He was left alone for several days after the incident in the counsel room. Not even Aro bothered him. It was hours before he moved from his fetal position at the corner of he bed and even then it was not much of a movement, he simply uncurled his fingers from his long locks, rested his head back against the footboard and sat there, knees drawn to his chest, arms stretched out, resting on his knees. As he sat there with his head bowed as he tried to clear his thoughts, to get the images of his wife’s dead body out of his mind. It hadn’t been her.

Didyme.

In his mind he knew that the girl that he had killed hadn’t been her, but his heart did not understand that yet. Even if it was a dead chamber that no longer beat in his chest, his heart, rather than feeling like stone, felt like it was made of spun glass that was shattered into million pieces.

A day had actually passed before he moved again. Without much thought, he went to his wardrobe and pulled out some fresh clothing. The stench of the girl’s dried blood was still on his clothes and without a second thought he tossed the sullied articles into the hearth where there was always a fire cheerfully burning. It was the only cheerful thing about the room.

Once he was dress and back to his dignified, if bored posture, he stepped to his window and onto the ledge. After centuries of doing this he didn’t have to think as he stepped out into the cold night air, the wind brushing against his cold skin as he floated to a nearby roof and landed as softly as a feline.

Once on the roof of a nearby building, he leapt without thought onto the next roof, and then the next, putting some distance between him and the old, if modernized structure that his coven had called home for so long.

He had no idea how much time had passed since he had retreated from the counsel chamber to his room after the incident with the girl. It could have been hours or days, not that it really mattered, time no longer really held any importance for him. If he had stopped counting the years, decades, and centuries since his wife had left him, what did the hours and days really matter?