AU. The Mikaelsons are vampire royalty. Obviously, Caroline is having none of it.
"You look bored," Caroline comments from her sitting position on the large bed, the skirt of her dress a cloud around her.
Standing by the double-door, shut and saged, Klaus remains impassive.
One second.
Two seconds.
Ten seconds pour past them and she huffs.
"I'm bored."
"How unfortunate," he replies.
His words drip with sarcasm, a steady rhythm of trickle-dribble-drop, until the whole of it leaks unapologetically into the bedchamber, making Caroline grin.
As part of one of the most powerful vampire families in the world, she's used to being treated with kid gloves... something that has grown to ridiculously humongous proportions, ever since her betrothal to Elijah, heir to the Mikaelson throne, was announced.
The blunt disregard for her perceived sensibility is refreshing, albeit coming from an unlikely source.
She's pretty sure knights are supposed to be far more accommodating to their future queen.
But Klaus isn't just any knight. No. He's a prince, too.
"Very," she agrees, polite, standing up to her bare feet.
One hand trails the bodice of her dress, fluffs the skirt of it where it falls flat from having sat down on its expensive fabric.
Klaus looks on with a suspicious glint in his gaze that is oh, so exciting.
"I was hoping you would be so kind as to entertain me?"
"That is not why I'm here, sweetheart."
The term of endearment is a nice touch. A tad forward, perhaps, considering how she's to marry his brother in a fortnight time, but he sounds bitter so she'll let it slide.
Caroline clicks her tongue, approaches him in slow, purposeful steps.
"It makes me wonder why, exactly, you are, then."
"To protect you."
"Ah. From?"
"Whatever you might need protection from."
"Whatever or whomever?" she inquires, head cocked to the side.
They are face to face now. Almost, at least. With his leather boots and straight spine, he's slightly taller.
Caroline curls her toes around a clump of threads adding up to the soft carpet beneath her and waits.
"Both."
She considers his answer for a moment, twisting her nose left and right, clearly not satisfied with it.
"And what about me?" she presses. "Am I accounted for in there?"
The confusion knitting Klaus' eyebrows together spreads giddiness throughout her body.
"You seem to me," she elaborates, taking to waltzing, half a twirl, a dip, blonde curls astray, around the bedchamber with the outer layer of her skirt pinched between her fingertips, "less a bodyguard, more a babysitter." She stills in front of the tall windows overlooking the fields surrounding the castle. "Afraid I will escape?"
Klaus smirks, the fire in his stare in such contrast with the ocean blue of his eyes.
He likes challenges—she can tell. And she's heard the stories.
Two peas in a gilded cage, they are.
"There is no way out of this betrothal but death, sweetheart, and you're immortal."
"Ah!" Caroline jabs the air with her right forefinger. "Indeed, I am. So what would I ever need any sort of protection for?" Her father—may his soul rest in torment—had always wished for a son and, if anything, taught her everything she would ever need to know to take care of herself.
Klaus ignores her implication, appearing amused rather than annoyed. "Elijah will lose his mind with you."
"Or his head."
"Careful, love," he warns, though his tone lacks any trace of threat, "the wrong ears might believe you are plotting something."
"Oh, pleeease!" Caroline rolls her eyes with a snort. "I am far cleverer than believing something as mundane as decapitation is enough to kill an original. Not to mention, should anything befall Elijah, I would only be handed over to the next in line." A pause. A tick in Klaus' jaw. "Kol, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"But you're older, are you not?"
"Yes."
"So why not you?"
"Would you want it to be me, sweetheart?"
"I would want it to be no one," she says in earnest.
So powerful.
Yet still nothing more than a pawn in someone else's chess game.
For now.
The queen.
The knight.
"You're not going to show me the courtesy of honesty as I've just done you?"
Klaus sighs. It's a heavy, jaded sound that tugs uncomfortably at the dead organ that is Caroline's heart.
"I have no interest in politics, is all."
Caroline twists her nose again. "That makes no sense, Sir Niklaus. Life would be so dreadfully simple if we only partook in matters we are interested in."
She's close to pouting and he cannot help but let out a chuckle.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. For example, I had no interest in saving the life of that poor woman you were feeding on earlier yet I did."
"No need to remind me of my ruined dessert."
"Humans are not treats!" she scolds, scoffs. "How uncivilized."
"Vampires tend to be."
"Wolves, as well?" Klaus stiffens. His gaze darkens then hardens, a steel weapon carved out of shadows. "See, I also had no interest in finding out who your birth father is yet I did."
"No interest, uh?"
Shoulders wrapped up in pale pink lace bob up and down. "None whatsoever."
Klaus hums pleasantly.
Caroline can tell he's dying to move forward, trap her with her back against a wall, perhaps, his hand a fist crushed through her chest, but centuries upon centuries of pretending to be less than the rest of his family, when, in fact, he is so much more, have made him well-versed in the art of biding his time.
She has lived a similar life.
Underestimated.
She can empathize.
"Do you?"
His breath fans across her face as he speaks. "Name your price, sweetheart."
"Just an itsy bitsy piece of information, I promise."
"You are being a little vague, don't you think?"
"Take it or leave it," she offers.
The slash of Klaus' lips is downright sinful and a coil tightens low in Caroline's belly.
"Oh, sweetheart, I will take everything."