Fanfic: Harshness of the Seasons (1/10)
Title: Harshness of the Seasons
Rating: T
Author:
terapsina
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Pairing: Elijah/Elena
Word Count: 3'800
Parts: 1/10
Summary: AU To those who know the story of the making of vampires Elena will be remembered as the girl who was sacrificed for the plague they became. But in Elijah's memory she will always be the wife he loved and lost to his parents' desperation. All that he now has left is the wane hope that the body Ayanna preserved will one day wake as she promised. Elejah
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I wanted to explore a world where Elena was the Original Petrova and to see if I could make it into Elejah without damaging the connection I love about them. Whether I succeeded or not of course is not up to me to judge.
Death of Summer //DEATH OF SUMMER//
*o0O0o*
*Harshness of the Seasons*
*Death of Summer*
*o0O0o*
Elena's hand fleetingly slides through Elijah's hair until clenching and pulls him towards her with more direct intent than before this had begun only a moon ago he ever expected of her. And as she starts to kiss him until he loses the air in his chest, he considers only letting it happen and to forget why he brought her to their clearing in the first place. But he needs to know why she returns his attention while ignoring that of his brother's as well as those of the rest of the unmarried men who follow every move this beautiful maiden makes.
She has lived through seventeen summers while he already passed his twenty eighth. There are younger men who would no doubt offer her as much, if not more than him, and yet it is not their arms she seeks.
So as they part for breath, his tightly coiled body heaving against hers he doesn't restrain the question any longer.
"Why me? You could choose to spend your time with any village man here."
She looks at him with her gentle gaze and runs her palm over the side of his face with a care that he has never seen her gift any other. She leans closer with her flushed cheeks and bites her lip, for a moment he thinks she will kiss him instead of answering. But then Elena sends towards him a look of confounded disbelief as if she couldn't quite believe his uncertainty, as though the answer should be as clear as the sky is above them right now.
"Don't you know?"
Elijah does not reply, waiting for her to say what until now has only ever been implied. She takes a step back, crossing her arms and transfixing him with the barest of smiles. The answer is everything he ever wished to read from her always inviting mouth.
"Because you Elijah are the one who did not try to steal kisses when I did not wish to give them away. Because you talk with me about every thought your mind contains, engage me in conversation interested in my answers instead of trying to impress me with your swordplay, hunting prowess or handsome face. Because Elijah, you are not like anyone else here. If I spend the rest of my life by your side and in your embrace I will never regret a sunset. I love you Elijah, it is so very, very simple."
She is like an apparition from another world, almost supernatural in her graceful beauty. Her dark eyes pull at his soul, her brown hair fall in waves free across her shoulders masking her curves. And the look in her gaze is more vulnerable than ever before, she is offering her heart and the bravery he suddenly sees in her almost blinds him to the fear and vulnerability it protects. But he does see those too and he can only continue in one way.
"My Elena, I love you as well!"
She jumps forward with her arms enveloping his shoulders and a laugh filled to the brim with relief greeting his ears. When after a moment far too short she finally releases him there is a spark of mischief in her grin.
"That's good I suppose, it will make asking for my hand easier I believe then!"
*o0O0o*
Elena's hair for the final time fall free across her shoulders and in slight waves down her back, a crown of blue flowers is accenting her beauty adding a touch of fey playfulness and innocence to her look. A part of him knows he will miss seeing her this way outside in the sunlight, but he smiles secretly at the knowledge that the moonlight within the walls of their home will still illuminate her brown waves in his presence alone.
She answers his smile with an unrestrained of her own, showing genuine happiness as she takes the warrior's sword Finn passes her. It was smelted by his older brother only a moon ago as the gift for his dead wife's sister.
He wishes Elena's own blood could have done this for her, but he feels content at being the man who will create a new family with her.
The blade gleams in the sun and she nervously bites her rosy lip while removing the ring from its hilt. He can see Elena's hands shaking as she reaches for his own and even more as she gives him the sword before she slides the ring on his finger. He knows she gives her oath to him next, but the wording escapes him, too lost he is in her rich brown eyes and the harmonious sound in which her promise is voiced.
Her dark embers assure him with so much more clarity than could ever be spelled in mere words.
Elena possesses no magic he knows, but right then, when their lives become one he does not quite believe this. She has certainly enchanted all his senses, all they feel, all they ever feel it seems, is her alone.
