A/N: Okay this chapter is the longest one yet, therefore you have been warned, no whining please.
1- From this point forward, do not expect any chapter posted to be less than 25k words.
2- INCYAL now has its own page. The link to which can be found on my profile on this site. On the INCYAL page is where I will answer all questions from now on about the story, be taking any requests for lost scenes (see page to understand what I am talking about) and be posting playlists for the chapters. Chapter 12's playlist is now posted.
3- This chapter is 55K words. I promise you, in fact there is not a doubt in my mind, that there are grammatical errors that you will find some place in this story. Yes, we are aware they are there and when you write and edit 55K word chapters we will have a serious conversation about perfection in posting but until that glorious day, please just take a deep breath and kindly over look whatever errors you find. If it is just killing you, you might go into cardiac arrest if you don't say something, go to the INCYAL page and let us know in the ask box and we will be sure to correct it, when we do another revision of this chapter in a week or so.
INCYAL is constantly undergoing grammatical revisions.
4- I will be posting a full scene for Christine, our next hunter in the next 2 days. You can find that scene on the INCYAL blog.
5- I will be posting a full excerpt of Kalijah in the future (possibly 1960s) in the next few days. Again that can be found on the INCYAL blog.
6- I will be writing and posting the lost scenes and requests over the next few weeks. Those will be found on the INCYAL blog.
The first Kalijah scene in this chapter was written in part by my good friend Bri. Please feel free to go check out her work, she is a phenomenal writer.
The poster for this chapter was made by Nessa, who does the majority of fanart for INCYAL. Thank you Nessa, it is gorgeous.
All fanart from all wonderful artists can be found on the INCYAL blog.
FINALLY, Jen edited this chapter and puts in countless hours of work so that you all can have a free 2-3 hours of entertainment. Let us all be kind to Jen and once more if you find grammatical errors, unknot your knickers before you pop off and send either of us a nasty gram. She does what I promise none of you would want to do and edits this beast so you have something to read.
Have a lovely day readers! And thank you for reading, following, favoriting, writing me on tumblr and REVIEWING!
Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor (you know)
I used to live alone before I knew you
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
and love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah- Lenard Cohen (Jeff Buckley and others)
Scrathclyde
1492 AD
When the Mikaelson brothers disappeared sometime during the morning and into the afternoon, Lilly knew exactly where they had gone: to feed. Katerina blissfully unaware was easily entertained by Trevor who'd mysteriously dropped by. To Kat, it seemed like happenstance but to Lilly it was the changing of the guard. A message that they clearly felt both her and Katerina couldn't be left unattended and for what reason? If the wolves decided to come, what could the two brothers possibly do to hold them off that Lilly could not? To her knowledge Kol was not any stronger than she, any more adept at healing. And did they not have Elspeth? But it seemed her spells could only last a short period of time, her strength weakening considerably with each attempt.
Maybe she was irritated that they would stay because of her circumstances with Kol. It was like a scratch that could not be itched, an elephant in the room. Only it was one of her own making that he seemed to be tolerating with much greater ease than she.
"Kat?" Alone, taking their noon meal (Trevor had slipped out of view to do God knows what) she considered that life would be so much simpler being Katerina, seemingly never taking anything seriously.
"Yes?"
"Do you care for Trevor?" If only she knew what he really was, Lilly wondered if Katerina would be able to act the same around him. In truth, she often couldn't.
"As much as I do any man," she replied flatly.
"But have you never cared for just one man?"
Katerina's spoon was still in the bowl as she looked down at her soup. It was a simple enough question, one for which the answer should have easily been No, but that would have been a lie. She had, once, almost two years past cared for a boy. Dark hair and pale green eyes, he'd worked the fields outside the village and would offer her a smirk and occasionally leave a flower resting on the fence that she passed by each morning. She'd thought she loved him, in fact she was sure of it. She'd never regretted the fumbling, hot, sticky touches they shared in the woods mid day or the way he'd look at her afterwards.
She never regretted the little girl that had eventually come. The only regrets Katerina had was when he left, wedding another girl in the village, one that wasn't shamed. Perhaps another lesson learned: to never be foolish as to always rely on the intentions of sweet words, to always move on before they could from her. It was a lesson she'd thought she'd learned well and applied, until Elijah.
"Yes, I suppose," she finally replied.
"Do you ever miss home, Kat?"
Yes, she missed it desperately some days, but not the village, not the wooden home they'd lived in. She missed them, her family, those that had sent her away without a thought.
"Home is a state of mind Lilly, those that afraid to leave it are afraid to live."
"I see..." she answered, silence filling the room. Leaving home? The thought had occurred to Lilly a few times over the years, the thought of marriage but that was before everything changed. That was before she knew she was a wolf and before Kol. She'd always thought she'd wed like Lyanna and her mother before. She'd move somewhere perhaps not far and Lyanna's children would someday be friends with her own as she and Lyanna had been. But it seemed that was just a fantasy, or rather a passing wish. Now, Lyanna would never have children, not with Nathaniel anyhow and Elijah, should Lyanna choose to continue that association would never give her children and would outlive her many years over.
But would Kol not do the same? He'd lived many life times, no doubt by now and he would live many more while Lilly was cold in the ground. Perhaps it would be better for her to forget him now. Perhaps it would make more sense for Lilly to stay here and fight with Lyanna, to keep the land, the house and forever her name: Lockwood.
"Affection when real, love, it is something remarkable Lilly. When it is real and if it is returned," or so she had heard. Her mind was no longer was fixed on the boy from her past, mistakes made but instead on Elijah. Katerina knew she only had so many more years left where she would be beautiful. She only had so much time to take advantage of her looks. She wasn't Lyanna or Lilly, she didn't have a permanent home, a family (any longer) and she had nothing to support herself with.
Her affection for Elijah had developed into a series of complicated feelings she wasn't even sure she understood, the root of it fear and desire. A desire of power, security, the kind that Lyanna had, the kind Elijah could give her but more so for that kind of love, affection. The kind Katerina knew he was capable of, the kind he seemed to give Lyanna without hesitation.
Katerina's thoughts sat with Lilly all afternoon, sinking in that all of what she'd once thought she wanted perhaps didn't matter anymore. Wasn't it all a lie in the end anyhow? Her parents hated one another and Lyanna and her brother, the affection she used to see flowing so freely between them was forever splintered, marked with lies that couldn't be undone. Perhaps Lyanna didn't care that Elijah would out live her, that he was the least prudent decision she could make. She loved him, cared for Elijah immensely, which was evident to anyone who saw them together. And in the end, did Lilly not want the same, whatever time she could have with Kol, as long as she could make that feeling last? Was it wrong of her to feel so?
It didn't feel as if it was anymore.
Eltham Palace, London
1492 AD
A gold coin passed from Arthur's hand into the kitchen maid's. He may not have been a Lord, a welcomed guest in the rooms of Eltham Palace, but at times there were advantages to being of lower birth. He could pass through the stables and kitchens of the palace unnoticed and unbothered.
Arthur could seek information from those who were more knowledgeable of things than the Lords of the pack who were too busy with social obligations. He could pay for the priceless information that passed from their mouths.
"And where did you take the morning's serving of tea?"
"To Lord Mikaelson's room," the older woman crooned, falling just short of the information he wished to know. Holding her hand out once again, she waited until he finished depositing another gold coin into her palm before she continued, "It was not the Lord that answered."
"Yes, then who?"
"Lady Lockwood..." she paused for effect, "In bed sheets, no less..." Arthur smiled to himself, exiting the hot stuffy buttery. He knew it, from the moment he saw them together in the garden, the way Lord Mikaelson had stood so close to her and disappeared not minutes after she had left that first night.
The vampire was attempting to go through the widow to get the stone. Unfortunately for him, Lyanna Lockwood would be dead before she could tell Lord Mikaelson where she'd hidden it. If the blood sucker wanted that moonstone, he'd have to kill Arthur and the entire pack to get it.
In the meantime he'd be more than sure that Lord Morris and Bosse were apprised of recent revelations and that their loose lips would spread the good news to any and all who were willing to listen to contrary claims of Lord Mikaelson's tainted proclamations of Lyanna Lockwood's innocence.
She stayed in Niklaus's room as long as possible until it was absolutely necessary that she go, people were stirring in the halls, preparing themselves for the day. She'd attempted to leave earlier, have her tea, speak with Niklaus and then go, long before the neighbors around Niklaus's room along the corridor, had risen for the day. But her plan was spoiled as soon as he rose, cornering her against the window, reliving last night's activities, only the second time he made sure that he was in control.
Her body smudged against the window, breaking up the frost that coated the panes, replacing it with steam. Afterwards, Lyanna rewrapped herself in the sheet, looking for her chemise on the ground, attempting to solve the issue of how she would return back to her rooms, especially so underdressed. She'd no sooner slipped the cotton over her head, untangling her hair before she felt the back being lifted, hands, running over her thighs, legs prompting her to step forward towards the bed.
"You need to leave," he'd whispered behind her.
"I was in the process," Lyanna murmured as his hands grouped her breasts freely.
"Perhaps once more…" he commented, guiding her down onto the bed.
"They are stirring…" she warned, on her back looking up at him as slid her chemise up over her hips.
"And they shall being doing that same thing, minutes from now."
"Minutes?" she questioned, eyebrow quirked.
"Greedy, Lady Lockwood?"
"Unimpressed…."
He might have come back with some witty quip to match hers, but instead preferred action. Spreading her thighs, he was quick to sink into and smile at his own prowess as Lyanna closed her eyes, mouth dropping open.
When she'd finally left his rooms, it was after he'd set out ahead of her, clearing the long corridor, compelling the guards that stood at each end to break form their posts.
She'd rushed down the halls slipping behind her door without throwing Niklaus another glance and stayed there most of the day without company. Lyanna walked through the grounds that morning. Bundling herself head to toe, she wandered through the dead gardens, where plants remained covered by a thin layer of snow. She passed the King's Alley, nodding to the guards she saw along the way, staring up at the murky sky, threatening rain or snow. Later when she returned to her rooms, avoiding everyone else at court, she curled into the chair staring out at the Scalding House, she thought of the night previous, her current circumstances and Elijah. Lyanna spent the morning thinking of Elijah. What would he say now if he knew? Would he understand? It was hard for Lyanna to believe that he wouldn't, that she couldn't tell him anything and he wouldn't be somewhat understanding. What would she do now?
Her fingers brushed over the inscription she'd penned into the cover of the book:
"True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness."
Elijah,
I found love and life in the garden and there it will always stay.
My Love,
Lyanna
Lyanna would always search for Elijah as he would her. Two souls that understood one another with perfect clarity and perhaps would never meet as they once did. But years from now, Elijah would hold that tattered copy of Petrarch, the cover worn, the binding broken, the pages yellow and brittle and know that he'd found Lyanna again, that perhaps he lost her for only a period of time.
She didn't remember when she'd fallen asleep, but when Lyanna woke it was to a relatively dark room, only a few candles lit. Her eyes adjusting to the change in light, she couldn't see him but knew he was there.
"What are you doing?"
"Waiting for you," he looked down at the book at that sat open in her lap and the text scribbled inside, not quite able to read what it was that she'd written but he could clearly make out Elijah's name.
"Is there something wrong?" Isolated all day, she would have preferred to think this a social visit but she knew better. Niklaus didn't make social visits, he wasn't courting her. Whatever had passed between the night before and that morning was one thing but it wouldn't continue into the day.
"You went walking this morning, down the King's Alley, through the gardens..."
She stared back at him without response, not that she was surprised that he stalked her movements, more Lyanna felt she didn't have to justify herself to anyone, especially Niklaus.
"You won't do it again."
"When I ask your opinion I will take instructions, but until then I will answer to neither you nor anyone else."
He may not have smiled but from the soft flicking of his expression, however slight, she could tell he was mildly amused. Always trying to set a territory with her, it seemed some things would never change: Lyanna wouldn't be controlled no matter the circumstances but that wouldn't stop Niklaus from trying.
"You understand that they are watching you?"
"Yes."
"They do wish you dead and will do whatever it takes to accomplish that task..." he continued indifferently.
"I'm aware..."
"And still you choose to ignore my prudent advice?"
"Some would rather die free than caged."
"A shame we can't ask those that 'died free'," he snickered, before pulling a blade from behind his back. Extending the hilt in her direction he nodded towards her gift, "Take this if you insist of chancing death, I can't be wandering around after you every second of the day."
Lyanna looked at the blade indifferently before picking up her book, leaning back in the chair, continuing her reading.
Clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Niklaus commented, somewhat annoyed, "That desperate to die?"
"No, I don't need it," without breaking eye contact with the page, she dug through her skirts, retrieving a blade, somewhat smaller than the one he offered her but just as capable of doing damage if used properly.
"You think I'd walk these infested halls without it?" she questioned off hand.
Niklaus smirked, Lyanna, always full of surprises. "Do you know how to use it?"
She licked her finger, turning the page, "I seemed to do just fine, when I stabbed you... twice," she added.
Yes, he remembered. It was strange for a Lady to know how to use a blade, even semi effectively.
"And who taught you, might I ask?" If he'd taken a moment to really think of the question before he'd asked, he might have guessed the answer.
"Nathaniel," she replied looking up this time. It was foolish, perhaps it was just the tension of the day, all the little games Niklaus had been forced to play that he was unaccustomed to, but the mention of his name, sent a shot of irritation through him.
Nathaniel Lockwood, two things it seemed Niklaus would have to grapple with, the hunters and their strange, irritating connection with the Lockwood name. Perhaps it was a coincidence? Lockwood was a common enough name, spanning back centuries, even to the village they'd lived in as humans.
There'd been a family of Lockwoods back then. A father and son, the mother had passed with another child. He couldn't even remember their names, just the boy, perhaps a year or two older than himself. Dark hair, dark eyes, he could still somewhat recognize his face. It was strange the things that stayed with you over the centuries and others that were lost.
"You keep in on you at all times then?"
"Yes."
"Be aware of those you keep around you, Lyanna. Even those whom may seem benign, their intentions may not be."
He'd meant serving maids, page boys, guards and any males that lurked the halls. The irony of which, is that he really should have meant himself.
"I have very little friends here, if any at all, I am aware of this fact."
"I would not say any," Niklaus hinted, although he wasn't her friend. They had never been friends. Whatever was happening, had been happening between him and Lyanna was nowhere in the realm of friendship. It was something much darker and desperate, filled with brief moments of euphoria that always seemed to crash into bitter agony.
The fire that burned often a little too bright and too hot.
"Goodnight to you, Lyanna…." He finished, turning to leave, as Lyanna sat forward in her chair, reaching out for just a second before retracting her hand. Perhaps it wasn't logical to ask him to stay. It wasn't becoming either, to be so in need of his time, possible affection. So Lyanna stopped herself from saying a word but Niklaus had heard the brief hesitation all the same. And although it wasn't much, it was enough to leave a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
She may cling to his brother, she may still hold loyalties to some man he never met, but Lyanna wished for him to stay and even though he left all the same, that was enough for him.
Scrathclyde
1492 AD
The muted click of her shoes sounded through the hallway. In her ears she could hear the sound of her blood pumping. Faster and faster, it flushed over her cheeks and at the back of her neck, the heat building. It made her head spin but she pushed on towards her destination.
When she had went to his rooms to find Elijah to speak with him perhaps frankly or at the very least, to try to say something that could fill up the silence that seemed to engulf them now when they were in the same room, she was surprised to find him still gone.
Perhaps it was wrong. Truly it was a perversion for her to enter his rooms without him present. It was deceitful and pathetic for her to look through his things, but when she found them, the letters from Lyanna: one addressed to her, Lilly and Elspeth, she couldn't help herself. Her fingers were slipping through the seal and reading Lyanna's possible last words to her before she could allow her guilt to catch up with her curiosity. What she found later, she would wish she hadn't.
Katerina felt dirty. Her fingers tightened around the paper in her hand. They were nothing more than ink and pieces of paper and yet they had made her feel ashamed. She had felt like a child peaking in on lovers in passion. No, it had been an even greater, deeper invasion. She had violated their love and found herself wanting. Amongst his things, of all the stacks papers he seemed to keep, the unread fare thee wells that she'd found from Lyanna, Katerina had discovered the letter Elijah had been given. And it was there that he found her, sitting by the fire in his room, reading his personal communications.
"Katerina," Elijah greeted, as she continued reading, not bothering to meet his gaze. "I am not in the mood for company."
She almost scoffed but she bit it back.
"Pity," she said, her tone as sympathetic as she could muster but made no move to leave.
Feeling another arduous encounter coming, he continued inside to the place where he'd left the brandy he had brought from Harte manor. Pouring himself a large helping, he sat himself across from Katerina and hoped that she would quickly tire of whatever it was that she had planned on saying.
He hadn't even noticed that she was reading a letter, but a particular letter of interest to him. He was lost to his own devices. Katerina imagined that it was dear, sweet Lyanna who occupied his thoughts. His eyes closed momentarily, drink resting on his knee, head falling back against the chair.
Standing quietly, her gaze strayed to the hearth. The orange and yellow flames writhed in their cradle, fiery tongues licking out at the stone, hungry for what she hid behind her back. She moved towards them her pace slow, almost languid.
"I may not speak French, Italian, or Spanish but I can read English just fine," she said plainly, her jaw gritting together towards the end.
Perhaps she should learn. Maybe that would make him want her. She could learn the lines; play the part of the good, honorable, and kind lady but it would just be another mask. Elijah had already seen the beast the lay in her belly. It had crawled up her throat and when she smiled it peeked out between her teeth to greet him.
"How very nice for you," he mumbled, his words like cold murder.
Still he would not look at her. Even as she moved closer and closer to the hearth, precious cargo in her hands, he refused to give her anything more than his loathing apathy.
Katerina paused in her trek and took a shuddering breath. There was a crack in her resolve but before it had a chance to splinter, she took the extra half step to the hearth. She waited for him to realize her game. The pages in her hand fluttered and Katerina could not decide whether it was anticipation or pure unadulterated rage that made her shake. His indifference infuriated her but it frightened her as well. How very much like dark, still water he was but Katerina had stones to throw.
"I read the letter, Elijah," she said, the words tumbling heavily from her mouth.
"You read wha-"he began to droll, the irritation already evident in even the first syllables as he opened his eyes.
Her grip tightened at the feel of his gaze upon her. The papers crinkled and the sound of it matched the flames that cackled besides her. She took one piece and without any hesitation tossed it into the greedy flames.
Suddenly he understood what she meant by, letter.
Elijah opened his mouth to scold her but before he could even get out a sound she dropped another. A smile began to form. Like a child testing their limits, she reached for another.
"Stop," he murmured in a daze at first.
The fire cut holes in the pages of Lyanna's letter. Her promises and pleas, her love, they were burning before his eyes. He sat up.
"STOP," he roared rising from his seat.
Fixing her mouth into a tight sneer, she took hold of another sheet and tossed it into the flames. The fire ate up the ink and paper.
"I said stop, Katerina!" he shouted lunging at her.
Pulling back, she avoided his angry hands long enough to take the last pieces of the letter in her other hand. She twisted her arm back just out of his reach.
"Why?" she taunted her tone like that of a spoilt brat. "Why should I stop, Elijah? Why do you need them?"
He grabbed at her but she slipped her thin shoulders and limbs out of his grasp once more. Elijah was too focused on the letter.
"Were you going to hang them on your wall?" she goaded him further. "Sleep with them under your pillow. Do you think they'll keep you warm at night?"
She stretched her arm back even further as he drew her closer reaching for the papers. Knowing she would lose soon, she twisted away from his grasp again. Then in one great sweeping motion she tossed the rest of Lyanna's letter into the fire and for a moment the world stopped.
Elijah paused in horror as the flames ate at her letter. Then he snapped into action brushing Katerina aside. He reached for the poker attempting to salvage anything from the fire.
"You're pathetic," she snapped, watching him grovelling.
Yet she wanted him all the same. Even as he agonized over another woman's love, pitifully reaching for what little pieces of her he had left, Katerina wanted him. She craved him and everything of him, his love, his devotion and even the horrible parts, the darkness. Katerina would swallow him whole if she ever got the chance.
"Lyanna," Elijah whispered as the last pieces of her letter faded to soot.
Of course he would say her name. Katerina wished she could carve that name from his mouth along with his tongue so that he could never speak it again.
Elijah said nothing as he watched the flames consume what may have been the last words Lyanna would ever give him. Out of the corner of his eyes he caught the sight of a small corner of white. It had fallen just out of reach of the fire. He took it his left hand from its place besides the fire. It was warm in his hand but crunched in half as soon as his hand closed around it. With the last piece of Lyanna's farewell crumbling to hot ash in his hand he felt weightless, dizzy even. It was as though someone had filled him with hot air and released him into a storm.
"I wonder; do you ever get tired of yourself Katerina?" he inquired as he rose and turned to face her. "I find you awfully exhausting." At one point she had been so light, so free, almost refreshing in her childishness. Now it seemed the only side of her he would see was much darker than the girl he chased in the gardens.
He watched her struggle for a second looking for the right knife to throw. She didn't miss her cue.
"Quite the opposite really, I find my own company to be invigorating," she said a lascivious sneer forming on her face but he could see it slipping already. The cracks in her mask were proving to be more trouble than she had expected. "Perhaps you just lack the stamina. Your brother did not."
Elijah laughed but it came out a dry and bitter bark. At his laughter Katerina's smile had slipped completely. The sour taste of his own amusement turned his stomach but he took his time stopping. Somehow it always came down to that. Even after hundreds of years nothing had changed. Even now he was caught up in the same game that pitted him against his brother. Though Elijah would have liked to believe that he and Klaus were different, the antithesis of one another, it was impossible. They shared blood. The only difference was that Klaus had the nerve to take what he wanted indiscriminately. Like a fire he devoured everything in his path, everything he touched.
"Don't touch me," she said her voice shaking as he moved towards her. "Don't you dare touch me after what you have done."
All of her spite and poison shot at him with those eyes that glared, but he could see it. The way she moved, breathed. She wanted something from him and she would get it one way or another. In a way she was more like his brother than he ever was: clawing and tearing at anything they wanted, so hungry for something they couldn't quite name. Elijah had forgotten what it was like to be hungry.
"And what have I done, Katerina?" he whispered stopping in his tracks.
It was a pointless question. He knew exactly what he had done and what he was about to do. He had grown tired of wanting and never taking. The paper in his hand had cooled completely now but it may as well have still been smouldering. It burned him. He reached out for Katerina with his other hand. With the look on her face he half expected her to bite him but she did not. He touched her cheek with something like tenderness and her gaze softened. She had been starving for him and any morsel now seemed like a feast.
"You have ruined me," Katerina replied her words trembling.
Elijah could feel the breath of each syllable brush against his lips. The back of her neck was warm as he cradled it in the palm of his hand.
"And I will ruin you still," he mumbled as a sincere promise.
There was a moment of hesitation, a single pause for a shuddering breath. Then they crashed into each other, falling into their kiss. Katerina's hands clawed at him trying to claim any piece of his she could find. They were a frenzy of teeth and nails digging into each other, taking handful. It was dreadful bliss but his left hand remained clenched around the last piece of Lyanna's farewell the soot of it staining his palm black.
However as soon as it began it had ended. If Elijah wanted, he also knew that there were many things he could not have. Lyanna was one and his brother's disregard all together for compassion and loyalty, Elijah could not even attempt to fake. He was who he was, as Klaus would forever play his role so would Elijah.
"Katerina, you know not what you want." It wasn't meant to be a plea, more a simple observation. Lyanna had unknowingly involved herself in a struggle between him and his brother: Elijah to keep one thing even temporarily and Klaus using the widow as an example of loyalty. Katerina willingly threw herself into the fray, perhaps not yet understanding the pain of never truly having what a person wanted and the greater things at play.
"I think I have clearly demonstrated otherwise," she replied, solemnly, untangling herself from him.
"Katerina, I respect you. Perhaps you do not see it or it is not clear to you."
"You avoid me as if I had the plague," she shot back, clearly spiralling towards a hasty reaction.
"I do not avoid you. I simply wish to respect you." That was of course before she had invited herself to his rooms, broken into his private thoughts and then burned what she did not agree with. At the moment Elijah felt anything but respect for Katerina. Desire? Yes, to take something from his brother in complete defiance but soon the clouding of the reality of their situation was bound to ruin even that moment.
"To act irrationally, to paw at you or accept these types of advances would be the acceptance of the devaluation of your worth," something Katerina seemed willing to toy with at every whim. She changed herself around men's affections, but who was really behind all of the different masks she wore for everyone?
"My worth? You toy with me at the ball and now you are concerned of my worth?" she shot back, acridly.
She was right, how Katerina was accurate. They were just humans, nothing special, nothing to invest in but as Klaus had accused him, he'd done so just the same. Elijah had entangled himself into a situation from which he couldn't cleanly exctract.
"You are worth more than something to be disregarded or favoured by men in passing." Who was the girl that he'd chased that day in the garden? The girl that asked him if he had ever loved? Where was the shade of Katerina that was so patient and sincere all the many times they had spoken before? She was there it seemed, just a different colour in Kat's never ending repertoire. One moment she could be innocent as a child, the next as lethal as Samael in the Garden of Eden toying with Elijah's free will, luring him down a dark, deliciously lascivious road. But before he could maim her with his indifference she was always able to show the other side of Katerina Petrova, the part that was bitter and sweet, vulnerable and still quite formidable.
She made it impossible for him to ever quite disregard her.
"Your kind words are steeped in condescending venom, Elijah," Katerina replied, shifting into a mirror of him, something cold, clipped and indifferent.
When she moved to leave, the realities of embarrassment crept into her cheeks and her words to Lilly taunted her, in her ears, affection when real, love, it is something remarkable Lilly. Only she had forgotten the key part, and when it is returned.
"Wait," Elijah reached out, his hand gently falling on her arm, holding her back," "I only meant, I do not wish to betray your trust. You once came to me as a friend and I prefer to not poison that confidence."
A friend, what was a friend but just another word that would pass between her and Elijah? Katerina was ready to spew off similar sentiments when she looked up at him and saw that he was quite serious. There were moments, which Katerina wouldn't understand then but would haunt her intrinsically over her 500 years on the run, when Elijah would bring her back from the brink of self implosion.
So many times, during the long game of cat and mouse they would have in front of them, Katerina would try to convince herself that she hated Elijah as much as Klaus. But she would never be able to despise him, even when he hunted her like a rat in a field.
Perhaps it was this conversation, this small building of trust, mutual respect; even if later it would be antagonistic.
"Then you claim that I am your friend?"
Many a man had claimed to be many things to Katerina but no man had ever asked for her friendship, her confidence first and whatever it was that they desired whatever carnal interests they had in her, later. Was he not a friend at one point to Lyanna as well? And did Elijah not hold the widow Lockwood (from Katerina's perspective) in the highest of esteem?
"Yes of course you are."
There was always a fragile state of trust between Katerina and Elijah but it was there just the same, building from those first uncensored, sincere conversations where she had asked him, if he loved and he told her, he did not.
What a sad existence that would have been for Elijah. But long after Lyanna's passing, years of toiling and seeking, he would realize that which he hunted he also desired. And the friendship that he had lost, the Katerina she was in these moments and many small ones to come, would always be his Katerina.
Eltham Palace, London
1492 AD
Cold hands slid heavy used material over smooth olive skin, pressing the woman's back against the wall. Pushing her thighs apart, cerise viscous fluid, gushed from her femoral artery as Niklaus greedily drank from the prostitute.
Eyes closed, mouth screwed shut, her hands dangled at her sides as he supported her weight whilst he fed. When her pulse crept to a slow throb, he unlatched himself from her blemished skin, wiping his mouth as he dropped her skirts, rising from the ground.
"Auriel," his hand made contact with her face, jostling it side to side, bring her back from her temporary stupor.
"Yes?" she answered weakly, her eastern accent thick in her semi daze.
"What have you to tell me?"
When her eyes flickered closed again, as if she were falling into a brief sleep, Klaus grabbed her by the shoulders shaking her forcefully this time, "Auriel! I have not the time for this, what have you heard?"
"They will send for her," she replied, eyes fluttering for a few moments before falling open once more.
"Who? Who wishes for a trial?"
The prostitute licked her full, flushed lips as she came to, running her fingers through the heavy curls that had fallen from her intricate braid.
"Three, two are unsure and one promises guilt."
"Who are unsure?"
"Lord Kaelan and Lord Catullo." Both were men of Parliament that associated with the men of the border lands, they had strong ties with Scrathclyde and its interests.
"And the other, the one whom promised guilt?"
"Not here. They call him Bram, Lord Bram," she moved to step forward but teetered as her head swam from the loss of blood.
"Who is he?"
"The men wouldn't say..."
Over sixteen hours had passed since Niklaus had purchased Auriel from her broker, sixteen hours and three men. She had visited the three offering her services throughout the night and into the morning. More lies had slipped from the men's mouths (blood laced with Vervain or wolf) between the thighs of a pretty whore than they would have in weeks of manipulation or other means.
"If she goes, he will come..." she added, looking at him blankly as if she were pulling the exact spoken words of another from her mind.
"Can he be persuaded?"
Auriel shook her head, filtering through the conversations in her compelled mind, piecing together the sought after information into an informed reply.
"Can he be bought?"
"No."
A man that couldn't be compelled or bought was a dangerous man, especially one that was part of the Starred Chambers. The other two, those that were uncertain, they would need persuading: the kind that came from certain innocence or proven guilt.
"Auriel," he commanded, motioning for the woman to come to him. Mindlessly she did as she was instructed. "You will go to Lord Bosse and instruct him that you are a gift to both he and Lord Morris from the king."
He reached into folds of his houppelande, producing a small vial with Wolfsbane. "You will stay with him throughout the night. If he instructs you to leave, you insist again that you are a gift. Do you understand?"
The loose curls of her dark brown hair fell over her shoulders as she nodded her head in agreement.
"You will put this in his spirits and you will be sure that he and only he shall drink from the cup. And he will drink from the cup, at any cost," Niklaus threatened.
"Yes," she answered, the word dropping from her mouth as she continued staring at him wide eyed.
"When Lord Morris comes, and he will, and asks you who sent you, you will say Lady Lockwood."
"Yes," she smiled, foolishly, mindlessly as he tucked the vial into her small, soft hands. She was a beautiful woman, all soft curves, doe eyes and red lips. A face that could have conjured up buried feelings of another lethal beauty- one he'd been so desperate to please too many lifetimes ago to matter.
But in the end, a pretty face or not, death all looked the same. And before the thirty sixth hour passed, the expression she used to lure men in would be forever frozen in a grimace.
Scrathclyde
1492 AD
Lilly looks side to side, but everything is coated in darkness. Her skin that normally burns hot prickles with chill. Cold feet on stone floors and the smell of mildew, incense and blood seems to be everywhere. She can hear it: muffled grunting and sounds of punctuated collision of some objects, reverberating in a thunderous slapping that echoes around her. The hairs on the back of Lilly's neck stands on end as she follows the noise through the darkness that lies ahead of her. With each step the sounds of a struggle grows louder.
It's almost inhuman the types of noises bouncing off the ceiling and floors. She knows that she should stop but for some reason her feet keep moving, pushing her forward until she sees it: light ahead. Two, three, four more steps and the never ending hall opens into a circular room. Light pours from a skylight above, so bright that its blinds Lilly momentarily. Shielding her eyes, she squints until her pupils adjust and she finally is able to bear witness to the horror before her.
