8 months later
"Ah, welcome my dear!" Aro greeted me from his seat on the dais. Caius and Marcus sat to his sides. They all had a main colour I couldn't quite name, but it denoted their age and experience. It was darker than Jane and Alec, but not cloudy. All of them had other colours swirling though - Marcus had flecks of a dull gray, denoting what I felt was total boredom or apathy. Caius had streaks of brilliant red, indicating hostility and anger.
"Hello, Aro," I told him, and greeted the other masters in turn.
"How are we doing?"
"Well," I told him pleasantly. "I've done much learning about my gift."
I had initially had a hard time interpreting what everyone's colours meant. Some were intuitive, like Alec and Jane. Others were not so easy.
"May I?" he asked, extending his hand.
I placed my hand in his, obliging. In just a moment, he would know everything I had learned.
It turned out that aura reading was, actually, highly subjective and relied a lot on the readers intuition. It seemed to me that the colours typically highlighted that particular persons most defining attributions or characteristics. The colours that were interspersed usually indicated their mood, or what was weighing on their mind.
It had been really disorienting first, but I felt more at ease reading people the more I got used to all the colours.
"Wonderful! You have quite the talent, my young one. And such control, too - I've rarely seen a newborn with such control. Rarely, but not never."
Jane, Alec, Demitri, Felix and Lucia walked into the room then, but Aro ignored them, keeping his attention on me. "There is one more newborn that I knew, years back, who had even more self control than you, in North America. Her name is Bella Cullen."
The older members of the guard hissed at the mention of her name. Aro gestured to them, willing them to calm themselves. "She belongs to a talented coven of vampires who lead an...alternative lifestyle, shall we say. They only feed on wildlife, never on humans. They fancy themselves vegetarians."
I considered a few things at once. One, why would these Cullens want to deprive themselves of human blood? And two, why was Aro telling me about them? And why did the guard have such an adverse reaction to them?
"They have some exceptional talent among them. Young Bella, as I told you, has extreme self-control. But she has another gift - a shield, we call it, that protects from powers such as Jane and Alec's." The two growled lowly, clearly upset by this fact. I could tell by her aura that Jane enjoyed using her gift a little too much. "And Edward, who can read anyone's mind as long as they are close to them. But most of all, Alice. Her ability to see the future has never been seen before - a truly unique talent.
"We had a...misunderstanding, we'll call it, with the Cullens years ago. We thought they had created an immortal child, you see. The rest of the details are unimportant, but we were proven wrong and quickly returned to Volterra once it was cleared up. But there was another reason that we had met with the Cullens - I had hoped to convince Edward, Bella and Alice to join us.
"They declined, of course," Aro snarled, finishing his story. Everyone's colours had begun to swirl together, clearly upset at the mention of the Cullens.
"But we have a shield of our own now, that operates very similarly to Bella's," he said, smiling almost manically towards Lucia. Where Bella's shield was mental though, Lucia's was physical. If she didn't want anyone to find her, she could simply disappear, blending in with her surroundings. If she was touching someone, it could work for them, too.
A red flashed through his colours - a deeper red than the anger of Cauis'. This was more a colour of desire, of lust.
"And I believe that you are what we have been waiting for, my dear," Aro continued, still beaming at Lucia. "With your talent, I believe we can...persuade the Cullens to join us, one way or another."
He turned to address all of us. "You will all travel to North America, back to that dreary little town the Cullens reside in. You will be able to use Lucia to sneak up on them. And you will either bring them back of their own free will, or by my will. Kill whoever you must, but bring Alice, Bella, and Edward to me. Do you understand?"
"Yes, master," we all replied as one, bowing.
"Good! They have evaded my invitation to join us for far too long. My patience runs thin - I will have what I want!"
"Do not delude yourselves into thinking this will be easy," Caius cautioned. "They are a strong, willful coven, and will not come quietly. Nor will the others let them go without a fight. And their damnable shapeshifters."
"Shapeshifters?" I asked, though I was not at all surprised to learn that they existed, too.
"Yes," Caius spat. "A native tribe that live near the Cullen territory who can transform into giant, powerful wolves. They can rip the bones from your body easily with their teeth. I expect they will fight for the Cullens as well. Please, destroy them if the opportunity at all presents itself."
The others, who had been there during the last confrontation, nodded.
"Go hunt. We leave tonight," Jane instructed, turning and leaving the room. Aro looked pleased.
"This is...a rather unusual method of acquisition," Alec commented, briefly explaining to Lucia and I how it usually worked. Usually the charges against the coven would be either completely false or greatly exaggerated. Aro, in all his benevolence, would single one or two talented members of the coven out and claim they were particularly repentant, or innocent, and 'offer' them a spot in the Volturi. Chelsea would sway their allegiances away from their former coven, and they would then join the guard.
This situation was a lot different - kidnapping, in essence. We would arrive quietly, carry out our orders, and disappear just as quietly. No fanfare or farce of a trial this time.
In any case, we were all prepared to carry out Aro's orders.