𝙎𝙥𝙞𝙩𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 • 𝙅𝙖𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙃𝙖𝙡𝙚

54; golden eyes and white lies

Just to clarify; Looking back two years ago when he was human felt a different lifetime, looking back to when he first woke up as a vampire seemed like looking back on a childhood.

How much he hadn't known then, how much he would learn in the future. It was all exciting, how he could change mentality- because that's all that would change. His mind would grow and expand, but never get older. He would never change from his frozen state of eighteen, he would look the same immortal beauty he did now- or at least that's what he always told himself.

Then one morning as he entered the cottage, fresh when the sun was in the sky and his hands were filled with documents for his upcoming travels, Bella froze upon seeing him. Arden is in her arms, mouth around a spoon of food- Elias freezes as she does, her shock sending him reeling.

"What?" He asks, forcing himself to function, to shut the door behind him.

"Your eyes," she whispers, a grin brightening her features. "They're finally gold."

He blinks in shock, in process, a human reaction travelled into this life. Then he crosses the room at vampire speed, stopping at the circular silver mirror framed alongside some artwork. His eyes, that were once grey, then blood lust red, are now completely gold. No longer awkwardly cider coloured, or orange. Golden.

He blinks again, watching the man in the mirror copy him. He knows what he looks like, he's gotten used to the immortal beauty that comes with this life- even if his beauty has somehow been twisted into terror when he transformed, unlike the rest of his family. He can see it, in his expression, the set of his mouth, jaw and eyes always portraying danger without meaning to. It's the same as Jaspers.

But now, with the blood gone from his eyes, he looks... softer. Less of a threat. As if the struggle of sustaining from human blood has transpired into something completely good. Other than the lighter eye colour.

"Golden eyes always remind me of Carlisle, his kindness," Bella speaks, appearing behind him, Arden suspiciously quiet as he watches his mother and uncle.

He meets her gaze, noting how her own eyes are now in that awkward cider shade. "Yours will change soon enough."

"Hopefully," she prays, giving him a nudge, "it's bizarre you know, when I first saw you as a vampire, I thought it was the grey that allowed me to see how much your eyes portrayed your emotions. It's not, it's just your eyes, no matter the colour."

"That's just you Bella," he corrects, turning from the mirror and facing her properly, face morphing into care, "you're good at reading me."

"Hmm," she says, thinking, scanning him. "Perhaps."

Before Elias can reply, Arden reaches his arms up and over, grabby hands clenching. "El!" He shouts.

It always swells Eli's chest whenever he says that. It was Arden's third spoken word, after Momma and Dadda. Elias about shoulder checked Nate out of the way to get to his nephew when he first called for him.

"Hiya kid," Elias grins softly, trading him off of Bella for the documents in his own hands.

Arden settles into his hold, wiggling to get comfortable. He looks over a year old now, his development growing steady but still abnormally. Red hair curls into his eyes, all of them too sentimental to cut them, his eyes are duplicates of Bella's, though if they pay enough attention, they can see specks of green in the edge of the brown. It had caused an argument in the house when they first spotted it- Elias and Bella argued that it was from Edwards human dna, even if it was completely overridden now, it was still there. Edward and Jake- in a twist of events- were completely sure that it came from somewhere in Bellas' line of family Dna.