Showing up at the bonfire, I immediately found myself some beer, downed it in one then grabbed another drink, feeling like I needed to be as far away from sober as possible to fully let go and enjoy myself. Scanning around, I saw Rebekah pouring herself a drink until Stefan came over to her, and she shot him a dark scowl before Elena then joined them, made some comment or whatever before leaving again, Stefan pausing before following and left Rebekah all alone. "He's like some pathetic lost puppy following at her heels." I noted as I joined her, appearing at her shoulder and finishing my second drink and poured a third.
"Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe it. Even with his humanity switched off, he still can't keep away from her." Rolling her eyes with a touch of hurt in her voice, I glanced at Rebekah before deciding she needed to have some real fun.
"Come on, dump this and let's go some real drinks. You ever try shots before?" Tossing out her beer and doing the same with mine, Rebekah accepted me taking the lead and I found us some tequila where we drank a couple of shots together, getting a cheerful buzz which completely turned the party around for us, lightening our spirits. "God, alcohol really does make everything better. Even the music's not so crap." I beamed as we danced, Rebekah still following my lead as she still worked on adjusting to the new time period.
Having last been alive in the twenties, she still had a few old fashioned habits and wasn't used to life like this. For instance, when one guy grabbed her waist in order to dance intimately with his hips pressing against her butt, she'd almost killed him before I'd quickly jumped in and pushed the offender away, telling him to back off. "Let me rip his throat out." Rebekah snarled, getting a little too bloodthirsty as her fangs popped out so I quickly brought her away.
"No, no we're cool, that's kinda normal now. I don't know what the rules were about dancing in the twenties, but unfortunately it's not as tasteful as it was back then. Dancing intimately and even downright explicitly is acceptable these days. Look." Pointing out a few couples, I showed Rebekah what other people were doing, from kissing in plain view of everyone around them to groping one another in public. A little gross, but it was true.
"You people dance like this all the time?" Looking a little put off by everyone's openness, Rebekah arched an eyebrow as I sat down on a log by one of the fires in order to grab myself a marshmallow and a long stick so I could roast it. "Is there anything that isn't acceptable these days?"
"Not really, except sex right out in the open and public nudity. Those things are still off the table." I joked as Rebekah joined me and I set her up with a stick and marshmallow of her own whereby she copied me as I crisped up the outside then blew out the flame when it caught on fire. "Try it, it's good." Watching everything I did, Rebekah copied me and was surprised by the sweetness and the texture, her eyes widening as she looked at me in wonder before finishing it off. It was adorable, like having a toddler following after you and trying to mimic everything you did, I couldn't help but grin.
"I definitely like this era better than any others. I believe I was always born to be a modern girl."
"I'll say, women can do pretty much anything these days. Women's rights and all, it's become a big thing in the last half century. We can vote, go to work, earn good money and not have to be settled as housewives and moms." I agreed as I set us both up with another marshmallow. "There's a whole bunch of things that have probably changed since the twenties, so if someone does something that surprises you or you're not sure about something, just roll with it and ask me or you can try the internet. You've got a cell-phone, right?"
"A portable telephone? Yes it was one of the first things I endeavoured to acquire when I woke up. After changing my outfit, of course. A blood stained dress from the nineteen twenties was not exactly subtle." Ignoring the part about the blood, I made sure to show Rebekah a few more functions on her phone that she hadn't explored yet as well as giving her my number, which brought her total number of contacts to two. Myself and Klaus. "Why are you helping me so much? By all reason you should be staying as far away from me as possible."
"Your brother left you here on your own with only the basics on how to survive in modern society, there's no way I'm going to leave you alone to figure it out for yourself otherwise things might take a messy turn." I told her simply, handing her back her phone as I pushed my frizzy hair out of my face from where it was becoming too unruly to manage. "Besides, you looked like you could do with a friend." Frowning at me for a moment or so, Rebekah tried to ascertain whether or not I was lying before seemingly accepting that I was telling the truth.
"Thank you. Friends are certainly something I have always lacked, it's nice to have one finally." Giving her a smile, I ate my fourth or fifth toasted marshmallow before I pulled my hair back from my face and quickly tied it back with a hair tie so that it was away from my neck and didn't make me feel like I was overheating. "What happened to your neck?" Rebekah suddenly asked, noticing the scars from where Stefan had tried to make a meal out of me.
"Oh that was Stefan. He lost control one night and I was ignorant to the fact that vampires were a thing, so he took a bite." I answered, rubbing the scars which had become nothing more than pale silver marks on my neck now. "It's why he and I don't exactly get along, and his brother's not much better. Bigger ego, smaller head to fit it in." Snorting at my quip, Rebekah studied the scars a moment longer before letting it go, and before we could decide to talk about something else, Damon showed up and joined us. "Speak of the goddamn devil."
"Evening ladies." He said charmingly, giving what I would assume he thought was a dazzling smile at us though it was mostly directed at Rebekah.
