Sometimes, when it's an amethyst dusk, she'll sit by her windowsill and drink that ancient bourbon, swiped from the countertop of a duke long ago. She'll watch the sun sink beneath the hilly horizon line, casting shadows in its wake; she'll laugh at the notion of riding off into a spinning orb of fire. Because what is 'happily ever after' anyhow? In technicality she knows it's a phrase coined by Hans Christian Anderson who overheard a woman say it while in conversation at the market but still, she wonders, what does it really even mean?
Receiving your prince? Vanquishing the evil queen? Rescuing your friends? Or simply not dying? To live another day? Seeing death and destruction but knowing that despite everything, you're part of the few who made it out alive?
She snorts at that last thought - the Grimm Brothers certainly knew reality better than Anderson and Disney ever did. Because 'happily ever after' is a poor notion; what happens when this picture perfect ending simply ends? What will one do then? Find another 'happily ever after' to sink into before that too vanishes in the moonlight? And what happens when one has lived out a million 'happily ever afters' only to find that their true happiness has eluded them all the while?
She thinks she knows romance, actually, she knows it quite well. She has been wooed and has wooed, she has been courted and pampered. Has been wined and dined by princes of the highest caliber and paupers of the poorest fields. She knows what romance is - a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.
Love.
What a simple word.
What a simple meaning.
Love: an intense feeling of deep affection; a person or thing that one loves; to feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.
There. That is love.
So why has it escaped her for so long, she wonders as she tilts the bottle to her lips. Drinking the amber colored liquid down with large, greedy gulps; allowing the liquid to leak from the corners of her mouth, down to her jaw and neck. She doesn't need to be neat today, she thinks, she has no one to put on a show for.
All her props and sets are put away - there is no production today! No production, no cinema extravagance for her to exude.
They are all gone, anyhow, she remembers. There's no need for her to play any role today; she hasn't touched her scripts nor has she even inquired about ad-libbing. Because there is no one in the audience - no one has come to see the show.
She's not even in Mystic Falls anymore. The tiny little town had disappeared behind her as she sped away in a stolen BMW, afraid that someone would come and try to end her now that she is vulnerable.
She blames her understudy.
Blasted bitch, she reels in her mind, fucking narcissistic whore! Her mind screams again and she can't help but agree - the little understudy with her big brown eyes and sweet smile…stealing away her immortality. Stealing away the very life she has known for the past five hundred years. What has she to live for now? With all the enemies she's made…all the lives she's had to destroy…all the collateral damage that will now come back to bite in her ass.
Her life is timed now - her shows have a limit placed on them. There are only so many she can do, before her fuel runs out. She feels like some sort of aging stage actress even though she's perfectly healthy and beautiful now - still only eighteen years old - but she feel her bones already decaying, her skin losing its glow. Her eyes are duller and her hair is lank; she has no energy to sparkle now - and even if she did, no one would come see her glow.
They're all gone.
She's a woman with a show but no crowd to cheer her on.
The vindictive bitch is gone - she's been dealt too many blows already.
The lost country girl has died - she died many years ago.
The sympathetic ally has been burned at the stake - the Salvatore brothers would suffer, she furiously notes, but then again…she is only human now.
The clever manipulator is still somewhere inside her (now fragile) body - still trying to edge its way back into the waters since the tsunami has drowned it.
But these are all the roles she's played in her life - she knows these women. Katherine Pierce. Katerina. Kat. Miss Pierce…she knows these roles. She'd built them up and trained for them with the dedication of a concert pianist - she knows how to slip into each persona with relative ease.
But how in the good lords name is she to play just Katherine?
Who is this vague, mysterious name that has somehow appeared on the sounding board? Who is she?
Another swig of the bottle, a few more droplets leaking out.
She gets drunk much faster now that her vampiric metabolism is gone.
Stuck away in little Maryland, she sighs resentfully. Everybody's gone…no one wants to see a fallen actress, no one wants to watch the show.
Even he's gone.
"Goodbye, Katerina," he murmurs, his face close to hers and his dark eyes shining.
