No tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony~
December 31st, 2013
The last few days had been nothing but frosty silence on both of their parts. Isis knew she was partly to blame. She was too prideful, had reacted badly to his dismissal of her concern. After all, all she'd shown him was distaste. He'd most likely thought she was trying to find a weakness with her sudden interest in his well-being. On top of that she was in a terrible mood, the anniversary of her parents' deaths at the forefront of her mind. She planned to change that today, though. She'd found an old book on the history of her people in the attic yesterday that she would give to him.
When she went downstairs, book cradled in her arms, it took her a second to recognize the smell of something burning. She leaped down the last of the stairs, rushing into the kitchen only to find a very flustered vampire flitting around the room, looking for something to put out the flames on the stove. Isis raised a hand towards it and then clenched it into a fist, the fire extinguishing after a weak struggle against her power. Kol turned around, eyes slightly wild before they landed on her. Sheepishly, he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at her.
"Your modern inventions are very confusing," he admitted in a weak tone, picking up the frying pan that was now caked in what looked like it might have been eggs at one point. Isis stared in disbelief at him. "How on Earth can you burn eggs? You can literally control the level of flame underneath of it," she said, watching as he winced before becoming indignant.
"I was trying to figure out your coffee machine! I had my back turned for two seconds! And it's not like I can actually smell anything, so how would I know they were burning?"
Isis could only stare at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. A spectral vampire of unknown age trying to make her breakfast and burning it. She snorted, once, and at his even more indignant look she broke down laughing, leaning helplessly against the island. His indignant look faded into amusement before he started to chuckle, then laugh right along with her. When they both stopped, only tiny giggles left, they looked at each other with smiles for the first time.
"I wanted to apologize, I shouldn't have asked..."
"I wanted to apologize, I shouldn't have snapped..." They both stopped and looked at the other before laughing again.
"Here," Isis said, handing the book to him. He took it gently, stroking the spine as he read the title.
"A Brief History of the Sorcerer's Sodality, brief? This thing must weigh 20 pounds!" He said, smile growing bigger at the precious book in his hands. Isis only shrugged. "You've never met a more long-winded group than Sorcerers."
"So that's what you are, then. I thought you were a witch of some sort," he said, growing confused when her smile became a mask of disdain, nose in the air as she looked into his eyes.
"Never. Ever. Call me a witch. Those nature loving fools have no clue how the world really works and how magic actually governs it. They're weak compared to those of us who draw our power from the Universe instead of limiting ourselves to that of our ancestor's or some other nonsense, content to piggyback off the successes of their forebears. We create new things everyday while they stick to the same old pathways, never venturing forward in case they offend someone's outdated sensibilities."
Kol looked taken aback by her speech, eyes wide as they watched hers practically sparkle with defiance. He'd never, in his millenia of life, even heard of power like that. He looked down at the book in his hand, aware even more of what a treasure he held. A whole new group of magic user that he'd never encountered? "I apologize, I did not know it would cause you offense," he said, looking back up at her. Her countenance loosened as she gave him a nod, small smile back on her face.
"Well, how about I clean up this mess and you can go get started on that book?" She said, bumping hips with him playfully. His eyes filled with that same unholy glee as before as he unconsciously brushed a ghostly kiss to her cheek before speeding away. Isis was left speechless in his wake, a hand coming up to touch the spot where he'd pressed his lips.
'Aw, hell,' she thought to herself.
January 1st, 2014
"Happy New Year, darling!" Kol exclaimed as the clock struck midnight. Instead of answering him, Isis solemnly lifted the silk cloth on the table, revealing an altar of sorts. She lit a long match, setting the bowl of herbs aflame. The mixture of Arabic gum, bloodroot, buchu, dandelion leaf and sweet grass began to smoke, drifting upwards in twisting whirls accompanied by an acrid scent. Isis waved a hand, lighting the candles set at the cardinal points. She picked up a picture of her parents and herself, taken on her 10th birthday, ten days before their deaths.
