AN: Not related to this storyline, but would anyone be interested in a bunch of chapters on the beginnings of our vampires? We saw Carlisle join, but I was thinking Felix, Demetri, the twins, Eleazar…? PM me or leave a note if you would want to read it :)
THE SYNOD OF VOLTERRA
The five masters had met in the library to discuss coven matters as Basileus had instructed. They were soon joined by Eleazar.
Carlisle, Felix, and Demetri sloped in behind him. They had only been together in Carlisle's new apartment for half a day and already Basileus had been forced to step in to temper the noise level. When he'd had to pay a visit to the first-floor suite for a third time, he had collared Eleazar to take them all to Aro.
"Why are you here?" Aro asked his elder brother, though his eyes were on his sons.
"Their first day hasn't gone too well," Eleazar replied, shoving Carlisle into a seat.
Aro rolled his eyes to the heavens. He knew it was a bad idea to put the coven fools all together in one place … a disaster waiting to happen.
"It's not our fault," Felix began. "The old guy is hungover and he's taking it out on us!"
"The old guy?" Magnus repeated, shaking his head. The boy must have a death wish!
Aro scoffed at his boy's excuse. Demetri stayed sensibly quiet. "Sit down and keep out of trouble for five bloody minutes."
"How far have you got?" Eleazar asked, gesturing to the scattered books and parchment pieces on the table between the masters. He took the seat near Marcus, mainly because it was far away from Carlisle and his nephews.
Poor Felix and Demetri were forced to sit by their father.
"We've only run through the guards' complaints, El," Freyr explained. "Now we need to decide what to do to appease them." She eyeballed her co-masters, expecting objections.
"We will add some other festivals, Freyr. I've already agreed to that," Aro replied. "Working out what those festivals should be is the hard part."
Everyone went back to the books, searching for something suitable to introduce into coven life.
It didn't take long for Aro to drop his book and when he looked over to Caius, he could tell his co-master was fake reading. Oh how Caius hated books!
"We have about forty guards in the castle," Aro thought out loud, "countless others at outposts, five masters, Athenodora, and there's another ten in my family … fifty-six vampires, minimum, in this castle alone. All with different histories, religions, cultures … it's too many to consider."
"We need to come up with something, Aro," Magnus insisted. "You have opened Pandora's box with this Christmas thing."
"Well what do we have amongst the masters?" Aro questioned, throwing his arms wide to include his four fellow masters.
"Three Greeks and a pair of Vikings," Caius replied.
"We are Norwegian," Freyr reminded her co-master.
"That's Nordic though, yes?" Aro asked.
Freyr and Magnus nodded.
"So we have two belief systems … let's pick some events from those two."
Freyr laughed at the simplicity of Aro's plan. "That won't appease the guard, Aro," she scoffed. "There are precious few Greeks or Norwegians in the guard."
"Fine," Aro huffed. "With my family you can add Christianity through Carlisle and Eleazar, and the twins of course." He paused for a moment to think about the other options his family could offer. "Felix is Greek, too …"
"Atia is Roman," Felix reminded his father.
"Over my dead body will we be adding Roman festivals." Aro spat 'Roman' as though the word was noxious to his tongue. "Those fuckers stole from the Greeks!" he added grumpily.
"They kicked off the whole Christianity thing anyway - they're covered," Magnus said confidently. He didn't quite understand why Carlisle was scowling at him, but then he didn't know of the heated debate between Aro and Carlisle the day before on just that topic.
"It could be argued that the Greeks appropriated the Mesopotamian festivals," Marcus explained. "And the deities."
"Is that true?" Carlisle asked, looking to Eleazar for a response. I am SO going to use that against Aro the next time he starts on me! he thought, happy to have some ammunition to throw back at his brother.
"Technically, yes," Eleazar nodded. "But don't mention it around Basileus - it's not worth the three-day lecture you will receive for your troubles."
Magnus flipped through the pages of the book in his hand and sighed. "What else have we got?" he asked, referring to the Volturi family members' backgrounds.
"Well Demetri is Jewish," Aro shrugged. He didn't know much about being Jewish.
Demetri looked quizzically to his father. "Demetri is what?"
"You are Jewish," Aro stated flatly, assuming the boy was playing a silly game or something.
Demetri shook his head. "No, I'm not," he said, laughing.
Oh shit! You meant it! "You really are, son."
Demetri thought about it for a moment. "How do you know that?"
