A/N: Hi everyone! Firstly, thank you so much for all the reviews! I've replied to most of them privately and they've given me a few ideas... So this was never meant to be more than a flimsy slightly bad oneshot (lack of editing and no fuss) BUT, from the reviews I decided to try and flesh it out a little more.
So I'm taking a few liberties here and there but I hope you enjoy my take on things and if not - then I'd love to hear how you would have done things!
Bonnie has always had a fascination for fire. For its light and warmth and ability to be used for either good or bad, creation or destruction.
Fire, inherently, has no moral compass. It has no malicious intent or charitable goal. It's a tool that can be welded to the user's desire, like a weapon.
For the witch, there was a comfort in dancing flames - the crackling and spitting. The way it whispers and wraps itself around you, tickling and humming and giggling. It's a form of life, of energy. It twirls around your finger and prances to the weight of your breath.
Fire tells a story… if you listen. It twists and jitters and careens in the dark. It shows you what is there, what you need to see, what you refuse to see.
Bonnie took great comfort in the flames of red hot pain.
So she sits on the ground, next to her parked car, with an ignited candle in front of her. It isn't the most sophisticated thing, but it works. Especially considering her current predicament and place in life. It feels right.
She closes her eyes and whispers against clasped hands, tuning in to the murmuring wind, feeling the hard dirt beneath her. She whispers for direction, for strength, for something, in a language that manifests as naturally as the blood rushing beneath her skin.
Bonnie Bennett prays for a sign, wills it to parade itself in the quiet of the night and the heat of the flame.
She listens for the story she knows has not yet been written.
In her deafening concentration, she does not hear the woosh of an approaching vampire.
"You humans are becoming increasingly peculiar" the voice drawls out from behind her.
Bonnie's eyes shoot open as she's torn from her focus. She twists in her spot to stare up unimpressed at the man dressed in black. How cliche.
She can immediately tell this is a vampire, her mind screaming the word at her as her magic poises itself with impatient greed. Gosh, why did this one manage to find her? She supposes her pit stop in the middle of nowhere in the dark made her easy prey.
She wondered how many times this had been her friends out at night hunting down humans. Hunting down their prey.
Huffing she scrambles up to her feet, stumbling slightly at the sensation of numb legs before stepping carefully away from her candle and towards the creature. Is it even accurate to call it a man?
"Not in the mood," she states plainly, "go find someone else to snack on."
While she may have a hunger for destruction and a (quite justifiable) dislike for such creatures of the night, she refuses to let her anger control her. She will be fair in this situation. She also, admittedly, lacks the desire to deal with the potential mess. Cleaning does not run smoothly with her hunger for destruction, although despite its clashing nature, it certainly would help mask any wreckage she chooses to create.
Honestly, she's almost apathetic about the whole thing. Does she really want to waste time with some nomad?
If her acknowledgement of the vampire's existence phases him, he does not show it. Instead, he glides forward and tilts his head, "my, my. You're a clever one. Shame it won't do you any good."
His empty smirk starts to shape itself into a sneer, teeth bared and dark veins crawling up a pale face.
Bonnie does not hesitate as he goes in to bite her. It's reminiscent of the time Elena fed from her the night of the prom, but this time the vampire in front of her does not get nearly as far as she did.
Within seconds he's kneeling on the ground clutching at his head and screaming in pain, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut as the wind whirls around them violently, mirroring her emotions and rising to her magic's virility.
Bonnie marvels at the power she has. At how easy she can turn from prey to predator. The satisfaction purrs its way over her as she bends ever so slightly to speak to the male, "sorry" she murmurs sickly sweet before twisting her hand to break his bones.
He falls sideways onto the dirt, still groaning and screaming in intervals but Bonnie feels no sympathy. She snaps her hand once again and there is silence, his neck having been broken under her will. He lays awkwardly on the ground, eyes open and unseeing.
Bonnie steps closer, magic still humming as she wonders what to do. Kill him? Leave him? Would he come after her if she did?
The wind continues to whip around her as she turns back to look at the candle. To her surprise, it's as still as ever despite the frantic air. She takes a breath and concentrates on calming down. As she does, the air settles into gentle fluttering. Immediately, the candle goes out and the smoke curls up in elegant whisps past her and towards the incapacitated vampire. Her mind forms the connection and it is clear what she must do.
She grabs the extra gasoline from the trunk of her car and pours it over the prone parasite. Tossing the bottle back in her car she lifts her hands once more and whispers, "Phasmatos Incendia."
The light momentarily blinds her and she looks away to shield her eyes, but once she looks back she's overcome with peace, entranced by the dancing flames and the feeling of slaughter.
She stands tall as she watches the smoke rise in the night sky and feels the heat of the fire against her skin.
It plays in the back of the mind who it is that had decided to help her, if it even was someone. She wonders if the ways of fire are independent of the spirits. She supposes they are. Yet there's still a slight sliver niggling at the pool of her subconscious that hopes it is her ancestors behind her. The larger part of her knows, however, that she's never really felt them too much anyways.
She has no connection to her past, her roots. There is no great coven to guide her or glamorous spellbook and array of tools to be passed down to her. While there may have been her grimoire, which had been handed down the generations, it was destroyed at her funeral. There had been no more Bennett for the book to be passed on to and so its secrets were lost in the ashes that returned back to the earth, buried away from any prying eyes.
There is an empty sadness at the thought of her family line, their legacy and powers, being cut so irrevocably. There really had been no one left… and even now, there was only one. Despite this, Bonnie still snorts with agitated amusement. To have had a funeral while standing currently with air rushing in and out of her lungs and a beating heart - there is quite an irony to the whole thing.
The flames have now eased down, the sparks becoming more mellow and the light tapering off to a silky glow.
Bonnie knows the body will soon be completely gone. Its ashes will be repaid back to Nature. Balance, in a way, will be restored. Most witches thought of vampires as an abomination of Nature: wrong creations that plagued the lands and shamed the balance of the world that so many witches prided themselves in keeping.
Grams had briefly explained that to her, how the goal of many witches was to maintain this balance and honour the earth. Bonnie knows however, that there are also witches who choose to go against this harmony and use their powers for personal gain. This is something she had been guilty of so many times.
Looking back she knows her actions were wrong. At the time she thought she was helping her friends, but since when are vampires capable of having such relationships. She's angry with herself now over it, her blatant disrespect towards the Spirits and her ancestors. But at the same time, they are the ones who abandoned her.
She had no guidance. She misplaced her trust in her friends who had only used her magic for themselves. For their personal gain. Bonnie had been so blind to this but she had paid the price all the same.
Now, she was free. Unrestricted and independent with the world at her disposal.
While she may not have gotten the type of sign she had expected tonight, the message is transparently simple. She would restore balance in her own way. She may not be dallying with pretty flowers and gentle spring showers. At least not yet. But she would destroy the creatures she deemed a nuisance, which at this point was almost all of them, and create her own connections with the energies that bound themselves in nature.
She would still be a little selfish though. Because as she stood next to the dying fire, she felt the power weaving its way inside her and the potential she held growing beneath her skin.
Although her powers were a gift, for one of the first times she understood it was also a skill and a talent - something you must work at and care for, something you can manipulate to become fine-tuned to your needs.
Bonnie was wasted with the feeling of strength and dominance, of transforming from target to huntress.
She wanted more.
… And more she would take.
Initially I thought about writing everything else in one final chapter but dividing things up a little more is what I think I'll do. So unfortunately this story might involve a lot of waiting time for you guys as I still haven't written it completely! Regardless, I hope you enjoy. Hope everyone is keeping happy and safe X