Italics (when spanning over more than one word) = flashback/memory
(Chapter One)
"A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passer-by only see a wisp of smoke."
~ Vincent Van Gogh
KELSEY DID NOT ALWAYS LIKE NOISE. She did not, by any means abhor it, but she simply did not like it too often.
New Orleans was nothing but noise. Less than ten minutes in the French Quarter sure was quick to teach her that. Music, singing, dancing, chatter, laughter, shouts of joy, drunken brawls; all of that reached her ears. A thousand different conversation carried through a seemingly endless body of people.
Her brain hardly was fit to cope with this many impressions at once. Nor did Kelsey feel anywhere near ready to expose herself to the obvious changes this city had undergone during her absence, but she managed.
It proved to be easy enough to flit through the crowd unnoticed even at an unnatural pace. One sure advantage of a crowd of such amplitude.
The only one she could come up with at that very moment, actually.
Kelsey didn't breathe until she had put a safe distance between her and the crowd, ignoring the scraping in her throat. Another problem she would have to take care of, eventually. But it was always one step at a time.
And with strictly that in mind, Kelsey fished through the still impossibly large pockets of the same marron trousers she had for a good week now. She would have to remind herself to change sometime too, she duly noted, if only to not become a part of the large sweaty crowd whose alcohol breath she could still smell.
Kelsey screwed up her nose, disgusted. But it quickly changed into a frown when she did not find her phone where she expected it to be safely tucked in her worn-out trousers.
She had forgotten it in her car.
Of course.
She closed her eyes, releasing a puff of air through her nose as she leaned her back against what she expected to be a wall in this more abandoned and secluded area of the city.
But it wasn't, a wall that is.
It was a fence.
Surprised at this little - one might even say insignificant -piece of information, Kelsey opened her eyes. Blinking away the picture of her tackling a tortuously long trek back through the crowd to get the phone she had so carelessly forgot, she repositioned herself.
It was a peculiar feeling, the need to look at the towering fence. But Kelsey had early on in her life acquired herself an easily intrigued nature when she had learned that distraction had an appealing effect on her straying mind.
It had its shortcomings though. Like making her forget essential things.
For instance, how she had purposely ignored how very familiar everything in this place was to her.
Kelsey curiously looked at the thin black pillars with the elegantly curved tips and followed their precise lineup to where they lead to an entrance, blissfully oblivious to what impact this childlike behaviour would have.
The words on the closed gateway rang hollowly in her unguarded head.
Absentmindedly, she touched a bar, gazing into space and letting those two words ring within her with no meaning.
A faint shock passed through her body as soon as her fingertips grazed the metal, startling her out of her reverie.
As if on cue something cold swept by her, but it was nothing physical. Kelsey knew that by the inward shudder that she felt in the deep mark of her bones.
More than a premonition. The silent whispers of realisation. A not so gentle poking of her subconscious that she had been blending out by focusing on nothing and having her eyes set on the ground, for the full 37 minutes and 25 seconds she had so far spent in New Orleans.
Her eyes focused sharper than they had before on her surroundings.
And then she saw a gravestone. Another one. And another one.
A cemetery as the name had not so subtly hinted at.
'Lafayette Cemetery' it had read.
And although it wasn't death itself but the dead -the matter of who this cemetery harboured, who had died right there- that struck Kelsey with horror.
It looked different. The whole city did. And yet it was still the same, in more than the old kept and somewhat reconstructed architecture.
All of a sudden, there was no veil of ignorance her subconscious could fabricate that would be strong enough to ignore the glaring facts she had in front of her. Not when there was a magical barrier purposely keeping her out of a place she never wanted to step foot into again.
It was ironic...how in the face of these inescapable realisations and facts of another time, Kelsey's reality quickly faded and was replaced by pieces of long pushed back memories.
