Interlude 2 – To bite off more than one can chew

Movements next to her woke up Nora and she rolled over to the now vacant place, Kol's scent immediately engulfing her. She took in a deep breath and sighed before opening her eyes and meeting Kol's tender gaze. He was standing beside the bed, slightly bent over as he put on his trousers.

What a beautiful sight to wake up to.

Although her body felt particularly heavy, Nora lifted her arm out of the thin blanket to trace with her fingers the skin under his right eye, then moved up to his forehead to tuck a wild lock of hair behind his ear.

"Morning honey," she murmured sleepily.

Kol caught her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. "More like afternoon darling."

"… Already?"

Looking at the huge doorway overlooking the inner courtyard and the gap between the door and the floor, the sunlight did look too bright for it to be morning.

"Looks like I tired you a bit too much yesterday."

"…That you did," she replied between two yawns.

Even after sleeping for more than eight hours hours, her arms and thighs were still aching. Not that she minded though. She loved training with her sword, one Kol forged for her himself. A witch had also put a spell on the blade to make sure it would never get dull. The sword was worth several cities.

Because of Kol's busy schedule, they could only train at night nowadays. Not that Kol actually needed training, his strength alone could break any blade. However, Nora didn't have his vampire strength and speed and the mere idea of being a damsel in distress left a bitter taste in her mouth. As such, she could only train and train, always honing her swordsmanship.

"I need to go, love. I was supposed to be at my siblings' house one hour ago already and Finn is still waiting for me to leave."

Upon hearing this, a grimace distorted Nora's features. From what she knew, Elijah and Klaus never lost an occasion to scold Kol or mock Finn. "Don't let them bully you."

Kol's face split into wide, open grin. "Yes ma'am," he said with a gleam in his eye. "Now, go back to sleep. I'll fill the tub and ask Sófi to keep the water warm."

She closed her eyes obediently, though not before commenting, "I love that witch."

"Oh? Why do I remember you wanted to kill her less than a week ago? Is this the first sign of dementia? Should I be concerned? You're not that young anymore after all… Ah, what to do, darling?"

"Shh, it's in the past. I'm a virtuous woman now."

Kol let out a snort, kissed her forehead and left the room. She didn't go back to sleep though. Instead, she lay on her back, eyes fixed on the ceiling as her thoughts began to wander.

Ever since Kol told her about Rebekah's future in-laws, she couldn't help being on edge and worried every time Kol went to his siblings' place. A nagging voice in the back of her mind kept telling her to grab Kol and left - with Sage and Finn if possible.

Unfortunately, Rebekah's future wedding made it impossible. Although, whether or not she would notice the absence of her brothers was questionable.

When Kol came back to fill the tub and saw her awake, he shook his head and walked to the bed to kiss her. The warm feeling of his lips spread through her whole body and her hands wasted no time to take hold of his collar to deepen the kiss. As she pulled him closer, Kol let himself fall on top of her, one arm going around her back to press her against his chest and one hand snaking his way along her legs. Soon, the curious fingers disappeared under her nightgown and gripped her thigh.

A sigh left her mouth, sadly startling Kol who quickly scrambled to his feet helplessly, straightening up his clothes. "I really, really need to go Nora."

"…Alright."

The disappointment was apparently pretty obvious because Kol snickered before walking away from the bed. Just as he reached the door, he glanced back with a warm gaze. "I love you."

She opened her mouth to respond but he cut her off and added with a smirk, "Behave yourself for Sófi and Sage while I'm gone."

Then he was gone in the blink of an eye and the door was closed.

"…Brat," Nora grumbled without any anger as she got to her feet, rubbing the sleep away from her eyes. "Why do I love him again?"

Yawning, she went to the tub and slipped into the hot water, thinking that this was probably a glimpse of heaven. The heat felt so good on her sore body, soothing the ache and allowing her mind to relax. She closed her eyes, desiring nothing more than to forget her worry. After all, there was nothing she could do. Should something happen, Kol and she would face it together, as they always did. Then they would go back to their home in South Asia and everything would be fine once again. Hopefully, she might even manage to convince Kol to adopt a dog or a cat. Ever since their last pet died twenty Something years ago, he hadn't wanted one again. According to him, she was too ugly when she cried.

