Sasha and Vasili's incident was one of he last that they dealt with during the eradication of the vampire children. As usual he had stood in the background as Sasha and the members of her coven were interrogated.
Strangely enough it was the first time that he began to show apathy towards his duties as a leader in the vampire world. He didn't notice; he simply thought of it as keeping himself distant from distasteful proceedings.
Aro had noticed though and he wasn't pleased. He had blamed Didyme, but never voiced this opinion.
Aro stood by and watched with apathy as Aro and Caius catechized Sasha's daughters. He hadn't needed Aro's gift to see that the three sisters, Tanya, Irina, and Kate, knew nothing about their younger brother Vasili.
As the three beautiful vampire women stood there, fear apparent in their crimson eyes, their mother, Sasha, stood calmly by, amazingly so considering the circumstances. She just stood there, Vasili in her embrace as she tried to calm him. There was fear in her eyes, but also resignation, as if she knew what was coming, but accepted it. It was that look that had reminded him of his wife.
Didyme.
She had also known what was coming due to her gift, but she had accepted it. That hadn't made it any easier when the end had come. At that moment he felt sympathy for this vampire and her coven.
When it came time to counsel, Aro and Caius sensed what he was feeling. Aro was surprised; Caius was incensed. Marcus could sense Aro's fascination with the emotions he was feeling as well as with the direction of his thoughts.
For the first time, one of them was suggesting mercy.
Caius was shocked by this turn of events. Aro just seemed intrigued by them.
In the end, mercy had been granted to Sasha's three daughters. Aro agreed with Marcus, the three women knew nothing about the child and therefore should not be punished.
Although Caius was not pleased by this turn of events, he saw it as a sort of compromise that at the very least Sasha and Vasili would die.
Standing back he watched as Sasha whispered what he could only assume was her goodbyes to her three daughters, the young boy clinging to her long skirts the whole while. There was very little time after that.
He could tell that the daughters were distraught, that they had questions. Questions that would always remained unanswered.
As the guard stepped forward and began to tear apart the boy vampire and his mother, the unique ripping sound filling the air, along with the sobs of the three beautiful vampire women who stood by in confusion, the events of the last several hours too much for even their vampire minds to process in such a short span of time.
Their mother, along with the brother they never knew existed, was gone.
After Aro had made his usual offer for Kate, the talented sister, to join their coven and she had declined, they had left.
For the days and weeks that followed Aro seemed more interested in Marcus and his actions. He had purposely sought out Didyme and Marcus' company, something he had rarely if ever done before.
The day of Sasha and Vasili's death and set dangerous ideas in motion for him, but neither Marcus nor Didyme had realized it.
Didyme only knew because of her gift that an event she had known was coming for decades was creeping closer with each passing day. She had no idea where the shadow of death was coming from, but she already felt its darkness touching upon her own vampire life.
She did not share this with Marcus.
Marcus stayed in his rooms after reading the volume concerning the vampire children. In fact, he stayed there for several days. He did not even come down to feed.
His brothers and their wives along with the other members of the coven did not question this behavior. They simply figured that he was in another one of his melancholy moods.
Eventually he was called down because of a visitor.
If he was surprised at seeing the face that had been in his thoughts recently, he didn't show it. If he was curious about the purpose of the visit, that was also hidden away.
Irina. Strange that she should appear when he had been going over the last time he had seen her and her sisters over and over again in his mind.
Like other vampires she had not change physically other than the fashion she wore that reflected the times they lived in. What he was slightly intrigued by was the anger she saw in her features.
It wasn't that he hadn't seen that look of anger before, far from it. He had seen her anger mixed with pain on the day that her mother had been taken from her, but this time the anger seemed to be coming from a completely different place.
But, not even her anger was enough to hold his interest and he sat there, bored, uncaring, letting his mind drift back to his wife again as she spoke.
Didyme.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he was paying some attention to what Irina had to say, but his thoughts about Didyme sitting in their field, the sun glinting off of her skin in sparkles was much more pleasant and intriguing.
Then she mentioned the one thing that could draw his attention away from those wonderful memories.
She mentioned Carlisle's coven.
And with that he turned his thoughts to the bond between Edward and Bella.
Apparently there were some interesting bits of news that their visitor had to share with them, news that might make it more than a bit difficult to complete the promise he'd made to himself to assist the young couple.
Bella and Edward had gotten married…but she had not been changed.
He didn't understand the boy holding out. Apparently Edward was stronger than Marcus himself had ever been. He still had no doubts that the boy would change the girl, but he did not understand the delay.
As if Caius did not need another reason to pounce on the opportunity to attack and Aro did not need another excuse to try and bring the gifted vampires in the group into their coven, there was more.
Apparently there was a possibility that Carlisle and his family were associating with werewolves.
Werewolves? Why would Carlisle choose to do such a thing?
He briefly glanced at Caius knowing his brother would react badly to this turn of events. He was not disappointed. Caius was growling in his seat.
Why was this turning out to be more complicated than necessary? Though of course he should have realized it would. True love never took a fully easy and uncomplicated path. He knew that from his own story, but really, it should have been easier than this.