The 'Big Easy' was replaced by the French colony Kelsey had stepped foot on ages ago. That was marred by vast plantations that held unfree labourers, treated worse than animals. Instead of music and partying people, she heard the faint sound of merchants and the rolling of carriages. Electronic tunes and guitars traded for the classical rhythms of baroque. Women who perfectioned their smiles and hid behind etiquette. She saw a newly founded city that was vulnerable and left open to corruption and inequity.
Kelsey saw a city they had freed, doubtlessly improved.
And then she saw houses made of wood being swallowed by flames.
856 buildings that had burned in a fire that had started here.
But none of that terrible destruction was visible and it didn't have to be. Kelsey saw regardless and she felt it too.
The air around her thinned, her heart ready to burst out of her ribcage. She hadn't estimated this, had not thought about it. But she did now.
And the realisation of it all hit her full force.
Kelsey forgot Rebekah and all reason she did or did not have for coming, it all drowned out when the world around her started flickering and spinning.
There was fire...everywhere. People running, trying in vain to escape the licking tongue of what would ultimately become their end. Their screams were louder than the usual echo she heard in her nightmares. It was almost tangible.
Kelsey wanted to run too, escape this horrible nightmare. But she couldn't because this was not a nightmare. It might not be real now but it had been.
Because of her.
She had to see. She could almost feel the ghost of her hands violently shaking her shoulders, forcing her to keep her eyes wide open and see through her blurry vision. After all, she had brought this upon herself and thus this was the torture she had deserved to suffer through.
856 buildings. But no one had bothered to count the bodies.
When the fire had ceased there had been none left.
Kelsey was hyperventilating, she knew that. Her mind was a flurry of images, screams, chants and fire that was endlessly climbing to an unreachable sky. The memories of that night were straight on demand. She had made sure to never forget.
She could feel the pain she had then, her hands tightly bound with a toxic rope, a cursed rope. She could taste the hate and pure fury she had felt. The betrayal stinging more than any spell they tried to use on her. It was a night that had revealed more treachery than she could have possibly managed. More than she could handle.
It was a cacophony of the people that made her suffer and the ones she had made suffer in return in her head. Chants and agonized screams mixing. They were blaming her. Flooding herwith image after image while she stood in front of a place that was void of life.
But then everything stopped and the world in her head dissipated as if it had never been there in the first place.
"- you lost?"
Kelsey was left gasping for air, disorientingly looking around but really seeing nothing for a couple of seconds.
To her, the voice that had spoken sounded like it was calling to her from underwater. The footsteps that accompanied it sounding distorted.
But Kelsey did feelthe person's presence.
"You don't look too great..."
Her head cleared if only in favour of focusing on the steady thumping of a heart as it pumped litres of blood through this stranger.
Yes, Kelsey was in fact not feeling all too great. Her head felt too heavy as she raised it slowly and there was this steady, painful thudding pressing down her throat suspiciously in sync to this intruder's heartbeat.
Kelsey was weak, both mentally and physically, and famished. A catastrophic combination as it was. Worsened by how she stood far too close to her, towering over her, Kelsey noted in unison with other useless information concerning the woman's appearance.
In that moment Kelsey found that she didn't care for why or when she had started kneeling on the tarmac with her fingers knotted deeply in her hair and scratching at her scalpel. Nor did she care for her other hand, still tightly clutching the bar as if she wished for it to steady her and keep her reason from being drained from her entirely. But even as her hand felt like it was on fire, she did not even so much as blink. Did not care to deal with what had happened now or 300 years ago.
Her eyes that had been blind to what was before her and bombarded with all sorts of images at the same time, were alarmingly clear all of a sudden as they zeroed in on the oblivious woman before her.
There was no thought process. No voices. No doubts or conscience. Just an insatiable hunger.
What had been eventually turned into a demanding, all-consuming thirst returned with a ferocity that consumed her everything.