Where there was caution before, bitter abhorrence runs through her now, sweat trickles down her neck, blotting into her chemise. On the dirty floors, in the centre of light, he hovers above her. The grunts are his and hers: the man in satisfaction and her in struggle. Her skirts are pushed up over her hips, her hands clawing at his face and his hands everywhere, at once: her mouth, her shoulder (forcing her down), her torso (attempting to hold her still), and her legs (forcing them further apart). She doesn't scream or yell, cry out to anyone for aid. She only fights back the only way she seems to know how, anticipating his next move as he does hers. But his movements are somewhat faster, in-human.
Every hair on Lilly's body stands on end, from the terror of what she's watching and something else, a kind of instinctual rage that she can't place. Her legs move without her permission. She should be running forward, throwing him off, screaming for help, doing anything. But instead she circles, stepping to the left- not forward, fanning out around the crime, watching as the silent observer.
He continues thrusting into her, in a fit of rage and she continues attempting to fight him off, until his bends his head, fangs extending and Lilly understands from where her guttural rage stems. He is inhuman and she knows what he is and what he's attempting to do. The faceless woman, whom moments before was struggling is now lying perfectly still as if she is preparing herself for him to finish: fuck, feed and then kill her without another thought.
Lilly's stumbling forward before she can think, hands outstretched, screaming at the top of her lungs for it to stop but neither seem to be able to hear. The faster she moves, the further away they seemed to be and the more desperate Lilly becomes until the predator's body slumps. Falling lifelessly it smothers the woman beneath, as if he's been dead all along.
With a long, pained sigh- a breath that seems to drag out for hours, the woman rolls the body from hers, kicking it to the side. Covered in blood, blade in hand, she rises from the ground, pushing mattered strands of blond hair from her face.
"Lyanna..." her name, drops like a stammered cry from Lilly's lips. And she can feel it, a type of pain she's never experienced before. It's so sharp that she feels as if it is cutting right through her. The weight of it is so heavy, it knocks her to ground.
On her knees she stares up at her beloved sister that looks back her as she has never seen her before in her life. Skirt torn, face bruised, blood is smeared and dribbling down her exposed thighs, puddling at her feet.
"Lyanna?"
She gazes back at her, wholly unfazed, her expression so halcyon that Lilly can't breathe because she's choking on her own tears.
She's choking...
Lilly's eyes flew open as she shot up in bed, gasping for air; she wiped the wet trail that stained her cheeks with shaking hands. Lyanna, what had happened to her Lyanna?
Closing her eyes, once more, Lilly took several deep long breaths, trying to calm herself.
It was just a dream. Just a dream... She repeated to herself multiple times, but she knew it didn't matter. She'd never be able to erase that image from her mind, making even the shadows in her room seem desolate and haunting.
With clammy hands and shaking legs, she crawled from bed hesitating for only a moment in the hall, wondering if she was making a mistake.
It would make her a hypocrite, but she didn't care. Creeping down long dark halls, she stopped when she found the right door. If she was scared, in need of company she could have sought Katerina's warmth to soothe her. But Lilly didn't want Katerina's presence, she needed Kol's reassurance. So without further thought, she pressed against the handle, slipping inside.
Leaning against the door, she tried to wait a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the consuming darkness, hoping to find the bed and slip inside without rousing Kol from his sleep. She should have known better. He'd heard her coming long before she'd turned down the last hallway. He could smell her before she'd even reached the door.
"Is this not an interesting turn of events?" he whispered with a smirk she was sure.
When she didn't answer, refusing to move from her place of distance, the silence stretched out between them. Kol could sense that something was wrong. In fact, he knew from the moment she'd stepped into the room. Fear, he could smell it in the air or rather just on Lilly and he was apprehensive as to how to handle it.
Emotions, comforting, a few weeks with Lilly couldn't change centuries of habits and humor, called for or not it was always more comfortable than raw emotions. However, it seemed that as of late, Kol was far from practicing anything even close to familiar.
Fighting against his instinct to throw out another joke, one much cruder than the first, he requested instead, somewhat hesitantly, "Come here," in a way that was anything but sexual.
Eyes finally adjusting to the light, she could see that he sat, hair mussed, pulling down the bedding beside him, in nervous welcoming. Obliging, she crawled onto the feathered mattress next to him.
"I had a dream... there was a man, he was one of you..." she started, quite indifferent, "He forced himself on Lyanna and then tried to feed from her," there was a long pause before she finished, "She killed him. Lyanna carved him in half. I have never seen anything like it."
Kol had, too many times to count. Perhaps not the final part but the beginning, he'd not only seen, he'd done it, more than a few times. He'd spent centuries compelling women as he fucked and then fed from them. It was natural, normal, common place amongst them and every vampire he'd sired in close to 500 years.
Natural it was, until it came from Lilly's mouth. Something he'd done thousands of times suddenly sounded much different then he'd remembered and in that moment Kol was troubled that such an image, as she described, had passed through her mind.
"It was a just dream, Lilly," he answered, hurriedly almost afraid that perhaps she was thinking something even remotely similar to the flashes of hundreds of memories that passed through his mind.
"It didn't feel like one, Kol. She looked at me as if she'd never seen me before. It was real Kol. Something is coming, I can feel it."
Kol could as well, the guilt of knowing that the things that haunted Lilly's dreams would perhaps soon be true- Lyanna would die and the doppelganger as well.
"It was just a dream," without thinking he reached out, hand touching her face, stroking her hair.
"I promise Lilly, nothing terrible will happen to you." Perhaps not her, but to everyone she loved, yes.
"I didn't dream of myself, Kol."
"I know..."
"Kol?"
"Yes?"
She had come because she was worried about Lyanna but about other things as well. Katerina was right. How long would Kol really stay at Harte Manor? And when he left what did that mean for her?
"I don't want to end up there."
"What do you mean?"
Before Kol really understood what was happening, Lilly had slipped her chemise over her shoulders, tossing it to the ground.
"Lilly, I think you should go back to your rooms," he said somewhat regretfully, forehead wrinkled, feeling as if he was being tested and likely would fail.
Lilly slid her leg over Kol's, crawling into his lap, "I do not wish to be miserable like my parents and Lyanna now. I don't want to wed someone I do not know. I do not want to stay here and fight over these lands."
Not days ago, she was corralling him from her rooms, insisting on keeping up some charade of propriety- caring about what her deceased father and brother would think of her. And now she had stripped herself bare, contradicting everything she'd told him previous: all those conversations about home and family.
"Then what do you want?"
Lilly thought of her dream, Lyanna dead, staying here forever and even though she knew she'd feel guilty later for saying it, she admitted, "You, just you."
Eltham Palace, London
1492 AD
She arrived outside Lord Bosse's rooms in the late hours of evening claiming that she'd been sent as a gift.
"And who may I ask sent you?" in a state of semi undress it was obvious that he wasn't alone.
"The King, My Lord," she answered so sweetly, seductively that if he were any other man it wouldn't have been a question.
There was a shuffling somewhere inside the room, as a voice called out, "Let her in." Medium build with pale skin and reddish brown hair, Lord Bosse was a plain man, in his middle thirties, wed with three children. Relenting he moved from the doorway granting Auriel access to the room.
"Lord Morris and I were simply discussing business."
His houppelande wrinkled, hair mused; the tall dark hair man was considerably more attractive than Lord Bosse. Seated in a chair by the fire, wearing a fake calm expression, Auriel didn't have to be a mind reader or a fly on the wall to understand immediately what she'd walked into. Only nine and ten, she had spent a great many years in the brothels of London and in that time had seen every shade of want and desire. From acts with animals, young children, objects and in particular the taste of some nobles for young men and boys.
"Of course, My Lord," she nodded, politely. She'd obviously interrupted some tryst between the two men and from the way they looked at one another, less guilty and more lingering, she immediately understood that this was perhaps not a fetish, an occasional occurrence but instead an ongoing thing.
"I however, will not be in need of your services this evening," Lord Bosse answered, somewhat politely.
"Come now Irvin, perhaps you should not be so hasty," his partner commented, his voice seemingly cordial but somewhat strained.
It was a difficult situation both men had been put in. No one of the court knew of the relationship; both wed with children and for years they had been discrete, perhaps their wives having their suspicions but even the pack was somewhat blissfully unaware of their feelings.
If the pack found out, if the court knew, both men would be ruined. They were fools to slip away in the night, with the pack, men of their lands, taking residence in rooms along the corridor but love wasn't always rational and both men, desperate for moments alone would chance suspicion just for the night.
"Neil, I really do not think-" but he stopped when the comely man held up his hand.
"Irvin, come now, I'm sure the king would be insulted if you refused, word spreading that perhaps you do not agree with his tastes," he added somewhat poignantly, nodding in Auriel's direction.
Lord Bosse knew he was right, if he denied Auriel whatever small suspicions there could possibly be about the two men, their interaction and their friendship would only be fuelled by the prostitute's dismissal and stories of arriving at the Lord's rooms in the dead of night only to find Lord Morris there.
"She's beautiful, is she not?" Neil questioned as he rose from the fire walking over to Auriel, his hand stroking her hair, tracing her back. It was less carnal than what she usually experienced. Normally when a man would touch her it was out of desire, this was more in appreciation, an inspection.
"Yes, she is, Neil."
"Should you not enjoy her?" his words however seemingly encouraging were lined with a hint of contention, which was truly thinly veiled jealousy.
Like a rag doll that had been pinned between two armies squaring for battle, Auriel smiled, dipping her head. She'd come before two jealous lovers before and knew it was best to keep quiet and let them define the playing field without her input.
"Yes, I think perhaps I might," Irvin answered, taking the bait. A heavy silence fell over the room, thick with tension as he tentatively reached out touching her arm.
"Undress yourself," he requested somewhat quietly. Obliging, Auriel began unlacing the front of her gown, olive hands, slipping beneath heavy fabric. The entire time Irvin never took his eyes from his partner. When the dress snagged in the back, the prostitute unable to fully unclothe herself, Lord Morris stepped in.
"Here, let me assist you." Fingers worked at the back of her dress, pushing long dark hair over her shoulders exposing her as the material sagged at her waist then slid to the ground. Pressed against her back, Neil ran his hands over her midriff, eyes on his partner as he kissed along her neck.
Irvin had gone flush, his shoulders stiffening, clearly annoyed, "Should you not be leaving now, Lord Morris?"
Sucking on her neck, his lips popped from the skin when he answered, satisfied to get the reaction from Irvin that he clearly sought, "No, I think I'll stay and have a go after you are through."
As Lord Bosse advanced towards her, the jealousy, lust and tension palpable in the room, Auriel knew it was going to be a long night of service.
Scrathclyde
1492 AD
With Niklaus gone, things had become remarkably simpler for Ines. Both of the other brothers detained with their interest in the ladies of Greyshaw Manor, she was finally given room to act on the promises she made Silas.
If everything were simple, Ines would have spelled the brothers, sought to divide and then conquer Niklaus and Elijah, even Kol. But the Mikaelsons were much too intelligent to be out matched by a witch at that juncture. They took Ines from her home and thought themselves so clever. They believed their arrival to be a surprise, but in truth it was Ines that had been expecting Kol. She'd seen him, in a vision from Silas years before, when she was still a girl. And she had waited close to two decades for his arrival. In her premonition, she was young, much younger than her current age. Ines never took into account that she'd have a child, another person's safety that she would have to consider. But wasn't that always the way of Silas? She'd give her children, her minions, only the absolute necessary information and then play them like the pawns they were in her game.
A pawn, Ines would be, but to which ruler? Klaus, whom held her child in some unknown location with the female of their group or Silas? It wasn't until after her arrival that she understood that her daughter's internment was not Niklaus's leverage against her; more it was Kol and Rebekah's leverage against him. Klaus needed the witch to break the spell, but Kol's loyalty to keep Ines cooperative or so they thought. When she was taken, she worried not for her child's safety in the hands of her captors but more at the whim of Silas. Ines was in Scrathclyde to do her bidding, not theirs. If she failed, her daughter and every child in her line would suffer a torture Ines didn't dare consider. If she succeeded, her child would survive, slipping out of the grasp of the Mikaelsons.
Ines's life, however, she knew from the moment she stepped foot onto the Mikaelson lands; she'd never see Spain again. Her body would rest in this damp soil, on these cursed lands and her soul, would be in the hands of Silas. But until her task was complete, her daughter was not safe and so if Ines could not use magic against the Mikaelsons she would use those around them that were weak.
When Trevor arrived in the bowels of Harte Manor he looked at her so plainly, so lost, completely unaware of what had drawn him there. Even if he'd somehow had the premonition to attempt to fight off her spell, he was not an original, his abilities for mind control, of both others and his own was sorely underdeveloped compared to the original five.
"Come in Trevor," she greeted, back turned, feeling him there long before he'd thought to speak a word. Like a mindless puppet, he entered Ines's humble dwellings and listened to her soft, persistent whispers that would lull him into submission.
Ines took a simple infatuation, an attraction, and breed it into an obsession, a need to possess. She'd easily separate Trevor from Rose, by using the strongest motivator known: love or its imitation. She would spin a lie so tight in Trevor's mind, that he'd be convinced of his affection, desire, need for Katerina. He'd be so intent on her survival, so subject to her charm that he'd risk his and Rose's existence, making one foolish mistake that would send them both running for five hundred years.
Eltham Palace, London
1492 AD
Sun peeked in through the uncovered windows as Auriel dressed herself quietly in Lord Bosse's discarded bed shirt that lay on the ground, looking at the naked man curled on his side. Lord Morris had left before morning, long before anyone would be wandering the halls of Eltham palace.
You will give him this, Klaus's voice echoed in her ears, becoming a central focus point in the prostitute's mind.
The vial, the vial, give him the contents, the same mantra of thoughts raced through her mind like a never ending song. Reaching into the pockets of her wrinkled gown, she retrieved the yellowish powder. Pouring a cup of tea, she uncorked the small vile, watching the contents evaporate into the hot brown liquid.
Wolfsbane... the instructions seemed to echo out through the room. Her knees sunk into the feather mattress as she brushed hair away from Irvin's eyes.
"Lord Bosse," she coaxed, her fingers dancing along his face, "Lord Bosse..."
Opening his eyes, he looked up at her somewhat perplexed before he remembered the night's activities and who the strange woman was that was leaning over him in his bed.
"Where is Lord Morris?"
"He left early this morning, My Lord. He said however that he would return sometime this afternoon."
Sitting up, Irvin rubbed his hand over his face, "And how long will I be enjoying your company?" he asked flatly. Moving in on him, before he could react, Auriel's lips found his somewhat unexpectedly as she slipped her tongue into his mouth, her free hand curling under the sheets until she had him in her hand.
"As long as you like," she murmured, lips against his mouth as she started to stroke him. Confused and overwhelmed, Irvin reached down to stop her, "Really that is not necessary-"
When Auriel kissed him again, "My Lord, I am here as a gift for you..." her hand picked up speed as she continued, "Perhaps you could close your eyes and imagine someone else..." as an unsubtle hint.
Still unconvinced, he obliged shutting his eyes for a moment as she continued her ministrations. Although unwilling at first, he quickly allowed himself to imagine someone much more preferable as she kissed his neck, her fingers dancing along the head of his cock.
"Perhaps you would prefer something else?" she suggested, looking up at him, his mouth somewhat agape, head tilted back.
Opening his eye, annoyed by her interruption, he hardly had time to answer when she handed him the cup of tea, "Drink, My Lord, while I put my hands and mouth to better use."
Taking the tea from her hand, Irvin was so distracted as Auriel's mouth made contact with the base of his cock, images of Neil, fantasies of his lover and not the prostitute rushing through his mind, that he didn't smell the Wolfsbane in the cup.
Not even a minute into Auriel's performance, he smiled, hand resting on her head, the other bringing the cup to his lips as warm tea splashed into his mouth. It took less than seconds for the gurgling sounds of the Wolfsbane working its way into his bloodstream to halt Auriel. Mid pump, she sat up as the tea dropped from Irvin's hand, brown liquid spilling out over the white sheets and his exposed legs, burning the skin it touched from both the poison and the heat of the tea.
Eyes bulging, he gasped for air, gripping at his throat, thrashing side to side. Moving out of his grasp, Auriel stood and watched as Lord Bosse slowly choked to death from Wolfsbane poisoning.
By the second day, Lyanna had stopped leaving her room for meals. Everywhere she went she was followed by Lord Bosse's or Lord Morris's men. She couldn't step foot into the corridor without seeing either man or someone that was clearly doing their bidding.
But a person could go stir crazy that way. Her interactions with Niklaus had been minimal.. As the hours ticked by Lyanna, book in hand, watched the Scalding House from her window and wondered what her fate would be.
When she could take it no more, she slipped out into the corridor in the very early hours of morning. To her surprise her shadows weren't there. They must have tired after a full day of no activity.
Hands ran over the tapestries that lined the walls as she slipped down long halls, nodding at guards as she looked cautiously into open rooms, exploring.
"Some say that it is rude to wander as a guest unattended," a voice whispered behind her. Jumping, Lyanna almost came out of her skin.
She teetered back, legs hitting the table that lined the wall. Offering a hand, Niklaus helped her steady herself.
"What are you doing here?" she hissed.
"What are you doing here? Making a quick trip to the King's chambers?" he pointed down the long hall, "Only so much further, just up those stairs and you would be there."
"I'm just walking, no harm in that."
"Hm, down dark halls in an unfamiliar place in the early hours of morning?"
"A Lady can only spend so long in her room."
"Yes, I suppose," he answered, hand sliding down her arm, brushing her waist. "A person could tire of monotony."
His fingers wrapped around her hip, pushing her against the small table in the alcove.
"And what have you been doing?" she meant it to just be a simple question but it sounded a little more like an accusation, Why haven't you come to see me more? Since their night together he'd visited her only twice and both quite brief. Slipping into her room for only minutes, he'd check on her to see that all was well- that her limbs were all still intact and the wolves hadn't become bolder in his absence.
"Business," he answered simply, her bottom rested on the table now as he slid her back.
"Niklaus?" she questioned, her forehead wrinkling looking down the halls that had guards littered throughout but suddenly were empty. Compulsion, he used it without shame.
"Shh..."
Leaning in, he kissed her, teasing, not as greedy as he usually was. Pulling back as soon as she leaned forward to meet him, he left her hanging, mouth partially parted, eyes opening to find him smirking at her.
"What are you doing?"
His fingers toyed with the front of her gown unlacing it slowly, exposing her sternum, before pushing the cloth slightly off her shoulders until both her breast was exposed.
"Niklaus…" she warned, as he reached down licking around the areola, suckling, leaving it chilled by the room are as he moved to the next.
"Niklaus…" she tried again, losing her resolve as her hand ran through his hair, enjoying it, the heels of her shoes scrapping against fabric of his hose under his houppelande as she drew her legs up, knees latching around his hips.
More, she wanted more. But as soon as the thought crossed her mind, he seemed to know it. Teasing her further, he released as quickly as he'd begun.
"Niklaus, you have to stop..." she tried, "Someone will see..." the rest of her sentence faded from her mind as he pushed her skirts up over her hips, chilled hands on warm thighs. He'd been so cold the past two days. Both of them pretending as if nothing had ever passed between them and suddenly it was as if they were still caught up in one another in his rooms that morning after she'd come to him.
Hot and cold, Niklaus was always so fickle in his temperament. Dragging her forward to the edge of the wooden table, Lyanna was swiftly losing interest in caring over whom might discover them. His tongue trailed over her neck as his hands slid further under her chemise, helping her part with her ruined small clothes beneath her skirts.
Abandoning caution, she went to reach for the front of his breeches to speed along the process, enough of the taunting. It was driving her mad. If he didn't fulfil his promises she'd scream so loud in frustration that the entire King's Guard would come hurdling down the halls, thinking they were under attack, that Richard III was back from his grave ready to seek vengeance.
Her hands grasped at air, eyes snapping open, she found him watching her, amused.
"What?"
He'd been preoccupied as of late. In truth he'd been staying away for more than a few reasons. This visit was not spontaneous, he'd been watching her, keeping tabs just as Arthur's men had. There was a reason for this impromptu encounter, a purpose that it served but should he not enjoy himself while he at it?
Niklaus's non-verbal response was to press his thumbs into her hips, tilting them into the wood, causing Lyanna to suddenly find herself partially on her back. Confused she attempted to brace herself on her elbows, looking down at him. He grabbed her by the backs of her knees, stockings sliding down her calves. Chilly hands forced her heels up until they were wedged against her bottom.
He looked down at her, spread and exposed, suddenly she felt her skin go hot with embarrassment. Quickly she drew her knees together, only to be met with his hand forcing them apart once more.
He leaned over her, tongue licking over her breast bone, breath warm against her nipples, fingers wrapping around the back of her neck, tugging playfully at the hairs at the base of her hairline sending a sharp- not unwelcomed pain up across her head that was tempered by his tongue on her lips, entering her mouth, drawing her in, before he left again.
Surely he didn't mean to take her quite like this? The table wouldn't hold both their weights. The entire castle would hear either the scratching of wooden legs over an uneven floor from their movements or the crashing of their failed attempt at secrecy.
"Stay," he replied to her bewildered look.
Of all the things Niklaus was accustomed to sexually, this type of attention was not something he did regularly- if ever. Going between a woman's thighs with anything but your prick or your fingers was for creatures that cared about the partner's they fucked- were interested in their enjoyment. Niklaus was neither- ever.
The hallway crackled with the sound of compressing leather from his boots as he crouched on his knees, spreading her legs further, nose running along the femoral artery, teeth sharp as needles prickling against her skin.
When he'd finished his path, stopping directly in front of her, exposed, Lyanna suddenly had a premonition of what he'd intended. Instantly she tried to close her legs, only to be met with difficult resistance.
"Niklaus..." she hissed pulling herself up further on her elbows, "Niklaus, stop-" her face had gone sanguine as his only response was to pull her skirts further over her hips before leaning forward, breath warm on her in defiance of her clearly expressed wishes.
"Nikl..a-" the last syllables evaporated somewhere between her head and her lips as his mouth found her wet. Thighs instantly contracted around his shoulders. Lyanna's head fell back, in a mixture of horror and complete empyrean enjoyment. No one had ever done that before. She remembered reading of such things, in a book, dusty, worn and falling apart, buried on a forgotten shelf in the small library at Greyshaw.
She could remember its black binding and... never mind the book. The image went as soon as she could feel Niklaus pull back again, teasing with his breath against her. Cold, his lips left a trail of Goosebumps, which prickled up the insides of her thighs for each inch of skin he touched.
Lyanna turned her head to the side, peering out of the tiny alcove worrying of whom may walk by, trying to think somewhat rationally as she pleaded, "What if someone-" ignoring her protests his tongue made contact with warm wet tissue again, zapping Lyanna of her ability to focus on practical concerns.
Damn them all, Lord Bosse, Lord Morris, the Parliament, court, anyone who would dare interrupt what was happening at that moment. She'd let the entire King's guard gather and watch if it meant he wouldn't stop.
Swirling his tongue, he was precise in his contact, sharp in his verbal movements- no lapping, sloppy movements, he wasn't a dog and Lyanna wasn't water. There was no rush to a quick end. He inhaled, the smell of Lyanna, her skin, her sweat, enjoying every second.
Her arms gave up trying to balance herself in a sitting position on the narrow wooden frame. Her back slumped against the table and wall as she closed her eyes, mouth dropping open, hand wandering down to the place where his face met her body, fingers scraping along his skull, holding his hair tight, urging him forward only to be met with an amused hum, lips vibrating against her.
The whole palace could burn to the ground and Lyanna wouldn't have noticed. Where seconds before his tongue against her was deft, pressurized strokes, her back came off the wall and table as soon as he stopped, preferring instead to suck.
"Niklaus..." she may have murmured his name a half dozen times, her toes curling, causing her shoe to slip from its rightful place, bouncing off the stone floor with a clatter, but neither seemed to notice. The instep of her stockinged foot, ran up his back, fingers tugging him closer, as her thighs began to tense then shake with release, only to tense again, matching his relent with pressure for seconds only to continued again.
She could feel sweat trickling from her hairline, her nails scraping along the wooden surface. Cruel, he'd wait until her legs began to shake and then stop, pulling back, enjoying her frustration. Lyanna's heel would dig into his back, right between his shoulder blades, urging him forward as she rocked her hips in encouragement.
Don't stop, she wanted to beg, but knew that was what he was looking for. So instead she heeled him harder, fingers touching her own breasts, pinching her nipples, hand wandering down to finish what he started, until he'd brush it away and continue, relenting when he'd seen enough.
He toyed with her like that for minutes, building her up, drawing out every single nerve ending until they fired excruciatingly, her body looked as if it was seizing, rubbing forward, trying anything to finish, before he'd stop again just when he could feel she needed the friction most.
"I hate you," she panted, trying to trap him closer, each time he pulled away. Just a little more, all she needed was a few more seconds.
His hand reached out, feeling along the length of her as she shivered, embarrassingly trying to press against it, only to find it gone and a smirk on Niklaus's face.
"I think you rather like me," he taunted, leaning in again, his lips on her for confirmation.
Yes, she liked him alright. And what she'd particularly love was if the smug bastard would pay her a little more lip service in other ways.
"Lyanna…?" he teased, mouth still on her. Eyes shut; the back of her skull scraped the cold stone, shoulders lifting in air off the wall she'd braced herself against.
"Lyanna…." he whispered again, taking a break from his attentions. Her fingers tugged his hair hard, much more forcefully than what could be considered playful. Damn him, if he didn't finish what he started…
Her hips pushed forward trying to find him again.
"Say it Lyanna…." he coaxed, enjoying every second of watching her squirm, giving her just enough to drive her mad, irrational with want.
His tongue reached out, flicking over her clit; promising the ways he'd reward her if she relented.
Trying to force him forward, hold him still, was like trying to move stone.
"Say it…" he requested again, his breath flushing over her, radiating out across her thighs covered in a thin layer of perspiration.
She had told herself that she'd not give him the satisfaction but with each second that passed, her resolve withered until she finally broke, "Please…" she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear, smirking at his victory before he leaned forward to end his torturous little game.
Unfortunately for Lyanna, she wouldn't be receiving an immediate reward.
"I saw her just a moment ago-" the man had yet to even finish his sentence, Lyanna hadn't even registered that there was someone headed in their direction, before she was sitting up right. With her skirts dropped, she felt a shoe being quickly slipped back onto her foot.
Dazed she looked up at Niklaus who seemed completely calm as he pointed towards the opposite hall, "Stay here, Lyanna."
"Hm?" she was light headed, body over charged as he stood moving out of the alcove.
"Wait until you can no longer hear a voice and then go to the chapel, down this hall," he pointed,
"Take your first left," he instructed, before looking poignantly down at her chest. In the hasty shuffle she hadn't even remembered that the top half of her gown was completely undone, breasts exposed for anyone to see.
With raised eyebrows and a knowingly smug look, he nodded down at them before turning and making his way towards the sound of voices. Lyanna glared back, tugging at the laces as she tucked herself back beneath the cloth.
"Should I-"
"Go. I will find you later."
There was hardly time for her to question further, before she could make out the sound of a man's voice being greeted by Niklaus.
"Can I assist you?" she could hear Niklaus patronizing his companion as he led them down the hall, away from where she stood hidden. It was better that they weren't found together. He was right. If she were to trust him and believe that he had a plan to settle her matter with King Henry, Parliament and avoid the Starred Chambers, then this one time she would listen to his instructions.
Pulling herself together, she looked both ways before exiting the small alcove and rushing down the hall. After taking the first left, like she was told, she pushed through the double doors into the large private chapel.
Empty, there were close to a hundred candles burning in front of the altar. Shutting the heavy doors behind her, she walked down the aisle, looking from side to side making sure there wasn't a priest lingering in the wings or someone praying in the side pews.
She hadn't realized it but she was practically panting, her face flushed as she stood in front of the statue of Mary, looking up at the intricate pictures etched onto beautiful stained glass. The confessional area was sectioned off from the rest, two enclosed spaces with a bench in each and a screened wall between them.
Fingers traced over the intricately carved wood. Nails following the prayers stencilled out in the dark oak.
"Now where were we?" whirling around, there was a hand on her mouth, silencing her before she could even attempt to scream.
"It's just me."
Turning so that she could see him, Lyanna started, "How did you get here so-" but was stopped when she could feel herself being guided into the confessional box.
"Shh... love, we may not have long," he answered. Lyanna was distracted from a lengthier explanation, as her knees hit the cold stone floor and his hand ducked under her skirt.
Her small clothes, she had left her small clothes!
Lyanna was in the middle of working her way up to being panicked before she could feel cold air hitting her thighs and hips.
"Now what was it that you were saying to me?" he whispered into her hair, kissing her neck. Pressed against her back, she could feel him hard, leaning into her bare thigh.
His free hand made its way to the front of her gown, pulling at the strings that she'd just retied. When the thread caught, instead of stopping, working at the knot, he tugged harder, snapping the string leaving the material to fall open.
"Hm, Lyanna?" he continued to prod, as one hand snaked up her inner thigh, still wet from before. His fingers feathering the length of her before dripping inside- rewarded with a loud, appreciative exhale from Lyanna.
Manipulating his hand it moved so it both rubbed her and explored other areas inside her, bringing back feelings from not even twenty minutes previous. When his other hand brushed along her nipple, tracing the underside of her breast, feeling the weight of it in his hand, she moaned, pressing herself back against him.
The abbey, if she could think coherently, she would be having flashbacks to their ill-fated encounter not weeks before. Oh the strange, horrid parallels they were drawing here. In the small confines of the little area she was thinking she should most certainly protest what he had intended. The last thing she needed was another mark against her soul with God.
Biting down on her lip, she rubbed herself against him in encouragement only to be met with his persistence, "I'm sorry Lyanna, I didn't hear you," he teased, his breath hot on her neck.
She could scream at him, for the time she had thought to deny him in similar circumstances, he'd taunt her relentlessly forever after. Just to prove his point that she'd be foolish to lie to herself again and deny that she didn't want him just as desperately as he did her.
Damn the abbey, only he would find a time like this to bring up that kind of hedonist shame.
As his palm circled her clit, his fingers pulling out, hand stilling on her breast, giving her just enough sensation to know what she could be experiencing, but denying her nirvana, he knew how to eat at her resolve.
She'd relented moments before, wasn't that enough for the evening? She thought so.
Playing his game, her hand reached behind her, burrowing its way between her skin and his covered thighs. Lyanna's head tilted back, face turning so that her lips were pressed against his neck as she began to outline his cock through the cotton of his hose under his houppelande. Lingering on the head, she rubbed the tip a few times, smiling to herself as his palm stopped, obviously distracted.
Taking that as encouragement, she moved her hand up, sliding it under the fabric. Fingers ran down the length of him, much as they had before, her lips and tongue peppering the skin around his throat. Only unlike her experiment previous, her teeth nipped at his cold neck when her she rubbed the head of his cock, eliciting a response that was a little more pronounced. Instantly his hips thrust forward, pushing himself further into her hand.
Who was in control now? she felt like snickering.
