◤ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖞-𝖘𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓: ❛ dead on
arrival ❜ ◢

✧

         OPHELIA'S SCREAMS ECHOED AROUND THE COTTAGE. Her eardrums felt as though they were bursting, but she didn't dare quiet her sister – that was a small price to pay, and an insignificant amount of pain compared to the amount birth giving gave. She couldn't hear anything over the screams, and she felt glad for a moment that they were far away from anyone else.

         "Push! Just keep pushing, Ophelia!" she encouraged, waiting until she saw the head. "You're so close."

         Magic erupted around them. The table was on fire, the walls were vibrating, but Marisol didn't pay attention for a second, too honed in on her sister and the baby. Ophelia herself didn't seem to realize, still screaming out foul curses Marisol was sure would never be uttered again from her sister's lips.

         It felt like an eternity – as though centuries were passing with every second – waiting for the baby to finally be born, fully born, and utterly alive in the small cottage they called home. But then it happened – Ophelia had pushed enough, the baby was in her arms, and there was a cry. A cry from an infant, like angels above singing, and Marisol laughed as Ophelia smiled.

         "It's a boy," she revealed to her sister, giddy with the excitement of a child. A little boy; a treasure. She cleaned him up before handing Ophelia her child, gently as they transferred the new life between each other.

         "He's beautiful," Ophelia cried, hushing her newborn, cradling him dearly.

         Though she was the oldest, she was still too young to truly remember their births. She remembered the screams, the dancing magic, the cries of her newborn sisters, but they were distant memories while this was vibrant. So loud, so captivating. Ophelia's eyes flickered to hers, tears gathering, and she smiled so proudly at her child. Her joy.

         "Magnus," Ophelia uttered,  kissing his head, "My darling Magnus."

✧

         AND THEN THERE was a tugging, a forceful physical call bringing her back into consciousness. She wanted to rest for just another moment, her mind drowsily nagging her to fall back asleep, but someone was shaking her body and soon her eyes fluttered open and there was Elijah. Elijah with frantic eyes, Elijah who was alarmed, Elijah who was in a panicked state and didn't have time.

         Part of her frowned in confusion until she remembered, and suddenly she knew. She could recall Genevieve and Francesca – a wolf – and how she had lunged before falling, fading and falling, and now she was here. As she looked around, she didn't see the upstairs room but a church.

         "Elijah?" she asked hesitantly, allowing him to grab her hand and pull her up. "What happened?"

         He opened his mouth but his eyes darted first, giving away his words. Marisol turned, hairs on the back her neck beginning to stand as well, and then she faltered. Never had she seen Klaus so defeated, so low, as he stroke Hayley's hair, her lifeless figure in his lap.

         "No," she whispered, shaking her head until her eyes found Elijah's again, "No!"

         Then her body doubled over, bones cracking as her wolf forced itself out, but she didn't let it. A cry of pain was nothing like the blood from her palms as she dug her claws into them. She would not allow herself to turn – not now, never now. It wasn't right. Hayley was dead, but the baby wasn't there. The child.

         Not Magnus, but another child. The little girl.

         "The witches – they killed her, then took the baby," Klaus explained, "But there's still time. We can save her."

         He weakly stood up, looking Elijah in the eye, then moved towards the door. Elijah grasped her palm, giving her questioning look, not enough time to verbally form it, but she nodded. She was alive, not dead, not like Hayley, and there was no time to not be okay. The baby was alive, but the baby could be dead at any moment.

         But being outside was worse. With the full effect of the full moon on her back, taunting her from the sky as her wolf howled to be free, to be under the moon running around, it took all her self-control to stop it. Elijah pulled her along more than she pulled herself, but he didn't question her, didn't snap. He did it effortlessly as his mind focused only on Hayley's child.

         "The tombs are empty," Elijah let go of her hand, frantic as they searched around the cemetery, "The grounds are deserted. She's not here!"

         "This is the only place they can be! We'll keep searching," Klaus shook his head.

         Her wolf whimpered as Marisol glanced up at the moon and she swallowed. Her senses were haywire, and she had to keep herself grounded. Closing her eyes, she focused on her human limbs. Her arms which were beginning to feel heavy, her feet firmly planted on the ground, the materials clinging at her skin.

         "They are not here, Niklaus! We're wasting time!"

         "The Harvest was here!" Klaus yelled back, "The Reaping was here! They're about to perform a ritual which will feed their ancestors for centuries! Ancestors who are buried here!"

