Life for our family after all of this was hard, but we managed to live well. We loved and supported one another. I had long since discovered that I never really aged alongside my husband, but luckily, I had discovered how I could appear to them that I was. It had come in handy and will be for centuries onwards.
I was using illusions, at least that is what I thought myself that it was.
With it, I watched as our children grew up and found their happiness.
Dmitri died at the age of 64, from a sickness that had hit us hard. Two years later, I faked my death because it was for the best and because I knew I would never tell them about what I had become.
I stayed and watched them silently for years afterward, as I learned how to forge documents, learn how to fight, and other lifelong lessons.
I watched as Alexei inherited his father's passion and took over his shop by becoming a blacksmith himself. Married a beautiful woman, who loved him.
Anastasia got married to a nobleman. It wasn't love, but there was a weird friendship between them that I didn't understand, but I knew how happy that made her, so I didn't involve myself in it.
Ivan became a mercenary and travelled around protecting people, and went by contract through contract.
I spent a couple of years watching over them – in the decades afterwards, only one of their family lines survives to the modern world. You.
~…~…~
That was surprising, though; she should have thought the same thing. That she would have wanted to trace her family line back to the beginning.
"Cool!" Exclaimed Bella, when she had thought it over.
~…~…~
The good thing about being who and what I am is that I don't have to kill to survive, and I only need to drink blood twice a week. It depended on whether I was injured or what kind of powers I was using.
After a while, I felt like I could do things without exposing myself too much. I managed to build up a reputation for being an excellent forger of papers. I learned to forge identity papers and other essential documents. Doing and learning in all the countries I visited and lived in.
That is how I earned my money in that early stage of my immortal life.
~…~…~
"When you wake up, give or take, you'll get a phone call from a lawyer who has everything you need to get hold of my fortune. After all, everything of mine will be yours." Iza explained quietly to her.
Bella sighed, shaking her head but understood that it will make her life easier and greater than before. Even help her not feel so inadequate when meeting the Cullen family.
"It's yours to do what you will with it."
"Okay…"
~…~…~
I then travelled through Russia, Mongolia, and China, and even spent a couple of years in Korea. I learned to survive, fight with swords, even with a bow and arrow. Years spent dressing up as a man, as it was easier like that to remain invisible without having to answer so many questions.
Years of spending time learning my body, of what I could do and not do.
Learning trade, sword fighting, and how to handle a bow and arrow. It was a fun and interesting time.
If I remember correctly, the year, it may have been around the year 40-33 BCE. Spending a whole lifetime in the Korean Peninsula, it was here that I met a young man named Jumong. The one who later established the Kingdom of Goguryeo. The Three Kingdom period of Korea. It was an interesting time to live in. The first time I saw him, I didn't know who he was.
Jumong saw me by chance when I was practising with a sword in a secluded place and began a conversation with me. I quickly understood what he wanted, and what his ambition was, and would drag him to do. The fact that he became the king not only a few years later wasn't anything new. They had been friends since that first meeting, and I helped him silently for years.
Began working at the palace as security and to help him in some way or another. The only one who knew that I was a woman, though, never said anything against it. However, it was not a well-kept secret by the end, as we had a very loving friendship. It wasn't romantic. Even if we slept together and had one another, though he was married.
~…~…~
"You may find your morals shifting, as you assimilate to being ourselves," Isa warned. "You'll live a long life, so there will be times ahead where things shift and meld together to form something new."
Bella nodded and knew that if things shifted, things would change no matter what had happened in the past.
~…~…~
I don't know if you'll have my scars, as I got a couple of them through my lifetime. I have one that goes diagonally across my back, one I got by letting my guard down, something I would never do again. Got it protecting Jumong, and that made our trust in one another deepen. By that point onwards, we trusted one another for sure, and made a name for myself, as their protector.
After his death, I faked my death soon after. I didn't need to go, but I did just to have something else to do, so I did it quietly. Kept an eye on his children, then when he got back, when his grandson Daemusin of Goguryeo became king, I supported him and saved his life like I did his grandfather.
What I didn't do was stay as long with him as I did with his grandfather.
~…~…~
"You'll be happy to know that I've kept the gowns I've owned from any of the countries I've travelled through."
Bella couldn't help but smile when she heard that; she now owns them. It would be interesting to see them.
~…~…~
Then I travelled through China and Mongolia, and during those times I spent a couple of them amongst the supernatural community of Chang'an, and in the Mongolian Peninsula. Here she could explore my talents, and for a while, I was a part of a coven. Xie Coven. Became incredibly good friends with the daughter of the family Xie Lihua.
They quickly understood that I was different, so we spent our time exploring and living with them.
Until something tragic happened, they were wiped out by a rivaling coven that wanted more space, and I felt terrible that I wasn't there to help them, as I had been out together with Lihua. I had to hold her back, and it was agonizing to do it, but she would have been killed if she had gone back in to help.
We sat there for a while, shocked over what had transpired. Then we managed to sneak the bodies out without anyone seeing them and gave them a burial. For a time, I was watching her go about her day. For a while, we just travelled around. It was now that I found out that I could change or turn people. I could turn a cold one or a traditional into a hybrid like me. I wanted to see if it done, and Lihua agreed.
After it was done, we could feel the bond between us as Lihua had to get used to how to drink without killing her meal, and how she found herself stronger than before. That she was more resilient, but she loved the fact that she could go out into the sun without sparkling. The bond between us was of family, as I was her sire. We couldn't go anywhere without one another for that first year, or leave each other, but that didn't matter because we liked helping one another.
By that point in time, I knew clearly what my powers were. I am a sponge; I can copy the powers I've been in contact with. I'll tell you all of them soon.
After that year, I decided to go back into Europe, though, every few hundred years, we met up again and told each other everything that had happened. We were still meeting up when I decided to do this, so I know she has written, so maybe you'll get a letter from her from my lawyer.
I travelled to the Scandinavian countries, like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Each had interesting happenings when I decided to go back to being a teenager again. I got work and immersed myself into the culture.
At that moment, it was 876 AD. The Viking Age, and I settled in Trondheim. I worked on a farm, helping the household. It was just something to occupy my time with, and learned how to do manual tasks, and I lived a calmer life and learned to appreciate the simple life they were living.
It was at that point that I met my second husband, Erik Bjørnson. He was the son of the chief and someone who went out on an expedition to England. We married strategically, as his wife had passed away. I became a surrogate mother to his children. Nevertheless, we had a happy marriage.