Gripping him, her free hand covered his- the one that groped her breast and pressed it further against the skin as she started to move over him.
"Hm… I think I forgot…" she taunted back as his hips moved forward, fingers toying with her nipple.
Niklaus didn't respond, only nudged her face away from his neck, kissing her. She could taste herself on his tongue giving her a strange, animalistic rush. But Lyanna wouldn't give up that easily. Moving down to cup him further, she questioned, "What was it that you were saying Niklaus?" her words hot and victorious against his mouth.
His lips stilled, knowing now what she was getting at, refusing to press forward and slip his tongue back into her mouth, but not willing to pull away completely either. The challenge was set, instantly both of his hands began to move, both the one between her thighs, fingers reinserting themselves inside her, and the other rubbing her nipple. All of it causing Lyanna to bit her lip and consequentially almost his as well- not even a breath passing between them.
"You were just going to tell me something…" he tempted. She may have been clever but he was crafty, moving just right as to elicit a half moan from Lyanna before she caught herself, holding her breath instead.
"What was that Lyanna, I couldn't hear you." he murmured, wet fingers, tracing her clit.
Her hand dropped from her own breast, tugging at his hose, hastily trying to push them down his hips. After a brief struggle she could feel him in her hand, pressed somewhere between her own skin and the layers of her skirt.
Shifting her hips, she moved so her bottom was pressed right against him pushing up just enough so that he could feel the slickness that waited below.
Sucking in air, Klaus withdrew back further against the door of the confessional, "Now, now, Lyanna," beginning to partially scold, trying to taunt her, before she pressed back into him again, this time poignantly making sure that she made contact in right places, sliding suggestively against him.
His hands stopped, his mind diverting as he could feel himself getting closer and closer to where he wished to be, only to never reach the destination.
Her mouth reached up, tongue brushing over his bottom lip, "I think you wanted to tell me something, Niklaus."
His cock ran the curve of her bottom, his teeth grinding down against each other as he quickly started to lose his patience for their little game.
"I believe you were going to tell me what you wanted," she whispered, knowing she'd won, that in seconds he'd either confess and get what he wanted or let himself spend right there.
"Just… one… word…." And she'd give him what he wanted most; willing to submit if he'd go first.
"No…" he answered, smirking as she frowned. Quickly dropping his hips a few inches, he pressed himself up and into her in one fluid movement. Lyanna hardly had time to react before the backs of her thighs pressed against the front of his, Niklaus supporting both their weights in a sitting position.
As he thrust upward, hand wrapping in Lyanna's hair, tugging lightly, she didn't care anymore that he'd cheated. Regardless she got what she wanted in the end. This is what she was thinking of in the alcove. Releasing her hair, his hand found her breast again, while his hips began to move in pace.
On instinct, Lyanna's head fell back hitting his shoulder, bottom pressing against him with each forward motion. The sounds of them rocking, the squeaking of her hands against the bench, echoed throughout the chapel.
His teeth nipped at her neck. With hands clutching the seat in front of her both for balance and leverage, Lyanna pushed herself back into him further, meeting each movement of his hips forcefully. Eyes closed, mouth open, she was unable to utter a sound as his hand reached under her skirts, burying itself where his tongue had been not so long ago, rubbing brisk, punctuated circles to match their rhythm together.
"Niklaus..." she whispered, the only clear word uttered in the chapel for moments, and was met with a hand on her back, forcing her forward. Fully on her knees, her cheek rested against the cool wood, hands grasping for anything to hold as she yelped with his next move. Grabbing Lyanna harshly by the hips, controlling the rhythm completely now, his strokes become less slow and drawn out and more heated, brutal and fast.
As their rutting became increasingly rough and needy, Lyanna buried her face into the oak seat, muffling her sounds of appreciation while her hips bruised under the pressure from his fingers.
Harder, was the only thing filtering through her mind- more a prayer than a thought. One he apparently heard and answered.
It wasn't long before Lyanna's walls were contracting, her breath catching at the back of her throat. Fingernails scraped along the ornate wood barrier between the confession area and the priest's box, making a hideous scratching noise. Pulling her up quickly, Niklaus bit into his wrist forcing it against her mouth. Lyanna overwhelmed, mouth opened as she moaned, noises escaping her unknowingly, her eyes closed as the first drops trickled into her mouth.
Thick and smooth there was a strange, bold flavour to the red liquid pouring past her tongue. Like wine that had been aged for decades. In the moment, she sucked greedily as it seemed to encourage him, Niklaus hardening even more as they continued, grunting at her fervour. Releasing around him, finally getting the ending she had considered begging for back in the corridors, she pushed his wrists from her lips, gasping for air.
Pushing her back down onto the bench, he moved two, three more times, before letting out a ragged breath, fingers clutching her pelvis then releasing. Leaning over her, his chest pressed against her back for less than a second before he fell back to the sitting position.
For moments, only the sounds of their recovery could be heard echoing in the small area.
Pushing hair from her face, Lyanna may have stayed on her knees like that, skirts over her hips, bottom half completely exposed for two seconds or two days, she wasn't sure. She was too exhausted and satisfied to care how ridiculous she looked.
Finally opening in the door to the box, Klaus had pulled up his hose and straightened his houppelande.
"I'll leave first," he instructed, as she struggled to steady her legs, crawling from the stone floors, pushing her gown down over her hips, tucking her breasts inside once more she struggled to tie the front with the mangled strings he'd left her.
"Yes, Lyanna?"
She looked up nodding. She would need to stay anyhow, light a dozen candles, douse herself in holy water and pray that it didn't burn her skin.
He wiped his blood from her mouth, "I will see you again soon," looking at her strangely, as if he wasn't sure if he should lean in and kiss her again or just leave. He hesitated, leaning forward only centimetres before pulling back.
Watching his awkward decision making process, her hand shot out, grabbing his houppelande, pulling him in she kissed him, eliminating his crisis. What did it matter now anyways? She was surely going to hell anyhow.
Her tongue slid over his in a few quick strokes, Lyanna tasting herself in his mouth and he in hers before she pushed him away. He was smiling down at her strangely until there was a commotion at the doors of the chapel. Hand to his lips, he stepped back behind the confessional, out of sight, urging her to go forward.
Stepping out into the aisles, seating herself in a far pew as if she had been there the entire time, sitting piously in prayer, she was approached by a boy that couldn't have been more ten.
"Are you Lady Lockwood?"
"Yes."
He held out a letter for her to take, "I've been looking for you for quite some time, My Lady. You weren't in your rooms."
"Yes, I've been in prayer this early morning," she replied, taking the paper from his hands.
"And what is this?"
"A message from the King, My Lady." Lyanna looked down at the Tudor seal, hand shaking a little as she thanked the boy. Opening the letter, the parchment crumpled in hand as she looked up the altar and the statue of Christ. She would need to spend the entire night in prayer.
Stepping from the shadow, "What is that?" Niklaus questioned. Handing him the message he read Lyanna's worst fears. The King would depart for Westminster Palace, his party likely not far behind. It was a request for her to follow.
Parliament had made their decision; one Niklaus was sure was soon to come and he'd planned accordingly. They were taking her case to the Starred Chambers. Lyanna might have her chance to reason with God face to face for her sins, sooner than she had thought.
Scrathclyde
1492 AD
The air, the room, the sheets, everything smelt like her. Sleeping, Lilly burned so hot that the heat radiated across his cold skin. Warmth, how long had it been since Kol had slept in that kind of calidity? It gave him the illusion of being alive. The slow sound of blood rushing through veins, soft breathing- if he closed his eyes long enough, he could pretend to himself that he was human again and that all of this was normal.
They would have moments of complete bliss: heated and drawn out or even as simple as the comfort of the other's presence, silence. For anyone that claimed that love was an illusion, they had clearly never been in it before. Fresh, still in its infancy, yet to reach the full potential of what would pass between them, even then Kol was sure that he'd rather die than leave, than face the reality of knowing that this couldn't last forever.
"Kol?"
He hadn't even known she was awake, had opened her eyes she laid on her side, watching him, in the early hours of morning, the sheets bunched at her waist, head resting on her hand.
"What will happen to us?"
His fingers were inching closer to her, they had been waiting for over an hour to touch her; afraid that he'd wake her if he did, but now they stopped short on the feathered mattress as Lilly waited, anticipating some type of reassuring answer.
He didn't have one.
She laughed, almost nervously, commenting, "Is it such a terrible thought?" the smile dropping from her face. She looked at him with such affection that it made him sick: the blind trust she had in him, when Kol was so undeserving.
Everything she loved, everything Lilly held dear, Klaus had every intention of stripping them from her one by one, before ripping the life out of her, himself. And Kol would stand aside, watch him do it and not make a sound of protest.
"What?" he finally responded, turning his head, unable to look at her when she watched him like that, so intently, able to feel that he was lying to her, holding something back.
"A future with me…." No, it was painful in its divinity and cruel in its impossibility.
"And what do you think that future would look like, Lil?" Even as he spoke, he dreaded what she would say, the images she would paint- that they would haunt him after she was gone with the horrid memory of what could have been.
If life was Plato's allegory, Kol at this point would have claimed that ignorance was not only bliss but the only benevolence left in life. To finally see fire, feel its warmth and wander out of darkness to discover light, only to realize that you'd spend the rest of eternity in it alone. That he would feel the sun on his face, appreciate the intricacies of life, enjoyment, happiness as it was made to be had, only to be left, soon after discovery. He'd rather take the cold, darkness and only see the shadows of the fire, than tolerate the loneliness and knowledge of the absence of its heat.
"I don't know anymore…."
"Are you still holding on to it?" he asked softly.
"What?"
"Your humanity, Lil, do you still want it, all of it?"
Humanity was such an ambiguous word. But Lilly knew what he was asking. Did she still want all the things she'd dreamt of as a girl? Did she still wish to have children, a husband, a simple life?
They both knew she'd be lying if she said no. She wasn't like Kol. Lilly hadn't been given eternity, her body frozen in time. Where Kol had no choice as to what his destiny would be in some respects, Lilly still knew that she had options.
"Are you asking if I still want it or if I would be willing to let it go?"
Both. Their entire conversation up until that point was simply musings, nothing grounded in any sure reality. If Klaus had his way, if Kol meant to protect his family, Rebekah, he'd let his brother have the doppelganger, do whatever he wished with Lyanna and kill Lilly for sport- tying up his loose ends.
It was all hypothetical, until she answered his silence.
"If you're asking if I still want it all, then my answer is yes. I cannot help myself. But if you are wondering if I am willing to give it all up, if I could let that go for you, then you already know my reply."
He turned his head, to find a slow smile spreading, "I fear we have taken each other's innocence," Lilly's fingertips trickled from his temple to his lips.
Kol's thumb outlined the underside of her breast, "I don't recall you begging me to stop," he taunted, hoping to redirect her attention, elevate the anxiety he suddenly felt racked with.
"That was not the innocence I was speaking of… but you know that."
He may have thought months ago that he'd defile Lilly, pervert her innocence with every lascivious act and thought he'd enjoyed over his five hundred years of existence. But it seemed that it was Lilly that had spoiled him. She'd planted a seed that would rot him from the inside out, the outgrowth of its hyphae diffusing around the rigid walls he'd constructed, from stone to dust they would crumble. Until he was no longer sure, what was originally him and what was her influence.
"It's too late now, to consider going back."
She was right. In the end, no matter how much Kol cared for his siblings. How he wanted to see Mikael dead for their safety, it was either Kol's life of theirs, his happiness or Klaus's victory- all of which would be short lived. Kol knew without a doubt, that hybrids, breaking the moonstone curse, even Mikael dead would never satisfy his brother. Klaus's happiness would always be elusive and whilst he wallowed in his misery, he'd make them all suffer with him.
Did Kol not deserve more? If Elijah wished to be his brother's lapdog, Rebekah, his prized lost possession, that was their choice. Kol was nothing to any of them not before, now or as it seemed ever. But he was something to Lilly.
"And the rest of it?" Lyanna Lockwood is what he meant, Greyshaw and Katerina dead. Could she let all of that go? Children, a life of stability, marriage: they'd have none of that with one another.
"It seems those were nothing but childish dreams."
He'd never be the fantasy she'd been told stories of as a girl. He'd only ever be himself, as ugly and wrecked as he was.
Could she run forever, from everything she knew and once loved if that was what she was running with?
"If they were dreams, should you not hold on to them to still? Wish for them to come true?"
She blinked, studying the uneasiness of his expression. He seemed to never believe anything she told him. Perhaps she'd have to keep telling him, every day, for as long as it took for him believe that, "They already did."
"I was what you wished for?" he answered, unconvinced, disappointed that she hadn't aimed higher, as if he thought there was something more worthy out there for Lilly.
"I didn't know what I wished for…." Pushing herself further up on her elbows, moving closer, "But I'm sure, you'll do just fine," she quipped, leaning in, kissing him.
She may have been as close to perfection as Kol was ever going to reach. As surely as he tried to ruin everything in his life and toy with the limits of those around him, seeing how far they could be pushed before they wouldn't come back, he'd test Lilly.
Unemotionally, he promised, "We'll never marry Lilly. If you think that will change, then you are mistaken."
It was a pathetic sticking point. Why should marriage matter to someone that would live forever? But each time he said that, it had its desired effect, nudging Lilly to pull away out of resentment and perhaps her own insecurities.
Fully sitting, she didn't hesitate, with her leg pressing against his, sheet falling and leaving her bare, dark curls hung over her shoulder as she reached for his hand.
In the bedroom of what had been her father then her brother's home, in the bed that should have stayed pure until she wed, Lilly began, "You may not wed me, Kol…" she pressed his fingers against her right fourth finger, before tracing a circle of an imaginary ring around it, "But I have wed you. Perhaps not in a church and not with the father's blessing but wed you all the same."
Kol swallowed, unsure what to say.
Why did she want him so terribly? No one ever wanted Kol. He was always an afterthought, if even that. He wasn't entirely sure that she was serious until Lilly finished, tying herself to Kol for the rest of her existence, "Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be mine. When you die, I will die. And there I will be buried."
She was giving him a promise no one had ever offered before and he realized he'd never want again.
So this was what drove the masses mad with want? Sent men to their graves without thought? Kol once thought that hope was possibly the most ridiculous of human emotions and possibly the most dangerous. But he was wrong. Love, in its idiocy and perfection was the most potent in every way.
"Lilly what if I were to say we should run together?"
There was four days until the next full moon. They only had so much time.
Lilly swallowed, watching Kol carefully before answering, "And go where?"
"Where ever you wish." Where ever it was the Klaus would never find them. Kol had been considering bartering with Klaus for Lilly but he knew his brother. He'd never give her up. Not that Lilly was of any great importance to his plan but he'd decided long ago that she would die. Lilly would be his werewolf sacrifice and once Klaus had his mind set on something, he was immovable in his resolve or more he would make sure that if he were still miserable no one around him could find happiness.
"What of Lyanna, Katerina, Elspeth? Do you really wish to go, Lilly? For I can almost promise you that if you stay things will be exactly as you hope they will not."
Could she really leave it all behind? Could Lilly just leave in the middle of the night, with no explanation, no goodbye?
"Yes, I want to go."
"Then we will. If this is what you want Lilly, then we can run together, far away from all of this," far away from Klaus, is what he thought.
"When?"
"Tomorrow?" The sooner they left the better. They had to put as much distance between them and Greyshaw Manor- Scrathclyde as possible.
"No, not until I see Lyanna again."
"Lilly," it was imperative that they leave before Klaus returned. Elijah may be more forgiving but his loyalties would always lie with Klaus over Kol. He'd let them go, if only because he knew the doppelganger was of greater priority to his brother than one werewolf. But sure enough he'd track them down later. Elijah and Klaus would hunt Kol and Lilly until their deaths, but wasn't all of it worth it? Kol would rather spend decades running than even a year without Lilly.
"No. I will go with you, but I will see Lyanna first."
A compromise, not the first of many he would have to make with Lilly.
"We will leave the day of the full moon. That morning, before the sun rises, you will meet me in the forest. There is a widow's cottage there."
"The one poisoned with Wolfsbane?"
"Yes, we will meet at dawn. We can wait for Lyanna until then. But if she does not return by that evening previous…"
Lilly hesitated, feeling his anxiousness, not understanding the root but knowing it to have something to do with Klaus, finally she relented, "Okay."
Kol didn't have words for Lilly then, but someday he would. Leaning forward he ran his fingers through her hair, pulling her close and kissed her, graciously, much more delicate than he had times before.
Lilly was right. He couldn't reciprocate then verbally, but he knew she understood. Where Lilly would go, Kol would follow. Where she would stay, he'd live forever. Whoever she kept company with would hold his respect. And when they both died, he'd make sure they'd be together.
Eltham Palace, London
1492 AD
Irvin had been dead, lying cold on the bed for hours before Lord Morris returned. Cautiously he looked both ways down the long corridor, one guard posted at the far end, before he entered Lord Bosse's rooms.
"Irvin?" he called out, stepping inside. There was a horrid low pitch noise that burst throughout the rooms as Neil discovered his lover, black lips parted, eyes open, naked and cold lying on stained sheets.
Rising from her place by the window, Auriel walked into the main chambers to find Lord Morris hovering over the bed, trying to pull Irvin into his arms.
"Irvin...?" he murmured, seemingly in shock, waiting for him to respond.
"He is dead," she answered, simply, stating the obvious as red rimmed eyes looked up at her from across the room.
"You did this..." he cursed, looking at her with more hatred than Auriel had ever seen in a man's eyes.
"Yes."
Dropping his lover, he was quick to act; on her in seconds his hand had pierced her chest cavity, cracking ribs as his fingers wrapped around her heart.
"Who sent you?" he whispered darkly, his breath hot on her face as her eyes fluttered closed and then open again, her breath catching in her throat. She had a message she was meant to deliver. Klaus's command, dictating every word in her ears, once more, You will tell him Lady Lockwood sent you.
"Lady Lockwood," she replied, the last syllable barely above a whisper as he yanked her heart from her chest, squeezing the tissue between his fingers as her body dropped to the ground lifelessly. Without another thought, Lord Morris tossed the organ, exiting the scene and making his way towards Lyanna's rooms. He didn't care about the Arthur's wishes, the Starred Chambers or the moonstone any longer. Lyanna Lockwood was going to die and her death would not be nearly as quick as the prostitute's.
Bursting through her doors, he pulled the concealed blade from his houppelande. Inking a letter, her pen dropped to the table as Neil advanced towards her, blade lifted. Lyanna hardly had time to let out a scream before he was on her.
In a moment of complete desperation she pushed the desk towards him, papers flying, ink well splashing over her half-finished letter, before it splattered onto the floor. Attempting to block his path but the barrier worked only for a moment as he tossed the wooden desk as if it were a child's toy, the wood splintered as it hit the wall. Scrambling, horrified and confused Lyanna ran towards the bed, tripping over fragments of the furniture.
"Help!" she yelled, her knees hitting the stone floors at the foot of the bed. Grasping at the sheets, she tried to lift herself up and crawl over the mattress, when she felt his hands on her skirts, tugging her backwards. The blade came down so sharp so precise that it cut through the muscle of her calf with one thrust, leaving Lyanna to scream out in pain.
Awkward on her stomach, she attempted to bring her injured leg under her, shielding it, but was stopped. Taking a firm grasp on her hair, he tugged on it as if it were a leash, snapping her head back, hair ripping from her root. Pulling her backwards off the bed, Lyanna's neck immobilized, arms flailing, she desperately latched onto the bed post, holding it with all of the strength she could muster. As he jerked violently on her head once more, trying to detangle her from her support, Lyanna used her free leg to kick at him. Doing very little, it managed at the least to cause Lord Morris to drop her hair before lunging for her neck. Grasping his hands around it, he was crushing her wind pipe, Lyanna's vision blurring with black dots as she scratched at his hands. Finally in a moment of desperation she turned her face, teeth connecting with his arm as she bit down as hard as she could. Stunned, he pulled away for a second- just long enough for her Lyanna to scramble back further onto the bed. She coughed and grasped for air, vision blurring with tears as she clawed her way across the sheets, her leg, bleeding profusely into the bedding, leaving an ugly red trail behind her. Panicked her eyes remained locked on the door, if she could only just make it to the door. It was only a little further, while her hands fumbled through the folds of her dress looking for the blade.
She could feel the cold metal brush over her fingertips when his hand wrapped again in her hair, yanking her head back so hard, that it forced her upright before he pulled her down on her back. Lyanna's arms instinctively moved to protect herself but was too late as his hand came down hard against her face, slapping her hard enough that the room spun. She was completely disoriented, her ears ringing and cheek on fire. Lyanna's head lulled back to center, just in time to see him hover over her, blade raised.
"This won't be quick," he answered, the steel sinking into Lyanna's thigh, hitting bone as he drug it through the muscle. In shock, eyes wide, a wordless scream ripped out of her mouth when pain shot up her leg. But quickly that was forgotten as he removed his blade sinking it instead into her abdomen. Another deafening scream reverberated off the walls as Lyanna's body lurched forward in reflex, the agony so intense flooding over her that she couldn't even think past raising her arms up in defense as he pulled the knife from her belly, slicing into her liver on the way out.
Footsteps where echoing down the corridors in chorus, feet pounded against stone floors, yells of the guards echoing but Lyanna heard nothing and neither did Lord Morris. Locked in a battle of life and death, they held each other's gaze, tears spilling out over Lyanna's cheeks, the knife dripping with blood over the white sheets as two breaths passed between them.
The only sounds in the world: Inhale... Exhale... Inhale... Exhale.
Seeing nothing but red, Irvin's cold, dead body, Neil abandoned all self preservation and raised the blade over his head once more. Coming down hard, the knife sliced through Lyanna's forearms that tried to shield her. Cracking her ulna and radius, it pierced on first contact her left lung, the tissue instantly collapsing. Lyanna's lips attempted to gasp for air, strangled cries falling from her mouth as blood rushed out of her deflated lung, traveling up her windpipe. When the blade made its second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, contacts, it cracked and chipped ribs on its entrance and exit, leaving both lungs as nothing more than two bloody, deflated sacks of tissue. Blood spewed from Lyanna's lips as she attempted and failed to gasp for air, no longer even able to cry out. She was holding on to her last moments of life, sure to die in seconds but Lord Morris wasn't satisfied. Desecrating the soon to be corpse, he continued stabbing Lyanna in a crazed rage, until the guards drug him from her.
There was a scuffling of bodies, screams and yelling coming from Neil, guards and other strange people hovering in the room. Lyanna noticed none of it, everything a blur of noises, hands and blinding pain as the last few seconds of her life slipped away.
Lying in a pool of her own fluids, she stared up at the ceiling, blinking twice. Her ribs were shattered, the bones of both her forearms fractured and bruised, her dressed ripped, exposing her to half the room, blood was caked on her face, her entire body: seeping into the mattress, dripping from her feet that dangled off the bed.
So this is death?A fleeting thought that passed through her mind, as she felt hands running across her skin, hesitant to move her. Voices called out to her but they sounded strange, deep and slow: the words seemingly meaningless. Lyanna closed her eyes, in so much pain that her body had gone into full shock, every inch of her numb.
Nathaniel?His face floated through her mind. She felt as if she were drifting to sleep, falling into darkness amongst a sea of silence when suddenly it was all back in a thousand fold clarity. Pain shot through her body, Lyanna's eyes flying open to a blinding light as the alveoli grouped themselves together, the blood drying in their little cavities. Rapidly the tiny cells that composed withered sacks of tissue reformed their junctures, piecing together, the lungs suddenly beginning to inflate once more as Lyanna lunged forward gasping for air.
"Lady Lockwood?!" someone yelled, "Lady Lockwood, can you hear me?" Bones snapped back into place, fusing, deep muscle tissue ratcheted together as the filaments knitted back into order, blood vessels repairing, and wounds clotting.
"Lady Lockwood?!" they screamed her name as if she were deaf, hands brushing hair from her face.
"Lady Lockwood?!" they tried again, but she was unresponsive, in so much pain that she couldn't focus on a word they were saying, as she entered shock once more.
Klaus had stayed away all day, making the necessary arrangements. All of Eltham Palace was in chaos. Soon after Lord Morris had been dragged from Lyanna's room, screaming that he'd kill her again, Lord Bosse and his prostitute were discovered slaughtered in Irvin's rooms. Although Neil would claim that he had nothing to do with it, that he'd never harm Lord Bosse, King Henry was less than convinced. Neil, put in a difficult position, couldn't explain past his close friendship why he'd never be inclined to harm Lord Bosse. It took little to no effort for Klaus to plant in the Parliament's minds that perhaps- it was Lord Morris that had killed the fifteen souls in the forests on Greyshaw Lands. In fact it had more to do with a land dispute, a desire to claim the property, being that his was adjacent to Lyanna's. Perhaps he slaughtered the men (wolves) in an effort to frame Lyanna in hopes of being awarded the valuable land from the crown if she were executed. Furthermore, Lord Bosse was killed as collateral damage, knowing of Neil's plan and Lyanna attacked soon afterwards in a fit of rage when he realized that perhaps she'd expose him, knowing of his misdoings. After all, wasn't he mad? What kind of man would slaughter a neighbour in Eltham Palace? What type of Lord would stab a Lady more than a dozen times when he knew he'd be caught?
Perhaps a man that had nothing left to lose? A man that knew soon his secrets would be discovered. Only unknowingly to King Henry it was a different secret that Neil had been protecting for years. Neil, Lord Morris, was in between a rock and hard place. He either had to admit to Klaus's accusation or tell the truth. He could divulge his decade long affair with Irvin. He could expose him, but even in shame he'd not be able to save his life or bring back Irvin. Niklaus and the court's obvious counter claim would be that he murdered Lord Bosse and his prostitute in a jealous rage. Either way, Neil was set to hang, if not for orchestrating the murder of fifteen men on the Lockwood Lands, then the murder of Lord Bosse and his prostitute and if not for them then the attempted murder of Lyanna Lockwood.
No claim he could make to contrary, that it was Lady Lockwood that was responsible, that it was her that had lied and murdered the men on her land and Lord Bosse, would be heard. He was a damned man, his credibility gone the moment palace guards found him stabbing Lyanna Lockwood to death in her rooms.
In the midst of his plotting, the tying together of his complicated plans he'd not went to Lyanna once. Perhaps it was because he needed to keep his autonomy, to lend to the credibility of his accusations. He needed to distance himself from Lyanna Lockwood as to seem as if he had no interest in her future. Niklaus needed to counter the new claims that he was romantically involved with the widow. There were whispers throughout Parliament and the men of court, that Lyanna Lockwood was discovered in his rooms in the early hours of morning not a few days past, in a state of undress. These claims, of course were Lyanna's first undoing, the catalyst to her receiving at personal letter from King Henry requesting her presence the following day at Westminster Palace. Arthur may have been quick, but Niklaus had mastered the art of manipulation over his five centuries and was not about to be out witted, out played by a wolf.
Niklaus's absence was more than valid. He knew she'd live, having taken just enough of his blood in the chapel that she'd not bleed to death. Her wounds would, at the very least, partially heal. Maybe he didn't go because he'd rather not think of Lyanna Lockwood lying in a pool of her own blood, eyes closing as she gasped for her last breaths. Niklaus had a dozen reasons for not seeing her sooner, most of them political but a few personal. So when he slipped into the rooms that they'd moved her into, late into the evening he was relieved to find her sleeping. Her face remained relatively untouched. The king's physician that had attended to her couldn't explain it. She'd been stabbed multiple times with multiple witnesses, lying in a pool of her blood and all she had sustained were minor cuts, bruises and a few deeper lacerations but nothing life threatening.
She is a lucky woman, the old man had told Niklaus under compulsion when he'd asked of her progress. He'd spoke of Lyanna drifting in and out of sleep, coming to around the evening meal, taking in a small portion of broth and requesting that some of her personal effects be brought from her rooms.
Stepping inside the dimly lit chambers he found those personal effects scattered out beside her, a few letters and that book, the one she'd been reading in the carriage and when he'd went to her rooms that first time. Setting down the cup of tea he'd brought her, Niklaus bit into his wrist letting his blood drip into the dark liquid. She looked so peaceful he hesitated for a moment to wake her. Undoubtedly she understood now his motivations: why he'd fed her his blood in the chapel. She'd understand that he'd intended the entire time to spare her, that he'd had a plan to exonerate her of the crimes she'd been accused of by the court. Setting the cup on the bed side table, he looked down at the letter clutched in her hand. Propriety would call for him to respectfully not look, but Niklaus had never been one to give anyone their privacy. Delicately, he slipped the parchment out from under her fingers, looking down at Lyanna blissfully unaware as she slept.
Was it possible to resent someone and care for them at the same time? It must be because he resented the hell out of Lyanna for every single second of agony she'd caused him. All the plans she'd ruined, the chaos she'd brought into his life. But he cared for her enough, too much, that he'd stayed away all day out of fear that he'd not given her enough blood. That he'd arrive in her new rooms to find her disfigured, looking like a rag doll that had been drug through the mud.
Someday she'd hate him. They always did. No matter what he'd done for Elijah, Kol and Rebekah even Finn, they always resented him in the end. And Lyanna would be no different. Those that were poisoned infected everyone around them. Was he fool to want that kind of desire, even shaky trust from her a while longer? That was the problem with people. They wanted to be saved. They just didn't want to get their hands dirty doing it.
Unfolding the letter, he recognized the penmanship immediately: Elijah. His fingers crinkled the edge of the letter as he'd read over his brother's words to Lyanna: so sweet, so kind and so deceivingly selfless. A bitter taste filled Niklaus's mouth. He'd been in London for three days now when he should've been at Harte Manor planning for the sacrifice of his doppelganger, he'd been running around pandering to King Henry and Parliament- PANDERING, Niklaus Mikaelson did not pander to anyone. He'd orchestrated an elaborate story to ensure her release. He'd saved Lyanna from death once again and she laid here at night reading letters from his brother? Her gratitude now and always was sourly lacking.
"Did no one ever tell you that it is rude to look through other's personal effects?"
He folded down the corner of the letter to find Lyanna awake looking up at him, incredulously.
"I was not aware that you were awake," he replied, folding the letter in half, setting on the bed side table.
"How could I not be, with you lurking?"
"Lurking?" he attempted a smile, but still somewhat irritated- it came out as more of a grimace.
"What do you want Niklaus?" He wanted a bit of gratitude. He wanted Lyanna to thank him for saving her. He wanted a little appreciation, for Lyanna to be glad to see him, relieved even. He wanted Lyanna to be falling asleep to his letters- if he'd written her any.
"How are you feeling?"
If this was his convoluted way of showing her that he cared, Lyanna wasn't interested this time. How was she feeling? She felt like fool. She felt like she had been deceived and deceived well. Everything Niklaus did was a means to an end- everything. The moment of spontaneity between them that morning was just another ploy in his plan. Everything was always part of a larger game to him. He knew she was going to be attacked. He knew what was soon to happen. Did he think her a fool? Did he think she wasn't intelligent enough to piece together the puzzle?
The King's physician had said two other souls were taken: Lord Bosse and a prostitute's. For whatever reason, Lyanna felt a need to question the identity of the girl. The man didn't know her name. After all, why should they care, right? She was just a whore, another girl from the brothel to be toyed with. Why should they bother to know her name? But he did have a description of her, one that matched the prostitute that Niklaus had purchased their first night in London.
