She drives all the way to New Orleans, stopping at random places along the way. She stops at a motel that first night, sorting out everything she had bought and running her fingers over the pendant that had called out to her. It was dark metal and heavy against her chest when she put it on. But it felt comforting, a weight to ground and shield her from the airless stifling nature of others. The hesitant uncertainty that so many possessed. They approached wrong and fought with a weakness that ran all the way down to their bones. There were so many Bonnie had fought who were sloppy and frail in their style, their motives. The plans they had scratched onto the flimsy surface of their minds, not even bothering to speak them out loud with themselves, to write them down and check for weaknesses, areas of improvement. It was sad almost. How shaky the supernatural world had become. Diluted in a way Bonnie had only noticed recently. Her pendant was a welcomed gravity against that.
One of the first things Bonnie had done was a protection charm spell. Her preparation was automatic and her words were murmured with such profound confidence it felt like they had always existed entwined within her. Mapped out on her skin from the start, growing and changing just as she had. Shifting around in the confines of her skin and bones.
It felt natural.
It takes another two days to make it to New Orleans. She stops at gas stations where she picks up cheetos and slushies and cheap plastic sunglasses. A few small towns for lunch and a walk. Happy to simply sit on a park bench and watch as life moved on around her, a stark contrast from the lifelessness of the Prison World. She enjoyed just watching. Schoolchildren on their lunch break, skipping down the sidewalks and laughing loudly to each other, a young family out for fresh air, the mother pushing a stroller and the father walking a hyper dog. Old people walking slow and joggers pounding steadily against the ground. There were birds too, flying above and hopping down low, pecking at seeds and worms and crumbs of people's sandwiches that had fallen to the ground. The sounds of life are consoling, reassurance that she isn't alone, that there is more out there. That it's not just her. That it's not just meaningless.
She eases into talking with people - small talk about the weather, things to do in whichever town she was in. Polite laughs and animated expressions about the best cafes around. It was… pleasant. Just enough to soothe her loneliness but not too much as to be overbearing.
She arrives late at night in New Orleans and immediately the magic is palpable in the air. Shadows of wispy energy dancing among the stone streets, whispering low shouts of vitality and life. Magic thrums through the city, to the beat of a thousand different hearts that have lived in a thousand different times, those current and those past. There's a hidden world of its own that hums happily in the air. Twirling around tourists and waitresses, half-empty coffee cups and resting cocktails. Through the cracks of the pavement and around the hazy lights of the lamps. It's sharp and fierce, deep in the shallows of the visible realm.
Bonnie feels it vividly, feels it wrap around her skin, sees whispers in the corners of her eyes. Feels the rustling of a life not everyone can see. It's energizing for both her and her magic. She can feel it fizzling beneath her skin in excitement, probing at the new world around her. Eager to explore.
Suffice to say, she's way too keyed up with the magic pulsating through the city to get any sleep. So she dons her brown leather jacket, heeled boots and goes to a club.
It's loud and hazy with smoke, different shades of vibrant coloured light flashing to a different beat than the music. There's laughter and cheers and uncoordinated dancing. Bonnie isn't even sure she likes it but she conforms herself into the crowd all the same. She feels her magic, hot and thick like molten lava, sickly sweet like syrup and bitter and dark like melted chocolate. It dances too, with her, beside her, away from her. It dances with the other Spirits, the other energy that lives so vibrantly among all the other souls here.
She senses that she's not alone. She's not the only one with energy living in her bones. There are others, both similar and different to her that are among the dancing crowd.
And then there's one ofthem. She can smell it. The sickly sweetness of flesh that should have been rotting. Should have been broken down back into nature but is instead stuck in time, as frozen as a broken clock. An abomination of life itself.
But even broken clocks tell the right time twice a day.
Bonnie feels dark, dangerous. Like something caged and pacing. Something raw she can't quite get rid of. It had been ripped into her, layers upon layers torn away savagely. It clung on deeply to her, like a sick fever that felt infectious at times, intoxicating and overpowering. She moves slower now, turns around to look from under her lashes, to smirk something smouldering like she'd once seen on Katherine. He's pale like you'd expect, an unnatural ashen quality to his lifeless skin. Dark hair, dark eyes, a smirk to match her own. Bonnie might even say he's cute. Rough in a way she hadn't ever liked before.
She prowls closer, wraps her arms coyly around his neck, glides her movement in time with his.
