#aro x f!reader

Marcus watched on with those ancient eyes. They must have always looked old, you thought to yourself. You couldn’t imagine Marcus’ eyes looking any younger than time itself. And Caius’ eyes -- well… Very well. You’d let him enjoy this silly little power trip. There was something of a cruel smile lifting the edge of his lip.

“I have the time to hold a grudge.”

“Have you nothing better to do with eternity than harbor petty anger? My, my, you truly do not play well with others.” Your eyes drifted to Marcus. “Have you nothing to say, old friend?”

“We are hardly old friends.”

You rolled your eyes, settling your attention back to Caius. “If you’ll excuse me, I shall speak no more until Aro arrives.”

“Why? Are you frightened?” He taunted. Bait, that’s all it was…

“Are you?”

The doors behind you swung open heavily, like a final breath. Four sets of heeled shoes struck the marble. You did not turn even as Jane and Alec walked close on either side of you, like eels as they glided up the platform standing in the background.

Heidi didn’t even so much as brush past you to go out a side door. It was an unusual occurrence to demand entrance into the Volturi especially when a previous invitation had been so rudely turned down. You were certain a number of the vampires along the walls with you were there simply to see what demise would befall you for such insolence.

The fourth set of boots slowly walked up to the direct back of you. There was no body heat to speak for Aro but you knew it was him. The eyes of all the people in the room suddenly on you could not mean anything else. 

“Did you receive a warm welcome?” His voice hit the back of your head and it was no louder than a lover whispering their intentions.

You straightened, your eyes piercing Caius where he stood. “Something like that.”

Aro finished the pace around you. “You are very brave to have come here.” His eyes scanned the walls. He was looking to see if it was true that you had come alone.

“I was hoping it might be rewarded.”

“Hope…” He tasted the word. “Now that’s a word I have not heard in a good while.”

Half of a smile spread across your face. “You’re welcome.”

“Hm.” Aro looked you up and down, amused, before continuing his path to his throne. The three men on the platform finally sat. “And I… well, perhaps I should not assume a thing. Why don’t you tell me why you are here?”

The blonde vampire stole the silence from you. You couldn’t help but think that the angelic color was wasted on him. He would be blonde. “Foolish girl, she’s changed her mind!”

“Caius, I did ask her to tell, did I not?” Aro only dignified the man with a slight turn of his head. He set his jaw and sunk back into his throne a little. Aro’s hand gestured for you to continue.

“It is true,” you responded. As much as it pained you to soothe Caius’ temper via agreeability you were not above it especially now. “I would like to petition for entry to the Volturi.”

The laugh of all the vampires in the room made it all the more funny, you supposed. Even Marcus’ perpetually morose eyes tilted up as he chuckled.

Aro only smiled. “Now my dear…”

“I am aware of my past petulence-”

“Ooh, that was not petulence,” he corrected you, leaning forward. “Petulence is far too generous. You were rude.”

You gulped. It was true. You had been rude those 200 years ago. Very rude. 

Aro continued. “I believe you said… what were the words you used…?”

Marcus cleared his throat. “Allow me. ‘The Volturi are a semblance of order. Their actions are a colossal mimicry of law and the leaders are just as big of fools for as long as they stand if they believe that their offers of entry are anything more than an identification of spinelessness in the subject if they accept such a thing.’” Curse him for his memory. “Something like that.”

His really good memory.

The helmsman of the Volturi raised his brows at that. “Your recollection is pristine, Marcus. My goodness, such scathing words… I had forgotten.”

“‘Go to hell, you greedy fucks’ too,” Caius added, that hint of a cruel smile earlier was now a complete grin. “Can’t forget that either.”

“That last one was not me actually.” A glower from the blonde vampire. “My sire, rest his soul-” I hope he is eternally suffering, “-should be properly credited for that.”

There was a chuckle from all three on the platform, even Jane smiled a little. Although it was better than how you had begun it still was not a good sign.

“Yes, rest his soul.” Aro tilted his chin up. “Whatever did happen to him?”

A test. Aro knew what had happened. Everyone in the room knew what had happened. Or they knew a version. “My coven at the time… handled him and went our separate ways.”

It was not a lie. 

“Yes, I suppose you did handle it.” Aro remarked. “It was startling to hear about, just like that, ripped limb from limb by your coven.” He didn’t trust you. Why would he?

