Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries or The Originals
…
Looking out over New Orleans from her place on the high balcony, Kira sighed.
She should have moved on by now.
Two months. She'd been here two months, and yet, every time she went to get on a bus, or pick a random flight to another part of the country…she stopped.
Something was going to happen. She knew it was.
Ever since she'd stumbled upon those young girls being taught magic out at the cottage that day, things had become very weird.
Shadowing the coven hadn't been hard. All she'd had to do was follow those fourteen teenage girls wherever they went and, invariably, she'd come across more witches.
Mothers, aunts, great-grandmothers, uncles, brothers…it was a large community.
And yet, a ball of lead had steadily grown in her stomach the longer she observed them go about their lives.
Secrets.
Whispers.
Deceit.
It saturated them.
Kira had watched the same fourteen girls become the centre of their community. Everywhere they went, they were treated as if they were royalty. Their parents so proud of their involvement in this 'Harvest'.
They'd drilled them in the protocol. Told them what to expect the night of the full-moon when the ritual would finally take place to re-establish their connection with their ancestors for the next few centuries.
But Kira knew something wasn't right.
She knew enough about people to read the look in Jane-Anne's eyes every time she dropped off her daughter, Monique, for more practice.
Uncertainty, and guilt.
But they wouldn't talk. She'd shadowed the coven's elders, determined to figure out what was really going on, what was making her feel increasingly uneasy as she watched the fifteen year olds slowly master their spells.
Nothing.
Whatever secret they were hiding, the witches were either being overly cautious to not speak of it aloud, or they all already knew what was coming.
Looking down at the dusk streets of the French Quarter beneath her, Kira straightened from her bent over position against the balcony.
She should have left by now.
She'd seen what she'd wanted to see; the werewolves. She'd picked up tidbits of magic that she hadn't known from the servants of nature who lived in the city.
But they weren't strong.
The magic that they cast was lacklustre to say the least. Lacking. Which had surprised her until she realised that their increasing weakness was the reason for this 'Harvest'.
But she hadn't been able to leave.
Kira wasn't an overly sentimental person. She wasn't one that learned to love easily, let alone trust. But there was one girl amongst them…just one…that struck a chord with her.
She'd watched these girls for eight weeks now, but only one had really caught her attention.
Davina.
The brown-haired fifteen-year-old was a fighter. She'd stay longer than any of her friends, trying and trying until she could successfully cast the spell they were learning that day. She had so much spirit. So much life in her…and she had no idea.
Something was wrong.
Something that she was missing.
And it was making everything in the Quarter restless.
Kira watched as the sun's last rays disappeared behind the old buildings, the way graceful bodies slithered out of dark shadows and onto the streets below.
Vampires.
The city was crawling with them.
Yet, the witches did nothing. Caught up in whatever had them so…anxious.
Rumours had begun to circulate. The elders rushing the girls through the final steps of the ritual.
No. However much she knew she should move on, Kira couldn't bring herself to take that final step.
Not until after the Harvest.
Not until she found out exactly what the witches were hiding.
…
Jeremy suppressed the yell of frustration bubbling up his throat through sheer force of will, tugging furiously at his brown hair as he stared down at his sister with disbelief.
"I have to do this!" Elena stressed each of her words, her eyes alive and wild. "Don't you see?! Klaus killed all of Katherine's family for running. If I don't give myself up, he'll hurt everyone I care about! How can I live with that?!"
"Elena," Bonnie stepped forward with beseeching eyes. "Please, just listen to us. Klaus has no idea that you exist, let alone where you live. Giving yourself over to him isn't brave, it's giving up!"
Thank God for Bonnie!
Throwing his hands down to his sides, Jeremy huffed out a furious breath, looking at the open doorway behind his sister with pointed eyes.
"You can't get out," He told her sternly, past patience. "We all agreed that it was best to confine you to the house before you really did accomplish your little suicide mission."
Glaring at his sister, Jeremy spun on his heel, stalking towards the kitchen in an effort to calm down so that he wouldn't throttle her himself.
Elena followed him, hot on his heels.
"I'm not on a suicide mission, Jeremy!" She shouted, jogging to catch up with him as she slipped a hand in the crook of his elbow to spin him around to face her. "I'm trying to keep you safe. To keep everyone safe. Jenna, Bonnie, Caroline, Damon, Stefan, Alaric, you!"
With anger bubbling over, staring down into Elena's stubbornly self-righteous eyes, Jeremy couldn't have stopped the words from leaving him if he'd tried.
