A/N: A wild update appeared!
So. . . it's been awhile. Sorry about that. Honestly can't promise that it won't happen again, I have a lot less free time since classes started up again. But I CAN promise that I'm not giving up on either of my stories (and hopefully I never will), even if it takes me awhile to update.
In any case, please enjoy the chapter!
Sigrid wants people to stop getting in her way.
The spell cloaking Sigrid's brothers began to break down as she was trekking through the forest, following her own internal GPS to the coordinates Bonnie had given her. She paused, shuddering as awareness of her siblings suddenly washed over her. Like Bonnie had predicted, the dead witches must have been maintaining the cloak to some extent, because Sigrid still couldn't tell where Elijah, Kol, and Finn were exactly. She couldn't follow her connection to them back to their bodies the way she would normally be able to.
But she could feel them.
And even without the connection, she knew where they were.
Sigrid grinned widely and leapt into the treetops. She'd be able to move more quickly up there. The small knapsack she'd brought to store the silver daggers-though it was currently filled to the brim with blood bags-bounced against her hip as she jumped happily from branch to branch. Soon!
On one particularly long leap, Sigrid let out a great peal of laughter as she soared through the air between the trees, wind whipping through her hair, near giddy with the thought. Soon, soon her family would all be together again! She could keep her promise to Elijah, she could teach Kol about race cars, she could introduce Finn to a world he'd never gotten to know. Rebekah could go to school-maybe there'd be another dance!-and soon Nik would be able to make more hybrids. And as a bonus, all that would make Stefan Salvatore even more miserable than the torture he was no doubt enduring even as she spoke!
It wouldn't be easy. Sigrid knew that well enough after all this time. But still. . .
They'd all be awake and together for the first time in 900 years. That had to count for something. She'd make it count for something if she had to.
The trees ahead thinned out abruptly as Sigrid approached a clearing at breakneck speed. Effortlessly, she came to a full and complete stop on the very last branch available to her, crouching on the tree limb and giving it an affectionate pat as she scanned the scene in front of her.
An old, Colonial style house stood about 25 meters from Sigrid's position at the treeline. It was visibly weathered with age, windows and shutters cracked and dirty. Clearly it had once been white, but time and exposure had dulled it to a gritty grayish color. The immense columns at the front of the house were overgrown with curling vines. The front garden was likewise abandoned and untamed. Sigrid spied a bit of cracked, eroded stone that might have once been a statue or a fountain, but had since been overtaken by shrubs and creeping weeds.
Curiously, only now that she was upon the house could Sigrid sense the spirits of the witches inside. Perhaps the spell had also been partially concealing their presence? Strange. They were powerful, certainly-one hundred witches of any status gave off quite the beacon-but now that they weren't being actively channeled, they felt somehow smaller than Sigrid had expected. Maybe because she was so familiar with the witches of New Orleans, who actually practiced Ancestral magic? The Bennet coven was certainly strong, but they practiced primarily nature magic. Perhaps that played some role in their capabilities, now that they were mere spirits.
No matter. Sigrid would simply deal with them either way.
Fearlessly, Sigrid dropped to the ground, curling her bare toes into the cool, damp earth. Hmm. . . very few people had stepped foot here in the past few decades. Most of the visitors over the last 50 years or so had been fairly recent. A witch. . . the earth told her. Bonnie, no doubt. Some humans. . . A few vampires. Elena and her posse. Sigrid sighed.
Unsurprisingly, the witches' magic became more suffocating the closer Sigrid got to the entrance. She could almost hear them whispering, just at the edge of her mind. She stopped before the front door. "Alright, everyone, that's enough of that," Sigrid called firmly, planting her hands on her hips. "You all know who I am. You all know what I am," she emphasized, allowing her own power to swell for a brief moment. Wind rustled through the clearing, and the witches drew back slightly. "And you all know why I'm here," Sigrid finished. "So why don't we cut to the chase? Show me where my family is, and we won't have to resort to any kind of dramatics." She stepped through the doorway.