You swept up the steps before him and wordlessly knelt, reaching a hand up. A young woman reaching her hand up to a young man, both centuries old. Jane and Alec stepped forward in warning, flanking Aro’s throne. Your eyes flitted between them. An impasse. Still you kept your hand outstretched to Aro who had taken a small step forward in your approach. Your eyes landed back on him. Please.

Aro regarded you coolly; it was colored by something else though. Intrigue. Curiosity. Hunger. The last time Aro had read you had been 200 years ago; you had so much less control then. You remembered him snatching his hands away from yours as your nightmares, or rather his, had sloppily tumbled toward him while he flitted through your memory. Two horrible truths slamming into one another -- a mutual bruise, the two of you. Your talents were similar, all thing considered.

“You can look,” you whispered up at him. “I am better at this now.”

Something of a warm smile dawned on him, if indeed Aro could ever be described as warm, as he crouched down. His red, milky eyes bore into yours and then, gently, one of his hands tucked under your palm and the other covered your knuckles. You bridled the lightning fast nightmares as the man pushed forward.

Just like the first time it had happened, it felt like nothing more than the pad of a thumb releasing held pages as they rushed for the cover of a book. Aro flicked through two centuries of life in ten seconds, his eyes darting between yours as he passively consumed.

The story had to begin with the truth that covens did not turn on each other. In technicality it was not that it had turned on itself -- just all against the self-declared leader who held all of you in a vice-like grip. You refused to even give him his name in your memory, yet another way to kill him back in a way that truly mattered. 

His inclinations of you showing abilities upon your turning were unfortunately well-guessed. You cursed your sire for the rest of your days for his early but ultimately rare stroke of clairvoyance. With time you would learn that he was no stranger to fear as a weapon either. 

Aro pushed forward, unreadably neutral. The memory of the first time you ever used your abilities somersaulted through your consciousness. You had gone well beyond the bounds of the perimeter that had been set for you by your captor. It was direct disobedience to your sire’s orders and the vampire passing through never saw it coming. The spooking they had done you was a complete accident. Their intentions to take the human body you were feeding on, however, were undeniably loaded with malice.

You had only intended to shoot them a glare but something about the tense moment, about them approaching you with a hand reaching out to what was in yours… that’s what started it. You heard it first, an impossibly low thunder like something far beneath the earth pushing its way up; they heard it too. Your crouch was something feral when you did it and the nightmares that crashed into that poor vampire tumbled into your mind too. To that though you were a spectator, privy to the innermost workings of what horrified that particular individual.

Tense shoulders, a talon-like grip taking control of your hands, a furrowed brow. Your eyes snapped shut; while the nightmares were never your personal bane they hardly offered any comfort. You saw it all. It would be the first of many in the coming eternity. 

Their shrinking hands slashing and clawing through phantom blood, unable to cup it, unable to consume any of it in a vicious bout of craving. Frantically pressing themselves into the ground as the endless blood on the ground began draining into the soil. They were withering by the second. It didn’t matter to the vampire that it was utterly ridiculous.

The vampire before you, the real version, collapsed to the ground; you heard it, like a snare cutting through reverberating bass. You didn’t open your eyes until their breath came out in pants, as if they were suffocating on too much air. And it stopped. Just like that. An end to the focus ending their nightmare. 

Aro cocked his head, continuing to read you. In hindsight, you wished you had cut and run right then. You would have had a head start. Your sire wouldn’t have caught you in the few moments he had made the mistake of leaving you alone. From that moment on, he forced you to be at his side. You remembered the berating you had gotten for your disobedience that followed after his wide-eyed realization that you could do what you had done to the weeping vampire.

With that, you became the prize of the coven; it was your abilities that afforded your sire his longevity. He made you play with his food sometimes; asking what you saw as you screwed your eyes shut. You told yourself it was from the effort. In truth it was not any harder than flicking down a wooden block had been in your mortal youth. 

No, you strained with the wretched knowledge that the only thing you really had a knack for was holding out a mirror. The beastly things you saw -- what frightened the most deplorable of individuals. It was sick; in every horrid vision you churned out, you saw the inner workings of the mind, of the filthy things that these monsters had done in their conscious lives. The worst thing about your abilities was that the most frequent nightmare you bore witness to was them getting what they had deserved. Revenge. Balance. Order. Justice.

