Shahrazád's Ghosts
Chapter 12: Darling (Bella) Part II
2253 A.D.
None of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance gave them one more glad hour; and as it was to be their last hour on the island, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it. They sang and danced in their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy song it was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows, little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom they would shrink in real fear.
Peter Pan by J.M Barrie
ooooo
During her years with the Volturi, Aro did not let her leave Volterra, except to hunt, or when she accompanied him on a mission. He preferred to keep her nearby, where she could shield him and the other elite guards at all times. Aro always gazed upon Darling with the same lascivious greed as Edward had once set upon his harem. This meant she existed purely as an extension of himself, little different than her function to her sire, just as bound as she had ever been.
She did not try to leave. Where was she to go?
Besides, the Volturi were useful, in their own ways. In their company, she was protected from all other vampires, save the unpredictable Volturi themselves. In addition, they could give her what she most longed for now: knowledge. Her time in the guard taught her to fight and to use her gift. They taught her the hierarchy and intricacies of both the vampire world and the human world. They taught her the subtle lures and manipulations of the politics of power. All of these skills were necessary, if Darling was to survive.
She spoke little, but kept her eyes open. If nothing else, her upbringing had taught her the importance of being underestimated…and silent. Aro kept his own collection of vampires captive to his will through primarily manufactured ties and relational manipulation. She could feel the bonds keeping them together, the artificial ropes keeping the fractious coven whole. The ties extended from Chelsea to each of the Volturi guard members, like umbilical cords fostering within each the sense of loyalty and kinship necessary for them to have the illusion of both freewill and self-fulfillment in their roles. Darling could feel the cords seek to corral her, but they could not gain a foothold in her protected mind. She never questioned Chelsea, or any of the rest of the guard, on their attempts to penetrate her shield, but they never ceased to try.
She knew her very exemption from the web of manufactured alliances was what would eventually prove her expulsion from the guard. She could see it – the glint of suspicion and jealousy with which the others met her with behind false smiles. Any one of the guard would willingly throw her into a funeral pyre at a moment's notice, if it would curry the favor of their lords or reorganize the delicate hierarchy within the coven to their benefit.
Darling knew that in the Volturi she was exactly like Aro's other pawns. She was disposable, utilitarian, and readily replaced if she proved less malleable to his wishes. She would be momentarily praised and petted, until she lost her usefulness. Then she would be cast away - just as Edward had once delighted in each of his creations and then just as quickly discarded them once they were no longer fulfilling his purposes.
While Darling could temporarily tolerate her utility to the Volturi, it was not an arrangement she wished to allow indefinitely. Once the Volturi no longer served her purposes, she would discard them. Her loyalties were her own.
She was Darling. She was meant to be treasured. She was meant to be irreplaceable. She determined to ensure that was her fate, until the day she could avoid her death no longer. That fate could not be fulfilled in Volterra.
The Volturi were as predictable in their motivations as her sire. They required sustenance, and reliable means to gain it. They needed a coven to belong to, whether as small as a mated pair or as large as the Volturi kingdom; they only thrived when in companionship with others. The solitary creatures she met were never in perpetual isolation, unless they were driven into it by their third driving force: fear. Fear of lack, fear of loss, and fear of death could override all their other biological desires and compel them in ways not otherwise rational.
She knew these driving forces. She could work with them and wield them as weapons. As long as she kept herself from these same weaknesses. She would be bound to no one. She knew the call of the mating bond, but she also had first-hand experience in how to diffuse it and weaken its hold. The absence of a mate would prevent that mate from being used as leverage. She would feed only for absolute necessity and when her control could no longer bear deprivation. It was she who would control her appetites; her appetites would not be the driving force to control her. All that remained was the fear of death, but this was a fear as close to her as her unbeating heart. Her fate, from the day she took her first breath, was to die. Each day she still walked the earth, she was defying her fate and on borrowed time.
And she planned to continue to defy her birthright for some time still.
it was a simple enough plan. Like Aro, if she controlled the bloodlust, mating bond, and fear, then she controlled the vampire. Happy for her, she already knew just the chemical makeup necessary to be the perfect magnetic north of one particular vampire's compass. If she played her cards right, she would ensure she had her own coven, defined by unceasingly devoted protection for her. Their perpetual dependence on her continued existence would ensure their absolute obedience to her wishes.