Instantly, magic pressed down upon her from all sides, attempting to worm its way into Sigrid's mind and give her a horrific aneurysm. Dramatics it was, then. Fortunately, Sigrid had been prepared for this likelihood (this was especially fortunate since the aneurysm spell was one she was particularly weak to if taken unawares; her healing rate wasn't that great, after all), and she allowed a well of raw natural energy to flood throughout her body and into the air around her, overloading and essentially destroying the magic as it approached her. This was truthfully just about the only way Sigrid could defend against magic that was aimed at her directly, rather than at her surroundings. Evidently the witches had learned. The nature magic they'd attacked with at their last encounter had been much easier for Sigrid to defend against, for obvious reasons.
Sigrid rolled her head around, cracking her neck a bit, and scowled lightly. She was starting to get a little impatient. "I said that's enough," she snapped, flaring her aura and pushing it throughout the entire house so that each individual witch could feel her presence. Could feel how much. . . bigger than them Sigrid was. "I am a being of nature! Do not presume to overpower me!" The spirits hissed angrily, but settled slightly, stopping their attack. "Thank you," Sigrid said primly, stepping further into the house. She surveyed the place idly, noting the broken furniture and the rather interesting mold spotting the walls and ceiling. The place was huge. The coffins could be anywhere, and since they were still concealed, Sigrid knew that she could search the entire house and still not find them. Unless the witches cooperated.
"Now," Sigrid began, trying to emulate Elijah's trustworthy yet intimidating demeanor. "I would like nothing more than for this unfortunate situation to be resolved peacefully. Your descendant Bonnie and I have already reached something of an accord. She's agreed to let me take my siblings, in exchange for the promise of a temporary ceasefire and further negotiations in the future." Making it sound like Bonnie's idea would hopefully make the concept more palatable to the irate witches. Neglecting to mention that Sigrid had practically threatened the girl into compliance was also key. "Bonnie's a smart young woman. Cautious, talented. Not a fan of vampires," Sigrid smirked, then shrugged idly. "She has a good head on her shoulders. I would've thought you lot'd be more supportive of one of your few remaining direct descendents."
Too young (TOO YOUNG), the witches whispered harshly, voices echoing around Sigrid's head. Doesn't know the world (DOESN'T KNOW)!
Sigrid hummed quietly, frowning. "True enough." So much for Plan A. If it were any other situation, Sigrid might have kept at it for a little longer, really tried to persuade the witches before switching tactics. But her brothers were in this house somewhere, and Sigrid wasn't about to let a bunch of dead bitches with superiority complexes keep them from her. Oh well. Plan B it was. An old Mikaelson family favorite! "Still. . ." Sigrid sighed, falsely forlorn. "It would be a shame if something happened to her, wouldn't it? The very last, full-blooded, practising Bennet witch in the world gone because her ancestors couldn't keep their dusty, incorporeal noses out of other people's business."
The response was immediate. The house shook with the force of the rage of 100 hundred witches as they hurled magic at Sigrid from all directions. YOU SWORE, they shrieked, whipping up the wind and sending things flying at Sigrid's head, slinging sharp arcs of magic at her to cut her flesh, trying to set her clothes on fire, to break her bones.
None of it worked.
Sigrid grimaced with the strain of redirecting, overpowering, and/or smothering so many different kinds of magic at once, but it was just as she had suspected: dead Bennet witches simply weren't as powerful as the Ancestors down in NOLA. She might have actually been in trouble if they were. But this wasn't real ancestral magic, just some bastardized version of it. She'd had worse from New Orleans witches on their weakest days. Shrugging off so many attacks at once wasn't easy perse. . . but Sigrid could do it.
YOU GAVE YOUR WORD! the witches screamed, and Sigrid had had just about enough.
