𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙎𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙉
ミ★ ( obsidian, act one ) ★彡

     Amias never thought he'd be happy to step foot in a human high school again. It was loud, smelly and constantly dreadful, but compared to his experience in Volterra, he would've preferred the high school any day. Most of the students would've chosen his other option, but considering Amias doesn't actually do any work to begin with, he finds wasting eight hours of his life in a random building with other humans rather comforting. He was an observer, always has been. He likes to watch people interact and make assumptions about them based on their actions and the way they talk and hold themselves around others—or even by themselves. He often finds himself as a good judge of character.

     Which was why he was able to identify that he was almost relieved to be back in Forks. He was relieved to be away from the Volturi and away from doing horrible things. "It will be okay." Alice assured Amias as they walked through the busy hallways of the school to get towards their classes—Jasper guiding her by grabbing onto her elbow and gently pulling her along.

     It seemed the humans had noticed his sudden and rather long absence from school, and according to Edward, they all wondered why he was gone. Humans were always extremely nosy when it came to other people so it wasn't surprising; however, it was still irritating.

     "I will be fine." Amias insists, slightly frustrated by her constant worry of him and what he might do. He had been around humans long enough that he knew how to behave, and he was sure he would be able to control himself after a recent binge of human blood.

     But, he was concerned about how her scent would cause him to react by being so close. Most classes, he had the luxury of being able to sit alone besides the few where he was stuck beside Jessica or her equally annoying friend, Lauren—where her perfume would mask any other scent because it was that strong to him. But Biology was the class where he was stuck beside the enticing and divine smelling Bella Swan. To the human eye, she was slightly lacklustre and innocent looking; but her scent was so powerful and vibrant.

He knew that Edward would be looking out for him—keeping an eye out in his thoughts and would stop him before anything could happen or let him know if anything were to be growing too much for him. Jasper would also keep an eye out for his mood and his hunger. While he had experience being around humans, Amias didn't have much experience being around them without them becoming food as anyone who often came into the castle only ended up being dinner.

     Amias took one last breath and entered the classroom, holding the air in between his non-functional lungs as he walked into the room and toward his desk where the human girl was already sat. She had her head down and was drawing on her notebook, not noticing that he had entered the room, much less taken a seat beside her.

     With how entranced she was with her drawing, you would think she was drawing something on scale with Van Gogh or da Vinci, however, it was merely just some meaningless scribbles of loop after loop.

     "Hello." Amias greeted in a soft voice, gentle enough that it wouldn't frighten her out of her trance and formed a polite smile on his face with his lips that wouldn't show his teeth. That would be too much.

     She looked up, startled, regardless. Her wide brown eyes and shocked expression vividly being a replica of what he had been imagining she would look like for the past few weeks. She almost looked terrified of him—as she should.

"Hi." She said back meekly before she went back to her sketch. Mr. Molina was still setting up for the lab they would be doing in class so she wasn't that interesting in paying attention to her surroundings for a few more moments of peace.

     He had missed out on a few lessons as he remembered the last lesson he sat in, the teacher was only describing the difference between the stages of mitosis and now they had to identity it themselves with the microscopes and samples. Amias still had no idea what any of it meant.

     After Mr. Molina placed the last microscope slide down at the last desk, he let everyone know they could begin.

     Amias looked at Bella, "Ladies first, partner?" He spoke, only she just stared at him wide eyed and then her face went blank. She didn't speak and although he really didn't want to, he offered, "Or, I could start, if you wish?"

     "No." She blushed, "I'll go first." She said and Amias let out a quiet breath of relief that he instantly regretted as he would have to breathe back in. She grabbed the equipment and after a brief examination she answered, "Prophase."

     Amias only nodded as he took the next slide, seeing Edward hold the answer up again from the table in front, but he looked at the slide and examined it for a moment to make it believable before he said, "Anaphase."

     It wasn't that Amias was dumb—he had been around long enough to have a mind of academia—but he was never interested in science as some of the other vampires in the castle. It didn't matter much to them as much as other things, so he didn't bother to learn it. If he really wanted, he could have Edward tutor him in a night so he wouldn't be so reliant during class.

     "May I?" Bella asked him, pointing at his slide and he looked up at her in surprise. She had thought that he—or rather, Edward—had gotten the answer wrong and wanted to double check. He slid the piece of equipment over to her and she looked at it before nodding that his answer was correct and wrote the answer down on her piece of paper. She then grabbed onto the next slide and examined that one too while Amias was examining her.

     She didn't look at the slide long before she answered, "Interphase."

     He didn't know how he felt about how they were only speaking to each other in one word sentences. He remembered that they had somewhat of a conversation before he left—but he didn't think it was enough to scar her from wanting to speak to him again.

     "You were gone a while." Bella observed after a gruelling long silence as if she had read his thoughts about how little they were talking—but also not really talking. However, she still didn't look at him, almost embarrassed that she had even brought it up at all.

     "I went to Italy." Amias explained vaguely. He didn't want to get too much into detail as to why he had gone there in the first place considering it was only a half lie, but he just needed to come up with something vague or uncomfortable enough that'll get her to not question it. The mention of death always seemed to make humans uncomfortable enough to not want to press for further information which reminded Amias of his fake cover story. "I was visiting my parents' graves. I believe Jessica may have filled you in about their death."

     Bella's eyes widened, blushing slightly. "You heard that?" She asked, remembering how Jessica gave her the details of the Cullens and him on her first day.

     "Yes, well, the girl isn't exactly quiet." Amias acknowledged, even though she spoke at a perfectly normal level, his advanced hearing just happened to pick it up as if she were screaming in his ear.

     "I'm sorry." Bella whispered, feeling bad about gossiping about his life while he overheard everything. Not to mention, the fact that his parents died because of a murder. She couldn't imagine losing her parents at all, let alone in such a gruesome
way.

