Bella nearly startled out of her seat when a loud, swift rap emanated from her door. She had resigned herself to spending the day alone, though she found herself missing the reassuring presence of Didyme - it had felt a lot like a warm blanket, and in her loneliest moments she found herself craving it. She shook her head - maybe it was Didyme. She stood up, putting her book back down again and made her way over towards the heavy wooden door.
She opened it, and felt her heart drop to her feet. She took a fearful step backwards. Before her was an imposing figure, tall and desaturated, bled free of all colour except those bloody eyes. Athenodora stood before her, tall enough it made Bella feel a little like a child again.
"...Hello," Athendora said, seemingly pained from simple courtesy. She could hear Isabella's rapid heart rate, and she wasn't quite sure how to soothe it. Generally, this was the reaction she wanted from humans. She'd not anticipated having one as a guest and her wives' pet project.
"Hello," Bella repeated, because it would feel rude not to.
Athenodora, unnecessarily, cleared her throat. "I thought since you have spent time with Didyme and Sulpicia both that it might be prudent to also spend time with you," she announced, not really giving much leeway for an answer. "I thought perhaps I could show you the garden. I hear humans relish in fresh air."
"That sounds… nice," Bella said, not wanting to offend the millenia old vampire in front of her.
"Very well then," Athendora said, more to herself than to Isabella, and gestured the way out. Bella took a step outside of the door, and then hurriedly followed Athenodora's long gait.
Athenodora lead Bella to a stone doorway, moulded into a delicate pattern - vines and flowers adorning it. It wasn't unlike most things in the castle - beautiful in a precise, planned kind of way. The two of them passed through the door, into a garden of an amazing patchwork of colours. Green, green, green. The warm sunlight hit her skin, and goosebumps raised up - she'd missed the heat, she really had. It felt a lot like coming home.
Bella's eyes scanned over all the plants and flowers, the trees and bushes, until they landed on Athenodora. Here she stood, already painfully, elegantly beautiful. The light caught her pale skin in the most delicious way, it brought all kind of thoughts to Bella's head. The loudest: it never suited Edward so well. It was, some traitorous part of her thought, a relief to be surrounded by people not angsting over their own morality. Just being. She'd missed it maybe more than she'd missed this kind of heat.
"Wow," Bella breathed, still staring fixedly at Athenodora. It seemed like an otherworldly glow, something foreign to humanity and attractive all the same. She thought 'holy and beautiful maiden', and then shook her head a little to try and get the thought out of it. Thoughts like that just wouldn't do, Bella thought, a little too risky, and besides, she had Edward. She loved Edward. That was all that mattered. Still, out of her lips, unbidden, came: "you're beautiful." She meant it, in some kind of far off way. She still flushed a bright, tempting red when she realised what she had said. That was certainly not something she'd meant to say aloud.
"Thank you," said Athenodora, stiffly - she wasn't used to being complimented by people other than Didyme and Sulpicia. It was a strange feeling, she supposed, but not an altogether bad one. Perhaps she understood Sulpicia's flagrant narcissistic tendencies a little better now. The thought of her wives brought a tiny smile to her face, which helped ease Bella's tension a little. Thank God for small mercies.
"Uh," Bella said, in an inelegance that was painful in contrast to Athenodora's natural poise. "You're- you're welcome." She felt… insufficient. However, she supposed that Athenodora seemed a little less intimidating now. "This is a really beautiful place. Thank you for showing it to me."
"You're welcome," Athenodora repeated, her voice still stiff as she fought off the confusion and awkwardness of the complement still. She gestured, regally, towards a bench. Bella took the hint and took a seat, while Athenodora elegantly sprawled over the floor.
"I suppose," Athenodora began, "that we should probably converse. It hardly makes sense to sit here in silence."
Bella nodded, looking at the pale blonde haired woman. She was made up of all kinds of sharp edges, and angles, and Bella felt intimidated by the mere presence of her, nevermind the prospect of talking to her too. Athenodora, Bella reckoned, was unreachable - something to be admired from afar. Her heart fluttered, and it was almost painful. She had no doubt her companion for the day heard it. "What- what would you like to talk about?" Bella asked.
"I have no preference," Athenodora said, very unhelpfully.
"...Right," Bella said, and swallowed thickly. "You could- you could tell me about yourself?" Bella suggested in an uncertain voice.
Athenodora paused for a moment as she considered this suggestion. "I… don't see any harm in that," she said, her voice was a little softer than the voice like a knife Bella remembered.
"Okay. I guess I best think up some questions. Where do you come from?" she asked.
"Greece," Athenodora said, after a little pause. Not, she thought, that you'd be able to guess that. She idly reached out and plucked some violets from nearby. She needed something to do with her hands - despite her species, Athenodora was made for action.
"Right," Bella said. "What was that like?" She asked, mostly because her mind, on asking it to come up with questions, had gone spectacularly blank.
"I… don't particularly miss it," she said, "what I miss is the time after growing up." There was an almost uncertain waver in her voice, as she tried to deduce whether any of this information could be used against her or her wives. All of this, however, was common biographical knowledge, so she didn't see the harm in sharing it with her human companion, even if talking about herself set her teeth on edge.
"What do you mean?" Bella asked, nervously running her hands up and down the thighs of her jeans. She liked having something to do with her hands, and talking to the Volturi member she was the most scared of wasn't really helping anything.
Athenodora looked away from Bella, much to her relief, and started to weave the stems of the flowers together in quick, precise movements. It looked, Bella thought after she'd focused on Atheondora's sparkling hands, practised - like she'd done it before, a million times.
