"Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull
of that which you truly love."
- Rumi

Chapter Five:

I was still reeling from my new future, trying to understand that these strangers would soon become my new family – my new coven. I hadn't been prepared for immortality, I hadn't even considered it worth hoping for. Now, as Aro dismissed the room and Caius called Santiago, Felix, Jane, Alec, and Demetri to him, I watched in silence as the room stirred with the sound of the Volturi's black robes swishing as some left and the selected went to Caius. "Aro, we will be investigating this threat more thoroughly and planning our next moves."

"Of course, Caius," Aro waved him off. "I trust you can handle this."

With that Caius nodded and span around, his robes snapping out behind him as he disappeared through a door behind the thrones. The group of vampires followed him silently, but not before staring me. I looked away, embarrassed and slightly afraid. When they were gone, I turned to Aro and bit my lip anxiously. "When will you turn me?"

"Soon, dearest. I promise I can only imagine how such a thing might weigh on you, but I ask for just a bit of patience." Aro took my hand and guided me out of the large double doors I had entered with Jane in. "First," he explained as we walked at a comfortable pace down the opulent halls. "We must have Gianna schedule a fitting for your robes and new identification, for when you are ready to leave the castle – be it for pleasure or business."

I nodded, enjoying the feel of cool hands on my own hand threaded around his arm. "Then you will need to choose a room to claim, of which there are many."

"I get a room?" I couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed as Aro raised an eyebrow at me. "I mean – of course, I'll have a room, I just hadn't really thought about it. It doesn't seem real."

"Well after you choose a room we will sit and talk," Aro guided me around a corner and once again we were in the familiar room where Gianna worked. Even though it was pitch black outside and I knew I had been in the throne room for hours, Gianna was still at her desk. She was nursing a steaming cup and looking over a file.

"Gianna," the blonde looked up in surprise and then jumped out of her chair. "Master Aro, what can I do for you?"

Her green eyes jumped back and forth between Aro and me and then down at Aro's arm I was holding. She narrowed her eyes as she looked back up at me with undisguised envy and I felt a sharp jolt of understanding. She knew what the Volturi were and wanted to be turned. Aro seemed oblivious to Gianna's envy, at least he didn't acknowledge it, and launched right into a list of tasks for Gianna. I'd need a passport, he said, and a driver's license – and a car. I gaped at him when he said that but Aro paid me no mind as he requested a map of the available rooms and signed a form Gianna pulled out of her desk about a credit card as if this was something she did every day.

"A credit card?" I asked disbelievingly as we left Gianna and Aro began a long tour of the available bedrooms.

"Are they not the cleverest creations?" Aro asked as he led me along, cheerfully. "I remember when the weight of the gold in my purse weighed more than my sword. All those coins to lug around and keep track of. I am so fond of this digital age where I can pull out my plastic card and swipe – no counting coins or carrying around sacks full of gold.

"Did you know I just purchased a palazzo without ever touching any money?" Aro was beaming now and I felt slightly dazed when I tried to think of how old he must be.

"But why do I need one?" I asked with a bit of reluctance.

"Do you want to stay in the castle forever?" He asked me in surprise. "Would you not like to see the world? Not taste and feel all it has to offer?"

"Well, yes," I replied as we started to slow. "But that's your money."

We had wandered into a large witting room with a burning fire in a large stone fireplace. Aro led me to a couch and then took a seat to my right in a high-backed, red velvet chair. "Did Carlisle never teach you our customs?"

"I – I mean," I tried to reply but found myself suddenly unable to. "Edward taught me some things, like some of the laws and about a coven called Denali who also drink from animals. Mostly however, he didn't like to talk about it. He hated the idea of turning me."

The warmth of the fire and the softness of the couch were soothing and I rested my head against the arm and watched the flames dance. "So, he never taught you about the relationship between a sire and a child?"

"No, I've never head those terms before."

