A/N: And now we're back in Volterra... well, for a little bit anyways.

Chapter 6- Dead Can Dance

Arianna POV

We had been down here for about a day now; we could hear the clocks chiming in Volterra. It's about mid-day. We were talking softly about mundane things, favourite colours, things like that. Well, Alec was talking- I still had that little problem of a crushed throat. We both fell silent when we heard four pairs of footsteps coming down the hall. Alec gulped and I got a death grip on him. The only way of getting me to let go of him is to rip me off. I felt his arms tighten around me and knew that he was thinking the same thing I was.

The door swung open and light poured in. Aro stood outside with the little blond haired girl, Felix and Afton. "Felix, Sylvia, take Alec to his room. Afton and Felix bent down and pried us apart. Afton didn't even bother trying to use his gift on me. He just threw me over his shoulder like a sac of wheat.

We went up at least two different sets of stairs. Aro was leading us to a part of the castle I'd never been to before. Not surprising really, I haven't seen very much of it at all.

Afton carried me into a huge bathroom, it had at least four rooms in it, and each one had a shower and a bath. Is all this really necessary, I mean, vampires can't get dirty all that easily. You'd probably be able to take care of all the vampires in the castle with just one shower. Whatever, not my problem.

Afton laid me out flat on the counter top and Aro grabbed a spray-hose thing. I opened my mouth to start spouting off various rude comments that probably would have got me into a lot of trouble. Then I remembered my throat didn't work. Fuck you Aro. I levelled out several of my scariest death glares at him, being a newborn vampire with ruby red eyes, my death glares kick ass.

"I love the silence," Aro murmured softly to Afton, "I'd probably just leave her like this if I wasn't afraid of permanently damaging her throat and making her useless."

Afton started chuckling. "Do you have control yet?" asked Aro.

I felt Afton's dark gift flare up and overwhelm my mind, shoving me back into a corner and taking over. I could faintly hear them talking, it was like watching them through a wall of smoke. "She's mine master."

Aro nodded. "Excellent, make sure she doesn't move,"

"Of course master."

He set about to cleaning out my neck, it hurt. It hurt even more than getting it destroyed in the first place. Afton's gift held me pinned in place, like a butterfly trapped in a jar. And even worse, the cleaning took a half an hour.

Eventually though he was done, he dried it off and Afton released his control. I felt it starting to heal. It was very strange; it wasn't painful, just strange. My throat felt both cold and hot at the same time and it felt like the coolness was spreading.

Of course, the fact that my neck had healed brought on a new problem. I was very, very, very, thirsty. My hands flew up to my throat, wrapping themselves around it, trying to stop the burning, to smother the flames.

Aro sighed and took my hand; I was too thirsty to realize that he was reading my mind. Aro smiled softly, "Let's go get you something to drink child."

He walked out of the room and I followed, we went into a room filled with refrigerators. "We have real dinners with fresh blood every week or so," said Aro, "but you're a newborn so you'll need more than that." He opened out the door and pulled out a bag of blood. Yeah, I know, I know, it's weird, but you really can't truly understand the need to drink blood unless you're a vampire.

Aro passed the bag to me, along with a straw. Yup, I'm a civilized vampire; I drink my human blood with a straw. I poked it in and started to slurp it up. It was so good. It reminded me of drinking one of those cool-aid drinks actually. Before I knew it, the blood was gone. I looked at the fridge and looked at Aro, who was talking to Afton. "Go ahead," he nodded.

I went and got more blood.

Eventually my thirst was sated (fourteen bags of blood later...) I waited patiently for them to finish talking, you see, Alec had given me a few tips about how to deal with Aro. Rules #1- don't challenge his authority, if you have a problem keep it to yourself. Rule #2-Be polite, it doesn't cost you anything, I can guarantee being rude will .And my personal favourite, pretend to like him, and he'll pretend to like you. Let everyone know you want to kill him and he'll let everyone know he wants to kill you to. Probably by killing you, this is never fun.

Sounds simple enough right? No, not really, by nature if I don't like someone they will find out about it. And that goes against rule number three, which will probably get me killed. Any of them could get me killed actually, if I prove to be completely untameable Aro will kill me. Damn. My life sucks.

"Do you have something you'd like to say Arianna?" Oh yeah, I was about to start off on the insults, I mean how many chances like that do you get. Then I remembered Alec's rule number two.

See, Alec saves my ass even when he's not here to physically tell me to shut up. So I switched to something else. "Thank you."

Aro nodded approvingly, "Now," he said carefully, "Alec has obviously had some kind of good influence on you, so I'll let you stay with him. Misbehave though and I'll end up splitting you two up." His voice got even lower, "Do something really bad and I'll end up hurting him. Neither of us would want that, would we?"

"Of course not sir." I shook my head back and forth. I may be using manners, but if he thinks I'm going to call him master, like everyone else has, he's gone insane. Or more insane, I think he's already slipped off the deep end.