"Do you-" But the passer-by did not get to finish her sentence as Kelsey appeared right in front of her. There was no falter in her steps, her weakness seemingly eradicated. But it was not. Her movement was mechanical. Similar to the fit she had just undergone her consciousness appeared as if it had little to no say over what happened. She was acting on pure instinct as an animal would.
The brown eyes of the woman went wide but Kelsey only held her gaze long enough to order, "not a sound," before her face deformed to reveal the heinousness that was her truest form. Fangs hungrily breaking through skin and inhaling large gulps of blood that felt exhilarating to her parched throat. While the woman stood there frozen, with only her hands weakly clawing at Kelsey's forearms as in a pitful attempt to push the vampire off of her.
Kelsey stopped, however, just as fast as she had started. Pushing the woman with a bit too much force away from her just before she could take her sixth gulp and having her stumble a couple of steps back. The deep scratches her pointed nails had caused had actually drawn blood. Kelsey was too distraught to be impressed.
She watched the woman stare at her with wide and terrified eyes as her fangs and the black veins under her eyes disappeared. Kelsey grabbed a brown handkerchief from one of her pockets to wipe the last droplets of blood from the corners of her mouth, never once breaking eye contact as she unconsciously savoured the sweet taste of it in her mouth.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The little human's heart raced.
Kelsey would have rolled her eyes. It was easy enough to predict, the process was always the same. But she did not particularly feel like wasting what little energy she had taken by vamp-speeding after fleeing prey. There was enough on her mind as it was.
Neatly folding the handkerchief she made her way to the woman. Her dark hair was ruffled up a bit after Kelsey's hasty approach but other than that she looked fine. No splutters of blood, no stain. Just an ugly wound that was still bleeding and the look of utter mortification. Nothing that couldn't be fixed.
She was in a better state than Kelsey would ever be.
And maybe just for that, Kelsey softly placed her hand on the young woman's shoulder. Ignoring the tremble that passed her at the contact and the tingling that passed her own, burned hand that only now slowly started to properly heal.
If possible, the woman's heartbeat grew even louder.
"You will forget any of this happened." She started, the constant flicker between brown and all-consuming onyx in her eyes slowly settling but still leaving the woman captured by her gaze.
"You will peacefully go about your way and forget that you have ever met me." She smelled of lavender and herbs, Kelsey noted offhandedly as her head cleared but could not bother to distinguish them when the pounding and the vexatious chattering picked up where they had left off. The voices had returned, and with them came the sinking feeling of-
Kelsey bit into her finger before harshly forcing it into the woman's mouth as if that would make them quiet, make it stop. But all it did was punish a stranger for something she couldn't be faulted for.
Realising her mistake Kelsey extracted her hand, carefully brushing over the woman's blouse.
"I profoundly apologize for any inconveniences I may have caused." She said, louder than necessary and with a sarcastic twinge but sincere nonetheless.
"I really did not-" mean to, intend to? Kelsey fell mute, her eyes darkening. Hands stopping their movement for but a fraction, which did not go unnoticed.
"I-" She hesitated. "I lived here once, you know." The words felt foreign on her tongue. Almost as if she shouldn't have said them. But the obvious could no longer be denied, it would childish even for her, to keep up the pretence and play ignorant. It wasn't safe, and wouldn't change the facts anyway.
"It's strange to be back." Strange did not even come close to it. More like; surreal and absolutely wrong. But she was here by her very own choice, she sharply reminded herself feeling it tear at her until she didn't know whether to run, laugh, cry or bang her head into unconsciousness.
"I kept you for long enough." Her hands dropped from the woman's shoulders. Eyes that had long stopped looking at the stranger losing that far-away look and hardening as she focused back at her involuntary dinner.
She did not care to decipher the look the woman whose memories would be wiped in a second was sending her way. Confusion at her seemingly arbitrary mood swings? Mortification at the fact that she had just been drained of a good portion of her blood?
"You will internalize every word I said before becoming a sentimental fool, without ever knowing that they have been spoken as soon as I'm out of sight." She commanded, her voice stripped of any warmth or comfort. Void of emotion altogether.