Marriage is not about love of course, not always or even often. But he counts himself blessed as the man who gets both within the arms of the same woman.
And then as these thoughts overwhelm him he gives her his ancestor's sword for the son they will have if the gods are kind, their hands touch clasping the hilt as one when he loosens the oath ring from its place and moves it towards its rightful destination on her hand.
Elena is his wife now. Joy, peace, wonder, relief and love all fight to be felt over each other. His heart has never before been so filled.
Suddenly Elijah know that although he is not a violent man and does not carry his fathers rage he swears that the Gods will need to have mercy on anyone trying to separate him from Elena now, for he certainly will show no such empathy.
*o0O0o*
As he enters his home, his back aching from hours of crouching still, in wait of the animals that would become their meal and his shoulder stinging from the short struggle that followed a deer's appearance, Elijah wishes for nothing more than to take his wife in his arms and express the overpowering energy that always remains after a stressful hunt.
But then he looks up to see her and stops in his steps. Elena is wearing her best dress, - woven by his mother in the stead of her own, - her hair is braided more carefully than he knows she can manage by herself and there is a look in her eyes he has never seen in them before.
It is knowing and sweet. It expresses wonder and a touch of wisdom that her eyes however bold have never before contained to such a degree. His mother has had it. A lot of mothers he's seen have worn it with pride.
She stands silent in front of him, her lips fighting to keep at bay a smile and her hand placed on her belly so lightly he doesn't know if she even feels it through the material covering her skin.
He does not need for her to speak. With a sudden strike of clearness Elijah knows what Elena planned to reveal this night.
And he can see how Elena has come to the same conclusion by the way she runs into his arms, by the release of the laughter that lightens the room. But she comments anyway, as if she needs to say it out loud.
"Elijah, you're going to be a father. We're going to be parents."
He would be a father. There was a life growing in her body, a life they had between them created together, a life who would adore them unconditionally, without reservation.
His son or daughter!
He had thought he knew love before this, he'd been wrong. What he shared with Elena until now had been a spring flower's first bloom, what he would feel for her from this day on is a forest in the middle of summer.
The kiss that follows is both frantic and calm, like an uncontrollable storm nearing from the east. It's as if the winds pick up speed and grow violent, and yet carry in their breath that sense of silence that can not be observed in any other moment nature gifts them with because all other life in the fields and forests around them would stop, waiting between heartbeats for what follows.
Except this is something wonderful. A storm takes life away from the soil beneath a man's feet, right now he has just learned that a new life approaches.
*o0O0o*
Elijah loves his family, more than anything and because of that right now it feels like a part of him has been shredded and torn unrecognizable. It's been only hours since he saw Henrik lying still and pale on the unmerciful ground. The boy who used to follow their father's every move with admiration was suddenly nothing more than a dead carcass, - not unlike the one's of the creatures he's killed himself, - with its blood dripping to the grey sand until its color transformed into the ugly brown he hoped to forget.
And despite his wishes, still all Elijah can hear is the terrible sobs of Rebekah and that one single, raw scream that erupted from his mother's throat as she dropped the basket. All he can remember is the rapidly building rage on his father's face as he stood before them with his back rigid and unmoving. And finally, the guilty eyes of Niklaus, as they begged for forgiveness from anyone bothering to look.
Henrik had looked so small, he who was always bigger than his young age would think to show. Always brave, always smart, always happy and freely willing to get into trouble. And this time tragically, the boy who without fail was always so very fascinated by their neighbors' continuous change into rabid beasts.
His mind is so assaulted by pictures, which will be the source for his nightmares for as long as he'll live, he doesn't at first notice the arrival of another. But then he feels someone sitting down beside him, smells the bare scent of apple cider, lavender and honey sent to him by a slight breeze of wind, and Elijah remembers he isn't alone.
Elena doesn't say anything and he knows that this once her words wouldn't change a thing, nothing could relieve this agony, not even the love of his wife.
But then he is again reminded of how Elena always surprises him when she moves his hand and places a bundle of cloth in his arms. The little form he now cradles moves and he finally opens his clenched eyes, they are instantly captured by the small blue orbs of the babe he holds, he can already see signs of them one day turning dark brown.
In almost every way this young boy is his mother's child.
And so for a fateful minute he lets himself forget after all, allows his mind to only think about the moment he first held his own son. He was so small back then, his skin so pink it almost looked bloody despite the bath Ayanna had just given him. He remembers the sweaty exhausted form of Elena, and the blinding smile she sent him as he placed Godric in the safety of her hold.
