She supposed there was some kind of irony in Davina spending her last moments in her family’s tomb but all Sophie could think about was the Deveraux plot, Monique and Jane-Anne’s names permanately etched into the cold gray concrete all because of one girl. Luck be with her, she’d have found the girl alone but there Marcel was, still clinging to the side of the tiny witch like everything he’d built would tumble down if he didn’t have his not-so-secret weapon at his disposal at all times. A clay kindgom for a clay king, she thought with a bitter pang of resentmesnt.
“Its over.” The words are soft but the space is tiny enough that her voice resonates well enough anyway. Still, she doesn’t even realize she’s spoken until the words are out of her mouth and as a beat passes and she views the scene before her with extreme scrutiny it becomes clear that they were not needed; they’re defeated and they know it. She can see it in the glossiness of Davina’s gaze, in Marcel’s slunched shoulders; can feel it in the silence that comes from the Mikaelsons. Even the noble Elijah had sensed it. Deep down she feels the tiniest bit of guilt for interrupting what is clearly a private moment. “I can help you but you have to let me. You’re dying, Davina. You can feel it can’t you? If you go like this you won’t come back and neither will any of the other Harvest kids. Help me end this…Help me finish what was started.”
Quentin stared down at the crumpled body at his feet, unmoved. In the stillness of the graveyard, the faint drip.... drip-drip, of Isaac’s blood was just about audible as it trickled from his throat to the slab of concrete on which his body lay. He couldn’t help but wonder whether his jugular had been slit as he stood, teenage legs made of jello - or whether he’d been tied up like an animal and laid out before the slaughter. Which would hurt more? Did it make a difference?... He wondered also, how long it had taken the boy to die. How deep was the wound? He couldn’t bring himself to touch it. Would it take mere seconds? Seconds’ worth of wriggling around, mouth gaping in silent horror? Or would it take entire minutes?
... Was death a r e l i e f when it finally came, or was it just a new brand of torture?
He couldn’t ask, because the boy was dead. And he didn’t have a a tear to shed as he stared down at the body. Rainfall was wasted on stone and pavement. Litres and litres of it, each month, every year... If the mob had taught him anything, it was that La Familia, La Cosa Nostra - was never safe once you were out. Once you were out, they’d come for you like bloodhounds, they’d shoot you down like a dog in a ditch. But Isaac hadn’t listened; Isaac had made the fatal mistake of thinking they’d forgotten. Quentin had always known better.
Hell of a lot of good it’d done him... Isaac was still dead. He hadn’t been able to prevent that, just as he hadn’t been able to prevent the death of his own humanity, before he’d shifted.
But that was then. This was now. So he turned on his heel and walked out of the graveyard. Returned to the car-park where he’d beaten up a man within an inch of his life (when had that become his modus operandi? How well had it served him, when even now he could feel the latent tremor in his fists, the sweat clinging to his brow as he swallowed back the bile?...) and drove to work. Because that was another thing he’d learned in the Mob; people died, lives came to an end and the planet just kept on spinning. Blind, deaf and dumb. Isaac wasn’t the special exception; none of the Harvest kids were, after-all. They were all just... Dead. It wasn’t until the next morning, just after 5:00am when he got home, that it all came to a stop.
The door slammed shut and silence enveloped him. He had to change. Tucked beneath his uniform and out of sight - his shirt was still spattered with the witch’s blood. But he was tired, and his fingers were still trembling. He fought with the buttons; with the first, the second... Frustration was building, along with the exhaustion laced around his muscles. Tears were smarting in his eyes, but he was holding them back, forcing them at bay. He had no reason to cry - he didn’t d e s e r v e to cry. He’d failed Isaac, hadn’t managed to save the kid’s life. No, he’d barely even tried. He should have gotten him out of that witch’s house, should’ve refused ‘no’ for an answer, fought harder, acted faster, should’ve-... One trembling finger caught in the button-hole of his shirt and he tore at it viciously, cursing in anger. The fabric ripped, all the way down. He didn’t deserve to cry.... But that didn’t stop the tears from falling.
