Mood Swings
She sleeps with Marcel that night while his warning sinks into her skin and molds around her bones. Weaving the word war into her muscles and tendons like she's never been without it. Gives in to the conflicting feelings she has for him because as much as she detests his lies, she keeps her own. He kisses along her neck and she hums, delighted with this attention. Locks eyes with him and refuses to look away while he's inside her. As if she could compel him. As if she could win him over to her point of view.
As if she could quell the brewing tension in the streets with her heel hooked behind his calf and her nails dragging down his back.
High school had been her first battle ground, sharpening her claws with girls her own age to get a taste of it. And then Katherine. She'd thought she'd lost when she went to Stefan with tears in her eyes and her family's blood on her hands. But she'd figured out how to win. Had done her best to ensure it with Klaus. Winning had meant taking him down with her but his brother balked at the last minute.
She was foolish to think it would ever end there.
A Petrova doppelganger was not made for a life of peace.
When she wakes up the next morning, Marcel is already gone. Their honeymoon phase is apparently over. It had all happened so fast.
The Abattoir had only been a home because Marcel had made it one for her. With him preoccupied, it left her to tend to the distance in their relationship that had erupted with the knowledge that it was him behind the Crescent curse. His lies had seeped into the ground water and spoiled it, not that she even considered her own omissions part of the poison that led to this. And without him at her side, socializing with the rest of the vampires felt as comfortable as wading through a viper's nest.
She should feel that way about the swamp, but she can't find the danger in it.
Even as her wolf growls his disapproval through the trees. Loping wide circles around her until he eventually comes to sit by her side. She wiggles her toes in the water, watching it ripple away and wondering if her scarred reptile is close enough to hear the vibrations in the water. Feeling comforted by the knowledge that he was somewhere below these murky waters.
"I know you're mad." He snorts at that and she laughs, open and unguarded. "You think I'm being reckless, but I do understand the risk. It's not that I don't. I just happen to think it's worth it."
Jackson stares at her with his golden eyes, but there's only so much emotion he can convey in this form. She prefers it. The quiet solitude and the listening.
"I don't know that I belong with the vampires. I certainly don't belong with the witches. Coming here was stupid, but now I don't think I can leave. I mean – I don't want to leave. I've been thinking about you." His lips stretch across his gums in what she can only assume is a smile. "And the rest of the wolves. About ways I could help."
The wolf skin has inspired her and she lays out her plans to Jackson. A glorified errand girl, but at least it was a worthwhile venture. Details with exuberance how she can run needed supplies out to the swamp, for both the wolves and the untriggered humans. "I could be protect you too. On the full moon when you need it at least. Wander around the bayou like some movie monster that wandered off set. Scaring any vampire cowardly enough to harass you when the risk is completely removed."
Jackson's fur is thick and soft, but his head is heavier than she'd imagined. Something she notes as he nuzzles into her neck. Her pulse jumps into her throat but remembering that it's him settles it back down to where it belongs. He's strong. Moves her around as he marks her with his scent. She tries to brace her body, but the wolves are strong. She can see why they make such a terrifying enemy to a vampire.
Yet she stays with him as long as she can justify, allowing him to nuzzle her while he allows her to pet him.
As long as Jackson will allow her.
When the rest of the pack howls in the distance, he nudges her with his muzzle. Sharp to her side until she stands. Tilts his head seriously and she stifles a laugh. Being scolded by a wolf. He keeps butting his head against her thigh until she moves.
"Fine!" she yells after him. "I'm leaving!"
The city is a living, breathing thing. So alive but it feels different than it did that night she came searching for the lights. It was chaotic and unmanageable then. The noises and the bright lights had her feeling like she could get lost and enjoy it. But now she sees through the chaos. Can track the arteries that flow through the city. Feel the magical influence of the witches in the air and spot the valves that open for the vampires as they pour out into the streets, surrounding her and the tourists alike.
As she passes an open alley, a hand reaches out for her. Without pause, she twists it around and side steps off the street. Pining the woman roughly to the brick and leveraging her arm up higher. Pressing their bodies together until she's almost resting her chin on the woman's shoulder. There's a funny pain in her wrist. When she looks down, blood wells on her forearm. While she searches for a knife on the woman, Elena breathes in the sharp scent of cayenne and thyme. Notes the dark hair with relief and loosens her grip. Stepping back enough to allow Sophie comfort.
The cut on her wrist heals and she pays it no mind.
"Katherine," she struggles against her helplessly and it sparks that predator instinct in Elena. The veins under her eyes pulse and she knows they've darkened when she can clearly see the witch's pulse point thrumming away in her neck. "It's me. Sophie."
