It's been a hard week, which made it oddly cathartic to write this very dark and emotional chapter. There will be bright moments eventually. But a lot of stuff has to happen before then.
I know Nora isn't the most beloved character in the show, but I hope I have done enough to make her compelling. Thank you to anyone still reading and following this batshit spiderweb of a narrative as best you can.
Soundtrack:
Bowery Electric – "Without Stopping" from Beat
Interpol – "Evil" from Antics
Housewives – "Excerpt 2" from FF061116
Bada – "Avslag" from Bada
April 19, 2016
The first time Nora saw Hell was after Alex blasted her heart out of her chest.
July 28, 2015
She barely even registers the pain before she is somewhere else, different and terrifying, just nothingness and pain and guilt and a shape of... something radiating from the abyss. She screams, or at least does what she thinks is screaming, for someone, anyone, to help her, to make it stop, to tell her where she was or why she was here, anything, but no one comes, nothing changes, she just keeps burning.
And then, suddenly, she isn't.
The first thing she sees when she opens her new eyes sears itself into her memory forever. She can't even look at the thing all at once, it's so big and so close and so... impossible. Her stimulus-blitzed mind doesn't even have time to decide whether it's a lizard, a fish, or a human, or some unholy amalgam of all three, before she registers the additional bizarreness of her situation. She's totally naked, standing in ankle-deep liquid that feels too thick to be water and looks too black to not be supernatural, and it's also all over her body in a sporadic film as though she just rose from the Satanic kiddie pool like a surfacing submarine. The air is frigid and the walls are harsh, flat concrete—she's still in the Armory. She shivers as she takes this all in, trembling arms crossing over her torso in a futile attempt to warm up, and then she gasps when she finally works up the courage to turn back to look at the only other occupant of the room and it is no longer some horrid Lovecraftian creature, but a woman, a gorgeous woman in a simple flowing white dress, with shoulder-length straight brown hair and dark, piercing irises whose gaze makes Nora feel even more naked than she already is.
"Well?" Her accent is impossible to place; it's like she's speaking with four or five of them mashed together.
For a second Nora is terrified that words won't actually come out of her mouth when she tries to talk, but she hears them loud and clear, and even this slight reclamation of concreteness is enough to make her feel a bit less vulnerable. "I don't know who you are, but I'm not saying anything else until I can put some clothes on."
"Wow, Nora. I didn't peg you as a prude."
The heretic starts to feel steam shoot out of her ears, but then Sybil laughs, and it's a sound like nothing she's ever heard. It's simultaneously as grating as two-inch acrylics down an old chalkboard and as mesmerizingly beautiful as a sparrow's song. And now Nora is... calm. Somehow.
"Relax, I'm only kidding. The no-clothes part is an unfortunate side effect of the resurrection process. Already takes a heap and a half of magic to make you a new body, let alone a whole outfit too!" Sybil walks gracefully to a table on the other side of the room, which Nora can now identify as a dusty, abandoned laboratory, and picks up a pile of the same Armory inmate scrubs she's worn every day since Rayna brought her here. But she doesn't even care about the less-than-exciting clothing options much because she's now reeling over the other thing Sybil said.
"Resurrection? As in, I was dead and now I'm not?"
"Sort of." Sybil hands her the clothes along with a towel, which Nora reluctantly accepts and uses to wipe the remnants of the infernal ink-like liquid from her skin before slipping on the scratchy, paper-thin black pants and top. "You died, but your soul never fully passed through the veil. It was deflected, you might say. Bounced. But your original body is as dead as can be. So I'm sorry, but your friends that came to rescue you almost certainly believe you are too."
At this, Nora stops taking stock of her so-called "new" body, trying to see any imperfections, any signs that it isn't really hers, because now she can only think of one thing. "Where's Bonnie? Do you know where she is?"