It is only right, she told herself. I promised Edward forever. He accrued a debt it would take a thousand lifetimes to pay. I will ensure his debts are paid in full, to me, the only living representation of the woman he owes reparations to. He will give it, in his own flesh, blood, and tears.
And her future coven would help her to control the fate of the vampire world. She would gladly provide the means for their own destruction. Why bother with battles and violent conflicts when all she had to do was sit in her castle and let her enemies destroy themselves? If she understood the vampire world, as she thought they did, they would easily fall into her schemes and their human prey would be freed of their invisible overlords within a matter of centuries.
No other woman would suffer at hands like Edward, if Darling could prevent it.
oooooo
Three quarters of a century passed since Darling last walked the haunted halls of Edward's temple before she first met Augustine. The densely populated Tuscan countryside provided more human fodder than animal and she sometimes struggled to gather any prey other than domesticated farm animals. She often skirted around the small hamlet of Montebradoni when she returned to Volterra after hunting for ibex and chamois in the northern mountain ranges.
She kept her grey hood shadowing her face, despite the cover of darkness around her. She felt an unease growing within her as she crept through the pools of darkness between exposed landforms. The rugged mountainside was thick with the competing scents of vineyards, farms, and forest, but over it all, she caught the hint of the scent of another vampire, one she did not recognize. When she came to the crumbling brick archway of the Porta di Montebradoni, she paused beneath it. She whirled around, every sense in her body tingling, and she nearly lunged when she saw the unfamiliar figure emerge from the path behind her.
He was a short man; his head would barely clear Darling's, except for the presence of a layered blue turban which hid his hair and gave the perception of a few more inches of height. His angular nose protruded from his sandstone skin. Dark, thick eyebrows covered the ruby eyes and matched the short, black beard beneath his chin. The bright blue folds of his turban sank heavily around his neck and fell over the similarly colored long haik robe the man wore. The gentle fall of the fabric was interrupted by the hilt of a flyssa dagger, entirely ornamented with cowry shells.
He lifted up his hands in a show of surrender and carefully sat on a nearby wall, everything about his posture attempting to be nonthreatening, but his eyes never once left her. A smoky, dusty voice addressed her, but he spoke to her first in Arabic. She did not know how to respond and so she did not answer. Next, he switched to French, then Italian, before settling in on English.
"You are as lovely as your reputation says you are, Dulcissima," he said in a voice so low it was nearly a purr. His penetrating gaze continued to watch her, making her feel like a caged gazelle before a lion, and she shrank back closer to the wall, her shoulders still tight with tension.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I am Augustine, son of Timirius, sired by Remus, and I have the honor of being called chieftain of the covens of the central Maghreb."
"What do you want from me?" she asked.
"Do not fear, Dulcissima. I am not here to harm you, but to help you. Tell me have you been so fortunate as to meet with any of the covens of the Maghreb?"
"No," she answered.
"It is strange, since rumors say you were discovered in Niger as a newborn. How can that be since no covens of the Maghreb mentioned nearby sirings? Stranger still, no coven recalls even a single sighting of a nomad passing through then, during the season of your birth?"
"Very strange," she answered, her eyes daring him to glean any information from her elusive agreement.
"Do you know much of the ways of the covens of the Maghreb?"
"No."
"Pity. We have a long history, longer even than Volterra, though the Volturi conveniently forget such things. I was born and sired in Carthage and have dwelt in the Maghreb for over two thousand years -and I am one of the younger of our covens. You see, our kind, we are like sea turtles. No matter how far we wander, the place we are first hatched calls us home and we must return. We may cross the Sahara or the mighty oceans, but always, always, we return to our home.
"Our covens rarely travel farther south than the Sahel. We do not suffer visitors to enter into our territories without acknowledging the rights of the covens who dwell there or the particular, shall we say, customs of each province. For one, any of our covens would know you cannot bury your kills, unless you plan to preserve evidence of your meal for the next thousand years. The desert may be a place to hide the living, but it is no place to hide the dead. That is why we feed our corpses to crocodiles and lions and hyenas so that nothing remains to whisper our stories."
