Having bound the dagger with the final ingredient of Esther's blood, I laid out my plan to the others, though I specified that both Kol and Davina were left completely out of it. They deserved at least one night to be together before the chaos of family life came crashing down on the poor guy's head. In any case, my plan was very simple. We go in, I duel Dahlia, somehow get trap her soul into the ring on my finger so that she and Esther could reconcile, then allow someone else to destroy her physical body before I send off both souls for the final time. Easy as pie, right? Well, there was nothing for it now other than to just dive straight in and I was through with standing to the side this time around. I wanted this over with once and for all so I could then finally turn on Nik and hound him for cursing Hayley and her pack again. I'm feeling like he could deal with a taste of his own medicine.
I found Dahlia and Freya easily at an old coach house where Dahlia had already put up a boundary spell around the two of them, intending to kill the elder sister Freya. It was my first time seeing her, and I immediately spotted the family resemblance, especially between her and Rebekah, who had since anchored herself to my side from the moment of my return and seemed to not have a single inclination of moving too far away from me. It was her way of being worried, and I found it endearing, but right now, we needed to focus on Dahlia and make sure that she couldn't take Hope away from us all. She was talking about darkness, how it was created and not born. "So, however you thought you might mend me, please know you never could. Whenever I looked in your eyes, I saw your mother, the sister who turned my heart to stone…and with that stone, I will crush every one of her children."
"Isn't there a saying about stones and glass houses?" Niklaus announced as he appeared first, standing directly in front of his aunt as Rebekah then followed.
"In case the analogy is lost on you, I believe my brother is calling you a hypocritical bitch." Despite the situation, I couldn't help but smile to myself at Rebekah's crass and blunt nature. At least that part of her will never change.
"Hmm, bringing vampires to a witch fight. Someone hasn't learned their lesson." Musing cynically to the others, Elijah then brought me with him as he also joined his siblings, whereby I took over the negotiations with a rather arrogant smirk on my face.
"I think you'll find they did learn, because this time, they brought a druid to a witch fight." At this point Dahlia froze, staring at me as I cracked my knuckles in preparation for some serious witchy juju. "Oh yeah, didn't see that one coming, did you? So you're the one trying to kidnap Hope and enslave her to becoming your endless power source. See, I love that little girl like you wouldn't believe, and that just doesn't sit well with me, so you and I…we have a problem here. Now, considering you're ancient, I think you know what my people are like. You'll also know that no matter how much power you have, I always have access to more, so basically, you're screwed. If you back down now, release Freya, give up the deal that you made with Esther, then I'll let you walk away from here freely. You can live your life however you want, you'll be free. I can guarantee you a wonderful life that until now, you have never been able to live." I offered her the option to walk away, wanting to at least give her that chance before we resorted to drastic measures, but Dahlia merely laughed after having recovered from her shock to meet with a modern day druid.
"You think that your power is anything comparable to mine? You are still but a child, your magic is raw, untested, there is still a long way to go before you are any kind of threat to me." She responded before revealing the white oak stake, looking between the four of us as we faced her. "I can easily deal with you after I have destroyed the last of my sister's children." She seriously had some screws loose if she was actually considering killing the children of her sister out of jealousy. This family truly was messed up on so many levels.
"One stake, three of us. Even if you don't hesitate, the other two will rip you in half." Nik warned her before I could tell him to shut up. The last thing you wanted to do was antagonise this woman, but it was too late.
"Sound thinking but small thinking." Without hesitation she destroyed the white oak stake like it was nothing, turning it into a fine white powder which almost looked like snow as it began to descend from above. Dahlia forced Rebekah, Elijah and Nik to all throw back their heads and inhale a deep lungful of the fatal powder, making my heart leap with momentary fear as they began to cough and wheeze, poisoned by the white oak as it entered their blood stream. I had no choice now, I had to act. Turning to face Dahlia, I released my magic in a wave of force, letting it ripple before blasting outwards as Dahlia did the same. Upon making contact against her own magic wall, I immediately had to fight to maintain my ground, her resistance was almost overpoweringly strong.
As the others fell beside me, still wheezing and struggling to breath, I fought to maintain my standing as I reached in for the natural magic that surrounded my being, opening my reserves to a greater allowance of power, making me stand on an a more equal grounding with Dahlia. A fiery glow started to exhibit itself around me, but I hardly took any notice of it as I stepped closer towards Dahlia, asserting my position as at least her equal and hopefully, her superior. I could hardly draw breath I was so focused, and with a final surge which shook her concentration, I rubbed the rose quartz on my ring to pull Esther's soul forwards and projecting her into reality with me as the medium.
The appearance of her sister once again threw Dahlia's concentration off balance, and as I burned runes in a larger circle around the three of us, I pulled Dahlia into an illusion where both she and her sister were younger. Previously when I was at dinner with Nik, Bekah and Elijah, Niklaus had given me an extensive recollection of what he had seen of Dahlia's history between her and Esther when they were younger, so with his memories, I was able to recreate their image of their girlhood, and with their souls now connected, the thousand year old family issues could finally be addressed. They stood as young girls in an open field, where Esther held her sister's hands and stood facing her. They began their talk as I withdrew from the mental space.
I returned to be standing in that coach house, where Freya had broken the circle that she was trapped in and released her siblings from the white oak powder. In that moment when they recovered, the knife was then retrieved from the ground where it had fallen, and Niklaus, taking careful aim at his aunt, launched it directly at her. It embedded straight into her heart, and within moments she had become a petrified model of stone. Releasing my magic, I then focused on the presence of the two souls that no one else would be able to sense, and guided them together before they faded into the earth to pass on. From Dahlia, I could feel that she was at peace, even happy, the rose quartz helping to channel their presence allowing me to feel their final emotions together as they passed on together.
Whatever Esther had said, it had clearly done the job, and now Hope will be safe from her aunt. I let go of all traces of magic, the fiery aura fading away from around me as everyone else began to get to their feet, recovering from the ordeal. We had one, emerging victorious once again despite all odds. I sighed deeply, looking around at the scene as Dahlia's body began to disintegrate into nothing more than dust before electing to turn away. Seeing as Dahlia was defeated, there was no need for me to hang around here, so after the siblings had recovered only Rebekah followed after me and once she caught up, she laced her arm through mine, gave it a squeeze with a smile, then walked with me to the nearest bar so we could drown away everything in all the booze we could fit into our bodies.