When Aro didn't respond, I looked up at him and was surprised to find genuine anger in eyes. When he noticed my gaze his eyes softened and he smiled apologetically. "I do apologize, my dear, but Carlisle and I used to be very good friends. It angers me that he should be so –," Aro gave a sigh and raised his hand into the air in sweeping gestures. "I don't even know if he is malicious or just naïve, and I fear the need to question someone I had every faith in."

With a shake of his head, Aro turned to me and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. "When I turn you, Bella, under the law, you are my child much as for the last –" Aro stopped and peered at me thoughtfully, "nineteen years?"

I laughed at him quietly and smiled, "Eighteen."

"Ah yes, the past eighteen years you have been a child of your mortal parents." Aro's brilliant smile was back now but his eyes were serious. "I will be your father, and your brother, and your friend – even your enemy. I will teach you how to survive for thousands of years and give you the means to do so. I am responsible for your care, education, and quality of life."

For a moment Aro went quiet and I watched as he mulled over his words. "One thing you will come to realize is that no matter how long you live or where you live, home is no longer in the physical walls around us or the fortunes we amass. When the centuries have passed and the mortals you knew and loved are gone, when the world no longer looks familiar to you – the people you return to are home."

My throat was constricted with emotion as I felt tears fall from my eyes. Wordlessly Aro stood and held his hand out for my own. I grasped it and wiped stray tears away with my other hand as I stood. He led me to the far wall where an absolutely enormous gilded frame captured my attention. Across the top of a long sheet of ancient parchment, the word VOLTURI was spelled out in stunning swirling letters. Below there was a name, Villem, and from him, at least a dozen lines were connected. I followed the lines from Villem to Kathrine and then down to Elias and to my shock, I found Caius and followed his lines to Gabrielle, Francesca, Maximus, and Theodore. I stared back at Caius' name in shock and then jumped lines to the right as I spotted Aro's name and began to trace his ancestry.

From Villem, Aro's line was very different from Caius'. Villem had a line leading to Magnus who led to many, many lines but I followed the next name, Kaspar, who's single line led to Aro. I couldn't stop my finger from tracing over the lines, smudging the glass. Below Aro were lines attached to Sulpicia, Jane, Alec, and Bianca. Aro's hand came up next to mine and tapped an empty space next to Bianca. That is where your name shall me, dearest. Bella Volturi, created by Aro – child of Kaspar, child of Magnus, fledgling of Villem."

I turned to him and shook my head. "Isabella Volturi, I think my full name sounds rather grand." My lips twitched upwards as I tried out my new name. "Isabella Volturi, child of Aro."

Aro swept me away again, guiding me down dim, candle-lit hallways. "What is a fledgling?" I asked him as we wandered.

"To understand that," Aro stopped in front a door and pushed it open for me to inspect. It was beautiful but almost everything was gold or painted gold, or even covered in gold. I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. "You must understand how old Villem Volturi was."

We continued walking and I turned to peer up at Aro and his youthful, handsome face. "Was he as old as the Egypt's pyramids?" I asked, trying to think of anything older and failing.

Aro laughed delightedly at that. "No, no dearest. Villem lived so long ago that I don't believe he ever saw the great pyramids. He created Katherine, Magnus, and the name stricken from the tree. No one alive remembers who that was or why they had been smudged away. Anyways, right after Villem created Magnus he walked into the fire and left all his earthly possessions and no knowledge of who or what they were behind."

I couldn't stifle my gasp. "How awful."

Aro nodded and began to lead me up a flight of stairs. "Yes, I don't believe Katherine ever truly got over the whole event, because after she made Elias she walked into the nearest fire. The old ones were terribly suicidal."

"Anyways," Aro went on as we climbed to the next bedroom, "Villem was already ancient long before any pyramids and in those days, life as a vampire was very different. He was worshiped as a god by mortals for so long that I do believe that most of his brood began to think themselves gods. They called their children fledglings then, as in fledgling gods."

"What do you mean his brood?" I asked as I opened the door we stopped in front of. Inside was a beautiful canopy bed and the matching dark wood furniture was stunning, there was nothing wrong with the room per say but it just wasn't right.