"Amun told me," Aro explained, "though there's pretty indisputable proof," he added, looking to Demetri's lap.
Demetri was none the wiser. "Like what?"
Aro smirked and pulled his son in close so only he would hear. "You know you look … different … down there?" he said quietly, gesturing to the boy's crotch.
Demetri nodded shamefully, bless him.
"That's a Jewish thing. Just a Jewish thing."
"Oh." Demetri looked puzzled when Aro pulled back. "I always wondered about that."
Aro ruffled his son's hair. "You didn't think to ask me?"
"I asked Felix," Demetri offered in reply. "He said I was faulty."
Aro gave his eldest a good slap to his closest leg. Felix took hold of the assaulted limb, but even though it stung he still couldn't keep his laughter at bay.
"What?" he asked, through his giggles. "It was funny."
"Do you want another one?" Aro asked, hand held high.
Felix continued to laugh at his brother's expense until Aro made good on his threat and landed another two sharp slaps to his son's legs.
"Like you wouldn't have done the same with Carlisle!" Felix accused.
He was right - Aro would have done exactly the same to his little brother had the opportunity presented itself.
"He didn't even know he was Jewish, do we really need to include that?" Caius asked, looking to Demetri. It seemed ridiculous to add religious festivals to the list for a child who wasn't even aware of his religion! "What's the most important festival they have Marcus?"
"Yom Kippur," Marcus replied. "The day of atonement and repentance."
Looking to his fellow co-masters, Marcus wondered how none of them already knew that. I must devise a scholarly schedule for the coven's elite members, he thought.
Caius' eyebrows knitted together. "Well that sounds fun," he muttered.
Aro agreed. "I don't think fun is the point of any religious festival." He scattered the contents of the table, searching for nothing in particular. "Look at these books - they are all about starving yourself and then killing a load of animals to say thanks for something. It's pointless."
"Christians' don't do sacrifice," Carlisle said, sounding a little smug.
"Which is a shame," Aro replied. "As you are one of very few who would truly appreciate the animal blood."
"Why don't we just vamp-up some holy days," Felix suggested. "We only want the day off work and a bloodbath."
A series of tuts and scoffs could be heard in response to the boy's suggestion, but Aro called a halt to them.
"No, no, no, hang on," he said to his fellow masters. "He could be on to something." Aro mused for a moment. "Let's find some current festivals, a decent spread throughout the year, and 'vamp them up'. Make them our own."
"Appropriating other religions and making them our own?" Carlisle really didn't like the sound of that. It felt disrespectful to his ears.
"How very Romanesque of you, Aro," Marcus said with a wink. "Your mother will be pleased."
Aro sat up in his chair feeling quite proud of himself. "And just like that, I am the favourite son again."
Eleazar groaned but Carlisle wasn't too worried. I'm our mother's favourite, he thought confidently.
"You use lots of my ideas, Dad," Felix said, pulling Aro from his self-congratulation. "I think you should make me your adviser."
Aro burst out laughing. "That's one idea I won't be taking up, son. Nice try though."
Felix sank back into his seat as Aro took up a quill a piece of parchment. "Start shouting them out!" he called to the group.
"Valentine's Day!" Felix offered to get the ball rolling.
"That's a saint, right?" Aro had to check before he wrote it down.
"The saint of love," Felix drawled, misty eyed.
Caius looked curiously to the young Volturi boy. "How do you know all this?"
"It was in a book Marcus made me copy," Felix explained with a nonchalant shrug. "He is also the saint of plague."
Marcus smiled to the youth. "I am glad to see you found the experience beneficial, Felix."
Felix scowled. "I wouldn't go that far …" he thought better of saying what he really felt about the experience - a whipping would have been preferable!
Aro asked Marcus for the date and scribbled it onto his paper. "And what will we be doing on Valentine's Day?"
Demetri and Felix shared an excited look before both crowing, "Fucking!"
Aro cuffed the backs of their heads for their language, not that it changed their opinion.
Magnus raised his eyebrows to his mate. "I can see that one being popular," he said, thinking of the hell it could cause in the guard hall.
Freyr sighed, she knew exactly what her mate was getting at. "Let's aim for 'expressing love'… the guards don't need an excuse for what it will lead to."
"Neither do those pair," Eleazar added looking to his mischievous nephews.
Aro nodded to himself as he came up with a loose plan for the vamping up Valentine's Day. "We could hold a masquerade ball?" he suggested. "We could invite humans … for feeding from?"