She should have known. How could Lyanna have been foolish enough to think differently for a second? Whether he'd taken her to bed or not, he'd used her all the same. Just like Lyanna, she was another piece in his game.
"I think you know how I am feeling."
"Alive," he answered, quite bluntly not willing to give her sympathy. She didn't need it. Lyanna had survived and after all wasn't that what was most important?
"I was stabbed fifteen times..." Lyanna countered, not nearly as dismissive about the matter as he, "Do you know what it feels like to die?"
"Yes, a few times actually." Hadn't she, herself stabbed him twice?
"As a human?" He might have tried to think back to what it felt like when Mikael stabbed him and all of Klaus's siblings but he wasn't given the opportunity. Removing the sheet that covered her, Lyanna wore nothing underneath, except for the dressings the physician had used to cover the wounds. Hissing she struggled to sit up in bed, grabbing the bedside table.
Niklaus knew what she intended to do. He knew where this was all headed and it was some place he didn't wish to be. He didn't need to think those kinds of thoughts or be tempted to feel emotion. Instead he looked away as she slowly unwrapped the white cloth from around her torso until it fell beside the bed.
"Do not dare look away," she warned but in a way that was more of a challenge. If he looked he knew he'd be forced to feel something but if he didn't, he was a coward.
She'd moved the sheet so she sat completely naked in front of him. He was right, he'd given her enough blood, barley enough that she didn't bleed to death, her organs healing and bones fusing back together but not much more. Lyanna had lacerations, on both breasts, down her sternum, peppering her ribs, past her navel and a deep tissue wound to her right thigh. Some were considerably more healed than the others. Just moving, she seemed to irritate the wounds, blood dribbling from the cuts across her abdomen and breasts.
He could hear screams echoing in his ears as he looked at the damage Lord Morris had managed to inflict. He'd heard her, when Neil attempted to gut her like a fish. Her cries echoed down the halls of Eltham Palace, bursting out into the dead gardens and courtyards, disturbing birds that attempted to pick through the frozen ground for seeds or worms. Lyanna's haunted pleas for help, the screaming of a sharp blade crushing through bone, cutting through tissue and organs sent chills up Niklaus's spine while they ricocheted off the walls causing everyone to stop what they were doing, conversations halting as they listened to Lyanna dying.
Swallowing guilt, he looked away and tried to push the image of Lyanna gurgling on her own fluids, tears streaming down her cheeks as she laid helplessly in her own blood, drifting into death.
"I've brought you something," he replied motioning to the tea that sat by her bed. Gripping the bed stand, Lyanna eased herself back down into the mattress, not bothering to rewrap her wounds or cover herself. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction, the relief of not having to stare at what he'd planned. Taking the tea from the stand she sipped from it, waiting for his justification. Instead she was met with his denial of his own wrong doings.
"They took him to Westminster. Lord Morris is being charged with Lord Bosse and another's death, along with the attempt on yours."
Another's death? Did he even know her name? The poor young girl he'd sent to the slaughter just as he did Lyanna?
The warm liquid had an unfamiliar taste to it, something much different from regular tea leaves. Setting the partially finished cup back on the table she questioned, suspiciously, "What is in this?"
"Something to help you... Drink it, all."
Something to help you, Realizing that he'd given her his blood as some sorry consolation, she snapped, "Burn in hell," but was unable to finish her insult as her teeth clamped down on her lips, repressing scream.
Hands gripped at the sheets, holding on for dear life as the blood worked its way into her system. Niklaus watched as Lyanna trembled, pressing her face into the pillow beside her, the bleeding wounds clotting instantly, sowing themselves together in front of his eyes. The tissue and skin of the laceration on her leg, buttoned together into a thick pink puckered line. The marks on her stomach, chest and breasts doing the same. Lyanna gasped for air, trying to keep herself from crying out as her body for minutes healed itself. When it stopped, or the process slowed, her head lulled back to centre, eyes opening as she stared at the ceiling. A thin sweat had broken out across her forehead, her face as white as the sheets she laid on.
"Finish it," he replied, nodding again to the tea.
Lyanna looked down at her healed body, now only marked with pink scars, some still puckered red and angry looking.
"No."
She looked up at him, completely resigned.
"Now, Love, there is no need to be deformed," he replied shortly. If she didn't finish the blood she'd be forced to wear those scars until he turned her.
"I am not. Why should I heal them? They were given to me," the way she said it, her voice cold as ice. She was doing it again, Lyanna using that tone with him that made Niklaus feel as though he'd drown in guilt or resentment from her condescension, her indifference towards him.
"And so they will stay," she finished.
"Lyanna..." he tried to reason.
"I want you to leave," she quickly replied, cutting him off. Five words, over the course of his existence, Niklaus had been called many things, cursed even a few times but never had he felt more insulted, hurt by five simple words.
He could have sat and explained to her how ridiculous she was. He had the inclination to tell her just how childish she was being, selfish, ungrateful but at that point any response would have shown just how easily she was able to make him feel completely impotent.
Covering herself with the sheet once more, she picked up her letters, ignoring him completely as Niklaus left without another word. When the door shut behind him, Lyanna must have stared at it for close to an hour, still bitter, outraged, but wishing that she hadn't sent him away so quickly. Perhaps at times it was better to be in the same room with someone, even when you loathed them, even if every moment together would be contentious, than spend it without them.
Lyanna never drank the rest of the tea, keeping those scars up until her death. When she fell asleep later that night, thinking of the circumstances, preparing herself for Westminster in the morning, praying that her death and that poor woman's wasn't for nothing she thought that Niklaus had likely gone back to his own rooms angry. Lyanna was sure that she'd spend the rest of the evening alone.
She was wrong.
Niklaus resented Lyanna in too many ways to explain but he loved her even more. It was a strange, twisted, unhealthy, unnatural love. To want someone who frequently wished nothing else other than to be as far away from you as possible. To care for someone that was made solely to destroy you, but love wasn't for the rational. Their desire for one another wasn't for the sane.
He returned shortly after he was sure she'd fallen to sleep and stayed with Lyanna until the early hours of morning, leaving just before the sun broke over the horizon. She'd completely rejected him. She likely hated him at the moment and crawling back like a kicked dog, with his tail between his legs was perhaps the most humiliating thing he'd experienced in close to a century. But whenever Lyanna needed him, whether she realized it or not, he was compelled to come to her aide, even if it was in his dark, twisted, convoluted way.
No, their affection wasn't healthy. Their story doomed before it really began but neither knew any other way to love.
If one was bound to drown, they'd take the other with them, knowingly or not.
In less than a few hours they would know for sure what would be Lyanna's fate. Niklaus had come to her early in the morning after he was sure she'd dressed herself. Playing at being hurt, Lyanna was cautious to let her attendants get too close- refusing to even let the King's Physician check her wounds. Lyanna would have preferred to spend the morning alone, in her own thoughts but Niklaus had other things in mind.
She needed to be prepared for any questions the Starred Chambers may ask. He hadn't come this far, he hadn't lied, cheated and manipulated his way through the past few days to let Arthur's Lordling dogs corner Lyanna- to find inconsistencies between Niklaus's accusations and Lyanna's alibi. Sitting at the small table across the room writing out a promissory note, he prompted, "And what will you tell them again?"
Church bells rang throughout the empty grounds of Eltham Palace. A child ran through the King's Alley into the barren gardens, his mother frantically chasing after him, clearly scolding the child. But he didn't care, he dodged her attempts to grab him, taunting her almost with his boldness or perhaps he was simply unaware that he shouldn't be there.
"I had my suspicions that Lord Morris was the culprit for the deaths on my property. I had intended to bring it to the attention of the Star Chambers and explain how he had threatened me."
"And Lord Bosse?"
"He was aware of the arrangement…" she answered listlessly as if she were barely paying attention to a word either of them said.
Watching her watch it all through a frosted window, he thought she was simply musing on home, perhaps preparing herself for what was to the panes of glass, clearing a larger circle for her to look out into the world, she didn't even spare a glance in his direction as she asked her loaded question.
"What was the name of the prostitute that was murdered?"
"Hmm? Come again?"
"The woman that you sent to the slaughter, the girl that you allowed to die without a second thought." The girl that looked so much like Katerina Petrova and maybe that was why she hated her and cared for a woman she had never met. Niklaus continued the association, but to what extent. Did he not see her and see Katerina as well? Perhaps he did and that was why he did it.
Niklaus stilled his pen, "Does it matter?"
"You do not know her name, do you?"
Annoyed, Niklaus knew where this was going. It was leading to a self-righteous tirade from Lyanna, one he refused to take part in, "Auriel, her name was Auriel. Are you satisfied?"
"Did you take her to your bed?" Lyanna asked nonchalantly. He'd taken Katerina, she knew it and was a fool to pretend that it had not happened. Did he take Auriel as well? Perhaps that was his preference, he liked a certain look. What did that Lyanna? And what did any of this matter now anyhow?
A mind worrying of dying often comforts itself with other problems, other issues, if only to think of something else for a moment or perhaps with death, lying seemed that much more of a gratuitous crime.
"Is that what this is about?" he almost smirked, "Are you jealous Lyanna?"
Of course Niklaus would find a way to make sure this was some sort of complement for him, "She did not know me, nor did I know her. Why should she die for my cause?"
"She was a means to an end Lyanna. She was saved from a pathetic life."
"Who are you to call her life pathetic or unworthy?"
"Do you know what happens to prostitutes in this city Lyanna? Hmm? No? Have you been to a brothel? I can tell you. They perish young from illness or they wish they had as they rot old, used and pathetic. It's a lamentable existence, Lyanna, one you will never know."
"So you claim that you acted out of benevolence, the kindness of your heart? What a saint you are Niklaus," she mocked.
The prostitute was only a small facet of her disgust with Niklaus, it wasn't that he had allowed her to die, for if Lyanna were honest with herself she'd long since, consented to the fact that Niklaus had little, if any, appreciation for human life. It was the more the knowledge that little of what he did had anything to do with serving others. If it didn't benefit Niklaus, if it didn't serve his purpose, then he wasn't interested. That encompassed everything, even Lyanna. What purpose did she serve for Niklaus?
"You are alive, are you not? I have arranged for you to be pardoned, have I not? I gave you my blood, did I not? I have untangled you from the hideous little web you seem to consistently be wrapping yourself in," he sharply replied.
"Did you take Katerina to bed?"
Mayhaps it was the calm in which she asked, so subtle, so out of context, so seemingly unaffected, regardless of his response, that caused him to eventually answer her so bluntly, or it could have been that he simply didn't feel as if it warranted an apology.
"Excuse me…." he heard her perfectly clear, but that wasn't the point. She had always been bold, that he couldn't deny.
"You heard me perfectly clear," she answered, still not bothering to make eye contact for it made everything much easier. If they were airing their grievances, should she not ask now? The prostitute was just another woman but Katerina was her dear friend. Katerina was her life. As Kat was just a passing amusement to Niklaus, as was the prostitute and however many other women, wasn't Lyanna as well? What means to an end did she serve? If Katerina was the wolves' doppelganger, then was his attention to her all part of a greater plan? And if so where did Lyanna fit into it all? Why was he helping her? Did he really want that moonstone that badly?
"Should you not be concerning yourself with more prudent things at the moment?" he calmly replied. Not that they mattered. Whatever plans she'd made for the women and the lands, if she was in fact taken to trial, would be foiled. If her head rolled, his doppelganger, the wolf and the witch as well, for good measure, wouldn't be far behind.
"I've already taken care of all that," she responded, absentmindedly, still watching the child and his mother. He was so carefree, innocent still. If she died, she wanted that for Lilly and Katerina: the preservation of that innocence.
Clearing his throat, he shuffled through the last of the documents he'd been signing, "And what would those plans be?" Not that he was at all that interested for it wasn't as if they would matter in the end.
"Elijah knows."
His pen stopped, ink blotting into the paper, forming a hideous black mark in what was previously a pristine document. The letter- she'd given his brother a letter before they left. He'd spent three days wondering about the contents of that letter. Knowing he'd later find out, perhaps when it was no longer relevant.
Before, he was sure that it was another like all of those previous: random musings or the continuation of a previous conversation. Perhaps there were even confessions, a profession of affection. All of which would be irrelevant after their time in London. Whatever she had said to his brother, promised, it would all be moot when they arrived back in Scrathclyde; where the doppelganger would be killed, Lilly not far behind and he'd turned Lyanna. Whatever feelings or intentions his brother had towards Lady Lockwood would be quickly corrected.
Niklaus never considered the fact that she'd written Elijah about her last wishes. Now he almost wished for the former confessions.
"Hmm, do you not wish to inform me as well?" he questioned, trying to sound impartial.
"No, Elijah knows…. He'll take care of it, if there should be need."
The document was ruined now. He'd have to start again from scratch. Retrieving another piece of parchment from the small stack, he crumpled the wasted piece and dipped his pen into the ink well again.
He shouldn't care that she'd written Elijah. It shouldn't even have fazed him that she'd left what could be her final thoughts with his brother. Wasn't it all to be irrelevant anyhow? But the thought of her falling asleep at night to his brother's letters was seared in his mind, nauseatingly enough. He did care, more than he wished to admit to even himself. Maybe because it was then that he realized it wouldn't matter how many days he had with Lyanna in London or how she may now or someday grow to love him. The connection, relationship in whatever shape that had formed between her and his brother could not undone, replaced or superseded. Their trust, affection would always be there- as something he would be forced to simply tolerate.
Must everything he would have be tainted, incomplete? Could nothing ever be solely his?
"Did you take Katerina into your bed?" she questioned again, interrupting his thoughts.
It seemed ridiculous to wonder that now, after all that had passed between them. If she were to scream impropriety- act offended, shouldn't she have done so before she took him into her bed, allowed him into her life in such a private way?In a few hours she'd either be alive or sitting in a dank hole, awaiting a trail. Mayhaps that is why she asked, even though she was sure of the answer, if Lyanna was soon going to die, she didn't want to be mistaken about what she had thought before had passed between her and Niklaus She wouldn't go to her death having secrets between them, allowing her believe in their disingenuous association. She thought at the very least he could pay her the kindness of honesty, telling Lyanna her part to play in his little act.
When she turned to finally give him her full attention, waiting for his confession, he realized that it was perhaps completely over between them and there was nothing he could do about it. If Lyanna sought truth, should he not as well?
"What did you write my brother?"
"Clever, a question for a question. No, I think I'll wait for your reply."
He set down his pen, forgetting the document all together. It could wait, if Lyanna wanted to do this, ruin what little peace they had left then he'd not stop her.
"Yes," he replied rather coldly, very matter of fact, with not a hint of apology in his voice because in truth he'd didn't feel any remorse. Katerina was a means to an end, a warm body. The past few days he may have been willing to relent somewhat with Lyanna, drop his shield but only a fool put down his weapon.
As he waited for her response he wasn't quite sure what he expected. Humans could be quite unpredictable with their emotions and females in particular seemed to be nauseatingly dramatic. But Lyanna was never short on surprises. She didn't cry out or flash with rage, instead she appeared halcyon, bordering on indifferent as she questioned, "How many times?"
"Does it matter?"
"No," it didn't matter. What her voice and her face wouldn't expose was still clearly evident to Klaus as the atmosphere in the room changed from relatively calm to remarkable chilly in was resolve, he could feel it like an invisible wall coming up between them, the stones were being laid since the previous night, but now staring at the barrier he knew that he would have rather dealt with messy irrational emotions than what she had planned. Hatred, even in its bitterness, sadness even in its moroseness was easier. In fact anything was preferable to separation, the immediate dissociation he could feel radiating off of her.
Yesterday morning they were still hovering somewhere in naïve bliss and now, just as she had in the abbey, she was preparing herself to push him as far from her as possible.
Lyanna knew it then, could feel the bottom dropping out of the little fantasy that she'd allowed herself to create, the life she'd wanted to believe could happen, the feelings she convinced herself were real, but nothing was ever real with Niklaus.
Instinct kicked in before his mind could filter his mouth, "Are you going to cry Lyanna? No biting words, quippy returns of humanist moral platitudes?"
"No. Why would I cry Niklaus? All you've done is fulfil what expectations I already had of you," her tone acrid in its honesty. From Katerina to yesterday's activities to now, for every moment Niklaus had that made her wish to trust him, believe that he could be sincere; he seemed to carelessly destroy without apology.
"And what were those, Love?" If she thought she could make him cower under the weight of her disappointment, attempt to make him feel a moment of guilt for something that was completely natural to him, then she was sorely mistaken.
"Selfishness, you are juvenile always in your intentions. You are a child, never satisfied, desperate for your next toy only to toss it aside as soon as it is yours."
"Is this your impetuous attempt at shaming me, Lyanna?" he laughed, only there was nothing humorous about it.
"No, I wouldn't dream that you would understand guilt. However, if you were capable, you can absolve your conscience, Lord Mikaelson."
"And shall you also unburden yours?" he fired back, thinking of her holding on so tight to his brother's letters, "When we return will you run again to my brother as if nothing ever happened?"
If she returned, in Lyanna's mind, that was the question, but to Klaus it was only a matter of time. He didn't wonder if she'd live, he only wondered if she was just as insincere in every word she'd spoken to him, every look, every touch, as she accused him.
"You think me insincere?" For Niklaus of all people to call someone insincere, the mere idea of it was maddening.
"Yes."
"In what way?"
He smiled, they were rapidly sliding from emotional sentiments to a heated conversation, confessions of hatred, cruel words, all thing Klaus was blissfully familiar with. He had succumbed to Lyanna's world, exploring emotions she was familiar with, for the past two days but now they were moving onto ground that Klaus owned, built and knew intrinsically.
He paused, considering whether or not to go for the throat (his usual style) or instead wait for her to hang herself. From the look on her face, cold, indifferent, he decided the latter. Let her not be confused by his manner the past few days, he was not an altruist, a gentleman. He'd crush her calm exterior, draw out her acrimony and watch her suffer. She wouldn't get the better of him. Not this time. If she wished for truth, he'd unleash it on her.
"Tell me, Lyanna, what poetry did you wax to my brother? What promises of affection did you give him?" he paused, rising from his seat, starting to circle her before he continued, "How many thoughts did you spare for him before you invited yourself into my bed?"
"Many more than you spared anyone but yourself before you crawled between Katerina's thighs." Before you lied to me repeatedly about everything else, she wished to continue, but one fight at a time. Lyanna had to pick her battles to wage.
Raising his hand in objection, as if he was the teacher and she the student, he corrected, "Before she begged me to do so, you mean? In fact, much quite like you."
He was right. She had no one to blame but herself. Wasn't she the fool? She had always had her suspicions that he'd entered into a carnal relationship with Katerina. That he'd lied to her once and many times before. That Niklaus was insincere in his actions and affections for her. Men, fickle in their affections, a reality she had been exposed to long before Niklaus, one she had apparently not learned from.
"A mistake, I assure you."
"A mistake? Truly, was it now Lyanna? I don't recall you believing it to be so when you were calling my name."
She couldn't decide what it was that made her the greater fool, the fact that she had played into his game or believed it so wholeheartedly.
"A worthy performance for the critic himself," she fired back, still perfectly composed, as Niklaus stopped, the shadow of a grimace passing over his mouth before he continued, "Tell me, did you think of my brother when you crawled on top of me, begged me not to stop?"
"I'd never lower myself to beg anything from you."
That struck a nerve, turning fully to face her, Niklaus spat, "Lower yourself? Please. I lowered myself for a damaged, pathetic, little widow. You couldn't even keep your own husband."
Without thinking, Lyanna grabbed the water basin on the table beside the window and hurled it at Niklaus's head. He saw it coming before her hand made contact. The porcelain burst against the wall, shattering in to dozens of pieces.
"Don't you ever speak of things you don't know!" she screamed. He'd hit a weakness, a chink in her armour, one that he'd tried a few times before with no response, but now it was clear that deep down she still cared more than she'd let on about her husband's past indiscretion.
A sensitive man who had any benevolence in him at all would have known to stop there, take his victory and move on, but Klaus was never known for sensitivity.
"How could I not know Lyanna? All of Scrathclyde knows that he preferred another's bed."
He hadn't noticed it before, but now he could hear her heart pounding with adrenaline, her skin flushing pink with animosity: the fight, filtering down into her veins, "Shut your mouth," she threatened.
But Niklaus didn't take direction from anyone, no matter how prudent the suggestion.
"Tell me Lyanna, could you not smell her on him?" he taunted circling her again.
"I said quiet!" she growled.
Brushing pieces of the broken pitcher aside with his feet, he stepped closer, continuing, "Tell me, for I must admit, I am curious, did their child look more like him… or her?"
Quickly she reached for the basin's pan and hurled it in his direction, again another easy dodge for Niklaus.
He opened his mouth to spit out another spiteful insult when Lyanna beat him to it. "This is why she runs from you."
Niklaus stopped in his tracks, feet crunching against broken shards, when Lyanna continued, "You can compel an entire village of women to lie on their backs for you but you couldn't even buy your own sister's affections or theirs either," she snapped.
"Are you foolish enough to think they love you? Care for you even?" she paused, swallowing, "They hate you. Your own family can barely tolerate you. You're the only one too blind to see it."
Instantly, Niklaus stepped forward, the paroxysm he'd been keeping at bay bursting forth with the mention of Rebekah, Elijah, Kol and every fear he'd ever had.
But he stopped short seeing that she held the letter opener out in front of her, more than ready to use if need be, "Try it," she threatened.
Looking at the small knife he laughed, "Do you really think you are going to kill me, Lyanna?"
"I hate you," she cursed and he could see it then, water filling her eyes. Looking again at the blade, he had his answer. It may have been pointed in his direction, her knuckles going white from her crushing grip, but he knew she was well aware that it wouldn't be enough to end him, or even their argument but that was fine by her. She didn't need him dead. She only needed to inflict the same pain he'd given her, in whatever way possible.
By the way she said it, I hate you, he almost believed it and part of him loved it, he revelled in it, needing this more than anything.
Yes, hate me, he felt like encouraging, make it that much more easy for them to put this behind them, the feeling he had when she was around (novel and terrifying) disappearing into something more familiar: contempt or better yet, fear.
He smirked darkly, his irises flicking yellow, black veins forming under his eyes as his fangs began to drop. Arms extending out, welcoming it, he admonished, "Isn't this what you wanted? The monster? Isn't this all part of the game, sweet Lyanna?"
His hand caught the chair in front of him, easily brushing it aside, it flew through the air- the wood cracking as it hit the wall. Had the Eltham not been almost completely abandoned by the men of court, the King leaving the night previous for Westminster, most of the Lords following or departing early that morning, they would have been interrupted long before now. But the guards, although there to keep order, knew better than to interrupt a disagreement, no matter how volatile between the guests of court.
Lyanna seemed completely unaffected, her face devoid of emotion, "You don't scare me."
"No?" his eyes burned a little more yellow, veins extending down through his cheeks like poisoned roots of umbrage. Stepping toward her, he kicked the low lying foot stool out of his way. Skidding across the floor it crashed into the mirror, splintering their reflections.
She ignored the scene he was making, the destruction of the room. Her eyes didn't bother leaving him for a second when she replied condescendingly, "You're a child, trailing behind your brother, trying to prove yourself worthy."
"Of what?" he barked.
"Of someone caring about you, for even a second, as they do with him…. It's a sad little game that no one is playing but you Niklaus."
Steaming with enmity, he rushed toward her, only to find the letter opener buried between the last two ribs on his left side, chipping bone on the way in. A cut for a cut, only Lyanna was somewhat still kind and would spare him the other dozen or so she had suffered.
"Pathetic," she diagnosed against his face, moving around him, stepping over the ruined furniture on her way to the door.
Blood dripped off the metal onto the floor, as he quickly moved in front of her, stalling her hasty exit before she could blink, "Where do you think you're going?"
"Get out of my way."
"Leaving so soon Lyanna?"
"Move."
"No," his arms spread out, blocking her path as she tried to move around him, "We aren't finished."
"We are done, Niklaus," she looked at him with such contention, "We never began."
"Why? Is it time to run, now that things have become real between us? Scared now, are you?" his breath flushed over her cheek, as she looked past him towards the door.
"Get out of my face."
"Force me," he threatened.
.She raised her hand to slap him, when Lyanna found herself pressed against the wall, unable to move.
"Is that all you have Lyanna? Come now, I thought you had a little more fight in you than that," he taunted.
His hands were on her shoulders pinning her down, mouth pressed against her ear, as she struggled to turn her face as far from him as possible. Accepting his challenge her hands were instantly on his neck, thumbs pressing into the windpipe he'd didn't use. Then there were nails on his face, scraping through skin, blood trickling through the cuts.
Dropping his grip on her shoulders, he reached for her hands to restrain her only to be met with more resistance which he easily quelled. Slamming her again against the wall, his eyes were so black there was no longer any delineation between his pupil and the iris.
Hands reached down, catching the material of her dress, inching up her thighs finger running over the hideous red scar on her thigh, until she hissed, scratching at him. She tried to push him off but Niklaus was unmovable, always stronger. Fingers danced along the inside of her thigh. It was completely irrational, her whole body fighting to be anywhere but near him. But for some reason, he was sure, if he could just get her to submit, if he could bring her back to that moment in the chapel, things could come back around. She'd realize that she'd not win with him and accept it. He could bring her back from edge of abandoning him and what he knew they'd had. The harder Lyanna fought the more bold he became in his advances. Hadn't it all started this way in the abbey? Didn't she resist him to being with?
This time, however, Lyanna was quite serious, "Stop it," she growled and when he did not comply she reached down twisting the letter opener that was still dug in his side; clipping against bone, cutting through tissue, Niklaus grunted in discomfort, "I mean it," she threatened.
Fangs extended, they scraped along the skin of her neck, in defiance; threatening to pierce through the thin outer layers of tissue, when she answered with disapprobation, "Don't you dare," causing him to pause for a second before the first barely broke the skin, blood trickling from the superficial wound.
He had every intention of feeding from her. Not caring whether she willed it or not. He was the predator. Not her. He wouldn't be taking notes from Lyanna on how to behave. She wanted the Philistine? Lyanna wanted to ignore fear, the horror of his actions, seem unfazed? He'd whittle her down to a type of recreancy she'd be unable to deny.
That was until she took the potency right out of his intentions with her vitriolic observation, "You're not a monster, Niklaus. You're just a sad, pathetic, petulant child."
"States the woman that would die without my aid."
He was right, without his intervention she'd likely have no chance against the reaper's blade or his rope but at that moment Lyanna didn't care. She'd rather die with her pride, than crawl to him for anything.
Turning her face, to make sure he heard every word, know of her sincerity, she looked him in the eye when she replied, "You can unnail yourself from that cross, for I do not now nor did I ever before need your assistance. My problems are none of your concern."
"You've made them my concern," he snapped, for she had. Lyanna was the worst kind of pestilence. She'd managed to ruin every single plan he'd had. She was the parasitic fungus that grew on him, which he was unable to cure.
"Well by all means I apologize. You can now unburden yourself, for I don't care what you do, as long as you do it away from me," and with those final austere words, fissuring into him with their artlessness, she manoeuvred out from under his grasp and promptly left.
Alone, in the wake of their destruction, it became stingingly apparent that although he may have kept his weapon and fought the good fight but in the end it was the shield which would have saved him.
Westminster Palace, London
1492 AD
They took separate carriages to Westminster Palace. When Lyanna arrived she had no notion whether Niklaus was present or not and in that moment she didn't care. She didn't need him, she reassured herself, partially knowing it to be untrue.
Through the halls of Westminster the guards guided her, aiding her along the way, past the chapel, sets of stairwells and a few great halls. Lyanna began to wonder if they were just leading her outside to the gallows and this was simply just the longest last walk that ever took place until finally her escort turned into the last hall. Leaning against the men, feigning grave injury, she was relieved when they finally stopped outside a bank of great doors, sitting outside were a few unknown faces and some she'd rather not see again, in particular Arthur. How he managed to find himself a seat at the King's table, an invite inside Eltham and now Westminster, spoke of his alliance amongst the pack- those that were still living among the Lords. He may not have been given rooms in the visitor's corridors, he may have been denied a private audience with the King, but somehow he still managed to snake his way into the proximity of power.
For he may not have been powerful in the human world; but in the supernatural world, in Scrathclyde and their lands, he held enough clout as the new alpha of the ancient pack. And soon with her death, he'd likely elevate himself to Lord of Greyshaw, how convenient. He sneered at her as she walked by, the hostility palpable in the air.
He'd made his move and she'd made hers. Only Arthur had lost seventeen men and Lyanna none, except for possibly her own life. Averting her eyes, she didn't think of her adversary in the moments before she entered the Starred Chambers, she thought instead of the baby that had been brought to Greyshaw Manor a year past and the tear stained cheeks of her husband's mistress. She had pled with Lyanna to take her in, to let her work in the home, any position for the child's sake.
She feared for her life and what her husband would do to both her and the child, now that Nathaniel was dead and his indiscretions were no longer a secret. Lyanna could still hear her sobs echoing throughout the great entry way, the child's screams echoing its mother's and could feel the heat of embarrassment, anger that had crept through her skin. That this woman would come to her home, with Nathaniel's bastard and beg for forgiveness, clemency even, it was unthinkable. Coldly, Lyanna had turned from her and the child that the mistress called Jacan and had them thrown from the house. Nathaniel's mistress was forced to go home, to Arthur and suffer his wrath, his insufferable punishment that was never ending. Lyanna remembered hearing the girls in the kitchen whispering about it once, when they thought she couldn't hear. Nathaniel had, had the son he always wanted but the child took Arthur's name and Nathaniel Lockwood's line would die with him as his heir would wander the world as a Maxwell.
Perhaps Lyanna could have saved them both. She could have spared the woman a year of abuse and given the child the Lockwood name. But Lyanna wasn't a saint, nor was she forgiving. She sought to distance herself as far from that woman and her child, Nathaniel's child and Lyanna's own failures, as possible. How could she have known that Jacan Maxwell, his line, would find hers again? How could Lyanna have foreseen a girl by the name of Maxwell, Hayley Maxwell, finding a Lockwood and using his desperation to rid himself of Niklaus Mikaelson and his love for a woman that shared her face to begin another cycle of agony for another hunter? How could she have known that Niklaus would be foolish enough to sleep with the bastard's line, to take another Lockwood into his bed... only not the right Lockwood descendant?
Free will and the products of its decisions, they rippled out like waves in a pond, affecting everything in its wake. Had she taken the woman and her child into Greyshaw Manor, they likely would have perished. So much trouble, resentment, heartache Lyanna could have spared with one decision. But Lyanna was proud and from her hatred, disgust, so many others would be punished.
Pushing open the doors for her, the guards practically carried her inside the great room. On the peak of the vaulting ceiling was a large, painted yellow star. Shifting her focus downward, she noticed ten men and King Henry staring back at her.
"Lady Lockwood," of all the men she recognized two, one being Lord Catullo, "You must excuse us, not everyone is present. Lord Bram, in particular, sought to find travel from Spain but was detained."
She nodded, why they thought she cared, she couldn't decide. Perhaps this man was of some importance? She was given a chair to rest in as she feigned to the best of her abilities looking gravely pained.
"Your coming, under the recent circumstances, is remarkable," Lord Catullo commented, obviously suspicious about her abilities to function after her attack.
