Title: Two Sisters Of Persephone
Summary: She feels it, sometimes: a chill against her cheek, the feel of fingertips in the hollows of her throat, a whisper of a name in her ear. It slithers down her spine and she shivers, the memory of rainwater and vibrancy dancing into ash on her tongue. She wonders if this is what it means to be haunted.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. The title is borrowed from Ms. Sylvia Plath.
The air she drags into her lungs is dusty and tastes just a touch too much of deliberation; a memory of light and life and pink, pink petals that catches in her chest. It threatens to steal her grace and send her sprawling to the cave's floor under the weight of the thump, thump, thump in her ears.
When she breathes out, she's calculated and composed, a huff of a past passed through her disappearing frown, and there's silence (nothing) once more.
The blood that slips from his wrist is warm on her tongue as the last word he'll ever speak slips from his lips. The echo of realization and defiance that colors his voice would send her features sliding into a smile if they weren't already arranged so.
"Katherine."
"It's been too long, Little Gilbert." Hatred and humanity wage a war resplendent before her; she flushes with the thrill. His fight is futile, but her eyes dance as she drinks him in. She tightens her hold and feels fragility and fear like a challenge beneath her fingertips. She could shatter the pieces in his arm if she wanted, if she wished; listen to them sing as they splinter and submit to her will. Such is what it means to be mortal.
Another time, perhaps. She still (always) has work to do.
When she seizes the flutter of his pulse between her teeth, this is what she tastes:
Smoke. Venom. The solemn melody of the Other Side, lingering and calling. Rainwater and fine wine and one hundred thousand unrealized possibilities, fragmenting and refracting and bright like a kaleidoscope. Compassion. Iron. Anger alight. The hum of a scream as it rattles to the surface, the salt of a day spent in the sun, the thrum of magic, ancient and new. Her favorite lilies. Grief. And beneath it all, intoxicating, unyielding vibrancy.
She leaves nothing but imprints in the soil and miles in her wake; she's long gone before the body of Jeremy Gilbert disturbs the dirt as it falls, his cries and the crunch of bone as it breaks, like a lament, roaring in her ears as she runs.
She goes from place, to place, to place, transitory until she thinks she'll go mad with it. Small towns (she never stays long enough to learn their names). Big cities. In the mountains, in the suburbs, by the cliffs and the sea. When she finally finds a place to close her eyes, darkness is not all that she sees.
She dreams of the warmth of the earth, feet bare and red rushing into her cheeks as she's chased. She dreams of childish games of hiding and seeking, heart racing as she races the wind until she's breathless. She dreams of lilies tucked behind her ear and skirts spread about as she lies in the grass, the sound of her laugh like bells on the breeze. She dreams of flying and twirling and singing under the clear blue sky. She dreams of the man who once asked her if she'd believed in love. She inhales life and light, Katerina for a moment.
And then she dreams of another boy, a different name on his lips and a question in his dark, dark eyes.
She wakes with a start, exhales away the last vestiges of the sun on her face and flowers in her hair and dark eyes dancing across her skin, and is Katherine once more.
(It's the first time she sees his face behind her closed eyes. It will not be the last.)
Weeks later and a corner turned somewhere in a pretty little middle-of-nowhere town, she blinks twice against the image of him languid against a streetlamp. Amber light collides with the angles of his jaw, long lashes casting shadows on the swells of his cheeks.
(If she thinks about it later, she'll find it odd the way his lips were upturned in amusement, taunting – not at all how she remembers them screaming before her, life held in her hands. Not at all.)
Blood still drying across her mouth and still (always) thirsty, she blinks again and he's gone. She tires quickly of this place, of the scent of smoke and salt virulent on the air, of the blue and green stones in the sidewalks and the reds and yellows of the buildings that shine in the sun.
(She's never liked bright things, anyway.)
Shame, she thinks, later and farther away; she could have drained that city dry.
"Katherine."
Nothing profound, for a choice of last words, and yet, she thinks, it is.
She decorates in browns and blacks and grays. She rids the rooms of their striped pillows and patterned rugs, rearranges the books on their shelves, takes the pictures from their frames and hangs monochrome prints against the stark white walls instead. She leaves the curtains open during the day and doesn't bother with locking the door at night. She fills the fish tank with water and her hands burn as the vervain settles along the sand. The plants she places next to the glass are fake, the only spot of color forever frozen in their blood red blooms.
It isn't home (it never is), but it'll do nicely for now.
