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THINGS WERE EVIDENTLY NOT OKAY WITHIN THE CASTLE WALLS. In fact, too many vampires understood the deep tension between their leaders and their wives. It had been the quiet- and sometimes loud- gossip of the decade.
While times like these, times in the human world full of tension, war, and general social reconstruction, were also times that vampires looked back upon their past, Marcus knew that twenty-first century vampires would not forget about this latest gossip.
The man had done his best to overhear the younger guards and gain an understanding of how much they knew. It was often mixed with clear fallacies only a young person could make up- and those made him chuckle. Not that any of them were allowed to hear that, though. It would ruin his image of being a depressing, poorly maintained vampire, and that was something he couldn't allow to slip.
Not this soon, that is.
---
ARO WONDERED WHETHER OR NOT HE WAS FIT TO RULE DURING TIMES OF GREAT POLITICAL CRISIS. He had never had these ponderings deep into the night, sitting on the roof of his expensive home. Now was a time of horrendous, terrible, and downright life-altering emotional and personal turmoil that left the ancient man truly thinking about what he needed to do next.
Always a fast thinker, often on his toes and willing to do anything- really- anything to get what his coven needed- Aro thought over the possibility that his inability to tell the full truth to both his wife who he no longer loved and the true mate that he would love eternally, would lead to his complete downfall.
He had admired the words and works of the ancient men and women of Rome. He walked down those streets as a young boy, watched his home's downfall, and the words of great and powerful philosopher's always managed to get him in a better mood. Yet, now that he sat on the tallest part of his home he felt like he was Nero, watching Rome burn while reading the philosophy of his favorite Roman philosophers.
Aro hated Nero. Right now, he hated himself more.
It wasn't until he watched a few younger guards walk out the large doors into the courtyard that Aro came down without a word and walked back inside to the library that he founded and often found better solace in. The guards had a day off, but it was far too late at night to find them inside. No, his people, the people of the great and powerful Volturi Coven enjoyed to party down by the lake at night with the humble humans of Volterra, never getting very close to any of them.
His great library of ancient and modern works was littered with small pieces of paper, no doubt created by his elite guard during their studies. Aro chuckled, picking up one to see a note with Alec's messy and distinct handwriting. It was to Anton, and quite vulgar in nature. In latin, no doubt about it. Aro commited it to memory and shrugged off the issue in his members being so vulgar. It wasn't his business right now, or rather, he was too concerned with his wife and secretary to be worried about what was said.