It was true. Yours and Aro’s gifts weren’t really that different. You saw a lot, possibly too much of whoever had the poor luck of encountering your proficiencies.

And, oh, how your sire had loved your gift. It was precious, he said. You recalled a time he had even called it artistry. It was after you used it, after you saw the depravity of human and vampire kind that he cradled your head between his heavy hands. You learned to savor the moments where he wasn’t throwing them around. And during those times when you deeply pleased him by what you were able to do, you saw him bloat with the intoxication of power. It would be many years until you really used your gift but it took little guesswork to know then what he feared: the loss of control -- the loss of you. Motivated by pride he kept turning others, stopping at the fifth of your covenmates when he realized that he had really only lucked out on his first try -- also, you.

That was when you had been initially approached. Your sire had never once received so much as a greeting from the Volturi; he never let you forget how bitter it made him. Unfortunately, his hold on you also included passing down his opinion. By the time the Volturi got to you, you had been spoiled against them. Only time would truly tell whether you would be forgiven for it.

At this moment, though his red eyes were set on you, Aro wasn’t really looking though -- not the present-you anyways. It was subtle, the way his brows and lips fluttered up and down as if fighting his own desire to respond. His expression sobered briefly.

You had spent centuries with the man, your sire… he was brutal. Even you were not immune to his rage. Each of your covenmates were strong in their own rights but none of you were singularly stronger than him. The Volturi’s arrival and immediate departure was one of the worst days of your life. You remembered holding one of your sisters, the sixth, the youngest, after it all. She begged you to stay and endure with her. And for two hundred years the two of you, all of you kept that promise to each other.

It had been one too many cruel moments when the dam broke. It was the moment that all of you realized that while you were too individually weak, he couldn’t handle all of you. You did the honors of the inaugural blow -- undoing him with nightmares of his own demise as it came to fruition. It was the only time in all of your years of using your abilities that you hadn’t clenched your eyes shut and shrunk away. No, that time… that time you had leaned forward, eyes unblinking as you watched him writhe in fear before what was left of him was instead writhing in pain. It was easy, like dropping a heavy bucket with little care of what happened to its contents. 

As Aro dug, it was only then that you realized you smiled when you’d done it. It was funny, you supposed, that your sire’s worst fear had come to pass right as it transpired just moments before in his mind. The six of you, your five covenmates and yourself, tore him to shreds. No blood that you had tasted or would ever taste compared to the delicious freedom of his eternal rest. He died, truly died, afraid. He deserved worse.

It was short-lived though. After centuries of subjugation, the sudden freedom was a blessing and a curse and not a single one of you could really agree on what to do except to leave. It was devastating in the same way you would see the final struggle of a living thing fighting off its final moments before succumbing; they were certainly in a better place. Two of them went on their own. The other three traveled together elsewhere. At the end of it you found yourself alone and not wanting to be weak again a day in your life.

While the rebellion had been justified, it was an overthrow of power, something especially dangerous in the halls of Volterra and you had been the ring leader. After all, you were the only one in the group with a talent.

Aro rose to his feet, gently tugging you up with him. “Now that does complicate the narrative, doesn’t it…”

Your eyes flickered to Caius who was in turn staring him down. “Oh, come off it, Aro. You are not honestly considering letting her in.” He stalked up to where the two of you were standing. You looked up at both of the men, still a step below. “The Volturi do not give second chances!”

“If I may, I am not asking for a second chance.” Bold… This was bold of you… “I am petitioning for membership on the grounds that it was offered once before. Your opinions of me have not changed since the initial offer.”

“Yes, they have.” Caius spat.

“Mine haven’t,” Aro confirmed. “Although I wouldn’t be so sure that is a good thing.”

Bright red eyes bore down as you finally pulled your hand from his grasp. His fingertips brushed along your knuckles before his hands lowered in kind. Him looking through your mind just moments prior felt less invasive. You directed your attention instead to the less intense of the two.

“We should have killed you the second you walked in here.”

Very well. “If it is an apology you want I will give it.” Your eyes were locked on Caius, pure impudence meeting unbridled sadism. You knew it drove him crazy.

“Foolish girl-!”