"Bonnie? I don't know a Bonnie," Sybil replies as she turns away, in a tone that very much implies she does know a Bonnie. The Bonnie. Nora's Bonnie.
"You must. You knew my friends came, so you must know what happened. Tell me she's alright, that she's safe. Please."
"I'll leave that to your good friend Alex." The threat is delivered so casually, so absentmindedly. But to Nora it's a scorching lash, because at the invocation of Alex's name she remembers—all in one instant—the monotony and pain of the last week and a half spent being experimented on and interrogated, the brief but searing flash of agony from the shotgun blast, and then... what came after that.
"Why would you resurrect me just to hand me back over to the Armory?"
"Oh, make no mistake. There is no more Armory." Sybil finally turns back around to face Nora, this time holding what looks like a massive tuning fork inscribed all over with symbols. She twirls it in her hands as if it weighs less than a feather. "I ate everyone." A nightmarish giggle. "Well, mostly everyone. I left a small skeleton crew to continue select operations. It'll all make sense by the end of the day."
"The end of the day?" But before Nora can follow this up with What time is it? everything goes dark.
And then she's back in the cell.
April 19, 2016
The second time Nora saw hell wasn't long after that. Not capital H Hell, though. Instead, something even worse... somehow.
July 28, 2015
"Just quit your games and tell me the truth, Alex. What did you do with Bonnie?"
Alex almost looks genuinely sympathetic, or at least as close as her wretched pit of a heart could get, but Nora refuses to acknowledge this, because that would mean...
No.
She crosses her arms defiantly. "Why would I believe anything you tell me? All you've done is lie this whole time."
"Because no matter how horrible you think we are, we wouldn't deceive you about this." Alex is speaking softly, but through the cell's intercom system it sounds artificially magnified, plasticine.
"Yes, you would." Nora can feel the tears starting to come. But again, no. "You don't care about me. You don't care about her. I'm just a lab rat for you to test your ridiculous magic experiments, and she's just an easy way of controlling my emotional state for, again, said ridiculous experiments. You've done it over, and over, and over. Pray tell—why would I trust you now, of all times?"
Alex sighs. "You have every right to hold hostility toward us. But I'm sure I don't need to remind you that we have never given you news of her death before. There's no ulterior motive behind my coming down here to tell you this. It's simply because we know you loved her, and as such you deserve to know she's gone."
Anger is Nora's last layer of defense, and she channels it now. "Get. OUT. GET OUT! I never want to see your dirty lying face again! The second I escape from here I will find you and I will ever so slowly shave off small pieces of your flesh and feed them to you as I—" She stops. Stares. "What... what is that...?"
No.
"An extremely rare magical object. A grimoire, in fact, from a very old and very powerful witch. But you know that already, don't you?"
The tears flow freely now. "No... stop this right this instant... you know nothing you know NOTHING—"
And just like that, gone is the semblance of compassion in Alex's voice, replaced with her usual smug sadism. "You see this blood here, on the cover? That's Bonnie's blood. She bled to death after being shot multiple times by Armory security personnel. She was on her way to rescue you. She died because of you."
Nora sinks to the ground in a broken heap. "...I…. please..."
"I'll let you sit in here a few days so you can grieve. After that it's back to work." Alex holds up the Grimoire again. "You're going to help us open this. Sweet dreams, Nora."
"A few days?" Nora musters the last of her dimming inner light to get to her feet once more and pound on the thick plexiglass window-wall until her fists break and bleed, screaming, "LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! PLEASE!"
It could be five minutes or five hours later when she once again collapses, throat raw and ragged from shouting, eyes red-tinged and glassy, tear ducts depleted. But she doesn't completely break. Yet.
The thousand-ton silence is broken by a familiar voice, lilting through the speaker where Alex's had clumsily trampled: "Oh, pay no mind to that 'few days' talk. Alex's weak little brain can only be productive if it thinks things are business as usual. You'll be coming with me."
