The Song of the Storm
Astra lay sprawled across Elijah's bed in the home that she had apparently been sharing with him, taking deep breaths of his scent. It was able to soon the throbbing in her head just slightly, and she didn't feel the need to cough anymore, but the bleeds did come now and again. Several towels had already been ruined and tossed aside to prevent the sheets from being permanently stained, a new towel pressed beneath her ear at the present moment.
She was supposed to hate the man, not be sleeping face down on his bed.
His scent, though, seemed to be the next best thing to the man himself. It angered her that she had to go to Elijah for help, but she was also finally allowing herself to think over all that she had learned. Perhaps she and Elijah had come to some sort of reconciliation over the years, and Damon had clearly used her memory loss to make her think the opposite. She wanted to growl and injure him further as she thought over his lies, but she was just much too tired.
"Are you feeling any better, miss?" Jessica asked as she sat down on the edge of the bed, making sure to keep the door closed so that the light didn't spill in from the hall and further injure Astra's throbbing temples.
"Is it true, that we are friends?"
"You and I or you and Elijah?" she asked quietly, watching Astra's blank stare that was directed at the wall across from her. Astra blinked, the only show that she may actually be thinking about what her response may be.
"Both," she finally whispered.
She could hear Astra swallow in the silence of the room, her tired eyes blinking once more. "Yes, you and I are friends. You saved my ancestor from being a slave to a very cruel vampire and you gave her the choice to leave or stay with you. She chose to stay, and my family has served you since. You have always been very kind, even when I was a small child." Jessica could faintly see a smile come to Astra's lips, but it didn't reach her eyes. "As for you and Elijah, I'm not completely sure of what is going on with you two. However, you have always been very happy whenever I saw you together—you reminded me of lovers."
"Lovers?" Astra repeated, asking herself more than the woman sitting on the edge of the bed.
"I do not know what you remember of Elijah; however, I do know that he made the woman that I know very happy and—personally—I would forgive him for anything if I knew that it would save your life." Astra blinked quickly as she pondered the other woman's words before looking up at her, her beautiful eyes almost glowing in the darkness. Even though she was supposed to be resting, her mind was racing a mile a minute. There was too much to think over; too much to contemplate. It was all dizzyingly confusing for her.
"I need to be alone right now," Astra finally said in a quiet voice, turning her face away from the human woman. Jessica's face saddened at the sight but she agreed quietly and rose from her place on the mattress.
"I hope to find you well again soon, Miss. Casca," Jessica said one last time before slipping from the room, leaving Astra alone in the darkness. She listened carefully as Jessica packed up for the night as she apparently always did, before she hesitated a moment at the door and then departed. The sound of her car starting rang in Astra's ears, and then she pulled down the driveway.
With Jessica gone, the house hung in a suspended eerie silence.
Picking herself up off the bed as carefully as she could, she prepared to leave the room but was forced to take it slow when the world spun around her and left her disoriented. She blinked slowly in an attempt to clear her vision, only succeeding when she stopped moving altogether.
Luka sat in the packed Grill, Elena sitting across from him in the booth. There was no food on the table and no pleasantries passed between them. Elena's face was stark white after Luka had told her what had happened when Damon had forced him from his house without really knowing. Of course, he had left out important facts, such as Astra's use of magic. All Elena knew was that Astra was dying because of saving him from death and it was Damon's fault.
"What can I do about it, I don't know what's wrong with her," Elena stuttered out, looking away from Luka and over to where her aunt and friends were sitting at the bar, thinking that Elena had gone to take a call.
"We know what's wrong with her and we know how to fix it," Luka explained, "But we need Elijah. Without him, she's slowly going to die. You need to understand, Elena, I cannot just give up on her and let her die because of me. And because of Damon."
"And I can't just let Elijah go; he's going to kill them and he's going to take me away-"
"Elijah loves Astra more than anything out there; he would give up his attempts to take Klaus's life in a heartbeat if Astra's asked it—he would have given up a long time ago if it wasn't for something Klaus did to Astra a while back. If you free her and save her life, do you really think he'll threaten you or your loved ones?" Luka asked in a desperate voice. "Please, Elena, just think it over tonight."