"You shouldn't sneak up on vampires." She lets Sophie go and takes a step back. Away from the witch and back into her higher senses. By the time Sophie turns toward her, Elena's face has bled back into her human mask. "Bad for your health."
"I'll remember that." Sophie's face flushes and it isn't the blood that excites Elena as much as knowing how unsettled she's made the other woman. "Listen I need to talk to you about my sister. Jane-Anne and the others have voted to proceed with this ritual called the Harvest."
"Sophie." Elena takes a step forward and the headiness of fear and excitement make her pause. "I'm not trying to scare you. But the wrong person can eavesdrop if you aren't careful."
"I don't have any sage on me." Sophie looks out onto the busy street and whispers, "Nightwalkers. A few of them. No one I know by name."
"They won't bother us if they think I'm hunting tonight." Elena leans on her forearm against the wall and over the shorter woman. Leans into Sophie's space possessively. Her body language warns the others to leave them alone. That this is a woman Elena has marked. "Continue."
"The French Quarter witches are desperate. Our power isn't what it used to be." Sophie rests into the cover of Elena's body. To anyone passing by, this looks like an intimate conversation. Not a conspiratorial one. "They voted last night to proceed with the Harvest."
"Sophie, slow down." Elena glances over her shoulder to check for anyone familiar. "What is the Harvest? What are they going to do?"
"It was only supposed to be a legend. A stupid story, but they think it's real. To connect to our ancestors and consecrate our own power, we are meant to sacrifice four of our own children."
Sophie's voice is strained, trying to keep to a low hush. Elena moves in closer, guiding her free hand to push back Sophie's shoulder-length hair and rest across her shoulder. "Kids? Why kids?"
"Their magic is a purer, untapped power and the ritual hinges on their death. The sowing." Sophie looks up at her, eyes threatening to spill tears at any moment. Their foreheads nearly touching. Elena can feel her shaky breath on her skin and the tug against the siren's chain as Sophie wrings out her anxiety on the necklace. "And then later, the reaping."
"To reap magic, your coven needs to kill four children?" She sucks her teeth, grimacing at the thought. It hasn't even been a year since her own sacrifice and now four young girls were slotted for the same fate for the same reason.
How many girls are sacrificed in service of power?
"They are meant to come back. After a year, they are supposed to return but Katherine, how the hell is that possible?" Sophie's biting edge gets louder and Elena clenches her jaw, willing Sophie to lower her voice. "People don't come back from the dead."
Except they did. Elena had seen it before with Jeremy when he was wearing the Gilbert ring. Had seen him come back from supernatural deaths time and time again.
"Jane-Anne wants this?"
It's difficult to imagine Jane-Anne being so enthusiastic about the death of her own daughter. Not when Jenna had tried everything in her power to stop the sacrifice or when John offered his own body as a vessel to protect his daughter's human soul.
Not when Elena would gladly trade her own life for Jeremy's if it meant he got to live.
"Katherine. Monique is one of the four selected." Sophie keeps talking, but Elena is too focused on Monique to hear much of the rest. Something about Father Kiernan promising her help and then leaving. The conversation at the party with Agnes. Father Kiernan leaving. Sean killing his fellows. They all try to fit like misshapen puzzle pieces in her head. Someone left them out in the rain and she can't make them fit even though they seem like they should.
All these roads that have led to the girl she saved in a dark alley being murdered.
"Jane-Anne won't listen to me." The fierceness in Sophie's voice grabs Elena's attention again. "She doesn't think of it as a sacrifice. She believes that Monique will come back, but none of the girls know what will happen. They all think of it like some fairy tale. Going to sleep for a year and waking up as saviors for the whole coven. For all the witches in New Orleans."
"If Marcel finds out –."
"Marcel can't find out." In a panic, Sophie yanks on the chain and Elena has to rear back to avoid their heads colliding. She's frantic and her fear spikes. The smell surrounds them though Elena is sure that Sophie is unaware of it. "He would kill everyone who was part of the ritual including my sister. Katherine, I need your help. To stop this without Jane-Anne or Monique being hurt in the process. Please."
"I would never hurt either of them, Sophie." Elena backs away, letting her hand slide down the wall until both hands are firmly around Sophie's shoulders.
"I know. I know you care about them and that's why I'm here pleading with you right now." Sophie's hand meets one of her own, clasping together firmly as Sophie begs for her help. "It's messed up, I know. But she believes that it's the right thing to do for our people. I can't convince her out of it."
"What makes you think I can?" She couldn't even be convinced out of her own sacrifice. She didn't think she stood a chance of convincing Jane-Anne out of this one if it meant a shot at turning the tides against the vampires.