And despite the blackness of his brother's death, despite the oncoming war he knows his father is planning, he can't help but smile.
"Thank you!"
He looks away from Godric and towards Elena, notices the red around her eyes and the sadness stark in every smooth line of her face. She had loved Henrik as well, he knows. She had introduced him to their son, she had once tidied a wound caused by a sword he wasn't supposed to touch and so couldn't go to mother about. His youngest brother had even, at a time when he was just as enamored of her beauty as the other boys, brought her flowers. And Elijah knows he can't just surround himself in stone walls, he needs to take care of the family he still has instead of drowning himself in the grief of what is already lost.
So he grabs Elena by her shoulder and carefully brings her into his arms as well, their own child alive and breathing between them. And when he cries she does not silence him, does not take his mind off of the loss, she cries with him.
*o0O0o*
When he wakes on the wooden floor of his childhood home all he feels at first is confusion. There is a mist over his memories, but whatever the haze is hiding is important, it's something frightening. He feels terrified and as if his heart was breaking, but he cannot think why and this makes it even more terrible.
"I'm sorry Elijah!"
He slowly stands dizzily looking around, trying to locate his mother's voice. But he is alone, or he thinks so until noticing another body unconscious on the ground. He drops on his knees in front of his only older sibling.
Finn has blood on his shirt and a hole in the material, but as Elijah moves the clothing away the skin underneath is untouched. He almost sighs in relief, but it's at that moment that he finally remembers who placed them there.
"Drink my son!"
"I'm sorry Elijah! She was the only option."
"Nothing will harm us now."
"I cannot find Elena mother, she said you asked to meet her?"
He remembers the aftertaste of copper in the mead he drank. He remembers as his father drove a sword through his heart. He remembers the sorrowful eyes of his mother as she averted her gaze at his questions and he recalls her exhausted, slightly shaking limbs that he could recognize as overuse of magic.
He wants to wait and make sure his brother is alright, but he knows he needs to find Elena first.
His mother felt the need to apologize and he does not wish to consider why he is sure it had very little to do with his father's killing blow. There is a growing hunger in his stomach, but it is overshadowed by the seeping unrest of the unanswered questions, a building fear of the thought that he has lost Elena… that he will never see her again.
*o0O0o*
When he set out to find his wife he didn't know how he would accomplish this, it was the middle of the night and she could be anywhere in the village or even somewhere lost in the forest. But the moment he had left the room he had laid dead in, not even minutes ago, he had caught her scent.
It was as alluring as always, though even more so now. Where before he could only gather the impression of it, now it was like it encompassed him completely, there were traces of it on his skin from her touch but the wind brought him a more powerful wisp of it.
It was mixed in with ash.
The trace leads him to a clearing, their clearing. A moon shines above him, but the moment he steps out of the tree line his gaze does not waiver from what greets him.
Elena is lying in the middle of a burned out circle as if asleep. Her dress is scorched and dirty, her hair fall messily out of her braid and there is a cut across her upturned wrist extended as an offering to some unknown creature. Her skin is so white it's almost translucent, it's as if there is no blood within Elena to add blush to her face.
She looks dead.
And as he drops on his knees by her side, - a memory of having recently done this very same motion before another body, flashing behind his eyelids - as he takes note of her unmoving chest and her glazed over eyes, - that are now horrible not beautiful - he knows. She is dead.
Some part of him feared this the moment his mother apologized seeking forgiveness, or even before that, when he first started looking for her with growing worry. But to be confronted with it is like hitting the ground after a great fall.
Elena was his life, or at least the very best parts of it. And now she couldn't be because she no longer breathes, no longer bleeds, no longer is.
Someone had brought her here, to the place many of their best moments had transpired in and killed her. If the signs of magic he notices are right, then someone had sacrificed Elena to the spirits his mother prays for. And however much he wishes he could deny this, Elijah knows that the woman who gave him life had been the one to take Elena's away.
And his mother had changed him. He can feel it, this unnatural hunger he has never before experienced, the heightened senses that had allowed him to track Elena to this place of death. And yet the transformation seems incomplete, jagged edges within him are somehow looking to complete themselves, angling for some purpose to the surface seeking out the final piece.
His eyes, of their own accord, leave her pained unseeing gaze and once more travel to her wrist. Blood is smeared across her white skin, dry and empty of the life it should contain. But suddenly, despite his repulsion he wants to bite into it and draw out more.