She could feel his eyes on her, and if she'd had it any other way he wouldn't be here for this. This was her ritual, every year, burning herbs for protection and love and divination. Ever since she'd been old enough she'd done this, trying to get a vision or a feeling for what had happened that night so many years ago.
Every year, all she'd gotten was burning eyes and an itchy nose from inhaling the herbs.
She suddenly felt like something slammed into her head, her vision going black.
Smoke. Fire. Flames. Screaming. So much screaming, so much fear. How could she do this? How could he let her do this? They had served faithfully, even when his demands were outrageous they had served.
More flame. There was the door. Only inches, and she would be out. A long scream echoed, and she realized it was coming from her. She stared at her had, at the perfect imprint of the House of Butler's crest, seared and branded into her palm, their family motto shining white against her life line. Mocking. 'Ad vitam aeternam, familia fideles defendit.' For all time, family protects the faithful ones.
With a harsh intake of breath, she reached her hand out again, pushing power, cold like the Arctic into her palm. She grabbed the doorknob and was unprepared for it to explode in her hand, shards of metal piercing through her skin like bullets. She rolled over, holding the mangled flesh to her chest, tears streaming down her face.
Through the haze of smoke and ash and water she saw a figure, ethereal in it's movements, walking through the flame untouched. She could not make out the face but she knew who it was, knew who the limp figure in the being's arms was. She wanted to scream, to cry to rage but all she could manage was a weak groan, barely enough to catch the figures attention.
A voice, calm like the sea but raging underneath floated down to her, barely piercing through the dying wails of the others and the crackling of wood.
"Neith Khalid Butler, daughter of Nabil and Tauret, judgment has been passed upon you and you have been found wanting."
She did not think she was capable of the sounds she made when the burning beam fell on her stomach, pinning her to the floor of the mansion. She barely noticed when the figure left, taking their prize with it, only the feeling of burning and bubbling flesh-
"ISIS!" A sharp shake pulled her out of the vision and she inhaled deeply, coughing and shaking her head to clear the last of the smoke and tears from it. She scrambled backwards, hitting into something hard as her chest heaved labored breaths, her hands flying up to touch at her stomach. Soft cloth met her, not the seared flesh she was expecting. She heard a low murmuring in front of her and unconsciously struck out, blindly throwing a concussive wave of pure unrestrained power at the voice. A loud crash broke through the haze of her mind, bringing her out of the vestiges of the vision.
'No, the memory,' she thought, tears flowing down her cheeks as she looked up to the welcome sight of Kol, crouched in front of her with his hands up and an uncharacteristic look of concern on his face. Behind him she could see the destroyed dining set, the bowl overturned and the smoldering remains of the herbs scattered on the tile floor. One of the candles flickered valiantly, trying to stay lit as molten wax poured out of it before it, too, sputtered and died.
Without thinking, she flung herself at Kol, startling him into falling back onto his behind. Instead of attacking him like he most likely thought she would do, she wrapped her arms around his barely physical neck, clinging to him as shudders wracked her body. Hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around her and she relaxed, taking this comfort for the first time in 13 years.
After she had calmed down (with a generous helping of whiskey, courtesy of Kol), she sat down and thought about what she had seen.
She couldn't make sense of it. Obviously she had been seeing it from her mother's point of view, but the thoughts were too confusing and jumbled for her to fully grasp. Who was this he that they'd apparently served faithfully? Isis's dad had been the Master of the Sorcerer's Sodality when he was alive, just like his parents before him. Maybe she was talking about him? But what about the figure, who'd obviously started the fire? Why had she judged Isis's parents as 'wanting'? From what she could remember, her parents were loving and happy people. They always made sure to encourage her in everything she did, especially her studies in magic. And why had the figure saved her but not any of the other guests in the house? 12 people had died in the fire and only Isis had survived. The police had told them that she'd somehow made it out of the house, collapsing on the front lawn some distance away. Clearly that wasn't what happened, from what she'd seen.