"What do you want Damon?" I cut to the chase, suspicious of the fact that he would voluntarily talk to either one of us without having some kind of hidden agenda.
"Whoa easy, just trying to make polite conversation, be a good housemate to our latest guest." He informed me, gesturing at Rebekah who also frowned at him. "I see you've already moved in on our resident druid. Keeping tabs on her for your big bad brother?"
"Not at all. Believe it or not, it seems that Ophelia actually enjoys my company." Rebekah parried with a smooth tone which made me smirk as I looked at her then glowered at Damon.
"Way more than yours." Making the point clear, Damon hissed as if stung by our comebacks, but still stayed put as he continued to try and talk to us.
"Ouch, and here I was thinking we were coming to an understanding, sweet Ophelia." Drawing out the syllables of my name, I narrowed my eyes and immediately the fire beside us burst, catching Damon which forced him to quickly whip his arm back and he then dropped the pretence, staring at me incredulously as he shook out his arm to brush away the cinders as the fire settled again. "Can you not set me on fire? I thought we were past that."
"You tried to attack me twice and I set you on fire so…no, we're not passed that. You never even apologised. Don't you think that's so rude Bekah? What kind of man doesn't have the balls to apologise to a lady when he is firstly clearly the one in the wrong and secondly, the biggest asshole that ever walked this god damn earth?" I turned to Rebekah, knowing that I could count on her to join my side as we both turned on Damon, making it very clear that he was not welcome and that neither of us trusted him as Rebekah smirked.
"Indeed. A man is not a man unless he can be humble before a maiden. Trust me, I have lived a long time. I know a real man when I see one." Spluttering with laughter at her witty reply, I grinned broadly and tittered my tongue mockingly as I looked back at Damon.
"I think she just burned you way more than I ever did, Damon. Was there something you actually wanted from us or did you come over here just to get burned, figuratively and literally." Pulling my hand towards me the fire expanded again, growing hotter as I used it to threaten Damon who lifted up his hands.
"Chill, I'm here with peaceful intentions. Just wanting to get to know the competition." He insisted but Rebekah merely snorted, inspecting her toasting stick closely before she stood up, the two of them gravitating towards one another.
"Believe me when I say this, Damon." Without warning, she then thrust the pointed end of the stick right into his gut, making me jolt and stare at the sound of flesh ripping and the squelch as it impaled the softer organs. I felt nauseous but I held back the feeling of wanting to retch, quickly turning away as Rebekah lowered her voice to a chilling whisper. "There is no fair fight between us, remember that." Letting go of the stick, Rebekah turned around to me. "Coming?" I chose to follow, leaving the warmth of the fire as she put some distance between herself and Damon. "I apologise you had to see that, subtlety isn't exactly one of my strong suits."
"No it's cool, I guess. I'm not a huge fan of Damon anyway so it doesn't bother me. Just promise you'll try and keep the maiming on the down low, please? Feeding too. There's a lot of people around town who know about vampires, and not all of them are very friendly. They can make life pretty impossible for you if they figure out there's more vampires around." I warned her, grabbing her arm as she stalked away in order to lead her over to the drinks table. "Trust me, you'll make life a lot easier for yourself if you just blend in."
"Alright, I'll do my best but I won't make any promises. Like I said. Subtlety is not a talent of mine." She said, accepting a drink I poured for her and draining it all in one. "Hm, the alcohol was definitely better in the twenties. This tastes…cheap."
"It is cheap, but great for a quick buzz." I assured her, saluting my beer before drinking. "That aside, did I hear Damon say that you were his houseguest? Are you staying at the Salvatore house?"
"Yes since my brother abandoned me when he fled town I had nowhere else to go, I made myself at home with the Salvatore brothers. None of us are very happy about it but where else can I go? Nik was the one with all the money so my situation was desperate." She responded curtly, sipping at her drink and scowling at the mention of her brother. "He is such a hypocrite. All those years expecting us never to leave his side yet at the first sign of trouble he just leaves me behind. Elijah would never have forgotten me." Lifting my eyes at the mention of Elijah, I couldn't help but wonder if Klaus would ever wake him up.
"Tell me about your other brothers." I invited, finding us both a new seat so that we could sit and talk whilst the party continued around us. "I know Elijah already since we met a few times before, but he's currently daggered and in Klaus's possession so I'm not expecting any social visits anytime soon."
"We're all different as siblings, though admittedly I resemble Niklaus in character. Easy to anger, stubborn and both of us have our vicious streak. Our eldest brother Finn is like Elijah, noble and has strong morals, perhaps even more so than Elijah. Before we became vampires he was very close with the rest of us, but we became distant after we were transformed. He sees our existence as an abomination, monstrous, but he's been daggered for the past nine hundred years so it hardly matters what he thinks. Elijah and Nik you already know, which leaves Kol. He's a little sadistic, which probably wouldn't surprise you at this point. He's quite wild, likes to take his chances and always sides with the stronger party, so his unpredictability makes him predictable."