It's not like she needs it anymore.
Before he can draw back with sickness or give in to this new need, a branch snaps behind him.
He is no longer alone.
"It is not her blood you need Elijah, son of Mikael."
There stands Ayanna, her usually open eyes dark with some unnamed emotion. She who he has always looked on as yet another member of his family, a sister to his mother holds no kindness in her soul for him anymore.
Remembering the turn of his thoughts he knows he can not blame her for this, he loves Elena and yet he had almost stolen the essence from her veins. What kind of demon has he become?
"What happened here?"
Elijah almost snarls this at the witch, but is held back by the new instinct professing the danger of that move. He's afraid he already knows the answer to his inquiry, but he needs to hear it, needs the whole grotesque tale so he can understand. He needs to know.
The witch, - because right now that's all that she is, - laughs at him without humor. There is scorn in her gaze, a look of someone conversing with their enemy.
"A foolish mistake, many will pay for it, you and your family maybe most of all. Your father wanted you invincible, so he got his wish. May he regret it, always!"
It wasn't an answer, but he can tell she isn't done, that before the sun rises she will tell him much more. He decides to direct her to the point quickly.
"But, Elena?"
His voice breaks on her name when he looks at his wife's face and he clenches his eyes closed, a sensation of vertigo overtakes him, but he fights off the disorientation and opens them again, this time looking straight ahead.
"Esther needed a sacrifice. Someone without parents who was a mother, someone with a pure heart and linked to the ones her death would protect. Do you know anyone better suited?"
Sacrificial magic, black arts! Elijah knows the basics around its cost, his mother had warned him and his siblings more than once away from the folly of their use.
"You must always give up something as precious to yourself as what you wish to gain," she would say. This time Esther has given up her son to gain protection for her children.
For he does not think he could ever forgive this.
There is really only one more thing to know, the most important one.
"Can you bring her back?"
He silently begs for whoever is listening for this one miracle. He is willing to give up his own life to bring hers back.
"No!" Elijah does not flinch under her denial however. Ayanna's eyes hold something back from him, before she continues he can see a dark smile slowly rising to the surface. "But you can… if I give you the means."
"What do you want?"
Instead of answering she seems to change the conversation entirely.
"Niklaus is not your brother you know. He is the seed of a savage… and as your mother knows, nature can not permit indestructibility, so as she changed you and your family she bound the part of him that was the Moon's as well."
Despite the influx of new questions he keeps silent, listening. He can not afford to interrupt the witch now, he can contemplate Niklaus's heritage at a time his Elena's life does not hang in balance.
"The curse she placed on him is vulnerable. There is a weakness she thinks she has avoided, but her bastard's future heads towards an abomination even more destructive than the one she created in you. I want a promise from you, Elijah! I want your word you will do everything in your power to stop Niklaus from breaking his curse."
"And you will tell me how to bring Elena back to me?"
"I will give you the means so you can find the solution yourself... eventually."
Frustrated Elijah almost refuses her offer, but common sense tells him to hold his tongue.
She is corralling him towards a trap like a masterful spider, he can see it, but she also isn't lying.
"Fine, I give you my word my brother will not break Esther's curse, now tell me how to get Elena back."
Triumph colors her face. As does relief, he swallows at noticing this other emotion, Ayanna had been afraid he would refuse her.
What could his brother possibly be heading for to frighten her so?
"I will preserve her body as it is now, her soul has not yet left this world so I shall tether it to the shell and it will sleep for however long it takes for you to find your answer."
"Do it then!"
"Yes, but first we must make sure you live long enough to keep your end of this bargain."
And before Elijah can say anything else Ayanna pulls out a blade and cuts a red line across her palm.
For the next minute all that matters to him is just one more gulp of Valhalla.
*o0O0o*
// next chapter//
*o0O0o*
A/N2: So I think I'm happy with this. I wasn't easy writing Elena in a way that kept her in character, but placed her a thousand years before her time with a different if similar background. Just so you know the next chapter is in my mind, but not yet on paper.
All I'm telling you is that although Elena is definitely dead for almost the entire following story, there will be more Elejah, because our favorite Original will lose himself in memories once in a while.
And by the way I have to thank 'standinginthewayofcontroll' from the tumblr community for the name of Elijah and Elena's son.
What did you think? Do review so I know, receiving them is like eating ice-cream without the unfortunate weight gain.