According to her, he still wasn't over the death of their cat Baloo.

When she left the tub one hour later, her skin was wrinkled all over and her long, wet hair made her look like a drowned rat. Or a mop. It really depended on one's perspective, she thought as she observed her distorted reflection on a bronze mirror.

"Actually, everything is a question of perspective."

The door swung open and a reddish whirlwind barged in her room before stopping right in front of her, Sage's bright green eyes staring at her face curiously. "What is?"

Nora pointed out her wild mane as she turned to the bed where her dress lay and put it on. "Whether I look like a drowned rat or a mop."

"A mop? What is it?"

"… A wet broom."

Sage blinked. After a beat, she replied with a mischievous grin, "A mop then. Definitely a mop. Rats have whiskers after all."

"Geez, thanks Sage, you really know how to boost my confidence."

The vampire shrugged carelessly. "You asked."

That she did. Still… "Yes but a rat is cuter than a mop."

Sage raised one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrow and pointed out, "They spread the Plague."

"… Not everyone can be perfect."

Nora turned her back to Sage and sat in font at her dressing table to comb her hair out. The years spent in Asia saw her hair reached the middle of her thighs as it was the custom there. The thing was, it was hell to do her hair.

Kol had also tried to grow his hair at the beginning but had quickly given up and now kept his hair just above his shoulders. Long enough to tie them but not long enough to have a war with them every day.

Right now, she wished she had been as clever as he.

Without saying a word, Sage came behind her and took the comb out of her hand before she proceeded to run it through the long red locks.

"Thank you," Nora said once Sage was done.

"You're welcome. We are family now."

Nora cracked a smile and responded softly "I guess we really are."

Just as she finished speaking, a gleam appeared in Sage's eyes and the vampire forced Nora to turn around and face the bed while she took place on the mattress. Excitement and curiosity were pouring out of her and Nora could perfectly picture a dog tail wagging behind her back. It was kind of cute, though a bit weird as Sage usually gave off the aura of a beautiful and strong heroine.

"What do you want?" Nora ended up asking helplessly.

Sage leaned forward. "What exactly are you?"

Nora's heart missed a beat. "What do you mean? I'm a blood drinker!"

"Please Nora, cut the crap," Sage responded with a roll of her eyes, her lips still curved in a smirk, "If you are a creature of the night, then I am a man."

Nora got to her feet immediately, a frown marring her forehead. "How dare you?!" she snarled, inwardly patting her chest proudly for being such a good actress, "I'm the most scary blood drinker in the East! The people there even call me 'She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'! Whether they are poor or rich, everyone tremble with fear at the mere mention of me!"

Good, spending her teenage years reading Harry Potter again and again hadn't been a mistake. It was probably one of the only things that was carved into her memory. Although, it did help that she would take Kol into her mind from time to time to skip over memories in which she read the books. Admittedly, some lines were blurred but she could more or less guess what it was about and summarize it to Kol.

Ah, the joy of having an original vampire as a lover! It was only a pity she couldn't taste modern food in her mind.

"Right," Sage said with a drawl, "and the fact that your mouth never smell of blood? Even when you come back from a hunt with Kol?"

"You…smell me?"

Nora sat back on the bench, aghast. Seeing this, Sage merely let out a chuckle. "See? Definitely not a vampire. Nora, I'm more than eighty years old. I definitely don't need to come sniff you to know you don't smell like Finn, Kol and I after feeding."

A sigh passed through Nora's lips. She should have listened to Kol and kissed him after he drank blood. Even if the idea was absolutely disgusting.

"Sófi agrees with Finn and I, as she has noticed you always do your best not to touch her," Sage continued.

