Didyme Chapter One

I was only one year old when mother and father forbade Aro from our home. I was so sad that I could never see my beloved older brother again. I missed playing with him in the meadows and rolling down the hills with him. He was a grown man, so father thought it wrong for him to be acting like such a child. He told him to go out and get a job and to get married and to become a respectable man in the eyes of high society. He never did, he thought I was too precious to grow up without his companionship.
I remember one night, that night, the night that started it all. I was sixteen then. I was beautiful with raven hair that was thick and luxurious and hazel eyes that sparked in the moonlight. My endowments were that of a women's even though I was merely a young girl. The men in the town I lived in loved to go walking with me down town square. I had grown up without my older brother, and after all that time he was just a memory, if that. I thought of him every day, so that I could never forget him, but in the ages of ten on, he seemed more like I had dreamed him up one night and thought he was real. I was questioning his very existence.
I was sitting in my room that night, thinking. I did that a lot. Father told me that thinking was not becoming of a young lady such as myself, so I thought in the privacy of my own room. The candle in the lantern next to my bed was flickering when I heard yelling from outside my bedroom door. I got out of my canopy bed and went to go see what it was. I wasn't allowed out of my room at night so I stood with the door cracked open a smidge.
"Monster, you are not wanted here! Leave this place at once!" I heard father yell.
"You actually think I came for you, the man who cast me out of my home? Do not flatter yourself father. I came for Didyme." sneered a mystical and enchanting voice in an icy tone.
"You will NOT touch Didyme!" Father yelled protectively.
"You haven't aged a day…" I heard mother breath out, frightened.
"May I come in?" the voice asked, "Or are you going to make a guest stand in the coldness of the night?"
"No." father said flatly, refusing the voice.
"You have kept me from Didyme for a decade and a half. I wish to see her." the voice threatened.
"Fifteen years ago, you killed my son; I will not let you take my daughter, you beast." Father swore. I had an epiphany at that moment: that was why I hadn't seen Aro in fifteen years. Hearing this, I wanted to know who my brother's killer was.
"Your son is indeed dead, but Aro is more alive than ever." The voice said mockingly, "Unfortunately, you and that whore you married are not…" the voice said briefly.
I was utterly confused. My brother was alive but dead, mother and father were as well? I then heard a snap, that sounded much like a twig snapping, and then wet splatters and my mother screaming as she ran down the hall panting, "Didyme!! Didyme! DIDYM~~" and then mother stopped calling out my name. I was so terrified, I slammed the door and went to hide under my thick wool covers. I was taking shallow breaths and whimpering. I heard another snapping noise and then utter silence. I was weeping so very hard and choking on the sobs that were getting caught in my throat.
My door creaked open. You cannot imagine how much I wanted it to be my father coming in to yell at me for being out to bed so late at night. I felt the mattress weigh down at one side- someone was sitting on the edge of my bed, "My Didyme…" the same voice as the one who spoke with mother and father said soothingly, "My darling… My dear infant sister?" I sucked in a breath, feeling confused and afraid and fearful of what was going to happen next, "Is that my Didyme?" the voice cooed, "The one who used to hide under my covers next to me when she had a nightmare or was frightened in any way?"
I stuttered, "You are not here, not real…" my voice trembling.
"But I am both of those things…" the voice said, "Didyme, may I see how grown up you have become in my absence?" I felt the covers slide off of my head when I heard, "Do you remember who I am?" I looked up at him, he had the same face as my brother Aro and I didn't understand, "Beautiful" he breathed, then he went on, "I don't suppose you do have any memories of me, you were so little at the time." He chuckled. He leaned in close to me and whispered, "I am your elder brother Aro." I gasped and the man claiming to by my beloved Aro laughed.
"If…" I stopped, trying to find the proper words, "If you are indeed my brother Aro then, pray tell why father made you leave home." I commanded.
"You will not believe me." He warned.
"We shall never know unless you tell me." I said arrogantly, even though it wasn't the time nor the place for it.
"Touché." He said and then got quiet and leaned in close to me once again, "I am a vampire."
"Blasphemous!" I uttered and Aro hooted.
"That is why. He caught me feeding on a slave and being his son, would not give me up to the town council. Instead he told me that if I went away and left his family safe that my secret would be safe." He threw his head back as he moaned, "And OH! It was so difficult staying away from you, I missed you so! I thought of you every day and nothing but you every night. I missed seeing you run around in nothing but your bloomers after bathing and mother telling you that you would catch your death running around in the cold with wet hair. I missed it. I missed being with people, being part of a family.
"I travelled to Southern Italy were I met a man named Caius. He is also a vampire and he has a small coven a wife and her sister and an associate named Marcus. And Caius invited me into this coven. He wanted to expand the coven and I did too. I wanted more people to love, to fill the void that leaving you created." He was staring at me out of the corner of his eye now as his head was held up regally, "I am married to Caius's sister-in-law now. Can you even comprehend it, me being wed in the most holy of matrimony?" he sighed contently.
"Are the legends of vampires' true, Aro? Can vampires turn into mist and wolves and hypnotize people, make them slaves? Do you sleep in a coffin brother?" I asked in a meek voice.
Aro laughed loudly, "Not all, dear sister. I do drink human blood, but I cannot turn into a bat or a wolf or mist. I cannot hypnotize people that way, make them slaves. I do not sleep in a coffin; in fact I do not sleep at all. I have no fangs and I do not burn in the sun nor do I whither; I shine like a diamond, like your personality my turtledove." I smiled. I knew now for certain that this was indeed my brother, only he would dare to call me his turtledove, "I am incredibly fast as am I strong and I do not die. I have the gift of knowing every thought a person has had by touching their skin. That is a gift that no other vampire has. Many vampires have different powers that every other vampire does not, which is so exciting to see. I am afraid I do kill humans though, just as I did mother and father only a moment ago."
I stifled a shriek, "You murdered mother and father?"
"Yes, but I did such an unforgivable act for you, my infant sister, my turtledove, my Didyme." He said with a sorrowful smile.
"WHY?" I screamed.
He hushed me and lay me down on my bed in silence with my eyes wide and fraught with terror, "There is a rule that human's are only to think of vampires as myths. Mother and father knew what I was and that was not allowed. The head vampires, the first vampires, the ones who live in Transylvania do not allow humans to know that vampires exist."
"Does that not mean that I am to die? I am human and I know such wisdom." I cried.
"That is what I came here for, my darling sister! I wish to turn you so that you can stay with me forever!" he screeched joyfully to the heavens.
"I mustn't. I cannot." I breathed.
"Why? Do you not want to make up for all those years that we missed seeing each other?" Aro looked saddened and confused all at the same time.
"Father wouldn't want me to." I murmured.
"Father didn't want me to do everything I did do; besides he's no longer with us. Please, Didyme, I assume you are old enough to take a suitor, no? Marcus would be wonderful; he is very, very kind and compassionate. And I would very much like my sister to marry someone I trust and know very well."
"I suppose I could meet this Marcus you speak so highly of." I said with averted eyes.
"Does that mean that you shall become a vampire as well?" Aro questioned.
After some deliberation I said, "…Only if you promise to never leave me again."
My brother smiled, though evilly or otherwise, I am not certain.