And for the second time that night, he wondered; was death a relief when it finally came, or just a new brand of torture?...
It was with a heavy heart that Egrid left Sophie to her grim task; well, a heavy heart and some relief. They didn’t want to watch the light fade from Isaac’s eyes, nor the young girls who’d need to go through the same trial. His pace wasn’t exactly swift, almost weighed down by what was going to happen. But Sophie had said it would work, it had to work, he needed to keep that hope. Hope was what had sustained him the last few years and now it was finally coming close; the coven would come back, he could have a place amongst them and all would finally be well.
Reaching his worn-down car Egrid drove a street or two away from the cemetery, not wanting to make it too obvious that he was acting as a kind of guard, but the car was too stifling so moments after parking up he stepped out and settled on looking up at the stars; he wasn’t religious by any stretch but right now Egrid was all buy begging the universe itself to see this plan work. He deserved it. Those children deserved to come back. But a niggling thought at the back of his mind reminded him that people were so often denied what they deserved.
He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of someone approaching and turned to face them, hands clasped in front of him and his expression calm, if a little forlorn, he would not be shaken now.
The darkness was immediate and all-enveloping. Elijah Mikaelson’s last moment among the living was startlingly unclear—one second he stood with his family, with Davina Claire in Lafayette Cemetery and then he was ripped from them, lost. Gone were the mouldering tombstones, the faltering wrought iron lights, the lustrous paragon diamond. His unrivalled senses were muted. He could no longer see, hear or feel anything.
Faintly, the whisper of a question flittered through his mind. Was this paralysing anaesthesia a side affect of true death? No, he remembered, he was an Original. He could not be slain. Confusion and fear stained this assertion with uncertainty. In over a thousand years, he’d never experienced such desolate solitude. Slowly, then all at once, time withered. There was no unit with which to measure its passing. It could have been seconds, hours or weeks before a distant voice pierced his oblivion…
Lo, there do I see my father.
Lo, there do I see my mother,
Your sister and your brother.
Elijah yearned to reach into the unknown, to locate its source as the words danced circles in his skull. Father, mother, sister, brother. Father, mother, sister, brother. Again and again until the verse continued.
Lo, they do call to me,
They bid me to take my place among them.
Where the brave shall live forever.
With each passing syllable louder than the next, his heart beat faster until the sound of blood rushing through his ancient veins became devastating. It couldn’t be…
Where thine enemies have been vanquished.
We shall not mourn, but rejoice -
Elijah gasped violently as the darkness unfurled its claws. Splintering floorboards scraped against his cheek as he forced the end of the prayer that woke him past gritted teeth, “For those who have died the glorious death.” As his eyes struggled to open and his limbs, leaden from sleep, pushed upward, memories of the Norse scripture flooded back. Composed by Mikael after his first born was taken by disease, the passages were later appropriated by his wife to honour both her lost children. The vampire hadn’t heard it uttered in a millennia.
“Mother?” He rasped, while his vision rapidly adjusted to their dilapidated surroundings. They were in an apocalyptic version of his drawing room at the Compound… another false reality.
“Don’t look so startled Elijah, it doesn’t become you.” The formidable matriarch waved dismissively, “Besides, we don’t have time for trivialities. You must listen.”
Straightening his suit lapel, Elijah stalked forward until he was mere inches from her. “Release me.” Both carefully articulated words threatened retribution should she deny him. Whatever magic it was that had rendered him unconscious, his siblings were in danger if they too were apart from their bodies.
“For centuries, I’ve been forced to watch you.” Esther rebutted, matching his ire as she stepped forward. “Felt the pain of every victim, suffered while you shed blood. Even you, Elijah, with your claim to nobility, you’re no better. There is a storm coming, dear son. An unrest to rival all others.” Sighing, she continued, “I wholeheartedly believe that one day, you will recompense for your sins, but tonight you must end one more life to save your own.”
When her words sunk in, the room began to shudder. Priceless vases rattled and smashed to the wood below, books snapped their spines as they tumbled, a gilded mirror shattered, fracturing its scene to a million pieces. “Davina Claire WILL be sacrificed!” The witch yelled, grasping her son’s forearms. “The power she stole is too great. No longer will it exist in harmony with our family’s. Heed my warning, or you will all perish.”
