A Lot To Learn

This is a much requested extra of the son of Carlisle and Esme. It focuses on his ability and relationships. He is a Luna Bambini, born in 2180 so there's quite a bit of how i view (and hope) the future will be like. I might consider writing more about him and Ivana but for now this is just for fun.

Micah Cullen

2195

I was born in the diamond age of humanity. We were the most peaceful the human race has ever been after coming out a long war of human rights and religion. Global climate change had hit us all like a tonne of bricks. From wars over basic human rights so suddenly realising that we had destroyed our planet far quicker than we thought. Pollution was a daily thing, earthquakes and volcanoes stronger than ever recorded in human history. They introduced a new category of hurricanes after one destroyed the coast of Mexico. There’s no such thing as the British Virgin Islands or Cuba anymore. They’re inhabitable. California has half the population it did in the 21^st century because anyone who could moved away after the largest earthquake ever recorded hit Los Angeles and the city was flattened and as soon as the population began to rebuild another earthquake would hit, they had constant large quakes for months on end, making it impossible to rebuild without it falling down again a week later. Millions died, then millions more moved away. The Hollywood business moved to New York and LA, the city of angels became a ghost town. Entire states became deserts and most of the population were forced to live in roughly half that were habitable a hundred years ago. And that was just the USA. When the world realised that our petty fighting was all for nothing the biggest peace treaty ever created was formed, it consisted of rules we had to follow or the world would be inhabitable in the space of a century. Pollution had to be limited, recycling multiplied, human and animal population stabilisation, plant regrowth, energy re-evaluation, you name it. The world had to change fast. And it did. By the year of my birth, pollution had halved, there were no more landfills, everything was made of recyclable materials, animals were thriving, forests had multiplied by tenfold, the human race now had a strict 3 children policy that even my immortal family kept to, the world was on full solar and wind energy no more fossil fuels or fracking. The world was finally the way it should be and the past fifty years would go down in history as the most renovating years in humanity.

Perhaps it was the time I was born, perhaps it was my selfless parents but I was an advocate for life, for preservation and for humanity. I wanted the world I was born into to stay like this, not to go back to war or destruction, I had been taught so much by my immortal family of the way the world was, the way the world came together to repair it. My parents knew they could have a child a long long time ago but never felt it was the right time, they believed with the dawn of the diamond age that it was the right time now, that they could raise a child in this world, a good world, a child to believe in the cause, to save humanity. After all, if the immortals of the world couldn’t save humanity, who could? Pollution didn’t affect us, earthquakes meant nothing, we didn’t need energy or heat to survive, all we needed was blood. We would be the last surviving species on this planet, that was until there was nothing to feed on, then we would desiccate. We needed to keep humanity alive, keep wildlife alive so that we could stay alive.

I struggled as a child to take blood to live. Although my parents drank animal blood I couldn’t stomach the hunting part of it, most of the time my mother would bring back the blood drained so I didn’t have to witness the animal dying, but I knew it had. My mother used to assure me that the animal would help the earth, either that or another animal would come eat it and they would benefit but my ability meant I struggled" with the vampire part of me. I sensed life like a glow, I sensed moods and personalities around me. I knew who was genuinely a good person or if someone had a hidden secret. I felt happiness like a drug, life was infectious. When I looked at someone it was like they had a glow to them, a glow of life. It also meant that I saw it in animals, the first time I hunted I was only a few weeks old. I was barely walking but my parents took me into the garden where there were a few small foxes dancing in and out of the trees. My father tried to teach me how to hear their heartbeats, to use my instincts to hunt them down but all I could see was the glow of their life. My mother pinned one down and I watched it struggle. I squirmed at the sight of it, cowering into my father.

“You need to feed Micah. It's who you are sunshine.” He said in his usual soothing voice. I shook my head. I was about the size of a small toddler and I understood language but I didn't say much at that age, it was only the occasional word. At the time I was overwhelmed with my ability and the way it worked.

My mother snapped the neck of the fox and brought it over to me.

“No mama,” I shook my head in protest and her beautiful selfless face frowned in confusion.

“He can't do it.” I heard a voice behind me. I turned to see a brunette woman holding the hand of a tall red head. They were vampires and from the male’s voice I guess it was Edward and Bella. My parents told me of their ‘other’ children but since I was only two weeks old at this point I hadn't met them yet. They were due to arrive within the week to meet me. The only member of our family I had met so far was Esther. She was like me and she had felt the moment I was born.

I loved Esther. Even to this day, she had an enticing aura about her, it was complicated, full of centuries of emotions and experiences. She had endless stories I loved to listen to as a child, she had also taught me so much about humanity and history even my university lecturers would have trouble keeping up.

“Edward?” I asked looking at my father. He nodded and smiled.

“You're my brother.” I turned back to the vampire now in front of us.

“I am.” Edward said with a smile as he knelt down. “I can read your mind.” He informed me softly.