As dawn turns to day and day turns to dusk, she looks to the dirt beyond her window and banishes the thoughts of lilies and petals and the sweet scent of blossoms crushed beneath her feet from her mind. She's been many things over the years – a lady in waiting, a traveler, a student, a teacher, a keeper of time in the time in between, a deadly thing (and once upon a time, all but presumed dead), but she'll never again be a peasant girl playing in the grass, not ever.
(In every place there's a place that reminds her she's only once had a place to call home.)
She feels it, sometimes, as she wakes from dreams of sun and flight and dark, shadowy tombs. As her heels click on the cobblestone in the town square. As she stares out into the night from her window, curtains billowing without the breath of a breeze. As she circles the smooth expanse of an offered wrist, and after, when she's had her fill and her lips are painted a pretty, glittering red. And most, when she fills her chest with cold morning air.
A chill against her cheek, the feel of fingertips in the hollows of her throat, the subtle shift of her hair as it stands at the base of her neck; a whisper of a name in her ear, soft and lovely and coaxing, not at all defeated, a sigh laden with promise and regret. It slithers down her spine and she shivers, the memory of rainwater and vibrancy dancing into ash on her tongue.
(Perhaps it's the wind; perhaps she's seen (made) far too many ghosts not to believe in them.)
It doesn't take long for Elena to find her. Sometimes, she thinks they live in a circle, that all of them – the doppelgangers, the Salvatore brothers, the Original family and everyone in between – have no choice but to find their ways back to each other, no matter the distance they put between them; victims of some grand design century after century for all their long, long immortal lives. Today, the thought makes her want to scream.
"What? No 'I'm here to avenge my annoying little brother' speech?" It is in her nature to scratch and scathe, and push her opponent until they hurt or hold. The years have not been kind to her, and she has not been kind in years. Yet where there should be grief or hatred or woe, she sees nothing, black when in its place should be color and light.
How interesting.
(Later, when she speaks his name aloud to Elijah, she feels electricity in the air, a gaze at her back. When she whirls around, she's met with only the empty alleyway and wonders if this is what it means to be haunted.)
She thinks she sees his reflection once, tilted toward her own in the glassy surface of a lake she'd stopped at on the way out of town.
She fills the water with stones until she sees nothing but ripples, like spidery lines, reaching out their never ending circles toward her.
Red is all she sees as she tears through town after town on her way back to Elena. The haze clears only for a moment; by chance or design her vision fills with gray, letters etched in well worn black, white lilies lazy while they wilt. The stone is cold beneath her fingertips, nails catching in the carvings.
Perhaps it's a thought, perhaps it's a whisper. It slides across her skin like something alive, fills her with agony and anguish and something like regret. She goes cold.
"Don't."
And then she stands straight and tall and says to the sky: "Enough." She gives her head a shake (she still has work to do) and thinks that perhaps she's doing him a favor, sending him what he loves most wrapped pretty and red in a bright, bright bow.
Humanity robs her of her grace, her poise, her composure, her perfectly manicured nails and her beautiful glossy hair. It turns her skin sallow and carves hollows into her cheeks. It is irreparable and crippling and sinks her to her knees more than once; she waxes tenacity, wanes weary; she wanders and wavers but never once loses her will to survive.
Such is what it means to be mortal.
At first she doesn't notice, struggling through the simple everyday task of her new existence. Then, she notices all at once. As she hurries through the town square, racing the set of the sun to tuck herself away safe before dark. As she locks her windows and draws the curtains closed against the night. As she eats what she can find and after, when her stomach still gnaws with hunger and her lips burn a blistering, shivery blue. And most when she startles awake in the mornings and gasps chilly air into her chest.
Absence is a funny thing; the empty space around her sings with it.
She thinks a trip to Mystic Falls is in order.
Three little last breaths before she died, limp and darling as a doll in her death – she woke at the start of her second life and emptied her lungs, splashed her dress with red, and stole away into the night.
Lashes still long and eyes forever bright; she wonders how he woke at the start of his.
(She doesn't see him again until she's half drowned and spinning away from Damon, Silas stalking down the stairs behind her. He catches her as she stumbles, holds her life in his hands and my, she thinks, how the tables have turned; she's fragile and weak and so devastatingly human as his arms close around her. He slips his hand around her wrist and they're running, then driving, and this – this – she can do.)
She watches as the trees change shape and disappear from her window, feels the drumbeat behind her ribs as the thump, thump, thump resonates in her ears. They're miles away before he speaks.
"Katherine."
She breathes in, shallow and sharp.
Two heartbeats later, she breathes out, regal and resolute. She arranges her features into a smile, lifts her eyes to meet his and drinks him in at last.
"It's been too long, Little Gilbert."