“I am sorry!” You snapped at him. The words came out more like ‘shut up.’ They were just as effective though. Caius stood silent although the sneer was still on his face. Of course that would do it for him. You knew it. It was disgusting. Oh, how he loved seeing people grovel. The hate in that man’s heart…

You suddenly remembered yourself. Aro had seen that -- your distaste for Caius, your willingness to do anything to be a member of the Volturi, your deep regret that your sire had influenced you to be so brash. That was one of the worst things your sire ever did: convincing you that his opinions were yours.

“I will repeat to you what I said to you earlier. Forgive me for the insolence of my early days. It was unwise of me to have behaved in such a way… and-” You were practically choking on your apology, uselessly panting with the effort. Admittance that you were wrong had a bad mouthfeel, especially after decades being forced to do it. “-and I was wrong about all of it. Consider me corrected.”

If Caius had been biting back any of his cruel amusement before, he certainly wasn’t hiding it now. Marcus was now standing closer having meandered nearer during the course of the apology. And Aro… Aro had the most curious of soft smiles on his face. 

You were beginning to think you had made some kind of mistake coming here. You had laid almost all your cards bare. You had shown them you were desperate which was far worse than just being desperate. This was something you were going to have to amend for a good while if they accepted you. That you begged to be let in.

“I am satisfied,” Caius remarked, eyes settling on Aro. They were standing over you, all three of them. 

Some days ago you had come across a rat moments before it was devoured by three street dogs in an alleyway on your journey to Volterra. It must have looked like something like this to that rather unfortunate vermin, you thought to yourself.

Your head dropped in complete and utter humility, eyes only on the marble underfoot. Even the pristine stone was too good for you… You had been at the mercy of the three men before you since you set foot in this dreadful place. It was only at that premature moment you still had an ounce of pride in your body. It was far gone now.

“Marcus?”

“I am satisfied.”

“As am I.” Cold smooth fingers tucked under your chin. Aro’s. You must have looked something pitiful. “And this-” Aro tutted at you, lifting your face up. “-we will work on this.”

The gesture might have been kind, intimate even, if it was anyone but Aro. You didn’t really trust him as far as you could throw him but you knew enough in having seen his nightmares many years ago that he would not tolerate an ounce of self-deprecation in a vampire beyond paying their due respects to the Volturi, to him. He had seen quite enough from you. That much was true.

“Yes… sir?” You tested the title. You weren’t quite sure what to refer to him as.

Aro’s face took on something of a delighted expression. “Look at you using your manners. See, Caius; she learns.” The blonde vampire rolled his eyes. “I do appreciate it but ‘Aro’ will do just fine.”

Ah. Well, that was embarrassing. You nodded affirmatively. Marcus’ eyes flicked from Aro to you and back before he returned to his seat. Out of the corner of your eye you saw Jane smile something wicked.

“We shall get you new attire, especially now that you will be joining the guard after some fine-tuning, but there’s no sense in putting you in anything of the sort since we’re coming up on-” The side doors swung open and Heidi led in a group of tourists who were guffawing at the ceiling. Aro’s hands flew up like a child prince being brought an expensive present. In a sense, it was -- “-dinnertime!”

Oh, so this was how they fed. Aro steered you to the side and behind him with a hand clamped around your upper arm. Heidi sidled up to you.

“Welcome to the Volturi.”

“How did you know?”

“You are still in one piece.” Fair. 

Aro leaned over to you. “Now, next time you will join your compatriots along the wall but tonight we will make an exception -- something of a welcome gift…” He extended his arm to the group of mortals before you who were clicking pictures of the room. Like fish in a bucket… or however the expression went.

You raised a brow at him. 

“You first, my dear.”

A vampire along the wall by the name of Felix bobbed on his feet, antsy. You smiled and launched off the platform for the human before you. The both of you rolled together as you slammed him into the ground. Only his limbs flailed clumsily. Yours had been a vision of centuries of practice. A trained killer.

You bared your teeth. He screamed. Humans… 

Wandering aimlessly about the grounds, such expansive ones at that and with such independence, was novel to you. You weren’t entirely sure what to do with yourself; it was beautiful. Just months ago you had been sequestered to your corner of the world, never to go beyond a painfully small perimeter. And now here you were… surrounded by the most powerful of your kind. Nearly unrestricted access to the grounds. New clothes. Fresh blood, not whatever your sire didn’t finish. Eyes never black with hunger. The respect you got as a tentative member of the Volturi guard. It was new.

