She walked along the streets, her wavy brown hair blown away from her frame when she moves. Her hands were in her coat pocket, and her eyes were straight ahead.
It was quite a calm night in Turkey. Most of the people were already home, tired from their works. So there's not much travelers in the street or the pavement.
Suddenly, something in her black long trousers went shaking. The woman jerked a little bit as she dipped her hand into one of the space below her waist and pick her phone up.
"Hello?" She said, with a slight Greek or Italian accent.
[I'm at your place, where are you?] A voice from the other side asked.
"On my way home, of course. You forgot I have to work a little bit more late, don't you?"
[Perhaps your a little bit more late is more than I thought.] That person replied, small frustration hidden in it.
[Just...hurry, okay?]
She curled her lips into a faint but beautiful smile.
"I'll be right there, don't you worry." She pacified and hung up.
The lady turned around the corner, stopping at the bakery shop which is emptied of customers. She pushed the door and the bell on the knob rang.
"Ah," The middle-aged man behind the wooden counter turned around, a smile under his curvy mustache appears when he saw her. He moved forward and gave her a welcoming gesture.
"Dilruba hanım." He greeted.
"Mahmud bey." She replied, with a smile and a faint turkish accent.
"You came a little late." Mahmud remarked.
"But there are still some bread for me, right?" She walked around the shop, observing the bakery.
"Yes, of course." He reached over the bread racks on the marble counter behind them and pulled out a basket.
"I've saved some chicken rolls and bagels for you."
"That's very kind of you." Her smile widen up as she sped over and check the basket.
"I want three rolls and two bagels, with the dips too."
"You're having a guest, aren't ya?" Mahmud said, laughing.
"It seems you're buying more than usual."
"Indeed." She nodded as he gave her the bread-loaded paper bag.
"No change." Dilruba Çalihan gave him the money and walked out the door, followed by a farewell sound of the bakery shop owner.
"Have a nice night, hanım!"
She swiftly glance and smiled at him before the door closed.
"And you too, bey."
Soon enough, she arrived the high building. That is the apartment she lived.
"Evening, Dilruba hanım." The security guard in the front of the gates greeted.
She smiled and nodded back as he opened the glass door to let her through.
Her tall but slim figure walked into the lift and pushed the button displaying the numbers of the floors in the building.
Dilruba hummed the song in the lift softly, waiting for the elevator to stop at her room's floor.
As soon as the metal door opened, she walked out and head to the room at the end of the corner.
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"You're late." A voice greeted once she touched the doorknob.
"No," She frowned, entering the living room of her apartment.
The figure on the couch turned to her, a mug is in that person's hand.
Dilruba sighed, admitting.
"Yes."
"Why are you here, Ana?" She asked.
Anastasia Durand, Ana for short, glanced to the door of the second bedroom.
"Gia, Dilly is home."
"Aunt Dilly!" A girl ran out with a brightest smile in Dilruba's world. The paper folded neatly into an unfamiliar shape was held on caringly in her hand.
"Hey Gia." She replied with a hint of laughter in her voice as she caught Giana Durand's small body into her own arms.
"Wow, you're a lot bigger. Ana, what did you fed her?" Dilruba said jokingly.
The three laughed out.
She dropped the brown paper bag in front of the nine-year-old girl. Her hands reached inside and revealed Giana the chicken rolls and bagels.
"Look what I have for you!"
"Bagels, bagels!" The girl's face brightens as she took the bag.
"Thank you, aunt Dilly."
"There's some chicken rolls too, in case you can't get enough." She patted her small head.
"Go eat properly in the kitchen, Gia. Me and your aunt Dilly is going to have some drinks." Anastasia told her niece, who complied easily and gave them a small joke before going.
"Don't spill the blood on the couch, then."
"Don't choke the bagels to death, then." Her friend shot back.
The girl giggled and turn on the corner into the kitchen.
"She looks a lot more livelier than the day we took her from her parents." Dilruba pointed out.
