"Non è el mio problema." Anne said slowly and with an accent that not completely fell on the norm of Italian, not at all surprised to see her guardian across from her shaking his head.
He simply pointed at the book in front of her as if it were entirely too obvious. "Un." He corrected, looking into his ward's eyes with only a small hint of amusement. "If you say el it's grammatically incorrect for what you're trying to say." It had been at least three weeks since the party, and Alec and Anne rested comfortably in one of the rooms of Dydime's residence whilst she was in another room, according to what they knew, speaking to Caius in a Skype call alike the one where they had first seen her in; it had been day by day that they kept the hidden Queen company, kept her safe, remained inside together for the hopes of not being seen anywhere. There were guards dedicated to bringing them anything they might need, even blood. But, even a woman as lively as Dydime seemed to need her private moments sometimes. And it was exactly those times in which Alec and Anne had taken on to themselves to do something with their time, and, as per Anne's request, Alec had agreed to use most of that time for the once-Queen to learn Italian entirely once and for all.
A task easier wished than done, for there were a few things that the girl did not much understand when it came to logic in the Italian language. Something specifically that made her find herself in need to release a frustrated sigh as she leaned back on her seat. "Bloody hell, this language demands too much." She stated with a shake of her head, making Alec laugh shortly as he moved closer toward the table, if anything, so he could flip the page of the Italian book to show her something else.
"It's all about patience." He admitted, placing both his arms upon a rest on the table and feeling calm for what felt like the first time in all of eternity; it was a peace that left him wary, really, but he could do no more than attempt ignoring such a feeling to not ruin the peace with his Queen. "You know French, right?" He wondered, still smiling, even by the moment she decided to nod. "Then there you go; some of the grammar from Italian is the same."
"Other than the fact that some objects seem to have a gender, I do not see how that applies." She admitted, with a pause. "French, I understand; this?" She didn't even hesitate on leaning against the table once again to press her hands against the pages of the book as if she attempted to smooth it out. "Sono completamente frustrate de questa lingua."
To this, Alec couldn't help but laugh. "See? It's not that hard." He encouraged, shaking his head and moving within a continued comfort as he rested a hand on the table. "Come on, you can do it." He paused. "Como stai oggi?" Anne released a breath, nodded, and pressed a hand to the book again, pursed her lips in thought and looked down at the book; not at all surprised to have his long fingers suddenly covering the page. "Trust me, Anne. The book's just there for emergencies, you've been around Italian long enough to catch it quick."
At this, Anne's eyes lifted to glare at her guardian, who simply smiled and raised his brows in a wonderful enough expression to make Anne's lips unable to not rise on a smile to mirror his own. "Fine." She waited until his hand moved away, leaning against the table and nodding until Alec repeated the Italian question. "Sono... frustrato perchè mi sembra di imparare lentamente." (I am frustrated because I seem to learn slowly.) She nodded, waiting until Alec nodded along and encouraged her further with a proud smile. "E sono anche curioso." (And I am also curious.)
"Porsso dirvi che non si impara lentamente. Questa è una delle cose che amo di te." (I can tell you that you do not learn slowly. That is one of the things I love about you.) Clearly she had no problem understanding, for Alec's eyes brightened upon seeing one of the smiles he loved to see so much on her. He had to smile too. "Ma, mi dica. Che cosa siete curiosi di sapere?" (But, tell me. What are you curious about?)
At this, Anne let out a breath and moved so her hand could rest atop Alec's; there was something that upon being able to rest without worry had raised a wonder within her mind. Something she had been meaning to bring up for conversation within the past few days but that, due to the spontaneity of the subject, she had decided against, but... well... "Stavo pensando..." (I was thinking...) She paused, frowning upon her doubt for the grammar she had used. "Quando siamo tornati al castello de Venezia..."
"Da." Alec corrected with a nod of his head, merely for encouragement for the other to not stop. "Da Venezia, otherwise you're using a different kind of 'from'." Anne released a breath of annoyance, but nodded. "Via avanti, continuare."
