It took several hours to complete the spells that would protect the city as much as possible, limiting the impact of the unravelling elements, but when I started to sense Davina being taken away somewhere, moving from her room, I staggered to my feet and rushed as quickly as I was able to try and stop whoever it was. Luckily, they had to come past my floor in order to get out, and when I saw Marcel carrying Davina, I quickly called out to him. "Marcel! You can't take her…she'll die if you take her away from these spells..." Struggling for breath, I tried to reach out for them both. "Her best chance is here, with me…"
"You said you were going to protect her, now you want to hand her over to the witches like the rest of them. I'll be damned before I hand her over to any of you." Marcel bit back coldly, pulling away from me though he recognised my condition of exhaustion. "How much magic did you use?"
"Too much…the baby…she's using up so much magic…" Groaning I sank against the wall then blacked out after sinking, unable to hold it together any longer. This feeling of weakness was really starting to get on my nerves. I was used to shaking entire towns and creating thunderstorms with a snap of my fingers without so much as breaking a sweat. This was really starting to become a huge inconvenience. When I woke up Marcel and Davina were gone. The first thing I did was go looking for everyone else, find Rebekah and Klaus. "Marcel took Davina!" I yelled out, calling them to attention and getting them into gear.
I wanted to go out and help search for Davina but Bekah was the one who absolutely refused, telling me that if I took one step out of this compound then she would personally nail my ass to a door. Graphic, but it got the point across. I didn't have enough strength left to do a locator spell, which left Elijah to take care of that since he was apparently with Sabine working on getting an old witch lover of his consecrated so that Sophie could become an Elder, or something. I'll figure out how all that works later.
With the elements in such disarray, all I could do was sit and wait for news about what was going to happen. We'd cycled through earth and wind, now we were upon water. The last element would be fire, and if we got to that stage then the entire city would burn. It made me anxious having to wait, but finally things started to come together in order to form a plan. Since Sophie's plan to become an Elder by consecrating the bones of a powerful witch failed, she had to find another, which was when Elijah offered up the body of his mother.
It worked, the ancestral magic allowing Sophie to become an elder after Esther was buried in consecrated ground and the little one became a property owner in New Orleans. That kid already had a bright future set ahead of her if things keep on going this way. In any case, becoming an Elder allowed Sophie to complete the ritual, and after Rebekah found where Marcel was hiding Davina, things could start progressing, though we were now standing in the graveyard waiting on him to arrive. I didn't want to see this, but I had to be here to make sure that everything went smoothly. I owed it to Davina at least.
He brought her with a trail of fire following behind him, drawn to Davina whom he carried in his arms, cradling her like a princess. Bringing her to the alter where the other three girls that had already been sacrificed lay, he then set Davina down so that she could stand before Sophie who held the ceremonial knife out over the flames of a pedestal torch in order to purify it. "Do you believe in the Harvest?" Biting my lip, my hand sought out Bekah's and our fingers tightly intertwined, watching anxiously as Davina nodded, trembling even as she did so.
"I believe." Wasting no time, Sophie raised the blade and slit Davina's throat, making me gurgle with a retch as I quickly looked away, hiding in Bekah's shoulder as I heard Davina whimper before she dropped, blood spilling down her neck in a horrific view I would never forget so long as I lived. The rain came to a stop then and I felt the flow of the magic pour back into the earth from Davina as I risked a look at her, seeing her laying in Marcel's arms.
"After the Harvest comes the Reaping. Their sacrifices made and accepted. We call upon our Elders to resurrect the chosen ones." Sophie began to call out, expecting for their magic to be returned to them and all three girls to rise again. "We call upon our Elders to resurrect the chosen ones." With a continued silence, I began to sense that something was wrong, letting go of Rebekah and taking a step closer as Sophie became desperate. "Resurrect your chosen ones. Please?" When it became apparent that something had definitely gone wrong, I watched as Sophie began to sob and cling onto the girl who was her niece.
Everyone was in a state of shock, Bekah and Hayley starting to cry as I flew into motion, striding over to the alter and grabbed hold of Sophie. "Move aside." Quickly pushing her away, I held my hands out over the girls and began to feel for their magic, calling out in French in order to try and communicate with their ancestors. The magic was flowing, but it was…distorted. Fractured, even. The girls were dead, but they weren't gone, it was so hard to explain but there was nothing I could do to fix it. Even as I tried to use my earth and nature element magic in an attempt to restore them to life, they continued to remain utterly still. "Something's happened. The magic is gone."
"What do you mean?" Elijah questioned me as Sophie continued to howl and wail beside me, still grasping onto her niece.