Isis was brought out of her thoughts by Kol, who gently touched her shoulder.
"Do you think maybe you should get some sleep, love?" He said, still concerned but not as much as before.
"Yeah, yeah I think I will," she said, standing up and shuffling tiredly out of the kitchen and up to her room.
Kol watched the girl go pensively. He'd never seen a reaction like that to a vision before, and he'd seen plenty of visions in his life. Usually they would go rigid and unseeing, sometimes accompanied by nose bleeds or some such, not thrashing and screaming on the ground in agony. He quietly cleaned up the mess, stopping as he picked up the picture she'd put out.
In it a handsome man with dark hair and blue-green eyes stood, his hand on the little girl's, obviously Isis, shoulder. Kneeling down next to the young girl was a beautiful woman with dark eyes and golden skin, clearly Arabic in descent. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl and she wore an intricately embroidered hijab along with several talismans of power he'd seen used in Egypt in his travels. Her smile was wide as she looked into the camera, teeth white against her skin and matching Isis's perfectly. Isis held a familiar book in her hands, front tooth missing and looking perfectly ordinary, nothing like the flinty woman she was now.
Obviously her parents had died, most likely today by the way she had acted. She hadn't told him anything about it but he could just tell by the way she held the picture and her sadness that today was a day of mourning for her. It didn't explain the vision, though. He would just have to find out in his own time. Pushing her for answers she was reluctant to give would not gain him any points in his favor, and he desperately needed them if he was to learn all he could about this group of sorcerers and sorceresses.
No 'who cares', no vacant stares, no time for me~
January 23rd, 2014
A month had passed since Kol had appeared in her life and everything was different- and yet, the same. They'd fallen into a routine of sorts- where she'd go, he'd go, either visible or hidden depending on her tasks. For every Sodality meeting he'd be invisible. He became known as the weird guy who popped out of nowhere at the grocer. They'd read, and watch tv, listen to a lot of music and talk about things in their world a bit, never giving too much information either way. She still didn't even know his last name.
The turning point came when they were out walking, him being hidden this time, content to sit back and observe humanity in this century. They were at an outdoor market buying herbs and vegetables when Isis suddenly felt like they were being watched. She turned and smiled at Kol, flicking her eyes to the right to indicate that something wasn't right. He nodded in return, branching out into the crowd to look for who it might be watching her.
She continued to act like nothing was wrong, paying the vendor for the corn and walking away, perusing the wine stall next. When Kol came back he had a frown on his face which did not bode well for Isis.
"There are four moderately large men who have been scoping you out," he said, watching as she didn't acknowledge him in the slightest. "They appear to be doing it for malicious reasons."
"Mmm," was all she said as she picked up a bottle of sweet red and read the description.
"Aren't you at all concerned about the impending confrontation?" He asked, looking at her incredulously.
"Not particularly," she murmured, gesturing that she wanted the bottle.
"And why is that?" He asked sarcastically, crossing his arms over his chest. Isis paid the woman behind the counter with a smile, putting the bottle into her bag and turning to blend into the crowd.
"Because, Kol, I'm more than adept at defending myself," she said, catching sight of one of the men. They really weren't trying hard to hide themselves, and something seemed off about them...
"They're compelled," she said suddenly, catching sight of Kol's surprised face before he turned to study them as well.
"Indeed," he muttered with a deep frown, looking around them again.
"Well, if a vampire wants to see me so badly that they have to compel themselves some muscle, let's see what they want, shall we?" Isis cheerfully said, abruptly turning down an alley that she knew to be a dead end.
"What are you doing?" Kol cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation. Instead of replying, Isis clutched her shopping bag to her chest and affected a terrified look as the four men rounded the corner.
