Sorry that it's taken so long to post an update, everyone. I'm not going to dump a whole heap of excuses on you, but I will say that I wanted to wait a little before posting a new chapter as I wanted to see where they we're going with Kolvina in the show, to see if there were any plots I wanted to wor towards and things I wanted to incorporate. Anyway, sorry again, and I really hope you enjoy this chapter despite the wait :)
Chapter 25: We Knew What it Meant to be Loved
I remember the time when a kiss on the hand was enough
Cause we knew we were free
And we knew what it meant to be loved
But ever since I left my father
It's much harder to know
How to live my own life here
When all I need is home
- Mother & Father (Broods)
They made their way through every alley of the city that night, at least the parts out of the French Quarter and away from the psycho coven that wanted to slit people's throats as entertainment.
When things were tense and difficult, the best part of life was being able to let go, and that's just what they did. They spent their night dancing to jazz and watching performers demonstrate their talents on streets where people didn't recognise Kol Mikaeson the Original Vampires or Davina Claire, the Harvest Girl.
It would have been perfect, Kol decided as he laid a now sleeping Davina down on her bed in the compound, if not for the presence that followed them every step of the way.
Esther had disappeared when he first saw her, but she'd stayed close, always just out of sight. It made him paranoid when he could see the glint of her blonde hair out of the corner of his eye all night, only to turn and see nothing.
Davina hadn't noticed though, and he didn't let on that anything was wrong, but when she finally got so tired that she couldn't keep her eyes open, and Kol brought her back to bed, his mother finally stepped into his line of sight as he pulled the covers over his girl's sleeping form.
"What do you want, mother?" Kol asked as he finally turned to her.
Esther was silent for a moment as she took in her son, and then the young witch in turn, breathing the smallest of contemplative sighs.
"Youth is such a beautiful thing, Kol." Esther muttered, staring down at Davina as she slept peacefully, unaware of the threat that was in the room. After a moment, his mother's eyes flickered up to him, a sadness in their depths the only thing that he could really see. "You're not right for this girl. Everything she could have, the life she could live, just by being with her you ruin it."
Kol's response came through clenched teeth. "It's lovely that you have so much faith in me."
"Don't spite me." She commanded, moving away from the bed and taking a few steps towards her son. "I have faith in you, the boy I raised, but I know that you can't escape what I've done to you and what I made you."
Esther reached out a hand and brushed her fingers lightly against the side of his face, ignoring Kol's flinch when he realised that he could feel her. "It's my fault Kol, not yours."
Kol knew in his mind that she truly believed this. She took a blame for what had happened to them, and when she had tried to kill them all those many months ago, it had been because she hated herself and what she had done to them.
He couldn't fault her for her words when he reminded himself of how powerful her love was, but that didn't mean that Kol was going to accept them. He was the best thing for this girl.
Kol knew that he was childish, sadistic and a killer. Those were the defining aspects of his personality and he liked it that way, and none of those mattered to Davina. They didn't matter because he was the one that would always fight for her, protect her when she needed protection, help make her strong so she could protect herself, and he would love her. Those were the things she had missed in her life, and despite all his wrongdoings and bloody misadventures, he was capable of those things for her.
"My son." Esther murmured. She had watched him quietly without words as Kol came to his conclusion, and she could see the thoughts in his mind as clear as day. He may have mastered a poker face for the rest of the world, but she knew him best, just as she always had. She reached out and clasped his hands, but Kol shot away from her touch once more.
He turned in a blur of speed and was down in the compounds ground level in the next moment, but the change of location only gave a moment of relief before his mother made her way down the stairs.
Kol rounded on her. "How the hell can I even see you, mother?" He spat.
Esther smiled tenderly, despite his harshness. "Because I wanted nothing more than to talk to you, Kol."
"Spare me that rubbish." He rolled his eyes. "How did you draw together enough magic to project yourself from the other side? What witch family bloodline are you channeling now, because I would be happy to slaughter them, just to save you the trouble and all."
Her eyes hardened. "When the young witch channeled the power of the White Oak Stake to bring you back to life, I was able to latch onto it because I created the object. You were the focus of the spell, and thus, I'm able to maintain a connection to you for the moment."
The revelation of her method meant more than it should, as Kol connected the dots in his mind. His mother hadn't just made a connection to the source of Davina's spell like she was saying, but had been the hand behind the negative influences. He should have known it long before this moment.