And the Italian air. Sure, you didn’t really need to breathe at all. There wasn’t a function to smelling it. But the air… The breeze in Volterra was something fresh, warm, earthy, sweet, like blood. It was even more perfumy at night.

Something about the years of being on edge, even as an immortal, still ran through your veins, through the very way you functioned. Even in your most relaxed moments, you could recognize when you were being followed. And someone was following you.

You stopped in your tracks, only peering over your shoulder.

A fraction of you thought to yourself -- how odd… Aro should’ve been better at this. Then you realized two things. The first was that if Aro was truly aiming for discretion in whatever he was about to do, there was no reason for it to be him here and now. The second was that it was also entirely possible that Aro simply didn’t care that you knew he was there… or, in fact, did want you to know. Your curiosity was a helpless one; you must’ve looked like a cat.

“I was wondering when you were going to catch on.”

Only the trees in the garden obscured him from you, not the darkness. “How did I do?”

Silence as he rounded the corner. Black suit. Red eyes. Dark hair slicked back. You let him approach until he was a pace away, slowly continuing. “Ten seconds before you caught me… there are a good many vampires who would have gone much longer if noticing me at all.”

“Will you subtract a moment or two since I contemplated not acknowledging you?”

“Hearsay.”

“Only if you have the ability to corroborate and don’t.” You held your hand out to the side toward him, stopping in your tracks. 

Aro only looked at it from the side of his eye, not even stopping. He did grace you with a smile though. “I should like to keep my victory unnegotiated.”

Ah, yes… the cat walking next to whatever you could call it that killed it. You closed the distance with a few long strides, now playing catch up with him. “You were loud.”

“I was not aiming for stealth.” If Aro was trying to humble you, it was working.

“And what was your target then?”

Silence again. It was comfortable. In time you came upon your favorite spot in the gardens — the point at which you could overlook the better portion of the town. It was beautiful -- quiet and empty for the most part at this time of night but the evidence of mortality there, living and dying… well, you still found it charming. 

“Would now be the appropriate time to thank you?”

“For heaven's what?”

“For…” You finally looked at him beside you. He wasn’t looking at you; perhaps he was gazing beyond this little enclave in Tuscany. “For your hospitality.”

“Hospitality is for guests.”

“I was a guest for a small while.”

“You were more of a defendant.”

“Well, then, I thank you for your arbitration.”

“My ‘arbitration’?”

“Yes.”

Aro exhaled for the show of it. “Do stop your simpering and get on with what you mean.” 

You were speechless.

“I didn’t say ‘shut up,’ did I?”

You blinked at him. “I suppose… I am grateful to be somewhere nicer.”

“I can hardly be thanked for your decision to come here.” He still refused to regard you. You imagined it was a rare thing for Aro to resist such expressions of the kind. He was a proud man after all. You looked back out at Volterra.

Aro finally turned his eyes to you. It was a withering look. Now that you obliged. “I saw quite a bit in that mind of yours. It is such a shame that you were thoroughly convinced of such horrible things.”

You were confused. “The only thing that I was convinced of was inferiority.”

“Like I said,” he snipped. “Horrible things.”

“Now how is that horrible,” you inquired. Surely this did not bother him personally. Aro did not strike you as the type. “I do you no injury in my lack of pride.”

“And you think it is good for the Volturi’s reputation, for the guard’s reputation to have but one who thinks themselves lesser than even humans?” Aro seemed to shudder at the ‘h word.’

Oh. There it was. He was right. Your head lowered.

He tilted your chin up for the second time. It wasn’t as gentle. This time it was a scolding. Aro was not pleased. He released it looking back onto the town. “And you must stop that. It’s unbecoming.”

It was lost on you how to respond. “Sorry.”

“Already forgiven, my dear.”

“I guess… I just want to thank you for taking a chance.”

Aro scoffed and looked at you fully. He wasn’t a tall man; his height was hardly what made him intimidating. What made him intimidating was the stature with which he carried himself, the raw power, the hunger, the intelligence. A man like him hadn’t gotten to where he was without some impressive cunning. 

“I might find low esteem from my subordinates satisfactory on the usual occasion. I will not mince my words -- on you it is a most distasteful thing. I will forgive its ugliness for its reaffirmation but only for a time.”

