I don't own anything in the Twilight universe, only my OCs and drunk ideas. Please don't repost any of my works. Enjoy!
Here's an updated description of my still-relevant OCs:
Luíseach - (pron. Lee-sha-kh/Лышах) a gifted vampire from 4th century Wales; mother of Athanasia and Pandora; power referred to as a 'chameleon' due to her ability to both imitate the appearance and mimic the language(s) of others.
Athanasia (Athy)・Αθανασία - the vampire-human hybrid daughter of Luíseach and Caius; has the ability to convince and change the minds of others.
Jolasun (Jojo) Nwaike - newborn vampire, turned by Marcus after giving birth to their son Nwaekerendu; a music-lover who has the ability to radiate energy.
Nwaekerendu (Erendu) - the hybrid son of Jolasun and Marcus; can absorb the energy from surrounding people or vampires; has a sharp mind.
Oharu Akano・赤野オハル - newborn vampire, turned by her mate Alec; has the ability of telekinesis.
Oktai・Октай - Athanasia's mate; grew up in the Mongol empire and turned by Luíseach on his deathbed; can shield select physical attributes as well as specific thoughts.
Pandora (Panda)・Πανδώρα - the hybrid daughter of Luíseach and Aro, forcibly conceived; has the ability to change past memories of others; lover of human food.
Theodotis (Theo)・Θεοδότης - the hybrid son of Aro and Zala and godson of Luíseach; can transfer memories between people; suffers from recurring nightmares involving his birth mother Zala being murdered by his adoptive mother Sulpicia.
Zala K. Hrastnik [deceased] - the former human receptionist at the Volturi and mother of hybrid Theodotis, killed by Sulpicia.
Pandora POV
I sat nervously in front of my mirror, swinging my legs back and forth in my chair, my feet unable to reach the floor. My mum was combing my hair which matched hers in colour, but where hers lay long and straight, mine was only shoulder-length and wavy. Tying my locks into a plaited ponytail, she proclaimed my hair appropriate for a representative of the coven.
"You look perfect, dynan, I'll go and get your dress," she said, placing a kiss on my cheek. Mum returned a moment later with a long, flowing and very feminine black robe; nothing like the colourful patterned clothes I usually wore. This dress was quite intimidating to say the least. It was clean-cut and sleek, and I knew that when I put this on, I would embody the full potential of my power. It was majestic beyond my understanding of the term.
"Now, I know it's not quite your style, but every member of the guard will be required to wear the appropriate uniform tonight; Nwaekerendu, Theodotis and you included," she explained, gesturing subconsciously to the black gown and cloak that she wore. It suited her. The dress accentuated her narrow waist and full hips and gave her the air of superiority that only those permitted to dress in black were allowed. But I didn't feel worthy of my robes yet. I had been alive barely half a year and I ranked higher than some who had served for centuries.
But my father liked to remind me that my gift was far superior than the majority of vampires. Though even when I was given permission to use it, I could barely bring myself to. I'd thought over his idea for a cure for Theo's nightmares, but something held me back. What right did I have to take away possibly the only memory of his mother that my big brother had? Even if it would stop his nightmares, I didn't think that it was a decision I wanted to make for myself. I couldn't imagine not having my mum around, let alone having no memories of her.
My excuse to father so far had been the need to concentrate on the preparations for the ball, though I'm sure he understood my dilemma. I was still nervous about meeting new vampires. Everyone in our coven was well-mannered and dignified and no matter how many reassurances I received, I still feared that the worst could happen.
"Mama, will the other vampires here try to eat us?" I asked, unable to hold in my morbid curiosity any longer.
"I highly doubt that, 'y ngeneth i. There will be many who come from covens who don't even live on human blood, from what I hear. And not every nomad is as feral as you believe. If no one was capable of self-control, we wouldn't be able to conceal our existence," she said, reassuring my worries as she helped me into my dress. But just like the dozens of other times I'd been told this, nothing was able to extinguish my nervous butterflies.
"Come, Pandora, it's time to go," she smiled, taking my hand and leading me from the room.
None of our guests were here yet. I was sure that they were all awaiting the cover of nightfall to make an appearance. Mum accompanied me to the throne room, which was in the process of being decorated with a number of pedestals which showcased some of the many treasures that father had collected over the years.
Placing a small kiss on my cheek, she left me standing in the middle of the hall. I felt the sudden urge to run after her, to make sure she stayed by my side, but I held myself back, knowing that she had her own duties to carry out before the ball. Besides, I'm sure father would provide us hybrids with ample bodyguards.
"Hey Panda, did you lose your brain along with your style?" Theo said suddenly, making me jump.
"Don't sneak up on me like that Theo, you're gonna give me a heart attack!" I yelled at him angrily, acting as though he'd interrupted some sort of deep moment of thought. Theo was also dressed head to toe in black and an attempt had been made to slick back his unruly brunette curls, but his hair seemed to already be rebelling against whatever product had been dolloped over it.