"Ah… You, really…" Nora sighed again, rubbing her forehead. It was too early for this. "I don't know what to say. Why do you want to know?"

The smirk of the vampire slipped off her face, her brow suddenly knitted. "I'm just worried, I guess. For looking so young after so many years spent with Kol, it you are not a creature of the night then you must be a witch. Kol is the only one of Finn's siblings who has accepted me. These last faw days, Finn told me more than once that Kol has changed. He's different with you. He looks at you as if you were the most important thing in the entire world. If you do not want to become like him, you will eventually die and leave him alone… I guess I want to convince you to change."

Sage's words surprised Nora as much as they moved her. Her face and gaze softened as she watched her… sister-in-law's features. Yes, Sage really was family, and so was Finn. Their kindness towards Kol, she wouldn't forget it.

"I'm not a witch," Nora admitted in a soft voice, "but there is no need to worry. Kol and I… We will still be together in a thousand years."

"A thousand years?" Sage started, astounded. "You really see far into the future! Even Finn who's more than a hundred years only ever speak of decades. Sometimes, the next century, but certainly never more."

The next centuries… Sage would spent them alone while Finn lay in a coffin. Although Nora had never seen how the Mikaelsons looked like after several years spent with a dagger in their heart, she had more than once had nightmares about Kol's corpse every time he was daggered. And every time, she would wake up sweating, heart in her throat and her sanity shattering because of the maddening emptiness inside her.

"Well, Kol and I have known each other since his human days so it's easy to see far into the future" she revealed before adding, "not that I met his siblings before. I only saw them from afar and never had any desire to meet them. Meeting Finn and you was a good surprise though."

"How… how is it even possible?"

"We don't know yet but so far we have ruled out the faery, imp and dragon theories." Not that they had ever considered those things to be real.

"I see…" No. It was obvious that Sage really didn't understand. However, the vampire wasn't one to let herself be taken aback for too long. As such, she quickly recover and said with a shrug, "It's a shame though. I mean, you would probably have been the best dragon around."

"I think so too!"

They talked quietly, sometimes making a quip or two. The tone of the conversation was lighter than before and a weight had disappeared from Nora's shoulders. Being a family with Sage and her husband felt good. The married couple was different from Kol and her but Nora couldn't feel any disdain from them. When Sage spoke of Kol, her voice carried a bit of curiosity and fondness, but none of the scorn Nora had heard from Klaus and Elijah when they killed her in front of Kol, all those years ago. Or in the future? Time-travel could really be a headache sometimes.

Of course, Sage was curious about Kol's so-called change. "How was Kol back then? Finn used to tell me a bit about his family. He told me that Kol was the one who changed the most after their mother cursed them."

"Did he?" Nora responded thoughtfully.

Truth was, everyone changed in one way or another. Whether they were human, werewolf, witch or vampire, time would change people unavoidably. Years would pass. Things would be lost. Others would be gained. People would die or live. Suffer from depression or be happy. Everyone changed and Kol was no exception.

Losing his magic traumatized him and Henrik's death left an indelible scar onto his heart. His siblings' behavior cut into his very flesh. He was more bitter and crueler than when he was human. In this world, there were only two kinds of people to Kol: his people, and the rest.

However, the Mikaelsons failed to realize that Kol was the one who had changed the less. Even back to his human days, Kol had never been completely innocent. And although becoming a vampire caused his world to get bigger, he still refused to let go of the memories of the past, no matter how much they hurt him.

Seeing Kol with her, Finn found his brother changed. In Nora's mind though, what Finn called change was merely Kol in all his splendor. His armor discarded, with his loving smile and tender gaze and his invisible scars that only she knew of.

"At the end of the day, who doesn't change?" Nora eventually whispered wistfully. "I only know that his heart beat alongside mine."

Nora spent the rest of the day with Sófi in the kitchen while Sage was sunbathing in the garden. The hours passed slowly and the sun showed his laziness with a slow descent towards the horizon. When the night fell though, Kol and Finn were still not back.