Lyanna could have begun defending herself but instead nodded her head as Lord Kaelan began, "Lady Lockwood your presence has been requested so that we may inquire after the accusations that have been levied against your person. You will answer them truthfully and to the best of your ability. Is that understood?"
"Yes."
In a line they sat at a great table, with King Henry behind, slightly elevated above the rest, silently watching as the questioning took place. Seated in front of eleven sets of eyes, Lyanna could feel her heart begin to race even more than it had pervious.
"Were you aware that Lord Bosse was murdered just yesterday in his rooms at Eltham Palace?"
But if she showed fear it could be misconstrued as guilt. Attempting to look as calm, but still pained as possible she responded, "Yes, My Lord. I was informed by the king's physician."
"Were you attacked by Lord Morris?"
"Yes, My Lord," her hand subconsciously touched the skin of her ribs on the outside of her gown, thoughts of pain shooting through her body as she remembered the blade sinking into the soft flesh.
"And pray tell, what was the nature of this attack?"
Coldly she responded, "He meant to murder me, My Lord."And succeeded for a short period of time, she thought to herself.
"And did you sustain injury to your person?"
The sound of knife hitting bone, the feeling of blood pouring into her mouth as her lungs collapsed filtered through her mind like a horrid nightmare, "Yes, My Lord."
"Where might I ask?"
Lyanna still slumped awkwardly in the chair, ran her fingers across her ribs and replied, "He stabbed me or attempted to many times, My Lord."
"And still you are here before us? Was his aim lacking?" Another man, nameless as far as Lyanna was concerned, questioned from the line, smacking together his dry lips.
"No My Lord, only the blade dull and the king's physician competent."
"I see..." he replied, looking at her as if she were already guilty, while she was still trying to plea her case.
"Do you know the nature of the reason why you were attacked?" Lord Kaelan resumed.
"Yes My Lord."
"Well, do tell Lady Lockwood; we haven't all afternoon," the dry lipped, sharp tongued Lord snapped.
"He was aware that I knew of his involvement in the deaths that took place on my lands not a month past and his plans to use those deaths against me."
"In what way, My Lady?" Lord Kaelan continued, ignoring the strange shuffle and murmurs of discontent amongst some of the men.
"He intended to make it seem as if I was responsible, My Lord but I am just one woman. How could I possibly slaughter fifteen grown men on my own, in the woods at night?"
"Perhaps you had men?"
She saw a knowing look pass between some of the Lords, sure that they would catch her in her lies.
"I do not know if you are aware My Lord, but my husband passed last year and since his passing many of the men that were loyal to our lands have abandoned our properties. Only a handful is left and many are advanced in age."
"And why would they abandon your property, My Lady? Do they not owe fealty to you?"
"Perhaps they would rather not owe anything to a woman, My Lord and regretfully there was no one to stop them."
King Henry shifted in his seat, either from boredom or displeasure from her frank comment.
"So it is your assertion that Lord Morris intended to murder fifteen innocent souls on your lands as a conspiracy?"
"Yes, My Lord."
"And do tell, why were those men on your lands to begin with?"
"That is a question for Lord Morris, My Lord," she replied somewhat tartly, maybe now was not the best time to be sharp tongued but could they not see how ridiculous some of these accusations were? Her nervousness, gripping fear from moments earlier was dissolving somewhat with the irritation that came with the ridiculousness of the situation. It was the pure reek of misogynist power that she was forced to stomach with a smile.
"I still fail to see, even if your assertion were true why it is that Lord Morris would want to accuse you of such a crime?" Lord Cutallo interrupted.
"The Lockwood lands, My Lord is some of the most fertile ground south of the Solway Firth."
"I still fail to see how this involves Lord Morris," he shot back.
"If I was to be charged for murder and perhaps even Lilly Lockwood as a conspirator, then the land would no longer belong to the Lockwood family, it would be in the hands of the king. Lord Morris likely wished to be awarded the lands since he is my nearest neighbour and a frequent member of court."
"That is a bold accusation, My Lady," the curt man, her accuser from before, threw out.
"It was a reckless plan, My Lord," Lyanna replied back, making eye contact until he looked away.
"And so you accuse that Lord Morris planned to kill you, why again, My Lady? If he thought that you would be charged with the murder of fifteen men? Seems a bit excessive does it not and illogical?" Lord Kaelan continued.
"Perhaps Lord Morris knew there was no case to find my guilty My Lords," she responded looking about the room full of men, "I am but a widow, with hardly enough men to work my fields and no motivation to kill innocents. It seemed to be a difficult association to make; therefore he panicked, knowing that I knew whom the real killer was."
"And how did you know Lady Lockwood?" King Henry interrupted from behind, his voice echoing throughout the hall.
The men turned in their seats to acknowledge the king, while Lyanna seemed unfazed as she replied, "He threatened me, himself, weeks past and confessed his crime." Part of her knew there was no point in fear now. If she was going to hang, she'd do it knowing that she didn't cower in her last few hours of life.
The King continued, "Why would he do a thing such as that?"
"Perhaps he thought for sure that the court would take the word of a man over that of a widow but he didn't account for the chamber's blind sense of justice," she added somewhat poignantly.
Henry replied, not amused with her tongue and cheek remarks, "And Lord Bosse? What was his involvement in this situation?"
"I could not say for sure, Your Grace. I only know what I was told from Lord Morris and there was no mention of Lord Bosse."
"Do you think him capable of murdering Lord Bosse?" Lord Kaelen interrupted. At this moment he seemed to be the only member of the chamber present that wasn't convinced of her guilt.
"He came to my rooms and stabbed me repeatedly with a dull knife, he orchestrated the murders of fifteen men on my lands... yes I think him to be more than capable," her voice droned out, reverberating over the walls as a damning judgment.
"Are you capable of murder, Lady Lockwood?" Lord Kaelen replied, somewhat more quietly.
Yes, she knew in her mind. If she had to kill to live or kill to keep Lilly, Elspeth or Katerina safe, she was more than capable of murder.
"No, My Lord." Her response seemed to hang in the air for minutes, the men staring back at her as if they were waiting for her true confession or individually deciding if they believed a word from her mouth.
Finally, King Henry nodded to the guards by the door to come and assist Lyanna, "Very well you may go."
Lyanna trying her best to play her part, fully leaned on the guard as he escorted her from the great vaulted room, into the halls where Arthur had disappeared but Niklaus had taken his place. As she was guided into another chair, she tried to read his face for an outcome, but he was expressionless as he ignored her, entering the chambers.
When the doors closed behind him, Lyanna again felt that nagging feeling of worry. Perhaps he would change his mind after their confrontation. Mayhaps this was all some strange means to an end that she didn't understand and he was inside now, unravelling the lies he'd showed her how to spin.
Looking to the two guards that were posted at the doors, to the others that littered the halls, she thought briefly that wherever Arthur lurked he's surely not attempt a confrontation with her in front of so many witnesses, especially when his presence was still such a mystery.
Time seemed to drag on forever as the noon sun fell to the opposite horizon. Lyanna had started to nervously react to every minor sound from within. Minutes felt like hours and hours felt like days as she imagined all the different holes in her story, picturing the Lords conspiring against her, Niklaus setting her up to find the reaper's blade. She might have gone mad with waiting when the doors to the chambers opened.
"Lady Lockwood, you may enter," bellowed out into the halls.
Lyanna tried to straighten herself as a guard offered her his arm, somewhat roughly taking her back in to meet her fate. The men that had two hours previous looked lively and refreshed now looked tired. Niklaus was gone, having exited through another door, leaving Lyanna along with King Henry, his guards and Lyanna's prosecutors.
"Lady Lockwood," Lord Kaelan began, "It is by recommendation of the Starred Chambers and final decision of King Henry that you have been pardoned from the crimes you have been accused of against the crown."
Lyanna let out a slow deep breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding, her clammy hands gripping her dress. She was innocent. How was she innocent? When she had stood amongst these men and answered their questions it felt as though she didn't have an alley in the room. Now suddenly she was pardoned.
"I shall hope to not hear anything more from you," King Henry called out, his voice that of a father's warning to a child.
Curtseying Lyanna nodded her head, sure she was shaking from shock or relief. The next few minutes were a blur as she was corralled from the room, back down the long winding halls she'd travelled down that morning. Lyanna had survived the Starred Chambers. Few, had lived to tell of a visit. She could have finally breathed easy if she hadn't been grabbed suddenly in the middle of the hall.
"I will escort the Lady from here," a harsh voice, called out to the guard. Lyanna felt a chill run up her spine, when she turned to see Arthur looking back at her.
"No, you will not. I have orders from the king," the guard answered.
"Then a word?" His hand clamped down hard on Lyanna's arms, bruising the skin under it as freshly healed blood vessel popped. Before the guard could reply Arthur leaned in close, his voice dropping as his threats susurrated against Lyanna's ear, "He may have bought you from death now, but a man can only spare you so many times, Lady Lockwood. Soon his fortune or patience will run thin and then I'll be waiting for you."
The guard was tugging Lyanna away before she could respond. Arthur remained standing there, a sick smile on his face as Lyanna scowled at him. Nothing would ever be over between them. Either Lyanna had to die or Arthur, but not both would live in Scrathclyde.
Entering the carriage Lyanna tried not to be surprised to find Niklaus waiting for her. What, did she expect for him to hire another carriage to take him back to Scrathclyde, for him to run along outside, beside the wheels?
When the carriage door shut and they pulled away from Westminster, the tension in the could have been cut with a knife. So many things left unsaid and too many already spoken: words that couldn't be taken back.
Like children they looked out their respective windows, ignoring the other. Both were too proud to make the first move, until Lyanna could take it no more: Arthur's accusations clouding her mind.
"They had no intention of letting me go did they?"
She watched him carefully as he didn't respond pretending to ignore her until he finally shook his head, No.
Here for a few brief moments Lyanna thought he'd beaten the Starred Chambers, the wolves, all of it by herself only to realize that Arthur was right. The thought of it made her want to choke on her own bile. Hadn't Niklaus told her, she'd die without his aide? She swore he was wrong but it turned out, as per usual he was right. Which could only mean one thing, Arthur hadn't been lying.
"Did you buy me?"
The streets of London rolled by as Niklaus's fingers toyed with the window dressing, "I wouldn't call it that."
More direct, Lyanna asked again, "Did you?"
There was a long pause before Niklaus responded, "Yes…." He'd considered last minute changing his mind. Somewhere between her private conversation with Henry and his own audience, the thought filtered in and out of his mind more than a few times. Had she not asked him to untangle himself from her affairs? How she would have soon discovered what life was like without his aide. He pondered writing her off as she seemed to so easily do so with him. He'd find another, right? Lyanna was just some human, there was an entire world full of them. He could have anything he wanted, Queens, Ladies, the most exquisite courtesans in the world, tavern girls, the unobtainable, all of it could be his. What did he need with Lyanna Lockwood? Surely he could find better...
"How much did you pay?" It seemed the more he tried to avoid her gaze, the more intently she stared at him. Not willing to be ignored or play his games, especially in light of the things they had last said to one another. Lyanna didn't wish to owe Niklaus anything, "I said how much?"
"I wouldn't concern yourself with it," he finally answered.
"I'll decide what it is that I should concern myself with."
He knew she would be unrelenting if he didn't respond. And part of him wanted to continue to be evasive. Although her tone was somewhat hostile, at the very least she was speaking to him, acknowledging his presence. Sometimes even anger was better than indifference. Then again, sometimes a man wanted something more than just a person's hostility, he'd settled for much less before. He wanted more from Lyanna, even if he couldn't admit it to himself, "A fair price."
"And what is a fair price for my life? Tell me, Niklaus. I will pay the debt," she answered reaching into her belongings, as if to make note of whatever amount he quoted.
"No need."
"No, how much?" she insisted. Arthur's words echoed in her mind, he may have bought you from death now, but a man can only spare you so many times, Lady Lockwood. Soon his fortune or patience will run thin and then I'll be waiting for you.
"The picture, the one from the ball…."
"The one you painted?"
"Yes…."
"That was the price?" He purchased her freedom for the price of the painting? Although beautiful, she couldn't imagine its value being near what Arthur had hinted.
"No, the villa from the painting, that was the price… and more."
Lyanna's fingers curled around the parchment that sat in her lap. The estate from the painting? It looked as though it were perhaps twice the size of Greyshaw Manor, and more? What was the more? What more could King Henry want? She'd never be able to repay that kind of expense. Why would he waste something so valuable?
As he watched her grapple with his admission, he sought to direct the conversation away from things that were done. He was right, she did need him. Lyanna had survived because he had made it possible. There was a moment he could have ended it all right there. The justice would have been swift, her head rolling as the carriage meandered back to Scrathclyde with only he in it. But when given that opportunity to show her just how wrong she was, how foolish she had been, being right just didn't seem to matter as much anymore. He'd bought her freedom and that was that. There was nothing more to discuss on that matter. So instead he blurted out, "Did you love him?"
The non-sequitur seemed quite out of place but it was something Niklaus had been pondering on and off all morning. After Lyanna died, while she was in and out of sleep, the King's Physician said that she'd called for her former husband. Not Elijah, not him, but Nathaniel. In her sleep she'd murmured his name more than a dozen times. The thought of it was enough to make Niklaus's skin crawl and perhaps that was why he was quick to point out her husband's misgivings in their argument. To prove that perhaps like his brother, her husband was not worthy of the attention, the affection she still felt for him.
If Niklaus were capable of being honest with himself, impartial, he would realize she was right. He was juvenile often in his reactions and some things would never change. His impulsiveness, selfishness would always define him.
"Why ask when you don't care?" she questioned, flatly.
"I don't….." he snapped. But he did and it was clear to both no matter what he said that Nathaniel, Elijah, any other man was a point of contention with him and always would be.
The carriage rocked and swayed as they moved over uneven roads. Lyanna knew she owed him nothing when it came to Nathaniel. It was before they had met and started whatever it was that they seemed to be doing. But she had asked him of Katerina, hadn't she?
"You were never wed…. It's forever, Niklaus… no matter what."
Forever, no matter what, what did Lyanna know of forever? It was still fresh in her mind perhaps in some ways. After he changed her, after they had spent enough time together, her late husband would fade as would his brother. Niklaus refused to believe otherwise.
"Things change…."
"You may think me a widow… a pathetic little bastard and you're right. I won't correct you. I was pathetic because I didn't know any better."
Niklaus suddenly felt mildly uncomfortable. Having his own accusations listed back to him. Suddenly they didn't sound nearly as justified. They didn't make him feel as vindicated when they came from Lyanna's mouth.
"You were right. I could smell her on him and even if I couldn't, I could see it on his face. Stupid little girl, right?"
He replied, flatly, very logically, "What should have you done?"
Eyebrows raised, emotionless she answered, as if she were telling someone else's story, "He would've left me for her…. Three years we were wed and we never had any children. You know how the pack feels about children... the Lockwood line," she added sarcastically, trying to seem amused before she continued, "He knew… I could tell from the way he looked at me: disappointed. But it was too late…. It's forever… when you wed in the church. They told him not to… but he did anyhow…."
"Perhaps that's why he did." Did he not know years ago about Tatia? Did he not know the road of folly he was travelling down? And did he not go just the same, almost out of spite: to always be one step behind Elijah, one behind Finn and someday the same with Kol. He was always on the outside looking in. Long before he knew what warranted such thoughts, perceptions. He wanted Tatia for many reasons. He loved her for ones he could no longer remember, that no longer mattered. But he knew what he felt then. If she wanted him, if he could just have her, then he meant something. That she would choose him over Elijah. That he should be the one wanted.
Lyanna nodded her head, not saying anything, looking instead out the window as a heavy silence fell over them. She was still angry. Furious at him for many reasons, but some of it was true. What he had accused her of, the things he had said. He was right about Nathaniel. She just didn't wish to hear it.
"A great while ago, there was someone…" Niklaus started and then trailed off. Why was he saying these things? He not spoken of Tatia to anyone other than Elijah and only under the most strained of circumstances.
"The woman you loved?"
"Perhaps I thought I did…" more he knew he did, but he couldn't remember what it exactly felt like- to care for Tatia. He remembered the need but the rest seemed irrelevant, foolish. Whatever emotions he'd had about her, the loss, other things he preferred to not think of- his human life, he'd buried it in a tattered room full of dead rodents and broken furniture. He'd left it with an old woman who'd cursed him outside her cottage. Hannah, whose face Lyanna wore now.
"And now?"
"Time is a blessing…."
Eventually he'd moved to a place where the thought of Tatia no longer elicited the kind of bitter humiliation it once had. He could look at the doppelganger and be unfazed by Tatia's face staring back. If Lyanna had died, he'd reassured himself before he entered the Starred Chambers that she would be the same. Soon with enough time, a few great fucks, the curse broken and she'd easily fade.
"And Katerina?" It was sore point for them both, it seemed she would bring up Katerina and he'd be forced to inquire about Elijah. What were they really doing? Beneath the accusations, the finger pointing, harsh words, wasn't that the real question?
"What would like me to say Lyanna?" he drawled, disinterested. This again? Jealous over a night a gratification? If she only knew the women he'd fucked, killed and fed from alone in these three months. The doppelganger was only another in the blur. Perhaps Tatia's face, but not her just the same. A distinction his brother had yet to make. Katerina was another warm body, nothing more. Had she come to him again, he would not deny her, nor would he seek her out.
"You said the prostitute, that she was a means to an end… and Katerina… are we all just a means to an end for you Niklaus? You claim that I am insincere but are you not as well?"
He smiled briefly for a moment, wondering if she truly could read his mind. Lyanna, always one thought ahead of him.
"You think me insincere, Lyanna, in all my intentions or just with you?"
Suddenly she felt rather foolish, like a child asking if she were liked. Didn't she know Niklaus well enough to know by now that she had role in whatever game he was playing and that, that role was certainly not as a companion, or an equal and furthermore not a role that she should seek? When the last move was made, her worth to him; could only be measured by how much she furthered his cause.
And what happened when she was no longer of use to him? I am someone to you today, but what about tomorrow?
"Am I yours now? Now that you've bought me like a cow in pasture."
"Saved you, Lyanna…." he corrected, quietly. Why must she take every act he did and point out its selfishness, passing over any altruism he may have intended- any act of caring? Again, that was the problem with Lyanna. Sure there were others. If Lyanna had died, he had reassured himself time and time again that there would be plenty of distractions waiting for him in the near future. The only problem was none of them would be Lyanna. He resented the lack of trust she had in him but admired it all the same. It wasn't Lyanna he resented, it was more the game. She'd always know him a little well, sensed his true intentions. And that truth, the ugliness of it, no matter how minor compared to all of his other sincere intentions with her, would always be the drop blood in the water, clouding everything else between them.
"Was it worth it? What worth can my life be to you, Niklaus?"
More than the villa, the money he'd paid for her. Lyanna was worth more than Harte Manor, worth more than any alliance still left with Elijah, who would surely seethe with anger when he knew of Klaus's plans to turn her. There would be centuries ahead of him, alone, Elijah pulling away, Kol and Rebekah already doing so. But he'd have Lyanna, even if she hated him for a time, he'd have her and his army of hybrids.
She was worth more than she could imagine. Enough that he was tempting fate, going against Ines's poignant warning, all the information he knew of Lyanna and what she really was.
Silence fell over the carriage as they rode for close to an hour without his response. Niklaus unsure of how to continue, how to bring her back, when she'd chosen to distance herself so far from him. He didn't know how to have someone love you, without compulsion, without force, but instead naturally. It was something he never knew he'd have a desire for and now it seemed to be next to the only thing he wanted: Lyanna's affection and the curse broken.
In the quiet that lulled between them, he thought not of the doppelganger, the full moon or all the other more pressing matters soon to be unravelled. But instead it was Lyanna's words that echoed through his mind: what worth can I be to you?
Wasn't Lyanna right to question? Only she didn't understand the accusations swimming in his mind brought up an attempted forgotten story of Jacob and Rachael, the yammering tale of pity that the priest had laminated on for hours one Sabbath morning when Niklaus sat hungry and irritated in the abbey. He used to attend just to see Lyanna. He'd sit through hours of fairytales, the smell of warm blood pounding around him in temptation, just for the chance to get a glimpse of her, to keep tabs on the widow and perhaps be at the biting end of a sharp remark.
Father Hall's vexing voice coming back to him: "So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her."
Seven years for a wife? It seemed at the time a great expense of effort for little reward. Only now did he understand Jacob's plight.
"A great deal more than you can imagine."
Breaking the silence between them, he thought that perhaps she'd fallen asleep or hadn't heard him- forgotten the context of their previous conversation until she replied, "And when I am worth no more to you? Then how shall you feel about your investment?"
There was something about the way she said it, that marked something beyond contempt. Lyanna wasn't angry, she wasn't bitter, she was convinced. That to Niklaus, she held the same worth as perhaps his doppelganger- a worth she knew nothing of, but expendable just the same. She assumed or knew enough to understand that they were all was just part of some plan. That perhaps every word he'd said to her, every confession no matter how compromising, was all a lie.
And Lyanna hated liars. Hadn't told him that many a time? Why would he never listen?
"Why do you think that you will eventually be nothing to me?" he pondered curiously aloud. It was as if she could hear the inner dialogue always playing in his mind. The push and pull to attempt to forget Lyanna.
"I am only human, Niklaus. I only have a limited purpose for you. I have a moonstone and that is why I am still here."
"I do not care about that moonstone. Give it to the wolves."
Lyanna opened her mouth to say something but instead chose to close it. She thought of calling his bluff or rather pointing out the fact that they both knew she would do no such thing. That stone was the last piece of freedom she had left and it was also what Arthur wanted more than anything- even the land. If she gave it to him, she would be giving up what the Lockwoods had protected for years and what would that make her? What protection would she have left? What use would her, Lilly and Katerina be to the Mikaelsons then?
They were perhaps only a few hours into their long journey. She had all day to ponder what that meant. Exhausted from the night before, her interaction with Arthur and her preparation for the courts, Lyanna leaned back into her seat and was fast asleep before she even realized she was tired.
It was well past dark when she woke. The oil lamp within the carriage had been lit, leaving the space in a dim hue. Reaching for her cloak, Lyanna found that she'd been covered, bundled tightly, keeping the chill at bay.
Groggy she looked about, her eyes settling on Niklaus as she realized suddenly why she was so warm. He'd taken off his cloak and wrapped it around her while she slept. Realizing she was awake he smiled back, as if he'd been waiting all day just for her to wake, perhaps just to be able to speak with her, for a short while.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"Most of the afternoon."
She peered out into the dark countryside, only the snow passing by the carriage lit by the outside lamps, visible when she realized they were deep into the countryside, "Will we stop?"
"No, we will go through the night. I know how eager you are to get home."
"Hm," she fumbled with the cloak, "Are you cold?" motioning to remove the heavy material.
"No, I am fine. Keep it."
"Was I shivering?"
"No, but I thought you might be cold." How was it that he could say such horrible things to her yesterday? How could he drive her to the brink of hatred and then bring her back so quickly? Niklaus was a strange man, one that could wound you with the harshest of words and then act so considerate, so caring in the next breath.
But was it all a lie? In 500 years he'd crafted a plethora of manipulative tools to use at his convenience. If he claimed he didn't care about the stone or what she did with it, what was the point of it all? "What was all of this for? The estate, the murder of the Lord Morris and Bosse, the girl…"
Niklaus had watched her sleep the entire afternoon, tracing and retracing her in his mind. He looked at her personal affects, tempted to read the book that her brother had loaned her, to understand why she had it with her so often. What did she write in those letters? Who were they to and what did they say? But he had finally decided to leave well enough alone, for the time being. Mayhaps it was best for him to leave a few things untold, undiscovered and keep the Lyanna he knew- the one that came to him that night, wrapped herself in his sheets the next morning, to himself.
"They were a means to an end... but not mine, yours."
He waited a few moments, the silence falling heavy around them. He'd tried to tell her in so many different ways. Hadn't he shown her? Everything that he'd done, all of the different ways he'd sought to spare her, "It was for you, Lyanna."
"Why?"
"Although you hate me, perhaps I do not care. You are right. I am selfish in my intentions and in my affections…."
"I do not hate you," she replied, although at times she wasn't so completely resolved on that matter. There were moments when she was sure, she'd rather see him curdle in misery than offer him a hand and she knew he felt the same.
"You are worth a great deal more than whatever price he would have asked and not because I wish to use you."
Jacob loved Rachel enough that the seven years felt like nothing but a few days. Klaus couldn't have understood it then for Father Hall never finished the lesson, but later he'd know it all too well. The few days that Jacob thought he toiled for Rachel were the easiest, because they still held some type of hope. But the loss of her, that lasted much longer than seven years.
"I would have bought you a thousand times, Lyanna."
Did he buy her to keep her, like some sort of possession, something for him to toy with until he was tired? A greater part of Lyanna wished to take him at his word, wholeheartedly, but part of her was still unsure. What exactly was he trying to say to her? The sentiment was nice but what did it really mean in the end?
The last real conversation that passed between them had started in the streets of London and would end only hours away from Greyshaw. The words tapering off for long periods when both seemed unsure, maybe scared, of what to say next. But when the morning sun peeked through the curtains of the carriage, glittering across Lyanna's face; she knew their time together, with just the two of them, no other complications, would soon be over.
She had perhaps asked him before, but never seriously, never with an investment in his answer. Now however, if she didn't ask, she was sure she'd always regret it, "You said once that you had loved… that she was never far. What did you mean by that?"
"You were right..." he acknowledged, somewhat seriously as if he was ready to begin a lengthy explanation but instead slowly continued, "I am avaricious, especially in my affections..."
She thought he'd leave at that, not say another word, always giving her some veiled confession but after sometime he finished, "I keep You close Lyanna and without apology."
In their last half hour together, Lyanna never responded to his answer. She was right when she knew this journey would be taxing, quite long, but never had she imagined they would leave Scrathclyde as they had days before and come back in the place they were with one another now or perhaps she had some inclination and that was what she truly feared.
When the carriage pulled in front of Greyshaw Manor, Lyanna gathered her things and returned Niklaus's cloak.
"Thank you," she acknowledged, before handing him a sealed letter. "You thought I forgot you..."
Niklaus looked down at the unmarked folded paper and then back to Lyanna.
"Never..." she finished, before accepting the coach man's hand as he helped her from the carriage.
The letter was stained with large ink blots and dated two days previous and simply read:
Whatever happens, I'll never regret you.
Lyanna
Hope, Niklaus had left for London with resentment and had come back with hope. Maybe it was a curse, something he couldn't control, all of it part of a greater plan to unravel his existence but he didn't care. At the very least, he'd quieted the demons that lurked never far from his forethoughts; telling himself that if he were cursed then at the very least Lyanna was as well.
Scrathclyde
1492 AD
Upon arriving back at Greyshaw, Lyanna was completely unaware that it was all Hallow's Eve. The women had been invited to Harte Manor for a dinner and the regular festivities for the holiday. Exhausted from the journey Lyanna attempted multiple times to politely refuse the offer, send the girls and stay behind, but Katerina and Lilly were adamant that she should attend.
Close to noon, Lyanna was left to her rooms, searching for a gown to wear to the dinner. Hallow's Eve was unlike any of the other festivities they would participate in throughout the year. The first time Lyanna had taken witch's leafs was during this holiday. They drank in excess, stayed up until dawn, looking out over the moors for spirits. But that was when she was younger, before Nathaniel died and she knew of her mother. That was before there were spirits to fear, the ones Lyanna now knew were present, lurking in the moors, looking for what would never be theirs again. Perhaps if she'd had more time, they would have purchased materials for better masks but for now she would have to make do with what they had. Katerina would take hers, and Lyanna would wear Nathaniel's.
She was piecing through her jewellery, thinking of the carriage ride, what Niklaus had said and what it all meant, when there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," she called out, thinking it to be Elspeth, Lilly or perhaps Katerina but to her surprise it was Trevor.
Clearing his throat, "Lady Lockwood, I hope I have not come at a bad time."
Looking up from her mountain of frocks, she hurriedly grabbed the nearest dress and pulled it to her chest, covering her chemise.
Embarrassed, she began, "Trevor, I apologize but this really is not appropriate-"
"I know, My Lady, but I must speak with you. It is urgent, for the sake of Katerina."
Lyanna still flustered, looked about the room and then back to Trevor, finally pointing to the two chairs by the hearth she instructed, "Come, and let us sit."
Awkwardly she laid the dress over her legs and chest, skin pinking slightly from embarrassment but Trevor seemed to be completely unaware. Lyanna had no sooner sat when he begun, the words spilling from his mouth, "Lyanna, the Mikaelsons are not what you think."
The use of her first name was strange, never once could she remember Trevor addressing her by Lyanna.
She smiled, almost irritated, "I am well aware of they are, Trevor, as well as you, but still you have been invited into my home."
"I was not referring to that fact, Lyanna. I was speaking to the nature of the moonstone and the curse. What you have been told, whatever it might be, I assure you, it is not the truth."
Lyanna pressed her lips together; she should have never allowed Trevor around any of them. She should have always sensed that there was something wrong with him, that he was inhuman, "I know that Katerina is the doppelganger, Trevor. I know that the wolves want the moonstone but I have no intention of giving them either Miss Petrova or the stone."
"The wolves?" he questioned looking at her strangely for a moment, forehead wrinkling, "You mean Klaus?"
Lyanna smoothed the wrinkles of the dress she was using to cover herself. So this was his great reveal? Placating him, she replied patiently, "Yes I am aware that you want the moonstone as well to prevent the wolves from breaking the curse."
Trevor looked at her so strangely that she wondered if they were even having the same conversation. "They do not want the stone Lyanna, they have it. They want Katerina."
His words echoed through the room, slow and long, falling over her like a heavy weight, they have it. They had what?
Impossible! her mind screamed, racing a mile a minute suddenly. Her hands instantly became clammy as she pictured the moonstone no longer where she'd hidden it- its place of safe keeping empty. It wasn't possible that they had taken the moonstone. She'd checked on it the moment she'd arrived home. The brothers had already departed.
Her hands gripped the material of the gown, shaking, her heart pounding so loud that it was throbbing in her ears, "Impossible. I have the moonstone," she whispered.
Trevor shook his head, watching her as her skin flushed pink with anxiety, the gravity of the situation setting in, "Then it is not the real moonstone that you are carrying Lyanna. There have been many fakes over the centuries and I assure you, if anyone has the original it is the Mikaelsons and if they wanted that moonstone, they would have taken it from you already. They know each and every thing that happens in this house. The boy, the dirty little one that you call Simon- he has been keeping track of your movements. And he is likely not the only person in Greyshaw Manor doing so at this very moment."
"Simon?" The boy that ran in the kitchens? Suddenly Lyanna felt a wave of nausea come over her. Was it any wonder that Niklaus seemed to know all that happened behind these walls? How sickening, the perversion of it all, to not give her, Katerina or Lilly a moment of privacy. He was holding them captive even when they thought they were safe.
"They want Katerina," he finished.
No, he had promised her that they didn't want Kat. Elijah had promised Lyanna that they only had an interest in her, for the sake of the wolves. Elijah would never lie to her so blatantly. He was kind and loyal. Shaking her head, she replied, "Why would they want, Kat? Too keep her from the wolves?"