"I have to try everything."
As the party continues past them, streaming in the streets, Elena makes a deal with Sophie amongst the avarice and gluttony.
It's late, but not too late for Rousseau's doors to be closed. The bar is packed from wall to wall. People vying for a place to sit, crowding the corners, and watching for open chairs like hawks. Jane-Anne's bright smile fades when she spots Elena and Sophie walking through the front door. They try to edge their way to the bar, but the crowd is difficult to part. Until Elena snakes a path to the front and compels a group of fraternity brothers to leave.
For the night or forever. She's never sure how specific compulsion has to be or what the results are of it.
"They were paying customers." Jane-Anne glares at her sister with ice in her eyes. "And you've never been."
"Jane-Anne, please talk to me."
"Why should I?" she hisses back, nodding curtly for a new blonde waitress to take her place behind the bar. "When you brought a vampire here clearly to argue about witch business."
"Jane-Anne." Elena's own body feels colder when the witch turns her sight on her. But she persists. "She's your daughter. Is it really worth it?"
"Don't! Not out here." Jane-Anne holds up a single finger, effectively silencing both of her detractors. Motioning for them to join her in the supply room, turning back on them like a timber rattlesnake as soon as they are alone. For blunt human teeth, Elena is impressed by the ferocity of Jane-Anne's fangs. "Don't you dare ask me if it's worth it. She's my daughter. Of course she's worth it. You think I'd risk her on a maybe? I want to raise her in a world where she has the power to never be afraid. That's worth it. I understand the risks."
"Does she understand?" Elena questions passively though it kills her to think of Monique walking into a sacrifice without any prior knowledge of what might happen. At least she knew what would happen the night she walked side by side with Klaus to her death. At least she was prepared.
"She knows that she can trust me. I'd never put her in serious danger."
Elena scoffs but doesn't back down when Jane-Anne stares daggers at her. "We're talking about a sacrifice. Monique is going to die and you don't think she deserves to know all the details."
"She knows that it will hurt and she is prepared to endure pain if it means her coven will regain its power." Jane-Anne keeps her composure and practicality even as her sister dissolves.
"What about the other girls?" Sophie interjects desperately, so clear she's approached this a thousand different ways with as many failures.
"It's them I don't trust," she spits the truth out. Even within the French Quarter coven, factions are splitting off between those Jane-Anne deems devoted enough and those who lack the faith. "Monique is dedicated to the cause, but I can't be assured that the rest of them are. If any of them should balk, then Monique would be lost to me forever. All four girls need to die in order for them to be resurrected. That is what it means to reap."
"What if doesn't work, Jane-Anne?" Elena can see the stress clinging to the edges of Jane-Anne's body, in the lines on her face. She tries to be soft where Sophie, too invested, can't be. "Then you lose your daughter and for what?"
"I expect you not to believe. You don't understand what it means to be a coven." Jane-Anne almost looks sad when she turns back to Elena. Exhausted if not miserable. "What our magic can do when we are united. I believe in the Harvest. Most of us do." She makes that pointed statement to further open the divide between sisters.
"You're putting your daughter's life on the line for a little bit of power?" They'd backed Jane-Anne into a literal corner and though there didn't seem to be any hope in changing her mind, there was at least hope in talking to her.
But downplaying the reward of the sacrifice was Elena's mistake.
"No." Jane-Anne stops backing away from them and takes a confident step forward. "I am asking my daughter to make a sacrifice. To spend a year in the Ancestral Realm to grow more powerful and bring home their lessons and a renewed power that we can use against Marcel." Jane-Anne levels Elena with the immense weight of her own disappointment. "See, you've made a terrible lapse in judgement by thinking he is reasonable. You heard what you wanted to hear from him instead of the truth. Marcel will never stop until he has complete control of the city. That's what he wants. That is the power he craves and we need to leverage the Harvest if we have a shot at protecting our home."
As she gains momentum in her speech, Elena knows that any headway they could have made tonight was finished. Jane-Anne punctuates her words with a stern finger jutting in the air. Wielding her words and her own body like a knife.
"There has to be a better way than this."
She knows there isn't even as she says it out loud. Once the answer boils down to a sacrifice, there is no talking anyone out of it. Thinking back to when Klaus led her like a lamb to the slaughter. The idea of anyone trying to reason with him was as laughable as their attempts to reason with Jane-Anne are now.
"No, Katherine, there isn't. I don't care if you believe in this or not, but I do expect you to stay out of this. You too, Sophie." Jane-Anne pushes past both women towards the open door. "The Harvest has no room for non-believers."
