Sulpicia smirked to herself and knocked on the door leading to Isabella's room. Didyme had reported back to her and Athenodora, and Sulpicia found it heartening. Forging a relationship with a potentially strong ally was never a bad idea, in Sulpicia's book.
Bella heard the knock, and scrambled to her feet from her curled up position, reading again. She put the book down, and smoothed her hands over the fabric of her newly acquired jeans. She made her way to the door, feeling a fluttering in her stomach as she did so - Sulpicia had seemed the most in control, and thus intimidating. Bella would prefer not to do this, but Didyme had been much kinder than she had been expecting yesterday.
She opened the door with a little too much exertion in her nervous state, and it swung open quickly. Unfortunately, Bella's foot had been in the path of the door. "Ouch," she cried, hopping in place for a moment as her foot throbbed, hot and immediate.
Sulpicia looked on for a heartbeat, before taking the opportunity. "Oh, you poor thing," she said, and did her best not to make it sound as patronising as it desired to be when leaving her throat. "I can only imagine how that must hurt. Please, sit down, take your weight off it."
Bella nodded, as on edge as she was, she knew the sensibility of the suggestion. She hobbled over to a nearby chair, and took a seat.
"You're Sulpicia, right?" Bella asked, her nerves making her voice shake like an inexperienced tightrope walker.
Sulpicia almost bristled at the disrespect, but she tempered it down. "I am. And you're Isabella."
"You can just call me Bella," Bella said, her cheeks flushed as she flexed her toes to make sure nothing was broken. "If you want to, I mean, I prefer Bella to Isabella."
"I see," Sulpicia said, suppressing the eye twitch she could feel coming. Part of her was already growing bored with this. Why did Didyme think this was a good idea, again? She reminded herself of the reasons, and took heart. "How's your foot feeling?" She asked, making sure her voice stayed gentle.
"Better," Bella said at once, her cheeks darkening in memory of her clumsiness. "Nothing's broken, I don't think, at least."
"How fortuitous," Sulpicia said with a slight incline of her head. "It would be a shame for you to be injured under our care," she continued. The honey-blonde reached up a hand to run through her hair, and Bella's eyes followed the path. She thought of Helen of Troy, Sulpicia certainly had a beauty that could only be described as devastating. Bella wouldn't be surprised to learn that wars had been waged in her name, for her face, for a slight smile. Bella shook her head, trying to clear the traitorous thoughts out from her brain - she wasn't sure where this kind of thinking had come from, but she couldn't call it productive in any sense of the word. It was distracting at best, and potentially lethal at worst.
"I know you spent the day with Didyme yesterday, I understand she showed you the library," Sulpicia continued, completely glossing over Bella's decidedly awkward silence. "There are still a few places we wanted to show you - as our guest, you understand - so I thought I might do that and make sure you're settling in well. Carlisle is an old friend, it wouldn't do to neglect you."
Bella nodded; there wasn't the simple ease of Didyme's company, but Sulpicia seemed nice - or at least that she was trying to be nice - and that counted in Bella's estimation. "That sounds agreeable," she said, and then cursed herself for not sounding at all like herself. There was some part of her, deep inside, that desired nothing more than to impress these three women. She wasn't sure if it was the teacher's pet reaction, where authority needed to be impressed, or if it were due to some other reason she didn't care to analyse. She supposed it didn't really matter, after all.
Sulpicia quirked an eyebrow. It was interesting in a brief distraction kind of way, and that was all she needed to get through the day. Though she put aside her desire to take the human girl apart; Didyme wouldn't be impressed with her if she broke the girl, and when Didyme wasn't impressed Sulpicia rarely got her way. The blonde was starting to think this was far more trouble than it was worth.
"After me, then, darling," Sulpicia said breezily, gesturing out towards the hallway. "Provided you can walk, that is, of course."
Bella nodded and stood, testing weight on her foot and finding that it didn't throb, so she smiled. "All good," she said, her voice quivering a little with anxiety as she realised she'd definitely gotten herself into a rather strange situation. It really didn't feel like how it had with Didyme, and she found herself almost missing the company of the dark haired Queen.
Bella moved out into the hallway, following Sulpicia's movements - she moved like water, Bella thought, there was a fluid grace. She was honey and Helen and golden-armed. The brunette girl's throat ran dry as she tried to think of some topic of conversation that would appeal to someone like Sulpicia. She failed. Instead, she trod on familiar ground.
"Do you like the library?" she asked, her voice meek and mild.
Sulpicia made a non-committal gesture. "It has its uses," she said, as if that were a reasonable answer. "I heard you were very impressed by it," she continued, after a pause.
