Once the spell is complete, when the spectacle ends, Niklaus is all but unconscious.
Elijah cannot tear his eyes from his brother, not even as the family begins to dissipate, their attention no longer drawn.
Mikael storms into the forest, presumably to hunt for his next meal. He carries no weapons anymore, as he can rip apart anything he likes with his bare hands. (He has ripped apart their whole lives, especially Niklaus's, in just a matter of days with his foolish pride and rash demands.)
Esther extinguishes the massive bonfire, carefully keeping her gaze fixed on the herbs and spellwork gathered at her feet. She will not look at her son, hanging limp from his bonds.
Rebekah would have run to free him long ago had Finn not held her back. Now that he has released her, she darts to Niklaus's side in an instant, slender arms pulling apart the chains that hold him upright. He collapses to the ground like a felled stag. His arms barely fly out to catch him before he falls face first into the soil.
Elijah cannot bring himself to approach them, especially when Klaus shrugs off his sister's comfort, turning his body away from her. Tears spill down her cheeks as she stands to leave.
If he doesn't want Rebekah, he certainly won't want Elijah.
Niklaus remains slumped at the foot of the wooden rack constructed by their father—rather, Elijah's father. Mikael shares no blood with Niklaus. The disgraced son, Esther's secret finally laid bare, has paid the price for his mother's sin. He stares at her, longing evident in his empty face. Yet she keeps her back to him, diligently disposing of the evidence of her dark deed.
The sky slowly lightens, and after a time, Elijah cannot bear to keep his distance. His brother is displayed for all to see, facing shame and humiliation—and the added pain of isolation.
Elijah approaches Klaus with an air of caution. The way one would approach a wounded animal, a dangerous predator.
The dim light preceding dawn makes no difference to their eyes anymore. Elijah can see in excruciating detail that their mother's spell has not been kind to Niklaus. Blood trails from his eyes, from his nose, from his fingers where, not three moons ago, claws had sprouted. His pale skin is flayed raw, reddened, the way the sun burns them all without a ring. The whites of his eyes, which glowed yellow that first terrible night, are now seared red, as though hot oil has dripped in them.
Perhaps it did. Elijah didn't watch very closely. After doing the unthinkable and helping his father restrain Niklaus, he did his best to block out the chanting, the intersecting screams, Rebekah's tearful pleas.
He kneels next to Niklaus's crumpled form, not daring to lay a hand on him. Elijah is silent for a beat. Listens to his brother's breathing, loud and ragged in the quiet. "Niklaus."
His answering whisper is brittle, hoarse, barely audible. "Brother."
The single word causes a cascade to echo in Elijah's memory. Of Niklaus pleading, eyes desperate and voice wild with fright. Pleading with Elijah. Brother don't let them do this to me please.
Help me.
He had not.
There are no words of comfort he can offer, no balm for his role in this terrible deed. So they sit without speaking.
Niklaus breaks the thick silence first. "She won't even look at me."
Esther still busies herself at the fire pit, just out of earshot. She has not even glanced toward them. Has not acknowledged what she has done to her son.
"How..." Elijah swallows the lump in his throat. "How are you...how do you feel?"
Don't let them do this to me.
Niklaus lifts one hand. It trembles like an old man's. "As if I haven't eaten for a week. I...I thirst. Even after..."
Lurid red stains his lower lip, a dried stream tracing down his chin. "She made me drink it. The...blood." He barely breathes the last word.
This affliction they have each been cursed with, the demon's hunger they feel, terrifies them too much to speak of it—or how many they have already killed, unable to resist the sweet, sweet siren call.
"There was so much. She wouldn't let me stop. I felt I would be sick." The words flow more freely now, as Niklaus finds his voice again. It wavers as a new thought comes to him. "Who?"
The same has just occurred to Elijah. Where did their mother procure so much human blood, enough to fill Niklaus entirely? How did she fill the blood with enough magic to bind his body for all eternity?
Then it comes to him, a horrifying thought. The boy wandering about the village the day before, asking for his mama. The small child had no father, only a sweet, beautiful mother—whom no one could find. The girl who, two days ago, stumbled upon a scene of carnage in the woods, a secret Esther worked hard to protect.
The girl whose mystical blood is often mentioned by Ayana, with wonder and reverence.
A cold dread seizes him.
"Gods above," Elijah murmurs. "No. It can't be. She would not."
He meets the younger man's questioning gaze with dreaded certainty. "Tatia."
Niklaus's breath chokes as the revelation washes over him. One trembling hand brushes the dry blood lingering on his lips—the blood of Tatia. Tatia, whose lips he has tasted many times, Tatia, who danced with great joy on the night of Samhain.
Tatia, whose words reverberate in Elijah's mind, words Niklaus did not hear. I choose you, Elijah.
Their mother has murdered the girl they both love.
"She...I drank...her..." Niklaus covers his bloodstained mouth in horror. "I did not know. She made me." He nearly whimpers the feeble plea—nothing can cleanse his soul of the knowledge they have deduced. Nothing will absolve him of the torment now surely burning inside.
"Father made her do this," Elijah says softly. "You must not blame her."
He knows what he says has a veiled meaning, a second, more selfish petition of pardon. Mikael had forced him, too.
Brother don't let them. please. help me.
Niklaus has not forgotten. "And what of you?" he hisses. "Am I to forgive you, for your part?" His eyes darken red in anger, the same flash of warning that appears before he feeds.
This time, though, it is different. The red spills over, more blood leaking from his sockets. It paints his face into an inhuman mask. He gasps in pain at the sensation. His hands press to his face, coming away streaked in crimson.
"Brother." Elijah lays a hand on his shoulder. The curse has left Niklaus weak indeed.
