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icouldletyoudieKlaus was swiftly losing his patience for this nonsense.
He knew Lydia's life had been bound to the witches to ensure he didn't steal their precious toy before they had what they wanted from him. He didn't think, for one moment, that they would attempt anything as foolish as trying to kill her based on a vision.
The union of the Hybrid and the Banshee, the end of the New Orleans witches...it all ended with a prick to Sophie's palm, and a fever that, while harmless to Sophie, had Lydia collapsing, heart racing like a thoroughbred in her chest...some residual medical anomaly left over from her one encounter with an Alpha werewolf's bite.
The fever was a curse. It would raise the temperature of Sophie's blood, a curse intended to cost mothers their children...a curse that Agnes, the witch Elder, knew could also cost Lydia her life.
With Elijah's help, and a cool bath in the pool, Lydia's life was spared. She lost consciousness, but a visit from a local physician assured them all that her fever had broken...she would be fine when she awoke, she merely required sleep.
Now that Sophie and Lydia were no longer linked, the Mikaelsons no longer owed a scrap of loyalty to the witches. Rather than prevent the prophecy, Klaus felt that Agnes, now dead by Elijah's hand, may have enacted the very thing she feared by letting control of Lydia's life flee their grasp.
Klaus had not been there when Lydia was ill...as she sat in Elijah's arms in the cool water, half-delirious, dying...
There wasn't enough blood in the city to stop him from feeling.
Once Rebekah and Elijah were otherwise occupied, Klaus sat vigil at Lydia's bedside with his sketch pad, drawing furiously. He did her portrait, a full body sketch, studies of her splayed limbs: those small, strong hands with the fingers of a child, those rounded knees, the rose petal lips and flawless strawberry blonde waves that lay against her neck.
She breathed. Her heart beat, he could hear it...but it wasn't the same as having to manipulate her into pose, saying things he'd dare not speak aloud to another soul, baring his soul and exposing his secrets just to ensure he could have one more second to capture that perfect image. The barbs they traded, the things they learned about each other...those words filled the sketches he collected, and these were just...empty.
Empty of everything but the words in his memory and the sudden, crushing desperation he felt as he looked on her sleeping face.
With a growl he tried to stifle, Klaus slammed his pad shut, gathered his pencils, and vacated Lydia's room. Making a beeline for his study, he set the pad down in the middle of his desk, paused....
Then with a snarl, he opened the top drawer and shoved the pad inside. Normally, he was more careful, tearing loose the sketches and locking them into the drawer, but tonight he merely slammed it shut, the sketches sitting beneath the pad and all its contents.
And as he fled his study to find the sitting room, and the alcohol, the drawer closed only halfway before the bulge of the pad stopped it from moving further, leaving that single drawer jammed halfway open.
He knew Lydia's life had been bound to the witches to ensure he didn't steal their precious toy before they had what they wanted from him. He didn't think, for one moment, that they would attempt anything as foolish as trying to kill her based on a vision.
The union of the Hybrid and the Banshee, the end of the New Orleans witches...it all ended with a prick to Sophie's palm, and a fever that, while harmless to Sophie, had Lydia collapsing, heart racing like a thoroughbred in her chest...some residual medical anomaly left over from her one encounter with an Alpha werewolf's bite.
The fever was a curse. It would raise the temperature of Sophie's blood, a curse intended to cost mothers their children...a curse that Agnes, the witch Elder, knew could also cost Lydia her life.
With Elijah's help, and a cool bath in the pool, Lydia's life was spared. She lost consciousness, but a visit from a local physician assured them all that her fever had broken...she would be fine when she awoke, she merely required sleep.
Now that Sophie and Lydia were no longer linked, the Mikaelsons no longer owed a scrap of loyalty to the witches. Rather than prevent the prophecy, Klaus felt that Agnes, now dead by Elijah's hand, may have enacted the very thing she feared by letting control of Lydia's life flee their grasp.
Klaus had not been there when Lydia was ill...as she sat in Elijah's arms in the cool water, half-delirious, dying...
There wasn't enough blood in the city to stop him from feeling.
Once Rebekah and Elijah were otherwise occupied, Klaus sat vigil at Lydia's bedside with his sketch pad, drawing furiously. He did her portrait, a full body sketch, studies of her splayed limbs: those small, strong hands with the fingers of a child, those rounded knees, the rose petal lips and flawless strawberry blonde waves that lay against her neck.