So she did, without much thinking, she simply voiced the words out the way she thought she had learnt. "Mi hai chiesto di sposarti?" (Did you ask me to marry you?)
Had Alec been drinking anything, he might have spat it right at that moment. His smile froze along with widened orbs that rested on Anne. He didn't dare move away, but the unexpected subject was enough to make him seem like a shortly panicking statue that dared not speak willingly. For, without even making note of what he'd done, very suddenly, he simply grimaced and said: "Què? No hablo ingles."
Something that only made the once-queen's eyes roll and her frame to move back to rest completely against the chair as her head shook in his direction. "Nice try." She started, crossing her arms under her chest. "That's Spanish." One of her legs crossed over the other.
And it was that confident demeanour that broke Alec from his shock enough to laugh shortly within a shake of his head. If there was a day within his existence in which Anne would not surprise her, then he was sure he would think he was dead. He truly did adore her, even with her spontaneous and unexpected surprises. "I thought you hadn't heard me asking." He admitted, shaking his head once again and allowing his eyes to lift and meet hers once again. "What with the guard coming in and the fear for your life."
"I did hear." Anne admitted, the corners of her lips lifting gently within that moment. "But you're right, everything else made the matter get buried in the depths of my mind until before the party." She confessed, twisting her lips to the side for an instance prior to inhaling a breath out of habit and locking her eyes with his.
She wasn't surprised to see her guardian nodding. "My, what made you wait to ask for so long?" He nearly chuckled, but he truly stopped himself without being able to push back the dimples that adorned his cheeks upon the smile that became unwavering.
Something to which Anne could only release yet another very human breath. "We had more important things to think about at the moment." She paused, lifting a shoulder without daring to look away from him. "I thought it could wait until we could find a small moment of tranquillity, and, well..." Her hands lifted at both sides of her face, palms up, as if she were motioning to the very moment the two vampires existed in. "This seems to be it." Her hands lowered to rest upon her lap with a gentle slap. "So?" She encouraged once again, prompting him not only with the word but with her curious crimson orbs. "Did you?"
It was clear by the way she asked it, that she already did know the answer to her own question, but a clarification was needed, apparently, whether immediate or not, and all Alec could do was twist his lips to the side and nod slowly, looking deep into Anne's eyes whilst leaning against the table once again. "Yes, I did." He confirmed, watching as Anne's shoulders lifted and fell with a breath that had become so common to see in her that it made him smile.
Her lids blinked too, very humanly and with the shock of affirmation within that moment that would have made an existing heart beat wildly with a plethora of emotions tooting against her every cell. "And did you mean it?" She then wondered, inviting deep crimson orbs to remain on her guardian's own as a breath got caught in the middle of her throat; for it was one thing to ask such a thing upon the heat of a romantic moment, and a whole different one to consciously and presently state the truth of one's own desires.
It was why she was so surprised when, without even a pause longer than a millisecond, Alec replied. "Of course I meant it." He admitted, resting his head on his arms as he looked at her, looking nearly childlike within that motion and making Anne's lips lift shortly within a smile in immediate response. "I think..." He continued, frowning minutely as he looked in her direction. "...maybe not having you around, drowning in the thought that I had lost you, it; I don't know, it did something, and I realised I wouldn't be able to take a day more like that." He paused within his musings, looking away for a second. "Of course, getting married or not wouldn't change the fact that I don't plan on leaving you, ever—I mean, you know, as long as you want me around, but..." He looked at her again. "I kind of want it to be official, you know? I want to be able to officially be connected to you, I—I don't know how to explain it." At this, he frowned.
"No, you don't have to; I think get it." She paused. "I do." Anne admitted, nodding her head and moving within the chair so her arms could fall upon the table and she could even lean in his direction. "I understand, and I—" But that had been as much as she had been able to let out, because suddenly a loud noise echoed within the room: the door slamming against the walls and nearly breaking as a shaken Dydime burst into the place. It made Alec sit straight, Anne turn around with a frown across her forehead, and both fill with worry entirely for the hidden Queen. "Lady Dydime?" Anne asked, standing from her seat at the same time as her lover did. The once lively Volturi Queen's features seemed distressed, broken and worried within their grimace. No longer did the time dare pass peaceful before Anne and Alec blurred to the woman's side; their previous conversation completely forgotten once again.