"Indeed." The other woman nodded and walked to the fridge, pulling out a jar of blood.
Yes, they are vampires.
And yes, Giana knows that.
But they didn't turn her, though. She's too young. But maybe one day the girl would become a part of their world, if she's old enough and fully accept the conditions of becoming vampire.
Giana's mother is Anastasia's elder sister. She and the father abused her child since Gia was two until she was six. That is when her aunt decided to stop the madness by taking her, but they weren't going to let her do it easily.
Anastasia was beaten by her brother-in-law and his friends when she was on her way to their home to gave them the adoption papers. Her unconscious, blood-bathed body was left in the bushes of a Parisian countryside to die.
Fortunately, Dilruba was on her last three days of a trip in Paris. She walked back to the hotel and found Anastasia. The vampire turned her and helped her take her niece from the child's abusive parents. A few months later, Giana and her aunt moves to Turkey.
Dilruba watched as her friend poured the dark red liquid into another mug.
"I heard some rumors." Anastasia began, after a long while of silence and sipping blood.
Dilruba raised her eyebrows and made a responding sound in her throat.
"It's about the Volturi."
She almost choked on her diet. The paler vampire of the two cough heavily for a moment.
"They say they were coming."
"W-" Her dark eyes blinked as she held her hand up and take off the brown contact lens. Stammering slightly, she forced the sentence out of her mouth.
"What does it have to do with me?"
"You are nervous." Anastasia remarked with a raised brow.
"Still missing him?"
This time her cold heart skipped for merely a beat. Dilruba bit her lower lip and swallow back her thoughts of many millennias ago.
"No."
Her friend and the result of her vampire venom tilted her head and raised her dark, thick eyebrows.
"Sure?"
"Sure. No."
"Well." Anastasia put down the empty mug.
"I'm telling you this to warn you first. If you don't want them to recognize, you better be careful."
She nodded in response and took another sip on the blood.
"You should get going." The older vampire said, finally.
"It's eight already. Gia needs to have a healthy slumber."
Ana stared at her for a few moments, as if trying to find a venomous tears in her sockets, or a mixture sadness and loneliness in her dark red irises.
The French vampire sighed and sat up.
"Gia!" She called. The girl skipped out of the kitchen, bagels were still in her mouth.
"It's late now. Let's go."
"I haven't finish the bagels yet." Giana replied, her brown eyes look at the remaining brown aromatic bread in her hand.
"If you go to bed late, you will be late for school too."
Her small brows furrowed, thinking.
"You can come again tomorrow after school, Giana." Dilruba assured with a loving smile.
The girl smiled sweetly back as she came closer and hug her.
"Goodnight, aunt Dilly."
"Have a good sleep." She patted her hazel hair and pushed her lightly into Anastasia's waist.
The two vampires exchange their eyes and gave each other a faint smile. Then, the younger one nod her in a farewell manner.
Something in Ana's eyes made her felt a glimpse of uncomfortable in that second.
"Goodnight," The next word was so faint that Giana couldn't hear. But Dilruba do, very clear.
"Didyme."
She froze.
When the door closed, Dilruba stood still in the living room for almost ten minutes as the memories of the past millennias came back to her mind.
She haven't heard her real name for a long, long time.
The brown-haired vampire cast her eyes down to the cold blood mug in her hands.
"Didyme..." She repeated softly, rewinding the taste of the sound on her tongue.
Didyme Volturi.
Let's just hope the identity she's been keeping for 3,000 years didn't get exposed when her brother and his guards came to Istanbul.
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Phoebe Tonkin as Didyme Volturi/ Dilruba Çalihan
Miles McMillan as Marcus Volturi
Sofia Boutella as Anastasia Durand
Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen as Giana Durand
Talk
Soooo, finally I can manage to publish the Marcus story!! Yay!!
Thank you so much for every support, I appreciate it very much. And I hope you'll like this story.
Love,
Modhanalisa