"Quit it!" she shouted, seizing control of the wind from the spirits and sending it tearing through the house, charged up to the gills with her aura-natural energy in its purest form. It couldn't hurt the witches directly, since they weren't a part of the physical plane, but since they still accessed the natural world indirectly when they channeled nature to do magic, such an outpouring of raw energy could sort of. . . reach them through that connection, giving them a harsh jolt like an electric shock. Like overloading a circuit, almost. The spirits were left momentarily stunned, and metaphorically (metaphysically?) shaking. Sigrid leapt upon this moment unhesitatingly. "I gave my word," she hissed, "that provided I was able to retrieve my siblings today, my family would agree not to harm anyone in this town. Currently, you're the only thing stopping me from reaching them. And if you don't get out of my way and allow me to take my brothers home safely, then there will quite literally be nothing stopping me from going into town and slaughtering your precious little Bonnie, shortly followed by the rest of this miserable little town, and then by every single living descendent you have left. Do you understand me?"
Finally, the air was still. There was a long moment of silence, and Sigrid could practically feel the spirits processing this ultimatum. She would have no problem following through on her threat, and the witches knew that. Sigrid may have liked Bonnie, may have admired her loyalty and tenacity, but that wouldn't stop her from tearing the girl into itty bitty pieces if that's what she had to do to get her brothers back. And the rest of the witches' descendents didn't even have the thin barrier of amiable acquaintance protecting them. Sigrid could and would destroy them, if it came to that.
She'd regret it. But she'd do it anyway. Her feelings were not more important than her family.
And the spirits must have sensed that.
The remainder of the cloaking spell fell away abruptly, seeming to almost disperse into the air like smoke. Sigrid twitched as knowledge of her siblings' precise whereabouts swept over her in a wave, her connection to them snapping back into place jarringly, and she was moving almost before she was fully aware of it. She burst forward with sudden energy, whipping around corner after corner until she found the correct staircase, one leading down to the basement below.
They were there. She could feel them, closer than they'd been since that night in Chicago when she'd touched their cold faces and told them how sorry she was.
Sigrid didn't bother with the stairs. She leapt forward into the open air, landing featherlight on the cold stone of the floor fifteen feet below.
And there they were. Three elegantly embossed mahogany coffins, lined up in a neat row. E, K, and F, right in a line. Kol's casket was closest. Sigrid reached out, allowing her fingers to trace lightly along the edge of his bronze nameplate. She could feel him just beneath her hand, separated from her only by a thin layer of wood. Her fingers trembled slightly. "Found you," Sigrid whispered. A small smile stole across her face.
"Hope you don't mind that we helped ourselves to the locked one," a smarmy, mildly familiar voice spoke up from the shadows behind her.
Sigrid suppressed what would have been a very violent startle response with a thousand years worth of hard-earned self control. The magic of the hundred witches was so thoroughly embedded into the house and the surrounding area that she hadn't even sensed the vampire's presence. "Damon Salvatore," she mused, keeping her voice level and pointedly not turning around to look at him. "I wish I could say it was nice to officially meet you, but given the circumstances. . ." The locked coffin. Damn. She hadn't even been thinking about it. Nik was going to be pissed as all hell.
"Well, our paths did cross the other night," the eldest Salvatore drawled, stepping forward out of the shadows and moving to lean against the wall to Sigrid's right. She allowed herself to turn and look at him, keeping her body firmly between the vampire and her defenseless siblings. He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Quite the display you put on, by the way. Mind telling me what kind of witchy-woo lets you pull a lightning bolt out of the sky, then shrug off Daddy Dearest's fist getting personal with your small intestine?"
Despite herself, Sigrid snorted. That was certainly one way of putting it. But still. . . "I'm not a witch," she grumbled. "Why does everyone always assume I'm a witch?" she wondered, speaking mostly to herself.
Damon responded anyway. She wondered if he was even capable of restraining himself from doing so. "Well, what else are you supposed to be? You're sure as hell not a vampire," he snarked. "Or a werewolf for that matter."