"Yes and to break the curse for themselves, for us," he motioned to himself, amazed that she would know what they were and have thought any different, that the brothers' involvement with the women of Greyshaw could have been anything benign or benevolent.
Humans, they trusted so blindly.
Stammering, the words rushed from Lyanna's mouth, trying to find some way to contradict what Trevor was telling her, "So you can walk in the daylight? You already walk in the sun, Trevor."
Raising his hand, he pointed to the ring he wore, "Yes, because Rose and I were given rings for a short period of time. But not forever and if the curse is broken then we can control the werewolves. They are the only enemy we have, Lyanna."
It had all been a lie. Lyanna's heart, racing moments before, slowed to a crawl, the cold chill of reality, foolishness creeping over her skin. Rising from her chair, the gown slid to the floor, where it would remain. In a daze, lost her own thoughts, she no longer cared that she was standing in her chemise in front of Trevor. What did it matter anyhow?
She wandered over to the window, looking out over the moors to the Manor that sat in the distance. Every… single… word… had been a lie that she had fallen so soundly for, so pathetically.
Images of her and Niklaus in London, that first night, the way he looked at her, "You will always be the exception, Lyanna."
Still in shock, she stared at the fog rolling over the moors, the sky looked as though it threatened rain or snow, "How do I know you are not lying to me?"
"That night they found you in the woods with the wolves, Ines told me of it."
"The old woman?" The one, she had met that day in Harte Manor, before she knew anything about who they really were.
"Yes, the witch. They brought her to Scrathclyde to assist with the spell. She told me that Niklaus and Kol found you and Lilly in the woods."
Her fingers touched the glass, sounds of Lilly screaming still fresh in her mind, burnt fur and flesh, the smell of blood, "Yes they came for the stone," or perhaps not, she thought now.
"They came for you and Lilly. They were holding Katerina and intended to do the sacrifice that night," he answered calmly. Trevor acted as if every word from his mouth wasn't just as damning of his actions as they were the Mikaelsons.
Lilly, her sweet sister, who was too young to have to know these types of things, "If all they needed was the stone, which apparently they have and Katerina, why would they need Lilly and I?"
"He needs a werewolf for the sacrifice. He intended to kill Lilly."
Lyanna closed her eyes, a taste so acrid filling her mouth that she could have sworn it was bile. They had come not for the stone, but for Lilly. Kol had come for Lilly and Niklaus to kill Lyanna. But didn't she already know this?
He'd always wanted her dead, the reality of that truth seemed to forever be attempting to sink into her mind but never succeeding.
"Then why not do it? There was an entire forest full of wolves. He could have had his pick."
"Klaus is nothing if not precise, Lord Mikaelson, when sure of something will always follow through. He decided that you and Lilly would die and he fully intends to finish the task." Trevor shifted in his seat, almost imitating human action.
Lyanna looked over at him and the ring he wore. She thought for a brief moment of what would happen if she ripped it from his finger. Would he burst into flames or would he suffer slowly? "Then why not let the wolves kill us? They could take Katerina if they wished. Why not just let us die?"
"I do not know. I am the messenger. I found Katerina. That was my task."
Yes, Lyanna decided, she would like to see Trevor burn, but not as much as she would Niklaus. "And now what do you want? Why are you telling me this?"
"I love Katerina. I do not wish to see her die. And if you go to that dinner tonight, all of you will perish the following evening. They have no intention of letting you go."
The dinner, all Hallow's Eve, of course they were intent to have them come: all of them. The girls so excited for something that was meant to be their end.
How fitting, Lyanna thought, at the very least no one could accuse the Mikaelson brothers of not having a sense of humour: to bring them to a Hallow's Eve celebration and then kill them on All Saints Day. But they were far from saints. The women wouldn't be made martyrs, especially not her. Lyanna was far from innocent. Had it not been her responsibility to protect Lilly and Katerina? And had she not failed them both miserably?
"Then we will stay here. Katerina and Lilly, they can leave."
"They would hunt them down like dogs on the road, before they even saw a hut in that village."
"Then what do you suggest? That we stay here? For how long?" she laughed at the absurdity. They would stay and all await their fates, not fighting, just giving up. How pathetic, that she should outmanoeuvre the wolves to have them all die a more gruesome death at the hands of their supposed allies.
"They need the full moon to perform the sacrifice."
And the full moon was on All Saints Day. Again, how appropriate. Niklaus flashed through her mind, God, how convincing he could be. How she'd known the entire time, could feel that something was always wrong but she'd ignored it when she should have listened. "We cannot stay in our home, Trevor, they have been invited in."
They needed a plan. Trevor may have told her the truth, but how would it serve them in the end if nothing could be done about it? "We are going to the dinner tonight."
Lilly, she only had another full night before she would turn again. If they were to act they would have to tonight, when she was still able to control herself.
"Lyanna-" he started but was quieted when she held up her hand stopping him.
"You will not say a word to Katerina. She is coming as well." Lilly would not be coming to dinner that evening but Katerina must. If she did not, they would know. Suddenly like pieces of a puzzle, she started to work out in her mind how she would save Lilly and Katerina. She had to. Did she not owe them at the very least that? It was her responsibility to protect them and she'd failed completely.
Rising from his chair, he was in front of Lyanna in less than seconds, hands on her shoulders giving her a quick shake as if to bring her from her stupor, "Have you not heard a word I am telling you?"
Lilly would leave in the day light. They would never expect it. "Perfectly clear, if I do not have the moonstone, then where is the moonstone?" she responded quickly. Lyanna needed rapid thoughts, fast plans, anything to keep her from thinking of the lies she'd been told.
"He keeps it in a room on the first level, across from the library. No one from the house is allowed in, it's where he paints. There is a desk, the bottom drawer," Trevor stopped looking off into the distance as if he were receiving his information from somewhere else (Ines), "There is a false bottom in the drawer, under something. He keeps it there."
Searching Trevor's face, she realized then that she had no other choice but to rely on him. If he was deceiving her, they would all die and if he wasn't perhaps Lilly and Katerina would live, "I will send a carriage back with Katerina. You will be waiting here for her. When I return from the Harte Manor-"
"They will never let you leave," Trevor interrupted, trying to plead with her.
Shaking his grasp from her shoulders, she continued more forcefully, "When, Katerina returns to Greyshaw Manor, you will wait with her until I return. I will tell her."
"And what good can the knowledge of certain death if nothing will be done about it?" He had come to her to make a plan to give her the option to run when he took Katerina, not for her to let Kat die.
"Katerina will live Trevor. She needs that moonstone. They cannot perform the spell without it. When she has the moonstone, you will take her into the woods." Walking across the room, she continued sorting through her dresses, as if nothing had changed.
She would have to pretend that nothing had changed. She would have to stay calm for Lilly. She would have to appear unaffected for Katerina.
"It is too close to a full moon," he protested, "If something were to happen to me, if Elijah or Klaus were to discover… there will be no hope for her."
Pulling a black frock from the pile, one she had worn when she was in mourning, she answered, "There is a cottage, in the woods. A widow lives there."
"Grace…"
"I will send Lilly to and Elspeth to the abbey..." she rattled off to herself, thinking of how she would possible try to explain to them.
Interrupting, Trevor replied, "And Katerina...?"
"Yes, no wolf will track you there and no vampire can be let in unless invited. You will tell her that I have sent you. " Walking to the table across the room, she plucked the pen out of the ink well, pulling a piece of parchment from the dwindling stack. Quickly she scribbled a message, signing her name.
"You will give this to her."
"Can she read?"
Exasperated, she answered, "Yes, she can read. You will give this to her and she will allow you inside."
Taking the letter from her hand, he replied, "And Elijah and Klaus?"
Enemies, Lyanna had so many enemies and what had she done to earn such a fate? Perhaps all of her ghosts would be put to rest on all Hallow's Eve.
"They will have other concerns…."
How do you tell someone you love, that you will never see them again? It was simple, you do not. Lyanna had only one choice and it was to lie to Lilly and Elspeth.
How Lyanna hated liars.
She had drawn them both into her rooms, placing rags under the door, to muffle their voices further. From the look on her face, Lilly and Elspeth knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. Wearing a grave expression, Lyanna's hands clenched and unclenched, her skin looking almost ashen. After Trevor had left, she'd tried to compose herself before she sought out both women. She'd tried to order her thoughts so that she may be as composed as possible when facing them. If she panicked they would as well.
But the thoughts, all of the horrible thoughts: angry, bitter, disturbed, shamed, anguish and mourning. If Lyanna allowed herself she might drown in mourning of all her beautiful illusions, the lies that she'd so easily believed. She would have allowed rage to consume her at the mere thought of Elijah but especially Niklaus.
Lyanna tried to think of the best way possible to explain to Elspeth that she had been right all along. She tried to find the words to explain to Lilly that Kol did not care for her as it may seem, that his intentions towards her were in fact much more sinister. Finally it was Elspeth that asked if it was all about the stone. And it was then that Lyanna had to explain that the Mikaelsons were not at all what they had led the women to believe.
Horror spread over Lilly's face when she explained, "The stone they want is not the one that we have and it is not just the wolves that want it."
Reaching for Lilly's hand, the girl stared back at her blankly, confused, the wheels in her mind beginning to turn. Standing, Elspeth muttered something in Gaelic, knowing exactly where Lyanna was going with this conversation, "I knew we should have never trusted the blood suckers."
Gripping her finger, Lilly looked at Lyanna as if she were still wholly confused, "What do you mean?"
"They want Katerina dead, Lilly." The thought had been tossed back and forth hundreds of times in her mind since Trevor's revelation, but hearing those words from her own lips were surprising. Lilly sat, mouth open, holding her breath, completely confused.
Cautiously, Lyanna continued, "If they sacrifice her, they break the spell for themselves."
If they sacrifice her?! What did that even mean? Lilly thought.
In that moment Lyanna regretted greatly that she'd kept Katerina's secret, the prophecy of the doppelganger to herself and never told another soul. As she recanted the things she'd hidden from Lilly and Elspeth, she could feel her stomach roll and knot. The look of pure betrayal on Lilly's face: that she knew of a possible cure for the werewolves, that this is what they truly wanted, why Arthur and the pack sought the moonstone and she'd kept it from her.
Somewhere in the midst of Lyanna's explanation, Lilly dropped her hand, pushing herself slightly away. The disconnect was small, but it felt like an ocean had suddenly divided them. A body of lies, no rather omissions, but deceit just the same.
"They already walk in the sun," Lilly answered, her voice hollow and flat.
Knowing that she'd have to accept Lilly's reaction, whatever anger or bitterness she felt towards Lyanna because she had every right, she sighed softly and replied, "They will have control of the werewolves."
"They plan to kill, Katerina?" Elspeth questioned out of nowhere, standing in the corner of the room, completely silent moments earlier.
Nodding her head, Lyanna turned to Lilly, waiting until the she acknowledged her, "And you as well and me…. They need a werewolf Lilly to complete the sacrifice."
How many times had he lied to her? Lilly's mind swam: images of Kol, things they'd promised one another. The muscles in her in her thighs and forearms twitched, clenching and unclenching, as a wave of rage trickled through her.
Run with me, Lilly, he had told her. He'd promised her something he never intended to fulfil. He had weaved an illusion so elaborated that she'd fallen for it without thought. She'd allowed him into her bed. She'd told him things she'd never even admitted to Katerina or Lyanna. And he'd known the entire time. Kol had been plotting all along to kill her, well technically her, Lyanna and Katerina.
If she saw him in that moment she would have left a track of bite marks so vile, his body would've rot from the inside out with her poison as her mind had with his.
Closing her eyes, her nails dug into the fabric of her gown. Long slow, deep breaths and thoughts of murderous rage, consumed her for minutes. But if she didn't control herself, this close to the full moon, she'd move into a fit. Lilly would be throwing furniture, venting her rage on Lyanna or possibly Elspeth, which would help no one at the moment. Finally she replied, "What will we do?"
Looking to both women, she knew that the rest of what she said would be met with immediate obstinacy and denial, "You are leaving, both you and Elspeth."
"No," both women echoed in unison.
"I will not leave without you, Lyanna," Lilly, snapped more than pleaded, Lyanna watching the veins of her neck bulge as she tried to control herself.
"I will not leave the land," Elspeth concluded as well.
And now had come the difficult part, the elaborate lie she would have to tell both women in order to save them from what she had planned, "You must. If we wait too long, it will be too close to the full moon Lilly and then you will never be able to go."
Looking to the elderly woman, that had raised her as her own child, she started, "I want you to take Lilly, Elspeth."
"No-"she quickly interrupted. Elspeth would rather die herself, than let anything happen to Lyanna.
Rising from her seat she met her foster mother half way, reaching out for her hand, gripping it as hard as she could- trying to hold on to their last bit of time together, "Listen to me. I want you to take Lilly. I you go into the village, to the abbey," reaching inside her dress she withdrew a piece of parchment and placed a letter inside Elspeth's hand, "You will give this to Father Hall as soon as you arrive."
"I will not leave without you," Elspeth answered sharply, as Lilly sat dazed staring off into the distance, so much hatred swirling in her thoughts that she was consumed.
"I am leaving with Katerina, after the feast. Someone must go with her, yes? And we cannot all vanish at once," Lyanna replied smiling, still gripping Elspeth's hand, almost trying to laugh the matter off, because for all they knew, they were all leaving and they would all meet again soon.
"Now, Lilly… Lilly!" she called out to her a little more forcefully, bringing the girl from her temporary stupor.
"Yes?"
"I… I want you to get me the blade over there," she pointed to the small table by the bed, "In the drawer. There are men all over this house, eyes for the Mikaelsons and we…" she hesitated, fear and worry creeping into her voice for a moment before she began again, "We cannot very well have you walk out of here in plain sight now can we?"
Turning back to Elspeth she dropped her hand, "I need you to do a few things. Please go to Jon in the stables and bring him here, also ask him to borrow some of his clothing. We will need it for Lilly."
Standing beside her now, Lilly held out the blade, "What is this for?"
"To cut your hair, Love. We are going to dress you as a man and you will leave during the distraction." As she guided her to the chair by the only mirror she had in the room, she stopped Elspeth whom was standing at the door, "One more thing…." Lyanna hesitated, "The reserves that we have of the Vervain as well as the Wolfsbane. I need you to do a spell, Elspeth…" her fingers laced through Lilly's beautiful long dark, curly hair, stringing it out before she began cutting through it, "I need you to multiply it, ten times the quantity we have now. And… spread it, around on the perimeter of the Manor. No one else, Elspeth, only you."
"They will know something is wrong Lyanna," Elspeth started, her face, contorting into a grimace of worry.
"Not if they are distracted with other things…."
As Elspeth left to gather Jon from the stable and do the things requested, Lilly watched as her beautiful hair drifted to the ground in Lyanna's rooms. When it was done, there was nothing left but a pile next to the chair and the short, curly strands that sat on top of her head.
Looking at Lyanna in the mirror, Lilly grabbed her hand, garnering her attention, "Tell me that everything will be okay, Lyanna."
To her sister she smiled, warm and comforting, "Of course, Love. Everything will be just fine, you'll see."
Perhaps the easiest part was done, telling Lilly and Elspeth, convincing them that they needed to run, preparing for all the parts of her plan was simplest. Her conversation with Jon would be hard. They needed a distraction. Something to warrant loose lips instead of prying eyes and there was no one else that she could ask (not that she could have ever before imagined herself doing so) than Jon.
When he'd nervously entered her rooms, hat in his dirty hands, eyes cast to the ground, he refused to sit, saying instead, "I wouldn't wish to ruin your lovely things Milady."
"You would not be ruining a thing, Jon. Please do sit. I need to speak with you."
Lyanna had hardly begun fumbling through her story, getting to her difficult request when he cut her short, "It seems to me, Milady, that something needs to happen."
When she finally asked, stumbling through her reasoning, her apology, her pleas for his forgiveness, he stopped her again, "Milady, I knew you as a child. I knew your husband and I served his father as well. It would be an honour."
There were few times that there was honour in death but for the stable master, there was little he could do except offer his own life. When the rope wrapped around Jon's neck and he stood atop the chair that supported his weight, there wasn't a moment's hesitation, as he rocked his hips side to side, eventually tipping the only thing left supporting him. When his neck snapped there was a not person there to say goodbye to the old man, but when his body was discovered not an hour later, there were mouths all over Greyshaw Manor uttering his name for the first time. So consumed were the people of the house, with gossip, telling tales of the sad old man that worked in the stables, they didn't notice Elspeth walked the perimeters of the house, spreading her oils over the light layer of snow that covered the ground.
They were so distracted that no one noticed when Elspeth loaded herself into the wagon accompanied by a young man, dressed in ragged breeches and a heavy cloak, his face mostly covered. With only moments to spare before someone would see them, Lyanna grabbed Lilly so hard, that she knocked the wind out of the young girl.
"I love you, Lilly. I love so dearly."
"Promise me you will stay safe, Lyanna. Promise me no matter what, you will run, you will meet us south on the Isle of Man."
"Yes I promise Lilly," she answered, kissing her forehead, holding on to her for the last few seconds they would have together. But it was a promise she'd never keep. Lilly unknowingly held the key to Lyanna's death in her hands. The letter addressed to Father Hall that asked him to broker with the wolves, to go to Arthur that evening and tell him that she would hand over the stone in exchange for Lilly's release, for the men to not stop either her or Elspeth on the road.
Quickly Lyanna released her, pushing Lilly forward towards Elspeth, whom she'd already cried over and said a lengthy goodbye to in her rooms.
"I loved you, like you were my own," the elderly woman had told her, cradling Lyanna like she did when she was still a child.
"I was yours, Elspeth. I will always be yours. You are my mother."
As Elspeth and Lilly started boarding the wagon, Lyanna had begun rushing back towards the house, hiding out of view from anyone that might've been looking out over the property. She shouldn't have even come out to say goodbye but if she had nothing else, for the rest of the time that she'd live, she needed those last few moments with Lilly.
Standing by the wagon, with her head partially down, Lilly looked back to where she knew Lyanna stood hidden from sight, tears streaming down her face.
We will meet again soon, soon we will meet, she told herself repeatedly, as Elspeth tugged her up into the wagon. As they rolled away, Lilly couldn't help herself. She looked back at Greyshaw Manor, the only home she'd ever had and to the spot where Lyanna stood and wept openly. She never had a chance to say goodbye to Katerina. But wouldn't she see her again?
Lilly swore to herself, it was only for a short while before they were all reunited once more.
Entering the grand entry way of Harte Manor, Lyanna helped Katerina with her cloak. Hands shaking, she attempted a few low deep breaths, her stomach so knotted from anger and hatred that she could hardly breathe.
"What is that?" Katerina questioned, as she fixed the string that kept the wooden mask, painted gold that she'd borrowed from Lilly, tightly secured to her face. Looking down at the book Lyanna held to her side, she reached for it when Lyanna pulled away smiling, "Nothing just something for Elijah."
She turned following the guard down the halls, heavy black fabric swishing against stone floors. Something for Elijah, the sound of his name from Lyanna's mouth sent a pulse of annoyance through Katerina. But now wasn't the time to be jealous. Wouldn't she prove to Elijah that she was more than capable of being mature and that she was worthy perhaps of his affection rather than Lyanna? Picking up her red skirt, Katerina trailed after her.
The two women were hand and hand as they were escorted into a common area. The men stood around the hearth, drinks in hand, dressed accordingly for the occasion. Each wore a mask but unlike the women, the three of them looked remarkably the same.
"Lady Lockwood, Katerina… so nice to see you both," Elijah greeted, calmly as both women entered. Katerina was a vision as always, dressed brightly, highly ornamented. Lyanna was quite the opposite. In a black frock, with a black mask, loose blond curls draped over her shoulders. The only colour she wore was the gold necklace around her neck.
Extending her hand for Elijah to kiss Katerina answered, before Lyanna could have the chance, "My Lords, you look festive."
"Yes, indeed…" Klaus interrupted, seemingly already bored with Katerina's company.
"And where is the young Lady Lockwood?" he asked, somewhat sharply as if he were already suspicious. Kol standing slightly off to the side had been anxiously wondering the exact same thing, waiting for her to enter at any moment, but knew all too well to not ask. He didn't need to draw anymore suspicion to himself than what his brother might already be concocting in his mind. One more night, he just needed to make it until morning and then he would be gone, with Lilly, for forever.
Poignantly, looking at Niklaus she answered, "You'll have to excuse Lilly; she was feeling ill… the season and all."
Klaus sipped his brandy, seemingly appeased and Kol breathed a sigh of relief and then quickly again began to worrying of her condition. If they were this close to a full moon and she was already incapacitated, what would her condition be the following night?
Lyanna could feel him watching her, like a spider watching a bug, waiting patiently for it to fly into its web and she knew that eventually she would have to acknowledge him, Lyanna would have to address the cataclysm of anger, resentment and betrayal she felt towards Niklaus. But not yet, not quite yet, she'd ignore him for moments longer. She would deal with Elijah first because although he'd lied to her, deceived her and played a heavy hand in everything as well, the betrayal didn't feel nearly as bitter.
"Elijah," Lyanna smiled but felt Niklaus taking her hand, kissing it, interrupting, "Lady Lockwood, thank you for joining us this evening," like a child desperate for attention.
Subtly pulling her hand back, she carefully avoided looking him in the eyes, before again turning her attention to Elijah, "Elijah…"
"Lyanna…" kissing her cheek instead in greeting, he noticed Katerina stiffen in his peripheral view, her face wrapping into a tight smile as she watched them, accepting a greeting from both Kol and Klaus. He wouldn't let himself succumb to it, not tonight. It was their last night together, the last night he'd see Lyanna… however, didn't that also make it the last night he would ever see her as well and be acquainted with the mystery and naivety that was Katerina Petrova?
"And what is that in your hand?" he nodded downwards to the book cradled by her side.
"A return, thank you for the loan…."
Taking her by the arm, Elijah led Lyanna away from Katerina and his brothers, giving them a moment of privacy. "You need not return it. It was yours to have."
Handing him the book of poetry she thought, until I die you mean? She considered not returning it. She considered letting it meet the same fate as everything else that she'd once owned but for whatever reason she felt a pull to give it back. When she'd written his inscription she'd pictured a much different Elijah, one that she was sure she could tell anything. She pictured the man that he fell in love with in the garden. And although he was clearly not the illusion she thought she had found. Part of Lyanna wished to hold on to that for even a moment longer: to still honour what was there. Even if it was brief, she was sure was real. The friendship and understanding they had fostered, the love, that much she was sure- that some of it had to be grounded in truth. And if not, she preferred just this once to accept the lie.
Niklaus watched as his brother took the novel from Lyanna and then leaned in kissing her gently on the cheek, his fingers wrapping tighter around the goblet, leaving indentations in the metal.
"I think dinner is served," he announced interrupting Lyanna and Elijah, Katerina and Kol. As they made their way towards the dining hall, Katerina, locked pace with Elijah, "Care to offer an arm?"
He found her looking sweetly up at him and although he knew the little game she was likely playing with him, part of Elijah was never sure. Was it all just a game to Katerina? He knew the answer was no. Somewhere beneath the fake smiles she showed everyone else, the desperation she tried to hide, there was still vulnerability, a naivety that he couldn't stop himself from being endeared to, even when he wished to deny it the most.
So much like Tatia, Katerina was at times.
"Of course, Miss Petrova."
Kol led the way from the room, trying to force himself to act as normal as possible but his mind was anywhere but there. A few more hours, only a while longer and the torture of waiting would be over.
"Lyanna," Niklaus's hand subtly trailed down the back of her wrist, as he walked beside her and for a moment, Lyanna felt how she used to, before she knew it was all a lie. That was until she met his gaze, "Niklaus," and it came flooding back: every single confession he'd ever spoken had made her a fool.
She smiled politely, giving him just enough from him to not be suspicious, before she picked up her pace, heading into the next room, just in front of him. Before there could be a question of seating arrangements, Kol took his place at the head of the table, followed by Niklaus on his left and Elijah on his right. Pulling out a chair, Elijah offered Lyanna a seat before Katerina could think to position herself closer, leaving Niklaus no option but to give Katerina the chair by his side.
It was better that way, he assured himself, keep the doppelganger close. She was his first priority. The servers scurried about bringing out trays. When the first course was served, Klaus began, "You look like death, Lady Lockwood," reaching for his glass of wine.
The irritation he was trying so hard to hide behind charm was filtering through with blaring clarity. Elijah and Kol would chalk it up to anxiousness, waiting 500 years for tomorrow night's activities. But Katerina knew the truth, perhaps one that not even Lyanna could see clearly. He was jealous, seething with it, just as was she. Both of them seemingly on the outside always, of Elijah and Lyanna's little world- no matter how hard they tried to gain access; they would only ever be denied.
"How appropriate," she replied with a half smile, as Elijah interrupted, leaning closer, "I think you look beautiful, Lyanna."
Elijah felt an immediate desire to reach for her under the table, attempt to take her hand, to hold onto something pure between them, all the good things Lyanna saw in Elijah, for a moment but resisted. He'd promised himself that he was letting her go, wasn't he? It meant nothing, he promised himself.
Elijah looked across the table, feeling Klaus's eyes on him, as if he knew what he was contemplating. He was so suspicious of his every move, so intent that every small look was as good as a confession of intended betrayal.
He would give Klaus, Lyanna and stand by as he slandered innocent Katerina as well. Elijah would help Klaus break the curse at the expense of his own sanity. Was that not enough? No nothing would ever be enough for his brother.
Setting down his glass he looked leeringly over at the pair. This must all be an act, a simple game she was playing with him, to appease his brother. Oh Lyanna, his Lyanna. Soon neither of them would have to play anymore. The curse would be broken and Lyanna his. Elijah's feelings on the matter, irrelevant.
But until then, he would play along, keeping up their pretence of cat and mouse, "You have not touched your dinner, Lady Lockwood. Is there something wrong with the meal?"
The entire table seemed to stare at her as she politely replied, "No it is delicious. I apologize, it must be the traveling- my stomach is weak."
Elijah leaning in closer, asked in hush tone, "Would you like me to fetch Ines?"
And that was when it happened, if he wasn't aware of Lyanna's every moment, every inflection in her voice, he wouldn't have noticed it, but turning slightly, her hand touched Elijah's under the table, "No, that is not necessary."
It was spiteful, childish and below her, Lyanna knew it the moment she touched Elijah but she didn't care. It was all a game, wasn't it? Should she not play an appropriate role? Should she not fall into place? Maybe it was all a lie. No rather, it was. Every single second Lyanna spent around Niklaus reeked of deception and if she could not point out his hypocrisy, if she could not scream and threaten as she wished, she would dig at him the only way left within her means. If he was so intent on her being a toy, she'd make sure, even if it was in the last hours of her life, that he knew, regardless of their ending, that he would never owned her.
As the dinner pressed on, Lyanna hardly touched her food, but instead chose to drink. Her stomach couldn't tolerate the meat, but with each splash of wine past her tongue, it helped quell the rage that was begging to burst forth.
I hate you, she wanted to whisper every time he looked her way. It wasn't the first time Lyanna had thought it, but it was certainly the first time she knew for sure that it was true. She did hate him, with a kind of passion she had never felt towards anyone before.
I would have bought you a thousand times, Lyanna….
And she loved him as well and despised herself for it. Did she love him for what she believed him to be or did she really love him for what she knew he was? What did it say about her as a person if it was the latter?
Elijah looked from Lyanna, smiling politely, carrying on pleasant conversation with Kol and attempting to with his other brother, to Katerina. He was wrong before, to be so harsh with her. He knew that now. She was a just a woman, a young, somewhat still naïve, woman. Katerina knew not the games that she played yet.
A girl so unaware should not be caught between him and Niklaus, their ongoing struggle for loyalty and possession. Her hours were numbered as it was; lest she not live them thinking that she was used.
Love cannot be real if it is not returned.
What was love? Elijah was still left to wonder. Was it how he once felt about Tatia, wanting something so desperately that would never be his to own? Was love Lyanna? Was it kindness, an understanding, a desire to never leave someone, a yearning to be the person that they saw in you? Or was love, just another simple need? Could love be as quick and unquenchable as the compulsion he felt around Katerina, which tempted him away from loyalty? Perhaps it was everything at once but none of them ever permanently.
She smiled in his direction and he couldn't help but return it. If Lyanna saw everything he wanted to believe he was, Katerina saw his monster and even wholly unaware of what he really was, of what he was completely capable of, she somehow understood.
Don't touch me, she begged one moment, leaving him to believe that finally she understood what Lyanna might not see. But soon after, she'd always follow up her curse with, come closer.
Passion, idiocy and a kind of palatable, damming heresy was the only way to describe Katerina Petrova. She teetered somewhere between a dark, recondite puzzle, the never ending maize of reactions and a simplicity, a naivety that was infectious.
You have to catch me….
Only she didn't understand. She should never wish for him to either chase or reach his goal for it would only end poorly for her.
When the final round of wine was served, Kol tossed a look at both of his brothers, knowing that it was likely the last time he would see either. Betrayal, if he was Elijah he would've stayed and waited for Lilly to die. He would follow Klaus blindly because he feared his wrath and would never be anything but honourable. Kol wondered for a moment if Elijah would ever hold that kind of loyalty to him. Would he ever blindly defend what Kol wanted?
He guessed not or rather knew the answer. The only true loyalties Klaus and Elijah held to anyone were to each other. And Klaus's definition of loyal was murky at best. He'd not feel guilty for what he was about to do. Kol wouldn't feel a moment of remorse for betraying either brother because there would have to a foundation of trust first, for it to be breeched. And Kol had never truly held trust in either Elijah or Klaus. If he had, then Rebekah wouldn't be holding the witch's daughter for collateral.
After the late evening meal, they stood once again in sitting room. Kol had retired early without excuse or apology, leaving just the four of them behind.
"Should we go watch the ghosts come over the moors?" Katerina taunted.
"Ghosts?" Klaus questioned, looking at Lyanna. It was a strange way to spend the evening, their masks covering their faces even throughout the meal, hiding the expression of their eyes and perhaps it was a blessed relief.
What the three of them seemed too intent on ignoring was stifling for Katerina. Yes, let us look at the ghosts. Let us do anything to break this tension. Throughout dinner, even in conversation, Klaus hardly ever removed his eyes from Lyanna.
Katerina couldn't have cared less for whatever struggle they seemed to be play at, only that Elijah was unknowingly perhaps caught in the middle. How he continued to not see his brother's blatant desire for Lyanna Lockwood was puzzling to her. Had she looked closely before, she wondered if it had always been this way? Every movement Lyanna made, Klaus mirrored, keeping his distance until he thought no one could see or perhaps no one (Elijah) preferred not to notice.
Lyanna was clearly as aware of him as he was she, but for each move he made towards her, she seemed to pull back further into Elijah. And Elijah, oblivious to it all, accepting graciously. It was a strangled, awkward little game, which served as nothing more than an obstacle for Katerina.
"It is late," Lyanna observed, setting down her goblet, "Perhaps we should be heading home."
When Katerina opened her mouth to protest, she was cut off first by Niklaus, "Perhaps it is however-" but Lyanna acted quickly leaning in and placing her hand on Niklaus's arm, "Elijah, will you escort Katerina home?"
Trevor was right they had no intention of letting them leave if Lyanna did not make a reason.
