Oh, it's been a while. Unfortunately, after I last posted the 3rd chapter in November I was dealt some life altering news and struggled to find sufficient inspiration following that. But, as humans we're adaptable and life moves right along. So let's move along. Few updates here and there have been made to the previous three chapters, not super necessary so read at your own discretion. We will see an end to this. Eventually.
"Savor kindness. Cruelty is always possible later."
Jenny Holzer
1487
The World is spinning. She can't exactly comprehend why the World is spinning, but the World spins nonetheless. Death watches on in confusion, already lost in the situation she finds herself in. Giving the Emperor a worried sideways glance, Death finds that his lip it too curled in displeasure while the World spins.
"What fresh hell are you doing now?" he asks, but the World only leans her head back to inform him that it's all part of the ceremony.
"That's right, it's all part of the ceremony," Death hisses when the World pulls out a large blade and gestures for their wrists. The Emperor could kill her, might actually before the day was over, but Death would welcome it at this rate. She'd dealt with full blown crazy for years now, but this was taking it to a new level.
She hisses when the Emperor's bloodied wrist presses against hers, the magic binding them together. It twists a searing path up her arm, winding itself around her heart. His face remains impassive, but she knows he feels it too. She makes sure to give him an especially angry glare.
"One to bind them and one to rule them," the World mutters, painting her own blood on Death, "one to bring balance and one to bring truth." Death isn't sure how much blood paints her skin now, only that it belongs to herself and 20 other people.
"Is all of this necessary?" The Emperor asks, but the World only hushes him and smears more blood from shoulder to shoulder. She moves around him, smearing Death's blood down his back, humming a discordant melody as she went.
"You wanted loyalty," she accuses, "you wanted an army that would be unmatched."
"Yes, well, this really isn't how I expected it to go," he whines.
"I'll second that assessment," Death agrees, watching while the World binds their wrists with a frown. The white strip of fabric is quickly dyed red. This whole process is deeply unsettling and she's ready for it to be over.
"Two birds, one stone," the World shrugs. "The Spirits demanded a new Arcana, you want power and loyalty. It was simply an intersection of interests."
Death levies a weary stare at the Emperor. He was the one that got them into this after all. She'd suggested a complex web of compulsion, but he'd heard of a powerful witch in Galta that he just had to have. Of course, the witch had come with the price of blood magic and an eternal bond in return for power.
If there were two things the Emperor couldn't resist it was loyalty and power. As his spymaster, Death had no voice with which to express her dissenting opinion. Or well, she did, but was promptly ignored if he had even listened at all. She didn't trust blood magic, but here she was. Bleeding into the Emperor's open wound.
Never mind that blood magic was strictly forbidden, something that everyone in the room was all aware of. Even the witches that dabbled in the darkest of magics didn't touch the blood magic. It was so often unreliable and had a particularly terrifying way of twisting your words. Oh yes, Death thought, she'd be hard-pressed to destroy all record of it, but it'd be well worth the cost in the end.
"I'm sorry, but I fail to see where my interests intersect with either of yours," the Tower points out, silent up until now.
"Sorry, mate," the Emperor grins, "you were just a victim of coincidence." Death rolls her eyes at the Emperor, if the Tower was a victim of coincidence, then what they hell was she? A victim of loyalty? If this process wasn't binding her to the Emperor entirely, she had half a mind to go walk into a stake and end it all. Served him right for all the bullshit he'd subjected her to over the past week.
"Balance," the World argues, "you were needed for balance. The Spirits chose you for this task." Death can feel Justice's blood dripping down her back, mingling with her own and making the slow trail down her spine. She can feel Justice's eyes following that trail where her back faces him.
"Bit of a shit task, if you ask me," the Tower grumbles, but the World ignores him and ties his bleeding wrist to Death's.
"If it makes you feel any better, less than half of us actually agreed to this," Death tells him. She knows the Hierophant was going to be pissed when he woke up, and the Magician would be unhappy initially to hear it had been done without his consent. The World continues humming her odd song, binding them all in their own blood.
"It doesn't," the Tower tells her glumly. She immediately marks him as a bit of a sad sack. Exactly who she wanted to be tied to for the rest of eternity, how excellent for her. The Emperor's glare could melt ice, perhaps too realizing exactly what he'd done.
"Wait, you said 22, correct? There are only 21 of us here," Death pauses to look around the room. And there are, only 21 people scatter the dark room, covered in blood and in various states of undress. You'd think it have been a violent orgy with the way it looked, but unfortunately, no such pleasure had occurred.
"The High Priestess is with us in spirit," the World explains, bringing on a fresh new wave of complaints from the other three. It was to be a long night indeed.
2015
Caroline flips the grimoire closed and sets her head on it with a heavy thunk. They'd found nothing so far, not even with Bonnie's new set of super ancient grimoires, and she was totally going to kill Damon and Alaric. If the Franken-monster didn't kill them first.
They should have seen it coming, honestly. It had been a fairly quiet year once the whole Jo dying and Elena settling into a coma thing had cleared up a little. It still sucked, and she felt really bad for poor Alaric, but it was also really nice not to have something or someone trying to kill them. Caroline had been determined to make the most of their creepy supernatural mastermind free lives for a while, but then all of that happened.
"Wait a second," Bonnie finally speaks up and Caroline lifts her head. "Have you heard anything about the Arcana Twenty Two? Or, Arcana X-X-I-I, it's in roman numerals."
"Doesn't ring any immediate bells," she answers, "why, what's it say?"