"You were the one trying to stop the spell." Kol muttered before shaking his head, feeling like nothing more than a fool. "I should have know you had a hand in all of this. You truly want to bring about our ends that much?"
Esther shook her head. "Kol, the last thing I wanted was for you to die, for any of you. It was necessary to create a balance because I-"
Kol cut across her. "Mother, you sound like a broken record. I know full well how you distorted nature's balance when you turned us."
Esther waited patiently for him to stop talking, with an air that irked Kol to the core, before she continued. "You've spent most of your life with witches. Of all your siblings, you know how much that balance demands to be maintained, and the wrath that nature can cause when it is not obeyed." Kol rolled his eyes but Esther ignored his slight. "I needed to atone for my sins and I wanted to find peace."
"Peace is nothing more than a silly delusion." Kol scoffed.
"The other side did not always exist and you know this. You studied the legends of it's creation when you first learned about Silas, Kol. There is peace and it can be found." Esther took a step forward, her face right in front of his, and her eyes gentle in a way only a mother could manage. "You could have found peace, Kol, and it would have been infinity better than anything on this Earth. All you had to do was let go..."
Kol couldn't contain another eye roll, but it wasn't out of spite, but actually to mask the effect his mother's words were having on him. He scoffed at the mention of peace but in truth, it tore at some wounds he'd buried the second Davina and managed to bring him back to life.
"If you love me so much, mother, then why did you leave me alone?" The words were ones he would usually say with a spiteful tone in vein of the one he often used with Klaus and Elijah, and while there was an accusatory undertone, the expression on Kol's face was broken.
He would never dare admit it to his siblings, perhaps not even to Davina, but his ultimate moments of weakness had been during his time on the other side, and there had been moments where all he could think about was Esther. Despite everything she had done when she turned them into immortals and stole his magic, despite her attempts to kill him and the distaste that she'd shown him then, all he had wanted was his mother to appear before him, hold him and tell him that everything would be alright.
In his darkest moments, he'd been nothing more than the child he once was that just wanted his mother's affection and the sudden change of the conversation's direction reflected that. Had Esther come to him and been the mother he wanted her to be, even for a fraction of a moment, he may have been able to let go and find peace.
Even with everything that had bound him to the living, he'd still desired the possibility of moving on.
When she didn't speak, Kol's eyes flashed darkly and his words became biting. "I know that witches have free reign on the other side, so where were you? You could have appeared to me any moment you wanted, but you never did." He glowered. "All your talk of love and you abandoned me there; left me alone in that torturous place."
Esther still didn't respond. The woman stood before her son with a masked expression on her face. There was no telling what was going through her mind or the feelings in her at that moment. As the seconds passed, she slowly reached out a hand and cupped Kol's face, running her thumb along his cheek and jaw. "No matter what you think, my son, I love you."
Kol blinked and she was gone.
"Mother?" He growled, anger flaring in his chest as he turned from side to side, looking around for any sign of that wretched woman, but she was gone. Invisible or off to torment someone else, he did not know and nor did he care as long as he never had the misfortune of seeing her ghost again.
The chiming of his phone interrupted his thoughts, and though he was seconds away from being angry enough to smash it in his hand rather than acknowledge it's incessant ringing, he answered.
"Little brother, do you want to tell my why the witch in my basement is now a newly transitioned vampire?" There was no doubt that Klaus was annoyed. He was speaking in that high time that would have been accompanied by a sweet smile if Kol could see his older brothers face. It was thine of expression Nik wore when he felt like murdering someone, or gouging out a few body parts some days as well.
Not that Kol cared about Nik's feelings, otherwise he wouldn't have messed with Sophie Deveraux. Regardless, he'd know th witch long before his siblings, and Klaus had probably forgotten that she and her coven crossed him long before they crossed them.
Briefly forgetting about what had just happened, Kol grinned. "I did her a favour. And you can't tell me that she didn't deserve to suffer for all of her attacks against us, Nik." He brushed it off. "If you have a problem with it, just tear out her heart and be done with it."
Kol didn't want that though. He had plans for Sophie that involved more than letting her become Nik's punching bag. That fate could wait until she'd divulged all of her secrets, and the perfection of her transition meant that she was no longer a witch, and thus could be compelled.
He intended to hear everything she knew about the harvest while under his compulsion, so that she couldn't bend the truth or tell him what would sway him to her side. Nothing of that.