"I mean," Athenodora began, and then trailed off as she thought of the right words to used. "You're probably familiar with the Amazons?" she asked, and waited for a response.
Bella nodded, and then realised Athenodora wasn't looking at her, so she said: "yes." Amazons - the legendary female warriors of the ancient world.
"I was … shall we say involved, in the later years of my life," she said, 'the later years' meaning before she'd been turned into a vampire by some anonymous benefactor.
"Really? Wow," Bella gasped, her voice small like a child hearing a fantastical bedtime story.
Athenodora wasn't really sure how to feel about that. On one hand, modernity had lost a certain majesty as far as she was concerned, even with its great advances in technology. On the other, it was her life, not some fictional tale. Still, she had agreed to sharing some information about herself so share she would. She was not one to back out of agreements.
"Yes, really," Athenodora said, a little dryly, which made Bella cringe. It really wouldn't do to irritate the scariest of the Volturi, now, would it? "It was… a long time ago."
Bella nodded - she knew that being changed made remembering your human life like looking through fogged glass. It probably didn't help that Athenodora had the aura of ancient-ness, of cities raised and razed; Bella had conformation now, she supposed. She wasn't really sure how to place the length of Athenodora's life in her mind.
"I… can imagine," Bella said, and then shook her head. "No, actually, I'm sorry. I can't."
Athenodora actually laughed at that, a sound as sharp as the angles she was made up of. "No," she said, a bright, glistening sheen of amusement to her words, something private, something enticing, "I don't imagine you can." She fiddled a little more with the flowers, and completed her crown — a dainty, talented thing that Bella had trouble connecting with the woman who made it.
"Uh," Bella started, struck by desire and yet suddenly uncomfortable with it. She cut herself off, fiddling with her own fingers.
"Out with it," Athenodora said; she didn't understand hesitancy, not anymore — if she ever had. It wasn't something she remembered. Planning and patience, always, but not the stuttering uncertainty of hesitation.
"I- just- uh-" Bella said, the words all getting caught up in her throat, all trying to get out at once. She took a deep breath, feeling exposed under Athendora's scrutinising stare. "You're- you're really good at that. I was, uh, I guess, wondering if you'd be able to teach me?" Her voice trailed off into whisps of smoke, but Athenodora nodded her approval.
"You'll get nothing if you've not the courage to take it or ask for it," she advised, and gestured with a hand — and almost sloppy movement that seemed disconnected with everything else about the precise woman. "I suppose I can. As a… reward for being bold enough to ask."
A privately amused semi-smirk graced Athenodora's face, but it was gone by the time Bella blinked. "First," she said, "the most obvious step; you need to gather flowers. Any you'd like. Sulpicia isn't allowed to keep her poisonous variants here."
Bella chose not to examine that sentence too deeply, for her own sake of mind. "Right," Bella said, and stood, stepping around Athenodora as gracefully (not at all) as she could. She trailed over to examine the flowers growing in the garden, while Athenodora examined her. There was something disarming about Isabella, Athenodora thought, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it — her walls were not decimated, far from it, but something about the other woman kindled an almost-warmth inside of Dora, in a way that a new person hadn't since — well, she wasn't going to think about that.
Bella returned with her flowers, plucked and held in her grasp — about the same amount as she'd observed Athenodora collect. Lilac, she'd chosen— a fair few bunches of the stuff. Vaguely, Bella's romanticism thought about flower meanings— she was aware of it in a purely literary way. She shook her head, clearing her thoughts.
Athenodora rose an eyebrow at the flower choice, but chose not to make any verbal comment. She gestured to the grass next to her, and shifted her position so that she'd be better able to see Isabella's hands.
Bella sat, and swallowed. "They're, uh, pretty. I like purple," she said, and then inwardly cringed - it wasn't like Athenodora was going to be the least but interested in her reasoning behind her flower choice.
An almost-smirk crossed Athendora's face, gone before Bella could even register it. "First, you need to choose the best flower for the base," she said, her hands reaching forwards and skimming over the blossoms in Bella's hands. She selected one, and the time passed in relative silence - punctuated by birdsong and Athenodora's brusque instructions. Soon, Bella had a flower crown in her grasp, created by her own hands.
A small smile lit up Isabella's face, and Athenodora took uncharacteristic note.
"Thank you," Bella said softly, her brown gaze on the creation, twirling it around in her hands, examining it. "I always wanted to be crafty," she said, not really sure why she was admitting it. "But I'm not very good with my hands, or, like, any part of my body really - I'm forever tripping over air. You'd think I'd be able to walk after eighteen years, but…"
Bella trailed off at Athenodora's tut, her eyes raising from the flowers to examine Athendora's face.
"So your talents lie elsewhere," Athenodora said, "you should acknowledge them, focus on them, rather than what you can't do. Self-pity and self-degredation are not admirable qualities."
A confused look crossed Athendora's face for a split second, and this time Bella did register the microexpression. Not that she could begin to decipher what it meant.
"I think," Athenodora began, after drawing herself up to her feet. "That we should call this a close. I have things to do. Important things. Necessary things."
Bella nodded, getting up significantly more gracelessly than Athenodora had. "Sure," she nodded.
"I'll have Felix bring you food; I'm sure a familiar face will be beneficial."
Bella nodded, trailing after Athenodora in silence as they winded through the labyrinthine halls to Bella's room. Isabella entered, and Athenodora left with a brusque farewell.
Bella shook her head, closing the door behind her. She didn't really understand - but maybe, maybe there was hope? The Queens, while intimidating, did seem - well, not nice but at the very least accommodating. She looked down to the flower crown and placed it on her head before returning to the book she'd been devouring before.