"Jane-Anne, you sound like a fanatic." It's a desperate dig on Sophie's part, at the end of a rope she's been gnawing at for much longer than Elena initially realized. She's left wondering how long Sophie knew and how long Jane-Anne had been plotting.
Her sister stops under the doorway, gripping the frame before she turns around. "And you sound like someone who left and doesn't give a shit about what happens here so long as you're okay." Venom in her words stings her sister, as she meant it to.
Sophie backs down, her response much quieter than she has been so far. "That's not fair."
"Is it?" The question lingers between them unanswered. Their time apart clearly caused a bigger rift than either was willing to address. "You think running away is the answer, but you're in for a rude awakening little sister. Your problems will always find you whether you are facing them or not. I choose to face mine."
"No, you're making Monique face them for you."
"Get out of here, Sophie. I'm done with you." Jane-Anne's shoulders sag, a heartbreaking image against the party that's still going on outside the stock room. She's given up on Sophie and that's the worst feeling; apathy.
"No! I'm not done trying!" Sophie starts for her sister but is brought to her knees. Jane-Anne has her hand outstretched, fingers clenched as she mutters a spell under her breath. Their magic is weak, but Jane-Anne is still older and the more powerful of the two of them. What it must cost to turn what power she has left against her own sister.
"I said – Get out!" Once Elena sees the blood dripping from Sophie's eyes, she rushes to Jane-Anne as well to stop the violence before it escalates further. To protect her witch. But before she can make it even a foot towards Jane-Anne, thousands of tiny cuts slash across her arms. Shocked, she hesitates before she takes another step forward. The cuts pierce through her chest. Another step and they cut through her neck, bringing her to her knees and spilling what little blood she had in her own body. Blood she can't afford to lose. Jane-Anne looks down on her with strange amusement. "Katherine? Did you really think I wouldn't spin a little insurance plan into that ring of yours? That's the problem with you vampires. You think you can just ask for favors from a witch without giving anything back. Too prideful to even think that we pose a threat to you."
"What did you do?" She's frantic, fumbling at her ring with fingers that are already taking on a grey pallor. They're stiff and the spilled blood makes her skin too slick to manage. "I can't get it off."
Jane-Anne crouches on her knees in front of Elena, tilting her chin to look at her. "You can't remove the ring on your own and while you wear it you can't hurt a Deveraux woman without that harm returning to you tenfold. That is my price."
"I trusted you." The cuts have begun to heal, though the tinge of grey remains on her fingertips. Sophie next to her is still gasping and heaving on the floor. Tears are a mix of pain and anguish. Whatever magic her sister did to her still having an effect.
"Then keep trusting me." Jane-Anne soon towers over the two women crumpled on the floor, and too stunned by the lengths she would go to in order to protect this ritual. "Leave and keep this secret from the vampires. Let us perform the Harvest uninterrupted so that my daughter can come home to me and bring back the power her coven so desperately needs."
She doesn't wait for a response before she merges back into the party, presumably to her post at the bar. Elena wonders how she can go from this to the regulars cheering her name, but she respects the ability. She can't stay here long, trying to stand on shaky legs. She needs to feed before she can think about anything else. Cracking her stiff knuckles and licking her own wounds for minimal sustenance. The ring could suppress her hunger, but she clearly still needed the blood.. Especially after finding out what Jane-Anne could do to her through it.
"You tried, Katherine." Sophie wipes the blood off her cheeks and hauls her body to lean against the stockroom wall. "I appreciate the effort."
"You can't let her go through with this, Soph." Elena stays back, afraid of what she might do if she tried to help the injured witch to her feet. Too scared to move for fear that she would make it worse.
"I won't," she promises, though she keeps her head down while she wipes away the tears with the back of her hand. Elena hovers awkwardly until Sophie looks up at her. "They're doing it at Lafayette Cemetery. In three nights. I want you to be there. I want you to stop it with me."
Elena leaves Rosseau's careful to avoid eye contact with anyone, but especially Jane-Anne. She'd made a deal and she intended to honor it, but until she fed she was better off leaving Sophie alone to care for her own wounds.
This time she's careful.
It's a methodical feeding instead of an emotional one. She chooses just three victims. Big, burly men with a lot to give. She remembers to give them her own blood before compelling them to forget and re-join the nightly party on Bourbon Street. The irony of instructing them not to hurt anyone tonight is lost on her.
Despite not being able to take her ring off, she absently twists it as if she could loosen its hold on her despite the magic that binds it now to her skin. She walks an anxious route back to the compound. Nervous about how she can hold up her end of the deal without Marcel finding out.