He lost the serious look, "You really did quite a nice job drinking that blood by the way," he said in an offhand manner. "Most newborns would have spilled it all over the place." Apparently sucking blood through a straw requires finess?

Alec's rules work like magic... all I have to do is keep it to myself that I want to kill Aro slowly and painfully and he'll return the favour by not killing me slowly and painfully. Wonderful, hopefully I'll be able to last a month now before I do something so stupid that Aro has to kill me.

I heard a huge booming noise coming from the direction of the throne rooms. Aro looked over in his shoulder at that general direction. "Afton, take Ari back to Alec's room. I'll have to go deal with that." He gestured to the throne room where I could hear noises coming from. As he walked past Afton he murmured something so quiet I could only make out three words, even with vampire hearing. Watch... Acting... Sneaky. Damn, all that work acting and Aro still doesn't trust me. Why am I not surprised?

Afton opened the door and bowed mockingly at me. Yeah, he can pretend to be polite all he wants, I know he can rip my head off with one hand. "Ladies first," he murmured.

I smiled innocently at him, "Go ahead then, I wouldn't want to be rude." He snorted.

"Touché" he pushed me through the door. "You're still going first, there's no way I'm turning my back to you."

"Awww... I'm just an innocent child. No need to be afraid."

He laughed outright this time, "Sure, and I'm Tinkerbell."

I opened my mouth to respond- he cut me off before I could say anything.

He sighed. "As fun as this has been, I've got stuff to do. Walk." I froze, "I'm dead serious Arianna, walk or I'll carry you." Not ever going to happen again, I've been manhandled more in the past three days than I have in my entire life. I started walking. Alec's room was only five doors down from the washroom. I noticed that his door was thicker than mine and had two locks. Looks like someone has developed a bit of a reputation.

Afton opened the door; Alec was sitting on the bed waiting. "Goodbye children, behave so I don't have to drag you down to the dungeon again." The door closed and his footsteps receded down the hall. I went and hopped up on the bed beside Alec.

He let out a huge breath of air. "Nice to see that you're still alive, although there were some times when you were talking to Afton..."

I frowned, "I never felt in danger in that conversation, I mean, I don't trust Afton at all, and I know that if he lost his temper he'd kill me easily, but I never felt like it was going to happen. Normally anger has to build up enough for someone to lose their temper. That and we all know Afton wouldn't need to hurt me, he could just drag me down the hall, killing me would probably make Aro angry too."

Alec sighed again, totally exasperated. "With a human, or many of the vampires in this castle you'd have been able to have a conversation like that and have them laugh it off, at worst they might become mildly insulted." He paused, "Afton is neither a human nor one of those vampires. He was the very first guard member Aro ever selected, and he has a huge temper. He is more of a friend to Aro than most people, albeit it's a twisted friendship, but if Afton destroyed you Aro would be disappointed in him, but for the most part he'd just let it slide. Afton looks at you like a small child because to him you are one to him; he's over two thousand years old and can flatten your mind easily and that's what saved your ass."

"I'm sorry," that was the closest thing to a lecture that I've ever gotten from Alec.

He smiled crookedly, "It's all right love, I should have warned you." And then everything was okay again.

"Any other people who I don't want to piss off?"

"Trying not to provoke anyone would probably be best." I raised my eyebrow at him, "but knowing you that's not possible. Avoid any of the ancients, the wives are probably the least dangerous, Marcus will probably just ignore you. But you know how Aro is and if anything Caius is even worse. Afton obviously, and his mate Chelsea because if Afton hears you've been bugging her it will get very bad. And Jane, you definitely want to avoid Jane at all costs. I've seen how the two of you behave around each other."

"I can avoid eight people. Hopefully." I smiled.

"Yeah, I hope you can too. It would really suck if someone killed you."

"Your rules worked great."

"Really," he teased, "I kind of thought that they would. What happened?"

"Nothing really, but that's what's so great. Even after I could talk again I managed to stay in control enough of myself so that Aro didn't have a reason to hurt me- I swear, it's like he and Jane were trying to piss me off on purpose. I used to be so impulsive I'd swear my teachers were secretly trying to find out if I had ADHD."

"That's good," he said dryly. "And Aro and Jane were trying to piss you off. They wanted to see how much control you have."

I looked around the room. I saw a bunch of thin strips of metal sitting on a table, they were obviously meant to be used for a craft project... but... I think that we have a way out.

"Alec, tell me another story."

"What one do you want?"

"One with a happy ending." I reached over and grabbed a pen and paper, while he began to talk. He was telling me an old fairy tale. It sounded beautiful, I'd have to get him to tell me it again when I wasn't planning an escape.

I began to write on the paper.

Don't comment on the paper, the story is to cover up what we're doing.

He nodded, but kept talking.

I think I can get us out of here if we can get through the castle safely.