"I...I..." Niklaus holds out his hands, inspecting them. "I am not...whole."
Esther throws one more handful of dirt on the smoking remains of the fire and turns to leave. Her head is bowed; not a glance is spared toward Niklaus.
"I feel hollow. Empty. Like a part of me has been...torn away."
Elijah listens with bated breath.
"Except...I never knew. I never knew it existed. That part of me. And now it's gone, forever, and I am weak." His voice breaks on the last word.
"Listen to me," Elijah entreats him, turning him by the shoulder to look him in the eye. "You are not weak, Niklaus. You are not."
Niklaus stares into his brother's face with a haunted gaze, searching for answers Elijah does not have. A single tear slips from one eye, marred red by the blood trailing down before it.
Despite the beastlike mask of blood, despite having long since reached manhood, all Elijah can see in Niklaus is a lost and broken child, wanting promises of safety and happiness. Elijah has none.
Still, he tries.
"The spell will halt your...the transformation. Won't it?"
That night is seared into the forefront of Elijah's mind, of standing helpless, listening, watching. Seeing his brother crumple on the forest floor as his limbs gave way one by one. Wanting to run to him, rather than leave him to break, to turn inside out, all alone. Hearing his agonized screams What is happening to me Father it hurts.
So great was his pain that he had called to Mikael, who had hurt him more than anything on this earth.
"You will not feel that pain again, will you?" He might live with himself, if his brother is spared another full moon of agony.
"I...I don't know." Niklaus bares his teeth, exposing the long, pointed canines that still cause Elijah's stomach to twist with discomfort. "There's a different pain now. A...a hole."
"A hole?"
"Like something is missing." Niklaus bows his head, exhausted or ashamed, Elijah cannot tell. He draws in a deep breath, the trembling, hitching noise sounding suspiciously like a sob.
Elijah moves his hand to the back of Niklaus's neck, squeezing lightly to comfort him with this familiar gesture.
Niklaus has lost so much in so little time. His world, his very self, has imploded—collapsed completely. Elijah needs him to know that this, them, at least, has not changed.
So engrossed are they in each other that they do not hear his approach. "What are you still doing here, boy? Get up." Mikael spits the word boy like a curse. His mouth drips with the blood of some creature—man or beast, Elijah cannot tell.
Niklaus recoils at the sound of his voice. He stares up at the man who is not his father, fear in his eyes but mouth set in defiance.
"On your feet. You are fixed, yet you sprawl in the dirt like some idle wastoid. Elijah," he says dismissively. "Get him up."
"Leave him be, Father." Elijah works hard to keep his voice firm. Too often he crumbles under Mikael's looming menace.
Blood rushes to fill Mikael's eyes. "I said," he repeats in a barely contained snarl, "Get. Him. Up."
Head bowed, Niklaus brushes off Elijah's protective arm. He rises to his knees, attempting to stand on his own. His legs will not support him, though, and he falls on his older brother, falls straight into his arms.
"What, Niklaus," Mikael sneers as Elijah throws Niklaus's arm over his shoulders, holding him upright. "You have been imbued with the strongest of dark magic, banished the beast from your soul, yet you cannot stand on your own two feet? Are you truly so weak?"
"Father!" Elijah raises his voice, holding one hand out toward Mikael in a cautionary gesture. "No more," he very nearly pleads. "No more." It takes every ounce of resolve to hold his father's gaze, as Mikael's eyes blaze with bloodlust.
Niklaus clings to Elijah's arm, swaying on his feet. No matter his age, no matter what he has seen or endured, Niklaus becomes a quivering animal near Mikael, nothing but trapped prey waiting for the deathblow.
Mikael surveys the two younger men, bloodstained mouth twisting with disgust. "You will be the ruin of us all," he spits as he lopes away.
As soon as Mikael has turned his back, Niklaus's legs buckle beneath him. He falls to his knees, pulling Elijah with him. His hands lock around Elijah's forearms with the desperation of holding on for one's life.
"Pay him no mind, brother," Elijah murmurs. He braces his body against Niklaus's, helping him to stand again.
Niklaus's whole body shudders with the effort. One hand seizes Elijah's shoulder, fingers pinching into his bones to the point of pain. "Elijah. I—I cannot."
You are weak, Mikael snarls.
"Come," Elijah says. "Perhaps if we...if you...sate your thirst, you will...regain your strength." He cannot say the dreaded word, what Niklaus craves. What they both crave.
Niklaus breathes in deeply, painfully. "Yes."
There is a moment of uncertainty as they each take one step in different directions. One toward the forest, and one toward their village, back toward their neighbors, who are no doubt waking with the sun.
...
In the coming days, Niklaus indeed regains his strength. His bloodlust seems to magnify, as does his desire to prove to Mikael that he is not weak.
Though the surrounding woods teems with animals, full of blood, all of them fall prey to their hunger for the blood of man.
More than anything, anger drives them to slaughter. And his brother is certainly angry. Soon Elijah does not know who has killed more, Mikael or Niklaus.
Can you still feel it, brother? The hole?
Not while I am feeding.
With the next full moon comes the revelation that Niklaus does not, in fact, escape the pain of transformation. Bound by their mother's spell, his body does not change—yet Elijah finds him curled underneath a tree. His teeth are locked on his lip to quiet the anguished whimpers that coincide with the twitching spasms racking his body.
This curse had not freed him from the shame, the torture, Elijah realizes. He is only bound in appearance, in form.
The next morning Niklaus goes to confront their mother.
Their village lies decimated, those who have survived fleeing to safety. Yet Mikael's rage cannot be tamed.
That's when Niklaus brings them news of the murder that is unforgivable.
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