Darling gave him a curious bob of her head and she bit her bottom lip as she listened. She was not sure exactly what point he wished to make, only that he intended to take a long time making it. She let her hood fall from her head and leaned deeper into the corner of the wall, hoping he would complete his tales before dawn came and rendered her return to Volterra more complicated.
"Another one of our traditions is our method of hunting. You see, most of the prey we hunt do not stay in one fixed location. The peoples who live apart from the coasts in our deserts follow the water. If we, also, follow the water, then our meals will come to us. The unforgiving nature of the desert means few questions are asked. But, you see, until the humans began to summon the rains and flood the sands, our lands were sparsely inhabited and we were forced to carefully conserve all we have.
"We do not change easily, even now, and so we maintain this tradition, despite our growing population. Only those vampires with the right to cross into our borders are allowed to hunt. We know them all and we know which oases they inhabit and call their own. There are limits on the number of kills they can make in a year. In this way, all can remain in peace and avoid the wars which have plagued less judicious covens. We also have strict regulations in place on new sirings.
"It was unusual for the Volturi to intrude into Niger to glean you from our borders...nearly as inextricable as your presence there in the first place. We prefer to handle our enforcement of our rules ourselves and keep our own counsel and keep the Volturi in their own lands, far from us.
"The Volturi spend so much time in their little castle, depending solely on the information voluntarily brought to Aro's fingertips by nomads, that they often forget there is an entire world outside Volterra and that they are not the center of that world, as much as they would like to believe otherwise. While Aro's gift is formidable, if his hands cannot touch a wellspring of knowledge, then he remains woefully in the dark, and many of us prefer to keep certain information from falling into his hands.
"Perhaps you think it strange to find me now in Volterra?" Augustine said, his face breaking into a conspiratorial grin and he opened his hands out to her. She preferred to remain silent and so she only shook her head. "It is strange. My fellow chieftains in Volterra are little older than myself and once we shared both a common tongue and a common polity. I rarely bother with the affairs in Volterra, unless they try to bother in mine. Yet, now I come with news I think they will find very interesting."
He placed a greater emphasis on the last word and allowed a pregnant pause to swallow up his statement. When Darling failed to react, he continued speaking.
"It was some years ago, our coven in northern Chad heard rumors. The local peoples spoke of a jinni stealing away their women and producing children with them. These idle rumors we typically pay little heed to, but I began to ask more questions this past year. You see, our lands which have sat empty for so many thousands of years are suddenly the focus of developers from around the world. They were surveying what used to be an isolated strip of land a few hours north and west of Koro Toro when they discovered someone had once lived there, in the desert, and for quite some time and in much larger numbers than should have been possible, so far afield from any other settlements.
"They called in archaeologists to investigate because it was too, too strange. Imagine? Over a thousand women, all with bite marks on their major arteries, just abandoned to the sands of the desert. Now, perhaps this was a human activity, but if so, how did we fail to notice such a large influx of women coming and going from that location? It was as if they sprung out the very heart of the desert, hatched out of birds' eggs. For another, they all appeared exactly the same, as if it were the very same woman who lived and died over a thousand times. If the bite marks were not human, but of vampire origin, then the vampire who dwelt there did not originate in the Maghreb, for none of our covens would be so ignorant in our methods of disposal.
"It was all there for the humans to uncover, perfectly preserved by the desert, though, they believe it all ended nearly a century ago. I must wonder how the sultan of such an establishment left? I cannot imagine he left of his own free will, after so long settled in one place with such bounty at his ready disposal. The bodies themselves tell stories and unveil many secrets, the implications of which have left me in wonder. It took extensive, and rather expensive, negotiations to ensure the humans did not look any deeper or publish their full discoveries...and the suspicions those naturally aroused.
"Now, perhaps you can tell me, do you believe that Aro would find this information as interesting as I have? I do not know. I bring this to you because I hear you are deep in Aro's council and, even more importantly, you are able to keep secrets of your own, safely guarded within that pretty mind of yours. Tell me, Dulcissima, what do you believe Aro would make out of such a fantastical tale as this?"
"I do not see what this story has to do with me," Darling answered, jutting her chin out in a way that conveyed both indifference and defiance.