She breathed. Her heart beat, he could hear it...but it wasn't the same as having to manipulate her into pose, saying things he'd dare not speak aloud to another soul, baring his soul and exposing his secrets just to ensure he could have one more second to capture that perfect image. The barbs they traded, the things they learned about each other...those words filled the sketches he collected, and these were just...empty.
Empty of everything but the words in his memory and the sudden, crushing desperation he felt as he looked on her sleeping face.
With a growl he tried to stifle, Klaus slammed his pad shut, gathered his pencils, and vacated Lydia's room. Making a beeline for his study, he set the pad down in the middle of his desk, paused....
Then with a snarl, he opened the top drawer and shoved the pad inside. Normally, he was more careful, tearing loose the sketches and locking them into the drawer, but tonight he merely slammed it shut, the sketches sitting beneath the pad and all its contents.
And as he fled his study to find the sitting room, and the alcohol, the drawer closed only halfway before the bulge of the pad stopped it from moving further, leaving that single drawer jammed halfway open.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-25 05:47 am (UTC)A pack which some distant, long dead part of him yearned for.
The revelation that her Alpha might have willingly let her come to New Orleans, release something so powerful in the name of self-discovery and personal betterment...without even realizing it, his pad went slack in his grip until he finally set it impatiently aside, leaving him sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her in startled bemusement.
"You think he allowed this?" he asked softly. "Let you leave just...to find answers? Knowing you could be stolen from him?"
no subject
Date: 2014-08-25 05:55 am (UTC)"It wasn't easy and he had a lot of concerns as well as questions but he knew I needed to figure this out. Especially after Allison..." She faltered, her eyes flickering down at the empty glass in her hand which she then promptly held out to him in a silent question for more. "He just knew."
no subject
Date: 2014-08-26 04:51 am (UTC)Yet that promise of home called out to him. The loyalty this boy inspired, the love that shone from Lydia's eyes as she spoke of him...not love of a rival, but love of a brother...
Rival. The thought startled him as he stared down at Lydia, bundled comfortably into bed, holding out her glass for more bourbon...so unafraid, so childlike and innocently comfortable with him...so very trusting.
People had trusted him before. Warily, cautiously...there was no leap of faith for her, no danger. She simply...did not fear him.
Momentarily overwhelmed, Klaus swallowed thickly and accepted her glass, topping it off.
"Allison...the girl who was stabbed." he gently prodded. "You've mentioned her before."
no subject
Date: 2014-08-26 03:25 pm (UTC)It didn't matter that Allison had survived the attack. It was more that she nearly hadn't and that Lydia had felt it coming. That, in the moment the blade had cut into her friend, Lydia had felt it too.
"What about her?" She managed, swallowing thickly as she stared at the glass with unseeing eyes. She knew he had filled it again but it didn't click in her head that it had happened. She was trapped again in the long, cold corridor with Stiles at her feet and she screamed over what she believed to be her best friend's final moments.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-26 05:54 pm (UTC)When he looked into her face once more, however...Lydia was far away, watching the glass he'd handed her without seeing it. The color drained from her already sickly features, and the look in her eyes...
Chalking it up to her power, Klaus felt his own heart clench in a sickening fashion, tightening with things he'd long thought himself incapable of feeling.
"Lydia." he whispered. When she didn't answer, Klaus took the glass back out of her hands and scooted closer, gathering them both carefully into his.
Despite the fever she'd only just woken from, they were cold.
The tightness in his chest got worse as he enfolded her palms between his, not quite warm because he hadn't fed yet. Klaus suddenly wanted a human to slaughter so he'd have heat enough in his flesh to warm her fingers on his own.
"Lydia." His eyes searched her face, his voice a little louder, tone gentle and coaxing. "Where are you, love?"
no subject
Date: 2014-08-26 06:08 pm (UTC)"In a hallway..." She closed her eyes, letting out the breath she had pulled into her lungs a moment before. "I felt it when the blade slid into her. I screamed because she was going to die and...I think that she did. At least for a couple minutes." She paused, pressing her lips together as she opened her eyes to look at him again.
"She is my best friend. She came there to save me and they nearly killed her." She shifted her weight on the bed, drawing closer to him. "Her Dad took her to Paris after that to heal and...I needed to figure out my power more because I nearly failed in protecting her."