"I was. I've never seen a library as big as that, never mind it just being a personal collection."
"Everything the Volturi does is impressive," Sulpicia shrugged.
Isabella chewed on her lower lip for a moment, swallowing through a lump in her throat. She searched for courage inside of herself. It was all too apparent that Sulpicia was different from Didyme, that where Didyme was kind Sulpicia only tried to be. "Where… where are we going?" Bella finally asked.
"Oh," Sulpicia said. "I suppose it's a bad look if I don't tell you. A bit too close to kidnapping." She waved a hand again, "it's a… how do you say?... a museum, I suppose."
"A … museum? In here?"
"Museum is the best word I have for it," Sulpicia said, an edge of irritation in her voice that made Bella falter for a few steps. "Or maybe a collection. Our collection of nice things we show to our guests. I thought it might be nice for you to know some of our history since you're here until the Cullen coven returns."
"Right," Bella said, a little blandly. She swallowed, and recovered the ground lost from her faltering. "That sounds quite nice, actually. It's … thoughtful." Bella wasn't actually sure thoughtful was the right word for it, but she wasn't willing to risk upsetting Sulpicia any more.
The two walked down numerous hallways with a terse silence between them, Bella thinking of ways to break it and coming up short. Eventually, she determined it was better to just remain silent. Eventually the pair reached yet another oversized wooden door; Bella had no idea where they were, she'd given up trying to follow the circular, winding path to the doorway now in front of them. It seemed as though the secrets of the castle would always remain secrets to her.
"Here we are," Sulpicia said, rather grandly with a gesture to the door. She opened it, looking for all the world like it was the easiest thing when Bella knew the door must weigh a tonne.
Bella's gaze was immediately drawn by the spectre of shiny things within the room - grand statues, and elaborate jewellery. She felt like she might be a magpie, her eyes drawn to shiny thing after shiny thing. Isabella had always had a soft spot for history, the place when all of her favourite books took place. It had never been allconsuming, but it had been passable. "What.. what is all this?" she asked, a soft note of reverence in her voice.
"Various.. I suppose you'd call them trophies of our rule," Supicia said, with a carefully calculated careless shrug. "You seem like an educated young woman, and in my experience educated young women enjoy things like this."
"It's very impressive. May I look?" Bella asked, and in answer received an expansive gesture outwards, a 'go ahead' motion. She took a few steps forward, into the belly of the treasure trove.
Bella's gaze flittered between some marble statues and carefully looked-after oil paintings. She made her way towards a section of art pieces, her gaze taking in all the tiny details as much as she could with her fallible human eyesight.
Sulpicia's careful gaze was fixed on the girl, her red eyes focused on Isabella's small frame. Her mind worked, turning over and over about benefits and drawbacks. Among mortal women, know this, Sulpicia thought: the girl knew too much already. It was a strange kind of limbo, the vampire supposed. She tapped her lower lip with a soft fingertip, taking in the sights and considering angles. Bella, for her part, seemed thoroughly content to be left be.
"What's this?" Bella asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between the two of them.
Sulpicia moved further into the room, allowing her eyes to focus on the object that Bella was gesturing towards. "Ah," she said, as the ostentatious necklace was brought into view. It was a many-stranded thing, covered with all kinds of sparkling delights. "That's from the 1700s," she said softly, her voice oozing around the words, thick and viscous, "a memento, I suppose you could say, I wore it to many a ball in its time, some very interesting politicking happened back then."
"Interesting politicking?" Bella asked, her voice small in her throat. She might be surrounded by all kinds of treasures, but she couldn't ignore the part of her brain that still screamed 'danger' in Sulpicia's presence.
"There were times when people sought to overthrow us, to find holes in our rule," Sulpicia said, "and it was quite engaging to deal with that." She notably left out how irritating it had been too; Sulpicia enjoyed challenges, but she had never been one to enjoy having her position questioned. As far as she was concerned everybody should listen to her, and be done with it.
Bella didn't bring up that she wasn't sure she'd use the word engaging. "I see," Bella said, "do you deal with that kind of thing often?"
"Not often, I wouldn't say often. It is rather infrequent, just every now and then somebody gets the idea into their head, and they try their luck. They never succeed, and they never will."
"That's certainly a … bold declaration."
Sulpicia laughed, a sound like chiming bells; something utterly intangible. "It's been long enough," she said, "but I suppose Rome lasted for a while before She fell. We have the luxury of constancy and hindsight."
Bella fell into silence, looking at the way the light caught the gems in the necklace. She was struck by a profound sense of her own humanity; could she really comprehend what it would be like to be unchanging? To be human was to be dynamic, ever. Call it instability, or call it life. For the first time, Bella truly thought about what it might mean to be immutable, enduring, eternal.