If there was any functional air in your lungs, it would’ve been snatched from you. His words were not harshly spoken nor were they loudly boomed at you. Instead they broke skin like something sharp to vulnerable flesh. Aro took an imposing step forward. You took one back but it wasn’t enough. Your neck was craned up at him despite every inner instinct to shrink away; you wouldn’t dare disobey him again. You weren’t sure he would be as kind.

“There is nothing so abhorrent as one of our kind — our superior, beautiful kind — acting in the embarrassing way you continue to. If I was capable of emptying my stomach at the thought, I would.” Aro plucked something minute off your shoulder before rolling it between his long fingers and discarding it to the wind. “And as far as taking a chance is concerned, I- The Volturi- do not ‘take chances.’ Make no mistake, there is no calculated risk with you being here.”

“I-”

“If that is an apology or another meaningless expression of gratitude poised on your tongue, I would advise that you hold it there.”

You could only gape up at him. He was leaning over you still, very close.

“You will show the full extent of your gifts tomorrow. I want you officially in the guard as soon as possible.” And with that, Aro was gone, stalking away into the gardens.

With about 12 hours to ruminate on Aro’s words to you, you had decided that he had a flair for melodrama. You also decided definitively that you would never let him know such a thing unless he pried the information from you, which he was indeed capable of. This… what you were being made to do before the Volturi… You would not define it with such levity. When Aro had said that you were to display the full extent of your gifts, he had meant it. 

It wasn’t certain whether it was you or the man writhing on the ground that was the subject of the gripping fear that your nightmares brought, what with your upper body being curled in on itself the way it was. Your fingers were curled at the ends of your locked arms with effort. The unfortunate human’s whimpers rattled along the domed ceiling, merely an accessory to the deep hum in your ears. 

There was an exaggerated yawn from behind you — showy for a vampire — Jane’s. And a voice cut through the whole of it, halting your powers immediately. “No, no. That won’t do at all.”

Because you had already been shrinking away at the time of the interruption you needed only to open your eyes. The body thudded to the floor. Relief. It wouldn’t last. Aro was shaking his head as he leaned against his throne.

“You, my dear-” he pushed off his spot and stopped just behind you “-are holding back.”

The man, as far as you could tell, was only deeply phobic of spiders. It was how you had done it the dozens of times you’d done it before. Except for…

Out of the corner of your eye, Caius held a finger to his temple, rolling his eyes. Asshole… Aro’s voice pulled you back. “Try again.”

You clenched your eyes shut, your chest coiling up in kind. The man began wheezing almost instantaneously, the only sound in the room.

“No.” Aro cut in once again and you dropped focus. You turned to face him, your muscles loosening in the way that only annoyance could make them. His red eyes glimmered back at you. “That is not what I meant. Again.”

You huffed. You’ve done it once before, his face seemed to say. Who were you kidding… that was exactly what his sharp features said. When you had channeled that much power, you had been in an entirely different state of mind. That had been the raw rage you had buckled behind survival. All you had done was suddenly unleash it. You weren’t certain that you still had it in you. “Aro. I can’t-”

“Ah, ah, ah.” Nonsense. His hand straightened to a point — the human, once more. 

You faced more of your body, still tense, eyes clamping shut. Your arms locked to your sides and you willed the fear forward before you tensed — thunder in your ears. Your muscles reacted in pure instinct, the man weeping in perfect time. Despite the overwhelming physical sensation of pushing the abstract forward, you could feel Aro behind you. It was stronger this time.

Oh, the man wasn’t just afraid of spiders.

Between the spiders, flickering amidst the impossible number of angular legs and blinking sets of eyes, the insects that dribbled into every corner of his vision, there was something else. A girl with one dark eye and a knife. She was young.

You jolted backward, knocking briefly against Aro. If he minded he didn’t indicate any such sentiment. Your lip curled into a sneer. The human… he was pleading with a higher power that was certainly not listening if it was there at all. Pathetic.

When your eyelids closed this time they didn’t tighten. It was a flutter. And this time when your muscles tensed, you trembled. Where there was air between the clawed fingers at your side, you imagined the man’s fleshy neck. This… this was righteous. The girl began closing in, spiders skittering out of her path.