The brunet looked like she wanted to protest, but nodded her head a moment later with a sad gleam in her eyes. Luka let out a soft, sad sigh before he slipped out of the bench and looked over to where his father was near the door, beginning to walk in his direction. Elena watched him walk away before letting her head drop into her hands and suddenly felt terrible. She didn't have much against Astra; the woman had saved her and her loved ones and never did anything to try and harm her. To think that she would willing put herself on a path to death to save Luka made her heart break slightly.
Pushing herself out of the bench, she knew that she wasn't going to be able to think on much else for the rest of the night.
Astra stumbled along through the house that was so unfamiliar to her, and yet she had apparently owned for over a century. Running her fingers over the walls, she found herself unable to bring back any form of familiarity that she had been hoping for. She recognized the taste that she had, but that was all. Seeing the fireplace didn't make her remember, or the kitchen or patio. Everything was just like a stranger's home that she happened to like.
Stopping at a door, she could feel the cool air that was rising from beneath the door that was clearly coming from a basement. The cool feel of the air made it more than likely that there was a cellar below her. Opening the door, she felt a rush of icy air push against her and she took a moment to blink her eyes against the cold tingle.
The stairs were made of stone, just like everything else in the basement of the estate. Stepping down carefully, the steps chilled her bare feet from lack of heat. It was darkened below, but she was able to catch the shadowed shapes of shelves and doors that led off further into the basement. Hands seeking out the walls as a guide, Astra blinked in an attempt to adjust her eyes to the darkness around her.
It took her a moment to remember the light switches that Damon had introduced her to, and she immediately sought that out instead of continuing to fumble around in the dark. She winced when the overhead lights flicked on, temporarily blinding her sensitive eyes. It felt like someone sent a knife through her skull as her headache reared up once more because of the sudden transition.
When she opened her eyes, she realized why she and Elijah had kept the basement so cold.
An entire wall of chilled wine bottles stood across from her, each in their own slot on the shelf. Moving to the nearest row, Astra pulled free the first bottle she came upon. They must have been dusted recently because she could see traces of dust having been brushed off with a new, thin layer taking its place.
Instead of a regular wine label that would tell the type of wine and all other information, someone had written three letters on the bottle in her hand. A. BW. Pulling out another from the row beneath the first, the first letter had changed from an A to an E. With that information it was easy to connect the dots; the bottles marked with A were meant for her and the E was meant for Elijah. BW could only stand for blooded-wine.
Turning to head back up the stairs, she held the bottle in her hand as she went. Drinking blood had helped to sooth the pains for a short while in the past, so perhaps she would be just as lucky once again. She remembered back when she and Elijah had first begun to mix the blood they drank with wine, allowing them to camouflage themselves in human society better.
Sitting on the clean stone floor of her kitchen, she spun the red wine in the glass she had located above the strange machinery in her kitchen. She didn't even try to figure out what half of the things in the home were for, since it would be more than likely she destroyed something accidentally. The wine was almost too strong in her delicate state, but she forced down the deep red wine and blood to try and regain some of her strength.
Feeling the warmth on her cheek, she half-heartedly wiped the bloody tear away with the side of her hand, smearing the red across her pale skin in the process. Swallowing thickly, she leaned back against the counters with a fatigue to her posture that seemed to drag her down with every movement. However long it would take for the two warlocks to free Elijah was beginning to press with importance. Should it take days, it would be too far late.
Just as lazy as she felt, a roll of thunder sounded above her house and the steady drum of rain falling into the forest around her became a lullaby. Closing her eyes and leaning her head back, she listened to the calming music of nature, trying to fool herself into believing that she was still in the past, before she and Elijah and been torn apart by his lies and Nicklaus's greed.
Swallowing against the tickles of a coming cough in her throat, Astra carelessly knocked the wineglass on its side as she struggled to her feet tiredly. A crack ran up the side of the fragile crystal, though still remained intact. Stepping over the puddle of blood and wine that covered the stones, the dying vampire moved toward the clear glass door that led out to the back property of the home. A light on the outside of the house illuminated the porch and yard, allowing her to see the rain as it grew heavy and strong, beating down on the grass and trees.
Pushing open the glass door with a gentleness that Astra often had forgotten to use as a newborn vampire, she stepped out into the steadily falling water and allowed it to wash away the bloody tears on her paled cheeks. Lightning flashed all around her and brought a sense of daytime to the darkened night, its thunderous companion singing out afterword. The grass was moist and slippery beneath her feet, reminding her of the stones that covered the walkways in Pompeii, just as dangerous to run on while rain fell.