"I suppose," Bella said softly, finally, after a surprisingly companionable silence stretched between the two women, one honey-haired and the other brunette. "I don't think I could imagine what it's like to be one of you," she said, and it felt peculiarly like a confession.
"It is a rather unique position to be in," Sulpicia said, trying to make it sound less like a boast and more like comiseration. Just because she was sure of her own superiority, didn't mean she didn't know not to inflict it on other people.
"I bet," Bella sighed, a wistful tone to her voice. "It's all I wanted, you know?" She whispered, not really sure why she was opening up to Sulpicia. "To be one of you, and he wouldn't have it."
"Edward?" Sulpicia asked, and her reply was a nod of the head of Bella. Sulpicia shook her own head, honey blonde hair fanning itself around her lovely face. "He is an odd one, with his beliefs. Most vampires don't give much thought to the metaphysical," she said, with an errant shrug.
"I can imagine," Bella muttered, underneath her breath - she was thinking about James, and absentmindedly rubbed the bite mark on her wrist.
"What is that?" Sulpicia asked, her curiosity brimming.
"Oh… this," Bella said, gesturing to the bite on her wrist. "I got bitten by a vampire; he was hunting me down."
"Bitten and not turned? Odd," Sulpicia remarked.
"Edward sucked the venom out," she said softly, "I still remember how much it hurt, though. I can't imagine that for three days."
"It is near unbearable," Sulpicia said, with another little casual shrug. "But the memory of the pain fades, and eventually you forget what pain properly feels like. Aside from Jane."
Sulpicia had never asked the child to use her powers on herself, but there are days when it came close — days when she longed to feel anything. She was surrounded by love, though, and that was enough. Wouldn't it be enough for anybody?
"I think it's an alright price to pay," Bella mused, chewing on her lower lip between her words. "Three days of pain for an eternity of being like you. It's worth it, as far as I'm concerned. It's just Edward who seems to disagree. I love him so much, I just don't understand how our views can be so different."
Sulpicia decided against verbalising the scorn that she held in her heart for the 'young' boy. "Sometimes it's about collaborating to find the best answer, rather than a battle of wills," she said, in a ghostlike facsimile of good advice.
"I suppose," Bella sighed; if nothing else it had given her a lot to think about. "What's that?" She asked, gesturing to an object she barely saw — all she wanted was a break from heavier topics.
Sulpicia answered, and thus began a back and forth of questions and replies about the contents of the treasury.
Time, surprisingly, flew. Before she had time to register her hunger, her stomach was rumbling, making its intentions incredibly clear.
"What a funny sound," Sulpicia said, a little rudely. "What does it mean?"
"Uh, that I'm hungry."
"Hungry! Of course! I forget humans need to consume much more readily than we do," the blonde queen said, clapping her hands together once.
"Uh, yeah, sure," Bella said, a little unsurely.
"Fear not, I shall take you to the kitchen presently," Sulpicia said, her smile genial. She quickly led Bella back through the labyrinthine corridors to the kitchen, depositing her there.
"I'll take my leave, if you don't object," she said softly. "Once you're finished all you need to do is call Felix and he'll be here to guide you back to your chambers."
Bella nodded, looking over the queen and she felt a heat cover her cheeks. "Sure. Uh, thank you," she said, her voice gentle and unsure.
"You're very welcome," Sulpicia said, "prego." She inclined her head before she left the room, leaving behind a faint trace of her scent in the room - something warm and rich.
Bella busied herself with cooking so she didn't have to examine what was going on in her head too deeply. She made a meal, ate it, and tidied away before calling, "Felix."
In less than half a second he was there, stuck in place and looking slightly disheveled.
"Sorry, I hope I'm not interrupting anything," she said, an eyebrow arched at how messy Felix looked.
"Not at all," Felix said, "there is no higher calling than my duty to you," he continued on, which kind of made Bella feel a little uncomfortable. She shifted where she stood.
"Can you show me back to my room? I've almost got it down, I promise you won't have to do this much longer," she said.
"Fret not, little human," said Felix cheerily. Bella thought she should be more accustomed to his good humour than she already was. His smile, however, was just a little too sharp. It was a common theme with the undead, Bella had found — they were always just a little off.
Bella decided just to nod, it seemed the more prudent of her options. "Who's fretting?" she added, after a pause that lasted just a beat too long, and it was clear Felix was waiting for some kind of verbal confirmation. "You're my favourite, Felix. Don't tell."
Felix let out a booming laugh, and gestured out into the hall. "I won't," he said, and led her back to her room as requested.