Rating: T
Author:
terapsina
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Pairing: Elijah/Elena
Word Count: 3'800
Parts: 1/10
Summary: AU To those who know the story of the making of vampires Elena will be remembered as the girl who was sacrificed for the plague they became. But in Elijah's memory she will always be the wife he loved and lost to his parents' desperation. All that he now has left is the wane hope that the body Ayanna preserved will one day wake as she promised. Elejah
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I wanted to explore a world where Elena was the Original Petrova and to see if I could make it into Elejah without damaging the connection I love about them. Whether I succeeded or not of course is not up to me to judge.
Death of Summer //DEATH OF SUMMER//
*o0O0o*
*Harshness of the Seasons*
*Death of Summer*
*o0O0o*
Elena's hand fleetingly slides through Elijah's hair until clenching and pulls him towards her with more direct intent than before this had begun only a moon ago he ever expected of her. And as she starts to kiss him until he loses the air in his chest, he considers only letting it happen and to forget why he brought her to their clearing in the first place. But he needs to know why she returns his attention while ignoring that of his brother's as well as those of the rest of the unmarried men who follow every move this beautiful maiden makes.
She has lived through seventeen summers while he already passed his twenty eighth. There are younger men who would no doubt offer her as much, if not more than him, and yet it is not their arms she seeks.
So as they part for breath, his tightly coiled body heaving against hers he doesn't restrain the question any longer.
"Why me? You could choose to spend your time with any village man here."
She looks at him with her gentle gaze and runs her palm over the side of his face with a care that he has never seen her gift any other. She leans closer with her flushed cheeks and bites her lip, for a moment he thinks she will kiss him instead of answering. But then Elena sends towards him a look of confounded disbelief as if she couldn't quite believe his uncertainty, as though the answer should be as clear as the sky is above them right now.
"Don't you know?"
Elijah does not reply, waiting for her to say what until now has only ever been implied. She takes a step back, crossing her arms and transfixing him with the barest of smiles. The answer is everything he ever wished to read from her always inviting mouth.
"Because you Elijah are the one who did not try to steal kisses when I did not wish to give them away. Because you talk with me about every thought your mind contains, engage me in conversation interested in my answers instead of trying to impress me with your swordplay, hunting prowess or handsome face. Because Elijah, you are not like anyone else here. If I spend the rest of my life by your side and in your embrace I will never regret a sunset. I love you Elijah, it is so very, very simple."
She is like an apparition from another world, almost supernatural in her graceful beauty. Her dark eyes pull at his soul, her brown hair fall in waves free across her shoulders masking her curves. And the look in her gaze is more vulnerable than ever before, she is offering her heart and the bravery he suddenly sees in her almost blinds him to the fear and vulnerability it protects. But he does see those too and he can only continue in one way.
"My Elena, I love you as well!"
She jumps forward with her arms enveloping his shoulders and a laugh filled to the brim with relief greeting his ears. When after a moment far too short she finally releases him there is a spark of mischief in her grin.
"That's good I suppose, it will make asking for my hand easier I believe then!"
*o0O0o*
Elena's hair for the final time fall free across her shoulders and in slight waves down her back, a crown of blue flowers is accenting her beauty adding a touch of fey playfulness and innocence to her look. A part of him knows he will miss seeing her this way outside in the sunlight, but he smiles secretly at the knowledge that the moonlight within the walls of their home will still illuminate her brown waves in his presence alone.
She answers his smile with an unrestrained of her own, showing genuine happiness as she takes the warrior's sword Finn passes her. It was smelted by his older brother only a moon ago as the gift for his dead wife's sister.
He wishes Elena's own blood could have done this for her, but he feels content at being the man who will create a new family with her.
The blade gleams in the sun and she nervously bites her rosy lip while removing the ring from its hilt. He can see Elena's hands shaking as she reaches for his own and even more as she gives him the sword before she slides the ring on his finger. He knows she gives her oath to him next, but the wording escapes him, too lost he is in her rich brown eyes and the harmonious sound in which her promise is voiced.
Her dark embers assure him with so much more clarity than could ever be spelled in mere words.
Elena possesses no magic he knows, but right then, when their lives become one he does not quite believe this. She has certainly enchanted all his senses, all they feel, all they ever feel it seems, is her alone.
Marriage is not about love of course, not always or even often. But he counts himself blessed as the man who gets both within the arms of the same woman.