         Senses were next. She could hear them yelling, the wind in the air whipping around, the comforting smell of Elijah, the less-so of blood, then she heard a bird, then – a cry.

         "Wait," she put her hand out, stilling the brothers. She focused on the sound, the small cry as vibrant memories of Magnus flooded her mind. The day he was born, how she felt, how his first cry filled her with joy. And it was this cry! The cry of a child – not Magnus, but a child. Hayley's child. "I hear her."

         "What?" Klaus circled closer.

         "A baby's crying," she clarified, opening her eyes, "Here. Somewhere here."

         "Where?"

         "I –," she hesitated, wanting to reach out to the cries, find them, but they were distant, "I don't know. She is here, though."

         Klaus looked around, anger in his eyes until they stilled. "This statue – we've passed by this three times, all whilst going in the same direction."

         Elijah sighed. "They've fabricated some kind of illusion."

         "Great," Marisol gritted her teeth, "Now how do we get out of it?"

         The brothers had no answers for her, other than mark the tombs they've passed as they keep moving, keeping track of what they've seen before, and Marisol allowed herself to be tugged along by Elijah as she concentrated on the baby's cries.

         "It's ingenious," Klaus admitted, "I can see them, I can feel them, and yet they are not real."

         "There has to be a way. Even if we could just push through –"

         "What we need to do is focus," Klaus shook his head.

         Elijah's eyes flared with anger, pulling away from Marisol as he pushed Klaus against a tomb. "My only focus right now is that child and her safety, do you understand me?" he snarled, staying there for a moment before releasing him, "This – all of this – this is the world that you created, Niklaus."

         "Brother –"

         "Elijah –" they both protested, but he wouldn't allow them to truly interject.

         "All of your scheming, the enemies that you have made every single day of your miserable life – what results did you expect?" Elijah pointed at him, "That your child would be born into a happy life? That the mother would be alive to know her daughter? That we could live and thrive as some – as some sort of family?"

         "That was your fantasy, brother, not mine!" Klaus roared back.

         Marisol grit her teeth, reeling back a little. It was too much, right now, how loud they were. How present the noises were in her ears. They wanted to turn, to shift into those of a wolf, to have those senses, and now even with her human ones the noises were too much. She could barely handle it, her grip slipping as her wolf howled.

         "No, brother! This was our hope. This was our family's hope," Elijah continued, the rage reeling off of him, so vibrant and loud.

         "Elijah," she stepped forward, bring her hand to his forearm and pulling him back, "Calm down. We don't have time to argue, please."

         He looked at her like she was a foreign object at first before relenting, his breath heavy and he slumped down against her. She didn't falter under his weight, holding him back and holding him close, giving him what he needed as it ground her as well.

         She was beginning to lose the battle, she knew that, and it wouldn't be long until she couldn't fight the beast within any longer. But she didn't dare let it show, holding Elijah until he released her, nodding towards Klaus as he nodded back.

         And then they continued moving.

         Running around the cemetery, concentrating on cries and hushed voices, until Klaus put his fist into a tomb and she crumbled to the ground. Her bones broke again and she couldn't fight it. It was all too much, a culmination of everything that night, and she cried out, eyes looking up to meet Elijah's who crouched down to meet her.

         He startled for a moment, her eyes no longer the doe brown, and she managed out, "I can't hold it in any longer."

         "Go," he said quietly, "We'll find her."

         It was a promise – and she knew he was a man of his word – so she looked up at the moon, submitting to it, allowing her bones to break as her wolf howled.

✧

         THOUGH SHE VALIANTLY fought against it, her wolf run, free as well. This feeling – the wind through her run, the dirt under her paws, the oneness – it was something she wouldn't trade for the world. Here, as she run away from the cemetery and to the bayou, she felt free.

         Truly and utterly free; a pleasant contrast against the restraints of human life. Her mind was a blank canvas, being filled with other wolves who danced and ran along with her, and there was no need to worry. The moon was high in the sky above her, and she was free.

✧

         "IT'S BETTER THIS way, Marisol," Ophelia decreed, her eyes already determined, body firm. There was some part of her breaking, she knew that as tight as Ophelia held herself, her jaw was clenched so that she could not sob.

         "How is this better? Your child growing up without you? Abandoning him to go home – to marry a man and have other children, but forget about your firstborn?" Marisol spat at her, holding Magnus carefully in her arms.

         Ophelia sucked in a breath as she snuck at a glance at her child, but was quick to resolve it and place a stoic barrier between her feelings and her actions now. "I will never forget Magnus, for as long as I live, but I cannot give him the life he deserves."

