Oh boy, I had to do some work for this one. It is entirely in Emeric's point of view.

-27-

Washington D.C.

Emeric

When his plane landed, Emeric exited the craft alone - leaving Gaius in charge of refueling and logistics. The airport was lit with a single stadium light that nearly blinded him after having been on a plane for the last twenty hours. The King squinted and moved out of sight. When no humans remained in his vicinity, Emeric shifted into his most beloved form. The Falcon.

There was a reason Horus was depicted in his mythology as bearing the head of a falcon, after all.

Shifted, he ruffled his feathers and took to the sky. He circled the small airport until he found the only entrance and landed with a swoop, talons clutching the metal for purchase. There he waited, thoughts whirring and twisting. More information was needed before he could take any decisive action. He hated not knowing things. Especially when it came to his family.

The future was always unknown. An uncertainty. Emeric did his best to accommodate every potential avenue - to address that which no one knew needed addressing. He excelled at it, even when he was still young, mortal. He had a unique ability to see several avenues at once, each with their own branches of outcomes - like a web. After millenia of refining this gift he'd come to instinctually choose the right option that would lead to the best outcome.

As a result, his people and his family were prosperous.

Yet today he was troubled. Where the vampire's were concerned, Emeric had considered all avenues of eventual confrontation. He'd set plans in motion hundreds of years ago - plans that were now under revision.

Not, of course, that he was unused to changing his plans. Adaptability was a necessary virtue in his position and he'd always embraced the irregularities of life.

What irked him is that he never considered that his family would one day become intertwined with the children of Mikael - a burgeoning little tyrant Emeric should have killed in the tenth century. 'Another oversight,' he thought. The first of many involving that family.

His brother and sisters being bound to such a ménage was a particular outcome that had never come to mind - absurd as it was.

But connected they were.

Emeric quite hoped the Mikaelson brothers entertained the idea they could charm, lie to, or manipulate him to their side. Whatever their side may be. He so hoped to see their machinations first hand, see them employed against him. He hoped they'd attempt to address him with the bravado they'd no doubt acquired whilst thinking themselves the strongest beings in the world.

All so he could show them exactly why they shouldn't ever try his patience.

It was best to get it out of the way immediately, after all. The flight would be the best time. Only his most trusted would be in ear shot. Three hours alone with his siblings and the Mikaelsons was just the right amount of time to assess these new… interlopers. Three hours to grasp the situation, give them time to posture, and then deliver the rebuking of their lifetime.

The vampire progenitors needed to change. Emeric had been quite patient. Half a millenia too patient, really. He'd given them every opportunity, even sent people their way that could aid them in realizing their true purpose - their potential. Slight pushes in the right direction every couple hundred years.

He'd stopped sending good men the Mikaelson's way when time after time they ended up dead or turned.

They bickered like errant, petty, spoiled little children. No wonder they couldn't control their species.

Such was Emeric's first impression as he watched them congregate below him beside Isolde and Theon.

Unsurprisingly, the sibling who knew him the best spotted him immediately. Emeric watched as his sister discretely typed something on her phone. She titled the screen just so and he cooed, feathers ruffling. He quietly dropped from the roof and into the tree closest to them to read the text without the glare of the building lights.

'Esther died today. Finn, the oldest, took it hard. Be easy with him. He was daggered in a box against his will for 900 years, released just last week. Your ire is not with him.

Isolde. His clever, caring, dear sister. Already attached to her new bonds. Already defending them from her over protective older brother. He met her eyes and hers darted quickly to the only male Mikaelson that had come with her and Theon. The rest of them had arrived together, separate from Emeric's family.

So Finn, then. He'd known that several times over the last millenia between one and three of Mikael's progeny had been indisposed in boxes. He wasn't surprised to learn that one of them had been stuck in such a condition for nearly their entire existence. Emeric felt a pang of pity - and the fleeting remnants of his own guilt.

He'd done much the same to Isolde once, after all.

"It must be difficult for you, exhausting your entire vocabulary in one sentence." One of the Mikaelson men (the hybrid - he knew) said in response to something another said - the tall, skinny fellow. . The one that looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. Likely the youngest of the Mikaelson men, Emeric observed. Isolde's gaze broke away from Emeric and she smiled. Real. Open. Genuine.

The sight nearly stunned him out of his avian form. It had been decades. Perhaps a century or two, even, since Isolde had smiled a real smile.

'Mune.' He thought, unable to look away from it. 'That's dear Mune's smile.' His chest tightened, remembering him and Anubis' childhood nickname for their sister. It had been so long. He'd been forbidden from using it. 'It's Anubis' privilege.' Isolde had said. 'Until he returns, that name stays buried - right beside all that remains of him.'

Isolde's descent into solitude. Her depression. The despair she'd written across her very being for so long that she wore it like a second skin - her deterrent, her protection. These things had been a topic of concern for him and the twins for the last several centuries.