Elena had once judged the slaughterhouse for the stale stench of death without realizing that the entire city reeked of it. Every citizen had blood on their hands in one way or another. From the humans that allowed tourists to be preyed on to the vampires that used them like cattle. From the witches that were leaving the dead in the streets as a warning to whoever was stealing the children from the nine covens.
In one way or another, they were all guilty.
The thought hounds her as she counts down the days until the Harvest. Watching Marcel grow more anxious as he tries to simultaneously court Francesca Guerra while leaving unanswered calls on Kiernan's voicemail. Wondering if in between all his lies and omissions that maybe they could find a common ground in this. If the Harvest girls still tilt the scales enough in his no-children policy that he would not only put a stop to the ritual but help Monique and the others in the process.
If there was a way to leverage this information without lighting the gunpowder that littered the streets of New Orleans.
While she waits, she checks in on Sophie who oscillates between confident and broken. Writes in her journal varying strategies that she could employ to stop the Harvest and save Monique without being caught by either side. All end up torn to illegible bits of paper that she collects under the floorboards like a nesting bird.
She spends an increasing amount of time in her own room; a fact Marcel alluded to once during breakfast though she couldn't tell by his neutral tone if he was displeased or not. Between Kiernan's departure and a justified paranoia in the witches' next move, Marcel isn't as present as he used to be.
She's hoping that both of those are more important than her absence in his bed.
Without a firm plan, the evening of the Harvest finds her listening passively as Mercy voices her own concerns about how reserved Diego has been since the massacre at St. Anne's. Elena can't get the blood-soaked floorboards out of her head. How nervous he had seemed anytime Mercy had tried to confront him. Elena hides a smirk as she reflects on the way Diego had fled from her in the bayou. Mercy details all the ways he'd isolated from her and her suffering is something Elena could easily lay to rest.
If she only chose to do it.
"He could be cheating. It would make sense." Mercy leans against the iron-wrought table, massaging her temples. She's normally composed and effortlessly poised, but tonight she's an unusual mess. Fraying at the edge and melting into the seat. "I don't know that my little heart could take it."
"He wouldn't do that." Elena absently pats Mercy's hand, only half-focusing while she sips her mojito and watches the mulling crowd. Paying more attention to Marcel's every movement, trying to catch what he's discussing with Thierry and Diego. Waiting to overhear his plans for the night so she can slip away to attend to her own. But every time she gets close to a full sentence, Mercy interjects.
"What else could it be?" Mercy leans into Elena, whispering into her ear while she nods in Diego's direction. "He goes out with his boys and then the very next day he starts acting strange. There ain't nothing in this world he couldn't tell me except that."
She would like to be a good friend. To listen and offer Mercy any kind of comfort. But Astrid flits behind the columns across from the two women and Elena keeps her focus on the blonde. More worried about the potential she has to set ablaze her house of cards than she is about Mercy's feelings. "I haven't seen her around here recently," she mutters, the words slipping from her lips with no regard for where they're at in the conversation.
"Katherine." The name doesn't register right away. "Hello?" She's too focused on Astrid slinking through the courtyard like a weasel. "Are you even listening?"
She taps Elena on the shoulder, looking affronted when she finally breaks focus from Astrid to face her. "Yes," she lies before the look on her face tells Elena that there is no point in it. "No. I'm sorry, Mercy."
She clicks her tongue, allowing the space to widen and settle between them before she speaks. "You don't have to worry about her. She's finally lost it. Tried to convince the Nightwalkers that you're a fraud. Anyone who had a shred of sympathy for her lost it the moment they found out about you attending the funerals on Marcel's arm."
"Why?"
"They all know what you mean to him now. It doesn't matter to them how long she's been around. Not if it means crossing Marcel."
Elena can't help the mix of confusion and pride swelling in her chest or the way it makes her feel like she could suffocate at any moment. She fiddles anxiously with the fairy cross in her pocket before remembering how catastrophic it would be to reveal this secret in front of the entire courtyard. "I'm just glad I could be there for him."
Eventually, Astrid melts into the group now gathered around Marcel. Energy moves through the group though their tones are still hushed and conspiratorial. It makes it difficult to pick out any one word or phrase. Especially when Mercy keeps interrupting her concentration to bemoan more about the state of her relationship. The night hours tick closer to midnight and her window to meet Sophie wanes shorter.
And then she gets a terrible idea.
"It's possible," she begins, dragging the syllables out to elongate the word and capture Mercy's interest. Her nails drag against the table and the line between Elena and Katherine blurs. "That Diego is cheating."
"What?" Mercy leans in closer. "You really think so?"