"You know, this kind of silly behaviour behind my back is what got you daggeredlast time Kol." Klaus said with a growl. "We should talk about what happened in 1914. Given that we're back in the city where that all started."
"If you want to know if diamond thievery and daggers are on my mind, Nik, I can assure you that they're far from it. As long as you have no intention of daggering me, I have no intention of conspiracies against you." For now, that was the truth. "I'm more interested in keeping Davina safe than your power struggles, or fuelling one of my own."
"Months in the grave and you're still infatuated with that little witch. You know, the whole thing with her was quite interesting when you told me of it brother, I mea, you always have had a fascination with them-"
"What's your point? If you want to mock the fact that there is one person I don't feel the need to disembowl, need I remind you of that blonde baby vampire in Mytic Falls?" Kol's reply was a little heated. "Pretty sure that the reason you stopped any attempt to avenge my death was because you were distracted by her presences. Pity she's still shacking up with that stupid hybrid."
"Shut your mouth." Klaus spat.
"Keep yours shut then, brother." Kol replied before hanging up the phone. With Estherno gone, he turned back to make his way up the stairs once more to Davina, when a figure appeared in front of him. "Have you honesty got nothing better to do than stalk me?"
"I thought that I would find you hear." Klaus ignored the quip, and Kol saw this as an admitance that he was right, taking it as a small victory.
"So you've found me. What do you want?"
"Well, I still think that a real conversation is overdue, little brother." He answered and Kol took a step forwards with an impassive face.
"Okay then, tell me what your plans are for the witches now that things have started to... Move in your favour."
Klaus grinned and strode over to one of the many clusters of tables, drawing up a chair and making himself comfortable, sticking his feet up on the table without a care as he regarded Kol. "Now that Hayley is unlinked and is no longer in danger, we can act as we want and wage the war against them that we've been planning." He said. "They don't know about the unblinking, nor have they caught wind of your little witch moving around the city, which means the time to strike is now when they're not expecting the tables to have turned in our favour."
"Despite your behaviour in regards to Sophie Deveraux," Elijah suddenly appeared as well, his measured tone a sign of his disapproval for Kol's actions, "it did come to some use to us. Niklaus was able to compel her and discover that if there are no elders left in the coven, the harvest can not be completed. And there is only one living elder, Agnes."
Kol rolled his eyes. "If I'd know thar was the solution to all my problems, I would have torn her head off months ago." He thought back to the night if the massacre in the cemetery and regretted leaving the woman breathing.
"But there's no use just killing Agnes and leavin' it be." Marcel interjected. Kol didn't even question where he'd come from as well, refusing to acknowledge his own attempt at a Mikaelson-esque dramatic entrance. "There are still other figure heads in their community. Sophie Deveraux was one of them, and Sabine Laurent is another. We need to get rid of people like that too before we can be satisfied that they won't be able to fight back for a while."
"Cut off the head of the snake." Klaus smiled, probably already contemplating their various murders.
"And then leave them so they can't regroup." Marcel replied. "I ran the werewolves out into the bayou and that was a victory, but it wasn't enough. So, I jexed them so that they can only turn human on a full moon, spending the rest of the month in their wolf forms. They're hardly human for more than a few short hours, and it gives them no chance to regroup and organise an attack."
"Then perhaps we should turn all the French Quarter witches into frogs, don't you think Marcellus?" Klaus turned to meet Kol's eyes. "Do you think Davina has enough power for that?" He laughed when no one else did. "I would settle just for killing them, rather than wasting time with spells." Kol was a little stoic. "But we'd have to do it in a manner that leaves nothing left for conscerncration or they'll be able to rejoin the ansestors. Burns the bodies - or burn them all at the stake - and scatter the ashes and we can stop their power from returning to the earth."
"That could work." Marcel mused over the idea. "But we have to work out how to lure them to us, because we'll loose the element of surprise if we try to pick them off one by one."
"Good thing I have an idea then." A voice trilled from the top of the staircase and Kol would have rolled his eyes at yet another dramatic entrance, if it hadn't been Davina.
Klaus looked amused. "Go on then, Sweetheart."
Davina screwed up her face a little at the nickname, though she began to talk as she made her way down the stairs. "We don't need to lure the witches to us, because if they have reason to, they'll gather together themselves."
Kol shook his head as she came to a stop in front of him. "No the only thing that would get them all in one space together-"
"Is if they had me."