Transforming Tradition (AKA What Happens Next)

Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Vampire Academy, the wonderful Richelle Mead does. I did think of the plot.

This plot continues after 

the events of the attack on St. Vladimir's. But there's a twist, Dimitri was not turned into a strigoi. Life at the academy goes on, but not without hitting a few major bumps in the road.

Chapter 1

"Rose!" Lissa yelled pounding on my door "We're going to be late to the memorial!" Crap! I thought. I hurried to finish putting my long hair into a messy side bun. "I'm almost ready." I yelled back to her. I took one last look in the mirror. I was wearing a black dress that came down to the middle of my thigh. It was the longest and most conservative dress I owned, but was still sexy as hell. I quickly swiped some cherry lip gloss on knowing it was Dimitri's favorite. I put on some plain black heels. They were boring compared to the spiked ones I had considered, but we were going to a funeral. So I decided against it.

I opened the door to see Lissa glaring at me. "I should have known when you said 'I'm almost ready' you'd be at least ten more minutes." She said with a knowing smile. "Ah Liss, you know me so well" I said somewhat sarcastically. "Well come on, we need to pay our respects to those who fought hard and died to protect us." She said I rolled my eyes and she looked at me like she knew what I was going to say next. "What about all of those who fought hard but didn't die, do they not get the same respect?" I said looking at her wide-eyed. She looked at and took a deep breath "That what the celebration party afterwards is for, now come on Christian saved us seats but we are going to have to run to make it on time."

We made to the church just in time - well I did, Lissa was a few minutes late because she couldn't run as fast as me. Hehe. I waited for her to catch up and catch her breath before we went me to find our seats next to Christian. We walked into the church and Lissa scanned the room looking for him while I did the same to find Dimitri. We hadn't had a chance to talk since the battle and I'm sure he would want to have a talk with me about what had happened a few hours before at the cabin. Ah, the cabin, the place where Dimitri and I had finally given in to our feelings for each other, that place would always be sacred to me. But knowing my luck, Dimitri would probably tell me how it was wrong and how it would never happen again and go on about some Zen shit. It turned out Dimitri was sitting right next to Christian. As we walked up to them I expected him to ignore me as I sat down next to him, but he gave me a warm smile and discretely took my hand. I sighed a breath of relief as the priest started the memorial.

I didn't really listen to the service, the priest talked about loss and death. All that stuff is depressing and we should be focusing on the fact that we kicked the enemy's ass and were safe. But I guess that's what the party after was for. After about an hour, the priest was done droning about death it was time to go to the party- or celebration, as he called it. Whatever it was, it was where the survivors would get their marks for their kills. But that was later on tonight, now we were just going to - as Lissa would call it-mingle. This was something I could do without complaining.