.:innocent:.

Jane proves herself a difficult child, splintering and shrieking while her shoulders shiver beneath spidersilk lace. Her screams, carrying and distorted by porous stone, drive even her brother away to seek stillness. Then, only as a desperate remedy, Caius' snarling impatience and Marcus' hollow-eyed stare drive Aro to her side.

-

"Jane, Jane…" Aro murmurs, "you cannot continue like this, little one. Dear though you are to me, you must not be a disruption to the others." Hurt carves itself upon the delicate, upturned face in strokes and lashes, before the girl angles her head away, concealing her injury behind a fringe of lank, sparrow-coloured hair.

Aro sighs then, unaccustomed to wounding words. Silver-tongued and dancing in his speech, he does not cause pain inadvertently. "Very well. Tell me your reasons for this." He gestures around the ruined room, a mausoleum littered with porcelain and marble that was once the lifework of gifted hands.

The witch girl meshes her fingers in the fabric of her dress, but her reticence cannot intervene against the avalanche of truths that slips stubbornly from her lips.

"The guard—they hate me, they all do. I do not understand why, they are fond enough of Alec, and his gift is more frightening than mine. I do not want this and I cannot bear this. How can it to be that even monsters condemn me?" She does not lament like a child; the words fall hard and quick as summer hail, leaving only ruin and ice in their aftermath.

He opens his arms and embraces her then, lightly as he would when scabby-kneed Didyme showed him her scrapes or whispered her nightmares into his ear. Jane is too fine-boned to fit comfortably against him, a tremulous, underfed bird of a girl, but the touch soothes her, loosening knots of wrath and agony. Though there is tenderness to be found in the moment, Aro's curiosity cannot be reined by any emotion, and enquiring fingers brush the translucent skin at her neck.

Want.

It assails his senses in rivulets that become waves. The feeling itself is childish, love and adoration entwined with lust that is incongruously innocent. The intensity…ah, but that is Jane's undoing. A bond such as this surely glows like heated steel in Marcus' mind.

Immediately, he wonders who will advise him about the intricacies of adolescents in love. Perhaps he should ask Athenodora, who is patient, or Sulpicia, who has a gift for bluntness.

No, he hastily corrects himself. Sulpicia will not know. It is a strange sentiment for one who tells his mate all, secrets pressed between the tangled sheets and kisses that mark their marriage.

Author's Note: Jane's feelings for Aro are unique in their intensity, but given her relative youth and lack of judgment, she's more in love with the construct in her head than the man in front of her, because she really has no way of knowing her master. I'm hoping that this puts Aro's response to her emotions in context; it's not that he's never been loved before, but that he's never been the subject of absolute, single-minded devotion.

Reviews, as always, are better than chocolate.