"Are you not coming Lyanna?" She stepped even closer to Niklaus. It was subtle but she knew he understood immediately the meaning.
"Yes, I will be shortly behind. I have business from London that Niklaus and I need to speak on."
There was a pause, a long look that passed between Elijah and his brother. It was a silent asking of opinions. Lyanna was trying to reconfigure the plan, one they had likely worked out long before. She could only hope now that what little feeling Niklaus had for her, perhaps just the soul's need to feel as though he'd won between them and she would submit would be enough of a distraction for him to allow Katerina to go.
The seconds stretched out, so long that Lyanna feared she'd mistaken him all along. Perhaps he not only had he lied about his affection but faked his desire as well. She could only pray that at the very least, she was not wrong in that.
"Yes, please do Elijah," he finally replied, giving the silent approval for the change in plans. He would let Katerina go, in what later he would realize would be one of many mistakes he made in those last, few precious hours. But he did it for her. He let the doppelganger go (unknowingly), his future and all the plans he'd made for 500 years, just for the chance to see what it was that Lyanna wanted of him. Throughout the entirety of dinner, she'd treated him as if he were almost invisible or a stranger. She'd retracted back to the first few months that they knew one another. As if London had never happened.
He assumed she struggled with how to reconcile the situation with his brother. Poor Elijah, it seemed he again would not have what he wanted. He turned as they left, a smirk partially forming on his face, when he started, "Do tell what business is it exactly that we have to discuss, Lady Lockwood?"
Lyanna had two goals at play in this situation, she had hopefully allowed a way for Katerina to leave and be escorted back to what little safety they had left in the world. Now she needed the moonstone. She would have to find a way to manipulate Niklaus as he so easily had done so with her.
The only problem was that he had used love and Lyanna knew that such a tactic would never work on him. He did not love her. Niklaus loved no one but for all he knew she was still oblivious.
Lyanna smoothed her hands over the wrinkles in her dressed before reaching behind for her mask and slowly untying the string, setting the disguise aside, she reached for his.
"Will that not ruin the festivities?" he mocked.
Lyanna didn't answer. If she was going to do this, she would do it right. She would have to set aside the bitter hatred that she had for Niklaus and focus on the brief love she once felt. Reaching up on her toes, her hand wrapped around the back of his head as he stiffened momentarily, before deciding to trust her and leaning forward, allowing Lyanna to untie the mask and discard it as she had her own.
Looking up at him, she told herself that he wasn't Klaus. Klaus was the thing that tried to kill everything she loved. He'd allowed her to be stabbed to death. Klaus had slept with Katerina as if she were a play thing to be discarded.
Lyanna had loved Niklaus. She convinced herself for those few minutes and perhaps a few after that she was speaking to him. She was addressing the man that had found her in the village, stood by her as she burned the garden and reached for her hand when she was utterly alone in the world. She was looking at Niklaus, who had bought her from death and did it only to see her live- no other alternative reason.
It was for you, Lyanna… She wanted to be with the persona that asked her hesitantly if she regretted him because then she could honestly still believe her answer. Lyanna would never feel remorse for willingly involving herself in with Niklaus. Tracing his face as she had that first night together, she slowly leaned in and kissed the memory of what she loved.
If he was somewhat surprised, it showed for only a moment before he was returning her affection, hand brushing over her back, drawing her slightly closer, before she stopped him, pushing away to stop herself from drowning all together, "Did you mean what you told me in the carriage?"
Did he mean when he'd almost confessed: that he cared for her? Niklaus had thought about that conversation all day and laminated somewhere between relief and horrid disgust with himself.
"That would depend on the exact topic," he tried to deter somewhat coldly. Although no matter the subject the answer would have been the same, Yes.
Lyanna stepped away, perhaps partially in character and also as a natural reaction. For every step they took forward, before she knew it to be a lie, they always seemed to take two backwards. Now that she was at the very least aware of the game, why should she think it would be any different? "Is London over?"
No, it was just beginning. They would have a thousand more Londons. Perhaps only a few minor brushes with death, but so many more of everything that had passed between them that was good: everything that didn't reek completely of betrayal or deception. They would have it all, after the doppelganger died and Lyanna was turned, saving her from death. If her life was linked to the Katerina's then he would make sure, that being human was no longer a problem for Lyanna.
Before he could formulate his response they were interrupted, "Lord Mikaelson, may I have a word with you?" Ines stood in the doorway, looking at both of them poignantly.
Looking back to Lyanna, clearly annoyed that they were being interrupted he replied flatly, "Yes, just a moment Ines."
Lyanna looked past him to witch, who gave her a look of such knowing that she understood immediately why Ines had appeared. Trevor had told her that the old woman had given him his information on the moonstone. For whatever reason, she seemed to be just as invested in the unravelling, the escape of Katerina and the foiling of Niklaus's plans as Lyanna.
She'd worried in the back of her mind all throughout dinner, contemplating how she would get to the stone and get Katerina out of the Manor. It seemed Ines was well aware of her struggle, giving her an opportunity at that very moment.
"Excuse me, My Lord but it is of a matter of interest," she stated in a way that truly gave Klaus no other choice. Her tone screamed that her concerns had something to do with his plans or specifically his doppelganger. He would have an eternity with Lyanna, but he only had one shot with the doppelganger and breaking his curse.
"Lyanna, we will continue this in a moment," he nodded, before following Ines out of the room. Lyanna waited moments, hearing them as they trailed down the hall. She listened until their voices had grown faint, before peeking out into the deserted corridor. When she found no one, she knew it was now or never.
Her hands hand fumbled as they tried to quietly dig through the drawer she had been instructed to search shaking violently when she found the false bottom, removing it and discovering the real moonstone. Placing the Lockwood family heirloom within the drawer and replacing the false bottom, she breathed a sigh of relief, looking out the widow over the moors.
She had done it.
"What are you doing?" he questioned, looking at her curiously from the doorway.
With her back turned to him, she slipped the stone into the folds of her dress.
"Waiting for you."
Thoughts of his brother; the hushed conversation that had taken place between her and Elijah not an hour before; the passing of that book she carried with her in London, flashed through his mind, itching away at his patience and resolve. But he wouldn't let it bother him. Niklaus wouldn't let something so inconsequential affect him. In the end Elijah would be nothing to Lyanna. A friendship and perhaps at one time, the promise of something more but after tomorrow it would clear what role Elijah would play in her existence; and it wouldn't be as it had been before.
Niklaus smiled, this time genuine. He had made up his mind. He'd find a way to tell Elijah, explain to Kol. This was the way it had to be. The doppelganger had to die despite what Lyanna's feeling would be on that matter. The words were straight from Ines's mouth; kill the doppelganger and hunter would die as well. Only he wouldn't live without Lyanna and so he'd have to make sure that was never an issue. The human hunter would die and from her corpse, his Lyanna would flower. In a few decades, a couple hundred years after her turn, she would forget. She'd let go of Katerina, forget Lilly, long after the girls' lives would have naturally expired.
It would take time and that he had plenty of. Especially now that they would be safe from Mikael's never ending hunt. Tomorrow, he'd find a way to explain it all to her tomorrow or the next day.
He pressed his face into her hair, uncharacteristically almost nuzzling her. Mayhaps it was the sudden sense of relief that had come over him that made him almost sentimental.
"You have found me," he answered, kissing her neck, feeling his fangs begging to extend, to scrape along her skin. Not yet, not today. Tomorrow and every day after, she would change her mind. When she too knew what it was like to feed, to want to feed, she'd let him taste her and would gladly take from him.
An arm trailed over her waist, hand cupping her breast feeling the scars from London, knowing that soon they would be gone as he pressed her into him- nudging himself against the back of her thigh- hinting. Hand leaving her hip, he gently pulled at the laces of her dress until it could slip underneath. Still looking out of the window motionless, Lyanna's eyes closed when his cold fingers hit bare skin.
Why? Why did he have to lie to her? Why was she always right?
Every moment, every second, they had shared in London- all the things she'd said and meant. Lyanna could choke on her words now. She could scream at her own idiocy: twice in love and twice a fool.
At this moment, Lilly was most likely leaving the abbey heading west with Elspeth. Soon Katerina would follow, running where ever it was that Trevor would take her. She could feel the sadness coming over her, perhaps it was self pity. Maybe it was still raw anger. But in all actuality it was resolve.
He turned her to face him, kissing her, hands running through her hair.
"Stay Lyanna," he requested, against her lips, eyes closed. "Forget about Elijah, Katerina…."
Yes, she thought, You would forget about them because they are expendable to you. We are all expendable.
"Soon enough we will have to be honest with them. We will tell them the truth," he finished, looking her in the eyes, kissing her again. His movements were more desperate with emotion than usual, almost vulnerable.
Fear was causing his walls to come down. Soon, in hours, it wouldn't be like this. He'd lose her for a time to resentment and hatred. He wanted to enjoy what bliss they had left, so he could hold on to it while he waited.
Lyanna saw it as deception, an act: all of it an elaborate act. She couldn't even find it in herself to feel loss. It was broken but hadn't always been? Hadn't she and Niklaus always been a disaster? It was difficult to grieve the death of something that never was.
His hands ran under her skirts, fingers dancing over the hideous mark that Lord Morris had left her with before, pushing her back onto to the table, moving books. Tugging at her small clothes, he meant to take her now, quick and heated and then later, slow and considerate, just how she liked it. He would hold her like he'd tried to in London, let her sleep next to him and count his last hours of peace.
"Stay Lyanna," he coaxed, not caring how pathetic he sounded. He pushed his breeches down his hips, face still pressed against her neck. Her smell, Lyanna's smell: he could suffocate in it and die content.
"Niklaus…"
His tongue swirled around her nipple, fingers holding on firmly to her hip before he entered her, roughly exhaling, out of relief.
"Niklaus…" she had to ask now, while she still had some inkling of feeling. Lyanna had to know before the last bit of emotion left her completely unfazed and uncaring.
Lips against her cheek, his hands slid aggressively onto the small of her back, bringing her closer- always closer. All he wanted was to be closer.
"Yes?"
"Do you… do love me, Nik?"
He stopped, looking up at her. Nostalgia rushing over him so quickly, he thought he'd drown. The hunters, this is how they hunted. Cutting too close and when he least expected it.
Hannah, Hannah, her name rushed through his mind, as did her words, Hannah's question, Do you love me, Niklaus?
He had lied to Hannah and told her yes. Not worrying of the consequences. Now he worried too deeply about the truth, to be honest. All the things he'd said to Elijah, how he'd chastised him for caring about Katerina and Lyanna.
We do not love, he had told him.
We did once, Elijah had replied. And he was right, they had and Tatia was too many lifetimes ago to matter. He could sense the truth and feared it, instead criticizing Elijah and denying it himself. But the rejection of realities wouldn't make them any less true, no matter how much he wished differently.
He loved Lyanna. Even if he couldn't admit it (even to himself), he knew it.
"Will you stay?" he replied, responding to her with a question- avoiding hers all together. It was answer enough for Lyanna, one she was sure she already knew.
"Yes," she lied in return. Kissing her again, he continued his movement- bringing his hand down between their bodies, rubbing her, trying to give the same pleasure he found so easily. Life, Lyanna was soft, warm and alive. Blood thumped through her veins, heat intensifying the smell of her skin. He'd miss this, the living part of her, but wasn't the trade worth so much more? He could have this for as long as he liked. Moments like they'd shared in London, what they had now, Niklaus murmured words of appreciation, adoration, to Lyanna realizing that he'd have her forever.
His hands prickled her skin, cold as ice and urgent, rushing through the movements then slowing in his exaggerated effort to make this seem more intimate than what was- a fuck. Every movement, that before would have sent her reeling, now seemed so calculated, mechanical. Each adjective, meant to compliment, that dripped from his lips, fell flat on her rapidly deafening ears. They were just empty words, that didn't matter because they weren't the rights ones: confessions of the truth, an apology or I love you. They were just things being said: hollow promises reverberating off cold walls.
When they'd finished, he stepped back from between her thighs, kissing her again briefly, pushing hair from her face, feeling as though he'd connected with someone, in a way that he hadn't in centuries with anyone else other than her. Soon Lyanna, He thought. Soon they would have forever and maybe someday he'd feel like he was ready to tell her the truth.
"Come," he requested, reaching for her. "Let me take you to bed."
It was well past dark, two hours before midnight. Niklaus suspected Kol was off brooding or feeding. Elijah had retired to his own quarters. And even if he hadn't it wouldn't have mattered to Lyanna then. Why bother lying any longer or pretending? Not even hours from now it would all be over.
Leading her to his rooms, he stripped her from behind. Kissing each inch of skin that was exposed. He wanted desperately to tell her all the plans he had made for them, whisper to her all the places he'd take her and things she'd see now that she was no longer tied to this place.
Moving in front of Lyanna, he'd already removed his boots and tunic, tugging at his breeches. Tossing them on the ground he sat on the edge of the bed.
"Come here, Lyanna."
She wanted to hesitate. Everything in her screamed that it was wrong. Soon over or not, she should keep what little self-respect she had left to salvage and deny him. But what was the point? Hadn't she warned him this is what she feared, told him this is what would happen?
Men ask for trust, implicitly then betray it without apology. They take what they want and when they are done they do not care the ruin they leave behind.
Her skin crawled from his touch, as Lyanna tried to stop herself from flinching as she allowed him to guide her down onto the bed. A bed he'd taken Katerina in, at some point during his elaborate game and likely many other women. They were all pieces, wooden figures to be pushed and manipulated around a board at Niklaus's leisure.
How could she have ever thought that this would work?
He trailed wet, hot kisses down her chest, nipping at her breasts, blowing on her nipples. She laid there while he did all the things that he thought she wanted and applied the appropriate responses when it was needed, playing along in this elaborate rouse, giving him the performance he sought.
Afterward, he curled up behind her, hesitating for a moment before kissing her shoulder, waiting long minutes before finally feeling ready to bring her closer, in an attempt to be intimate with someone. All of it was new to him and extremely uncomfortable, things that he'd long forgotten since his human days but part him wished to remember.
As he finally drifted to sleep, thinking about what the next few centuries would bring; Lyanna cried a few short, quiet tears. Mostly because she'd been able to hold them in until then, too worried about Katerina and Lilly for self pity but when she was left with her own thoughts, suffocating in lies, she couldn't help herself.
When she was sure he'd fallen asleep, she slipped out from beneath his arm. Gathering her dress on the floor, she pulled it on and quietly headed for the door. Hand on the handle she looked back at him, lingering for just a moment longer- pretending in her mind that what they had shared was real.
But it never was and there was no sense holding on to a reality that had never been.
There was a pounding, but it wasn't what had woken him. He had heard the footsteps before the servant had made it to the door.
"Milord, Milord!"
He sat up, looking over at the empty cold sheets next to him. She was gone. He was aware that she had gotten up, but he'd figured that mayhaps it was for a human moment, to use the chamber pot or mayhaps her mouth was dry. At some point he'd drifted off to sleep, thinking she'd come back.
Climbing out of bed, he tugged on his breeches as he hollered for whomever it was that was disturbing him to come in. When the door flew open, an elderly servant looked down at the boy who rushed inside.
"They are here! They're here, Milord."
"Who? What are you speaking of?" Niklaus questioned, annoyed at the boy's sudden outburst.
"The men, they came from the woods. There are dozens of them, Milord. I came as soon as I could," Simon panted.
The wolves, Lyanna and his doppelganger… he thought. Brushing past, moving down the hall to find Elijah, he stopped when the boy trailed behind, yelling, "I tried to stop them, Milord. They wouldn't listen."
"Tried to stop whom? The wolves?"
"No, Milord," the boy looked as if he'd cry from fear, "Lady Katerina, she left the house, Milord. I tried to stop her, tell her she shouldn't leave but then the men came…."
Grabbing the boy by the scruff of his shirt he questioned, "What do you mean she left?"
"They ran, Milord, right after Lady Lockwood came back. They didn'ts know I could hear, you see. But Lady Katerina, she took somethin' from her. I couldn't see what it was, I was hiding in the window coverings- they was thick coverings-"
"Yes, out with it boy!" Niklaus bellowed.
"She took some thin' from her, Lady Katerina, she was crying Milord, and then she was gone."
"Who are they? Where did she go?"
"It was dark Milord, I couldn't see but there was someone with her- the woods, I think."
Dropping the boy, he burst into Elijah's room. "What have you done?!"
Elijah sat book in hand, looking up at Klaus confused, "I don't understand."
"Katerina is gone, she has fled."
Rising quickly from his seat, Elijah answered, "No…"
Lyanna, his mind jumped immediately towards Lyanna. She'd seemed so distant at dinner, he could tell from the look on her face, the listlessness of her conversation and fake smiles. The woman that had come for all Hallow's Eve dinner wasn't Lyanna, not his Lyanna.
He should have known.
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her nothing." He'd thought of saying something a thousand times. He'd considered running with her, more times than he could count. But Elijah was nothing if not a man of resolve and loyalty. He'd promised Klaus that he'd aide him breaking the curse and he'd resolved that allowing Lyanna to die was the kindest fate possible.
Klaus lunged forward grabbing Elijah quickly, slamming him against the wall by the fire, "DO NOT LIE TO ME!" he screamed, black veins of umbrage crawling down his cheeks as his fangs descended.
Calmly Elijah replied, "I will find her," images of Lyanna and Katerina running through the woods scared, hand in hand, yellow eyes watching their every move, filtered through his mind, "You have my word."
Katerina... sweet, complicated Katerina, she'd soon be dead.
"If you do not, I give you my word, you will be dead," Niklaus threatened, seething with hatred.
Standing in the doorway slipping his tunic over his head, Kol scoped the scene of contention playing out before him, "What is this?"
"My doppelganger has run off and the wolves are descending on the Lockwoods," Niklaus snapped.
Immediately Kol stiffened, his mind going to Lilly.
Lilly, Lilly, what would happen to Lilly? He had to get to Lilly.
But he couldn't say a thing about it, except, "What should we do?"
Looking to Elijah menacingly, Niklaus barked, "You two go. Now. I want her found!"
With the seriousness of the situation settling in, Kol questioned, "What about the wolves?"
"I will handle the wolves. Get the doppelganger and whomever it is that she ran with. I want that person alive."
Kol hesitated, unwilling to look for the doppelganger with the image of Lilly being raped and torn to shreds replaying in his mind.
He had to get to Lilly.
"I will go with you. You cannot take on the wolves by yourself."
Niklaus stopped pacing a suspicious look passing over his face, "Was it you then? Did you do this? Why so suddenly concerned for the Lockwoods? Did you do it for her, that girl?"
In a fit of madness anyone within his view was a possible culprit.
"No, of course not," Kol bristled, trying to immediately hide his concern. "I only thought, the wolves would be more entertaining than tracking down one little girl."
Turning on him in a matter of seconds, Niklaus breathed hot in Kol's face, "That little girl is the key to your safety. Find her."
Watching Niklaus take out the brunt of his frustration, helped calm Elijah further- distracting him from the things that were likely happening as they spoke. The wolves, tearing up Greyshaw Manor- Lyanna being ripped limb from limb.
She was bound to die anyhow, he reassured himself, trying as he'd been all week to disassociate himself from her and his involvement in her death. It is for the best, he'd promise himself now and for centuries to come, no matter how untrue it felt, how much his instincts disagreed with his logic.
"Kol," grabbing his brother, Elijah urged him out the door and down the hall with him. They had to find Katerina. If nothing else could be salvaged, if Lyanna could not be saved, then at least this act would be completed. They would find Katerina and his brother would break the curse. He had to prove to Niklaus that it wasn't him, that he wouldn't betray him even though everything in him wished he could. There had to be a reason why all of this had happened. There had to be purpose in Lyanna's death.
As they left, leaving through the servants' quarters which laid adjacent to the closest path to the Lockwood lands, Niklaus paused. Who told Katerina, someone who knew about the curse? If it wasn't Elijah or Kol, it could only be Trevor or Ines.
Bursting out into the hall, the boy stood waiting for him.
"Who told Lady Lockwood?"
The boy moved against the wall, shirking under Niklaus's intense gaze.
"It was a woman Milord. Lady Lockwood told Miss Katerina a witch had told her."
"A witch?" his mind went to Ines immediately, how she had interrupted his previous conversation with Lyanna only to give him useless information. Brushing the boy aside as if he were a piece of refuse, he stalked down the halls, moving into the bowels of Harte Manor where they'd housed her. He should have had her under lock and key. Niklaus should have known: never trust a witch. The old woman would kill her own children just to get the best of him.
When he burst through her doors ready to rip her head from her body, he found that he was too late. Feet dangling in the air, Ines had hung herself, sheet tied around the cross beam that ran centre in the room.
He yanked at her foot, a sick popping noise echoing in the room as he dislocated her hip from the joint. The old hag had crossed him and for her idiocy her children would writhe in agony. Niklaus was nothing if not consistent in upholding his threats.
He had half an inclination to yank her body down, and rip it limb from limb in a fit of rage when the thought of the wolves passed through his mind and the boy's observation, She took somethin'.
If Ines had told Lyanna, if Katerina was to run, why hadn't she earlier? If it was Lyanna that had told her the truth, if she knew- Lyanna- oh Lyanna, then why had she stayed with him? Why did she pretend for him, linger, if she knew the truth all along?
Connecting the pieces immediately, he forgot about Ines all together as it hit him like a ton of bricks: his room, the room where he painted, his study, why had she been in there?
The moonstone.
Ascending up sets of stairs, flying down the halls, sketches scattered and fell to the ground from the force of his entrance. Tossing books, brushes, pieces of charcoal from the desk, he dug into the drawer, ripping at the false wood that concealed the bottom compartment.
It was there: the moonstone. He breathed a sigh of relief. Picking it up to examine it, he decided to keep it on his person. He should have had it with him this entire time. Fingers brushed over the back, hitting an anomaly he'd never felt before.
Turning it in the light, he saw it: a bright yellow, thin line, defacing the dorsal side. It was not his moonstone. It was Lyanna's fake.
Everything clicking together in sasync order: all along, she'd known.
Enraged, he threw the fake, hard enough that a corner of it burst and shattered into smaller sedimentary pieces as it ricocheted off the stone walls.
His doppelganger was missing, his stone was gone and the wolves were descending upon Greyshaw. Likely to rip Lyanna into shreds….
At that point, it wasn't fear for her well-being that drove him to rush from Harte Manor, sending him barrelling over the moors towards the Lockwood lands, it was fury. If anyone was going to torture and kill Lyanna, it would be him.
Death by wolves would be too painless, too simple and too quick. No question about it, Lyanna would live and for centuries she would regret every moment that she had thought to cross him.
Snow crunched underfoot. People she'd loved and had known her entire life ran from Greyshaw Manor in terror. Women with their night dresses torn, men carrying what few belongings they could grab, their feet making haunted prints across the grounds.
They looked back at the old Manor, still lit this late in the night, tears in their eyes as they searched for their family, friends and those they knew. Confused, they cried out to one another or no one at all. Their lives just as disturbed as Lyanna's.
She watched them slink from the forest, like creatures of a snowy fog, eyes gleaming with the prospect of the hunt and the knowledge of victory, Arthur leading the way. They moved onto the grounds like any pack would, in great number, clustering together, looking for signs of a threat, an attack and when they found none they fanned out. Pointing to every viewable entrance, Arthur ordered, "No one leaves untouched, find that stone. And the Lady, Lyanna Lockwood, she is mine." Men moved towards every entrance, smashing windows and granting themselves access where there were no doors.
Arthur would find the reward he sought. The pack would get their freedom and it would be Lyanna who would give it to them, just not the way they had intended. Arthur wouldn't be finding her. Lyanna would find him, in hell.
Standing in the darkness of the stables she looked out into the chaos that ensued and regretted, in part, not giving warning ahead of time. But she couldn't, she did not know anymore who was friend or foe in that great house.
For a few brief moments she thought of Lilly turning towards her, tears streaming down her face as she rode away in that rickety wagon, Elspeth by her side. Perhaps someday they'd both forgive her for lying. They'd understand that she had to do it, that there was no other way.
And Katerina, how her hands had shook as Lyanna placed the stone against her palm.
"Guard it with your life, Katerina. Promise me."
"I promise," her fingers wrapped around the opaque rock.
"I want you to keep running. Don't look back. Wherever he takes you, whatever he tells you to do, listen." Katerina shook her head in response.
"Lyanna, what if they find me?" she'd never seen Katerina so unsure. When Lyanna explained everything that she knew, she was careful to exclude Trevor's name, planting Ines's instead, knowing the boy to be listening as she and Trevor had planned. Even then however, as she exposed the Mikaelsons' lies, the truth about Katerina's identity, the curse, the doppelganger's expression seemed undaunted. But when she held the stone in her hands, promising Lyanna that she'd run and never look back, it was then that Lyanna could tell that Katerina was terrified, the shock wearing off.
"They will not, I promise you that. You will leave here tonight and you will never return to this place, Katerina, no matter what. You understand?"
"And you, what will happen to you, Lyanna?" Tears for the first time formed in Katerina's eyes as she realized the full gravity of the situation. Lilly was gone, she'd never see her again and Lyanna was soon to meet her own fate.
"I'll be fine, Kat," she lied, again, "Ines has a plan for me."
"Will I see you again?" Lilly and Lyanna were all Katerina had left in the world. Her family had abandoned her, casting her from their home, her own child, her daughter had been taken from her and was now long gone. Without Lilly, Lyanna and this place, all the hopes she'd made here of having a new life, Elijah- what would she do? Who would Katerina Petrova be now?
"Of course, Love."
"How?" The doppelganger looked up at the hunter, her protector, wholly unaware of just how connected they were and always would be.
"I will find a way, I promise you," Lyanna answered, knowing it to be a lie but feeling somehow that it wasn't. Although she knew she would never leave Greyshaw Manor again, still she felt as if she'd see Katerina once more.
Pulling her close, burying her face in Kat's hair, fingers clutching the fabric of Katerina's dress, Lyanna hugged her dear friend for the last time, whispering, "Promise me you will always protect yourself no matter what."
"I promise."
Releasing her, she kissed her friend goodbye, "I love you, Katerina. I'll see you again. Now go..."
Katerina had tears streaming down her face as she turned reluctantly from Lyanna, leaving the sitting room but not before she answered, "I love you too, Lyanna," meaning it wholeheartedly, Lyanna was more a sister to her, both her and Lilly, than her own.
Screams sounded throughout the night, as men slaughtered and abused those who were once in Lyanna's service. She looked resignedly at the grounds, the forest, the moors in the distance and finally to the house itself. Ghostly images of her younger self ran past in the dark, chased by Nathaniel or holding Lilly's hand as they walked into the woods. They kissed Elspeth's forehead as the elderly woman looked up at her, tea cup in hand and a look of motherly adoration. Katerina was side by side with her in the garden, telling tales of Trevor and the men who sought her favour.
This was home. It would always be home for her. Lyanna's life began here and it would end here as well. Her arms prickled from the chill, without a shawl she shivered a little as she lit her torch.
It was time. They had suffered enough, she had suffered enough.
Through me you pass into the city of woe
Through me you pass into eternal pain
Through me among the people lost for aye
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here….
Lyanna knew not what happened after a person died. Mayhaps there was an afterlife, good and evil beyond the world she already knew and perhaps not. But if there was a heaven, she could only hope it was this place as she once remembered it.
By the time Niklaus stepped onto the property all hell had broken loose. Servants ran from the house and grounds screaming. The noise of the racket within was hideous; the wolves were turning the property upside down to find the moonstone.
She was most likely inside, one of the cries he was hearing at that very moment, as they beat her senseless, violated her, sought any means possible to get what they'd come for. Even in his fit of rage, part of him was horrified at the thought: Lyanna lying on the ground, clothing torn, and face bloodied as one of those disgusting men pawed at her.
All of this over a lie, a fictitious curse and now its fake stone, one he'd started centuries ago, never imagining he'd meet its bitter consequence.
The ground, covered in light snow, had the watered down scent of Vervain and Wolfsbane, as if it had been seeded and fertilized with both herbs.
Where had she found either? They had destroyed the crops. He'd seen her dispose of every last oil, wine and plant of Wolfsbane, on the property. Another lie, another fallacy he'd believed.
Deceit, how could she have fooled him so soundly? Was he so blinded with a brief glimpse of happiness that he'd missed what was there all along? Did she laugh at him in her private moments, knowing how foolishly he'd fallen for every word and every act?
Katerina was somewhere as they spoke, running through the forests attempting to hide, the moonstone with her. His plan was falling apart at the seams, 500 years of work being pissed into the wind in a matter of minutes.
He could feel his fangs descend, ready to rip apart the next person who crossed his path. Then, everything seemed possible, his mind racketing up the number of hideous crimes she'd committed against him, with malice- he was sure of it. As quick as he thought he was, Lyanna was always- always quicker. He hated her for that brief moment and somewhere- deep inside, maybe loved her all that much more. A worthy adversary she was and would have always been.
The finest wine can only come from the poisoned vine.
Pushing through the crowd of those fleeing in panic, he heard his name.
"Niklaus…" carried over the cries, blowing in the wind. She stood by the south entrance; torch in hand, the flame flickering in the consistent breeze.
It must have been over twenty yards, but he could see her as if he was only feet away. Like she had been waiting for him all along- knew he was coming and had stood, quiet and patient. Dress blowing in the wind, strands of hair whipping past her face. So calm, halcyon as the world crumbled around her.
"Niklaus," she called again, this time less loud, knowing he could hear.
He stopped dead in his tracks, watching her as she watched him. Every thought he had of torturing her, seeking revenge for her deception left his consciousness immediately. He would spend the next 500 years wishing that he had said something then, come up with anything that could have changed her mind- stopped her. But the words got caught between his mind and mouth.
Hatred was pushed from his forethoughts, plans of revenge and torture, getting his doppelganger, making Lyanna pay. They were all plans that included a future. The promise that wrongs could still be righted. But amongst the complete chaos, in what lasted less than seconds, he knew he'd never get that chance.
She was the woman from his dream, his drawing...
Words, stuck in his mouth from horror, understanding what she intended to do. Reserved, beautiful and terrifying in her assurance, she smiled, her small, warm smile and answered every nightmare that was running through his mind.
Simple, direct and cutting as always, she called out, "Goodbye, Love…" moments passing between them, the air filled with screams of death but Niklaus felt as if they were both were lost in a world of complete silence, he and Lyanna the only inhabitants.
"No…" in shock, it came out as only a whisper but it sounded like a scream, only Lyanna refused to hear it as she held his gaze seconds longer finishing, "You've won..." before dropping her torch.
The grounds exploded with the smell of Wolfsbane and Vervain, the people of the house shrieking, running from the flames, further away from the Manor and its immediate grounds. Searing his skin as it lit up the yard, the oil burned on top of the snow, igniting inside the stone walls of the large compound. Hollering, cries of agony were heard from inside as those who were within began to burn, suffocate or were poisoned.
Niklaus felt as if he wre trying move, his mind yelling at his body to propel himself forward but his limbs weren't receiving the message. Lyanna took one step towards the house before she hesitated, her head turning as if to look back, giving him one more second as Niklaus screamed out, "NO!" rushing forward. But he was too late, as she continued ahead, entering the manor.