Sigrid turned to face him fully, crossing her arms lightly and leaning up against Kol's coffin. She smirked. "Ah, yes, werewolves," she said slowly, voice heavy with irony. "Those creatures whose existence you didn't even know about until the past year or so, despite them being fairly common knowledge in the supernatural community." Damon shifted irritably, fingers flexing into tight fists at his sides as he sneered. Sigrid stalked a step closer to the vampire, not at all intimidated by his posturing. "Has it even occurred to you just how much you don't know about the world?" she asked lightly, cocking her head and smiling, eyes narrowed mockingly. Perhaps that wasn't entirely fair. After all, Sigrid actively went out of her way to conceal her true nature from most people. It wasn't exactly a secret-there were plenty of witches and older vampires who knew precisely what she was-but it wasn't knowledge that a creature as young as Damon would come across naturally unless he knew some very interesting people. Still, his willful ignorance was irritating. "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,'" Sigrid quoted. "As my friend William once penned."
Damon gave a forced smirk. "Well, if you're done name-dropping the Bard, why don't you answer my question?"
"About what I am?" Sigrid questioned rhetorically, resting a hip against Finn's coffin now, since she'd stepped away from Kol's. Soon, brother. "Now why would I do that?"
Damon shrugged lackadaisically, though the calm was clearly false. "Seems to me you're looking to make friends with the locals, considering you went out of your way to talk Elena into giving up the fight and 'making peace,'" he scoffed, putting the last two words in air quotes and injecting a fair amount of heat into his voice. If it hadn't been obvious enough before, it was now abundantly clear that he did not approve of the deal Elena had made with Sigrid-never mind that it was the doppelganger's own blood and life that the negotiations hinged upon, and therefore her decision to make. "Might as well spill the dirty details for your new pals, right?"
"My new pals seem to have stolen something from me," Sigrid pointed out dryly, choosing not to address Damon's bitterness. It was none of her concern how he treated his friends. The missing coffin, on the other hand, was decidedly her business.
The vampire's face brightened insufferably. "Ah, well, Bonnie told me she made the deal in exchange for your siblings. You get your bros back, you stop your psycho family from arranging any more hit and runs," Damon sniped, a touch of genuine anger entering his tone. Goodness, they were all quite bent out of shape over what had happened with Jeremy Gilbert, weren't they? Sigrid could understand to an extent, but the boy had lived, hadn't he? So it wasn't as bad as all that, really. Then again, her family was nigh on indestructible, so perhaps her perspective was a bit skewed. "But whatever's in that coffin wasn't part of the deal, and I figured you must care about it quite a bit, to have it locked up so tight," Damon added cheerfully. "So Bonnie and I thought I should snag it while I had the chance." He shrugged lightly, throwing his hands out in a what can you do type gesture. "Leverage, you know?"
A single small puff of laughter escaped Sigrid. Well, it was certainly a clever strategy, she could admit that. She really was getting to like Bonnie more and more by the hour. It was a shame the witch was so stubborn and set in her ways. Ultimately, no amount of talent or intelligence could make up for narrow-mindedness. "And how did you know that the person in that coffin wasn't one of my siblings?" she asked, probing for details. Obviously the casket didn't contain a Mikaelson sibling. . . but it did contain a Mikaelson. And a potentially troublesome one at that.
Damon smiled smugly. "Well, between Elijah and Barbie Klaus-" Sigrid assumed that meant Rebekah, "-Elena knows just about your whole life story." Sigrid very much doubted that, although the fact that Elijah and Bekah had perhaps overshared with their temporary allies was not so surprising. For a couple of incredibly paranoid people, they did on occasion have rather loose tongues. "Including the fact that there are only six Originals left-whatever the hell you are included-now that Papa Original's kicked the bucket. Three of you are awake, three of you are in boxes," he elaborated, gesturing to the coffins at Sigrid's back. "Ergo, something else is behind door number seven. Something I'm sure Klaus would love to get his wolfy little paws on."
