A faint knocking sound came from the door to Caius' quarters. "Mistress Eliana?"

I ignored it and instead continued to close my eyes in lotus position on the floor. The meditation tape played out loud beside me while I hummed as I exhaled just as they instructed.

"Mistress?"

I focused on my deep calming breaths as I absorbed energy from the surroundings…or something like that, I zoned out at that part of the tape. Really, that guy's voice was more boring than Steve's used to be.

The door suddenly busted open and the twins strolled in as if they owned the place. Jane glared at me while Alec gave me a questioning look.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Meditating. Wanna join? It's the closest to sleeping you'll ever get to be honest," I patted a space on the floor beside me, "Try it, it's fun."

"We didn't come here to meditate with you," Jane snarked, "we came to bring you to your first ability training session."

I drew my eyebrows together. "Already?" She nodded in confirmation. "But we only discovered my dissolving-disintegrating-crap-gift a few hours ago."

"The less time we waste, the better, now let's go." Jane grabbed my hand and began leading me out of Caius' quarters but I pulled away from her.

"Jane, you want me to wear this?" I motioned to my light pink pyjama t-shirt and shorts.

She sighed in defeat and lazily gestured to the wardrobe. "Change if you want."

"Merci beaucoup!" I called behind me as I dashed into the wardrobe and closed the door behind me.

Once I came back out into the bedroom again, I was wearing a pair of dark grey jeans with a light blue tank top and black lace-up boots. My hair was tied up in a low ponytail out of my face although my baby hairs were having the time of their lives.

"Ready yet?"

I pointed to the door dramatically. "Ready, leggo."

"So, where do we start?" I asked excitedly now that we were stood facing each other in the middle of the training room floor.

"Before we do anything, we need to establish and understand the nature of your gift," Alec explained. "With a gift as deadly as yours, having an understanding of how it moves and operates could not only save our lives but also make our jobs just slightly easier."

I nodded and waited for him to continue yet he didn't say anything. "…is that it?"

Jane sighed exasperatedly. "You'll need to activate your gift for us to have a chance at studying it."

"No shit Sherlock, but you should've just said, Pain-y," I remarked. "You might want to…er…" I motioned for them to take a few steps back.

They quickly darted off to one of the far walls so they had a good view of me in the centre of the room. I hadn't activated it in a while, so I wasn't sure if this would actually work.

Closing my eyes, I repeated the same steps before. I reminded myself of how it looks, its texture, the feeling of the particles as they seep through my skin and drift through the air.

Once I opened them again, the white dust was spiralling in front of me with much more confidence than before. It still had very little purpose or direction, but it was still progress nonetheless. I was able to control its actions subtly, steering it in particular directions and increasing or decreasing the volume of the flow.

"Pretty good, I have to admit," Alec mused.

I grinned proudly and swirled it a few more times before letting the dust crash back down to the floor where they dissolved and the bright light dimmed seconds after impact. Now that the coast was clear, the twins came back over to join me.

"So what's your verdict?" I asked them.

"I believe I've seen something similar in nature to yours before," he said.

"Really?"

"I have something of a friend in the Hamamatsu coven based in Japan, Clementine. I'm sure you'll meet her soon enough considering how strong her coven's alliance is with the Volturi. Her gift causes overwhelming depression, and is in a dust-like form similar to yours. It is also a little similar to mine as well."

"Isn't your gift that weird numbness stuff?" I clarified.

He seemed a little offended. "The correct term is sensory deprivation, not 'that weird numbness stuff'. But yes, I can deprive any being of their senses, as suggested in the name, but my gift is in the form of a mist rather than a dust."

"Ooh, let's see," I requested and took a few steps away from him with Jane.

With very little effort at all, some kind of dense, dark mist flowed out of his palms and through the room in a swirling path. He seemed to have complete control over it as he was able to move and shape the mist however he wanted. Once he was thoroughly pleased with my stunned reaction, the mist receded backwards slowly into his palms and disappeared again from plain sight.

"Wow, that's fucking awesome," I whispered to myself.

He laughed and wiggled his fingers for effect. "They don't call us the 'witch twins' for nothing."

"They call you what?" I asked in disbelief. "Witch twins? That's-that's horrible."

"It's all part of the back story, which Alec was convinced would make a great autobiography to sell one day," Jane shook her head.