         "What? And you think that I can?"

         "No," she admitted, turning away from them, "But you've got a better chance than I do. You've always been the independent one, the oldest sibling, but I can't do anything on my own. Can't raise a child on my own."

         Marisol grabbed her arm, forcing Ophelia to face her. "You won't be alone, Ophelia, never. It'll be the three of us, we can do it."

         Ophelia tore herself away. "No, we can't. I am not strong enough to live like this, with people shaming me every time they look at me, without food on the table, with lowly work we can get. I can't do this, no matter how much I love him. You're a much better candidate to take care of him."

         "So Magnus and I suffer while you go home to mother? We wallow in poverty while you are married to a wealthy man and are pampered? How is that fair?" Marisol snapped, no longer careful with her words.

         She had always been so hesitant to speak, always overthinking everything, always so certain about how her words would be interpreted before she spoke. A lady was coy, a lady didn't speak her mind, a lady played games with her words – but Marisol was no longer a lady, and least of all here.

         Right now, she was an angry woman who had lost everything. She was a girl who once held unmeasurable power turned to a monster, losing her lifeline as she was forced to raise a child all on her own.

         "It isn't," Ophelia agreed, "But I can't do this. I can't. I wasn't made for this. I'm sorry."

         It wasn't fair, Ophelia abandoning them. Least of all to Magnus, her child. She felt angry as she thought back to his birth, the joy in Ophelia's eyes, the feeling that their little family was complete, because now it was burning down. Ophelia didn't get to be joyful of her child, Ophelia didn't get to be proud, didn't get to name him and hold him, clothe him and love him.

         Ophelia was leaving, and she couldn't even spare her child a last glance or kiss as she walked out the door, away from them forever. As if sensing it, Magnus began to cry, and what was once a joyous noise as his birth now distressed Marisol.

         "I know, darling, I know," she hushed the boy, "But I will never abandon you. We'll figure this out, and we'll be together forever. You have my heart. I won't let anyone hurt you ever again."

✧

         THE AIR WAS thick around them, the weight of the night lingering, unable to let them breathe. He sat with his head in between his hands, anger clogging his throat. His brother moved around to sit across from him, equally angry, but more saddened as well.

         "We should have felt our mother's hand in this. We should have known she would not be bound by anything as obvious as death. And now she has control of the witches," Niklaus lamented, angry at himself for not realizing it sooner.

         "No," he muttered, shaking his head softly as he beat himself up for not putting the pieces together sooner. For foolishly suggesting that his mother be consecrated on New Orleans soil, allowing the ancestors to link with her.

         "Nor would I expect the Guerrera wolves to back down. Hayley and the child are wolf royalty, and as such, they are a threat to Francesca's claim to the leadership," his brother continued.

         He sighed in frustration, looking up to see the guilty expression coating his brother's features. "I have brought into the world a weapon they can use against me," Klaus concluded in a sad tone.

         Unable to contain himself, he rose in a flash of anger. "Then we will arm ourselves! Brother, we have fought every adversary in this town, and we have won. And we'll fight them again, no matter who they are! We will make this home a fortress!"

         But Klaus frowned at that, lowering his voice, "I will not have her life as a prisoner."

         "Then we leave here, together. All of us," Elijah suggested alternatively.

         However, Klaus shook his head, knocking off the suggestion again. "Wherever we go, however far we run, those who seek power and revenge will hunt us! They will hurt her. She has inheritated all of our enemies with none of our defenses."

         "So, whether we stay, or we leave – we condemn her," Elijah concluded, downcast as the ending as well as his brother.

         But then Hayley appeared in the doorway, holding the fated child they would die to protect. "There's a third option," she spoke up, "I grew up in a warzone. My parents thought they could protect me. But, in the end, they were slaughtered, and I spent my childhood alone and unloved."

         She smiled down at her child, holding back her tears as she continued, "I made a promise, to my baby, and to myself, that she would not grow up like I did. That she would grow up safe, and loved. And yet, here she is, on her first day in this world, with a grandmother who is bent on sacrificing her – and a-a mother who has to drink the blood of her own baby to survive transitioning into a hybrid. And I'm the one who loves her the most."

         Hayley stopped herself as Elijah and Klaus looked down. "I think the only thing to do is...send her away...while we stay behind and clean up the mess that we've made."

         "No!" he objected instantly, "This is insane. You heard Genevieve – so long as she lives, that baby will be hunted."

         Klaus stood up, joining Hayley by the doorway. "Not if no one knows she lives."

