MidnightRain6593

quetsiyah

'if i had another place to go, would you break me?
is it that you know i have no choice but to rebuild again?
i'm tied so hard
i can't remember when i last walked free upon these feet of mine,
but i'll draw the line
there will come a time when i am stronger'
-'castle down', emilie autumn

.
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Nothing. That's all there literally was. Absolutely nothing. Bonnie can clearly see herself and she can clearly see Damon and Kol, but everything else is just nothing but black emptiness.

"Where the hell are we?" Damon asks.

"Good question," she mutters in response.

"Well, this is a fine mess you've put us in," Kol says.

"What?" Bonnie snaps. "I didn't do anything."

"Your little band of nitwits caused this by not ceasing to search for the cure."

Damon rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. "You and your bedtime stories."

"Does this really seem like bedtime story, you idiot?" Kol asks, gesturing to the blank nothingness around them.

"Well, why don't you try some witchy mojo to get us the hell out of here?" Damon asks Bonnie, pointedly ignoring Kol.

She gives him one of her annoyed looks, but she knows that she's their best chance of getting the hell out of here, so she closes her eyes and reaches deep within herself and feels…nothing.

"Anytime now, Glinda," Damon says.

"Something's wrong," she breathes and she feels panic clawing up its way through her body. "I can't—there's no—my magic's gone!"

"Gone?" Damon repeats. "What do you mean gone?"

"What I mean is it's not there!" Bonnie snaps. "And I don't mean that there's a block or something. It's just not there. Like that time Dr. Martin took them from me!"

"Well this just keeps getting better and better," Kol says with a sarcastic smile.

"If you're not going to say something productive, then shut up," Damon replies.

Bonnie ignores them. Arguing isn't going to get them out of here.

Think, Bonnie, think, she urges herself.

Okay, so Silas cast some sort of curse and now they're in some dark black abyss of nothing. Oh, and she has no magic. And she's stuck with these two morons. So, all in all, she's screwed.

"Well, that's encouraging," Kol says dryly and Bonnie then realizes that she's spoken aloud. She opens her mouth to say something biting, but a voice speaks from behind them.

"Allow me to explain."

They all spin around and see a woman standing behind them. She's small and slender with her long, dark hair falling down her back in dreadlocks, yet her presence is still commanding and somehow inspires a strange sense of awe and the stony expression her green eyes definitely says that she is not one to be trifled with.

We have the same eyes, Bonnie realizes. She feels that striking sense of familiarity and even safety. The kind that she had felt around Grams and even Lucy.

"We're related," she says aloud.

The woman smiles thinly, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I am Quetsiyah."

Bonnie can feel the air rushing out of her body as if someone has just knocked the wind out of her. She doesn't know what to say to the woman who has become some sort of grand mythological symbol than and actual figure, but she finds herself asking, "Where are we?"

"I believe you refer to it as 'the Other Side'."

"Wait, if we're on the other side…" Damon says.

"No, you're not dead. At least not yet, anyway," Quetsiyah replies. "When Silas began to attempt to bring the veil down, I had to stop him somehow. Just imagine…every supernatural being able to walk the earth once again and unable to ever be killed again. It'd be disastrous."

Kol hums and crosses his arms in front of his chest, shooting Bonnie and Damon an 'I told you so' look.

"Unfortunately," Quetsiayh continues, "What I did to Silas has taken away most of my powers and that was something not even death could rectify, so, I channeled your power, Bonnie."

"But if you were just channeling it, shouldn't I still have it?" Bonnie asks, confused.

"Yes, you should. Perhaps it was Silas's magic or maybe even that your magic has been tainted with Expression, but it seems that your magic is lost."

"Lost?" Damon cuts in. "What do you mean lost? Aren't you supposed to be some super witch or something? How the hell could you have lost it?"

Quetsiyah gives him a chilling look that actually makes Bonnie take a few steps back. It's more than enough to make Damon actually close his mouth for a change.

"Okay," Bonnie continues, choosing to ignore Damon for now. "What do I have to do to get my magic back?"

"It won't be easy," Quetsiyah warns her.

It never is, Bonnie thinks.

"The curse will take you to many different worlds and eventually you will find your magic in one of these worlds."

"That's it? I just have to get tossed from place to place and hope that I eventually find my magic?" Bonnie replies. She wonders if things are just going to keep getting worse and worse.

"It's your only chance of getting home," Quetsiyah replies calmly.

"And what about everyone else? Caroline and the rest of Mystic Falls? What happened to them?"

"They are also here, but don't worry, they will be safe. I will make sure of it."

"Without your magic?" Damon asks skeptically.

Quetsiyah shoots him a stone-cold look as if she's daring him to keep questioning her. He wisely chooses not to.

"Without your power, you are vulnerable, which means you will have to rely on these two if you wish to come out of this alive," the ancient witch says, turning back to Bonnie.

So, once again, I'm screwed. She doesn't say this aloud, though, simply choosing to nod instead. She opens her mouth to say something more, but then Quetsiyah is suddenly gone.

"So, you've been dabbling Expression, hmm?" Kol asks, coming to stand in front of Bonnie. "Bad, idea, little witch."

"It was the easiest way for me to get power," Bonnie replies defensively.

"What good is power if you're too dead to use it?" he replies dryly.

Suddenly Damon is in front of her, getting in Kol's face.

"Look, there's no point in arguing who's right and who's wrong and who did or didn't do what because either way, we're in really bad situations, so let's at least try to be smart about this," Bonnie snaps, pushing Damon away from Kol. The last thing she needs is for them to tear each other to shreds.

"Not exactly Salvatore's strong suit," Kol says, looking disdainfully at the other vampire.

Oy, Bonnie thinks, resisting the urge to facepalm.

"Here's the thing," Bonnie says before Damon can interject with an attempt at a witty response. "You know I don't like you. Hell, I barely tolerate him. Actually, most of the time I can't stand his ass," she points a thumb in Damon's direction, "But, we're kinda stuck with each other." Even as she says it she feels as if she's reading off a death sentence. "We can't get back to our world without my magic and I can't find my magic without your help. So, unfortunately we're going to have to work together."

Easier said than done, she thinks as she sees Kol and Damon glaring at each other.

She opens her mouth to say something more, but she feels the familiar pull of magic and she knows that they're about to be sent to some other unknown world like Quetsiyah had said.

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