Aro’s voice brushed your ear. “May I?” You nodded your head, although you weren’t certain as to what exactly you were agreeing to. Aro would not harm you; you were sure of it.

It felt like a baptism. In a way it was. Feather light, Aro’s fingers ghosted first at the base of your neck, gently pulling the muscles out to your shoulders. In the touch you were acutely aware that it wasn’t intimacy that Aro was after; he was honing you. Your nightmares were only encouraged.

Aro’s hands smoothed over your shoulders with a quiet mastery -- tender in the way a sculptor guided pliable clay between their fingers as it spun at their behest. The harshness was gone with but a swipe. 

The man bellowed. He sounded now more of a screeching animal than man. The girl picked up her pace, almost a jog. The knife winked at him.

It turned into a full grasp as Aro traveled down your biceps, tugging the astriction out. He chased the natural form of the muscle down your elbows into the joint of your wrist. The rigidity in your fingers released at the pressure he placed there -- conjoined in poise.

You pushed a stronger assault of terror forward to meet the man. Long gone were the spiders. There was a small part of you that recognized that he wished for the insects instead of the young girl with a bruise ready to bury the knife in his chest, his stomach, anywhere the business end would find purchase. She was standing over him.

He screamed. Yes, ‘scream’ was the right word for it…

You spectated his nightmare; the girl with the dark eye had already started plunging her blade into him. Again. Again. Again. Again.

Aro’s hands shed themselves from your arms but only for a moment. Your chin bloomed with the familiar feeling of his fingers, turning it and angling it upright. Proud as it was meant to be.

He whispered again. “Look.” It was a gruesome sight. 

The possibility that the man had begun gouging out his own eyes the moment Aro had begun amending your posture was a good one. If that was the case he had indeed made decent progress. The man was on his knees and his left eye hung from its socket like a generous helping of hot cheese, swinging. You almost wanted to applaud the man’s zeal. Only a desperate rodent would have done what he had. His grubby fingers pushed into his own skull again, getting around the other eye, bemoaning his self-inflicted plight. He seemed to be chewing the air. There was viscera on the marble -- not the first time it had been so defiled and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Still, you didn’t relent; you had never extended your power this far. God, why hadn’t you done it before… Sure, you- no, he had taken his eyes but somehow it wasn’t enough. The young girl brandishing the blood-soaked knife was still angry. This was justice. And he hadn’t yet paid in full.

He howled, writhing.

Marcus approached at the very edge of your vision. “Aro… is this-?” 

He was halted by an upheld hand, the other slowly falling from your chin. Aro watched you as you watched the man, watched his nightmares.

“We needn’t toy any longer.”

The thunder in your ears rumbled to silence. “This is toying? If you saw what I saw, you’d know…”

Marcus seemed taken aback. You weren’t sure if it was because of how true your words were or how right they sounded coming from your mouth.

You drifted back to the man. “He deserves it.” Your voice came out no louder than a whisper.

“It’s alright, Marcus. We asked for an assessment-” The ensuing squelch and sudden cry indicated the man had found success on his second endeavor. “-and we have indeed received one.”

You found Aro’s eyes with yours.

There was something of an assuaged smile -- his bright teeth wolfish. The feeling of your cheeks pulled up was the only sign to yourself that you had been smiling. You took the moment to look about the room. Caius was staring at the man on the floor, mouth slightly ajar.

“Well?”

He turned his head first then his eyes. A grin.

You beheld the grotesque body with a sneer. He hadn’t even had the decency to look artful as he went -- his body held upright by the leverage of his spine against his heels. Pathetic. The way he dug at his own face like that… like you were some tumor, something he could just rip out of himself if he tried hard enough and be done with. He died as stupid as he looked. Your chest flared at the offense.

Aro was still standing near you. “Par excellence.”

You digested his words. You understood now. This was what he had known you were capable of. In just moments, Aro had cured you of your affliction, the debilitation of timidity. You matched his smile.

“Would now be the appropriate time to thank you?”

It was met with a giddy laugh. Aro clapped his hands together, utterly delighted at your words, your smile. He gulped it down and stepped backward offering you an expressive bow complete with arms outstretched. “No ‘thanks’ necessary. You… you are a credit to our kind.”

You bobbed your head in courteous reply to his own bow, unable to hide your giggle.

“You were never anything but.”