"Am I allowed to know the back story? Or do I have to order the book first?"

Alec jokingly debated it. "I guess I'm willing to let this one slide, we'll tell you."

He sat down on the padded floor with his legs crossed beside Jane. I giggled and sat down with them.

"Ooh, story time, this is exciting!" I clapped my hands.

"Once upon a time," Alec began humorously, "it was approximately 800 AD. Jane and I were born in Anglo-Saxon England and raised in a small village by our mother and father. We'd always had strong psychic abilities even before we were transformed. Good things happened to people we liked, bad things to people we were not so keen on.

"We first met Aro when we were approximately 6 years old. He came to visit our village, and I still remember the day. He scared me a little at first and so I spent most of the day hiding from him in the fields behind our home. It took him a while to convince me to say a word to him, which I do feel a little bad for. However, Jane instantly ran up to him and leapt into his arms before we'd even been introduced. Shockingly enough, this one did have the capacity to love and used to adore hugs."

If Jane could blush, her face would've been bright red at this point, but instead she decided to glare at her brother. The thought of 6 year old Jane running up to Aro and hugging him before she even met him did sound pretty adorable, admittedly.

"He took an interest in our capabilities and what we'd bring to the coven, but decided to allow us to fully mature before transforming us. And then, things get a little…dark."

"When we were approximately 12 years old," Jane continued, "our village accused us of witchcraft. We were to be burned at the stake, but somehow Aro managed to find out and rescue us just before it was too late. He transformed us there and then, and apparently the village was slaughtered from what I heard.

"Since then, Aro has always been something of a father figure to us. We gained these incredible supernatural abilities and many of our enemies, such as the Romanians, now call us the 'witch twins'. We don't get as upset by it as you'd think, it's just pretty annoying."

"End of story time," Alec clapped his hands and stood up along with me and Jane. "Time to continue training."

"Really? I'm not in the mood anymore," I whined childishly.

"I'm not in the mood for a lot of things, yet here we are," Alec countered. "Now, there is something I would like to test out, as it is something Clementine's gift is able to do. What you're going to do is pull your hands apart like so," he placed his hands together in front of him and twisted them slightly as they pulled apart, "and imagine your gift. Imagine it as a swirling mass of dust and gases, imagine its shape, its colour, its feel and energy."

I nodded in understanding and placed my hands together in front of me. With my eyes shut once more, I did as he instructed and envisioned the bright white swirling mass of dust in front of me and the now familiar burning sensation in my palms.

I pulled my hands apart again and opened my eyes to see a white sphere of the brilliant dust hovering between my palms. The bright light it emitted filled the room gloriously as the particles drifted in the same clockwise direction. The burning in my palms was much greater than before and I found myself wincing slightly at the sensation.

Unable to hold it for any longer, I allowed the dust to drop back into my palm and fade out of existence once more. My limbs felt oddly numb, almost jelly-like, and I felt my legs give way.

"Uh, guys?" I mumbled quietly.

Jane quickly stood behind me and grabbed me around my waist before I could fall to the ground, although she didn't seem particularly alarmed about the whole fainting thing.

"Don't worry about it, this will happen a few times at the start. When it comes to such a strong gift, if it is overworked, it can drain the body of its energy entirely. Give it a few more seconds and you'll be almost back to normal, but you're lucky there's a feeding in fifteen minutes since blood does help," Alec informed me.

"And if I'm still like this?" I mumbled as sensation began to return to my limbs.

"Go see Theo and he'll give you some venom to help you recover. I've had this before, and so did Jane. It's perfectly normal for such strong gifts like ours," he assured me.

Jane was now crouched to the ground as I slouched back against her bent knees. "Maybe that is enough training for today. We wouldn't want to keep Aro waiting for the feeding after all."

Once the feeding was finally over and I was completely back to normal, Chelsea invited me to one of her "girls' nights" she insisted on. Aro was a little concerned that I needed more rest, but I managed to convince him that I was fine and the last thing I needed at that moment was rest.

Only a minute or so later, I was in Afton and Chelsea's room on their bed with Heidi, Chelsea, Corin, and Renata. We invited Jane, of course, but she completely refused for some reason. I had my head on Renata's lap while Heidi sat beside her with a laptop in front of her. Corin was curled up on Chelsea's lap beside us comfortably, and I only imagined how weirded-out Afton would be if he walked in on this scene later.

