章 3: Chapter 3- Schooling
I was excited. I was finally ready for my first day of school. Renee and I had been taken on a tour of part of the castle a few days ago, where mum was shown a couple of rooms with desks, chairs, laptops etc. To make them seem like normal classrooms. She had then met some of my "teachers."
All in all, she had been very satisfied with the knowledgeable demeanours of the staff, and the classroom setup. I chuckled, imagining her reaction if she had realised that their knowledge had come from centuries of living, rather than the few decades they appeared to be.
I said goodbye to Renee outside the castle entrance before heading through the doors alone to meet some of the world's most dangerous predators.
Once I closed the doors, I was startled to find two large male vampires suddenly appear in front of me. I calmed myself, and gave myself a mental reminder to get used to the extreme speed that vampires moved at.
"Hi, I'm Felix," The larger of the two introduced himself.
"And I am Demetri." The second vampire stated.
"It's nice to meet you," I said, shyness suddenly overcoming me. "I'm Bella."
"Well, you're just as cute as Aro said." Felix cooed at me.
I snapped. I hated being called cute. I pushed out a shield and sent him flying into the wall. "Don't call me cute." I glared at him.
Demetri started laughing uproariously at his partner's misfortune. "Felix, I can't believe you just got smashed into a wall by a four year old!" he choked out between laughs. "Well done Bella! You looked like an angry kitten."
I gritted my teeth and sent him flying into the wall too. "I'm not a kitten," I hissed.
He was saved from replying by the entrance of Aro, Marcus and Caius, who had stood to the side, watching the display with amusement. "Well done Bella, I can see that you are going to fit in well here." Aro congratulated me. I smiled smugly at Felix and Demetri, who both wore appropriately abashed faces.
"I'm glad you can keep Felix and Demetri in line." Aro continued, "Because they will be your personal guards while you are here." They looked dismayed at the thought of babysitting me, but quickly composed themselves when Aro glanced at them.
They led me away to another room where there were seven other vampires all waiting, curiosity evident in their expressions as their eyes raked up and down me.
Aro proceeded to introduce everyone. "This is my mate, or wife Sulpicia." He proudly indicated the tall, beautiful women closest to the door, her brown hair billowing around her shoulders as she leaned down to shake Bella's hand. "Welcome little one," She smiled at Bella before withdrawing her hand.
Aro moved on to the next in the line. This lady exuded grace and beauty, her expression soft and kind. "This is my Marcus' wife Didyme." (AN: in my story she doesn't die, because I always thought she would be a nice character)
She effortlessly knelt until she was at my level before drawing me in for a soft hug. "Welcome Bella, you have caused quite a stir here with your talent. We are glad to have you around; nothing has been this interesting and surprising for us in nearly a millennium." She observed. I smiled softly back at her, before turning to the next lady.
This lady was tall and very glamorous, her long mahogany hair was artfully style in waves, and her clothes were bright and looked designer in origin. "I am Heidi," she introduced herself, smiling at me.
The next two in line appeared to be twins in their early teens. They both had angelic, childlike features, with pale blonde hair.
Aro introduced them as Jane and Alec before moving onto the woman I had been waiting anxiously to meet.
Renata was relatively plain looking in comparison to the stunning beauty of the other female vampires in the room, but she was still inhumanly beautiful. I greeted her enthusiastically before turning towards the last vampire in the room. He smiled down at me before introducing himself as Santiago.
"Santiago will also be one of your guards if Felix or Demetri is needed for something else." Aro added. I looked at him confused.
"Why do I need a guard? I can take care of myself."
It was Caius that answered. "Bella, occasionally we have visitors who would probably want to eat you, as well as other vampires staying in the castle who aren't as restrained as us. Your guard will make sure that no other vampires can get to you, and keep you out of sight of any vampires other than us." He paused; allowing me to process thins before continuing.
"Also, other than the vampires in this room, nobody else is to know about you." He puzzled expression, and hurriedly continued. "You see, by allowing you to live we are breaking our main rule." I nodded, Aro had explained about the vampire rules and the Volturi royalty during our walk back to the hotel in Rome. "So we can't allow anyone else to find out about you. There are other vampires in the world who are enemies, and would view you as a pet of ours and try to kill you as revenge against us. They also might view us as weak for leaving you alive and try to overthrow us, or view you as a liability because you know what we are and try to kill you so that you can't tell anyone." He explained.
I nodded in understanding. "So I have to have Felix and Demetri babysit me?" I clarified.
Aro chuckled, "I'm afraid so my dear."
My school days passed quickly and without problems as I learnt my lessons from the ten vampires. I had found out that they had actually registered as a private school, making up fake students to fulfil the requirements.
Every now and then I had to sit tests to show my mum how well "school" was progressing.
I got along well with all of the vampires, finding to my surprise that I seemed to fit in better with them than I ever had with humans.
Each of the vampires had their own interests, and they all taught me different things.