"You did say he was avoiding you," Elena reasons, pretending to be thoughtful about it. Biting her bottom lip as if she doesn't really want to say it. "The only way to figure out why is to confront him in a way he can't escape from." She takes the smaller woman's hands in her own, squeezing each sentence into her palms. "Follow him. Watch him. Catch him in the act." Her eyes flick over to the group, beginning to disperse towards the heavy doors that spill out into the city. "Tonight."
"Stalk Diego? But he's leaving with Marcel and the rest of them."
Marcel neither announces his departure to her nor offers a parting glance. It should upset her more, but she's too focused on slipping away from the compound unnoticed or unbothered. Watches them leave, stirring in a rush, waiting for Mercy to follow. When she hesitates, Elena encourages her. "Then you should hurry before you lose him. In more ways than one."
Half of her is comprised of guilt and shame. She feels it accumulating in her body with how she's convincing Mercy of an unfaithful lover. It's another drop in the bucket that weighs her legs down until she gets accustomed to the weight. Ready to add more once she adjusts.
The last of Marcel's congregation leave through the open doors. The cobbled streets are their pews. Blood is their sacrament. She hasn't often seen Marcel go out with the other vampires. He'd been spending so much time at her side since she became a guest in his home. She can only assume that the recent distance between them had driven him back to his prior routine. Now, finally, she's seeing the mask slip and is getting a peak into who he actually is.
She can't pretend she isn't the least bit curious to know what he looks like when he thinks she isn't looking.
There's a part of her that wants to leave the table with Mercy when, after she waits ample time, leaves to follow her man. Her red curls disappearing in the open night air. Elena could join her too. Follow Marcel and Diego to whatever bar they've decided to visit tonight. Run upstairs to snatch the gift she'd once meant for him. The embossed set of cards of the supernatural. Tell him the truth. Give them a true chance.
But Sophie was expecting her and she'd made a promise.
"I'm shocked you aren't on his arm tonight, Katherine." Astrid stays behind, sauntering up to the table like she knows a secret. Gloating for reasons that Elena can't understand. "Has the crown grown too heavy? Does he bore you already?"
"I don't wear a crown." Elena calmly explains even as the older vampire crowds her space. Apparently the time since the alleyway incident has made her forget to be cautious. "That's all Marcel."
"Don't lie and pretend you don't aspire to wear it. We can all see it."
Astrid stands tall over her, but of all the things Elena must do tonight this woman is the least of her worries. "We?" The heavy chair scratches against the floor as she stands, still inches shorter than the unraveling woman. But this is one of few times Elena has felt true power over someone else and she soaks in the feeling. Tilting her chin up and staring into Astrid's startling blue eyes for dramatic effect. "Or is it only you?"
There's a nagging feeling as she leaves that Elena left the adder's cage open.
She's too late to save anything.
A terrible constant in her life.
Marcel was never going to a bar to party the night away like she assumed. He was always coming here. Somehow three steps ahead of her. To this graveyard under a waning moon to interrupt the Harvest and the witches' bid for power to stand against him. His people leap off mausoleums and grab scrambling witches from the group like the predators they are. Plucking the sick and dying from the herd. She can hear them scream and then – silence.
It makes her stomach coil in on itself.
She weaves her way through the panicked crowd in disguise. The one that makes her look like a thousand other women. Pretty and nondescript. Pleasant and forgettable. No one seems to know what to make of this woman. Flash decisions in the chaos to treat her as witch or vampire. Even she's not sure which side she's taken, only that she has to find Sophie and Monique. Get them out of here.
It's chaos. Bodies slamming into each other. Spells conjured send vampires crashing into the stone crosses. Sophie fights against the burly arms of a balding man, nearly double her size. Elena is quick to dispatch him. Rushing to his side, pivoting on her heel like Matt once taught her and hitting him so hard that she isn't sure he's still alive until his crumbled body takes a slow, shuddering inhale. She wouldn't have minded his death if it meant Sophie being safe.
She wraps an arm around Sophie's stomach and her witch nearly headbutts her. "Who are you?" she fights against her grasp and though Elena isn't bigger than the man, she is stronger.
"Where's Monique?" Elena whispers in her ear, keeping Sophie close to her chest.
The name takes the fight out of Sophie and together they scan the crowd for her niece. It's hard to make out any one person. The graveyard has erupted into a sea of disorganized violence. Two young girls in white are already lying crooked on the ground. Their blood soaking the collar of their gowns and into the earth. Next to them, two vampires descend on an older witch. Dark auburn hair and green eyes, shocked in death. Bastianna, in her bid for power, has fallen.
