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Chapter Text

Madness was a word commonly associated with Aro.  He himself declared it happily, as though it was something to be proud of, and flaunted it like a second cloak, hanging around his neck lighter than the golden chain already present.  It bubbled forth merrily from between his lips and filled his echoing laughter, gleaming in eyes that shone too bright.

(And no one noticed the momentary hesitation before he reached out to touch another, always another, with hands that could not, would not shake because knowledge is power, and power is control.  And he was so very much, painfully, in control.)

He rambled in fragments, hands moving almost as quickly as his mind while it jumped from idea to thought to ear without pause.  He flitted and fluttered, unhurried and rushed, and saw himself reflected back in their minds, fractured and cutting like a shattered mirror.

(He drowned in their thoughts sometimes, when his own were too quiet.  When they were too loud.  When he could no longer tell which were his and which were not, and they came in waves that blurred and filled his mind with shadows and distant screams.  And he stretched his grin impossibly wider.)

Hands eternally grasping, he claimed madness as his own.

(Because if you claim it first, it can’t claim you.)

Sulpicia adored the sound of her laughter.  It tinkled high in the still air, pretty and unnerving and inhuman, and all the more beautiful for it.

She laughed easily too, taking delight in nearly everything.  In those moments, eyes alight with something too bright, one could almost believe in divinity, and some confused it with delicateness.

Their mistake.

They saw the dainty chain round her neck, sitting high on cutting collarbones, that would have been equally suitable atop her head, catching what was left of the fading light.  And they forgot her nails, cut and bloodied as they reached for more than she was ever given, ever allowed, slicing through bars and chains that dared to hold her.  They saw a queen but forgot how she had taken the crown.

After all, it would take quite a mind to steal the attention of an immortal king, and yet, hers had.  Intoxicating, he would whisper, unnecessary breath brushing against her ear.  And she would murmur back schemes like a lover’s caresses.

In the throne room, they twirled the same duet, weaving spiraling vines that trapped like a dew-coated web.  A simple brush against his hand, a quick thought that unraveled into a plan, as she stood quietly behind him.  Almost demure, mockingly so, she’d watch guests and lawbreakers alike flood into the same room again and again.  A smile appeared while her eyes glittered madly, reveling in the hisses and shouts that filled the air when she was proven correct.

Fools, she would laugh later, windchimes swelling in the now silent room.

The world, to Caius, was a mess.

Of course, it didn’t help that the world he looked after happened to be full of bloodthirsty creatures who were forever searching for another meal.  Who were forever pushing against the Law, breaking the same ones in new ways because why not.  His lip curled and his scowl grew deeper.

Some thought that he enjoyed the violence his position demanded, the power to destroy and burn at whim.  But it wasn’t at whim, never at whim.  No, he simply enjoyed the power to bring order to a world of chaos.  And if it took violence, well, then he would be violent.

Because what did they have in the end, but the Law.  The Law separated them from animals, laid out lines, thin though they were, that were not crossed.  It demanded upholding, and he was happy to defend it.  He wasn’t an animal.

And if he found himself peering at dark corners, watching as still shadows moved, and startled at certain noises, well, there was a price to upholding the Law.  And he would pay it every time.

It was the world that was mad.  He just needed to tame it.

On the other hand, the world was quite simple to Athenodora.

There were actions and consequences, cause and effect, and life, or existence in her case, was a series of them.  One choice inevitably led to another one which in turn led to another one.

Except for those occasions when life would elect to throw something at a person, occasions she could never manage to find reason in no matter how much she pondered in hindsight.

The decision to battle the Romanians, or the Dacians as they were called back then, was one such example.  Either her coven would lose and be killed, or they would win.  Once that was decided, the path that they would take, the role they would play in the making of history, and the choices they would later face became that much clearer.

Only she hadn’t foreseen the ambush, the rash and vengeful attack that stripped her of a sister and left her mindlessly scratching at her marble skin, wondering what she had missed.

The reasons, and reasoning, behind such decisions was also fairly simplistic.  Once one has made a choice or three, their motivation becomes clearer as well.  If someone makes enough of them, one can determine what they will choose next.

The itch in the back of her mind only grew when she looked at herself though, reflection be damned.  Madness didn’t exist.  There was a reason, a purpose, she just needed to find it.

Marcus was the silent one, the one who sided with the doomed lovers and cliché tragedies that unfolded again and again as time marched on.  He was the sentimental one some thought, the reasonable one mistook some, who misinterpreted his disinterest for mercy, for some form of compassion as though the very feeling had not all but withered away for those unfortunate enough to think themselves in love.

His world was a quiet one, filled mostly by the colorful web-like chains that revealed far too much in their binding.  A strand of bold red for resentment, poison green for jealousy, inky black for hate that had the wretched tendency to drip over everything it touched.  And gold.

He missed gold.

Of course, he saw it regularly enough.  Rusted, dull, faint, bright, glimmering, faded.  He was nearly numb to it after all these years, but that nearly still stabbed him somewhere between the ribs, clogging his throat until he choked and suffocated.  It filled his mouth, metallic taste sticking to his tongue as rooms filled with shadows, hints of gold dancing like candles at the edges of his vision.  He would become even more catatonic, rigid with the emptiness of loss, until one of his coven would inevitably approach him, comforting or searching, eyes softened with concern.  Until the taunting color receded.