“I can read your life,” I said back

“His life?” Bella asked my parents for clarification.

“Esther said that he sees in glows of life. He doesn't talk much yet but we're only just beginning to understand him. He isn't able to hunt. We've had to bring him blood since the day he was born.”

“It's because he senses their life, he sees them in a way you could only imagine, it's like a sixth sense. It IS a sixth sense. I've never seen anything like it. It's almost like Esther's true sight but entirely different at the same time.” Edward said his eyes hadn't left my face in fascination. “He can't kill because it's against his nature. What do you expect from the two most selfless vampires that have ever lived?” He asked my parents then turned to me. “What do you see when you look at your mom and dad?” He asked. I didn’t know what was good and bad at that point, I had only met three people in my life and they were all different in their own ways. I turned to look at my parent’s strong glows to show Edward.

“And now me and Bella.” He asked and I looked from his wife to him he grinned. “Similar but not quite. You're seeing people’s unique souls. You're seeing the fundamental essences of a person. Your parents are so strong because they're good. Actually good. It's a rare sight Micah and you might never find another person like them.”

You're not like them? I asked in my head and he smiled.

“You see that flickering? I mean I like how strong my glow is too but there is flickering there is a change in colour because I am stubborn and I can be selfish. I can only imagine how your ability works but everyone is going to be different and you’re going to spend your life trying to figure out what it all means and it's only going to get stronger.” He informed me. I turned to Bella, she was very similar to Edward but not quite the same, like my mother was like my father but not quite the same. Edward smiled at my evaluation then looked at his wife.

“I think that's because we're soul mates. You're seeing the similarities because we were made for each other. Just like Carlisle and Esme. That's quite a gift.” He explained.

“He can see mates?” my father asked.

“I think so. He can see the essence of your soul and being. I'm very similar to Bella and you're very similar to Esme. I don't know if that's the hundreds of years we've been together or because it is because we were always meant to be. It will be very interesting if it changes as a person ages or experiences life. “

Since then Edward had been right, my ability did grow. I was only fifteen years old and yet my ability had intensified tenfold. I sensed people’s motivations, desires, I learnt to separate colour and intensity of the glow. I knew what personality traits were the strongest, I knew what people were faking, the strength of their determination, their true being. It was hard sometimes. I couldn't just get to know people, I knew them from one look and It could get overwhelming. Especially in a room full of people. It was like looking at the sun.

It interested me greatly how alike people were and weren't. Especially mates. It was very interesting seeing how people worked and more specifically the nature of soul mates, lovers and friends. Whether their glows matched or even didn’t match. I had a few favourite people simply because their glow was infectious. Esther and Eddie were among them. I know you weren’t supposed to have ‘favourite’ people but I saw more than just personality, I saw people for who they were. It was hard for me not to gravitate towards traits I liked. I didn't know if it was because they were like me but they truly were good to be around.

Eddie and Esther fascinated me the first time I saw them together. Their colours matched and yet they weren’t married or together in that way. Early in my life I was confused, I thought that they were with the wrong people and they were actually mates.  It wasn’t until Esther told me that she knew Eddie was her soul mate that my interest in the subject peaked. I had spent my life observing people and relationships and yet this one shocked me. I never brought it up out of fear of interfering. These couples had spent centuries together I couldn’t just announce that my ability was telling me they picked the wrong people. After Esther explained to me that not all soul mates were romantic did I fully start to see relationships for what they were. Some people were more compatible than others, the colours in their glows either clashed, or complimented each other. It was only in the extreme rare circumstance that they matched. When they matched that was a soul mate. 

I had grown surrounded by couples and their ‘mates’ that the word had confused me when trying to understand my ability. It was scary when I realised that I saw the fundamentals of a relationship and that I could split a dozen couples in my family with the wrong word.

From that point on, I studied human interaction, vampire interaction, couples, mates, friends, siblings, it fascinated me seeing family dynamics, especially one as big as mine and I realised that ‘soul mate’ was literally that, their souls matched, personality changed them slightly but the essence of their being was still the same, there were various in our family including Eddie and Esther. They were soul mates, whether romantic feelings developed or not it wasn’t required. It also made me realise you didn’t have to have to be romantically involved in your soul mate to be happy. Humans, hybrids, vampire, Luna Bambini. They could have a soul mate but it was just insanely rare, most settle for the closest thing they can find. Vampires just had longer to find them and so the statistic in my family seemed higher with that species. I enjoyed studying relationships the most, after I realised the link between the soul mates and people I felt like I was seeing into a different dimension. I could see relationships without people saying a word. I knew who was mated to who, who depended on who, siblings, parents, families. Their glow told me everything, right to the core of their being.