Anger. That's what she feels. Angry at her ancestors, at her friends, at herself. At the world and at everything and nothing at all. She feels wild, the fire beneath her skin cautiously uncontained. It spits and rages and burns at her soul in a way that should hurt.
She pulls him outside, grabs his hand and slinks out with sure movements and lustrous lips.
There's an alleyway behind the club that she pushes him up against. Rough. Messy. She puts her hand around his neck and squeezes just enough so he can feel it. Smiles demurely and leans in close. "If you bite me, I'll kill you," she tells him, whispering like heavy velvet. Waits for him to understand her words.
He smirks his recognition. "Promise I'll be good." his voice is low and dark as he whispers back.
She shouldn't be doing thisshe thinks as she breaths in his sickly sweet smell. ButGodhas she missed this. Has she craved to be messy and bad anddestructive. Chaotic in a way her magic has begged to be, to match the snarling fire that runs through her blood, settles in her bones, whips and strains at her fingertips eager to destroy. To consume and ravage like the unforgiving sea, the winds, the summer sun. Nature is relentless. Strong and ruthless, determined and impassive.
That's what Bonnie wants to be.
But for now, she digs her nails into his flesh, like pelting rain carving the awaiting ground.
She stays up all night, sitting on the hood of her car as she watches the easing sunrise. A calmness has settled into her, sinking its way deeper and deeper, soft and consoling. Her skin is cold from the remaining night air. Heartbeat patient and breathing steady.
The fire from earlier has been sated, moving deeply and peaceful in her blood.
There's a fresh stillness now. The thrumming of the city has eased down. Resting. Winding through the snoozing roads, the empty cafes and restaurants. It chatters still. Whispers sweet nothings and silent secrets in the pool of Bonnie's mind. Tugging gently at her, like an eager child. A happy child who tugs for comfort before running off wild and free. It sits next to her, lies away from her. Explores places she will never know.
The streets are empty and yet she doesn't feel alone. It isn't the stillness of the Prison World. The absolute nothingness that crushes such a fear inside of you that you can almost clutch painfully at the emptiness it burrows inside your bones. Worming its way like a sickness, eating at you until you feel so empty and hollow, you're scared you'll dissolve into nothingness when you stand on your empty bones. That they'll break and crumble like old forgotten buildings. Places of worship that have no devotees. The wetness of your blood will fizzle like flooded parched stone on a blistering hot day.
Here she feels weighted. Lavishly full and spoiled with the fruitfulness of animated energy. It soothes her in such a way that just for these moments, she feels that everything will be okay. That she isn't alone. That she doesn'thaveto be alone.
She sleeps until the afternoon in a motel that isn't too shabby. There's a 24/7 place she stops at for food. Picking at it until the pangs of hunger have gone.
The contemplation about what she's going to do now is a constant heavy feeling. A swinging pendant clock that will never stay on either side. Only pausing momentarily before swaying quickly to the other side. Dizzying you until you can't tell which side is which - the middle? Halfway to one? A misstep to somewhere else completely?
If destruction is what she wants then she could always go looking for the Mikaelsons. But that seemed a bit counterproductive. She was trying to get away from all the mess that they themselves were also tangled up in.
Besides, even with whatever spells and potions she can prepare - a cloaking spell maybe? They were much too powerful for her to do anything about. She wasn't sure she even wanted to do anything about them. There was a hierarchy in this world. And they were certainly on top. They had achieved their own balance in a way. A messed up, unnatural way. But still, a balance. Bonnie wasn't sure what her plan regarding them would be, or if she'd even have one. So it seemed safer for now to steer clear of them.
For now, she wants a moment. A moment all to herself.
So she finds herself in a cafe with a notebook she had bought, her loopy handwriting moulding spells and stories, secrets and notes that had been in the Bennett grimoire. Or at least what she could remember of it. There had been so much she never got to read. She writes some of her own too - elixirs she had created to aid her friends. Dreams that had been given to her, ones that had been threaded through her blood, interlinked from the witches that had come before her. Not everything she wrote down was complete. Some were fractured pieces at best, messy puzzles she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to complete. But she'd damn well try anyways.
She gets her nails done. A dark red. She smiles and chatters and asks what nice places there are to go to. She sees a jacket through a shop window that she can't resist buying, a man on the street painting, his previous work laid down on a sheet for people to browse.
"How much is this one?" she asks, it's a portrait, colourful and abstract but still realistic enough to show the woman he had painted. She smiles wide, eyes full of mischief. Dark skin contrasted with the vibrant colours around her.