It wasn't the first time the two brothers came back late but there was an odd tension in the air this evening. The shadows in the corners of the rooms looked like monsters and the moonless sky felt like a dark omen. In the garden, the slender branches reminded Nora of thin and twisted arms ready to catch their preys.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the front door.

"Are you expecting someone?" Nora asked Sófi, her hands full of bread dough.

"No but it must be someone from the village," the witch said while wiping her hand. Once they were cleaned enough, she left the kitchen and walked to the door.

Worried, Nora also wiped her hands and grabbed her sword. When Kol wasn't there, the sword never left her side.

Sófi opened the door. Before her eyes had finished widening in horror, an arrow had already reached her heart. A broken sound left her mouth as she fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"Sófi!" Nora screamed in horror.

The witch was dead. Of that there was no doubt. The prediction Kol made when they arrived at her home had come true.

Sage barged in with her vampire features displayed. Bare fangs ready to rip up throats and the veins underneath her eyes looking like dark cobwebs.

"Monsters! I come here for your lives!" a man exclaimed harshly as he entered the house, disregarding Sófi's body at his feet and going so far as to kick it to move the witch away from him.

He was tall and muscular with dark eyes and lips twisted in disgust and hatred. He put his crossbow away and drew the sword that was previously hanging at his waist.

This… was one of the vampire hunter Kol told her about. Nora was sure of it. But how could a man that came from a poor family grow to be healthier than most knights from noble families? Unless magic was involved… But then…

Nora glanced briefly at Sage with a complicated gaze. Those vampire hunters had already killed several vampires and Sage was merely a few decades old. Moreover, for one to come here at this time and place, surely they were aware of Sage's identity. Yet, knowing her relationship with their future brother-in-law… one of them still came here?

Nora froze, her grip on the handle of her sword tightening. Barely a few seconds had passed and the hunter didn't look in a hurry.

"Sage, you need to leave immediately," she whispered with her eyes fixed on the hunter. "I'll avenge Sófi."

"And leave you alone? You're crazy!"

"Sage, it's important! Leave. Now. You need to find Kol and Finn. I think they're in danger."

The vampire stopped talking, a growl echoing from her chest instead. It was obvious she didn't want to leave Nora alone but Finn was her husband. He was her one priority in the world, just like Kol was Nora's.

"I'll come back," Sage promised.

"I know."

Sage turned back and ran to the garden. In a blink of an eye, she was gone and only Nora and the hunter were left in the room. Furious, he took once more his crossbow, aiming towards the garden. What a fool. Did he think Sage was waiting for him with a target in front of her chest?

Nora stood between him and the garden. With a sneer, he aimed at her own chest and heart but Nora had centuries of experience. Magic or not, it would take a lot more than that to beat her.

"You'll need to do better than that if you really want to kill me, hunter,' she spat as her sword intercepted the arrow, cutting it in two through the length. Then she lunged, her sword ready to cut him down.

He blocked her blade skillfully. He was strong and fast, far more than a human should be. Clearly, he was no stranger to fighting with vampires. But so was Nora. Even though his strength left her arm shaking painfully when their blades met, nothing could be seen on her face. After all, she was no less of a warrior than he.

Suddenly, pain erupted from her thigh as his sword slashed her. The stab was shallow though and would most likely be healed within an hour. Gritting her teeth, she kept fighting and soon, her blade hit his shoulder. Blood gushed out of the wound, splashing the ground.

"You are no vampire," he snarled, "what kind of devil are you?!"

"Not very bright, are you?" she mocked him as she blocked another wave of his sword. They were face to face, with only their sword between them. Oh how she wished she could rip up his face with her fingernails. "I'm the kind that will make you wish you could crawl back into your mother's womb."

She kicked his knee and watched gleefully as he fell. Sadly, he rolled over before she could stab him.

"Running with vampires, you must be as monstrous as them."

"Says the man whose brother sleeps with a vampire," she replied scornfully. "What a moron."

"Not anymore."