For so long, Isolde had been a shell of the goddess she was meant to be.

It began with Anubis' decision to trade places with her - to preside over the underworld with their father. Isolde wasn't quite right again after Anubis left, but she had been healing. Her first husband, Moses, and their child had a large part in that. Then Moses left with his people, and their first born who'd remained with his mother was murdered.

The rest… well that was largely Emeric's fault. He'd stunted her growth when she'd just been coming into her power. He had entombed her and left her to rot there. He thought he'd been right to do so.

He'd been wrong. So very wrong.

The part of his sister that was meant to accept the other half of her portion of the Consciousness - Ra - was corrupted in that tomb. She had been inhabited by something else entirely. Something that was never supposed to be there.

Without her full portion of Consciousness Isolde drifted through her life, her connection to Ra stunted. Painful, even, at times. She didn't say so, but he saw it in the way she flinched when the sun hit her directly. The way she stayed in the darkness.

The way she stayed away from Egypt - her home.

Isolde was always meant to ascend into her position as Amun-Ra. She hadn't been meant to remain Amunet for all time. Emeric had done his sister a grave disservice, a great evil, locking her away for so very long. Once the twins had recovered her from South America… after Isolde lost her mind to the beast within for the first time… they'd made every attempt to remove the parasite that leeched against his sister's connection to the Consciousness. After two millenia, Isolde had finally told them to stop.

Removing the monster had proven to be a fruitless pursuit.

That was when she'd begun to close herself off. When she grew cold. The depression and sorrow had become synonymous with Isolde over time and now, millenia later, he could scarcely recall when his sister hadn't been as she is now. No passion. No light. Just the darkness. Just the cold.

Emeric's gaze landed on the man who spoke, the one who'd caused a true smile to stretch his sister's features, the sarcastic one.

The hybrid. Niklaus Mikaelson.

Emeric had heard much, read many reports. Klaus Mikaelson wasn't a particularly good person. The reports continuously described him as being cruel, sadistic, utterly unhinged, careless, short-tempered, and manipulative.

With reports like that, Emeric had decided to send Gaius after the hybrid in the seventeenth century. Not to assassinate Klaus, just to observe and report back. After nine months of silence, Gaius had returned to Emeric, missing an eye and quite a story to tell about the cruelty of Klaus Mikaelson.

He'd also had much to say about Klaus Mikaelson's weaknesses, his fears. The parts of the hybrid that remained very human. A scared, lonely, abused child that grew up to be the same in adulthood - now compounded with centuries of such perceived injustices and the power he'd gained, mixed with his unyielding bitterness.

Emeric couldn't condone someone like Klaus within his family. Yet… his sister was bound to the hybrid. Thus, Klaus Mikaelson had a role to play - It was in the gods' plans. As Horus, he wasn't in the habit of disobeying the gods' directives. Questioning, of course, but never disobedient.

What was it that Isolde saw? What about the hybrid was it that brought that spark back to his sister after it had been snuffed out for so long? Emeric wondered, eyes following the hybrid as the group finally began to walk through the airport, he decided he would have to find out on his own.

He caught Theon's eye. His youngest brother tossing a knowing grin, just daring him to plot the death of the Mikaelsons now that he'd seen how they'd affected their sister, over the shoulder of a blonde vampire Emeric assumed was Theon's bond - Rebekah Mikaelson.

'Oh fuck off, Theo.' Emeric thought, taking to the skies once more as his brother continued to grin, reaching an arm around his bond and waving his middle finger at Emeric.

Emeric flew back over the building as the group made way past the single security guard. This was a private airport, after all. They'd just exited the door that led out to the breezeway… just yards away from where the jet waited on stand by when Emeric decided he needed to greet his siblings. To see them up close and prove to himself they were both alright. Safe.

He swooped out of the sky, two shrill cries echoing in the darkness to ensure he had everyone's attention. Just before he hit the ground he shifted fluidly into his typical form, never pausing as he strode toward the group. Controlling the smirk that threatened to grace his features at the Mikaelson's wide eyes and slack jaws.

Isolde grinned. And by the gods it was so good (and quite strange) to see such a genuine expression from her after all these years. She spun, pushing her phone into the abdomen of one of her bonds (a vampire in a tailored high-end suit) and releasing it. The vampire fumbled to keep from letting it drop - Emeric didn't quite care because Isolde was launching herself at him at record speed.

"Don't let me forget I'm angry with you," she said, even as her body slammed into him and her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

He'd not received this warm of a greeting from his sister in centuries. He gripped her tightly and lifted her off her feet. She shrieked and laughed and it was almost euphoric, hearing that laugh again. He'd do anything to ensure she never lost it again, now that she'd gotten it back.