"Wake up, Elena!" He roared. She stumbled back, eyes wide with shock. "You're not being brave! You're giving up!"
Rallying her spirits, she met fire with fire, throwing him back a deadly glare of her own.
"I'm trying to protect my family!"
"By what?! Leading him straight to us?!" He saw Bonnie cringe at the deafening volume of his yell, but couldn't bring himself to care. "You might think that you're protecting us, Elena, but you couldn't be doing anything worse for our safety."
"But-!"
"No!" Shaking his head furiously, Jeremy slashed his arm through the air, violently cutting her off. "Ever since the accident you seem to think that you've always been the one to protect this family, to keep us safe," The words poured out of him without censure. "But you haven't been, Elena! It was Kira who looked out for us, who made sure that nothing happened! Not you!" His sister jerked back as if struck, the mention of her twin's name playing havoc on her system after so many months of not hearing it. "You don't know how! And you're making a mess of everything in your…your…crusade to fill the hole her death left in this family!"
"I am not-!"
"You are!" He yelled in her face, grabbing her by the arms and shaking her. "Elena, please, believe me when I tell you that you're not used to this. You haven't got any experience being the one to keep us all safe from danger. But no one expects you to…Why can't believe that?"
Elena's face dropped at his words, brown eyes filling with tears as she stared up into his expectant face in silence.
"Oh, Elena…" Bonnie's sad murmur of understanding seemed loud in the sudden silence, and that when his sister's tears overflowed, running down her cheeks.
"S-she would have k-k-known what to do, Jer," Elena hiccuped loudly, her eyes miserable and scared. "I d-don't know what t-t-to do!"
Feeling his own broken heart break further at the truthful ring of those words, Jeremy said nothing, simply pulling his fragile sister close to his chest.
"…I know."
…
"Bastinana! Stop, Bastianna! Please, you can't do this!"
Kira's head whipped around at the sound of Sophie's panicked calls only to see one of the many warlocks that littered the graveyard grab her, putting a hand over her mouth to smother her cries.
Glaring, Kira stepped forward, her folded arms slowly untangling as she eyed the proceedings suspiciously.
There was a feeling in the air.
Distrust.
Hurt.
Maliciousness.
It made her skin crawl.
Kira moved her body closer to Davina, instinctively needing to place her body between hers and the willowy elder, Bastianna.
"To be reborn, you must sacrifice…" The woman's voice was husky with age as she slowly approached the first of the four girls. "Do you have faith?"
Sapphire eyes narrowed into slits as she watched the fifteen year old nod mutely at the her coven's elder, her eyes alight with excitement. She raised her hand into the air, palm up.
It all happened so fast. There was no warning. Not in the small crowd of magic users watching the ceremony with starved eyes, not in the calm, composed manner of Bastianna.
The witch slid the sharp knife upwards in a violent, unexpected movement, slitting the young girl's throat.
"Shit!" Kira hissed, her curse lost amongst the three screams that immediately went up in the silence.
Where before the girls had been patient, excited, now they were terrified. Terrified and alone.
Even knowing it wouldn't do any good, Kira couldn't help pressing her back against Davina, wanting desperately to protect the spirited girl.
But she couldn't.
With furious helplessness, Kira could do nothing but watch as the next girl was wrestled to the altar, the knife dragged across her throat with the same lack of hesitation as the witch had shown the first.
"No!" Davina screamed hoarsely from behind her, her struggles loud in the otherwise quiet graveyard. Her elders and family standing by, silent.
Kira watched the second girl's body hit the ground with a quiet thud. Her blood heating in her veins.
Hands fisted at her sides, sapphire eyes burning holes in Bastianna's head, Kira breathed heavily through her nose, her fury swiftly overtaking her.
She couldn't take this. Not again.
To just stand there! Powerless!
Not being able to do anything!
Not being able to help!
To do nothing but watch!
A wind kicked up, rustling through the trees.
No. She couldn't accept it. She wouldn't!
The third girl was brought forward, Davina a sobbing, screaming mess at her back.
Without taking her eyes off the scene in front of her, Kira reached back. Wanting to somehow, in someway reassure the terrified girl. Even knowing she couldn't. That it wasn't possible. That she was dead, that it wasn't her place to intervene in the world of the living. She needed to. Needed Davina to know that she wasn't alone. That there was someone here that was on her side.
And so her hand reached back, the move entirely instinctual, beyond her control.
And somehow…somehow…her hand grasped Davina's.
Without warning, before Kira even had a chance to process the overwhelming shock that had brought her mind to a screeching halt, a scream pierced the night. But this one was different.
