She is beautiful, our sister, the loveliest flower in the garden. She makes me smile, though I loathe to do so, makes me care about her. Athenodora is content enough to have her around. The lovely Didyme is like a balm to the broken skin of her relationship with Caius. They fight and she runs to our sister's side, then walks on happy clouds back to her mate.

I hate her.

She is the blood relation to my dear husband and I hate her still. I love her. How could I not, with that gift of hers making me thrill in her presence? Yet still, I hate her so.

Everyone loves her. Of course they do. She's a delight, so sweet and kind and with a radiance that no other can match. Her gift is just overkill to what is already so lovely a persona. Aro dotes on her, his dear sister, when he should dote upon me.

Yes, I am jealous.

Yes, I am bitter.

What am I to do? Before her, I was the lovely one! I was the beautiful one! She steals all that away from me. I am a queen. I do not have to be kind to those peons! I do not have to care for them! Where has all their gratefulness for my benevolence gone? All into love for her. All into adoration for her.

Slowly, my true nature is revealed.

I avoid Aro as often as I can. He must not touch me. He must not know how strongly I feel. It will only hold for so long. He is obsessed with touching us all, with knowing us all. He has always known me, since that first touch. That I am cold and hateful and play at benevolence so that I may be adored and loved, instead of tolerated and scorned.

But I am slipping. I scorn them, those that love her. I glare and I scowl and Caius gives me that damnable smirk as if I am like him and he has seen some secret in me. Athenodora, mousy thing to Caius and completely flighty otherwise, just goes on and on about how I should spend more time with Didyme, insist that it will make me feel better, and I want to rip out her throat. They used to say that about me. I was the kind one. I was the lovely sovereign. It should be me!

Didyme looks at me sadly. She knows that I do not like her and doesn't know why. We are 'sisters', us three, and she likes me. Why should it no be reciprocated? Such expectancy is precisely why.

Aro does not say anything when he finally touches me. He knows I've been avoiding him, knows why. He spends a few days kissing me more often, adoring me more often, locks us in a room together for two days.

It almost helps. Afterwards, however, Chelsea finds reasons to be around me more often. That makes me hate Didyme all the more. I can't feel it, but I'll see it. I'll stare into space around me and I'll know. I've asked her how her power works, asked Aro, so I know that she is using it.

I know that hate her. I can't feel it, but I remember hating her. I remember thinking it and I hold fast to the thought. I refuse to let it go. I make up my mind to act horribly, even though I no longer want to.

I love her by the time she wants to leave us. Our lovely sister, whom is so very close to me; whom I have thought time and again should be hurt, should be hurt, should be punished, the more that I love her.

Am I sadist, now? Is that why, though I love her so dearly, I wish her harm? I don't rightly know. I know that I wish her harm and so I whisper to Aro, things he knows are embellishments, are lies, are extreme and uncalled for methods to keep our sister with us, to keep Marcus with us.

And he listens. He'd hear them anyway. Cruel, hateful things, but because I love Didyme, I do not want her to go. I want her to stay, but that stay much cause her pain. A stay in the dungeons, Chelsea's power, blackmail, anything! But she must not go.

And then she is killed and I... I am sad. I am more sad than I thought I could ever be. My most beloved sister... gone.