Nora doesn't feel any relief at Sybil's statement. Just emptiness. That is, until she hears another voice, one even more familiar than the last.
"Good to see you again, Nora."
When she springs to her feet and looks right into Mary Louise's eyes, she sees the decades upon decades of careless evil she's wrought staring back at her, imbued with extra sting by the blonde heretic's malevolent smirk, a sight she thought she'd never have to confront again. Certainly not without Bonnie by her side.
And yes—now she breaks.
April 19, 2016
The third time Nora saw Hell was—
"Well? Are you coming?"
Even after months of side-by-side servitude with Mary Louise, whatever pathetic scraps of emotion Nora does have left never fail to get worked up into irritation and rage at the sound of her ex-girlfriend's grating, snotty voice. Most would be unable to tell the difference between Mary Louise when she has her humanity switch on and when she has it off, but Nora has known her more than long enough now for the void where her former love's empathy should be. Sybil made sure they both got their taste of the fate that awaited them after death should they not help to carry out her master's plan, and the other girl hadn't faced that existential attack with the same resistance as Nora had. Even beyond both Sybil's and Mary Louise's incessant needling her to flip her own switch, Nora herself often wonders what the fuck the point even is anymore. Sure, if someday she could somehow find her way back to Valerie and Beau and Caroline and Damon it would be nice to actually give a shit, but every endless day that possibility seems more and more remote.
"If you don't shut up, I will squash you like a bug with a milling machine all over again," Nora threatens apathetically as she finally walks to the car.
"Wouldn't that be fun. But you know I'd just come back like always. Speaking of, are you aware of just how painful it is to resurrect as a puddle of gore-jelly and put yourself back together?"
"Now girls," Sybil scolds from the front seat, in the patronizing scold of an arrogant older sister trying her hand at mothering. "It's important that we all work together today. There's a reason I reunited you."
"Yes: the fact that you're a repulsive Hell-vermin whose closest approximation of joy is causing others to be miserable," Nora snaps.
In the rearview mirror she sees the Siren's whirlpool eyes flash with fury, but then she just smiles. After who knows how long only seeing Sybil in her mind's eye, the current reality of her as a concrete entity is still hard for Nora to wrap her head around. Perhaps this is her true hell, this wildly fucked up forced-family dynamic with the two people she despises more than anything else in this world.
"Watch your tone, Ms. Hildegard," Sybil finally says, starting the car and pulling out onto the road. Nora barely remembers where they even are... Tennessee, maybe? "Remember that I quite literally hold your fate in my hands. And you could say I've been known to be... fickle."
Nora doesn't respond, just leans her head against the window and watches the foliage lining the interstate whip by in an emerald blur, a color that reminds her of a still-familiar pair of eyes, trying to pretend that Mary Louise isn't sitting next to her and that they aren't headed to Mystic Falls to do god knows what to god knows who.
"So are you ever going to actually tell us what this spectacular grand plan your 'master' has actually is? Or even who they are?" Mary Louise's voice holds the same disdain as Nora's; the fact that they find not even a hint of solidarity in their mutual loathing of Sybil is a testament to the breadth of the abyss between them.
"All in good time, all in good time..." Sybil trails off, and though the first utterance of the phrase is clearly in answer to Mary Louise's question, the second seems more carelessly spoken to herself, as if she's reassuring herself of an answer to her own question. Maybe she's just another helpless marionette, Nora thinks. But then, where do the strings end? Who puppets who is not themselves puppeted?
"I'm starting to think you just don't know," Mary Louise huffs, crossing her arms. Sibyl ignores her, not moving her gaze from the road. How she even knows how to drive is beyond Nora, but she learned to just not ask questions a long time ago.
Soon after they cross the Virginia state line they pull over into a tiny, dilapidated gas station on the side of the two-lane highway. The middle two letters on the neon sign hanging crooked in one of the dusty convenience windows have gone out, so the red glow just shows O N in the near-dusk light.