"Mistress Dydime, what's wrong?" Alec wondered, holding the woman's arm as if that alone were to relax her; and perhaps it did not do as such, but it gave her enough courage to speak.
It was as if the contact from both vampires had encouraged her somehow. "The Volturi, I—Caius has told me the most worrying things. This—there's this war coming and he told me about the alignments, about Marcus—Aro is losing his mind. He told me about the recent murders, and Sulpicia, and—god, dear Athenodora—he said 'winter is coming', and I told him we weren't in Game of Thrones, that such was not time for jokes, but—but then he just—he—I forgot it was the code we had agreed on a while ago too—, and he yelled at me somewhat—it's horrible, we need to—this war—and—"
"Lady Dydime!" Anne called, holding onto the brunette's arm as both Alec and the once-Queen led her to the closest chair: the one Anne had been sitting on only moments ago. If anything, such a call had been an attempt to make Dydime stop talking; and it had worked. "Breathe, my Lady." Anne encouraged, only receiving a short doubtful look from Alec at the other side of the distressed woman; had Anne forgotten she was possibly the only vampire who still willingly breathed? The look upon his Queen's eyes was enough to reassure him that she knew what she was doing. "Breathe," She repeated. "And then tell us what happened."
Granted, it was a rather odd thing to request from an immortal being millennia older than Anne herself, but Dydime seemed to want to listen enough to comply with what Anne requested, for she stopped the babbles that had escaped, took a deep breath and nodded in confirmation before she even dared speak. "I was in my call with Caius, as you know." Alec and Anne nodded in encouragement to continue as he leaned against the table the Italian book rested on, and she sat on the seat he'd occupied before. "It seemed rather urgent, and, it was." Once again her voice seemed somewhat altered, but the calm of attempting to convey a message remained along her tone. "He told me that Aro is losing his mind faster and faster; he has killed at least five guards simply because he thinks they either helped Sulpicia escape or helped you two leave the castle unannounced." At this, a frown to mirror each other's creased Anne and Alec's foreheads. "There's this—this war, coming very soon to Volterra, and Caius and I had spoken about this ages ago, and I nearly forgot about it. I've hidden for so long, you see, I don't know when it happened, but, recently, with everything that had been going on, Caius and I came up with this code, and—well, I had nearly forgotten, but he reminded me, and-long story short, the code was meant to be used only when the time came."
With that frown still present in the middle of his forehead, Alec's gaze shifted from Dydime to Anne and back again before he dared utter a word. "Time for what?" He wondered, folding his arms against his chest within the brand new fear and idea that formed within his mind. He had known things were bad, but this bad? People had actually died because of his leaving? He—
"Time for me to return to Volterra and fight." Dydime stated, making any other thought Alec had had dissipate entirely along with Anne's own. They both fell in enough shock to lean back slightly; whatever peace they had found seeming suddenly shattered upon such words, such definite and clear words that nearly matched an order.
And then everything made sense. Why Caius had sent them and not anyone else, why Athenodora had truly been banished, why Demitri had never returned; perhaps even why Aro had lost his mind upon Sulpicia's departure. It all clicked swiftly within Alec's brain and he nearly laughed over his inability to see it all before: they were being used; in some sense of the word, Alec had been right all along. Perhaps he would have laughed, but the reality of the matter was direr than it was amusing: Aro had known what Sulpicia's disappearance had meant, and Caius alongside him; only it seemed the latter planned to do something about it. That was their purpose: they were going to fight; all of them. Sulpicia, Dydime, Athenodora, even... for however long it had been, Caius had been spreading forces for a surprise attack, and they were all part of it. However long his plan had taken to be concocted didn't matter, for the time for its expected display seemed closer than he could want it to be. All Alec could do was let out a breath, nod, and look in Anne's direction once again. "Well," He paused, letting his arms fall toward the table he had been leaning against. "It looks like we're going home."
To Be Continued.