Elena catches sight of a dark-haired girl in Harvest white, her heart is in her throat when she sees Marcel is holding her. His hand in her hair trying to calm her. Fear ebbs when the crying girl turns around and it isn't Monique. But then the girl screams.
"No! Monique!"
Violence parts like a river dried up and Sophie's niece falls to her knees, clutching her neck. Her eyes are impossibly wide as she stares back at her aunt. Frantically searching out the crowd for her own mother. Helpless like the child she is. Agnes stands over her with her sacrificial blade shining with blood. Her arm lowers from the sky to reveal dark eyes, determined in her beliefs. Willing to carry her purpose out to the bloody end. She looks like an embattled goddess with her eyes set in steel and her hair pulled away from her face. Monique's blood dripping from her hands.
Elena wants to kill her and taste the blood of a god.
Jane-Anne appears from between the dead sea of bodies to crouch at her daughter's side. A single, strangled scream silencing the battlefield. Elena wants to let Sophie join her sister, but Marcel approaches them with the last remaining Harvest girl tight to his side. He nods to Elena, believing she's one of his Nightwalkers. She nods back. Twisting Sophie's arm behind her back to align with Marcel's assumption. Holds back a grimace when her arm slices open.
"I'm disappointed you would participate in such a barbaric ritual." Marcel keeps a healthy distance from Sophie while the Harvest girl chances a peek from behind his shoulders. She still looks scared, but under that is a newborn rage directed at the rest of the witches.
"You know that I would never." Sophie's body sags in Elena's arms. "I came here tonight to stop the Harvest."
"Could have told me about it." He sounds dangerously reasonable. "Let me handle it."
"Let you kill my people?"
"No, they were already doing that to themselves." He shakes his head, grinning in victory. "Killing their own damn children tonight. Probably the same witches kidnapping children from the other Nine too, I suppose. Trying to blame me for their crimes."
Still sobbing, Jane-Anne wobbles to her feet. She's a lioness standing over the body of her broken child. In her hand, the sacrificial blade gleams with the blood of the three. She only manages a few steps toward the last girl, hiding behind Marcel, before Thierry knocks the blade out of her hands as he wrestles her to the ground.
Marcel's eyes go dark and his fangs descend. The sight energizes Sophie who fights against Elena's hold. Blood soaks the back of her shirt from the magical protection imbued from her sister, but Sophie doesn't seem to register that. "Marcel! Please. It's over. They can't do the Harvest now. Please just leave us alone."
"Jane-Anne was part of this. Your niece's death is on her hands."
"Don't!" Sophie pleads. After everything, she's still a sister. "Don't hurt her."
"You know better than most, Sophie. The witches reap what they sow." He looks back at Monique's body pointedly. Not a few feet from it, Thierry has her mother on her knees. Marcel ignores the fire in Jane-Anne's eyes before he takes the only surviving Harvest girl in his arms and disappears through the dark rows.
The rest of the vampires must take his departure as their cue to amplify the violence. Taking down witches with no sympathy. Relishing in their screams as a symphony dedicated to their immortality. Diego and Mercy have their fangs buried at either side of an unconscious woman in what can only be seen as a reconciliation. But stranger than that, she spots Thierry leading away a pretty witch with a gentle hand at her elbow and leaving Jane-Anne to crawl on her hands and knees to her daughter.
It's too confusing to unpack so she saves it for another day, opting instead to drag Sophie against her will away from the carnage. Jane-Anne still wailing next to Monique's body, unwilling to engage in the reality around her even if it means saving her own life. Elena knows that feeling well. Knows what it feels like to wish it were you instead.
The war goddess rises to her feet and Elena drags Sophie further away from the sacrifice with more urgency.
"Sophie please," she grunts. Safely subduing a person was difficult. Even more so with Jane-Anne's spell on her ring. Anytime she accidentally stepped on Sophie's feet or squeezed too hard, tiny cuts would slice through her skin at her ankle or on her ribcage. "Please, Sophie. It's me. Eh-Katherine. I'm trying to help you."
But through all the sorrow and tears, Sophie is too far away to hear her right now.
A lull murmur builds power through the screams and snarls. The last Elder standing, Agnes, still had enough power in her to push back the rest of the vampires. She can hear them screaming as they flee like rats on a sinking ship through the graveyard. As the flood of them make their way past Elena and Sophie, the ringing in her ears grows to a peak.
Louder and louder until the shrieking becomes pain and the pain becomes unbearable. Dropping Sophie to the ground, she skins her knee and open wounds slice to the bone on Elena's legs. The blood vessels in her head burst and her eyesight goes dark. Exploding in bright lights before it blurs again into nothing. It makes her sick to her stomach. Does her best not to retch blood on the ground though it doesn't stop her eyes from bleeding.