"Um, excuse me," she mumbled as she tried to skirt past them only to be grabbed by both arms and dragged towards a van. One of them slapped a piece of tape over her mouth when she started making noises of protest before they threw her in the back. Kol hurriedly jumped into the van before the door was slammed, looking at her like she was insane. Instead of doing anything she gave him a wink before huddling in the corner like a girl who'd just been kidnapped would.
She was taken to a warehouse and tied up. How cliché was that? She looked at Kol and rolled her eyes to express her displeasure at how unimaginative it all was. His only response was an angry glare, which only made her sigh in exasperation.
Not too long of a time later she heard the tell-tale click of heels on the floor behind her. Kol looked up from where he was glaring at her and his mouth dropped open in shock.
"Katerina Petrova," he whispered, staring at the infamous doppelganger in genuine disbelief.
The vampiress was a beautiful woman, Isis noted. It was no wonder that there were legends of how she ensnared many a man, including one of the Originals himself. She looked down at Isis with a smirk, leaning over to rip the tape off of her mouth.
"Isis Butler, correct?" She said with a honeyed tone, obviously trying to make Isis feel more at ease.
"I am. Katerina Petrova, if I'm not mistaken?" She replied cattily, watching as the little smirk dropped off of her face.
"You're well informed," she said, voice now flat with surprise. Isis only shrugged, wiggling to get as comfortable as she could with her arms tied behind her back. "I like to be on the up and up, as they say."
Katerina looked over her, inspecting her like one would a bug. It made her bristle indignantly on the inside but on the outside she was calm and collected. Kol was still standing there, staring at the vampire like he'd seen a ghost.
"I think that you and I will get along just fine," Katerina said, smirking at her again. "You see, I'm in the market for a witch, one who can help me with breaking a very specific spell."
"Oh? And what brought you to me?" Isis replied, amused and slightly insulted that the woman thought that she was a mere witch. Then again, her kind had been staying as far away from Katerina's for a very long time with good reason.
"I heard through the grapevine that you were fairly powerful, somewhat of a prodigy in magic," she said, and something in that made Kol choke a little in surprise. Barely giving him any attention, Isis said, "Well, Ms. Petrova, while I'm flattered I'll have to decline. I don't even know what spell it is that you want me to break."
Katerina looked at her, amused, and Isis knew that the vampire thought she was being naive.
"The curse that I want to break is the Sun and the Moon curse. I already have the moonstone and a werewolf," she said, looking supremely pleased with herself. Isis couldn't help herself. She burst out laughing.
"You do realize that the Sun and the Moon curse is fake, correct?" She said in answer to the angry look on Katerina's face. The shock that flickered over both Kol and Katerina's faces was enough to know that yes, they did in fact know that.
"How do you know that," Katerina demanded as she got into Isis's face, though Isis just stayed serene. She studied the woman, the fear lurking in her eyes mixed with tiredness and resolve. From the tales Isis had heard she could guess why.
"You've been running a very long time, haven't you?" Isis murmured instead of answering, watching as Katerina stumbled back a few steps. Kol was looking at Isis with a very strange look, almost like fear and resignation.
"What do you know?" The vampiress said, warily eyeing the sorceress tied to the chair. Isis looked her over with an appraising glance, seemingly making a decision.
"I know that the Sun and the Moon curse was created by Niklaus Mikaelson and his brother Elijah as a means to have every supernatural on the lookout for the doppelganger so that a centuries old curse could be broken," she said, watching as Kol flinched and Katerina's eyes flashed dangerously.
"How could you possibly know that? No one knows that," she spat, baring her fangs at Isis threateningly.
Easily shrugging the ropes off of her with a spell, Isis stood up, rotating her wrists to get the feeling back in them.
"One, I know because I'm not a witch. I don't know who you heard that from but it's, quite frankly, insulting to be compared to those half-wits. Secondly, a very powerful sorceress wrote in her memoirs about the time she spent in the Mikaelson Family's confidence, though that book has only been passed down in my line. Thirdly, my friend Kol's reactions to everything I said here today has only proved it true," Isis said while pointedly looking at the vampire in question.