         His eyebrows furrowed. "What is it you intend to do, brother?"

         "Whatever it takes to save our family," Klaus said solemnly, "We will tell the world she died, and we will send her away until it is safe."

         He wanted to protest again, but knew it was futile, they had already made up their minds, and – as loath as he wanted to admit it, it was the only choice, in the end. This was the only way to keep the baby safe, and that had to be his priority.

         "Whether or not you tell Marisol is your choice, brother, she's your love," and then they were gone, spending the last few moments they could with their daughter as they prepared to protect her.

         He sat with this again, chest heavy, tears beginning to brim. He loved her, Marisol – his Marisol, but his family was everything. This child was everything, their hope. He had to protect it, in the end, it was the only decision.

✧

         BIRDS CHIRPED AND sunlight streamed in through the window. She groaned, stretching her sore limbs, taking note of the soft sheets underneath her. Frowning, she sat up to realize that instead of the woods, she was inside. On her and Elijah's bed. This had never happened to her. In the many years she had been a wolf, she had never woken up on a bed after a full moon, only the ground, and it was peculiar.

         But perhaps peculiar was a good thing.

         There was no sign of Elijah, and the Compound was unusually quiet which didn't help ease her worries as last night began to flood back to her brain, and part of her wanted to race downstairs to find everyone but looking at herself, she was a mess. There was dirt everywhere, her hair was greatly disheveled, and she smelled of sweat and dried blood. A shower first.

         She allowed the warm water to ease her aching muscles, closing her eyes and allowing it to consume her, reaching for a towel. She changed, ready to ask her questions, only to turn around and see Elijah standing in their room.

         "I didn't hear you come in," she voiced, the first to speak as she took a step forward, only for him to take a step back. She frowned at the movement. "What happened? Is she – did you save her?"

         He swallowed, hesitating, and her heart dropped. "No," she whispered, more lose and pain flooding her.

         "We got there too late," Elijah spoke, "They sacrificed her. There was nothing we could do."

         She wanted to cry, to think of a dead child, to think of sacrificing a helpless infant...to think of Magnus, seventeen, dead before her, to think of Ophelia walking out on them, of Magnus suffering, and her – Hayley's child – dead.

         Another child she couldn't save, another child she was too late to save, another child that she vowed to protect that was now gone.

         "Elijah," she uttered, moving towards him to hold him, but he took another step back.

         "I don't think I can do this," and her heart broke even further.

         "Elijah, please – don't."

         "Not now, Marisol. My family needs me more than ever now, and I can't do this. I packed up the majority of your things, they're ready downstairs," he continued, no emotion present in his voice, easily moving along as if they were discussing the weather and he wasn't breaking her heart.

         She stood there for a moment, allowing it to wash over her as Elijah could barely even spare her a glance. Everything was shattering now, and she didn't know how to fix it. What to say that would convince him otherwise, to allow her to stay, but –

         But his mind was already made up. That much was clear, and she knew it was futile to protest. He didn't want her, she knew that now, and everything in their relationship that she thought permanent was just fleeting to him. Of course it was.

         He was a thousand years old, an Original, and she was just some cursed werewolf. Nothing special, nothing worth fighting for. And all those little words, those vows to protect her, there were just temporary. They were in the moment, but now the moment was over, and he didn't love her like she loved him.

         "I thought you cared about me," the words slipped out before she had a chance to stop herself, and she carefully watched as he stiffened.

         "Perhaps in another life, I could have. And we could have been happy," he offered her. It was out of pity, she was sure of it, or need to move her along. It was clear he didn't mean that, that he never loved her, and she was just a plaything for his pleasure.

         "But not this one," she concluded, shaking her head, laughing softly, "Of course."

         How foolish she had been – a silly school girl who thought that he could truly love her. She gave him her heart, her soul, she would have given him anything if it had been he stayed, but he wasn't willing to do that in return. She was temporary to him, but to her he was everything.

         Had been everything, more than everything. He consumed her, he overwhelmed her. And she was foolish for allowing him to do so.

         She nodded, resolved, and walked past him to the door. True to his word, her things were packed up nicely by the entrance to the Compound. She didn't know if he was watching her, but she didn't dare look back. She had more dignity than that, at least. Her heart was broken, he had broken it, so he didn't deserve for her to look back.

         He didn't deserve to see her cry, he didn't deserve to see her happy – she owed him nothing. So she got in her car, and began to cry, calling the only person who owned her heart, the only one who had never broken it; her Magnus.