And then as these thoughts overwhelm him he gives her his ancestor's sword for the son they will have if the gods are kind, their hands touch clasping the hilt as one when he loosens the oath ring from its place and moves it towards its rightful destination on her hand.
Elena is his wife now. Joy, peace, wonder, relief and love all fight to be felt over each other. His heart has never before been so filled.
Suddenly Elijah know that although he is not a violent man and does not carry his fathers rage he swears that the Gods will need to have mercy on anyone trying to separate him from Elena now, for he certainly will show no such empathy.
*o0O0o*
As he enters his home, his back aching from hours of crouching still, in wait of the animals that would become their meal and his shoulder stinging from the short struggle that followed a deer's appearance, Elijah wishes for nothing more than to take his wife in his arms and express the overpowering energy that always remains after a stressful hunt.
But then he looks up to see her and stops in his steps. Elena is wearing her best dress, - woven by his mother in the stead of her own, - her hair is braided more carefully than he knows she can manage by herself and there is a look in her eyes he has never seen in them before.
It is knowing and sweet. It expresses wonder and a touch of wisdom that her eyes however bold have never before contained to such a degree. His mother has had it. A lot of mothers he's seen have worn it with pride.
She stands silent in front of him, her lips fighting to keep at bay a smile and her hand placed on her belly so lightly he doesn't know if she even feels it through the material covering her skin.
He does not need for her to speak. With a sudden strike of clearness Elijah knows what Elena planned to reveal this night.
And he can see how Elena has come to the same conclusion by the way she runs into his arms, by the release of the laughter that lightens the room. But she comments anyway, as if she needs to say it out loud.
"Elijah, you're going to be a father. We're going to be parents."
He would be a father. There was a life growing in her body, a life they had between them created together, a life who would adore them unconditionally, without reservation.
His son or daughter!
He had thought he knew love before this, he'd been wrong. What he shared with Elena until now had been a spring flower's first bloom, what he would feel for her from this day on is a forest in the middle of summer.
The kiss that follows is both frantic and calm, like an uncontrollable storm nearing from the east. It's as if the winds pick up speed and grow violent, and yet carry in their breath that sense of silence that can not be observed in any other moment nature gifts them with because all other life in the fields and forests around them would stop, waiting between heartbeats for what follows.
Except this is something wonderful. A storm takes life away from the soil beneath a man's feet, right now he has just learned that a new life approaches.
*o0O0o*
Elijah loves his family, more than anything and because of that right now it feels like a part of him has been shredded and torn unrecognizable. It's been only hours since he saw Henrik lying still and pale on the unmerciful ground. The boy who used to follow their father's every move with admiration was suddenly nothing more than a dead carcass, - not unlike the one's of the creatures he's killed himself, - with its blood dripping to the grey sand until its color transformed into the ugly brown he hoped to forget.
And despite his wishes, still all Elijah can hear is the terrible sobs of Rebekah and that one single, raw scream that erupted from his mother's throat as she dropped the basket. All he can remember is the rapidly building rage on his father's face as he stood before them with his back rigid and unmoving. And finally, the guilty eyes of Niklaus, as they begged for forgiveness from anyone bothering to look.
Henrik had looked so small, he who was always bigger than his young age would think to show. Always brave, always smart, always happy and freely willing to get into trouble. And this time tragically, the boy who without fail was always so very fascinated by their neighbors' continuous change into rabid beasts.
His mind is so assaulted by pictures, which will be the source for his nightmares for as long as he'll live, he doesn't at first notice the arrival of another. But then he feels someone sitting down beside him, smells the bare scent of apple cider, lavender and honey sent to him by a slight breeze of wind, and Elijah remembers he isn't alone.
Elena doesn't say anything and he knows that this once her words wouldn't change a thing, nothing could relieve this agony, not even the love of his wife.
But then he is again reminded of how Elena always surprises him when she moves his hand and places a bundle of cloth in his arms. The little form he now cradles moves and he finally opens his clenched eyes, they are instantly captured by the small blue orbs of the babe he holds, he can already see signs of them one day turning dark brown.
In almost every way this young boy is his mother's child.
And so for a fateful minute he lets himself forget after all, allows his mind to only think about the moment he first held his own son. He was so small back then, his skin so pink it almost looked bloody despite the bath Ayanna had just given him. He remembers the sweaty exhausted form of Elena, and the blinding smile she sent him as he placed Godric in the safety of her hold.