Well, he wasn't wrong. Nik would be furious at the loss of Mother's coffin. Truthfully, it made Sigrid a little nervous as well, though she wasn't nearly as fussed about it as her brother would be. It was just that witches were some of the only supernatural beings that could-somewhat consistently-come back from the dead. That was why it had always seemed prudent to hold onto Esther's body, and not just leave it lying around Mystic Falls where anyone could dig it up. And Mother. . . well there was just no telling whose side she'd be on if she came back. Sigrid would love to believe without a doubt that it would be theirs, but Esther had never been the type to offer her children unconditional support. She'd done just as much to hurt their family as she had to protect it. There was no way to know how she'd react to them after spending a thousand years on the Other Side.
Sigrid sighed. "Honestly, that coffin is not my main concern right now," she confessed. Damon's face contorted slightly. Obviously he'd been hoping for a more alarmed and disconcerted response. "I'd advise you not to open it, but I also know that you probably see no reason to listen to my advice. So let me offer you a piece of friendly wisdom instead," Sigrid suggested tiredly, meeting Damon's gaze unflinchingly. He had no real reason to listen to this either, but she really hoped that he would. It would make things so much easier. "No matter how much you think you know about the circumstances that led up to my siblings becoming the first vampires, I guarantee you that you still don't have the whole story. You don't know all of the implications of the spell that was cast on us," she said, thinking of the sirelines that connected each and every vampire in the world to one of her siblings. "And you don't know how those implications still have consequences that have rippled down the generations to affect each and every sentient being who lives on this planet today." Killing any of Sigrid's siblings would result in genocide on the kind of scale that would unbalance nature as a whole. That's how embedded vampires were in the balance of the world at this point. "You don't have to trust me. You don't have to like me. But believe me when I say that killing any of the Original Vampires is not in your best interest," Sigrid finished firmly. That was all she could say for now, without consulting her siblings.
Damon stared at her. She could tell he had absorbed her words, and would probably regurgitate them to his co-conspirators later to try to parse them out. But for now. . . "Riiiiight," he dragged out, speaking in a tone so sarcastic it suggested that he thought her either a simpleton or a madwoman. "I'll keep that in mind. I think we'll still keep that coffin, though, ominous warnings or no." He smirked smugly. "Seems like it's pretty important after all."
Sigrid's face twisted viciously, irritation returning in full force. A light wind rustled through the basement, causing the candles that lined the walls to flicker and flare. Damon eyed them a bit nervously. Yes, that expression was much better. "Right," Sigrid responded mockingly. "Leverage." She smiled widely, showing her teeth and her dimples. Damon twitched slightly at the sight of them. Sigrid stepped a little closer, bare feet silent on the cool stone floor. "Well, speaking of leverage," she said spitefully "it might interest you to know that every minute we spend chatting is also another minute your brother spends being tortured by mine. You know, since Stefan broke into our house, made a bunch of demands, attacked Nik, and then got himself captured. And by captured, I mean impaled." She tilted her head innocently, watching the vampire's eyes widen with shock and dread. Clearly he had not known about Stefan's idiotic plan. Sigrid grinned maliciously. "Oh don't worry, he's still alive," she assured. "Though, by now he might be wishing he weren't." Her eyes crinkled with the force of her smile. "Between you and me, I'd be more worried about what Rebekah might be doing to him than anything else. Hell hath no fury, and all."
Damon lunged forward with a wordless snarl of rage-how cute, he did love his brother after all-but Sigrid was expecting it, and sent him flying across the room with a great gust of wind. He crashed into the wall, knocking over a dozen candles, which fell down onto him and the rug he'd landed upon, igniting the fabric instantly. Sigrid seized control of the spreading fire with nary a thought, sending it to lick at Damon's heels, surrounding him in a circle slightly too narrow to be comfortable and growing tall enough put his expensive leather jacket in danger. Damon eyed the flames warily, but still seemed mostly focused on Stefan's predicament. "You can't hurt him," he objected, though he was careful not to sound too worried. Sigh. As if his instinctive response hadn't already given him away. "Or me. You swore that you wouldn't hurt anyone in Mystic Falls."