"It's a reference to the tarot, but this passage is referring to it like it's a group or something. They formed in 1487 and are apparently the supernatural justice league or something, committed to keeping the balance," Bonnie's eyes skim the couple short paragraphs.
"Ok, the Justice League is probably our best lead at this point. Did you say 1487?" Bonnie nods. Groaning, Caroline wonders how the hell they're going to track down a group of people from 1487.
"I really hate to do this Care, but I think we're at option Z at this point. Klaus was the only one alive then and since you two are so close..." Bonnie trails off and Caroline lets her head thunk back onto the grimoire.
"Oh my god, you're never going to let that go," she whines, "and anyway, do you think Klaus would have anything to do with a supernatural justice league? I mean, a. he's a psycho killer and b. I'm pretty sure he's the least committed to the balance."
At the end of the day though, Klaus wasn't going to resurrect an ancient immortal witch even though the Other Side had been completely destroyed, because duh, the guy wasn't going to come back right in the head. Like seriously, this stuff isn't rocket science. And she really shouldn't have to give Klaus points for not doing something completely stupid like that, but here she was, adding another tick to the pro column.
"Look, I think these guys are going to be our answer, whatever the hell they are. We just need to find them," Bonnie pushes the grimoire toward Caroline, who gives the paragraph a quick once over. It really didn't have any more information than the name and the year.
"I'm going to guess you can't do a tracking spell?" Caroline winces, giving Bonnie a hopeful look, but the girl just shakes her head.
"You gotta call him, Care. I'm the last person who would tell you that, so you know you have to. I'll let you talk it out in private while I try Enzo again," Bonnie stands and stacks the books up before heading to her room. After the death of her mom and the weirdness with Bonnie's family, the two girls had moved into the boarding house. Not exactly ideal, especially after that super awkward kiss with Stefan a few months back, but anything was better than her own house.
Damon was mostly in a drunken stupor somewhere else, Stefan had taken to lurking god knows where, and Alaric was constantly buried in a book. One night over another dinner at the Grill, Bonnie had made a comment about their lives being better when Klaus was tormenting them and the really scary part was that she wasn't wrong.
Caroline relents after groaning toward the ceiling and letting out a few courage building sighs, picking up her phone and finding DO NOT CALL in her contacts.
"Caroline?" He didn't even make it to the second ring, she wasn't sure to be worried or impressed. "Is everything alright? You're not hurt are you?" Nope, she's just going to ignore that warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach, that's exactly what she's going to do.
"Hey, Klaus," oh my god, did she always sound so awkward? Giving herself a mental slap, she continues, "I'm fine, I promise. Well, fine-ish, it's a bit of a mess here, I'm not going to lie," her laugh sounds stilted to even her own ears.
"I suspect this isn't a social call from your tone," his tone had cooled considerably, "but how can I be of assistance?" Great, now she felt like shit. Klaus was totally not going to guilt her about not calling him after the whole incident in the woods. And he was supposed to be some great lothario, honestly.
"You got me," she admits with a sigh, "Damon and Alaric have done something incredibly stupid and in an effort to fix it, Bonnie wanted me to ask you about something she read in a grimoire."
"Are you ever going to learn that it isn't your responsibility to clean up their messes, Caroline?" He tuts quietly.
"One day, hopefully. Unfortunately this mess happens to be a bit bigger than my not taking responsibility."
"If they cause you any harm and I get word of it, and you know I will, sweetheart, the consequences will be dire," he tells her assuredly. Nope, Caroline thinks, ignore the butterflies, they don't exist. "So what did your witch friend read that you think I can help with?"
"It was something called the Arcane XXII? Or Arcana, the Arcana XXII," Caroline reads off her notes. She really would have taken Latin in school if she'd known how much of it she was going to have to read. There's no noise on the other end suddenly, and she's worried the call dropped. The boarding house had the absolute worst reception. "Hello? Klaus?"
"Where did you hear that name?" His voice cuts through the phone and she almost drops it out of surprise. The sudden shift in tone was alarming and she wasn't sure she'd ever heard him sound so terrifying before. "Caroline, I need you to answer me, where did you hear that fucking name?"
"Geeze, Klaus, no need to curse. It was in one of the grimoires Bonnie has," her voice comes out shakier than she intends and she hears more cursing from the other end.
"I told you I wouldn't come back the last time I left, I promised. I need you to give me permission to come back to that god forsaken town, Caroline, and I need it now."
"Klaus, you're scaring me," she responds hesitantly.
"You should be scared, Caroline Forbes, you and your little gang should be very afraid if you've awakened something that requires Arcana XXII. I need your permission, now," his voice leaves no room for argument and Caroline squeaks a tiny quiet ok.
"I will be there as soon as I can, Caroline, I promise. I just...for the love of all that's good Caroline, stay safe. I swear if anything…" the line cuts off midway through his sentence and she doesn't have to wonder what he was going to say next.
"Bonnie?" Caroline calls out, waiting until she heard her friend pad into the dining room. Bonnie could hear part of the conversation, but she's alarmed when Caroline is still standing shell shocked with her phone gripped fiercely in her hand. "Bonnie, we fucked up," Caroline's voice is almost hollow. "You should have heard him, I don't…"
"Hey, hey," she reaches her arms around her friend, "it's alright, we can fix it. Klaus will help us fix it." Caroline can hear Bonnie's words, but they don't compare to the raw fear infused in Klaus' tone. He'd been angry before, and hurt. She was sure she'd even seen him a little freaked out, but this was a whole other level. Caroline finally felt like she was grasping the gravity of the situation.