And despite the blackness of his brother's death, despite the oncoming war he knows his father is planning, he can't help but smile.
"Thank you!"
He looks away from Godric and towards Elena, notices the red around her eyes and the sadness stark in every smooth line of her face. She had loved Henrik as well, he knows. She had introduced him to their son, she had once tidied a wound caused by a sword he wasn't supposed to touch and so couldn't go to mother about. His youngest brother had even, at a time when he was just as enamored of her beauty as the other boys, brought her flowers. And Elijah knows he can't just surround himself in stone walls, he needs to take care of the family he still has instead of drowning himself in the grief of what is already lost.
So he grabs Elena by her shoulder and carefully brings her into his arms as well, their own child alive and breathing between them. And when he cries she does not silence him, does not take his mind off of the loss, she cries with him.
*o0O0o*
When he wakes on the wooden floor of his childhood home all he feels at first is confusion. There is a mist over his memories, but whatever the haze is hiding is important, it's something frightening. He feels terrified and as if his heart was breaking, but he cannot think why and this makes it even more terrible.
"I'm sorry Elijah!"
He slowly stands dizzily looking around, trying to locate his mother's voice. But he is alone, or he thinks so until noticing another body unconscious on the ground. He drops on his knees in front of his only older sibling.
Finn has blood on his shirt and a hole in the material, but as Elijah moves the clothing away the skin underneath is untouched. He almost sighs in relief, but it's at that moment that he finally remembers who placed them there.
"Drink my son!"
"I'm sorry Elijah! She was the only option."
"Nothing will harm us now."
"I cannot find Elena mother, she said you asked to meet her?"
He remembers the aftertaste of copper in the mead he drank. He remembers as his father drove a sword through his heart. He remembers the sorrowful eyes of his mother as she averted her gaze at his questions and he recalls her exhausted, slightly shaking limbs that he could recognize as overuse of magic.
He wants to wait and make sure his brother is alright, but he knows he needs to find Elena first.
His mother felt the need to apologize and he does not wish to consider why he is sure it had very little to do with his father's killing blow. There is a growing hunger in his stomach, but it is overshadowed by the seeping unrest of the unanswered questions, a building fear of the thought that he has lost Elena… that he will never see her again.
*o0O0o*
When he set out to find his wife he didn't know how he would accomplish this, it was the middle of the night and she could be anywhere in the village or even somewhere lost in the forest. But the moment he had left the room he had laid dead in, not even minutes ago, he had caught her scent.
It was as alluring as always, though even more so now. Where before he could only gather the impression of it, now it was like it encompassed him completely, there were traces of it on his skin from her touch but the wind brought him a more powerful wisp of it.
It was mixed in with ash.
The trace leads him to a clearing, their clearing. A moon shines above him, but the moment he steps out of the tree line his gaze does not waiver from what greets him.
Elena is lying in the middle of a burned out circle as if asleep. Her dress is scorched and dirty, her hair fall messily out of her braid and there is a cut across her upturned wrist extended as an offering to some unknown creature. Her skin is so white it's almost translucent, it's as if there is no blood within Elena to add blush to her face.
She looks dead.
And as he drops on his knees by her side, - a memory of having recently done this very same motion before another body, flashing behind his eyelids - as he takes note of her unmoving chest and her glazed over eyes, - that are now horrible not beautiful - he knows. She is dead.
Some part of him feared this the moment his mother apologized seeking forgiveness, or even before that, when he first started looking for her with growing worry. But to be confronted with it is like hitting the ground after a great fall.
Elena was his life, or at least the very best parts of it. And now she couldn't be because she no longer breathes, no longer bleeds, no longer is.
Someone had brought her here, to the place many of their best moments had transpired in and killed her. If the signs of magic he notices are right, then someone had sacrificed Elena to the spirits his mother prays for. And however much he wishes he could deny this, Elijah knows that the woman who gave him life had been the one to take Elena's away.
And his mother had changed him. He can feel it, this unnatural hunger he has never before experienced, the heightened senses that had allowed him to track Elena to this place of death. And yet the transformation seems incomplete, jagged edges within him are somehow looking to complete themselves, angling for some purpose to the surface seeking out the final piece.
His eyes, of their own accord, leave her pained unseeing gaze and once more travel to her wrist. Blood is smeared across her white skin, dry and empty of the life it should contain. But suddenly, despite his repulsion he wants to bite into it and draw out more.