Sigrid rolled her eyes. "Yes," she said slowly, as if speaking to a small child, "but as I reminded the dearly departed who inhabit this house not half an hour ago, that promise doesn't go into effect until I've safely retrieved my siblings. Which I haven't," she complained, gesturing to the coffins, "solely because you people keep getting in my way. So!" Sigrid said pleasantly, punctuating the word with a sharp clap that caused the flames surrounding the vampire to flare dramatically. "If you want little brother to stop having his fingers boiled, or whatever the hell is happening to him right now, then quit being so baselessly arrogant and just get out of my sight for a little while, hmm?" she suggested.
Damon glared. "Yeah, and I suppose if I do that you'll just let Stefan go?" he sneered.
Sigrid laughed. "Oh, gods no," she crowed, grinning sharply. "We'll stop torturing him, sure. I'm a woman of my word, after all." When it suited her, at least. "But I don't think we'll be letting him go anywhere after the stunt he pulled today. Not until negotiations are finalized, anyway." Her lips tugged sideways slightly, from a smile to a smirk. "Leverage, you know?" she quoted him cheekily. "I'm sure you understand, don't you Damon?"
He looked like he would argue, so Sigrid flicked her wrist and the circle of fire around him narrowed by half a foot, so he was practically standing in the flames. The only thing stopping him from being set aflame was Sigrid's complete control over the blaze. Damon gritted his teeth, and nodded tensely. "Happy to hear it," she said cheerily, and released him.
The vampire immediately raced for the stairs at top speeds, and Sigrid was only just able to call out and stop him before he exited completely. He turned halfway to look at her over his shoulder from where he'd frozen at the top of the staircase. Sigrid stood at the foot of the stairs, bathed in the natural light streaming down into the basement from the bright golden glow of the late afternoon sun outside. "One last piece of friendly advice, and I suggest you listen to this one," she said calmly, eyes glittering. "Don't try to play war games with people seven times your age," Sigrid recommended dryly. "I've forgotten more about battle strategy than you'll ever learn." And she wasn't even the best strategist in the family.
For a brief moment, some of Damon's bravado seemed to return in the face of this challenge. "Ah, well, I've got eternity," he said, voice light with a veneer of confidence. "Maybe I'll catch up one day."
Norns, he really was insufferable. "Somehow, I don't think you're going to make it that far," Sigrid droned. "Now get out of here."
And though he looked like he would have dearly liked to object, ultimately, Damon acquiesced. Finally, Sigrid was alone. She turned back to the coffins.
Well. Alone for now. She smiled.
She opened Finn's coffin first. He'd likely be the last to wake up no matter what, since he'd been daggered for so long, but a head start wasn't going to hurt anything. Plus, she rather thought he deserved to be undaggered first, all things considered (not that he would know the difference).
Sigrid stared at the dagger protruding from her eldest brother's chest. It had been there for so long, she scarcely remembered what he looked like without it. Had he really only been with them for a century? It was such a strange thought, that the eldest of them all had the least amount of life experience. Finn had never had a chance to truly live the way the rest of them had, so caught up in self-hatred and resentment towards what had been done to them. Perhaps he could have that opportunity now, in a time when bagged blood was aplenty and vampires no longer needed to hunt in order to survive.
Carefully, Sigrid pulled her sleeve down over her fingers, so no part of her hand would touch the silver. Breath caught in her throat, she leaned down and brushed a gentle kiss over Finn's forehead even as she wrapped her protected palm around the dagger's handle and yanked it from his chest. Fingers shaking, she tucked the knife into her knapsack, removing a blood bag and placing it on her brother's chest for when he woke up. She carded her fingers through his hair. "I'll see you soon," she murmured, and moved along.