The whole property went up in smoke, his skin melting from his face, life burning out of Lyanna's body. It didn't matter how fast he was, fire scratched away the outer layer of muscle on his legs; he was too late. The whole compound was aflame before he could reach the south exit. Wherever she was inside, Lyanna had died within moments of entering her home.
Every nerve ending in his body fired at expert speed, eliciting a type of physical pain he'd never experienced before and never would again. Vanquished, in a matter of minutes, he'd had the whole world at his fingertips, just for it to be ripped away in the blink of an eye.
The doppelganger was gone, taking the moonstone with her. Elijah after five hundred years, betraying him without a moment's thought for another Petrova. And Lyanna… oh God, Lyanna… the only thing Niklaus had loved in 500 years. The only thing that gave all of this meaning, besides breaking the curse… gone.
Lies, a complicated web he'd weaved with every confidence that it wouldn't be in vain. They were collecting now, in the periphery of his mind, stacking up like bricks, walling him into a tunnel that led here.
On the ground, rocks digging into the severed flesh of his knees, cutting into the burned wounds of his hands and arms, Niklaus Mikaelson watched his life go up in smoke with a blank look on his face, the smell of burnt flesh lingering, simmering in the air.
Closing his eyes, he tried to breathe (although there was no need), the Vervain licking at the lining of his throat. He tried to think of something- hold on to anything as he felt himself slipping. Fire burned and cut through his skin that quickly healed itself, a continual, excruciating process that perpetuated as he refused to move, alone while everyone else was fleeing.
Will you leave me, Niklaus?
Losing him in the rows of plants, she called out to him in his dream.
No, he wouldn't leave her. She'd left him. Abandoned, they always left without his permission.
All he could see was her face, black snowflakes falling from the sky into her hair and that look she'd given him so many times, that used to give him peace but now would haunt him: Lucifer- giving light and taking it away just as quickly.
He didn't even realize it but for the first time since he could remember, even since he was human, he cried. Like a pathetic, weak, disgusting child, salty tears of failure rushed down his cheeks, dripping onto the dirt and rock, making mud.
You won…she'd said to him. He looked to the Manor on fire and knew he'd lost long before he ever arrived at this moment. Whatever game he thought he was playing with her, Lyanna had out manoeuvred him. Moreover, He had won, the God that the humans prayed to like fools; when scared and running from death and meaninglessness, had beaten him. If He existed and hated evil as they claimed, as Klaus knew he was, God had won.
Like a fragile human, desperate and lost, the words fell from his mouth, pleading, before he could register their content and the defeat in their meaning, "Let me die, God. If this is eternity, let it be done."
There was no one in the world to watch those moments of pure unadulterated weakness slip from him. Vision blurring from the smoke, tears and fire, he wished ardently that if there was God, that God would hear him. He'd be merciful, as they had promised he was and even though both he and Niklaus knew Niklaus was evil and undeserving of mercy, God would reconsider that one time and spare him life.
"There will come a time… when you wish to die," Hannah had told him, "And you'll pray to the God that you deny and hear only silence."
Before Kol and Elijah could even make it to the woods, Trevor was calling to them from the road.
"Can you smell them?" he yelled, "They are everywhere tonight." The wolves- the reek of them filtering through the trees was almost too much to bear.
"Yes and why are you out so close to a full moon?" Elijah questioned suspiciously.
"The boy, he informed me Katerina has fled."
"Yes, she has and with a man apparently," Elijah continued, watching Trevor for signs of hesitation.
"Simon informed me; Rose and I have questioned those that work in the manor and they claim that the man is Jon the stable master."
"And where has he gone?" Kol questioned, trying to quickly get to the answer Elijah wanted. The sooner they found Katerina the sooner he'd be able to get to Lilly.
"The village, on the road, he has taken a wagon."
Elijah seemed unconvinced, "And why would they travel by road, when it would be so obvious and not into the woods?"
"Would the woods not be obvious? Wolves out on a night like tonight. No vampire, perhaps not even an original would dare to enter."
It was clear to Kol that Trevor was hiding something. Whatever it was Kol was surely going to find out, for every second he wasted was one less Kol was spending finding Lilly. He was about to lunge at the younger vampire, use brute strength to literally wring it out of him when Trevor interrupted, "Perhaps we should check both? Try out both theories? Lord Kol, you take the road and Lord Elijah and I will fan out into the woods."
There was something not quite right about the way he mentioned Kol following the road- a look that he gave him. And suddenly it made sense; if Katerina fled then Lilly would have as well. Lyanna must have known, Lilly must have told her of his plans to meet her in that next morning, the dots quickly connecting for both women.
Ines didn't tell Lyanna about Katerina and the curse, it was Trevor. Kol's first inclination was to blurt out his revelation but quickly he quelled his tongue. Trevor had helped Katerina escape and likely Lilly as well. He must have known that he would be a suspect. He was offering a trade with Kol, Lilly's life for Kol's cooperation.
"Yes, I'll take the road and you both check the woods," Kol agreed, after only a few seconds of delay. Elijah still seemingly unconvinced was about to open his mouth when Kol continued, cutting him off, "I will send men from the manor, a group to find Katerina. She will not last long if she is the woods and there are only so many places to hide in the village."
Countered with a reassuring nod, Elijah buckled in his resolve, "As many men as you find Kol, send them immediately."
Agreeing the brothers parted, Trevor and Elijah into the woods and Kol to the road to find Lilly. By the time Greyshaw Manor was set ablaze Elijah and Trevor were deep into the woods, tracking dead end trails set by Rose, Kol nowhere in sight.
It took him less than a minute upon arriving in the village to guess where Lilly would have gone. If it were not common sense that had led him to the abbey it would have been the familiar wagon tucked along the side of the stone structure. In seconds he was bursting through the front doors, yelling out her name.
Rushing down the long corridor from the confessional, Father Hall tried to stall him from entering the sanctuary, "She is not here Lord Mikaelson."
Brushing him off as if he were a fly, the elderly man bounced against the sanctuary doors. Quickly recovering, Father Hall was hot on Kol's heels.
"She is not here; Lord Mikaelson and I will remind you that this is a holy place."
"She is here and I will find her, old man!" Kol shot back, his voice echoing across the large room.
Father Hall need not bother saying another word for as soon as Kol saw Elspeth, it was clear that his suspicions were correct.
"Where is she?" he bellowed, the old witch smiling as Kol stepped forward and hit an invisible wall.
"Careful Lord Mikaelson," she chided, enjoying her supremacy as Kol pushed against the barrier with no success.
"Where is she?"
"Here and stop yelling, you are in a sacred place," Lilly corrected, stepping into view. He was taken back for a moment when he saw her dressed in a tunic and breeches, hair cut so short she looked like a kitchen boy. He could tell from her tensed position that it wasn't just rage and betrayal that had her seething. Her irises flickered brown to yellow and then black. This close to the full moon, the mere smell of him was enough to make her skin crawl.
"Lilly are you alright?" he questioned looking at both Father Hall and Elspeth as if they might be holding her here against her will.
"Am I alright?" she mocked. Slowly walking to the barrier between them, her eyes snapped shut as black veins protruded from her skin, crawling down her neck as the beast fought against her will to come out, "You tried to kill my family. You plotted to murder Katerina… you were going to let your brother sacrifice me!" her head snapped back, incisors descending as rage took over her body.
"Lilly…" Elspeth called to her, soothing her with either her voice or magic, Kol was unsure. One thing he did know was that Elspeth wasn't nearly as powerful as Ines or many of the other witches he'd encountered in his 500 years. The barrier between him and Lilly was weakening by moment.
"No," she snapped.
This was not the type of conversation he wished to have in front of an audience and it certainly was not the time for this discussion. He only had a limited amount before he needed to head back, before Elijah would become suspicious.
"Lilly we have not the time for this, you need to leave."
"And you think I would trust you?" she shot back, "After all you have done? After all of your lies!" her words echoed throughout the sanctuary with her fury.
Desperate, Kol knew if he let her, Lilly was stubborn enough to wait here and be caught. She was angry enough to argue with him just long enough that either Klaus or Elijah would become too suspicious and then she'd miss her window.
"Lilly I might have lied in the beginning and yes I didn't tell you about Katerina or Lyanna but what would you have me say? He is my brother, as you would die for Lyanna…" he trailed off but his sentiments clear. As Lilly held loyalties to her family, Kol must to his, no matter how perverse Klaus's plan.
No matter how valid his reasons it didn't help to sway her resolve of disgust and hatred. Kol had never fully thought out how he would handle this matter with Lilly if they had run. How would he have explained to her that Katerina and Lyanna had to die? Their deaths were worth her agony because they would be the key to her survival. The curse broken and the doppelganger dead, Lady Lockwood whom seemed to be a constant source of irritation for Klaus- their blood on his hands would be enough. It would satiate his brother enough that he wouldn't need to seek Lilly's death as well.
He'd never considered failure in his plan or rather he had but he'd pushed it from his forethoughts. Knowing that he'd spend likely a century or maybe more without the Lilly he knew. He'd be forced to follow behind her, like a pathetic dog waiting for her forgiveness.
"But it wasn't all a lie, not all of it." The barrier had weakened enough that if he wished he could have stepped forward but Kol knew that proximity was not the answer to his problems at the moment. It was best for Lilly to think he was trapped, allowing her the illusion of security and perhaps calming her for the moment.
"Lilly I would have never let you die. We were going to run…" he looked at both Elspeth and Father Hall whom were both unashamedly listening.
"How do I know that wasn't a trap?" she fired back.
"If it was a trap, if I wanted you dead, I would have left you to Klaus. I would've let Elijah come find you."
"There's still time," she snapped, clearly unwilling to hear a word he was saying.
"Yes, there is, there is still time for you to escape."
Lilly stood unconvinced, until Kol stepped forward past the barrier, "Lilly if you think I am lying, that I am here to harm you and Elspeth, then bite me." Although her venom surely wouldn't kill him, it would be enough to significantly slow Kol down for a period of time, weakening him.
Her eyes flickered yellow as he neared, her natural instincts clearly enjoying the thought of her venom burning through his veins as he grimaced in discomfort.
"Lilly you have no choice. If I am lying than you are dead regardless but if I am telling the truth, every moment you waste arguing with me you put both your, Elspeth's and the Father's life in danger."
The mention of both innocent parties had its desired effect, as Lilly glanced at both of her silent partners.
"Lilly," he grabbed her, the muscles of her forearm coiling under his grip but he caught her attention just long enough for her to make eye contact. Taking his three second window Kol hoped to every God, discovered, written or not, that Lilly wasn't on Vervain, that she'd stopped taking it these past two weeks because she trusted him.
"Go…" he compelled, her pupils dilating for moment, her face tensing as though she were trying to fight it but ultimately couldn't.
"Okay," she answered.
"Miss Lilly," Elspeth warned.
"No," she answered, turning to the old woman, "He's right. We are dead regardless and if he wish to kill me or you, he would have already."
A wave a relief flooded over Kol, as a reluctant Elspeth gathered what few belongings they had. Knowing he had only minutes left before he'd have to leave, Kol grabbed Lilly, desperately, "Travel north."
"No, Lyanna said to go south that she would meet us-"Lilly stopped, still unsure how much to divulge.
"Go north first, for the first few days. Klaus will not follow you north, not into the clans, there are too many wolves. His first focus will be the doppelganger." He knew not whether she'd follow his instruction or not as Elspeth waited at the door.
"Lilly, if we are to go, then we must go," the old woman urged.
Obliging, she stepped forward, when Kol tightened his grip on her arm. This was his last chance, it may be the last time he ever saw her. If Klaus thought for a moment he was lying, if he didn't believe Kol's story, he knew he'd end up like Finn, daggered in a box. If and when he was ever undaggered Lilly would likely be long dead.
"Go north Lilly."
She looked down at his vice grip, wrapping her hand around his, leaning close. For a moment he thought she might kiss him. That at the very least he'd get that. It was all happening too quickly, conversations that should have been battles for hours, plans that needed a more decisive structure, things that needed to be said, they were all slipping from him. There wasn't enough time to do this properly. But if nothing else, he'd get one last kiss- moment with her.
When he felt her fangs sink into his neck and the poison of her venom drip into his veins he knew he was wrong. Clutching the growing black area of decay where she'd bit him, he was forced to release her, "Kol," she answered coldly.
He was in shock but he didn't know why. Wasn't this what he'd suggested? Wasn't it fair after everything he'd done? "This isn't the end, Lilly…" he hesitated, a quick sweat breaking out across his forehead, as he felt his strength bleeding away while the venom circulated throughout his system. There were a million thoughts running through his mind at once. The look of pure hatred, betrayal, which she was giving him, paired with the gross discomfort that he felt was enough to make him want to vomit.
"I'll find you, I promise." Even if it was only as a headstone someday, he meant it.
"Don't," she replied, sparing him a moment's glance before she turned, going to Elspeth.
If he were honest with himself, there were a million other things he wished he would have said, dozens of other confessions. More than anything he wanted for her to say goodbye or even look back before she left, but Lilly did neither. Like they were complete strangers she walked out of the abbey, Elspeth at her side, as if she'd forever closed the book on her and Kol.
She'd said forever but forever seemed to be a considerably less serious commitment to wolves than Original vampires. Lilly might never want him again but Kol had made her a promise, even if it wasn't verbalized.
Where you go, I'll go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be mine and when you die, I will die. And there I will be buried.
He reeked of charred flesh and death. In the early hours of morning the sun peaked over the horizon, light dancing over the smouldering remains of Greyshaw Manor. A light snow had fallen sometime in the night but Niklaus hadn't even noticed. Bodies were sprawled out across the grounds, their throats ripped out, some of them decapitated but most of them drained. Whomever was foolish enough to not flee the scene found a bitter painful end when Niklaus recovered, pulling himself from the ground. The thoughts of defeat that had consumed him in moments previous were quickly replaced with the empty euphoria of blood rushing past his fangs, bodies going limp as he leeched life from their curious eyes. There were twenty perhaps thirty that laid scattered, their corpses mutilated in various ways. After the first five, he'd been satiated; he'd killed the remaining dozens for pure sport. It was the thrill of watching them run, then crushing their bones under his hands, the terrified look on their faces, eliciting a satisfied smirk from his.
As they fell, gurgling on their own blood and smoke from the fire, Niklaus stripped the closest male victim of his tunic and breeches, discarding his that hung in shreds from his body. He'd half expected Kol and Elijah to eventually appear, slinking from the woods with words of contrition spilling from their mouths, promises that Katerina would be found. Although by now they knew as well as he, that she was long gone. Fortunately for Niklaus and perhaps them, the sheep of his flock stayed at bay, preparing for his wrath when he returned.
It wouldn't be long until he dealt with his brothers' failings but not yet. There was something left that he had yet to do. Piling the victims on top of one another, he walked to into the smouldering ruins of the great home finding a leg of a broken chair. Stoking what small flame he could find, that had yet to burn out he lit his torch and returned to the bodies, burning the evidence.
It wouldn't be long until others would come, the smell of smoke, blood and death hanging heavy in the air. If he didn't move soon, he'd be too late. Flames licked over ashen skin, searing flesh. The heap of decay went up in a blaze as Niklaus looked to the south entrance of the destroyed home, the image of Lyanna flicking through his mind.
He considered turning then and walking away, abandoning it all and never looking back. But he couldn't leave her like that, as just another body that would soon be dust, mingling among the remains of those she hated: the wolves and Arthur.
Approaching the door through which she'd walked, he could see her eyes as she called out her last words to him, "Goodbye love," replaced by the image of her flesh smouldering like the peasants he'd burned seconds before. Niklaus tried to think anything but muscle and her beautiful white skin falling from the bone, her rosewater hair curling into black ash against her skull.
Moving inside, he immediately became aware of every place he stepped. The ground was littered with debris and black ash, pieces of clothing attached to charred bodies covered with a thin blanket of snow, as if the white flakes could dissolve the ruin below.
She could have been anywhere. Lyanna could be only feet inside, her remains lying at the door, part of the black dust that stuck to his boots. He looked down at his first corpse, toeing the remains of what looked like a skull. Hands shaking, he clenched them at his sides as his foot shifted through the remains, looking for some sign of Lyanna. When he found patches of skin preserved with coarse black hair protruding from the pores, he breathed a sigh of relief.
It wasn't her.
Niklaus carefully pieced through the ash and fragmented skeletons for close to an hour when he was ready to give up, sure that he'd never find Lyanna or mayhaps he had but she was so disfigured he'd have no way of knowing.
Pushing hair from his eyes, dirt smudged across his face when he saw it. The light filtering through the shattered windows caught the reflection of something in the ash, refracting yellow and blue light onto the nearest standing wall.
An area that he had yet to search, Niklaus rose slowly, approaching cautiously. He'd been wrong dozens of times before, perhaps this was just another wolf, a serving girl or even a child. Buried under what appeared to be a fallen beam, he pushed the heavy wood away to find a piece of amber poking through a heap of wood ash and broken glass.
"Lyanna?" he whispered, as if she'd answer. Crouching, his fingers closed around the stone, the chain catching on something.
If Niklaus needed to breathe he'd be choking. His hand delved carefully into the rubble, dusting ash away from the only woman he'd loved in five hundred years. Gently he cleared broken glass and wood splinters from her corpse until he was left with nothing but the shadow of someone he was sure he'd see every day until his death. Only the eternity he had imagined spending with Lyanna was much different, so much sweeter than the one he'd been given. Niklaus would have Lyanna forever, in that he wasn't wrong. Except now he'd only have his memories, agonizing in their clarity and bitter in their finality.
Fingers traced the outlines of her cheek bones but then stopped at her eyes which were burned from their sockets.
Let me show you what love is Niklaus, her voice requested, seemingly echoing off the tattered walls as his hand palmed the flat surface of her skull, eyes closing in agony.
Curse her for doing this. What right did she have to go? What right did Lyanna have to leave him alone like this, with this memory, one that would haunt him forever?
In a moment of incapacitating grief, he bent gathering her in his arms, fingers slipping through chard flesh and exposed ribs.
I'll never regret you, Niklaus,he could still feel her mouth warm against his ear.
"Damn you, Lyanna. Damn you to hell," his voice broke, words spewing from his mouth as the bones of her frame broke under his grasp, limbs slipping back into the ash.
"No..." he called out desperately, crazed. The more he tried to collect her, hold on for just a moment longer, the more her skeleton crumbled. Like a man trying to clutch water, she slipped through his arms, hands and fingers, separating into the pieces of the puzzle that was Lyanna, and dust.
He could feel it again, emotion collecting, threatening to fall as tears. He brushed his face against his shoulder trying in a failed effort to stop himself before a drop dribbled down his check, mixing with blood an dirt, making a wet trail before it fell, into her ash.
Niklaus's arms shook from grief but more rage, disgust at his own patheticness.
"Stop!" he called out to no one but himself. He wasn't going to do this, not now or ever again. Trying to collect himself, he gently placed her remains on the ground.
Standing, he brushed himself off before exiting the house, heading towards the stables where he found the old stable master dead inside. Retrieving a shovel he headed into the gardens. They were just as much in ruin as the house, snow covered the blackened earth. Looking to the horizon, his breath fogged in front of his face. If he could feel chill, he'd be shaking as he glanced up at the sky, a light pink it was threatening more snow.
There was only so much time and he didn't want her left there, trapped in that house: a life of lies. Niklaus didn't want Lyanna's body buried in a place where she once laid with her husband in their marriage bed then later where he'd laid in her lap, dead. He'd bury her in the garden, the place that once gave her safety- the place where he'd first fallen in love with her.
Blond hair whipped in the breezeless morning air, Lyanna's memory staring back at him,
"I ask again, are you mad?"
He'd accused her, that night she burned the garden.
"Possibly," she smiled, looking back at the fire.
His hands gripped the shovel harder, the cold chill of loss, trickling down his neck, wrapping around his spine, crushing as the fingers of desolation fired out across every nerve ending.
Keep digging, he ordered himself, Keep going, keep moving, stop thinking, stop caring...
When he'd finally dug down through the frozen ground deep enough that she'd remain undisturbed by animals, he crawled out. Making his way back to the ruins Niklaus knelt, taking his time as he gathered her: every limb, every bone shard and even the dust, nothing would be left behind.
Like a mother carrying her child, Mary cradling Jesus, he held on to Lyanna so tight, held her so close, that when it was all said and done the smell of her, the ash of her lovely hands, the dirt fragments that made up the curve of her spine, the disintegrated particles of her hair- it would meld into the tunic he wore. He'd take with him pieces of Lyanna woven into the cotton.
Crawling into her grave, he placed his Delilah in her final resting place. With care, he arranged what was left of the Lockwood widow, nausea welling in his throat.
He could have had it all: the curse broken, the doppelgangers dead and Lyanna. He could have had Lyanna had he not been such a fool but now he'd have nothing except his crumbling empire of lies: his soul (if he had one) buried six feet under Scrathclyde soil.
His fingers wrapped around the necklace, the one she'd toyed with a thousand times and never removed from the moment he'd given it to her.
"Is that love Lyanna- sadness?"
"Yes, and agony, bliss and bitter hatred. It is elation and every other spectrum of emotion imaginable."
Selfishly, he unclasped the chain, untangling it from the bony cusps of her exposed vertebra. It was his and then it was hers and Lyanna's it would always be. Cradling the stone in his hands he lifted himself out of her grave, sparing her corpse one last glance before he began filling the hole with dirt.
When it was done, he smoothed out the surface, his hands running over the soil knowing what lay below. On his knees Klaus looked out over the scorched grounds, into the forest, west out onto the moors and then to the house. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes collected into almost another hour as he sat in silence. The sun had fully risen and then fallen behind a cloud, the pink sky dropping fat white flakes.
"Do you love me, Niklaus?"
How could she even think to ask? Didn't she know...? Every second, he loved Lyanna every single second and was completely unaware and then afraid.
"Do you love me, Niklaus?" her voice falling around him, her breath whispering past him.
"Yes..." he finally answered to no one but himself because she'd never know now. Lyanna would never understand. He thought he had forever, Niklaus was promised an eternity, only now he understood what his forever entailed and how he'd spend it.
Alone.
"Damn you, God," he whispered bitterly. It turned out redemption wasn't real: another promise that would go unfulfilled.
He could have stayed there forever, afraid to leave her.
"Goodbye love," her hair whipping in the wind, glowing in the fire.
She was the woman from his dreams. He'd seen her die a dozen times and he'd see it again, a million more. Niklaus would cursed Katerina, his mother, God and even Lyanna but in the end he knew the only one damned was himself.
Finally, rising from the ground, he looked down at her grave one last time, Keep moving.
Lyanna, his Lyanna, was as dead as he. Only now she was free, something Niklaus would never be. Closing his eyes the image of her in the abbey that Sabbath morning, the first time they met, flashed through his mind.
Blue eyes, green veil, soft hands and sharp words: he'd love her long past his own death.
"Goodbye Lyanna..." the words dropping from his mouth like a weak promise as he turned and walked away from her unmarked grave, taking only her necklace and the dust of her bones with him.
I freeze and burn, love is bitter and sweet, my sighs are tempests and my tears are floods. I am in ecstasy and agony. I am possessed by memories and in exile from myself.
Scrathclyde
Decemeber 1492 AD
Dismounting from his horse, he walked through burnt, scarred stone walls, piles of soot and picked over items scattered about randomly. Poking out from a dirty pile, he brushed dirt and ruin from its edges before bending to pick it up.
Round, a yellowish white, it was a piece of human bone, one the church had missed.
"May I be of assistance?"
Turning from his crouched position he found a lowborn looking at him through what may have once been the great entrance of the home.
"Yes," he replied tossing the bone fragment, "What happened here?"
"You must not be from around this area?"
"No," he answered curtly, studying the man. "I am from London, on business of the King."
Immediately bowing his head, the man replied, "Sorry My Lord…."
"Bram."
"My Lord Bram, there have been many people digging through these remains."
"And you would be?"
"Bedell, My Lord. I help keep the grounds up at Harte Manor," motioning up over the hills.
"I see…. Well you can escort me there. That was my original destination."
Moving from the rubble, mounting his horse, Bedell followed.
"What has taken place here?"
"Burnings, My Lord, months past; some men from the village attacked Greyshaw Manor. A fire was started, burning the whole place to the ground."
"And the Lord of this property?"
"Dead, My Lord but a year past. Lady Lockwood perished in the fire, young Lady Lockwood as well."
"Why did these men attack the grounds? Is there no law here?" Mikael knew the story, had been sent by the King himself, but wished to hear it from a local's mouth.
"No one knows, My Lord."
And neither did the King but one thing was sure, Mikael didn't know how or why but somehow Niklaus was involved. Everything that boy touched turned to shit.
When they finally arrived at Harte Manor, Mikael dismounted quickly, entering in haste and on guard.
"You will not find the Lords Mikaelson here, Lord Bram," the man yelled after him. But he was too late. Already moving through the front entrance, into the first sitting room, down the halls, peering into other spaces, Mikael knew he'd missed them.
Furniture was covered in cloth. Every space looking abandoned and covered in dust, cob webs forming. He was so close before. In London he could taste it, bitter as ever now. Again that damn boy had slipped through his fingers.
Picking up a piece of parchment that was left lying on a cloth covered table, he looked down at the sketch of a woman, "When did they leave?"
Bedell looked at the drawing he held in his hand, "We found that My Lord Bram or I should say the girls did. It was lying in the drawer in that desk," he pointed.
Mikael looked at the picture of a woman more carefully, "Who is it of?" not truly all that interested but recognizing the work as Niklaus's. So the boy still drew?
"Lady Lockwood, My Lord," Bedell answered, blushing.
The woman that escaped trial by the Star Chambers, so this was the woman that he'd missed at Westminster? There was no need to question how she'd escaped the reaper's blade. The attention to detail, even from a few short glances at the picture, he could tell Niklaus had spent some time drawing this. He'd known her intimately, to sketch her sleeping so precisely.
That boy always was a fool, Mikael thought.
"How long have they been gone?"
"A month, My Lord, not a day past the fire."
Yes, Niklaus had been here alright and had left only destruction in his wake. But Mikael would never know the entire story, just how much was buried in this home, on those lands.
"Did they give notice of when they'd return?"
"No, My Lord."
After the fire, Kol and Elijah waited for Klaus until morning. Kol calculating all the places he'd search first for Lilly, perfecting the lie he would tell his brother, "I found her and the old woman on the road, ripped apart by the wolves."
Elijah, closed his eyes, smelling smoke and blood in the air, well aware as he put together the pieces of the puzzle in his mind, how it had all ended. If Lyanna had survived, his brother would have brought her back sometime in the night as his prize, his little prisoner to torture in the wake of Katerina's departure. But Klaus hadn't returned and the smell of charred flesh only seemed to grow stronger by the hour. If he were a curious man he would have followed the smoke, leaving the woods after a night of fruitless searching. Elijah would have sought his brother on the grounds of Greyshaw Manor, amongst the carnage but Elijah wasn't a curious man. He was instead one of great control, balance, things he cherished dearly he held onto tighter than any his own family, honour or any promise he'd ever made Klaus.
Control, he'd keep it as long as he could and dictate the small things that were still in his power. He wouldn't descend upon Greyshaw Manor to look at the ruins. He wouldn't go to his brother as he slaughtered all those that remained and burned their bodies. Elijah, in this one instance would not seek out truth, to find the reality he knew was eventually unavoidable: Lyanna's corpse lying lifelessly somewhere in the carnage. He'd hold on to his image of her, alive, warm and beautiful for as long as he could. Elijah would keep that last bit of control he had left and not his brother, guilt, a duty or any promise, could make him relinquish that before it was time.
When he'd arrived, face blackened by soot and dirt, covered with blood, Klaus need not ask either brother for the whereabouts of his doppelganger. He knew without them having to say it that she was gone. His doppelganger had disappeared, taking with her his stone and any chance he had of breaking the curse.
Although he would come to believe Elijah had nothing to do with it, comparing notes and Trevor's story and revealing that he'd found the stable master dead. It seemed both Ines and Trevor had had a hand in foiling his plans. Klaus and Elijah's relationship however was never the same. Perhaps it was Katerina that had changed things for Elijah. Mayhaps it was Niklaus but most certainly it was Lyanna. It would always be Lyanna.
Cool, calm and collected, Klaus informed both Kol and Elijah that he would be leaving to find Katerina since they had failed him. Elijah offered his assistance, it was denied. Kol didn't say a word. He had plans, places he needed to go. Someone he needed to find.
As Kol left without an explanation, Elijah went to his rooms, collecting the few things he needed. Some private effects, among them a few of Lyanna's letters and Petrarch: her note inside. He'd carry that worn copy with him for the next 500 years.
In less than two days, before the church could even remove the bodies from the ash, Harte Manor was abandoned: the brothers scattering to the winds.
Over the years, Kol would return, often for his own reasons, Rebekah for a decade, Elijah the most often. The house was kept in perfect condition over the centuries, maintained by servants and help.
Greyshaw was never torn down; the land was never reclaimed or built on again. Immediately with his payment to the king for Lyanna's life (those few hours) of the house outside Venice and the rest of the promised small fortune, Niklaus wrote King Henry and acquired the ruined property from the English crown for a heavy sum. Greyshaw manor would sit for 500 years untouched and unattended to. The forests abandoned. The grounds that were once Lyanna's vast garden would bloom, vines slithering down six feet under the soil, wrapping around Lyanna's skeleton, her bones nourishing the land as the garden grew wild over what was left of the ruins of the great Lockwood Manor. The house would wither some with time, affected by the elements but essentially stayed forever frozen as a picture of haunted defeat.
In the centuries to come, there would be nights, many, where Niklaus would still hear her voice, see her waiting there him, standing there in the garden: ash falling into hair, eyes still bright and alive.
I'd like to show you something…. She'd say to him. And in those few moments of blissful unconsciousness, he'd agree and let her take his hand. Nights- days, when he would have this dream, he'd wake in panic because he'd lost her. The ash having fallen so thickly that he couldn't find her, his hand slipping from hers as she disappeared where he couldn't follow.
Will you leave me, Niklaus?
He'd never return to Scrathclyde, Harte Manor or Greyshaw again. Not because that was where she'd perished and where it had all fallen apart, but because that was where she was- still. Her ghost lingered on the grounds, the ruins of the once great house, it wandered in the forest, swam in the lake, walked in the gardens. She would stay there forever, where she belonged, on the land that would never truly belong to him and his family- instead, belonging to her as it always rightfully should have been.
Niklaus avoided, for he couldn't tolerate the thought- her ghost haunting him forever and Elijah stayed or frequently returned for the opposite reason. In the early hours of morning, before the sun would fully rise over the horizon, he'd walk down to the edge of the property and wait for a glimpse of her.
Sometimes she'd come and others she wouldn't. But when she did... she was sight for those few brief moments.
She was still worth the love he had and pain his brother would forever feel.
Lyanna Lockwood: the light, their truth, the road to peace, that lead straight through hell.
Thank you for reading. Yes! We are finally done with Lyanna. Questions or concerns, please find your way to the INCYAL blog. Comments- that is what the review button is for. I wrote you 55k words... consider it. That is all I'm saying.
Look for the Christine scene and Kalijah excerpt this week on the blog.
I am aware Hayley's last name isn't Maxwell. When we find out from the Originals what it is, that will be changed.
Thank you!