His Butterfly

xlix. the sea of knowing and seeing

Mariposa had to give credit to Sophia and Renesmee, they didn't seem remotely phased, even as the Volturi hissed at them like they were the monsters here. They stood strong beside their parents, hands tangled together as they stared directly at the leader of the blood thirsty coven. But the same couldn't be said for Bella or Mariposa. They shifted uneasily, and almost immediately, Aro's eyes were locked on them, a childlike excited glimmer in his blood eyes.

"Ah, young Bella," he sighed, eyes skimming down Bella's newest look. "Immortality becomes you. Mariposa, lovely to meet you, though I wish under different circumstances." He licked his lips at the sight of the powerful dhampir, she felt a shiver go down her spine as she resisted the urge to run away.

Though just as quickly as the distraction came, it went. Mariposa heard the steady beat of Renesmee's fluttering heart pounding to break free from her chest and she saw the newly developed yellow glow in Sophia's irises, and Aro was laughing, the sound sent another chill down her spine.

"I hear her strange heart," he murmured, hand hovering in the air between them, waiting. "I see her peculiar eyes." He turned to Sophia, head tilting curiosity.

Renesmee and Sophia, even then, knew that they had to do. They stepped away from their mothers, snow crunching beneath their boots as they drew in close to the strange men and women, heads tilted to the side to show their curiosity and determination. "Hello, Aro." Sophia said, then in a sudden movement that had the Volturi hissing again, Renesmee took the initiative and reached up and pressed her own hand to Aro's face instead of taking his.

Seconds passed like hours as he evaluated what he saw in her and Sophia's thoughts. Nothing terrible seemed to happen, leaving the Volturi to quiet down and Bella and Mariposa to pull their daughters back in close as he slowly turned to address his people, utterly amazed at what he had seen and discovered. "Half-mortal half-immortal," he exclaimed, and Mariposa could hear the terrifying excitement trembling in his voice. "Conceived and carried by this newborn while she was still human. A fully developed dhampir child, conceived by her mother and her human lover."

"Impossible," Caius scoffed, he knew no such thing had ever been documented in all his years. A human could not have an infant with a vampire and live to tell the tale, it was inhumanly impossible as such vampires were frozen in time, the same goes for dhampirs. Dhampirs are only created by the union of another of their kind and a vampire, preferably a moroi, a child born between a dhampir and a human was unheard of since the outcome had never been known.

"Do you think they fooled me, brother?"

The silence was deafening. It was then that Bella and Mariposa moved, pushing Sophia and Renesmee back towards the safety of the witnesses again. Their husbands turned and followed without another word, Jacob, Seth and Embry growling one last time at Caius before joining too. For now, Renesmee and Sophia were alive. They just had to play the waiting game, a game which was not to their liking.