• • • New Orleans, present-day • • •
"You say they were partners of various members of the Mikaelson family."
"Yes? As far as I can tell, they are romantically involved." Florence exchanges a look with Kaleb, starting to doubt herself and her visions.
Jane-Anne had successfully cured her headache and Monique had put ointment on the scraped skin of her arms, which she was thankful for, but they hadn't gotten much further. The repetitive questions and dubious looks between the witches present were not exactly calming Florence's nerves.
"I've never heard of it, the whole flashback to multiple people thing." Kaleb chimes in, carefully eyeing his new friend, who seemed uncomfortable with the prodding and the questions. Perhaps bringing Florence here wasn't the best idea.
"Perhaps she's cursed?" Monique suggests while picking a slice of carrot from the cutting board, with her other hand she thoughtlessly leafed through the dense book that lay in front of her."Curses usually don't let you have lovey-dovey visions." Jane-Anne replies, swatting her daughter's hand away from the cut ingredients.
"Maybe someone's trying to coerce her into acting?" Sophie offers, casually waving the large knife she was holding around, making both Kaleb and Florence flinch."To do what? Help them? Sympathize with the Original family? That doesn't make sense." Kaleb shakes his head.
"What if it's a soul connection?" A voice calls out.
Florence's head shoots up, and she looks with interest at the woman who walks into the already packed kitchen. Her eyebrows frowned when she realized she'd seen this woman on the streets of New Orleans several times before. The lady had even offered her a tour once.
"Someone played eavesdropper." Kaleb mutters under his breath. His eyes were still trained on Florence, not bothering to further acknowledge the witch.
"And what would you know about soul connections, Sabine?" Sophie asks, she raised her eyes to the ceiling to show her irritation.
"I read." The woman shrugs before taking a seat on the table, hand already halfway to the cutting board.
"Since when?" Sophie retorts.
Jane-Anne's gaze shifts between the two women, who were now openly glaring at each other, not understanding the sudden hostility. To her knowledge, the two witches were two very close friends.
"What does that entail? A soul connection." Florence asks meekly, noticing a certain tension creeping into the room.
Jane-Anne sends Sabine a stern look. As soon as the witch mentioned it, the possibility had crossed her mind and she concluded that the issue could indeed be related to a soul connection, but Jane-Anne thought it's unnecessary to give the human girl false hopes until they were sure of the possibility. "A soul connection is a bond one can feel with another being on a platonic level but also a romantic level. This occurs mostly with supernatural beings, seeing as such feelings are more prominent due to their heightened senses."
Florence blinks, eyes narrowing unconsciously as she tries to decipher the meaning behind the witch's words.
"Soulmates, dear." Kaleb clarifies upon seeing Florence's expression.
"As in, someone's other half?"
"Yes. The whole love-you-to-death thing." Sophie groans, not at all amused with the idea of having to deal with the impractical and romantic side of this situation. She was very skeptical when it came to supernatural oddities, which soulmates were. She clears her throat when she sees her sister's admonishing look.
"Oh."
"It's quite beautiful, so far only a few vampires and werewolves have found their true soulmates, but it has happened." Monique adds, wearing a dreamy look. She was far less skeptical when it came to matters of the heart, and had latched onto the concept when her mother had first introduced her to it a few years back.
"But these women must have been the soulmates, why do I-" Florence shuts her mouth abruptly when she is once more cut off. The witches had done an admirable job of making her feel like the silly human girl that she was. Florence had the urge to cross her arms and sulk as a child might do, but suppressed said desire.
"Reincarnation?"
"Perhaps, but why would they reincarnate now? And in one person?" Kaleb wonders out lets the loud voices fade away as she focuses on the scribbled handwriting in the book beside her, smiling a little to herself when recognizing a certain sentence.
• • • Chicago, May 1922 • • •
"Prend ce message ce au le centre se levant."
"Good job, Della!" Gloria compliments, sending a big smile to her cousin. She smiles proudly at her niece as the crumpled piece of paper emerges from her palm.
"Thank you auntie." Delphine lets herself lean against the table. She always received a rush of adrenaline when she practiced magic, but once this thrill was gone, the fatigue set in.
"Well done indeed, little witch." Niklaus claps appreciatively whilst entering the small study.
"Klaus." Gloria greets stiffly, back straightening at once.
"Nik." Delphine smiles brightly whilst practically flinging herself at the vampire, trusting him to catch her.
"Hello, love." Niklaus swiftly wraps his arms around the girl, lifting her a little off the floor, lips pressing a kiss to the shell of her ear.
"I will get you a drink." Gloria mutters before striding out of the small room, making her displeasure known by slamming the door a little too harshly.
Niklaus ignores the temper of the older witch and turns his attention back to his witch. "Does this mean you can send me late-night messages?" He sends the witch a boyish grin whilst waving the crumpled paper in the air.
"It depends."
"On what?" Niklaus quirks an eyebrow, and lets his body lean forward, easily towering over the young witch.
Delphine takes a small step back but doesn't avert her gaze. Niklaus might intimidate her a little, but he didn't scare her, not really. "What do I get in return? You can't expect a busy girl like me to send you messages without ever getting a response."
"Who says you won't get a response?" Niklaus replies at once.
"Unless you have a witch at your beck and call-"
"No need for a witch, I will simply compel someone to deliver you a response." Niklaus shrugs and sends Delphine another one of his smirks.
"Hmm, no, that doesn't seem fitting. It would only make me feel guilty that you would bother innocent people simply for our correspondence."
"Then what do you wish for, love? Tell me, and I will make it happen." Niklaus offers genuinely.
A shy smile makes its way to Delphine's face. Chicago was nice enough, but she had read plenty of the exciting cities of Europe and Asia. "I wish to travel, with you."
Niklaus blinks and takes a second to process Delphine's words and the meaning behind them. She evidently liked and trusted him enough to exchange her familiar surroundings for an exciting adventure with him, an infamous Original. "Where would you like to go first?"
"Florence."
• • • New Orleans, present-day • • •
"Florence?" Kaleb waves his hand in front of the girl's face. He hadn't paid close attention to her, which he now regretted. To his defense, he had been quite busy persuading the four witches not to use the girl as a test subject or bait for the Originals. He had not yet succeeded.
"What did you see?" Sophie asks at once when she sees Florence blinking out of her daze.
"Just some witch stuff." Florence mutters, hand rubbing her forehead. The slight thudding sensation from before had come back.
"Elaborate." Sabine demands.
"Sabine." Jane-Anne scolds, before offering Florence an apologetic smile. "Do tell us, Florence."
"This spell," Florence reluctantly points at the smudged page of the grimoire. "Delphine practiced this spell, she had to send someone a message."
"Do you know who?"
"No." Florence lies. It felt like a betrayal to both Niklaus and Delphine to spill the details of their relationship to these nosy witches.
A/N:
I have decided to change the dynamics between Sophie and Sabine a little, on the TVD wiki page it is said they are best friends and I believe that they were already best friends before Sabine got possessed by Céleste.
According to the TVD timeline Céleste possesses Sabine around 8 months before the TO events begin, which means around October 2010. The storyline with Florence takes place in July 2010, which means I have taken the creative liberty to expedite the possession by a few months.
Very little is known about Sabine's personality before she got possessed by Céleste but I believe there will be certain changes to someone's personality, even if the one possessing the body tries their best to imitate the person they possess. These small changes and inconsistencies in Sabine's character can surely lead to friction in a friendship, which was displayed earlier in this chapter.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Lots of love,