"What are we doing? Why are we stopping?"
Nora's actually had peace and quiet for the past half hour, so the sudden reassertion of Mary Louise's presence is especially jarring.
"You do know what a gas station's main product is?" Sybil asks sarcastically, opening the driver's side door and letting the warm, thick night air flow into the freezing car.
"I just thought the mythical Siren would be above having to stop for a petrol top-off and a snack."
"Oh, I'm not even that hungry, thanks to both of your hard work." If seeing Sybil drive was jarring, seeing her pump gas is even more so. "But yes, I am at the mercy of this world's rather primitive travel technology." She drums her fingers loudly on the roof of the car. "Why don't you girls go get yourself something to eat? My treat."
"Fuck you," Nora mutters as she reluctantly lifts her head from where she was resting it on the windowsill and gets out, shooting Sybil a withering glare as she passes her.
But she hears that infuriatingly singsong voice from behind her as she walks away. "I'm surprised you're hungry, Nora. Has that all-you-can-eat hospital buffet already passed through?"
Nora freezes. She's been trying so hard to put all the carnage and casualties she's left in her wake, but Sybil is always there to bring reality roaring back. But she's not having it tonight. She turns around and in a flash is right in the Siren's face.
"We both know you made me do that."
"I don't make anyone do anything, dear," Sibyl replies, not even acknowledging the sudden provocation, her perfectly made-up face looking almost bored, which makes Nora even angrier. "I just strongly suggest that they reevaluate their priorities. You're a ripper, Nora. It's always been inside of you, and it always will be. All I did was show you that."
"I was living pretty massacre-free until you showed up," Nora seethes.
"Ah yes, your tranquil little facsimile of happiness you deluded yourself into with your precious B—"
Nora's hand closes around Sybil's throat, stifling the utterance to a strangled squawk, and the trigger-locked gas nozzle is knocked out of the car and clatters to the ground, still spewing. "Do not say her name." The Siren's skin starts to glow orange as Nora's fury fuels her siphoning, absorbing more and more magic until the neck starts to elongate and turn a mottled, scaly grey, and now the boredom is gone from Sybil's face and replaced with indignance and vitriol, and then Nora feels a displaced, weaponized memory pierce her brain like a sniper's bullet.
May 14, 2015
Nora pads into the bedroom, some of the steam from the shower following her as she finishes securing one towel around her torso and starts to wrap her hair in the other, but she stops mid-motion when she sees Bonnie sitting in silence on the edge of the bed, staring out the large window on the east-facing wall, the ample glow of smooth, ivory moonlight highlighting the gathering tears in her eyes.
Before Nora can even open her mouth to ask what's wrong, however, Bonnie is already asking her own question, not turning her gaze from the sparkling cityscape and the sheening expanse of the East River: "What's gonna happen to us?"
They'd overdone it a bit, more than a bit, tonight for Nora's birthday, and Nora ended up carrying Bonnie most of the way home, helping her shower and get into her pajamas. But now there's barely any slur to her words and she sounds, well, awake. Which makes the query all the more weighty.
"What do you mean?" Nora asks, knowing full well what she means.
When Bonnie finally turns to meet her eyes, her face betrays that she knows full well that Nora knows full well what she means, but she answers anyway. "In a century, or less. Probably less. When I get old and death is an inevitability. Witches can extend their lifespan a good amount. But I'm still mortal. My face and body will change while yours will stay exactly the same. What kind of life is that?"
"One I am perfectly okay with living, because it means I'll get to be with you." Nora quickly slips on her own pajamas and plops down next to Bonnie, their bodies melding together in the organic, instinctive way that only comes with time—a lot of it. "We've talked about this before and you were okay with it. Has something changed?"
