chapter 25 : The end of an era (Carlisle's pov)
A full day had passed since the demise of Caius and Aro, one day of anguish over the uncertain fate of Michael, but also one day full of discovery and surprise. The few times we had been confronted to Jane in the past, she had appeared to be unnecessarily cruel, and so fiercely loyal to Aro that it seemed almost like love. So we were a bit shocked when she and her brother decided to side with us even before the tide of the battle had come to our side. In fact they made our success a lot easier and a lot less painful for all involved.
Apparently the twins saw the three Volturi as foster parents, they did save them from being burned at the stake. What's more, they had been taught that their role was to protect the vampire world, and who were they to question their saviors? Unfortunately for Aro and Caius, they were forced to turn them earlier than they had planned, and the problem with fifteen year old kids is that they have certain expectations of their role models. They're not the same in every kid, but they're there, whatever they may be. In the case of our new found friends the twins, first and foremost in those expectations was honesty and faithfulness. You see, back when they were humans, their entire village turned against them because they were witches. Oh they were different alright, but to see their own parents cheering with the crowd to see them burn ... Well they simply couldn't accept a new parental figure that would pretend to love them one day, and turn on them the next. To learn that Aro had been capable of killing his own sister just so Marcus wouldn't leave him, that he murdered his own blood for power, and then seeing Caius defending him anyway was just more than they could take. Perhaps, if Chelsea hadn't been dead, she could have managed to force their loyalty, but then who's to say that she wouldn't have reacted in the same way. Who cares, this is guess work anyway. All that matters is that we all made it through alive, if not unscathed.
With Olivia telling us what he was feeling in real time, we were able to determine it was more than similar to the transformation process we had all experienced, it was identical. The only small difference was the pace at which it was progressing. Having witnessed a few transformations myself, I know that it usually takes between two and three days, in his case, after 30 hours, the burning had already left the extremities and was rapidly concentrating around the heart. We guessed that the accelerated process was due to the fact that he was already half vampire, but really we had no idea. More than anything, we were anxious to know if, when the burning finally settled in the heart and stopped, he would open his eyes or leave us forever. One thing that kept us wondering was the fact that, he got bit while in wolf form and hadn't phased back to human form. From what I understand of what the Quileutes told me, phasing from human to wolf can be triggered by anger and happen accidentally, but phasing from wolf to human is a conscious decision. And once you've been bitten by a vampire, all you can think about is the pain, your mind is basically lost to everything else. The idea of a full vampire with the body of a wolf just seemed so out of this world that we were quite pessimistic about the outcome.
When his heart finally stopped beating, we were all waiting with fear and hope in our hearts, when he finally opened his eyes. Our first clue should have been the smile on Olivia's face, who already knew that his mind was still there. When we saw him open his eyes, and then start to move, we were so happy to know he was alive that the impracticality of having to communicate with him through his sister didn't even seem to matter.
Shortly after Michael had come back on his feet, Marcus came to see him. ”I would like to thank you for giving me closure on the biggest tragedy of my existence. I am sorry though, that my failure to see this for myself has cost you so much. But now that I know you're going to live, I would like to ask a favor. I have been living for a very long time. Partly because of Chelsea, partly because in memory of Didyme I had a brotherly affection toward Aro. This is over now, so if Alec and Benjamin would be so kind as to put a painless ending to my life so that I may join Didyme, wherever that may be. I would be most grateful.”
A/N: This is it for this version. Like I said a couple of chapters earlier, I plan on working on it to hopefully make it better. Mostly I'll be rewriting it in the third person which will give me more freedom to get inside every character's head. Also I plan on developping some under exploited characters that I think have some potential. I'll leave this one uo at least untill I have a decent amount af the new version to upload.
