"Regret, and deeper woe of sin,
'Tis all that youth has ended in"
Alas for Youth
Ferdowsi
Translated by R. A. Nicholson
It is as if the pair of brothers have stepped into one of the many landscape paintings that litter the private rooms dedicated to art that have been present in each and every home the family has shared over a melinia of life.
The sky a shade of blue, pinks, and oranges swirled together with majestic strokes that neither men would be able to do justice to, should their thoughts attempt to explain. The sun, high above them when they sat, has since lowered to rest on the distant horizon line.
Finn, the eldest of the original siblings, was slouched over. Elbows of his arms resting against his knees. His hair long and wild blowing about in the sea winds. His clothes are still relics of a melinia past, the dark coloring being the only thing keeping the wear of the past 900 years daggered and two days wandering at bay. Hands covered in smears of dried blood that had been slowly diluted from their original state by a series of hands wiping away at other surfaces (pants, chest, hair, benches, and other hands).
Finn's eyes were locked on some distant shadow of a former life. Blinking at a speed just this side of normal as he fought back the raw emotion that was attempting to crawl its way from the depths of his soul and overspill to the world outside. But he had practice batting down his emotions. So to anyone baring the annoying youngest surviving brother to his right he would seem like a man lost in thought. Not a man battling demons that by this point had been nipping his heels for a melinia.
Once, an eternal lifetime ago, Finn may have taken comfort from the proximity of his youngest brother. The gods know he spent the majority of his fleeting childhood keeping tabs on and ratting out his younger siblings in turn. Each time brushing off the looks of betrayal when his ratting ended in an Ester lecture. Or exasperation when he curbed one of the many harebrained schemes his younger siblings had when they were just innocent children.
But he had the perspective of an eternal lifetime, of what monsters his mother's desperation turned his family into, and of 900 years in a coffin because he disagreed with his siblings' shared bloodlust and power grabs.
So instead of comfort. Finn drew on the long simmering anger he felt for his youngest surviving brother. Using the negative emotion to block out the grief for the umpteenth time as he growled low in his throat.
"What business do you have here, brother?" He asks, finally breaking the tense silence that had befallen them. His voice doesn't break over the words, he is to practiced for that, but it is a near thing. Kol is glad that it didn't, because he isn't all too sure what he would do if Finn were to crumble under the weight of secrets hidden for a milenia. Kol never was one for comforting words or embraces.
That piece of the sibling relationship was always reserved for the likes of Niklaus when they were human, and Elijah ever sense.
"Or have you just come to relish in my misfortune." Finn asks, and Kol has enough presence of mind to stop the flinch he feels at the words. Because it's a bit too close to the real reason he traveled away from the tangle of his siblings' web in search of Finn. The world had changed so much it was nearly unrecognizable after 100 years Kol-kabobed, and despite best efforts he really didn't feel like Elijah's dream of a family together really was any match for Niklaus' temper in the moment.
Well that and the fact that unlike Elijah, Niklaus, and Rebekah, Finn's hatred of him came from actions he was solely responsible for.
"I have spent too long accommodating myself to my surroundings because I lack the will to improve it." Kol states, deciding to offer some truth to his eldest brother, his head is high and dark eyes sit unwavering on that distant horizon point.
He feels more so than sees the incredulous look given to him by his eldest brother. Dark eyes questioning and mouth caught on a syllable his brain has yet to decide on. Kol twists his own gaze to meet Finn's. Taking in the blood spatter on his elder brother's face and the look of bewilderment at Kol's ability to change in the time that he was locked away in a box.
As if Finn was convinced that being locked in one moment of time for the rest of millenia also meant being stuck in one mindset.
"It means," he states, eyes focusing on Finn with an intensity Kol from 900 years ago would be incapable of. "Maybe it is time to allow our siblings to their own rot," Kol says, because he has changed. He is not the same 19 year old human thirsty for knowledge of magic that his mother denied him. He is not the same young vampire giving in to bloodlust to fill the void left when his magic was stolen. And most importantly he is not the little brother looking for a shred of connection to one of his siblings.
Starting from the moment he left mystic falls and the never ending parade of problems his siblings wraught he is a man of his own right. A man who is desperate to prove he does not seek the same approval he once did.
"And where, per say, would you go. You, brother, are as much as a stranger in this time as I." Finn says and while not entirely untrue Kol does have the benefit from short reprieves of being a kin-kabob over the past 900 years. Meaning his knowledge of the world is only outdated by a century, not nine of them.