"Heh, you're saying I have no style when you look like you have a dead dog on your head?" I jeered. But before we could continue our friendly discussion, I felt the annoyingly familiar feeling of all the energy in my body being drained out in one go.
"Guys, please don't start this tonight, remember what your father said?" Erendu groaned impatiently. "You know we have to behave tonight, we have standards to keep!"
I yawned and silently cursed Erendu's overwhelming sense of responsibility.
"You didn't have to steal our energy," I protested tiredly.
"You're right, but I don't want to know what our punishment would be for making a scene in front of guests," he retorted.
I sighed and agreed.
Once Erendu had dragged us over to Jojo so she could restore our consumed energy, we all got to work helping the other members of the guard decorate the hall, while Jojo offered to try and fix Theo's hair. A couple of hours later and the usually bare marble chamber was crowned with royal purple velvet and golden embroidery.
"Majestic, isn't it?" a voice from my right marvelled. I looked up to see my father standing next to me, admiring his domain.
"It's beautiful, papa," I replied. Although it didn't look like much had been changed, the precise placement of every decoration truly made our castle look like a palace.
"Indeed it is, Pandora. Though, I'm sure you're aware by now that my true treasures are not those made of gold and silver," he continued, placing a hand upon my shoulder.
I looked up at him again, wondering exactly what he meant by that.
"Do you mean the coven?" I asked. He smiled and knelt down beside me.
"Pandora, this time last year, before you and your brother were born, our coven was in danger of falling apart. Over the centuries, the blights of greed and disloyalty had gradually become entwined so deep within our midst, that they allowed us to lose a lot of respect in our community, polluting our relations with others. None of the riches you see before you can buy back that respect.
"The only ones who can truly change the opinions of others are ourselves. Regardless of whether or not one has an ability, if one cannot listen to and understand the perceptions of others, there is no hope. Everyone has the ability to listen, but not everyone chooses to act on it. Even with my gift, I became complacent and unwilling to truly accept the opposing opinions of others. After all, there's really no 'good' or 'bad' in the essence of the words, for everything can be justified with one way of thinking. We kill humans to sustain ourselves. By human law, that is murder and a bad thing. But it's an example of how the world works: the strong kill the weak to keep going. There may soon come a time when our coven is no longer the top of the food chain. If we allow ourselves to become weakened by our own ideals and blinded by self-righteousness, unable and unwilling to hear the other side of the argument, that's when we become vulnerable. In other words, we will require someone who can win the long-dead hearts of the supernatural world. Remember that no matter what agenda you hold, showing mercy when you have the opportunity to can have benefits later on down the line - for I realised that too late.
"If the events of late have proved anything is that even us immortals are volatile beings, despite being frozen in time. Today's peasants may easily become tomorrow's royalty. That's why you young ones are at an advantage - you grow, you change, you learn. You can adapt a lot easier than us to change without the crutches of complacency," father explained. I'd become gradually more accustomed to his monologues over the past few months, learning that this was the medium through which he delivered life lessons. But something about this one made me think a little more than usual.
I'd heard a hundred times about the importance of others' perspectives and of course, power, but the way that father spoke about this looming change made it clear he was anxious it would come soon. Therefore, telling me now must mean that it had some link to the law.
"There may also come a time when you question why you were created. I think you are ready to hear that reason. The easy answer is to serve as the individuals to whom the baton of responsibility will be passed. It has become clear to me that we will soon be entering into a new era and if anyone can guide our coven towards glory, it will be you hybrids. Already at six months of age, you and Theodotis have taught me so much about the limits of compassion. And tonight, you shall meet the person who first showed me that our kind is even capable of such an emotion. Your duty this evening will be to get to know as many of our guests as possible, for they will all bear witness to the future, for it has already been decided."
If I didn't have enough pressure on me before, I certainly did now. How on earth was I expected to 'guide the coven towards glory'? But then again, who knew how far in the future that would be? I just hoped that whenever it was, we'd be ready for what lay ahead.
But I also wondered who on earth could have left such an impression on father. To me, he was leaps and bounds beyond the rest of the coven in intelligence as his gift allowed him to be practically omniscient. Putting two and two together, I assumed that whoever this vampire was who had taught him compassion, they were the same vampire who threatened our coven's dominance.
"Anyway, our guests will be arriving soon. Pandora, go and fetch Theodotis, you two will stay by my side so I can personally introduce you to everyone after the announcement. Don't worry about the others, Nwaekerendu will stay with Marcus and Athanasia by Caius."
I ran over to Theo, the weight of my father's words still sitting heavily upon my mind. We returned to his side, flanked by Felix and Demetri and he gave the signal to the guards to open the doors. While I had anticipated there to be hordes upon hordes of vampires to have joined us for the announcement of a new law, only a small crowd was gathered in the foyer.
"Welcome, my friends! Please, come in," father said, gesturing them all into the hall. Among them were four vampires with strange golden eyes. Before now, I'd only known the other hybrids to naturally have an eye-colour differing from red and only my mum had the ability to change hers. What kind of vampires were they?