"It's in my best interests to do the opposite of that." He laughed with her as she lingered, nearly choking him to death. He didn't care - he just returned the embrace with equal fervor.

Theon wandered over to them both and Emeric shot his arm out, wrapping a hand in his collar to drag his brother into a side hug. Theon sighed forcefully, putting on a show for his bond but the younger Alexander sagged a bit and that was all Emeric needed to understand that the last several hours had been trying for Theo.

Vera was Theon's twin, his other half. Having her injured and hundreds of miles away affected Theon far more than Emeric. It was a deep fear of Theon and Vera, that one of them would be lost one day and the other would be bereft of that bond.

They knew how losing Anubis had affected Isolde.

For his part, Emeric felt some of his anxieties from having felt Vera's injury ebb away with two of his three siblings within arms reach, even as they both stepped away from him.

"Introductions are in order," Theon said, throwing an arm out beside him and side stepping closer to the Mikaelsons with a cheeky grin. "Mikaelsons, this is the eldest of us. King of Egypt; Emeric Alexander."

"Awfully pretentious, throwing around such an old title." Emeric admonished, waving a hand at his youngest brother and closing the distance between himself and the rest. He was aware of Isolde watching his every move. Ready to stop him from attacking, should it come to it.

Silly sister - she was much too anxious. He had a far better plan than that.

Theon's introduction was indeed pretentious and exactly what Emeric didn't want to do - Lord titles over the Mikaelsons.

He wanted them to consider themselves his equal.

It is much easier to establish motives, agendas, personality archetypes, and what exactly the Mikaelson's weaknesses were if their guard wasn't all the way up.

To make up some of the ground that Theo had just lost him, Emeric placed his right hand over his heart and bowed his torso about two inches. The humility of the move had served him well in the past, he could only hope the Mikaelson's thought him weak for doing it.

Because if they were as the reports said - weakness was something to be exploited.

Emeric wanted them to think he was easily manipulated.

He flashed his best, most charming smile at them all with practiced ease. Isolde and Theon were not fooled, that was fine. It wasn't them he had to trick.

"Call me Emeric, I'm sure my brother and sister weren't quite so obnoxious when you learned their names and titles. There's no need to stand on antiquated ceremony."

The female Mikaelsons were relaxing, that was a start. Rebekah stepped away from her brothers, holding her hand out and Emeric took it like he would for a business deal. Firm. Respectful. He didn't lean over to kiss her knuckles, such things would fall under 'antiquated ceremony' and he wanted their guards down.

She smiled brightly at him when she spoke. Over eager, wanting to impress him. Theon must have told her Emeric favored the fearless - she'd listened, else she likely wouldn't have been the first to take his hand.

"Obnoxious wouldn't be the word. They were rather terrifying when we learned the truth. I'm Rebekah."

Well spoken, beautiful, and a good sense of humor. Good first impression, he decided. Putting on a show, dialing up the charm, he swiveled to toss a look at Isolde as he released Rebekah's hand.

"Terrifying?" She rolled her eyes and he turned his head back to Rebekah, clearly faking his baffled expression. 'Build rapport,' he thought. 'Be approachable. Make them laugh.' "My little brother and sister?"

Rebekah did indeed laugh as the next bravest Mikaelson sauntered up with bravado that Emeric was certain he didn't actually feel. Or perhaps he foolishly did. The hybrid.

"It was quite a show of power." The hybrid reached out and Emeric shook his hand. Power, the first words from his mouth were about power. Tilting his hand early - or perhaps not. Klaus was too clever. No, it was a tactic. Klaus wanted Emeric to tilt his hand early. "I wouldn't want to be on the opposing end of a battlefield of Alexanders, myself. Truth be told." A slight squeeze of the hand. Microexpressions. Counter manipulation, feigned friendliness. Klaus knew Emeric was manipulating them. A dance, then. Who can piss the farthest? Emeric, certainly. "Call me Klaus."

This was why he'd wanted to meet Klaus himself over the years.

The hybrid was smart and cunning. Much too eager to prove it, though, and that made him careless. A smarter man would've played back without showing he knew he was being manipulated.

A mediocre first impression, he decided. Simply because the hybrid interested Emeric. It was so rare to meet someone who reminded him of himself when he was young, after all. Right down to the tragic past and the rage that came right along with it. Klaus had a long journey ahead of him to sort out his issues. Isolde would be a tremendous boon for this. Once the hybrid gains some control over himself and conquers his demons he would be quite a force - near impossible to stop.

Comparable to Emeric himself.

Despite the mediocre first impression, Emeric found himself tentatively approving of Klaus. The smile on Isolde's face was one enormous point in the hybrid's favor.

Of course, he'd kill the man if he placed his sister in any harm or hurt her in any way. This whole assessment be thrown out the window with extreme prejudice.