Katerina's face paled rapidly when Kol made himself visible. She turned to run when she hit an invisible barrier, put there purposefully by Isis. Like a cornered animal she whirled around, baring her fangs at the two of them. Isis felt a deep sadness as she watched the spectacle, unable to even imagine the fear that must be running through her at that moment. Running for 500 years only to be seemingly trapped by an enemy that far overpowered you with no way out?
"Katerina," Isis said slowly, watching as she registered the fact that neither Isis nor Kol had made a move towards her. Instead, Kol was standing to the side, watching Isis as she faced down an old and crafty enemy.
"Katherine," the vampiress whispered. Stronger, she continued, "My name is Katherine Pierce. Katerina Petrova is dead."
Isis nodded, seeing the truth in the statement. Katerina Petrova was a young girl who had had her life ripped away from her just for wanting to survive. Katherine Pierce was a survivor, the only one who'd ever eluded Niklaus Mikaelson for as long as she had.
"Katherine, then. I'm not going to hurt you, and neither will Kol. But you can't remember meeting me or seeing Kol. I can't let you leave before I take those memories," Isis said.
"You want to take my memories?" She fearfully glanced around the room, looking for an escape that she'd never find.
"Just of me and Kol. You'll remember that you came here looking for a witch but she wasn't up to the caliber that you needed. It's too dangerous for you to know about either of us," she explained as gently as possible. Before Katherine could do anything to stop her, Isis knocked her out with a spell. She walked over to the prone body of the woman, placing two fingers on her temple. With a gentle push of her magic, she entered the vampiress's mind, struggling only momentarily with the mental barriers she found. Sweeping through recent memory, she found all thoughts of Isis and erased them, replacing them with fabricated ones. Next, she removed the last hour from her memory, implanting the suggestion that she'd been disappointed with the witch she'd found and left.
"Come on, Kol. Let's get out of here before she wakes up," Isis said tiredly, looking down at Katherine one last time. Kol followed silently behind her, deep in thought. Stopping to grab her bag of groceries they made their way back to Isis's house in silence.
"When did you figure it out?" Kol asked later that night over dinner. Isis paused with a piece of chicken halfway to her mouth, looking neutrally at Kol.
"It wasn't that hard," she said, finishing her bite and downing it with some of the wine she'd bought earlier.
"Yes, but how? How do you know about Nik and Elijah and the Sun and the Moon curse? About Katerina and the doppelgangers?" He said frustratedly, leaning forward in his chair.
"Sorcerers have been around for a long time, Kol. Longer than vampires, longer than the cursed wolves. We generally stay away from your kind, your wolves and your witches. For some reason the three of you have always been tightly intertwined and we never interfered with your business except in extreme circumstances. But that doesn't mean we weren't watching, sometimes from very close by," she finally explained when it looked like he was about to explode.
"But how did you know about me?" He asked, gritting his teeth when she chuckled.
"Well, I knew you were old. You're also wearing clothes from the turn of the century, which even for a vampire is unusual. Then I re-read the book and there was a mention about how your brother has a penchant for sticking a dagger in his siblings when they do something to piss him off, especially his sister Rebekah and his brother Kol. I thought maybe it was coincidence, but then today with Katherine you reacted too strongly to not be personally invested in the things we were talking about."
"Bloody sorcerers," he cursed, running a hand through his hair. Isis smirked at him, lifting her wine glass in a salute.
"So are we going to talk about it?" She asked a little later when they'd settled on the couch to watch a movie.
"What's there to talk about?" He muttered unenthusiastically. Isis gave him a look which he pursed his lips at.
"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this isn't common place then," Isis said, watching as his face twisted up in confusion.
"What, this?" He asked while gesturing at himself. "No, this has never happened in all the times I've been daggered," he said resentfully.
