"If you're ever lost," Afton began, "just remember that, to reach the kitchens, you walk past this exact door," He motioned to a wooden door that looked identical to every other she'd seen so far, "then take two lefts, a right, down the stairs, right, left, right, right again, back up the stairs, and then turn left at the 4th corridor entrance you see, before taking two more rights and a left, then down another flight of stairs. Simple, right?"
Eliana blinked at him. "You're fucking with me, right? Just show me where it is. Anyway, Marcus said that I should and will be accompanied at all times, so it's not like I really-"
"Hold on." Afton's expression suddenly looked alarmed, suspiciously so. "You're telling me you told Master Marcus that we left you in the library? Are you trying to get me beheaded?!" he hissed.
She held her hands up in mock surrender. "Um, dude, if you didn't want to-" She mimed a beheading with her thumb across her neck, "-then maybe you shouldn't have left me there. And wait a moment . . . they'll kill you?!"
"Ssh!" He glanced around them. "At that volume, any vampire in the city can hear you. And no, I didn't say execution, I said beheading. It's an entirely different kettle of fish, so to speak. Heads can be reattached as easily as any other limb, although it's definitely the most painful, and I'd know since it's happened to me a fair few times."
"And yet somehow that doesn't surprise me," she muttered. "What did they remove your head for then?"
He shrugged silently for a moment, akin to a guilty teenage boy. "You know . . . general misconduct. Anyway, that's not important. It last occurred 364 years ago, and I think I've pretty much made up for it by now. By the by-"
Eliana sighed. "What now?"
"I don't exactly have any knowledge on the preparation of human food," Afton confessed. "Like, I'll supervise, but I don't know shit about how to cook, basically."
"I can attest to that."
Eliana turned around in time to hear the click of heels as a tall brunette approached them. Like literally everyone else in the coven, describing her as a supermodel would be an extreme understatement 一 She was almost the personification of every insecurity Eliana had ever had in her early teens.
"The last time we were tasked with a human was over 30 years ago, and it's safe to say that my husband's cooking is frankly abysmal." The woman stopped in front of her, smiled warmly, and held a pristinely manicured hand out. "My name is Chelsea."
Eliana nervously took her cold hand to shake while also completely faking some confidence in herself. "Eli."
"Eli, hm? Are you sure you wouldn't rather I call you Eliana?" Chelsea suggested.
She shook her head. "Seriously, Eli's fine. So, are you and this guy . . .?"
Chelsea nodded her head in confirmation. "There are a few mated pairs within this coven, and we are one of them." She whispered behind her hand, "Between you and me, I'm fairly certain that Afton was only allowed to stay here thanks to my own skill."
"I can hear you," Afton reminded her as he continued. Eliana quickly followed behind, along with Chelsea. "And you don't need to remind everyone."
Chelsea rolled her eyes and laughed a little. "He's just bitter."
Eliana took one look at Afton's displeased expression and found it quite easy to believe that. "So what did you mean by skill?"
"As you likely know, some immortals are created with supernatural abilities. A few can present themselves during a person's human years, but that's exceptionally rare," she explained. "I have the ability to strengthen and weaken ties between individuals, while Afton . . ." She made a weak attempt at hiding a smirk. ". . . You'll see in a moment."
"What do you mean-?" Eliana spun around a few times as they continued. "Where'd Afton go? What, does he teleport or something? Like some kind of vampire enderman-?"
"I'm right here."
Eliana screamed and ran a few feet back as she searched around frantically. A few incoherent syllables left her mouth. ". . . Huh?!"
From behind Chelsea, Afton wandered back into view like some kind of complicated illusion. "While teleportation would be much cooler, I have the second coolest ability of invisibility. Most of the folks around here are either equipped with a supernatural ability beyond basic vampiric abilities, or have some other defining trait, such as Felix's brute strength or Master Caius' leadership skills."
"Most? I thought the Volturi have only the best, why would there be anyone useless around here?" Eliana questioned.
"The not-so-useful in the building are the human staff," Afton answered. "The secretaries, cleaners etc. Unlike any of us, they're easily replaced. In fact, you're probably one of the only humans to enter this building without the intention of meaningless employment or food," he humoured. "Although half of them ended up as food anyway-"
"Afton," Chelsea hissed as she slapped him around the wrist. At least this time, unlike during Eliana's attempt, he seemed genuinely in pain for a moment. "Ignore him, Eli. No one would lay a finger on you unless they want to be on the receiving end of any of the masters' wrath."