Please Elijah!
Before he could refute, the walls gave one last heaving sigh. Glass exploded as the magical plane they inhabited began to disintegrate. In slow motion, tiny slivers shredded his flesh. Blood bubbled to the air like water droplets in deep space. Father, mother, sister, brother. Father, mother…
Coughing, the Original's hands clawed into the clay earth of the Claire crypt. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he was still. A candle’s flame reflected sickly off the sweat beading on his skin. He truly wished not to, but he believed the woman in his vision. If this experiment didn’t work, if the diamond proved to be nothing but a souvenir, Davina Claire would have to die at the hands of the French Quarter Coven. Always and forever depended on it.
Relevant to: @littlestxwitch @niklaus-no-mans-son @bexmikaclson @marcelxthexking @bigmikaelsonsister
Will I grow weary of the sun, remembering what I have done with old mythologies?
How was it that he had been relegated to the role of voice of reason? In his thousand years, he couldn’t remember ever being looked to as the paragon of restraint or levelheadness. Honestly, not a once. And yet here he was.
“Bekah, love, you’ve had scores of truly dreadful ideas over the years, but honestly you’ve outdone yourself this time. Really. I’m actually impressed.” The words were whispered because they stood just outside the gate to Lafayette Cemetery, and while witches didn’t have the same talent for eavesdropping as wolves or vampires, he had no intentions of announcing their presence. Perhaps this Paragon Diamond would work, perhaps his blood would be a powerful enough channel to carry this through, but what he didn’t understand was why it all had to happen in the same bloody place it had started. It was just poetic enough be exactly what a witch had planned.
“The minute we pass that gate we are on their territory. We are supposed to be p r o t e c t i n g her. Not delivering her on a silver platter.” The ‘her’ in question was in a bad way, and Klaus felt the weight of his promise suffocate him with every passing minute. The truth was, he didn’t know what would save Davina. He didn’t know if this would work, and if it did, would it work in time?
Because brothers don’t let each other wander in the dark alone
He was running over the cemetery. Left. Right. Another right. Past a tomb with a particularly creepy angel. Left. He had practically forgotten everything that happened at that whole weird sacrifice ritual. The girls that should have come back to life but didn’t. Sucked for them, but he just wanted to find his brother. When he had finally gotten the directions out of Sophie, he hadn’t waited around. He knew witches and their way of restraining vampires. He knew what he was going to find wasn’t going to be pretty.
Finally he reached the tomb Sophie had pointed out to him. The door was locked, but he didn’t care about that. Was it sacrilege, to destroy someone’s final resting place? Maybe... but they could put that on Sophie’s tab, who had disturbed their peace by turning the grave into a prison for the living. Well, more or less living, at least. He just kicked in the doors, giving himself a few seconds to get used to the dark inside of the tomb, before rushing to his brother who he saw hanging from a marble slab in the back.
He was definitely going to follow Sophie wherever she would run to make her pay for this.
“Stef??” He didn’t even know if he was still alive. He should be, according to Sophie, but he looked out of it. Damon forced the gag out of his brother’s mouth, his fingers hurting from the vervain it was laced with, but that didn’t matter right now.
It didn’t take Derek long to find her after the howl sounded through the wind. Stiles’ text providing the location confirmed his direction, that he was following the right path. Hayley never left his side, tracking his sister with him as if she were part of her own pack. When they arrived at the mansion he shuddered, the sight of its exterior enough to make his skin crawl. “You go in, I’ll case the outside...” Hayley’s words were low, audible only to his ears. He gave a single nod in response, glancing at her one last time before heading inside...
Walking through the rooms, his desperation growing by the minute. She was close, he could sense her...if only he could find her. The further he went, the more empty rooms he found until finally, he caught a different scent. One all too familiar to him. Rounding a corner he saw her, a brunette of a different kind. “Jennifer? What are you doing here?” Confusion furrowed his brow as he approached, had she lost someone too? “Have you seen Cora?”