"No, I just—" Bonnie stops, sniffs, wipes her eyes with the back of her left hand. "I am okay with it. I think. But should I be? Up until a few years ago I always thought I would— always wanted to put down roots with someone, live a beautifully boring and unremarkable life with them, grow old together, die together. But what does it mean when the person you want to be with forever is on a completely different plane of 'forever'?"
In this moment Nora is now acutely aware she's witnessing a memory, something that already happened and can't be changed, and the jolt is like that of realizing you're dreaming and waking up, but she doesn't wake up, just suddenly ripped from the role of participant and jammed into a seat in the live studio audience, helpless to say the exact right thing to comfort Bonnie and assuage her uncertainty, helpless even to scream at her past self to do so, because when she opens her mouth no sound comes out, not even a whimper. She can only watch as one of her greatest regrets plays on repeat, over and over and over and over and over and over again.
She didn't say anything.
She doesn't say anything.
And it doesn't even matter anyway.
April 19, 2016
Nora is already sobbing as she is unceremoniously yanked back into the present, the first image in her view Sybil's smirking face before she covers her face with her hands and slides to the ground with her back against the side of the car, barely registering the quickly growing puddle of renegade gasoline that flows past her and soaks her pants.
"I can't help but feel like a broken record at this point, darling, but don't you think this all would've been so much easier if you had just turned off your humanity when I asked you so nicely to?"
Nora doesn't respond, but through the blurring film of her tears she sees another pair of feet join Sybil's, but they definitely aren't Mary Lou's.
When she sees their owner her brain refuses the information for a solid five seconds.
And then she glares, all the simultaneous torrents of emotion coalescing into dense, focused hatred.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she growls.
Because standing right next to Sybil, in some brutally cruel cosmic joke somehow played on Nora and only Nora, is Rayna Cruz.
The huntress's dark brown eyes show not even a hint of recognition, which is just the nice little rotten maraschino cherry right on top.
Sybil forces Nora's mind to calm down, even as she fights the psychic smothering with everything she has. "Nora dear, relax, she hasn't a clue who you are. Do you, Rayna?"
The huntress shakes her head. As Nora looks more closely, she sees that Rayna's face doesn't just reveal an obliviousness of her former quarry, but total confusion in general. But she fell for that ruse once back at the criminal psychiatric facility in Cincinnati, and that didn't turn out so well. The spreading pool of flammable liquid that could spell a flaming death for all of them is the only thing stopping her from smiting Rayna once and for all.
"Now, do you have it?" Sybil holds out her hand expectantly. The gas is still pouring from the abandoned nozzle, the quiet gurgles as it spits fuel onto the concrete getting louder and louder in Nora's ears, and all of a sudden she feels extremely uneasy. Why hasn't she shut the pump off?
Rayna still doesn't say anything, just reaches inside her jacket and pulls out a gallon ziploc with large, cracked pieces of something that Nora can't identify, each one of the fragments encrusted with layers of dirt as if it had been dug up after being buried for years. When Sibyl takes it in her hands the setting sun glints off the one bit of metal that isn't caked with sediment it clicks. And that brutally cruel cosmic joke brutally becomes even more cruel.
"I have good news, Nora," Sybil purrs, holding the bag up and admiring the shattered husk of the 1903 ascendant. "It's been a lot of fun, don't get me wrong. But I no longer require your services."
"What are you— how— it was destroyed, it's gone, you can't— why—" The mess of words seems to spill all at once from Nora's trembling mouth.
"But just for the sake of my oh-so-precious pride, I think I'll finally give you what you've needed all along." And as the Siren sings, Nora can feel the tired little switch buried at the back of her brain being tugged downward. She closes her eyes. She really is so tired. Of feeling. Of existing. Yes. It's okay. Be free now.
As she opens her eyes again, she finally sees the world without the pesky blurring of empathy and compassion. And she smiles. For a moment, anyway.
Because now she hears a shrieked "YOU" from behind them, and then Sybil murmurs, "Oh Mary Lou, ever the soldier."
And suddenly everything is fire.
