Blood Moon [a Twilight Saga FanFiction]

Painting of Her

I LOOKED THROUGH THE WINDOW TOWARDS THE BRIGHTEST DAY I HAD SEEN IN LONDON.
     "Why don't you two go out for a picnic today?" Elling suggested. "Get your minds off things that have happened."

     And it is rude to ask to borrow another's bed... think of something! Think! I could feel my heart starting to race in panic. I had seen Igor in the sunlight before on sunny London in the past but never had we been caught outside of our own home for these days. Igor in the sun was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, but also an obvious mark of his lack of humanity.
     And if any vampires let out the big secret, say by revealing themselves in the sunlight, the Volturi would come and end his life.
     The end of my dream, memory, flashed behind my eyes. Igor's burning face staring at me in his last moments.
     "Elizabeth? Sweetheart? Are you alright?"
     I quickly turned to look at Elling as she spoke. I didn't feel alright... I felt this new worry and panic for my Igor make me nauseous.
     Nausea! Sick!
     "You are looking rather pale," Elling finished.
     Of course! If I'm sick I should not be travelling anywhere or doing anything!
     "Actually..." I attempted to feint illness. I wasn't sure how well I was doing, but at least I was trying. Good thing Carlisle was still in his room. I put a hand on my head and rested against the kitchen bench. "I am not feeling that well. I think I better lay back down."
     "I think you better also," Elling muttered. "Igor, take your bride-to-be up to her late father's room. She can lay in there until she is better."
     "And you can catch up on some well-needed rest as well," I mumbled to Igor and leant against him.
     Igor helped me walk as far as back to the doorframe before he scooped me up into his arms to carry me the remainder of the way.
     "Sick? Really?" he asked, raising a perfect brow with a smirk.
     "I had to think of something."
     "We are lucky Elling is still in enough grief to fall for your terrible acting skills."
     "I'm glad Carlisle wasn't there to see that."
     "For him, I wish he had been."
     He chuckled as he carried me up the stairs and was still grinning when we walked into a room I had never seen opened before. Which of course meant that it was Father's.
     Inside was a very typical bedroom. Dresser, vanity set, bed, heavily curtained windows, but the curtains were already closed so that was one less thing to worry about. And on the wall above the bed, was a painting that my eyes could never leave.
     The painting was of a woman with long, wavy, light blonde hair done up in the most intricate of ways and had flowers entwined throughout. Her sky blue eyes somehow showing happiness and love even in art, her youthful beauty was captured in the painting just as well. The smile on her small lips.
     The mother we never met.
     "It's her," I whispered as Igor put me on the bed. I crawled over it to sit until the portrait. "Igor, it's her. It's my mother."
     "I can see where Carlisle and yourself get your youthful looks from," Igor pointing out. "She was a beautiful woman."
     "She definitely was."
     I noted, even in art, my mother had an aura of her, an aura of love, and family, and motherhood. She looked like the kind of woman anyone wanted to be friends with, just because you knew she'd always be there when you needed her to be.
     It reminded me of how Carlisle described his Esme.
     Suddenly a cold had glided across my cheek. I hadn't realised I had started to cry until Igor wiped away a tear.
     "She would have loved you, to the deepest place in her heart," Igor whispered to me.
     "Carlisle as well."
     "I wonder if Elling will allow us to take this. As a way to remember her," Igor muttered.
     "Why? We never knew her."
     "To remind us that love lasts an eternity."
     "We already know that," I retaliated with a chuckle. "But you're right. It would be nice to have something of home when I cannot come back to it anymore."
     Igor kissed me and laid on the bed beside me.
     "I am under the impression we are pretending to nap?" he reminded me.
     I curled up beside him and rested my head on his cold shoulder. Almost feeling as if, with the portrait right above my head, that she was looking over us.
     Did she approve? Would she have approved of Igor? Would she have loved him?
     I almost fell asleep with my thoughts and fantasies of Mother visiting us at our cottage, while I was human, and Igor cooking us food while we drank tea and laughed over men. Then there was knock on the door pulling me out of my near sleep, and Carlisle walked in.
     "Elling said you were not well, Liz," Carlisle said, his face panicked.
     Of course... Bella was horrendously sick until she had begun to drink blood and her body finally let her get the nutrients her human body needed.
     "Do you personally want to check my stomach, brother?" I scowled at him. "It was just an act. If you hadn't noticed it is sunny, so Igor has to remain indoors."