Their gold had gleamed.

It had been the most beautiful strand he’d ever seen, tying them together tighter and tighter, promising forever.  A promise, dyed with hope, that had turned to dust and was carried away by a stray breeze, leaving not a trace as though she had never existed.

Leaving him with nothing, unbound and untethered.

So he would drown in the tainted gold instead.  Perhaps it was slightly masochistic, but he had never been able to stray far from her addicting presence, and the gold beckoned almost as strongly.  It built it behind his eyes and tightened his chest, but he could imagine it was an embrace.

He would take every shade, every variation that could have been theirs, choking them down and swallowing like a desperate madman, resisting the urge to gag.  Anything was better than the numbness.

What he would do for another glimpse of their gold.

Chapter Text

Vladimir was a king.  He just didn’t have a crown.  But he had time.

In the beginning, a few glorious millennia ago, he hadn’t had enough of it.  From a roaming coven of four to later joining, no, forming the coven of a dozen.  His coven had been unlike any other.  They rose above to seize dominance over mortals and immortals alike.  They had been supreme.

And then they came.  Came with their arrogance, flaunting their so-called Laws.  As though gods like themselves could ever be constrained to something as human as the Law.  No, he would not be bound, chained, and confined, forced to follow something as weak as Law, he sneered.  No, never-

And then they came with force.  Oh, the pain that had ripped through him, watching his, his empire steadily ripped apart by their underhanded schemes.

And they were underhanded.  Oh, they had come with their Laws, as if they were doing his coven, no, vampire-kind a favor by forcing them to hide like common rats from mere humans.  And they had attacked with pathetic tricks, nothing that could rival the strength of their guards.

In the end, he had chosen to leave the war.  Not flee, never flee.  He and his love and Stefan.  And they began to plan.

Small attacks at first.  Send a few newborns in their general direction and watch from afar, testing.  And then a few more.  And a few more.

The newborns had been a mistake.  Strong and uncontrollable was a dangerous combination, he knew that now.  But back then, watching his mate grow more distant with grief for her fallen companions while Stefan turned more humans, urging him on because numbers would tip the balance, and eventually there had been enough.  Or so they had thought.  And when his sister had appeared like she did every so often, dark hair unbound like an innocent shadow, the opportunity was perfect and he had had to take it.  The loss would cripple them, cripple him, and it did.  He saw it rip through them, and the sight tasted nearly as sweet as dribbling blood.  But he hadn’t known about their little collared beasts, couldn’t have known about the choking mist that stripped his defenses, vulnerable for the first time with an ever-increasing feeling of dread, opening his eyes to dying embers and an empty field, silent, army destroyed once again-

He had lost his love.

And from that moment, he understood Stefan.  If their mates had been taken from them, they would take everything they could from them.

And so began their schemes.  They learned, not from them of course, never from them, but from their experiences.  There was value to those tricks, and they would harness it.  They would find tricks to rival theirs, and he would dominate once again.

There was almost too much time.

Stefan was a king who would reclaim his throne.

The Volturi were not infallible, no one was.  He had learned that lesson well.  An empire could topple, could burn to dust, ashes carried away on a distant breeze, just as she had.  Yes, the Volturi could and would fall.  It was only a matter of how.

They would use Gifts, of course.  They had to; the battleground demanded it.  Unlike Vladimir, he felt no shame in using the scum’s tactics against them.  To see them fall, shattered reflections of their downfall but never to rise.  The Volturi had been a necessary lesson in humility, he realized, and he longed to teach them the same one.  Venom filling his mouth at the salivating thought, he ran his tongue over his teeth.  Their arrogance he would enjoy ending.

Oh the possibilities.  Fire could arch across an empty sandy field, searing and wrathful as it cut through their ranks.  Or perhaps, the Volturi could come running at them only to be stopped, paralyzed and trapped by an invisible force, wide-eyed as they watched him choke the life out of their empire, truly kill - wrap his hands around their marble necks and pull.

His hands flexed unconsciously, marble fingers dissolving the stone beneath them.

Of course, one couldn’t underestimate the Gifts of the mind.  The witch twins had reaffirmed that statement, had burned it into him until it was the only fire he could be .  He could see them charging again, this time across a frozen lake, only to fall to the ground as their minds devoured themselves, playing nightmares over and over until night fell and the ice broke.

He was especially fond of that scenario.

He found he was also fond of newborns, no matter how many times Vladimir would go off on tirades, ranting about doomed armies.  Something so recently reborn into godhood, shaped into warriors and vengeance, at the strongest they would ever be.  And hungry.  They were indeed a force to be reckoned with.

All they needed was to locate these Gifts and find humans worthy for their army.  Individuals that would be blessed with immortal abilities, and some that had powers even beyond them.  With them, they would face the Volturi one last time, perhaps even in the scum’s lair.

They would march into the withering city, gleaming and glorious as the mortals fell, raise an army ravenous and craving to break free from the scum’s confines on their kind- what they laughably called Laws, and they would triumph.  He would burn them alive on their thrones, brush their flicking embers off, and sit down, reclaimed and recrowned.  He grinned, a caricature stretched with flashes of teeth.

He liked that scenario even more.

And what was a king without a throne?