"Heidi, what are you doing?" I asked as I noticed her tapping furiously on her keyboard.

"The stupid website won't load," she groaned and slammed her hands against the keys aggressively, "I'm trying to get onto the Missguided website to order you some new clothes, actually."

"What?" I twisted onto my front with my chin on Renata's thigh. "I don't need more clothes."

"For the last time, you can never have too many clothes," Corin insisted.

"My sections of Aro's, Caius', and Marcus' wardrobes are already full as it is. Where am I going to store more clothes?"

"Just move their clothes over," Chelsea advised. "Really, they pretty much always wear the same outfits over and over again, what's the issue?"

"Oh, you have no idea. For instance, Aro has I'd say about 30 identical black button-ups, and that same amount in many other colours including red, dark red, dark blue, white, grey, dark grey," I counted on my fingers, "and a shit ton more."

"Well, maybe you could just hide it between his stuff and hope for the best," Corin joked.

"I know you're joking but I'm actually tempted now," I giggled and turned over onto my back again.

Heidi turned her screen around and showed me the sexy black lace bodysuit she had open in one of many tabs. "How about this? Your style? I don't know if maybe red is more your colour, but I feel like both could work."

"Now just imagine Aro sifting through his endless supply of shirts one day and finding that little number hidden near the back," I laughed.

"Black or red?" she asked impatiently, "If you don't make a decision, I'm choosing black for you."

"Black works," I reluctantly agreed.

"While you're there, I'm really in need for some more ankle socks," Corin requested.

"Say no more, I'll order a few packs now quickly," Heidi offered, "But first, what about this?"

She showed me the pair of black platform lace-up boots she'd found. In all honesty, I didn't hate them as much as I expected to, since Heidi had a habit of constantly dressing me up suggestively.

"They're cute, order it," I responded while trying to hide my satisfied grin.

"Oh and one last thing." In her recent tab, she opened up a dark grey t-shirt dress that only just covered everything important.

"It's nice, but do they have it in a lighter colour?" I requested.

She clicked her mouse a few times. "They have light pink if that works."

"Sold," I giggled.

"So how are you finding immortality?" Renata asked.

"It's an adjustment to say the least, but I'm kind of getting used to the whole drinking-from-humans thing," I admitted.

"Oh, have you had sex as a vampire?" Heidi asked me casually.

"Heidi!"

She let out a light feminine laugh. "What? Sex isn't a taboo for most vampires. Besides, we're all girls, you can speak honestly here with…minimal judgement. Anyway, since your senses are heightened when you're turned, it makes sex so damn much better, seriously. So, have you?"

I paused for a moment, considering her question. "Have I had sex?"

"Wait, you're a virgin?"

"I mean, I was, yeah," I laughed awkwardly.

"Hold up, when was this? Who was it? I want all the details, don't hesitate to tell me everything," she put her laptop down and turned to face me excitedly.

"All the details?" I scoffed. "Fine, it was Marcus a few days ago. That's all you get to know."

She squealed along with the other three. "So you can't even compare the difference in quality, huh."

"Is this conversation really-"

"Oh come on. We're all women here, ancient ones at that, so it's nothing new." Heidi was getting way too excited about this conversation. "So, tell me, how long is-"

I'd never been happier for a conversation to be interrupted in my life. Afton casually strolled in and didn't even register us being there at first.

"Chels, have you seen my hairbrush-"

He froze on the spot when he made eye contact with each of us. I waved like a dork and he gave me a startled wave back.

"It's in the bathroom, honey," Chelsea smiled casually.

Afton backed up slowly out of the room again. "I'll just, um…I'll just come back later…"

As soon as he left, we all burst out laughing. "Men," Chelsea giggled under her breath.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

Author's note: I'm back with another chapter haha, yayayay!

I sort of included Jane and Alec's back story in this because I wanted to incorporate them a little more into the story from now on. Also, I just love the thought of Aro being like a dad to tiny Jane and Alec, and 6 year old Jane hugging him honestly sounds adorable.

Also, opinions on Heidi? I wanted her to not necessarily be everyone's cup of tea, so not the most likeable character ever, and I hope I delivered on that haha.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading, be sure to leave some feedback because I love to hear your thoughts, stay safe, and ily lots!