! You fixed the window! And no bug!

Orion then turned his attention to us, and spoke with his tiny voice. "The Volturi are acting as though they have forgotten all about us. Can we please take a break? I want to do stuff besides sit in my room, watching old people in Italy!" The tiny whine of his voice brought back some of the feeling that he really was only about a week old, instead of the thirty year old that he pretended to be.

"Hmmm…Thirty seems a bit old. How about a teenager? Yeah, I like that more." He said, and then his eyes stared off into space, focusing on something else.

"How about, not right now. Okay, Orion? I think your parents want more than one week with you as an infant." Edward said, putting his hand on Orion's shoulder.

"Hah, fine. I'm going to go and watch the Clorans. They are funny." He said, sliding down to the floor and walking back to the other room. A strange silence followed, then Emmett said, "The what?"

Alright, a lot of people won't know what Clorans are. I can't remember which book I took the name from, but it is either Animorphs, or Pendragon. I think it was Pendragon, in which case the Clorans are people, except they live on a planet with no land whatsoever. They are introduced in the second book, 'The Lost City of Faar', and the way they live is pretty cool. They built massive barges, which hold the cities. I can't explain it right, so if you want to find out more, I suggest you read the book. It's a really good series.