"I do not want to know what that wrath would entail." Eliana grimaced. "So, back to the matter at hand, if Afton can't cook, and presumably you can't either, what am I supposed to cook myself?"
"The human staff typically microwave pre-made paninis," Chelsea responded. "They're cheaper for our chef to assemble in bulk, and this castle isn't exactly a gourmet restaurant, so countless meal options are hardly necessary. Typically, your food would be cooked for you, considering your position, but the chef is currently absent."
"Absent as in . . ." Dead, she told herself. ". . . Cute. How edgy."
Chelsea raised a neat eyebrow. "Edgy?"
Eliana shrugged. "At this point, calling this place and all its quirks "edgy" may be my only coping mechanism. Chef died? Edgy. Countless humans brought here for slaughter? Edgy. Upholding the law by executing other vampires? Edgy. And anyway, what the hell is my position?"
"You wouldn't be considered a leader or royalty-figure yourself until your wedding-"
"Afton, don't pressure her!" Chelsea snapped. She returned to her calm and friendly demeanour in an instant. "While you are not a leader of this coven, consider yourself a queen-to-be, so to speak. Some day in the distant future, you'll be given your title, but until then you are to be treated with the highest level of respect, and anyone who falls below standards will be . . ."
"Absent?" Eliana guessed? Chelsea's silence spoke volume. "Good to know. And my panini choices?"
"Chicken or pepperoni, but we can remove the meat from it since you're vegetarian."
"Even better."
It was a lot later in the afternoon that she even left the kitchens in the first place. She'd found herself caught up in a surprisingly lengthy conversation on vampirism in general, and it was quite interesting to see just how much the Cullens hadn't told her, such as the physical and practical differences between animal, human, and combined diets, and how, despite popular belief, even a human-consuming vampire's control can be very easily trained to the point of little to no urges to feed in the slightest. It was that kind of rigorous training that all newborns under the Volturi's protection were put through.
And the panini she'd eaten, while admittedly a little bland with the meat missing and that unmistakable microwave flavour, hadn't exactly been half bad. She was certain that she could've made one better herself, but she'd eaten much worse meals in the past. That had been a definite 7/10 for taste.
What she did notice, however, was the visible difference in the interior of the castle between daytime and evenings. While during the day, almost every room and hall relied on natural sunlight through the windows, which she'd been told were one-way windows for security reasons, the evenings past sunset were much darker, hallways and corridors lit by torches fixed to the walls, and candles and such.
She reached up and swiped her hand through one of the flames in the candles like she used to do when she was younger. "I thought vampires are only killed by fire-"
Before she could reach another little flame, she was moved across the room and placed down on the ground. While she would've loved to act surprised, Alice had randomly done that to her enough times for her to feel pretty nonchalant about randomly reappearing somewhere else entirely. To be quite frank, she wasn't even sure if they were in the same corridor anymore.
"Don't touch the flames, Eli," Afton murmured as he walked around her and continued. "If you get injured, we get the chop. Not quite absent, but still a pretty gnarly beheading."
"I thought you said you haven't been beheaded in years," Eliana argued.
"This is different," he replied. "I don't know if you've realised this yet, but even if you think the masters are just a bunch of strangers, they'd easily lay their lives down for you-"
Eliana winced and clutched her stomach. "Probably just a bad panini," she dismissed. "Or cramps. Maybe both."
"Nope, that was definitely a bond thing," Afton countered, vaguely humoured by it. "That'll happen whenever I bring up their deaths."
Just as he'd predicted, she was quickly overcome with a sudden and brief spell of dull pain again, and while it was difficult to tell exactly where in her body, it was uncomfortable nonetheless. Chelsea, who was walking far ahead, her gaze continuously searching around them, shook her head disapprovingly.
"Afton, darling, stop hurting her," she sighed.
Afton rolled his eyes. "What I'm trying to tell you is that the masters are extremely protective of you. As protective as a person can be, really."
"I just . . . Can other people hear us in this castle?" Eliana asked quietly.
"There is enough soundproofing for your conversation to remain unheard to most if you whisper," Chelsea assured them.