Bonnie strolls back to her motel, shopping bag hanging off her elbow, hand around a hot chocolate and her other arm tucked around the painting. She watches all the different people, appreciates the smell of food, the sound of talking and the various music from all the various places. It's not quite night yet, still a dusky light that paints the sky in shades of yellows, pinks, purples and blues. It's a gorgeous day and Bonnie can't help the smile that sits happily on her face.
Sometimes, it's easy to slip back into the loud life of busy people. She spends her time sipping coffee in bustling cafes, dancing in crowds with loud music booming, vibrating through her body. There are parks filled with families and shops filled with people. She drinks at bars filled with chatter and watches plays she doesn't like. It's comforting at times. And overwhelming at others. So she spends some days alone in her motel room, enveloped in silence. She walks empty forest trails that are a bit of a way out of the city and glides through sparse museums.
It's a process, to say the least. It's pedalling through the different stages, climbing a ladder that takes you both up and down.
Occasionally she panics if she's doing the right thing. Furrows her brows and chews at her bottom lip, running through everything in her mind. She paces around her motel room, takes the tarot cards she isn't quite used to out of their flimsy box. They don't always seem to work for her. Sometimes she swears that if anything, they mock her.
She shuffles the deck, knocks on it three times and holds it to her chest, eyes closed and searching. She does a three-card pull - one for the past, present and future. They give her a whole lot of nothing. She tries a Celtic Cross spread next - another basic layout according to the internet. Her movements are sloppy and halted as she continuously pauses to check the next card placement. It doesn't give her much except the knowledge that she has to practice more.
She lights candles and burns incense - lavender and lemongrass. She leaves out rock salt and bread as offerings. She pours hot candle wax into cold water, watching the shape it takes on, tries to understand what it means as she melts it again and murmurs words that have existed in her blood long before even she had existed herself.
Other times, she's confident.
She spends nights wandering around, creeping through shadows of empty alleyways. Listening to hushed whispers and the tugging in her mind. She watches calmly in the sunlight, feet propped up on the cafe chair opposite hers, taking languid sips of her coffee as she smiles and gazes and calculates. Mentally noting, observing, connecting pieces of a puzzle she doesn't always know the full picture of.
She plays the perfect tourist, reading every sign, peering at large frumpy maps. Stumbling into placesaccidentallyand fluttering out witless apologies with bashful eyes and silly giggles. "I amsuchan airhead sometimes!" she exclaims.
"That's fine miss," an unsure half-smile, "the place you want is just down the road." hesitant explanations, watchful eyes. Bonnie smiles wider. Stumbles more, like she's unsure of her place in the world - an airless girl with brainless senses.
"Oh!" she laughs, "that makessomuch more sense!" she draws her words out, lets them fill the wary space, "I just can't tell my left from my right sometimes."
The people -thingssmile kindly. Unsure. Weakly at her. While the energy charges wildly around her, circling certain people more than others. It has become an accomplice of sorts. A partner. An imitation of the support she might have gotten from her ancestors a lifetime ago. Bonnie listens carefully to it. Trusts it in a way that almost scares her, but she knows it trusts her back. They've become connected in a way she can't quite describe. Entwined together as old friends, new friends, mentor and mentee, family - whispers from a thousand people, a thousand souls, shapeless energy that mimics the city, that is separate from it, one with it.
It hums with her own magic. Weaves alongside it, curls in elegant whisps and points with thorny sharpness. Runs wild and calm like energetic children and smooth rivers on a tranquil day.
She flicks her wrist and manipulates her fingers in gentle movements, murmurs spells beneath the humming of the city's magic. Creates potions and elixirs, writes charms and hexes she shouldn't know. Practices glamorous she doesn't always get quite right. She burns candles and buys gasoline. She draws circles on maps, connects them with sure lines and buys sticky notes and pens to piece together her growing puzzles. She runs through plans in her mind and coordinates her different strategies. Writing them down on paper she later burns until all possible weaknesses have been burnt away with them by the heat of her dedication.
It takes time. It isn't always simple or straightforward. It's clumsy and awkward, Bonnie stumbles like a child learning to walk. But she learns. She improves, she feels her progress as strongly as she feels the fire rise steadily beneath her skin.
She may not know exactly what she's doing, but there's determination clawed so deeply in her bones that she knows nothing else but doing it right.
She wants to see themburn.