Aro taught me about mythological creatures, not only about the traits of vampires, but also describing in detail werewolves, fairies, witches, and shape shifters. I was surprised to learn that there was a tribe of wolf shape shifters in La Push, very close to Forks where I had been born. I was even more surprised to find out about another tribe in Africa that could shift into lions.
Marcus and Caius taught me about literature, expanding on my already strong interest in classics by showing me their favourite novels of all time, and telling me real life stories about some of the authors. They also both had a passion for chess, which I quickly picked up. They were only too happy to teach me, and I was soon developing my own tactics and strategies until I occasionally beat one of them.
Didyme quickly discovered my love of music, and taught me to play the harp, which I quickly came to love. She also found her favourite music throughout the last millennium, and with her guidance I developed my taste in music, Debussy quickly becoming my favourite composer, with Clair De Lune being my favourite song.
Jane taught me about technology, especially mobile phones and computers, to the point where I could hack into any government agency, or secret service in the world.
Alec's enthusiasm for history made him my geography and history teacher, and I quickly learned all I could about different countries throughout the ages, learning their languages as well and extracting promises from all ten vampires that when I was older they would take me to visit some of my favourite countries.
Heidi taught me maths, surprising me with her passion for formulas, which contradicted her supermodel appearance.
Sulpicia was also surprising, her interest was science, and she was an excellent teacher, always allowing me to do fun experiments.
Santiago taught me about mechanical things, and I quickly mirrored his passion for cars, learning all I could about current cars and cars throughout history, as well as engines etc. I had already had Santiago promise me that he would teach me to drive once I was tall enough to see over the steering wheel.
I quickly got used to being shadowed everywhere by Felix and Demetri, although I regularly apologised for having to have them follow me everywhere, I imagined that it would be an incredibly boring thing to do every day. But they assured me that it was the most interesting thing they had done in years.
They taught me to fight, which I found incredibly fun. They soon realised that even if they ganged up on me they couldn't beat me because the moment they grabbed me I would push out my shield and throw them off, or cast shield around them and freeze them in place, or levitate them off the ground by moving the shield wrapped around them up into the air.
They always grumbled when I left them hanging, while I laughed at them.
Renata was of course in charge of helping me learn more about my shield and how to develop my control. Aro liked to observe these lessons and I soon found that I could catch things midair with my shield and throw them back, which led to some interesting games of football.
After only a couple of days though, Aro announced that he thought I had a second shield, a mental one. He explained that the power he had, as well as those of Jane and Alec, were all mental powers. Jane's power was making people think they were burning, while Alec made them feel nothing. Neither power worked on me, leading Aro to the conclusion that I must also have a mental shield.
After a lot of concentration, and time, I soon found my second shield. My mental shield was also visible to me when it was on others, and with practise I was soon able to wrap it around others as easily as a physical shield. The only difference was that the mental shield was a see-through bright blue colour. When I wrapped both shield around someone, the combined colours made it look like a light blue coating.
The only exception to my mental shield was me. Even though I obviously had a mental shield around myself, mine was not able to be seen, and it was extremely hard to push away. I usually only succeeded in pushing it away for less than a minute before I got distracted and it would snap back.
The years raced by as Renee and I continued to live happily in Volterra. Every year I would go back to Forks and spend two weeks with my Dad, and the rest of my time was spent with mum, or with my vampire family.
By the time I was eight I had excellent control of my shields, to the extent where when Felix and Demetri tried to ambush me- a regular occurrence, I could not only cast a shield around myself before they pounced at vampire speed, but I could also instantaneously cast shield around them and freeze them in place.
We had also figured out that my range for both of my shields was five miles, and I had worked on my personal mental shield to the point where I could keep it away from me for nearly twenty minutes, although it still required concentration, and I still couldn't see why I would want to do it anyway, but Aro and Renata thought it would help strengthen my shields.
Due to my eagerness to learn, excellent teachers and photographic memory, I was now a proficient musician, chess player, hacker and mechanic. I had also already fluent in Italian, French, Latin, German, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese, all of which I spoke regularly with the vampires to keep practise. I was already smart enough to pass senior high school tests, and mum was particularly proud of the accomplishments that we had told her about.
Even the vampires were proud of me, glowing with pride as they gave me presents on my eighth birthday. All of the present were expensive, mostly jewellery including large, clear priceless diamonds and solid 24 carat gold.
I had quickly learned in the last four years that the Volturi vampires were incredibly rich. Money was of no concern for them, having spent the last couple of millennia acquiring it, and they spent whatever they felt like.
This became evident the first time Heidi took me shopping, which turned out to be a marathon, as she dragged me into shop after shop and bought me over $20, 000 worth of clothes, shoes etc. In one day.
Despite my protests at first about them spending money on me, I quickly realised that they were hurt by my protests, and I soon learned to accept what they gave me with good grace, even the black card they gave me when I turned six.
All in all, at the age of eight, I was very comfortable with my life.
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