And then, she left. Disappearing with a gust of wind without even waiting for the dazed woman to repeat any of her words.
She had long since left her behind her when her victim finally relaxed her muscles.
The smile on her lips giving way for a sinister picture as the shadows of the lamppost danced in her eyes.
Kelsey was weaving in and out of crowds blindly. Her head was swimming, thoughts racing.
Dozens of conversations reached her ears, some of them she heard others she didn't bother listening to.
Vampire rebellion. Originals. Miraculously into submission forced witches.
Originals.
Originals.
The burning in her throat was gone, but the voices were back. And their whispers were not kind. She shouldn't have expected anything else. After all, there could only be an onslaught of explosions waiting for you when you decide to step right into a minefield.
And this whole place and everything in it was nothing but a bloody minefield and Kelsey had no means to defend herself. In fact, she was loaded with explosives that only intensified the blast.
She hated this. All of it. No more than one hour in this godforsaken city and already she was left vulnerable and lost, caught in tunnel vision and chasing one thought after the other and not allowing for the truth of any of them to sink in.
Her mind was torn. And Kelsey felt the familiar fear that came with a fragile mind, knowing that vulnerability just wouldn't work for her. Not with what had just happened. The voices were feeding off her doubts, nurturing them in hopes of getting stronger.
She would get to the car for now. Just that. And then she would continue. Step by step. She would figure it out. She just had to get out of the Quarter. Everything would be fine then.
Act. Just act. Keep moving. Don't think.
She did, but not for long. Because as she focused all her attention on simply moving and yet still feeling like she was in water, trying to walk against the current, Kelsey did not notice that she had (once again) caught somebody's attention. Nor that that someone was now keenly following her.
She remained oblivious, not in the state to safely use her senses to the full of their abilities while her mind was in the state it was in until the mysterious person decided to make themselves known.
Kelsey was grabbed by the collar of her hoodie and dragged into a secluded alleyway in a flash and without any of the nearby passers-by picking up on more than a sudden and quick back draught. Not that any of them were in any position to help her.
Her head harshly collided with the stone wall as her attacker pinned her by her throat, their hold on her strong.
"Hello there, love."
Even in her disorientation, hearing that voice didn't fail to send a chill down her spine. Alarm bells going off loudly in her already throbbing head.
She closed her eyes, trying to sort through all sensations but she had no chance. The grip on her neck unnecessarily tightened with a vigour she remembered all too well.
Kelsey moved. Fast.
Using all her strength to shove her attacker off her as once again memories of the past took a hold of her. Her reaction was as instantaneous as at her previous encounter only this time she was more keenly aware of it.
Her features morphed into something feral with veins protruding from the upper half of her face as the sclera of her eyes was consumed by pitch blackness once again.
Her own hand had latched onto his throat in no time, attempting to slam him into the wall as he had her. Adrenaline was icing her veins, cooling her overworked brain and making her fleetingly see clearly for maybe the first time this evening.
Her eyes were zeroing in on him and she hated how fast her heart was beating by his mere presence. A snarl escaped her lips, displaying her razor-like fangs.
"Charming, but not this time, love." He quipped, hardly fazed by her aggressive move and more than ready to take it into his stride. His grip on her neck had tightened as he once again slammed her forcefully back, eyes shinning slightly yellow as he did so and making a cold shiver run down Kelsey's spine, her hold on him inevitably slackening. Some of the bricks of the wall caved in, crumbling down under the added strength and raising dust into the night air.
"It's nice to see you again too, you know. Though, it appears as if you have lost your way to find yourself in this rather unfortunate predicament." He smirked, tilting his head up at her as he had her now dangling a few centimetres off the ground.
She didn't speak.
Kelsey knew that this was a life or death situation, but her mind was haywire and thus miserably failing at acting accordingly.