I can get us out if you can get us out of the room, we can sneak into Felix's room and go out his window. But how do you plan on getting us out the door? There's no way to break it down without the whole castle hearing.

I can pick the locks.

What?

Are you seriously telling me that you're over one thousand years old and you've never learned how to pick a lock?

Umm... Yeah I most definitely am.

Fail. Watch, but keep talking.

I walked over as quietly as I could, and since I'm a vampire that means totally silent. I grabbed the slivers of metal that looked like they could fit the locks. I was lucky, the door had two door knobs on it, my guess is that they put the room together quickly, using what locks they could find, and since Alec didn't know how to pick locks Aro had never bothered getting someone to fix it.

I found the sliver of metal that would best fit to work and started picking the lock. Alec watched curiously, he really didn't know how to pick a lock. I would have started laughing if my position wouldn't have given away something was up. I gave the pick one final twist and the lock fell into place. Alec's mouth fell open. I started working on the second one.

I finished the last one right before Alec finished the story. It really was a beautiful story. "And Sephrenia was both sorrowed and rejoiced, for though her children would be doomed for millennia to walk the earth, she knew that in time the children born of fire and smoke would come to their rescue and return to them their dark wings and they would be free to soar amongst the stars once more."

"You call that a happy ending?"

"It is the best story of how vampires have come to be. Everything in it has proved to be true so far, so there really isn't an ending, that's just the beginning of our story."

"Oh... cool." I gestured for him to follow me and we slipped into the hallway.

Alec held a finger up to his lips and I nodded. I can shut up for a while. He pressed his ear up against the door. No sound came from within the room. Alec slid the door open and we crept into the room. It was empty. I walked over to the window, we were on the second floor, and a forest lay behind the castle.

I didn't hesitate this time; I pushed myself as far away from the wall as I could. I felt Alec jump behind me. Soaring through the air it felt like we were flying. Flying to freedom.

It felt great.

We hit the ground and started running, Alec soon over took me, and his legs go so much faster than mine do. I concentrated on pushing on my legs, trying to go faster using my new strength. It worked. You haven't truly run until you've been turned into a vampire. It's amazing, the speed, and the clarity. It's like your senses are on fire.

We ran until we hit the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean. Alec looked at me "Where do you want to go love? I'd recommend not going south, there are vampire wars going on down there right now. I'd also recommend staying away from the general area of Forks and La Push. The Cullens have probably moved on by now so the entire area will be inhabited only by shape shifters, and they kill any red eyed vampire that comes onto their land."

"Alec, would you like to go vegetarian? I don't want to kill anyone, and I know you're sick of all the killing. Why don't we just head up to northern Canada and live there. Lots of big game will be there if we go into the area covered by the Shield, and there's almost no people living there because of the bad climate."

Alec beamed at me. "Nothing would make me happier. How about we come out of the water somewhere around Newfoundland, and head north from there?"

I started giggling, he looked at me. "What?"

It wasn't actually all that funny, but I was feeling so light hearted I just had to laugh about something. "Sorry... you're just so civilised... I have a hard time imagining you taking on a grizzly."

He grinned at me, caught up in my mood. When you've been stuck in hell anywhere else can look like heaven. "I can probably handle a bear."

I looked around. "We must look like freaks- standing on a cliff in the middle of the night wearing cloaks."

Alec's eyes got really wide. "Now that you've reminded me that I'm wearing it... I've discovered that it really pisses Aro off when you do things like this." He yanked his cloak off and began ripping it to shreds. A good idea, a very good idea. I grabbed mine and began stomping it into the mud until it looked closer to brown than gray.

"Damn, that felt really good!" I cheered. Alec looked at the water, "Time to go love, we don't want Demetri and co. to catch up with us." I looked at the water.

"Turn around for five seconds Alec." I pulled my pants off and laid them flat in the ground, ripping off the legs so I had a lovely pair of short shorts. I took of my sweater and threw it into the pile. Eventually all I was wearing were the short shorts and my baby-tee that said "Save trees, do less homework." I had taken off my shoes and socks as well.

Alec turned around. "I like the new outfit a lot." was all he said. I made a nice pile of fabric. Alec grinned. "One second." He pulled off his sweater too, he wasn't wearing a t-shirt.

"Oh, I really like that new outfit." He laughed.

I had one of the lock picks I had used in my pocket, along with the paper and pen we wrote with. I made a little flag that said, "Just in case Demetri goes senile- he's over a thousand years old after all- here's a hint Tinkerbell." And then I stuck it in the pile.

"I thought you said you got over your impulsive issue."

"That wasn't impulsive," I defended, "Demetri isn't on the list of people not to annoy."

"Afton is, don't think I don't know who the Tinkerbell is aimed at."

"You want to go fast right?" I asked.

"Yes..." He seemed kind of suspicious.

"People always go faster if they have insanely angry people chasing them."

He sighed. "Let's go." And then he dove into the water.