As the small crowd filtered into the room, I tried to study every minute detail of their faces, both to fulfil my duty of networking and to make sure I could anticipate from whom a possible attack could come. Aside from the golden-eyed vampires, there seemed to be representatives from a whole range of historical eras and countries. One particularly scary-looking lady appeared even older than anyone in our coven. Beneath her completely translucent olive skin I could clearly see the venom in her veins and her eyes had almost completely clouded over, far more than those of my father and uncles, so only a small ring of red was visible around the edges of her irises.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I concluded that if anyone was going to try and eat us, it would be her. And despite her frail appearance, I knew better than to assume that she couldn't fight.
Once all movement had ceased and the doors closed behind the delegation, father addressed our guests once more.
"Thank you all for coming!" he declared, as though he was pretending that we didn't outnumber them. I'd heard there were far more vampires in the world than this. Father had not been exaggerating when he'd said about our waning reputation.
"Tonight, you will all serve as witnesses to this new law and be responsible for spreading the word to those who were unable to attend," he continued.
"Now, I want to jump straight into the politics so we can all celebrate afterwards. We will be providing a range of musical performances to set the tone for our ball, including Rome's finest human string quartet, as well as refreshments for those who require them.
"As most of you will be aware, almost a year ago, our society made a new discovery. The potential to create a being that is half mortal and half immortal was an unexpected and shocking revelation to us all, I'm sure. After almost a year of looking into the matter, the Volturi has finally collected enough research to announce our official stance on these hybrid children. Firstly, I would like to share with you and be totally transparent about all of our findings." A few whispers rippled through the crowd and I couldn't blame them for being curious. I'd never even heard the whole story.
"Our journey begins in the lovely town of Forks, home to our two guests from the Olympic coven," he continued, nodding his head in the direction of two of the strange golden-eyed vampires. "Last winter, we received a shocking testament of the apparent creation of an immortal child, which thankfully turned out to be false. Instead, we discovered the existence of the lovely Remdesivir. Naturally, at first many, including I, had doubts and fears over the destiny of such a child, but thanks to the evidence procured by the tenacious Alice Cullen, and proven by the hybrid Nahuel and his aunt Huilen, we learnt that while hybrids are living beings and to an extent, growing creatures, they are more like us than their human half and therefore, should be governed under our laws.
"Of course, upon the advice of dear Nahuel, we went to visit his vampire father - a self-proclaimed scientist with the intention of creating a super-race. He purposely hid his experiments from us to ensure that we would not punish him for breaking our laws. However, knowing that hybrids pose no threat, we went to visit him with an open mind. That was until his thoughts betrayed him. Not only was the vampire Joham in breach of carelessly exposing our kind to humans, but he was also plotting to overthrow our authority and rid our society of the reasonable laws we impose. Unfortunately, we had no choice but to punish him and the two of his daughters who refused to accept justice, for his crimes.
"At this point, I'm sure you are all wondering how on earth you can even take my word as truth. But worry not, I have a way to prove to you that our judgement was fair. But firstly, I must continue with the story.
"Joham, despite our belief at the time, was not the first to create a hybrid child. In fact, he was inspired after encountering the true first hybrid in the forests of Scandinavia," he announced, gesturing in Athanasia's direction. Strangely enough, this information seemed to be news to her as well as she looked just as shocked as the collective intake of breath from our audience sounded. "I would like to present our very own Athanasia Volturi, daughter of my dear brother Caius and Luíseach there." He paused once more to let the curious murmurs of the crowd die down again.
"Athanasia and her mother coincidentally returned to our coven barely four months ago and provided us with the opportunity to study her kind in close quarter. And as I'm sure you can see, we have produced three other hybrids too in order to get a more representative study.
"Female hybrids do not carry the venom needed to turn a human into a vampire, but males do. Every hybrid we have encountered tends to have an inverted manifestation of their parent's power. All hybrids, to varying degrees of willingness, can survive on both blood and human food, though preference seems to be random and it is unclear as of yet whether this has any effect on lifespan.
"Henceforth, my brothers and I have come to a conclusion regarding the laws that should govern such beings. Pre-existing hybrids notwithstanding, each coven will be permitted to house one hybrid maximum, unless a valid reason is provided and approved by our governing body. This is the law that you bear witness to. This is the law that you are to ensure every nomad in every corner of the globe comes to know and understand.
"Now that our story is over, I would like to introduce you all to the newest members of our coven. You have already met Athanasia, so I would like to present my children Theodotis and Pandora, and the son of Marcus: Nwaekerendu." Upon hearing our names, we stepped forward as we'd been instructed in our trial run. I felt completely exposed, despite knowing that Felix was standing just behind me. Much to my horror, I caught the cloudy eyes of the ancient lady, which were staring in earnest at me. I did not look down though. I trusted my parents. Mum's reassurances of safety and father's expectations of me gave me the strength to stare back, unafraid. Or at least that's what I pretended.
Will the ball continue without a hitch or has the change that is destined to come already begun? The next chapter will be out next weekend as usual, please stay tuned and follow and favourite if you enjoyed and review to let me know what you thought.