     Carlisle still looked on edge.
     "Would I have left her side last night if that were even possible, Carlisle? Brother, you know me better," Igor said and laid back down.
     Then Carlisle wasn't looking at me anymore, he was looking above us; to the painting that had grabbed me as I could see it was grabbing him.
     "She was beautiful, wasn't she?" I asked as I turned to face her again.
     "It's her?"
     "Why else would Father keep a portrait of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman in his room?"
     "She's..."
     "Perfect? I thought so, too. Did you want to keep it? I mean, I'm sure Father left everything to you, but..."
     "No... no. Um... you can take it, think of it as a sort of wedding present."
     "Thank you, Carlisle," Igor said softly.
     "I wonder what her name was... do you remember, Elizabeth? You said she was there, in the end?"
     Oh! I had forgotten that. It wasn't a part of my dream I often remembered. I looked back over to the painting and tried to remember the haze that was my dream... but failed. And I knew Elling had told me herself, that first day I knew Elling she told my mothers name... but for the life of me, I could not remember it!
     "No," I muttered.
     "Verity," Igor answered. "It is faded now but her name is engraved in the frame."
     I had to look closely underneath her painting. Igor was right, it was rather faded, but I was just able to make out 'Verity Cullen'.
     "She looks so young," I muttered.
     "If she looked like that when we were born... I'd say father was perhaps a few decades older than her," Carlisle muttered.
     "There is nothing wrong with an age gap, Carlisle."
Carlisle smirked at Igor and me.
     "Well... I suppose I will let you... nap," he muttered. "Worry you might get bored after a while... but I am sure you two have plenty to talk about."
     And with that, my brother left.
     "I do not know what he is talking about, do you?" I asked and turned to Igor.
     "Not a clue."
     I laid back beside Igor and this time, he propped himself onto his arm and leant over me.
     "Why does your brother keep thinking I'm going to kill you?" he asked me.
     "Because Carlisle knows my mind probably better than I do."
     "What are you saying?"
     "I am saying that I do not care if it kills me. I am having that human experience with you before I am no longer human," I said and if it were possible, Igor appeared to become paler than he was. "We have talked about this, haven't we? You said you would give me whatever I wanted before you make me like you."
     "Not that, Miss Elizabeth. Not something that I know will kill you-"
     "But it won't be like what it was with Edward and Bella! It won't be like the horror stories Carlisle keeps telling. We know how to look after me and the baby, and that's even if I fall pregnant. Please, Igor. I know you can save me, I know you will be able to-"
     "Miss Elizabeth-"
     "Nope. No arguments. I want this, Igor. Please."
     "Can we discuss this after the wedding?"
     "Okay." It wasn't a straight 'no', so at least I had a little hope.
     "Thank you."
     "But just so we are clear of something," I said before I hiking up my dress and sat over his pelvis. His brows were high and his eyes showed fear. "You do want me, don't you?"
     He chuckled, but I noticed that his body had not relaxed since I had gotten atop him.
     "Miss Elizabeth, I have wanted you for a very long time."
     I leant forward and bit on his Adams Apple.
     "And you are... afraid of me?" I asked into his neck.
     "Hardly."
     I sat up and could feel myself pouting like a child. I felt powerful sitting up there, atop him. I liked it. But scary?
     "So, you're not afraid of what I could do?"
     "Are you saying that you could do terrifying things to me, Miss Elizabeth?" Igor asked, grinning from ear-to-ear.
     "I could try. I suppose it would be hard to scare a vampire."
     "Quite."
     I rolled off him and faced away, embarrassed at my own actions.
     He curled himself around me and kissed the back of my neck, sending that familiar, welcome cold heat through my body from his touch.
     "Thank you, for that gift, Miss Elizabeth," he whispered. 
   "What gift?"
     "You reminded me of what I have to look forward to in our future," he continued. "And just in case you have forgotten, and so you have something to keep your mind on the edge. You may not frighten me as a human, but as soon as you are immortal, your hold on me will... intensify."
     Intensify? What an interesting word to use. "Oh really?" I asked and rolled to face him. "And in what way is that?"
     He shook his head and only softly kissed me as an answer. Not that I cared.
     "I could spend eternity kissing you," I admitted.
     Igor laughed again and laid back down.
     "Relax, my love, until the sun sets."
     I closed my eyes, embracing his touch and his words running in my head. I thought I'd dream of him... instead I dreamt of Mother...