"Okay, then I just . . ." Eliana sighed and continued with a soft whisper. "It doesn't make sense. I've known these guys for, what, three days? Am I supposed to feel something else? . . . Is there something wrong with me?"
"Not at all." Chelsea quickly turned around and began to walk at her side, also whispering in her ear. "The bond is certainly there, and the fact that it already causes you pain is enough evidence to prove that your lack of feeling towards this isn't connected to any wrongdoing of your own. Regardless of the nature of true mate bonds, it will take time to grow. I cannot alter it myself due to the intensity of it, but I assure you that it just needs time. 3 days is like an immortal second, if that. There is no need to put extra pressure on yourself."
Afton nodded. "And she'd know, considering she's one of few people who have met another true mated pair before."
"I guess," Eliana agreed reluctantly. "It's just weird . . ."
"Remember that you also lack the immortal instincts your mates have," Chelsea added. "Not only that, but they-"
"Can hear us," Afton finished. He then whispered so quietly that Eliana was mostly lip-reading off of him. "They've heard our entire conversation."
Eliana's eyes widened. "I thought you said they can't hear-"
"Ssh! The whole country can hear you if you hiss too loud," Chelsea insisted. Again, Eliana was left to rely on lip-reading alone. "I thought so too, but there was no way I could have foretold that they would be in Aro's office. I've rarely known them to meet in there in recent years."
Afton, after a moment of silence, nodded. "Yeah, they were definitely listening. You might as well go and see them now."
Eliana looked between them. It was soon made incredibly obvious that they were referring to her. She held her hands up in surrender. "Whoa whoa whoa, I'm not going in there."
"You'll have to see them at some point, and they already know that you're here now!" Afton argued.
"So?!"
"So it's rude to ignore your own mates! They're your mates!"
"I can't just interrupt them!"
"M-A-T-E-S!"
"So? What, am I supposed to just wander into a room with 3 guys I barely know and expect that to not be awkward?!"
Chelsea continued to watch this completely silent argument from the sidelines. She watched as little insults were thrown, as the pair mimed deaths and such to each other, and the increasing rage bubbling within them.
"I can't watch this anymore."
"Chelsea, what are you-"
By the time Eliana had even opened her mouth to speak, she found that the lighting around her had completely changed to something much brighter somehow. Feeling suddenly dizzy for a moment, that and blinded, she stumbled over her feet a little, but felt a pair of arms catch her before she could hit the ground.
"Easy there, tesoro."
She squinted as her eyes finally adjusted. ". . . Marcus? Oh jeez, Chelsea, you bitc-"
"Eliana," Aro interrupted quickly. She was still a little too dazed to actually figure out where in the room he was. "It is a pleasure to see you again, cara mia."
Eliana eventually looked up at Aro, who was leaning back against his desk, at Caius on the loveseat facing it, and then Marcus who was still holding her steady. She stood up properly, although she still found herself a little disorientated. "Yeah . . ." she said slowly, "maybe I should just leave, um, and you know, let you guys get back to . . . whatever it is that you do-"
"That is quite alright, amore mio," Aro assured her. "We were simply discussing one of today's trials. Come now."
He motioned her over with a single finger. Feeling more than a little on the spot, she hesitantly walked over to that end of the office and was guided to sit down in the centre of the sofa beside Caius. Marcus soon joined her on the other side, but while they certainly made an effort to provide her with space, on such a small sofa that wasn't exactly possible. She kept her arms folded over herself and one leg crossed over the other.
"Are Afton or Chelsea bothering you in any way, carina?" Caius demanded after seeing her tense expression.
"No, no, it's fine," she insisted. "Yeah, it's fine, I'm fine, everything's fine."
"Fine?" Aro repeated.
Eliana nodded and leaned back in her seat a little. She'd never wanted to leave a situation so desperately before in her entire life.
"And you were left unattended by Demetri and Afton just this morning, is that correct?" Aro confirmed.
"That was this morning? Oh." She internally cringed at herself. "Right. Technically they did, but it's not a big deal."
"And yet it would have been a "big deal"," Caius drew quote marks in the air, "if you had fallen victim to one of the lower guards."
"But the point is I didn't," she argued, "so it doesn't matter."
"That is no justification to make a habit out of it."
"No one was suggesting that."
"Pay attention to the conversation and you'd know that you just did."
