Timeless Ties || Volturi Kings

06. Someone To Stay

You've been fighting the memory, all on your own
Nothing worsens, nothing grows
I know how it feels being by yourself in the rain
We all need someone to stay

— Vancouver Sleep Clinic

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Jornal Nacional was ending — the reporter was narrating the day's soccer games —, so Alessia turned off the TV. Since Corinthians hadn't played that day, and the only match featuring the Brazilian team was one of the sub-20 World Cup that was taking place, Alessia lacked real interest.

She retrieved her phone and looked at the WhatsApp group chat for her university's International Relations course, which included all the students who had enrolled in the same semester. The group served as a platform to exchange information and discuss important matters — although sometimes it was just used by students to bad-mouth some professors.

Glancing at the chat, Alessia swiftly skimmed through over a hundred messages, grasping the essence of their content. In summary, she learned that the other professor for the History of Economic Thought course had already concluded the semester, leaving only her class behind. However, the silver lining was that Wednesday's class seemed unlikely to take place since her own professor was scheduled to travel abroad — a rather fancy endeavor in Alessia's eyes. Consequently, she anticipated having extra time to tackle pending tasks she had been putting off, such as the dreaded essay on The Prince.

Just to double-check, she opened her email, and indeed, her professor had sent a message confirming the cancellation of the next day's class. Having said that, the students were required to answer five questions and send them back as a means of studying. Alessia was absolutely thrilled about this arrangement. She contemplated two options: either staying awake throughout the night, accomplishing as much as possible and fueling herself with coffee the following day, or sacrificing just a few hours of sleep and waking up at 4 am to try and tackle everything.

Alessia decided to make Julia unknowingly choose for her.

Alessia:

option a or b

Julia took a while to reply, so in the meantime, Alessia occupied herself by sorting her clothes and loading them into the washing machine while thinking about her dreams. Alessia reasoned that indulging in her thoughts about them was harmless and maybe even beneficial, as it provided an opportunity to apply the lessons from her classes. After all, politics were politics, regardless of whether supernatural creatures were involved.

First of all, why would the Dacian Coven even want to dominate the humans? Of course, it was likely that they regarded themselves as the superior species, plus Helios had mentioned that vampires experienced heightened emotions and turned into predators. So their motivations could range from seeking recognition due to a superiority complex, to craving more power as they were driven by their hunger for it. The problem is that in order to delve deeper into this matter, additional data was required for her analysis, so she decided to let it be for now.

Secondly, the senseless killings of humans by the Dacians didn't make sense to her. While she understood the potential power of fear as a means of maintaining control — especially when the humans were rightfully discontented with their subjugation — she believed that a balance needed to be struck. Alessia drew upon her reading of Machiavelli's "The Prince" and acknowledged that certain points, such as the idea that it was better to be feared than loved in a non-democratic government, had validity. Be that as it may, fear alone wouldn't suffice. If the Dacians aimed to rule over humans, they needed to offer something in return, creating a dependence or necessity for the humans.