"So you have four brothers?"
"Actually I had five, my younger brother Henrik died a thousand years ago. He was killed by werewolves which began the war between our races. He was a sweet little thing, so innocent and curious about the world. He would follow our older brothers everywhere, practically in their shadow and looked up to Klaus more than anyone." Seeing A Faint smile grace Rebekah's lips, I wondered just how lonely she must be feeling right about now, separated from her family despite having an eternity to be with them.
"I had a brother and sister too, once." I found myself admitting, opening up to Rebekah who looked at me curiously. "They died with my parents in a house fire."
"How old were you?"
"Eight." Saddened, Rebekah reached out rubbed my arm tentatively, the both of us sharing in our feelings of loss and grief. Guess she and I weren't so different after all, aside from the millennium age difference, Rebekah seemed like an ordinary person who was just as lost as the rest of us. My phone ringing distracted me from my thoughts, making me blink myself awake before I answered it, seeing Matt's name on the screen. "Mattie?"
"Lia I need your help, I've done something terrible and it's a huge mistake." He sounded frantic and frightened, so I quickly straightened up and fought off the light headedness from the alcohol.
"Slow down Mattie, what's happened? Tell me slowly." So he explained how Jeremy had told him how he had been seeing his sister Vickie and that she had been asking for help, so he'd gone through a ritual in order to try and talk to her and then he started to see her too. She'd persuaded him to allow her to exist in the material world through another ritual with the help of some old witch on the other side, and now that she was back, she was going to try and kill Elena because that's what the witch had asked him to do.
"I messed up Lia, I really messed up. Bonnie's here with me now and we're going to try and block the magic that brought Vickie through, but I'm worried about Elena. Would you please look out for her for me? If she dies because of what I did, I don't…I don't know if I could ever forgive myself." Oh Mattie, my sweet Matt, how the hell did you get yourself into this kind of trouble?
"Don't worry, I'll handle it. You just focus on what you need to do and leave Elena to me." I promised him, hearing him exhale audibly before he thanked me profusely, telling me that I was the best. Hell yeah I was. Since it was Matt asking me for the favour, I saw no reason to refuse him and vengeful ghosts sounded like a real problem.
"Sounds like trouble. Need any help?" Rebekah asked as I put my phone back into my pocket.
"Only if you want to. Since Klaus needs Elena alive for his hybrids, he probably won't be too happy if he finds out a crazy ghost killed her, he probably wouldn't forgive you for that." Rolling her eyes in agreement, Rebekah and I split up in order to search for Elena before Vickie's ghost could get to her. Rebekah searched the party whilst I went to look for her in the parking lot whilst using magic to try and sense any magic entities around that shouldn't be here. I scored pretty big, and the parking lot was definitely the right place to be. The energy of something very twisted and dark was pretty strong around here, like something dead was still moving around and when one of the cars suddenly set itself on fire, I realised that Vickie was taking the whole 'kill Elena' thing pretty seriously.
At first I was alarmed, jumping back when the flames erupted and heard Alaric shouting to her, trying to break the window in order to get her out from where she was trapped inside. Taking a deep breath, I ignored the flames and focused on my magic in order to douse them, holding out a hand in order to gradually lower it, drawing the heat and the energy into me so that the flames simmered out into weak embers until finally, there was nothing left. Elena was looking around her frantically in the car, I could see her head turning this way and that whilst I stood behind it out of sight.
Seems like Vickie had doused the car in gasoline first in order to ignite it, trapping her inside. Alaric looked completely floored, cautiously approaching the car before then quickly trying to yank the door open but it remained locked shut. Snapping my fingers, I unlocked the car and felt Vickie's presence suddenly vanish, sucked away elsewhere so I assumed Bonnie's spell must be working. Elena jumped out of the car with a terrified sob, falling into Ric's arms as he quickly caught her and promised that everything was okay.
They were so focused on the car and each other, they didn't even notice me so I took the opportunity to just quietly slip away, though Rebekah was waiting for me at the edge of the parking lot. "Not going to tell them you were their hero?"
"Being a hero is overrated. You do them one favour then the next thing you know, they're wanting this to be fixed or for that kind of spell and it'll just go on and on. I'm more of an antihero, I guess." Sending a text to Matt to tell him that Elena was okay, I then looked up at Rebekah. "You ready to call it a night? I can drive you home if you want." Agreeing that she was done with the bonfire, I took her home and dropped her off, promising to see her in school the next day.
"Thank you for this evening. Your company made the whole affair tolerable, I suppose." She said to me dryly, making me laugh as we then smiled at one another. "Until tomorrow, Lia." Saying goodnight, I drove off but looked back in my rear view mirror, seeing Rebekah standing there at the door to watch me leave so I rolled down my window and waved one last time, and just before I turned out of the drive, she lifted her hand and waved back.