Nora saw an opening and got ready to cut him down but an overwhelming sensation of emptiness suddenly threatened to swallow her. Her heart slammed again her chest painfully, all her mind screaming in deny. Not Kol! Please!

The few seconds she lost were enough for the hunter to see an opportunity and aim for her stomach. She stepped back just in time and managed to divert the blade to her ribs.

She hissed, rage causing her blood to boil. "You! What have your Fucking family done?!"

Did they create the daggers? All those years of agony, were they the ones responsible? Did they give them to Klaus?

"Only what should be done," the hunter retorted contemptuously. "Vampires are a plague for humanity."

Would the world be better without vampires? Yes. So what? It would also be better without humans.

"You, bastard!"

Nora lunged back with her sword. The man moved to avoid it but Nora took advantage of his movement to kick his groin. He caught her ankle before she could reach it and raised his sword to strike her.

A smirk appeared on Nora's face. There was her opportunity. Quickly, she buried the tip of her sword into the floor and used the momentum to launch herself in the air. With her free leg, she aimed at the face of the man who had no other choice but to release her foot. She fell back on a handstand and put all her weight in her legs. They hit the hunter's shoulder who let go of his sword and fell on his back.

With another kick of one foot, she pushed away his sword before she grabbed her sword and drove it through his knee mercilessly. His screams echoed inside the room, the sound an odd balm for her broken heart.

"This was for Sófi," she told him darkly before taking back her sword. More screams could be heard as it slid out of his mangled leg, bits of flesh landing on the floor. "It's a pity it's not Halloween."

She placed her foot on the man's torso and pressed to force him to stay still. Their eyes met, dark brown against bright blue, and she spat on his face before her sword pierced the top of his shoulder, breaking through his collar bone as if it was mere butter. "And this is for Kol."

At the same moment, she felt Kol's soul resurface. Good.

She wiped the sweat off her forehead, the sword still on the man's shoulder. Her heart was beating wildly and pants were leaving her mouth faster than air was filling her lunges. Still, she was not done yet with the hunter.

Feeling particularly angry at him, she turned the sword quickly, relishing the hoarse sounds of despair and pain coming from the hunter. "Ah, such a big man crying like a ba-"

Before she could finish her sentence, the hunter grabbed the blade, squeezing without a care for the blood pouring out of the new cut. With a grunt, he used his mangled leg to kick her away and pull out her sword.

He managed to get back on his feet, brandishing Nora's sword in front of him despite his shaking limbs. "It is said swords have no eyes."

"Fool," Nora sneered, "you really think you can hurt me with my own blade?"

She lifted the hunter's sword from the ground, slightly frowning at its heaviness. Still, she raised it before her with both hands.

The hunter took the first step, his movements awkward and bloody. When the blades met, he was forced to drop the sword. Unfortunately, Nora wasn't any better and the heavy sword slipped out of her hands.

She lunged, straddling the man and wrapping her hand around his neck, squeezing it as hard as she could. Not one to give up, he put his arms between hers and forced her to let him go. Then in a swift movement he took out a dagger and slashed her cheek.

She tried to disarm him, using every part of her body to finish him off.

Blood was rushing up to her ears as she fell in a frenzy of rage and caught one of his hands between her teeth, her jaw clenching hard. The hunter yelled in pain but she didn't loosen her grip until she bit off two of his fingers. She spat them along with one of her teeth.

Blood was smearing her face, running down her chin and falling on the hunter's face. She dug a finger into his left eye, crushing it and wanting nothing more than to reach his brain and destroy him.

Suddenly, there was pain in her chest as all her strength left her. Colors drained from her face and the hunter weakly shoved her away. She fell to the ground heavily, a dagger in her heart. Ah… Such a careless mistake.

A strong smell of smoke began to fill the room as her last thought resonated inside her mind, a lone tear rolling down her cheek.

Kol… I'm sorry.

So... This was Nora's POV! Fight scenes are hell to write. Like… really. But it was still funny to write Nora being so brutal haha

See you next time!