     "No need. It wasn't a secret." He told her and she looked back down to her worksheet. The two then went to complete the rest of the task with only a few more slides needing to be identified but Amias wanted to talk to her more. He felt like he didn't know much about her, but he wasn't too sure how to ask about her without coming off too strong. So he decided to settle for small talk that he had heard dozens of times from other students already, "It's a shame about the snow, isn't it?"

Bella looked at him bizarrely. Small talk sounded foreign coming out of his mouth. Amias didn't look the type that liked small talk or participated in it often, much less about the weather.

"Not really."

"You don't like the cold?" Amias guessed. Weather didn't really bother vampires besides the sun, and that was only ever if they were around the human eye. It wasn't harmful, but it would make it obvious that they weren't human. But, if the weather was cold or hot, it didn't matter because it didn't affect them. They couldn't feel those sensations anymore.

     "Or the wet." She agreed, "I don't really like any cold or wet thing." She added onto it.

    "Oh," Amias mumbled, thinking of what to say next, "I guess moving to Forks must've been very difficult for you since it's the wettest state in the continental U.S." He recalls, speaking like he's reading directly from a factsheet.

     "You have no idea." She glowered for a moment.

"Then what made you move here?" Amias asked again, wondering why someone would move to a state where the weather was constantly displaying attributes she hated—like rain, snow and cold winds.

"It's... complicated."

She was holding back from him and it made him curious. He placed on a teasing smirk as he said, "I think I can keep up."

Bella let out a deep sigh as if she was contemplating telling this stranger her life story. She doubted that Amias actually cared but he felt like to talk to despite the intimidating demeanour he had, "My mom remarried last September."

Amias' eyebrows furrowed slightly, noticing the sorrow on her face, "That doesn't sound so complex." He said softly, trying to pinpoint why she was so downcast by her mother remarrying, "Do you not like him?"

Her eyes widened as she realised she might've given him the wrong idea, "No, Phil is fine." She corrected his concern before a small hint of a smile appeared on her face as she said, "Maybe a little young, but nice enough." She added and Amias nodded his head, "Phil travels a lot. He plays ball for a living."

Amias put a smile on his face, Phil's career choice clearly amused her in some way, "Have I heard of him?" He asked her, despite the fact that he didn't know any baseball players, so he knew his answer would be 'no'.

"Probably not. He doesn't play well." Bella mused, "Strictly minor league which is why he moves around a lot."

"Oh," Amias mumbled again, slowly forming some sort of scenario in his head, "So did your mother send you here so she could travel with him?"

"No, she didn't send me here." Bella corrected his assumption again almost stubbornly, "I sent myself."

Amias was lost. He couldn't get his head around her. "I'm sorry, I don't understand." He shook his head.

"My mom stayed with me for a bit at first, but she missed him." Bella explained slowly, looking down at her paper sadly as she said, "It made her unhappy... so I decided it was time to spend some quality time with Charlie."

"But now you're unhappy." He observed, seeing the permanent frown on her face—understanding that it was her surroundings that upset her and not her family life.

"And?" She asked.

"That hardly seems fair." Amias responded.

She laughed, but it wasn't an amused one, "Haven't you heard? Life isn't fair."

An ironic laugh escaped Amias' lips as he said, "I believe I have heard that one before." She wasn't wrong either, life was not fair. He learnt that the hard way years ago, "But, it doesn't meant you should suffer because you want to make everyone else happy."

     Bella's eyes narrowed onto him, "Why does it even matter to you?" She demanded.

     "That is the million dollar question." He admitted,
more to himself than to her.

     Amias had decided to hunt again that night when he came back from school. He wasn't really hungry but it was more of a preventative measure. It had taken a lot out of him not to attack the Swan girl and he had grown only slightly more hungrier than he would've been normally after a particularly straining day of being around humans.

     Carlisle had decided to come with. They hadn't spent much time together since he arrived to Forks; with Carlisle's full-time job at the hospital and now Amias' commitment to getting a high school education, they rarely saw each other as much as they used to.

     "The family missed your company while you were away." Carlisle spoke, his voice calm and soft as always. It was what made him so trustworthy and comforting to others.

     "Sure."

"They did. You're a part of us even when you don't believe it." Carlisle assured and Amias seemed surprised to hear that. He wasn't exactly close with any of them—he kept them all at a safe distance—so he didn't really understand how they were so quick to accept him as one of their own, "How was your first day back."

"I..." Amias was hesitant to answer, "I—I talked to her..."

"The Swan girl?" Carlisle noted and Amias nodded his head once. The Cullen man only smirked to himself, Amias clearly didn't understand his connection to her or why but he didn't press.

"She... talked to me as well." Amias stated with bewilderment, "I assumed I terrified her, but I was incorrect. She even snapped at me once."

"That is quite bold of her." Carlisle commented, "If only she knew..." Amias only hummed. Carlisle sensed the inner turmoil within his old friend and he was struggling with something—he seemed uncomfortable in his surroundings like he wanted to leave and never return, "You're not leaving again, are you?"

"No." Amias grunted in response. He couldn't leave—he didn't want to. He knew if he left that Bella would have no protection. She was a clumsy girl and could easily hurt herself. She needed him but he also needed her.

Amias had hurt so many people in his lifetime, and Bella reminded him of the innocence that he needed to protect; what the Volturi swore to set out for but only sought out for more power and influence, using his own power to an advantage. She would be his salvation—his redemption.

If he couldn't protect himself, he knew he would die trying to protect her.

But why?

"I can't." Amias whispered and Carlisle almost looked relieved to hear that, "I won't go back."

     "And you won't have to." Carlisle promised.