Carlisle looked set to argue but Eleazar put him straight before he could cause a row. "Your feeding preferences are honoured in the coven most of the time, Carlisle."
"They are your preferences too, El," Carlisle replied.
"Yes, they are," Eleazar agreed. "And I appreciate that occasionally I will have to resist the temptation of human blood because I choose to not to drink it."
"It doesn't mean the rest of us have to avoid it permanently, Carlisle." Aro wasn't being cruel to his brother, for a change, but now and again the rest of the coven wanted human blood above bloodwine, and organising an event for the feast would limit human consumption to those occasions. He really was trying for a win-win, though Carlisle wouldn't see it that way.
Aro waited expectantly for another event.
"Ostara," Freyr offered, using the pagan term from her own time for the Christianised event. "Or Easter, if you prefer."
"I suppose we should," Aro agreed. It felt a little too Christian to him but he had already cemented the covens convening at that time so he was stuck with it, really. "What else is it about?"
Freyr smiled remembering the festivities "Rejoicing, renewal, fertility …"
"Fertility?" Felix repeated. "More fucking, then."
CRACK! Aro slapped him hard, much harder than the other times - he meant that one.
"OW!" Felix scowled at his father, feeling embarrassed.
Aro fixed the boy in his sights. He wasn't playing with him anymore. "Next time I'm taking my belt off," he warned.
"It's on the list," Aro said turning back to his co-masters. "Next?"
Magnus played with Felix's emotions a little to settle him down before he offered his own festival of choice. "Midsummer was the time to be alive where we came from," he said fondly. "Longest day of the year, drinking from dawn till dusk."
"There were other things, my dear," Freyr said, tutting at her mate for reducing such a meaningful time to a drinking session.
"Yeah," Magnus agreed, wrapping his arms around the shield maiden. "But when you drink from dawn till dusk you tend to forget about the rest."
"We could bring back a Greek tradition," Marcus suggested. "The Olympics."
Caius suddenly perked up. "Now, I like the sound of that."
Aro thought about it for a moment. " 'Midsummer Games'."
Caius shook his head. "Actually, it would be a nightmare to work out games that would take everyone's gifts into account." I'm not competing against gifted vampires, he thought, a little bitterly. It wasn't often that Caius even thought about being one of the 'giftless', but then it wasn't often that others' gifts challenged him directly, either.
"We can have human games," Aro replied, knowing what would be worrying his co-master. "Atia can block the gifts."
"Oh, Atia can, can she?"
Aro nearly jumped out of his skin hearing his mother come up behind him. "If Atia wouldn't mind, of course," he tacked on quickly.
Atia looked down her nose to Aro for a moment before the smile took over her stern expression. "That's better," she said. "Favourite son indeed," she added, having used Basileus' gift to search through the recent conversation.
"It's me, isn't it?" Carlisle crooned, leaning into his mother who merely smiled adoringly at her youngest son.
Basileus pursed his lips looking at Carlisle after the ruckus he had created with Felix and Demetri earlier that day. "You certainly get the most attention, Carlisle. Though I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, is it?"
Carlisle's eyes widened and shot to his lap, avoiding the sniggering coming from just about everyone there after hearing the rather public admonishment.
"How are you getting on?" Basileus asked generally, looking over Aro's shoulder to the list in his hand.
"Well," Marcus replied simply.
"We are appropriating religious festivals and making them our own," Aro added.
"It was my idea," Felix added proudly.
Basileus gave his grandson the same look he'd given Carlisle, and then he noticed the redness to his cheek. "It looks like you have made some other suggestions, too, boy?" he said, gesturing to Felix's face.
"He needs to learn to mind his mouth," Aro explained. "Back to the list. I want this done today. I don't even spend this much time doing things I enjoy."
Felix nudged Demetri. "He doesn't enjoy anything."
"There's one task I take great enjoyment from," Aro replied, growling at his eldest.
"Mom's not here," Demetri joked, nudging Felix back and both laughing at their childish additions.
"They are very cheeky today," Magnus commented to his co-master, raised eyebrows towards the boys.
Aro nodded. "They are going on the mistaken belief that I won't thrash them in front of you all."
That shut the boys up sharpish!
"How about All Hallows Eve?" Carlisle offered. "It's all about the dead - very vampire friendly."
Aro smiled wide and looked impressed with his little brother. "Look at you embracing your new culture, Carlisle!"