I guess this is what brought my close to my all-time favourite person in the world. Ivana. She was Esther’s daughter. We were both of the same ‘generation’ I guess you could say. Our parents were the matriarch and patriarchs of our families and yet we were both born centuries later than anyone else in the family. We were out of place. She was only eight months older than me and we saw each other often when growing up. She helped me a lot with feeding, her ability was out of this world, she taught me how to stop pain and fear, she showed me how to feed without killing the animal, all because she knew exactly how a living creature works, right down to the atoms of its being. She saw the physical structure of a person where as I saw the emotional structure. Our parents had been pushing us together since they realised how close we were and yet there hasn’t been a day where either of us have spoken about it. I loved Ivana, I did, but I never felt the need for a girlfriend or a boyfriend. There wasn’t something inside of me telling me to find my own soul mate. I was too busy fascinated with everyone I met, I was too busy wanting to help the good, to keep the world from going back to the hell I knew it was. I was immortal and I certainly wasn’t rushing to find who I wanted to be with forever. Part of me didn’t want to find that another person. I wanted everything, I wanted to be with whoever I wanted at the time I met them. I saw true soul mates were rare and since I couldn’t see my own glow, how would I ever know that it’s the right person?

Since a child I was schooled by my parents, they taught me everything, from history, languages, art, mathematics and science. I was addicted to school, I wanted to learn everything. I quickly found my favourite in history and sociology. People were fascinating to me. Especially humans. Humans above all. I had never tasted human blood in my life, not even as a foetus or infant and so I never developed the smell of it. Edward thought it was because my father was immune to the smell of human blood but my mother was adamant she refused to let me have even donated blood. I could smell human blood but it was wrong to me. It didn’t smell like food the way animals did. This excited my father and he quickly led me down the track of medicine and I loved every second of it. Being my father’s passion, he was an amazing teacher. By the time I hit two, I was enrolled in the top medical school in the country. Graduated with the highest honours and continued learning to become a surgeon. Being a surgeon, I could save lives that no ordinary human could. I could stand without tiring, I had faster reflexes and I could see with a thousand times precision than any other human doctor.

I was born and raised in Forks, Washington but after graduating I wanted to help more than just humans, I wanted to help my world too and the best way to do that was in the Volturi. I didn’t think my parents were initially happy but they were supportive over everything I did and only wanted me happy and so they followed me to Chicago. I got a job as a surgeon in one of the hospitals and in my spare time I advised Pancrazio in the Volturi. My job at the Volturi was very interesting. The people there intrigued me and of course, that’s where Ivana spent her days too. She had joined me in my history and sociology degree that I took along side my medicine degree nearly 5 years ago. We were inseparable most of our fully-grown lives. She aged slower than me and yet it was like age didn’t even exist between us. When she was physically old enough to pass as a teenager she joined me in university and that’s when we truly became best friends. No parents, no limits and the world at our feet. Ivana was feisty. She had a strong pulsating glow to her, she wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. She challenged who she thought deserved it and got away with it every time. She owned every room she stood in. She was alluringly beautiful, dark hair, brown eyes and just slightly olive skin. The opposite of her famous sisters and mother. She was captivating. Her soul was magnetic. It drew me to her every time she was in the room. I was quiet, reserved, studious, observant where as she was the complete opposite but fundamentally when it came down to the essence of who we were, we were the same. Curious and anomic. We didn’t fit in anywhere.

This was hard in university, as a child I was excited to start school and meet humans and people. I didn’t realise that my gift would make it impossible to make true friends. Everyone was fake, the girls that tried to get close to me were the fakest. Their souls told me a completely different story to their words and body. There were a few that never looked at me twice but I was too shy to even approach them. I stuck with Ivana. She enjoyed the company of humans more than I did but at the same time we ended up back with each other after a girl had been a bitch or a guy had been bad to her. Humans were fickle and it was only rare that you found one that had the maturity and intelligence of someone born into the supernatural. Not that supernatural made us superior, I had met many descendants of my large family and found nothing special about the vast majority of them but when you live for a long time you tend to have a very different outlook on things and it was evident in the older generations of my family. They were far more at peace and relaxed than humans or younger supernaturals, they’d had decades and centuries of working through their emotions and getting to know themselves and their closest friends and family. Humans were like babies, they had so much to learn and so little time to do it. They were frantic, busy, wanting to get from A to B in menial amounts of time, eager to move onto the next part of their lives, relationships and experiences. They lived. Old supernaturals sort of just carried on, like time didn’t exist. It was two very different ways to live a life. I wasn’t sure which kind of life I wanted, a human life was exciting in the short term but a supernatural lived and changed over hundreds of years. To see how the human race would change in the same life span as my parents excited me to no end.

Would I find someone to spend that life with? I didn’t know. Would I have Ivana by my side the entire time? I really didn’t know. She reminded me a lot of humans, she loved being busy, being with people where as I was happy if it was just us or if I was alone in my room and an old book.

I had no idea what life would have in store for me but as the youngest of my supernatural family I knew I still had a lot to learn.