He had loved the way the darker, jewel colored tones she preferred looked against her skin. The sapphire blues, emerald greens, deep ruby red, and other fabric colors that she preferred were a perfect match for her personality.

After Juvenal’s death those colors had disappeared and she had preferred to wear the colors she had worn as a priestess of death. He had found her as lovely as she had then in the midnight blue and black tones, but it worried him.

Worry had not been part of his life for so long up until that point that the emotion had caught him off-guard. The last time he had truly worried about anything was when she had been mortal and the period following Juvenal’s death had come centuries after that point.

Worry. Was that what he was feeling now? Was he worried for this Edward and Bella?

How strange.

Since these two had come into his coven’s life he had been through such a wide-variety of emotions that he had felt adrift. Was the bond between Edward and Bella so strong, so similar to his own with his wife that he had to help preserve it?

Yes. Yes, it was.

Passing by a window in the corridor he was walking down, he noticed that it was night time. How strange to think that he had once marked the passing of time by something as mundane and short as the rising and setting of the sun.

He took the corridor that led away from his chambers and headed in the direction of the stairs that led out into the walled up gardens behind the Tower. As he roamed among the perfectly manicured shrubs and meticulously pruned rose bushes he looked towards the sky.

The sky was such a rare sight now at days; then again, he and his brothers rarely left their dwelling and as far as he knew their wives had not step foot outside in a millennia. He had left to go to his and Didyme’s field, but he had simply looked at her statue and not looked at the world around him. How unobservant he’d become.

Making his way to the center of the garden he moved to look at the way the moon reflected off the still water of a pool there. As he drew closer for a moment he thought that Aro had come up behind him, but no, the long, flowing, ebony hair, chiseled, cold features covered in papery thin skin, and clouded crimson eyes staring back at him were his own.