This one came from the back of the crowd.
Vampires dropped from the sky, leaping over walls and tomb stones to attack the necks of the unprepared witches and warlocks.
Kira paid them no mind.
She couldn't.
Her entire being, her entire concentration was focused on what was happening between her and Davina. On the blazing feeling and energy that was erupting from their impossibly linked hands.
Without control, without direction, power exploded out of her body, flowing into Davina's.
She gasped.
Somewhere, some part of her was aware of the sudden intake of breath behind her, the feeling of fingers wrapping tightly through her own.
She looked back.
Eyes that she'd seen hundreds of times in all manner of emotions stared back at her in awe. Huge, brown eyes, that reminded her of her twin's, stared straight at her.
Kira smiled.
"Who-?" Davina's whispered breath was caught on the wind, deafened by the sudden piercing screams of Sophie from behind them.
Kira whipped around.
Monique, third of the four sacrifices, fell to the ground. Dead. Her throat slit.
She acted without hesitation.
Keeping a firm hold on Davina's hand, she spun back around, throwing her arm out in a violent, sweeping movement.
The warlock holding Davina prisoner flew up, sailing through the air until his back connected with the stone mausoleum behind him.
The crack of his neck was loud, and he fell limp. Dead.
"Run! Run!" Kira yelled at Davina, already moving to pull the shocked and trembling girl away from the massacre happening in front of them.
She needed to get her to safety. To get her away.
"Run, Davina!" Kira shouted, pulling at her arm forcefully.
Looking back into her scared, helpless eyes, screaming at her to move, that's when she saw it. The same fire and will to live that had drawn her to the girl in the first place. A blazing heat of agreement suddenly flared into existence within dark brown eyes, and, suddenly, Davina was running with every morsel of speed at her side, never letting go of her hand.
Skirting around tomb-stones and statues at a dead run, two witches suddenly flung themselves into their path, the dark light in their eyes locked on Davina's vulnerable form.
Kira snarled.
With an ease she knew was the result of hers and Davina's pooled powers, Kira attacked.
Jerking her chin up, the two women fell to their knees, screaming in pain, clutching their heads.
Davina's grip on her hand tightened. Her frightened, terrified gasp of shock making Kira's head whip around, long brown-red locks flying through the air.
"Wait!" A tall, dark-skinned man brought up his hands quickly, palms facing out. "I'm here to help you."
"Wha…" Davina breathed, her body and mind at war with each other as she tried to comprehend the chaos that had become what was supposed to be the proudest moment of her life. "Who-?"
"He's a vampire," Kira narrowed her eyes on the powerful man, recognising Marcel instantly.
Davina's neck snapped back at the sound of her calm voice, her eyes widening with sudden understanding.
She backed up.
"Please," Marcel approached Davina slowly, throwing a look over his shoulder at the slowly recovering witches and the few vampires now screaming on the ground. "I can get you out of here. I can help you!"
Reading people had always come easily to her, but even if it hadn't, Kira would have believed him.
Thinking he was only facing the scrutiny of a scared, distraught fifteen-year-old girl, Marcel was letting his face and eyes hide nothing. Every expression, the wrinkle in his brow, his gentle, protective eyes, they all combined to show a truthfulness that his words hadn't.
He wanted to help. For some reason, he was almost desperate to see Davina live.
Narrowing her eyes on the shockingly emotional vampire, Kira gave the younger girl a stiff nod of reassurance. Telling her to trust him.
Just as Davina was tentatively making her way towards Marcel, the vampire quickly closing the gap between them with urgency, Davina jerked to a stop with a gasp.
Before she even had time to identify the new danger, Kira felt it.
Power.
Just as Davina's power and hers had mingled with that first touch, so did this new power split between them.
Half and half.
"…Go," Kira breathed, smiling encouragingly at the younger girl as Marcel quickly wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her close. "I'll find you. I promise."
Davina's eyes were reluctant, not wanting to let go, but finally, she did.
Their fingers slipped from each others, the sudden loss of power making both girls hunch over, breathless.
Then, they were gone.
Leaning back against the side of a mausoleum, Kira watched with wide, confused eyes as the two witches she'd held incapacitated with pain on their knees, abruptly stood. The spell broken as soon as her physical touch with Davina ceased to exist.
Looking out across the bloody ground, filled with corpses and crying, wailing people, Kira breathed out a shaky breath.
She could feel it.
The power.
It was still there.
Rushing beneath her skin, flowing through her blood.
It was hers.
…