"It's gone. The magic has vanished and I can't sense where. I was tracking it during the ritual and it was working. It shouldn't have just disappeared like that." Gripping my hair as I started to panic, I tried to figure out something I could do. "Davina? Davina please don't be dead." If I find out that I'd made a mistake and gotten this girl killed when there could have been something else I could have done, I won't ever forgive myself. Rubbing and scratching at my neck over the scars, I started to draw blood I was so anxious, struggling to come to terms with this. "No, no this can't be right, my ancestors told me it would work, they should be alive! This can't be it!"
"Ophelia, you are hurting yourself…" Digging my nails deeper into my neck, I started to even peel away at the skin I was scratching so hard until suddenly Nik was there behind me, grabbing my wrist and pulling my hand away, locking both my arms in front of me.
"Enough of that, ssh…it's alright…" He tried to soothe me as I cried, sobbing as everything hit me at once and I staggered under the weight of the responsibility. It was crushing, like someone had broken every bone in my chest and now I couldn't breathe even as Nik whispered into my ear. He held me even as I sank to the ground, holding me close and caring for me despite everything I'd done and said to him these past couple of days. It made me feel all the worse, crippling me inside as he picked me up and just carried me out of there fast as light in order to bring me home. "You need to sleep."
"I can't go to sleep Nik, I need to find out what happened with the ritual, something went wrong I know it. Someone interfered, stole the magic elsewhere or something!" Trying to sit back up when Nik put me down on the bed, his hand firmly gripped hold of my shoulder and pushed me back down. I struggled against him, trying to break free without magic since I didn't want to push it on that front, but of course without magic on my side, I was weak as any human and Nik very easily overpowered me. "Let go of me!"
"And let you go gallivanting off to god knows where? Not likely." Responding by tightening his grip on my wrists, Nik used his leg to trap me completely as I glared up at him with everything I had. "Glare all you like, sweetheart, you're still not going anywhere."
"You can't control me, Nik, I'm not one of your sired minions or vampire lackeys, I can do whatever the hell I like!" Resuming my struggle against him, Nik continued to wrestle with me until I was just too physically exhausted to continue any further. In the quiet, Nik gradually released his hold on me, giving me a look before vanishing. He was gone for less than a few seconds before he returned with cloth, a bowl of water and a gauze patch. Frowning at him, Nik then carefully lifted away my curling hair to expose my neck, looking at the mess I'd made of it before clicking his tongue.
"Silly girl, ruining a perfectly good neck."
"A vampire has already taken a bite out of it, doesn't make much difference." I replied curtly, still pissed, angry and upset about everything and with myself. Nik turned my face to the side in order to view my throat better then used the damp cloth to gently sponge away the blood, making me wince slightly as it stung. He was quiet whilst he administered to the scratches, carefully disinfecting them as I pressed my eyes shut, being a total wimp to pain before he then put the patch over it. Putting everything else aside, he then remained sitting beside me, lifting his hand before hesitantly touching his thumb against the sweep of my jaw.
My eyes snapped to him, narrowing slightly as I carefully observed him but didn't reject him outright. After everything that had happened today…I needed a little human comfort, and Nik was the best I was going to get around here. Stubbornly refusing to admit this in any way, I looked away from him again and instead, tried to roll away but still he stopped me, now looming closer so that no matter what I did, I couldn't escape him. "Get off of me Nik."
"And what if I do not wish to?"
"Then you're an ass."
"I've been called much worse." Getting pissed, I used a surge of energy to try and push him away from me but his hands neatly snatched my wrists and they were soon pinned down either side of my head. "Resistance is futile, Ophelia. You are quite at my mercy." Beginning to reach the breaking point, I couldn't even begin to understand just how I was feeling right now. I was so angry at Nik and overwhelmed about what happened to Davina, and with a multitude of other melancholy emotions thrown in, I wasn't surprised when I started to cry silently. I couldn't hold it back, pressing my eyes shut as I tried to block everything else whilst Nik pulled away slightly, not expecting this. I wanted him gone, but I also didn't want him to leave. It was a conundrum, and I didn't know how to fix it. I didn't know how to fix anything right now.
Probably using the last thread of humanity in his entire body, Nik started to croon at me, lifting up my head in order to slide behind me, wrap me up in his arms and hold me to him as I wept. I cried myself into exhaustion, falling asleep with Nik still holding me and everything just seemed to fade away, except for that cold, bottomless pit feeling in my stomach which went with me everywhere from thereafter, with seemingly no cure in order to alleviate it.