Kol was next. After Finn, he'd spent the most time daggered over the years, and for offences that would have gotten Rebekah, Sigrid, or Elijah a far milder punishment. If there was one thing that bothered Sigrid about her more frequently undaggered siblings (and truthfully, there were many things about Nik, Bekah, and Lijah that bothered Sigrid) it was the way they treated Kol. Sigrid didn't have favorite siblings, but she'd freely admit that she had a massive soft spot for the Wily Fox. As the most magically talented of their siblings (though Sigrid hadn't quite been using magic), they'd spent quite a lot of time together as children, learning and playing and exploring, and Sigrid knew that she had a far stauncher defender in Kol than she did in any of her other siblings. She tried to return the favor. Norns only knew that no one else was looking after Kol. Many of the times that she herself had been daggered had been because she defended Kol over some issue or other, or tried to undagger him in secret.
To be able to do it freely now. . . it was incredible.
As she had with Finn, Sigrid leaned down over Kol's prone form and pressed a tender kiss to his hairline as she removed the dagger that was keeping them apart. She smoothed a thumb over his cheekbones, under his closed eyes-eyes that matched hers right down to the mischievous twinkle that often illuminated them. "I'll see you soon," she whispered again, setting another blood bag down within Kol's reach.
Finally, Sigrid came to Elijah. He'd only been daggered for a few months, so he'd probably wake the soonest. She cracked his coffin open and took a moment to examine him.
Sigrid and Elijah had a complicated relationship. Or at least, it was complicated from Sigrid's perspective. Truth be told, Elijah probably didn't think about it as much as she did.
They loved each other, certainly. Though Elijah was only around ten years older than Sigrid, in many ways he had been more like a father to her than Mikael, or even Finn had ever been. But Sigrid also knew that Elijah was deeply flawed, and in ways that her other siblings-with the possible exception of Kol-seemed not to notice. Their criticisms of the Noble Stag always seemed to run along the lines of him being obnoxiously perfect, but Sigrid knew that was anything but the truth.
Elijah was just as arrogant and controlling as the rest of them. Moreso, in fact, Sigrid would say. It was just that his obsessive need to be in control at all times manifested differently than Niklaus's, which was much more overt. Elijah didn't shove daggers into people's chests (not often, anyway). He picked at people. He purposefully spoke in ways that they couldn't understand. He made people feel stupid and small. He acted like his word was worth all the gold in El Dorado, but reneged on his promises more frequently than he'd ever admit. He played favorites.
He prioritized peace between his siblings over their happiness.
And yet, there was no place in the world where Sigrid felt safer than in Elijah's arms. The scent of his cologne or the rhythm of his breathing could knock her out like a light, even though she rarely needed sleep. He could make her feel stronger and more capable than ever before with just a few reassuring words. With Elijah at her side, Sigrid felt like she could accomplish anything she put her mind to. And she had never once doubted that he loved her with his entire being.
When Niklaus had daggered Sigrid in Chicago, she had wept for the promise she'd made Elijah. The promise that she would free him and their siblings at the first chance she got. That day, she had thought she'd failed, that Elijah had sacrificed himself for nothing. But now here she was, just a few short weeks later. Rebekah was awake-undaggered most recently by Sigrid's own hand. Kol and Finn would hopefully be awake within the hour. Two at most.
And so, Sigrid thought as she withdrew the final dagger from Elijah's chest, will you. She stared down at the silver knife in her hand. Remembered how she had screamed and cried that night all those months ago when Nik had plunged it into their brother's heart, even though she had known it was coming. She tucked the dagger away, and leaned down to brush a kiss over Elijah's cheek.
"Sorry it took so long."
A/N: To be honest, I'm not completely happy with this chapter, but not for any particular reason that I can pinpoint. But I really just had to get it out there, otherwise I was never going to update again, lol.
Next chapter, a long awaited family reunion!
Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think!