Her hands are shaking as his fingertips trail her cheek - petal soft and oh-so-warm - his eyes memorizing each curve of her face, as if burning it into his memory.
"Don't go," and she hates how pathetic she sounds but she's already thrown all dignity to the gutter. She clutches at his hand with her own and tries to communicate wordlessly, hoping for once - just once - he won't be so damn noble.
That he won't go chasing after his loose cannon, psychotic brother and leave her all alone. Again. Not again.
When she looks up at him once more, his eyes are unreadable but his lips are upturned, in the saddest smile that she's ever seen.
"Please," she whispers, "just…don't leave. Forget about being noble for once, forget about all this sacrificing that you think you have to do…" she trails off, forcing herself not to tremble. "Run away with me."
She guzzles down the last bit of bourbon before falling back unto the love-seat she's perched on. Head slamming against the silk exterior and a dazed, almost blank look in her eye; she hiccups once or twice before the bottle rolls from her fingertips. It clinks onto the ground and she curls her knees up to her chest, ignoring the way her stomach is churning.
Who cares, anyway?
He tilts his head down, as if ready to kiss her lips, and then…then at the last minute, she closes her eyes only to feel a pressure upon her forehead.
Before she even has the chance to open her eyes again, she knows he's gone.
She hears the soft billow of wind from his vampiric speed, can smell the faintest whiffs of him slowly dissipating from the air.
She smiles a smile with no cheer.
He's gone.
When the morning dawn breaks, she feels warmth on her skin. She doesn't open her eyes, hoping for it to all go away.
She has a hefty bank account - five hundred years of fortune tucked away all over the world - and she has a calculating little mind: she'll make it in the world again.
But she then rolls down onto the ground, forgetting (or perhaps remembering) the empty bourbon bottle lying there.
It's only when the shards pierce her skin and the blood rolls down her back does she feel alive once more.
She's ruddy cheeked and her eyes are bright when she seats herself down. Her dark green skirts sweeping the stone bench on the courtyard belonging to the Lords (plural, you see, plural) Mikaelson.
She gives a sunny smile up toward the elder brother - he's all dark hair and mocha eyes - so very different from the blonde, blue eyed courtier that is his sibling.
They talk.
About love.
And Katerina cannot help but question his younger brother's motives. The blue eyed Lord Mikaelson does not care for her - even she is not blind to that - but he still reverently marks her as his.
"I know not why he courts me," she suddenly says, "he seems to not care about me at all." It's her headstrong nature taking charge again. She's opened her mouth to apologize when she sees the elder Lord Mikaelson smile.
"Many a union has been built on much less." He responds; there is a soft, mysterious smile on his lips and it arouses her curiosity.
And her ire.
"Is it wrong to want more?" Her eyes are big and hopeful and she senses a weariness that suddenly surrounds the Lord Mikaelson.
Making his way towards her, he gently sit down, hands brushing some of her gown away so he would not crinkle it.
"Did you have more with Trevor?" He finally inquires, and the question startles her.
"Trevor believes that he loves me," she begins. She knows the words that will flow next from her lips will make him speak false truth. "But true love is not real unless it's returned. Do you agree?"
"I do not believe in love, Katerina." He responds. He lies. Falsehood.
She can see it in the way his eyes avert down, the way his posture turns rigid.
A sad smile appears upon her pretty face.
"That is too sad for me to accept, my lord." She murmurs, "life is too cruel. It we cease to believe in love, why would we want to live?"
Why indeed, she thinks as she lies on the ground. Dark green glass shards edging deeper and deeper into her back.
If we cease to believe in love, why would we want to live?
A/N: Elijah and Katerina. Like I said, trying to strip down the wordiness - I hope I succeeded! The conversation from the italicized scene is actually the real scene shared by Elijah and Katerina in the season two episode of 'Klaus'.
I don't usually ship Elijah/Katerina but you know, after I re-watched 'American Gothic' I felt some sympathy for the poor girl (although I don't think I really succeeded in giving her a happy ending...hehe...)
But Katerina/Katherine is no doubt one of my FAVORITE characters (apart from Klaus)!
Leave a review, please.