"No, well yes, but I meant someone actually giving a damn about you and your story, your side of things," she explained, studying him intently. He looked at her, surprised and studying her just as intently as she was him.
Isis kept her expression open and honest, something that she wasn't used to. It pained her to do so, letting such a wild card see her instead of the mask she wore, but he'd already seen her at her most vulnerable and hadn't used it against her. Yet. Obviously the fact that he was here, as impossible as it was, and bound to her meant something. She didn't know what but things like this didn't just happen. He must've read that in her somewhere because he heaved a long sigh.
"What do you want to know?" He cringed almost immediately, seeing that same unholy glee in her eyes as he got when he was about to gain new knowledge.
At first, she only asked him where he'd been, the places he'd seen and the people he'd met. He started off haltingly, obviously unused to having someone willing to listen to him. Even though he was arrogant he told his story in such a way that Isis couldn't help but be compelled to listen. He told of watching Paris be built, Venice, Rome, the plains of Africa teeming with wildlife, Constantinople, Shakespeare, learning shamanic magics from so many different cultures that it was ridiculous. When she stopped laughing at the story he'd told of a half-naked Klaus running from a horde of angry witches, she finally asked him the question that she wanted to know the answer of most.
"Why?"
He looked at her, confused. "Why what?"
"Why did you get daggered this last time? Or any time, really. I mean, just from talking to you and being around you I can see why your brother might get annoyed at you, but not enough to stick you in a box for a century," she said, leaning her head back on the couch as she looked at him. There was still a faint smile around the corners of her lips as she watched the emotions cycle across his face.
"I... Back, when we were human, we were all close. Then, my brother Henrik died, and... And my father made my mother, a powerful witch, turn us into vampires because they never wanted to lose another child. I was furious and... Lost, I suppose you could say, because I couldn't be a vampire and a witch. I lost access to my magic and so, to fill that void, to feel that rush I got when I practiced magic, I embraced my new nature wholeheartedly even when my siblings fought against it at first. That started to drive us apart; noble Elijah, loving Rebekah, heartbroken Nik- whose true nature as a hybrid had been locked away by our mother. I ended up playing second fiddle to their trio of angst and it hurt. So I acted out more and more until finally, about a hundred years ago, I finally went too far. I tried to create an object that could neutralize my brother Niklaus like he'd done to us countless times and I had almost succeeded when he caught me. Still, I tried, and even attempted to enlist my sister to help me but she betrayed me to him and... well, I've been in a box ever since," he explained, looking tired and resigned.
"Okay, but what were your reasons? Couldn't you have, I don't know, just stopped after a while? I don't mean try to deny your nature, but maybe tried to tone it down a little?" Isis knew the moment she said it that it was the wrong thing to say. Kol's face went from a heartbreaking sadness to furious in a second. He shot from his side of the couch to hers, boxing her in and baring his fangs at her. Something dark flickered around him for just a second, a barely visible aura of deep black, Isis barely catching it as she reflexively leaned back from his snarling visage. Her heartbeat jumped even though she knew he couldn't do anything to hurt her, making a twisted smile cross his lips.
"Why would I want to? When I can cause such fear in someone as powerful as you, why would I want to 'tone it down,' as you say?"
Isis didn't react except to look at him evenly, staring straight into his eyes. She watched as the fury bled out of him, a visible thing that started as his vampire face receded to the slump of his shoulders in defeat. He remained there with his hands on either side of her as his head hung between his shoulders, deep breaths barely hiding the shaking of his arms.
"I don't know," he said brokenly, causing Isis's heart to constrict. "I don't know."
"We'll figure it out," she said softly, placing two fingers under his chin to lift his face to hers, only inches away at this point. "I promise we'll figure it out, because there is something unnatural about the way you just reacted."
Kol's eyes, previously full of self-loathing suddenly filled with hope and something else. Something Isis didn't want to examine any further.
'Fuck,' she thought as a small, genuine smile appeared on his lips and the corners of his eyes crinkled with the movement.