Klaus moved to the side, holding his arm out as the Mikaelson in a suit came forward. This one walked with grace in his step. An air of nobility and confidence. It was clear that the Mikaelson's had a pecking order, and this one was Klaus' second in command. "Our brother Elijah." Klaus introduced.

"A pleasure." Elijah said, his voice was calm. His grip firm. Jaw locked and eyes only slightly narrowed. Like a businessman, friendly in an unpleasant way. Emeric's hackles rose. This was the Mikaelson who'd angered him most over the centuries. Elijah.

"It's a pleasure to put face to name. I've heard many things about you, Elijah Mikaelson."

"Not all bad, I hope." Elijah responded. Dialing up his charm. The vampire thought highly of himself. Emeric was not amused, nor was he impressed.

Still, a false smile would do more than a true frown. 'Make the vampire squirm.' He thought. 'Say nothing. Move on to the next.'

Emeric did just that. Smiling and looking at the next person. The oldest sister - Vera's new bond and the reason his youngest sibling was in New Orleans in the first place.

(Emeric was acutely aware that Elijah Mikaelson looked to be having an internal crisis now - good.)

The eldest Mikaelson stepped forward and offered her hand. Power. This one had quite a bit of magical power. A thousand year old witch. First born from a strong witch bloodline. Trained by Dahlia. Cursed - really. A thousand years but only a handful of decades actually lived. She'd had a hard life, he could tell in the way she carried herself. Her eyes were cold, a reflection of the torment she'd endured.

"Freya Mikaelson, glad to meet you. So sorry for the circumstances," brows knit with guilt - despite Vera having chosen to go, "please use me as you will for your plans to retrieve Vera."

The first one to acknowledge why they were gathered and treated it seriously. Likely because it was her soul bond that had been taken. The rest weren't taking it so seriously. Which was a negative point out of the gate for them. Vera had gone to New Orleans for their family, after all. They could stand to be more grateful.

Emeric nodded, smile relaxed into a more genuine one. "Thank you. We'll discuss it on the flight."

"The flight that we should probably get on, if we want to make it to New Orleans before dawn." The youngest brother snarked, sticking his own hand out to shake Emeric's. "Kol."

Emeric let out a false laugh. He'd heard of Kol Mikaelson, too. Wild. Erratic. Left a line of drained bodies everywhere he went. He looked forward to learning more about this one on the flight. "True. I would like to beat the Shade and Incubi."

The last, but by no means least, Mikaelson was the one he'd wanted to meet since the moment he saw the man. Finn. The one who'd hung close to Isolde when they'd come in, and even now he remained near. His face remained neutral through every exchange thus far. He was calm. His eyes had swept all around them every thirty seconds on the dot. Like a bodyguard.

Emeric offered his hand.

No pretense. This was a genuine greeting. Emeric had no quarrels with this man. The one who'd been entombed for nearly his whole life.

"Heil og sæl, gott að kynnast þér Finnur Mikaelsson."

The eldest Mikaelson was sharp. Strategic. A flash of the fingers on his left hand before he took Emeric's proffered hand in his right. The eye of Ra branded onto Finn's finger - Isolde's brand.

This one had already sworn to Isolde.

Emeric's smile became genuine - there was no need to be easy on him, as Isolde had requested. Finn's eyes were sharp. Stance light. Protective. Strong. Quiet. Observant. This one was a warrior. A true one, from a time long past.

As a god of War - men and women of the trade always earned Emeric's immediate respect.

That he'd already sworn to his sister and so easily stepped into the role already was a tremendous boon in his favor.

Finn's head bowed, despite Emeric having said they shouldn't worry about such things.

"Yðar hátign." Their eyes met. A very, very slight smile. Understanding.

'Oh yes, I like this one.' Emeric thought. Finn remained respectful, yet he'd called Emeric's bullshit without saying anything about it at all. Respecting Emeric's station, but not too respectful. He was not Finn's sovereign, after all. His highest respects should be paid to Isolde. His loyalty should remain with Isolde. Emeric should get nothing from him beside what Isolde wanted her brother to know - until Emeric (as the Alexander patriarch) welcomed him into the family. 'Well done, Finn Mikaelson.'

'Not so well done, Kol Mikaelson.' Emeric thought as he turned back to his siblings just in time to see the youngest brother look at Finn with a barely contained sneer.

Emeric wrapped an arm around Isolde's shoulders, smile still in place as he addressed them all. "I'm happy to have met you all. Let's move to the plane - we have much to discuss and many miles to put behind us."

Don't worry. The dressing down of the millenia is coming in chapter 28. I didn't want to do that from Emeric's point of view. This was just to show you exactly who Emeric was and how his mind works after many chapters of build up. Isolde was under the impression he would be his usual self off the bat. She was wrong. Being himself right away would have robbed him of all the information he's soaking in about the Mikaelsons.