"I didn't, what the hell?! Why would I-"
"That is enough." Surprisingly, those words hadn't even come from Aro, but rather Marcus. "Brother, we have established that such a misjudgment will not occur again without severe punishment. Let it go."
Eliana sighed. "Thank you."
"And yet again, Marcus is hailed as the saint," Caius grumbled under his breath, although judging by the fact that even Eliana had heard, he'd had no intention of keeping that remark to himself at all.
"He wasn't the one who accused me of being some maniac who'll happily sit there and wait to be eaten," Eliana retorted calmly.
"No, you claimed that imminent death is "not a big deal"-"
"Brother, that is quite enough for one day," Aro interrupted. "Give poor Eliana a break."
"And stop taking everything I say out of context," Eliana added with an eye roll.
"Fine, go on then." Caius sat up a little. "What was the context? In what way was the incident which occurred within the last 12 hours "not a big deal", hm?"
She sighed, yet again. "When I said it wasn't a big deal, I meant that it isn't something anyone needs to get in trouble over. It was just a dumb error."
"That is exactly the conclusion we came to, amore mio," Marcus stated.
"Exactly, see? No big deal," she concluded.
"Fine."
"Fine."
Now with both Caius and Eliana sitting up much tenser than before with their arms crossed and their bodies facing away from each other, Aro clapped his hands to relieve the tension. "I am so pleased to hear that our little dispute was sorted so soon!"
"Must you be sentimental now, brother?" Caius snapped. "Are we not able to have one single conversation without it becoming, as Eliana would so eloquently put it, a "big deal"?"
"It goes against his nature," Marcus contributed.
"Not you too, Marcus!" Aro exclaimed.
Eliana glanced between all three of them with her eyebrows furrowed. "Am I . . . missing something here?"
"That mate of yours," Caius lifted a lazy finger to point at Aro, "is overly sentimental. And Marcus is a pain in the ass-"
"Brother," Aro interjected, "I don't think-"
"I'm not finished," Caius continued. "And Marcus is a pain in the ass who you can never win against in an argument or in a game of chess."
"You allow yourself to become too overworked by the larger picture to pay attention to small details in games such as chess, or frankly any strategy game for that matter," Marcus explained. "And I hardly see you in a position to judge."
"Actually, that's right . . ." Eliana slowly turned her head to Caius. "Didn't you just start an argument with me over who babysits me?"
"The point was that no one was babysitting you in the first place," Caius argued.
Eliana rolled her eyes. "The point is that I don't need to be babysat! I'm not 5!"
Caius scoffed. "You could have fooled me," he muttered.
"Don't fall into his trap, cara mia," Aro advised her. "This debate could go on for hours if you let it, and we don't need Caius' ego to be inflated any larger than it already is."
She heard Caius mutter something quietly, in a language she couldn't understand, before Aro glared at him in a way she'd never seen anyone glare before. Meanwhile, Marcus seemed only mildly amused, while Aro and Caius continued to apparently bicker very quickly in that same completely unfamiliar language.
Eliana tilted her head up to look at Marcus, hoping for some explanation as to what she was listening to. "Um . . .?"
Marcus nodded his head in understanding. "They are speaking a combination of Ancient Greek and Italian," he murmured. "To translate Caius' initial retort, it was, "At least mine is already larger than yours."."
"And I'm guessing he wasn't talking about his ego," Eliana assumed. "That's . . . a lot more than I expected to know about any of you at this point in time."
"I agree," Marcus replied. "Put an end to this nonsense, my brothers. This is a conversation that can surely occur at a later date."
"Caius, brother, that was extremely childish of you," Aro chided. His shoulders were still stiffened as if he was already prepared to fight Caius physically.
"Eliana would never have known the subject of the matter if you had simply not responded," Caius reminded him. "But to answer your unspoken question, carina, yes, it is tr-"
Before he could finish his final word, Aro stood up properly and snapped back at him, although yet again Eliana had no idea what was happening. She was left to watch dumbly as both Caius and Aro shouted at each other, and while part of her was curious about what it was exactly that they were saying, she was pretty certain that she didn't want to know either.
With a heavy sigh, Marcus stood up and offered her a hand with a smile. "Come now, tesoro. These two will figure things out for themselves in an hour or two."
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: I think I found way too much enjoyment in writing the last scene in this chapter, but having Caius casually goad literally everyone else seemed too canon to leave out haha
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, stay safe, and ily lots!