Her back slams against the closest gravestone, breaking it in half. She loses her grip on the fairy cross and it tumbles to the ground. Not caring as she doubles over, hugging her own body into itself and wishing for it to be over. Rocking her body against the granite trying to stay quiet until Agnes is satisfied that all the vampires have fled and she ceases her chanting to regroup her own people.
The sharp pain dulls and Elena relaxes, exhausted on the ground. Her limbs are limp and useless until she recovers.
"Katherine?" Sophie looks down apprehensively at her sprawled out body.
She drags her legs to sit though she isn't quiet ready to stand. "I was too late, Soph. Thought I could help stop it all, but I was too late."
All the apologies she can't say pass between them as Sophie watches her, tears streaming down her face. That she was late. That she couldn't save Monique. That it had all come to this and she was useless to stop it.
She wants to apologize to Sophie with all the atonements she owes her friends.
Elena wipes at the blood on her cheek, dragging her feet closer to her body determined to stand. But she's too exhausted. Too weak. Too human. And then Sophie collapses in her arms. Curling her body into Elena's like she's trying to disappear into her. Shocked, she eventually envelopes Sophie in her arms. She'd expected her to be angry. To blame her. But not to seek comfort from her.
It's an odd thing to be so comfortable in a graveyard. But death has always surrounded Elena and in a way she wears it around her shoulder like a cozy old blanket. She holds Sophie with her body tucked into her until morning. Her face nestled safely in the crook of her neck and her knees pressed against Elena's stomach. Trembling lips hover over Sophie's dark hair before she hides her face in the smell of hot peppers and cayenne.
When the sun does finally peak over the edges of a decorative cross, Elena tenderly pushes Sophie's hair behind her ear and runs a cold thumb under her puffy eyes. Her eyes flutter open and it feels like a special prize that she was able to find enough solace in her arm to fall asleep. The dragging footsteps of the remaining coven returning for their dead signal her time to leave. Though she doesn't want to go while Sophie is still asleep. She groans, not wanting to face the world and Elena understands but she keeps trying to wake her up with soft touches. Eventually, everyone had to face the light of day. "You should go," she starts in a soothing tone. "Rejoin your people and bury your dead."
"I went against the coven last night." Sophie's voice is a croak. Raw from last night. "They aren't my people anymore."
"Monique still is." The reminder stirs the witch. She's silent as she stands, offering Elena her hand to help. Strength has returned to her body, but she appreciates the gesture anyway.
"Where will you go?" Sophie starts awkwardly. The smell of death in the air is not conducive for polite conversation. "Back to Marcel?"
"I have nowhere else to go."
No one in this city even knows her name. The only person she felt bold enough to tell spent the majority of his time as a wolf, unable to spill her secret. The back channels and waterways of the country felt too lonely to return to after her time in New Orleans. And she's not sure she'd even want to go back home anymore even if she could. She's changed so much since her friends mourned her and she wouldn't want to ruin their memory of the girl they once loved.
"We could leave." Sophie offers a lifeline. For both of them. The same kind of lifeline she once rejected from Lucy. "You and I. Go anywhere else but here."
For the second time she rejects it.
"I think we both know that it's too late for that." The low funeral dirge swings closer. Elena itches to run. "It's only going to get worse now. And Jane-Anne was right. Some things are worth protecting."
Sophie smiles like she understands, but Elena doesn't believe she can. She drags her feet back to the site of the Harvest, glancing periodically back until Elena disappears. She rejoins her sister with a cold gaze and lay to rest their beloved Monique. Each sister blaming the other for her death. Anointing their future and burying all hope behind bricks.
Elena watches for as long as she can bear it from the shadows. Pockets the cross and returns along quiet, yawning city streets to the Abattoir. The city carries on. Blood as much part of its history as her own. They are both unphased by now.
Except when Elena sneaks through the courtyard, back up the stairs that lead to her room. She opens the door and the violence within is a pale imitation of what transpired tonight. The keys of her typewriter litter the floor. Those cards she'd meant as a present for Marcel, ripped to shreds and scattered on her bed. The wolf skin hangs on the armoire, soaked in blood.
The floorboard that protected her treasures is pried open.
A/N: Thank you for reading this far! I see this chapter as the kick off to everything. The lighting of the fuse that Elena has been careening towards since she fled Mystic Falls. My plan is to wrap up the current arc I'm on by chapter 18 so I can introduce Klaus properly to this fic in 19. Follow me if you'd like over on Tumblr!