Or maybe, she didn't really want to.
"What kind of family would I be if I would not help you find it once again, right?" Family. All remnants of fight left her at once, despite hundreds of years of pent up fury and hatred. She stared at his dark blue-green eyes emptily, hardly caring for how serious and cold they looked compared to his still bemused tone.
For so long she had hardly cared for anything, Kelsey duly noted as this day seemed to be finally closing to an end, and maybe so was her life.
What had she come back for? Wasn't that the question that had occupied her mind like nothing else for the past days? With pictures of the capacity of her destruction clear a mind, Kelsey thought she maybe had finally found the answer.
Because perhaps she had come to this, to meet her end at hands of the someone that had betrayed her for his own gain by her fault, proving how delusional she was and once again making a fool out herself by leading herself to believe that there could be more for her. That this town could ever offer her something that this whole world could not.
She continued to stare right into his eyes while all these thoughts played out in her mind, and the longer she looked the more they seemed to engulf her. Casing her in as they always had, and leaving her with no space to breathe.
Ever since stepping foot into New Orleans in what shouldn't be more than an hour ago, Kelsey found her world dangerously spinning, dancing on the brink of insanity where she so often lost herself.
Looking into Niklaus Mikaelson's eyes had it all tilting to one side. The bad side.
Kelsey was shaking uncontrollably under Klaus' grip. The fear she felt didn't bow to any comprehensible reason but overtook her whole being nonetheless. She couldn't breathe. No oxygen in the air seemed enough to keep her lungs running.
"N-No." She choked out as soon as she realised what was happening, shaking her head as if that would make it stop. A hand grabbing at her shirt, fisting at her shirt in a hopeless attempt to cease the vicious clawing in her heart.
"No. No. NO!" As her voice rang so loudly through the alleyway, the fingers around her throat loosened, releasing her. She collapsed onto the floor immediately. Vision blurring with tears while her body was still victim to the effects of a panic attack.
"Shhh." Someone was kneeling before her, placing their hands on her shoulder. The same hands that had just threatened to crush her, again.
His grip on her was still firm though. Klaus knew better than to take any chances with her.
Even in hysterics, Kelsey didn't miss the ironic familiarity of this situation. And neither did he apparently.
"You are home."
"You are home." A kind voice had spoken as his hands came up to gently caress her cheeks as the person was crouched in front of her uncontrollably trembling form.
"You are safe with me, always." He vowed, gifting her with one of those warm smiles that she couldn't help but believe even as her mind was wreaking havoc and her world seemed to collapse in on itself. He was there. And though that did nothing to physically stop her panic, it helped her calm her mind.
Through tears shading her vision she still could see his wicked grin.
His right hand slowly moved from her cheek, carefully resting just by her collarbone. Brown eyes never once leaving her wide eyes, assessing every emotion in them. Not taking one step without making sure he wasn't overstepping. His hand felt cool on her too-hot skin a part of her wished to be able to focus more on it. But her breaths got more rasped by the second, her vision blurrier. She was not in control of her body. And they both knew it.
His hand on her throat felt hard, representing the apathy she knew he felt towards her.
"I promise." The pressure of his hand intensified. Kelsey understood, she trusted him.
"Sweet dreams." The tender whisper barely registered when Kelsey's world turned pitch black.
Thank you for everyone that favorited! You're very much welcome to drop a review and share your thoughts on this. I know that updates are very irregular and they will probably continue to be until like the end of this school year. I will graduate pretty soon and finals are a royal pain in the arse as is imagining that I gotta start applying for unis as soon as this is over...yeay...being an adult feels greatttt (not).
I guess writing about a mentally unstable Original isn't much better though...btw you maybe should know that this is well thought through so anything that is not adding up right now will (hopefully) make sense (or not) soon.
With that being said, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed.
P.S: Not all of this was properly proofread, just a heads-up I was too excited to post to really take the time...oops
ElriyaStark