It's not like she needs it anymore.
Before he can draw back with sickness or give in to this new need, a branch snaps behind him.
He is no longer alone.
"It is not her blood you need Elijah, son of Mikael."
There stands Ayanna, her usually open eyes dark with some unnamed emotion. She who he has always looked on as yet another member of his family, a sister to his mother holds no kindness in her soul for him anymore.
Remembering the turn of his thoughts he knows he can not blame her for this, he loves Elena and yet he had almost stolen the essence from her veins. What kind of demon has he become?
"What happened here?"
Elijah almost snarls this at the witch, but is held back by the new instinct professing the danger of that move. He's afraid he already knows the answer to his inquiry, but he needs to hear it, needs the whole grotesque tale so he can understand. He needs to know.
The witch, - because right now that's all that she is, - laughs at him without humor. There is scorn in her gaze, a look of someone conversing with their enemy.
"A foolish mistake, many will pay for it, you and your family maybe most of all. Your father wanted you invincible, so he got his wish. May he regret it, always!"
It wasn't an answer, but he can tell she isn't done, that before the sun rises she will tell him much more. He decides to direct her to the point quickly.
"But, Elena?"
His voice breaks on her name when he looks at his wife's face and he clenches his eyes closed, a sensation of vertigo overtakes him, but he fights off the disorientation and opens them again, this time looking straight ahead.
"Esther needed a sacrifice. Someone without parents who was a mother, someone with a pure heart and linked to the ones her death would protect. Do you know anyone better suited?"
Sacrificial magic, black arts! Elijah knows the basics around its cost, his mother had warned him and his siblings more than once away from the folly of their use.
"You must always give up something as precious to yourself as what you wish to gain," she would say. This time Esther has given up her son to gain protection for her children.
For he does not think he could ever forgive this.
There is really only one more thing to know, the most important one.
"Can you bring her back?"
He silently begs for whoever is listening for this one miracle. He is willing to give up his own life to bring hers back.
"No!" Elijah does not flinch under her denial however. Ayanna's eyes hold something back from him, before she continues he can see a dark smile slowly rising to the surface. "But you can… if I give you the means."
"What do you want?"
Instead of answering she seems to change the conversation entirely.
"Niklaus is not your brother you know. He is the seed of a savage… and as your mother knows, nature can not permit indestructibility, so as she changed you and your family she bound the part of him that was the Moon's as well."
Despite the influx of new questions he keeps silent, listening. He can not afford to interrupt the witch now, he can contemplate Niklaus's heritage at a time his Elena's life does not hang in balance.
"The curse she placed on him is vulnerable. There is a weakness she thinks she has avoided, but her bastard's future heads towards an abomination even more destructive than the one she created in you. I want a promise from you, Elijah! I want your word you will do everything in your power to stop Niklaus from breaking his curse."
"And you will tell me how to bring Elena back to me?"
"I will give you the means so you can find the solution yourself... eventually."
Frustrated Elijah almost refuses her offer, but common sense tells him to hold his tongue.
She is corralling him towards a trap like a masterful spider, he can see it, but she also isn't lying.
"Fine, I give you my word my brother will not break Esther's curse, now tell me how to get Elena back."
Triumph colors her face. As does relief, he swallows at noticing this other emotion, Ayanna had been afraid he would refuse her.
What could his brother possibly be heading for to frighten her so?
"I will preserve her body as it is now, her soul has not yet left this world so I shall tether it to the shell and it will sleep for however long it takes for you to find your answer."
"Do it then!"
"Yes, but first we must make sure you live long enough to keep your end of this bargain."
And before Elijah can say anything else Ayanna pulls out a blade and cuts a red line across her palm.
For the next minute all that matters to him is just one more gulp of Valhalla.
*o0O0o*
// next chapter//
*o0O0o*
A/N2: So I think I'm happy with this. I wasn't easy writing Elena in a way that kept her in character, but placed her a thousand years before her time with a different if similar background. Just so you know the next chapter is in my mind, but not yet on paper.
All I'm telling you is that although Elena is definitely dead for almost the entire following story, there will be more Elejah, because our favorite Original will lose himself in memories once in a while.
And by the way I have to thank 'standinginthewayofcontroll' from the tumblr community for the name of Elijah and Elena's son.
What did you think? Do review so I know, receiving them is like eating ice-cream without the unfortunate weight gain.