Aro accepted my decision without comment and began to lead me away. "Ah generations of vampires are called broods. There was the first brood, who all met the fire without leaving a scrap of information about how we came to be." I watched the planes of his face harden slightly and realized that this was probably a question that had plagued him for hundreds of years.

"Their fledglings," Aro continued on without further mention of the troublesome first brood, "are called the second brood and Stefan and Vladimir are part of this brood. They ruled the immortal world before Caius, Marcus, and myself."

"My brothers and I are all of the fourth brood – and soon, when someone asks you will be able to say that you are part of the fifth brood." I looked up at Aro questioningly.

"Is that an honor?"

"Oh yes, most covens are well past fifteen or twenty. By that time the venom gets weaker and therefor the vampires aren't as strong or fast. You see, as we age our venom develops a potency. We get stronger, our appearances change somewhat, and our powers grow. But all of this takes a great many years and human turned with immature venom will not be as strong as one turned by the very old – if they even survive."

We turned a corner and I was startled by the blur of Jane's blonde hair as she breezed by too swift for me to fully make out. "So I wouldn't be as strong if Edward would have turned me because he's only a hundred years old and your…?" I trailed off, wondering if he would give me a direct answer.

"I am approximately thirty-three hundred years old."

My steps faltered and I felt the ground coming up meet me as I fell, but before I land Aro caught me and held me upright. I just stared at him with, gaping as tried to absorb this new information. "When? When were you turned? Where?"

"Ah, I was born in Athens in 1305, before the common era." Aro glanced at me and added, "That means before Christ, I refuse to use a cult leader as my measure."

"Christ," I whispered as we resumed walking. "Christ – you're older than Christ. Jesus, Jesus was real." Even to my own ears I sounded mystified.

Aro snorted in humor and smiled at me. "Oh yes, you'll hear many vampires claim to be at the crucifixion. As a general rule, don't believe it; if half as many vampires watched Christ die as say they did, well there wouldn't have been a human left in that crowd."

"Ah," Aro cried delightedly as we drew closer to a bedroom. "I believe you might like this one. It was one of the ones Athenadora – Caius' wife – decorated just a few centuries ago."

The room took my breath away. Everything was massive; the bed and its carved, thick dark wood, the enormous window, and even fireplace took up half a wall. I easily could have stood straight inside it and not brushed the top with my head or the sides with my fingertips. An ancient and faded rug lay spread out over a good portion of the room that wasn't being taken up by the bed. My favorite feature though, was the large candle chandelier over head a sitting area with large, oversized chairs around a small round table.

"There are electric lights on the walls of course," Aro said when I didn't say anything. "But I've always found candles a more soothing light. Oh, and off through there should be a full bath and a closet."

I could only stare the beautiful green bed and the ornate bookcase. I could so very easily picture myself in it. At last I turned to Aro with a wide smile. "This one," I said as I made my way inside. Aro set to work with lighting a fire in the hearth which I then used to light candles in the chandelier and on the tables.

Not long after the room was awash in the warmth of the fire and the soft glow of the candlelight. The room was absolutely magical and I couldn't help but stare at it in wonder. I felt Aro's hand grasp mine and he turned me slowly to him, pulling me into his chest and my heart faltered for a moment before deciding to try to beat its way out of my chest. As I looked up I realized what was next.

"I have but only glimpsed you Isabella," Aro whispered as he pressed a kiss to my forehead, "and I do so look forward to watching immortality polish you. For we do not change, we merely become more clearly ourselves."

With a gentle and reverent hand Aro swept my hair away with one hand as the other snaked around my waist. He cradled me in a tender embrace and lowered me back. My hair fell back and exposed my bare throat. Aro's gaze never left mine as he leaned down and inhaled, savoring my scent. Then his mouth stretched wide and his razor-sharp teeth gleamed in the soft light. My head fell to the side and my arms that curled around his Aro's shoulders moved so that I could bury my fingers in his hair. I pulled him to me and felt his teeth pierce my skin.

I let out a surprised gasp and then fell silent as I felt myself sinking down into a cool darkness.