"Can we keep Christmas?" Felix asked, hopefully. He had grand ideas for a Christmas that would include presents from next year onwards. He knew he could get his mother on board, even if Aro continued to be resistant.
"Sure," Aro replied, adding it to the list.
"Although," Magnus said, "Jul lasts for 12 days and is pretty much the same thing."
"Ooo!" Demetri liked that idea! "I want Jul, sack Christmas."
Marcus was pleased by the boy's enthusiasm. "Christmas is twenty-four days for Christians," he told the excited child. "Twelve days for advent before and twelve days of celebration after."
Aro looked askance to Magnus. "Twelve days!" Then he turned on Marcus. "Twenty-four days!" Scoffing loudly he fixed his eyes on Felix. "No chance. You can have a one-day Christmas and like it, sunshine."
"How about extending our Christmas to the 28th, Aro?" Caius smiled menacingly at the Volturi princes and passed Aro the book he had been flicking though. "Read this!" he said, with the same enthusiasm Demetri had shown for a twelve-day Christmas.
"Why?" Felix asked, Caius' smile intimidating him a little. "What happens?"
"Childremass! We get to beat the children." Aro announced, congratulating Caius on a good find.
"It's to remind you of some bloke called Herod who liked killing kids," Caius explained. He couldn't say much more on the subject as he had stopped reading when he got the part that said he should beat the children.
Marcus winced. "Your historical knowledge is outstanding, Caius," he said, feeling genuinely embarrassed that a member of his coven cared so little for knowledge and books in general.
"I think one day for Christmas will be quite enough," Atia announced, much to Felix and Demetri's relief. "Marcus, please add Caius into your classes with the guards."
Caius scoffed at the very idea. "Not a chance!"
"Excuse me?" Atia said sternly, eyeballing Caius and daring him to object further.
Caius wasn't stupid, he wasn't pissing Atia off - he had only suggested Childremass as a joke. "Thank you, my lady, it was most kind of you to consider my needs."
Basileus watched Caius for his reaction whilst everyone laughed and jibed at him. He was rather impressed to see Caius take those jibes on the chin and not retaliate against the harmless fooling.
Caius hadn't taken a drop of dungeon blood since the Lucius debacle, mainly because he hadn't had the need to torture anyone in that time, but the effects were visible for all to see. He was calmer and certainly less prone to the spikes in his temper that they all expected with the master. Basileus was pleased at the change he saw, though he didn't know that Caius had actually stopped working entirely.
Seeing the creator zoning in on him made Caius nervous. He never had apologised for his outburst in the dungeons and truthfully, he had expected some serious repercussions. The fact that it had been a year since meant nothing - he knew the creator could play the long game.
Basileus, however, had no intentions of saying a word to Caius about the 'messy' end to Lucius' life, mainly because he refused to talk to anyone on the matter at all - his pride had been damaged beyond belief and he still couldn't face a conversation on the subject.
Caius was safe, for now.
"So, what have we got?" Basileus asked, taking the list from his son. "Valentine's Day, Easter, Midsummer Games, All Hallows Eve, and Christmas," he read out aloud. "Five is enough."
"Aww!" Felix whined. "What about new year?"
"I said five is enough," Basileus repeated, handing the list back to Aro.
"Will these be Volturi events?" Caius asked, thinking of the paperwork involved in corresponding with all the other covens in the alliance, and the vampires beyond! Magnus shared the same concern, though truthfully, they both knew Marcus would take care of the bulk of the work.
"I think we should tell the other covens in the alliance to celebrate these days, too," Marcus declared. As if he had heard Magnus' and Caius' worries, he added, "I will take care of the paperwork."
"Aro, you said the treaty was about vampire unity," Atia reminded her son when he looked like he may reject the idea. "These sort of things will help foster that. Positive vampiric culture," she added pointedly.
They were the words Aro had used to encourage everyone to go with perilous plan of aligning the covens in the first place.
Aro sighed deeply. It will take such a lot of effort, he thought, dreading the confrontation that would come with Amun at the intrusion into his life. Miserable old bugger. "This year we will keep them to ourselves, see how they work. If they are a success we will roll them out to the other covens when we next convene."
"He thinks he's Jesus or something," Felix whispered to Carlisle.
Aro heard him, naturally. "I'm nothing like Jesus - he was quite a scruffy fellow," he said, dismissing the notion. "I feel more like Constantine."
Standing from his seat and taking an elaborate bow, he said, "I hereby conclude The Synod of Volterra."