"Why with you of course. And before you begin your long list of arguments you have been free of our siblings for a day or more and all it has led you to in a bench, in a backwater town, covered in the blood of…" there is a beat where in Finn pushes himself to full height, twists on the balls of his feet, and has fangs dropping and eyes filling with the truth of what he is. A threat of violence that somehow, despite 900 years and a confession to the contrary, Kol doesn't fear.
"All I am saying, brother, is that together we may be able to put more than just a few county lines between ourselves and our beloved siblings." Kol says hands up in surrender though he is aware that should this conversation come to blows he has the upper hand. Despite having been alive a milenia Finn had only ever used his enhanced strength and speed sparingly over the century he was free. Kol had at least five under his belt between kabobings, relished in his vampiric powers over the years, and was always more of a scrappy fighter to boot.
However, the winner of the battle is irreverent as Kol has no interest in fighting. Hours in the presence of Finn and not one wish to do him harm. Kol might even guess that the Perfect Elijah would be proud of his restraint.
No, instead he wants to get away from the big bad Niklaus, the ever so proper Elijah, and perfect Rebekah. And even if Finn's new lease on immortal life turns out to be a wild goose chase through the old world's forests in search of a 'hidden' that Kol for all his magical prowess and research has never heard tale of, so be it.
At least he doesn't have to deal with his family's look of contempt for actions that are not, and never have been his own.
Protecting Rebekah was easier when kabobed. Hopefully it would continue to be easier with an ocean between them.
"I do not…" Finn begins but the words die out, trust you, is the unspoken sentiment. Finn does not trust him.
Which is understandable, after all though his blood lust never reached the levels of big bad Niklaus, he was one of the more uninhibited when it came to their new talents for the first century or three. Not that his even most mindless actions hold the body count or the destruction that were the repercussions of the proper Elijah and perfect Rebekah. Nor do his schemes tear at their family the way big bad Niklaus' always seem to.
The lack of trust goes both ways. For while Finn distrusts Kol's blood lust and relishing of more chaotic things. Kol does not trust the new lease on immortal life that Finn is chasing will quell Finn's need to move on from this life.
That after some time chasing this hidden the pain of what has passed would not once again consume him. Sending him in a spiral to find some way to end the never ending turmoil this existence affords him. And maybe when that happens Finn will once again turn his sights on the eradication of his blood. An attempt to right the balance created by their mother in an effort to afford himself the peace he once was destined for.
"That makes two of us." Kol admits softly watching the fight drain from his eldest brother as he once again takes up a vigil in the seat beside him. The sound of waves hitting against the rocked beach in the distance.
"I admit, brother, that I am at a loss. The world has changed much." Finn said after a score of moments in silence. Allowing the lack of spoken word to fall over them like a blanket making away for all of the words neither were willing to speak.
"Humans are spectacular creatures that have always been ones for innovation." Kol says voice light and jovial. The proverbial zoologist marveling at the behavior of animals.
"You say that as if they are others." Finn bites back. Still clinging on to being a human with vampire powers, rather than a vampire playing human. A switch that most Mikaelsons had made within the first score of their new life.
"They are brother. If only in their understanding of times. They live so fiercely to have their life ended so quickly. Nearly a handful live to a century of years." Kol admitted.
"They are as we once were." Finn reminds him.
"Today, brother, you have walked through a world that not even the most wild of futurists could have imagined." Kol explains with a laugh. Enjoying the bite that is slipping into Finn's tone. Always one to egg his brothers into anger with a quick quip or scheme.
Because although he has no interest in physical altercations he is quite sure he would go spare without a verbal spat or two over the next however long he spends with his boar of a brother.
"I am no futurist Kol. Nor did I keep company with them."
"But yet realism is a relic you can no longer cling to. At some point you have to accept that…"
"Enough!" Finn barked. "I have heard enough of your droning and have little energy left to argue." Finn says and for the first time since being turned Kol is able to see the lines of exhaustion on his brother's face.
"Then let us find somewhere to rest. Or at least get you out of your bloody clothes and into something that doesn't look quite so out of place." Kol says standing and walking toward the pier. Finn is only a breath behind then they fall into an easy rhythm.
Two traditionally forgotten brothers embarking on an ill fated quest.
It sounded like the start to an epic adventure the likes the gods.
Kol could work with this.