Somehow, it felt wrong to be comparing her home to the strange new world she was stuck in.
Falling to sit in the grass, she sighed softly in contentment as the cool water and air around her allowed her body a reprieve from the fever that was steadily beginning to creep into her bones. Her clothes were increasingly collecting the rain water as it fell upon her, bottoms already soaked from sitting on the puddle riddled ground.
Coughing softly in a small fit, blood welled inside her mouth and tears stung her eyes as she tried not to cry. Was she destined to die again, in the same way that she had as a human woman? Alone and lying in her own blood?
Elena didn't entirely know why Luka's words had compelled her to stand in the doorway of the stone cage Elijah lay in. His clothes were charred but his flesh remained unharmed, though still blue with death. She tried to fight against the image of Astra in much the same state, blue and veined with a vampire's death, but Luka's words continued to draw it to the forefront of her mind again and again. The desperate look in Luka's eyes always came after.
Damon had told her what happened, but he probably didn't know that because of his actions, Luka nearly died and Astra presently was dying. Letting out a great exhale, she fell to sit on the sandy ground beside the door as she continued to look onward at the downed Original. She hadn't wanted this for Elijah as it was, and yet she knew that the brothers were right about her safety being in question as long as Elijah expected for her to die.
Would Elijah really give everything up, all that he had worked for, just for Astra? It was hard to believe that someone would give up centuries of work for one person, but then again she didn't know how strong a millennium old love was.
Moving toward the downed body cautiously, her hand reached for the dagger imbedded in his chest hesitantly. Closing her fingers around the cold hilt, she quickly tugged before she could allow herself to second guess her actions and drew the blade out. It came out disturbingly easily with her hands lifting up above her head in a quick, ungraceful jerk.
She wasn't sure what she was supposed to expect: perhaps some kind of dramatic arching of the back as he inhaled a breath of revival or his eyes flashing open suddenly as his once dead and shrivelled lungs inflated once more. Instead, he lies completely still on the ground, his face remaining discoloured and littered with thick, unnatural veins. Moving back once more, she fell to sit on the ground and leaned against the hard stone wall in the room, more than likely getting sand in her hair but unable to bring herself to care.
Thunder rolled in overhead, barely heard in the bowels of the Salvatore home. Elena glanced upward as she imagined the bright flashes of light that would have appeared only moments before. There were no windows in the small space, preventing her from knowing how bad the storm was outside. Rolling the dagger between her fingers, the human doppelgänger waited in silence for the man that she feared would take her life to wake up.
On the top floor of the house, Damon sat in his bed with a paper in his hands, creased and beginning to tear from years of opening and unfolding it. It was something that he had kept with him for his entire vampire existence; the letter that he had forced himself to write to Astra, destined never to be sent. He didn't know of any family that she had, aside from the clearly fake uncle that he had met while he was visiting her once. What he had assumed was her running away had been her kidnapping by an Original.
Countless times he had mocked his brother for his 'diary' and here he was holding onto a letter to the once love he had and lost. And lost again. Astra could probably be all the way in Canada by that time, but he also doubted that she would risk taking off into an unfamiliar world so soon. Yet, he didn't know much about this new side of her. He was beginning to realize that she had a different personality every century she lived.
Tucking the letter back into the drawer of his nightstand, he closed his eyes and let his hand fall to his neck where she had bitten him. She had been fully intending to inflict pain on him when she bit him, tearing apart his throat with harsh, violent pulls on the flesh. That was how she acted without remembering his actions concerning Katherine; she would have to have the restraint of a saint if she didn't tear him to pieces in that first moment that they saw one another again. She probably had wanted secretly to let the werewolves kill him bite by bite.
And where was she now?
With a great crack of thunder that drew the rain down, Elijah's heart jumped into movement and his dark brown eyes opened to the cold stone ceiling, Elena sitting at his side with the dagger falling from her hand.
If I say I'm sorry, will you all not hate me for taking so freaking long to update? I doubt it, but hey, I finally posted again, so that should give me some wiggle room to bribe you into trusting me not to drop off the face of the Earth again. And now I'm rambling.
Anyway, I hope that you all liked the chapter, things are definitely getting interesting in present time, and Astra's turning into a vampire in the past and sick with the use of magic in the not-so-distant past. Fun for me to write, hopefully a thrill for you all to read!
I hope to get some reviews, even though I know I don't deserve them. I promise, I still love all of you wonderful readers!