"Don't you? Well, probably nothing, then. Probably nothing. I will consult with Aro and let him see. He will especially be interested in the photographs discovered revealing the identities of some of the victims. Quite a beauty, that woman. I can see how anyone would go to great lengths to keep her. Aro himself would feel the same way."
Her heart sank as she realized how much information Augustine really had. She had never once considered the possibility of Edward's Temple being discovered. So remote and well-hidden had the bunker been, she assumed it would simply disappear into the desert. However, while the desert could hide a bunker it would do little to disintegrate it. How many of the secrets of her upbringing were now common knowledge and what would occur if that knowledge became widespread?
Her story of her origins was her own and she never intended to share it. She read the greedy glint in Aro's eyes too well to risk his knowledge of how she had come into existence. It would benefit no one to grant Aro the power to replace rebellious, but gifted, guards with his "new and improved" (and more malleable) models of the original vampires. It was their very rarity that kept many of them (including Darling) alive in the first place. Once they became disposable, there would be little between themselves and a swift end.
And little between Aro and his thirst for power.
Even worse, Darling suspected that if the vampire world learned to clone humans and clone blood, it would make the entire human population redundant. As it stood, the vampire world maintained an unwilling, but necessarily symbiotic relationship between themselves and their prey. If vampires were to sustain themselves and reproduce themselves, they had to ensure the continuation of humanity. If they could simply clone what they needed, what impetus would there be to restrain their sadistic desires other than their "good will"?
Darling always intended to return to the place of her birth. She felt it call to her like a visceral anthem, but she meant to return as its sole ruler. She had survived both her own birth and death in Edward's personal version of Neverland. The secrets of Barzakh were hers and hers alone. She could not risk Aro knowing…but there was no telling how many in Augustine's covens were privy to the information he had gathered. As irritating and unfortunate as it was, she would need his allegiance, though she did not trust him any more than she trusted Aro.
"What do you want?" she whispered.
"Simple," Augustine replied. "I wish to pay homage to the master of Barzakh, this Desert Jinni, so I may learn from his methods."
"His ways are not ones I would recommend emulating, unless you wish to end up as he did."
"Oh, time will tell, time will tell. If you are certain you would prefer this…information… not end up in Aro's fingertips, I believe we can come to an amenable…arrangement. If you know someone who can replicate the technology used at Barzakh and can set up such a facility, I can ensure they will have all the supplies, resources, and permissions necessary to succeed. In recompense, I only ask to benefit from such an establishment myself, for my own purposes."
"What purposes do you have?" she asked.
"Oh, none that should over concern you. Mostly, the alleviation of boredom. I find the novelty of such an arrangement worth all the expense it will take to make it happen. Then, of course, I am always entertained by reminding the Volturi that they are not so grand or clever as they believe themselves to be."
She grit her teeth. "I will not tell you the means I use," she answered. "My secrets are my own."
His ruby eyes grew bright and eager. "You may keep all the secrets you wish, Dulcissima. I will ask no questions. I never need to invade into your affairs."
"It will take time."
His face broke into a wide grin. He rose to his feet and approached her to clasp her hands in his.
"Oh, we have all the time in the world. I have waited a thousand years for such an opportunity. What is a thousand more? Tell me, when would you like to come home?"
Oooo
Augustine and Darling fell into an uneasy alliance, of sorts.
"I am not without influence in both the human and vampire world," Augustine had told her, some time later. "The Chad of today is not the Chad you were born into. Tell me what you need, and I will see it is done."
As promised, Augustine arranged everything. From bribing officials and gaining permits for water and electricity from the nearby growing Garden City, to gathering all the equipment she required, Augustine worked faster than she could have dreamed. Within two decades, a new underground fortress was created, only a quarter mile from the first, but far larger and hidden deeper beneath the ground.
"It is time for the Mistress of Barzakh to return," he wrote.
When Darling received her summons, she left Volterra immediately, and she did not look back. It was only a few short years before she was ready to begin. She appreciated Augustine's involvement when she noted how many years of preparations he was able to shave away. As long as he remained useful, she would tolerate his involvement, but she would send him away if he became burdensome, or so she told herself.
Once Neverland was fully operational, Augustine began to send her "tasks" and those were quickly followed by his hand-chosen "guests." She did not question why he sent the guests he did. He set prices and handled the payment, along with all the book keeping of the newly reinvented Neverland. He ensured security was tight and supplies arrived regularly. Most importantly, he never once stepped foot within Darling's newly created kingdom. It was hers, only hers, and she preferred it stay that way.
To Darling, each vampire who came into Neverland was one less vampire out preying on innocent victims. Each vampire who succumbed to madness was one more Isabella Swan who would live. One vampire at a time, Darling would force Edward to make atonement for his sins.
Oooooo
When she met Augustine on the tiled balcony overlooking the blue Mediterranean waves, she knew she could not procrastinate any further. He gave her a look so earnest and searching that she couldn't help but swallow down her anticipation of his disappointment. She had tried. For five years, she had tried everything she could think of to fulfill his one very personal request, and she hated to fail him.
"I can't do it," she admitted. She took the ivory box, so obviously cherished, and placed the disintegrating lock of hair back within. Then she delicately handed it back to Augustine. "It's too decayed. I can't get a clear enough read of the DNA to be able to replicate it. If you had a tooth or a bone, then, maybe, but this won't do it. I'm sorry. I tried everything I could think of."
His smile turned brittle.
"I believe I am misunderstanding you. What is it you said?"
"I can't do it."
Before she could blink, his hand was at her throat and her feet were dangling above the ground. The iron grip around her esophagus began to squeeze and she knew, with the amount of pressure he was capable of, it would not take much to remove her head from her body. Her shield, while impermeable to Jane and Alec and Aro, could not save her here, and she was completely and utterly at Augustine's mercy.
"Try again," he hissed. "Try until you succeed. What use are you if you cannot even do this one small thing I ask?"
He dropped her in a pile on the floor and stormed out of the balcony, back into the main house, the ivory box still on the table beside the door. Her hands flew to her neck and she gasped, her breathes coming shallow and fast as she tried to bring her fear under control.
Augustine did not return to the balcony that day and Darling left before he could find her there again.
She lived. She still lived. But what about the next time? Darling knew the truth. She may be the most powerful piece on the board, but the queen did not need to live for the game to be won. Augustine intended to be king, in his own way, and he would use her as long as she proved useful…and he would praise her for her usefulness…but she knew she was replaceable. If she was to survive and cheat death again, she would need allies. She would need her own army. Most importantly, she would need to install her own king.
When she returned to Neverland, she immediately set into motion one of her oldest plans.
oooo
Author's notes:
Love all the brilliant analyses of this story! You all are the best!
The Maghreb is the Arab term for North Africa from Algeria to Morocco. The Sahara desert covers 3.63 million square miles. In comparison, the contiguous U.S. covers 3.12 million square miles.
Dulcissima is "sweet one" in Latin.
Loggerhead turtles live in the Mediterranean region. The sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the sand. That's not important to this story, but I thought it was fascinating. (I had to make sure Tunisia -modern state which once housed ancient Carthage- had sea turtles before I used the analogy). Maybe it should influence this story….how does the "temperature of the sand" influence how baby vampires grow and turn out? For sure, I am going to steal this idea for some story some day.
Wait, wait, why would Darling care about anyone except herself? Isn't she supposed to be hard and heartless? Darling is complicated. Canon Bella was prone to extreme self-sacrifice and unhealthy co-dependence, but how much of that was influenced by the unhealthy family environment she was raised in? We see that same strength/weakness in both Badiyah and Buffy. (How long before they were willing to admit how evil Edward and actually do something about it? They may have grumbled and complained, but they still stayed way longer than they should have.) Darling starts off her existence as basically shark bait and has to figure out how to swim at the same time as run from the shark. Her first goal is survival and this goal will continue to be a driving influence for her. If she had been like canon Bella right off the bat, she would not have survived. After Darling feels more secure in her own ability to survive then she has space to have other motivations and goals (i.e. Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Basically, Darling has more emotional margin to care about other people when she isn't running for her life.
Is Darling evil? I would say that Darling can do evil and can absolutely allow selfishness to rationalize terrible decisions, but that's the same as any of these characters. She still has the ability to change and the ability to pursue good...but will she choose to, or is it too late?
