#╰ ––––––– ✧ KLAUS MIKAELSON : i’ll see you in hell or new orleans ❨ secondary verse ❩˙

[everythingheard]

@legaciestold said: "You will always be my brother." (Celine to Klaus)

Blood. It drips from the tavern walls, soaks into the floorboards underfoot, fills the air with its pronounced metallic scent — and stains Klaus' skin as yet another body drops from his arms to the ground with a thud. He has transformed the room into a canvas of his own design, painted it in crimson, yet it's not enough. Despite its potency, the ichor still fails to drown Aurora's words dredged up again and again in his own mind:

' I do not love you. I thought I did, but it's as if I see you clearly for the first time, and I find you a cruel, wretched thing. Pathetic, really, and unworthy of anyone's love, let alone mine. I could never love you. '

Blighted pain claws at Klaus' ribcage and threatens to punch straight through his chest; he's possessed by it, as he is by nearly every emotion since that night beneath the full moon, when he learned what he truly is. Elijah, Finn, Rebekah, all of them — how do they stand this intensity that not only threatens to consume him, but so often does? However, even as the query rises in his thoughts, he's already aware of the answer.

They're not beasts.

Evocations of his mother's lips forming the phrase that always echoes endlessly in his ears ( ' You're an abomination of nature ' ) seem to meld with that of Aurora's eyes, once so full of adoration, gazing at him with a hollow apathy until Klaus shoves his scarlet-smeared hands in his hair, his fingertips digging into his scalp. This torture feels enough to end him — only he knows it never will. There's no respite when you cannot die, when you cannot be killed, when you're afflicted with eternity.

He hears Celine in the doorway, her familiar cadence joining the cacophony of others screaming in his head. "Stop it!" Klaus' voice garners the decibels necessary to grow louder than the discord only he is privy to. As he turns on his heel to face her, he almost wishes he hadn't. "Your ties to me are mere threads, you are not bound to me by blood. And you should be glad of it!" When his boot connects to one of the few chairs not toppled over on the floor, it flies across the room and splinters to pieces as it hits the wall.

"My mother may have tried to suppress what I am, yet not a day goes by that I don't feel it, and it's destroying me!" Klaus' steps leave footprints of blood in his wake as he paces back and forth. "I'm going to destroy all of you along with me, surely you must understand that. I know you do." Now, the space between them disappears as he crosses the room to stand before her. "Even Elijah cannot look at me the same, I've seen it every day since — " Since they fled Castle de Martel and the approach of Mikael, since Aurora turned away from him in revulsion.

Klaus' eyes flicker to the ceiling, then back to Celine's face. "You'll say you wish to stand by me now, but every one of you will change your minds. So, when you claim that I'll always be your brother, I do not believe you."

[everythingheard]

The large van parked in the sprawling driveway, the movers marching boxes up and down the front steps of the manor — it's all wholly inessential, and Klaus is aware of that fact. As it is, pertinence to necessity doesn't always play a role in his reasoning. What is imperative for now is Elena's presence in New Orleans, a thought which flickers through his mind not for the first time as he approaches behind her. It surprises Klaus, just a little, when she comments on his presence before he's even said a word, resulting in a subtle curve of his lips and a raising of his eyebrows. "You're quite welcome."

As he watches two of the hired men hoist a vanity table up the stairs ( a new piece, one that hadn't endured the long journey here, unlike what remains in the back of the truck ), his muscles tense involuntarily in annoyance when one grip slips a little. "Careful with that," Klaus calls out. "If you drop it and one of the legs fails to impale your foot on the way down, I'll come over there and do it myself." Not the kindest words ever spoken, yet hardly the worst; besides, their recipient won't even remember all of this an hour from now. Although Marcel is aware that he's returned to the Quarter, he prefers to maintain the secrecy of the companion he's brought with him for as long as possible. If the movers aren't compelled to forget, word might somehow spread about the sort of items currently making their way across the house's threshold; in that case, his old protégé would surely seek an explanation, one that involves a card he's not quite ready to reveal in his hand.

Turning his attention to Elena once more, Klaus replies to her observation. "I'd imagine so. It shares the same Antebellum architecture as your home in Fell's Church, even if this is on a grander scale." Still, not so impressive as the second home he and his siblings had built for themselves here, but it will do. For now. It's the gratitude for her new job that jolts him from further reverie, and prompts another grin to his face, one side of his mouth a little higher than the other. "You're welcome for that as well, though I can't accept full credit. After all, what sort of patron of the arts would I be if I'd arranged the position for someone unsuitable?" Although Klaus' tone is marked by levity, the sentiment isn't untrue. Elena is clever and talented; otherwise, his initial interest in her wouldn't have been piqued past what her blood could offer him. There's a sort of light within her that reminds him of the glow of a candle spilling around and beneath the edges of a closed door — he wonders whether, if the door was opened, the small flame would blaze into a fire. He's certain it would.

Thus, Klaus isn't surprised when she inquires after the purpose of her presence here. There's a marginal upward tilt of his chin, then, "I suppose it is." Gesturing for Elena to follow him, he leads the way to a small gazebo off to the side of the house where a wrought-iron table and chair await ( far enough away not to be overheard, yet close enough that he can keep an eye on the movers ). Klaus pulls out a chair for her before taking the one opposite.

"You're aware that my family used to live in New Orleans, yes, but that's not the whole of it. We built this city, helped it rise from nothing but swamps to cathedrals and libraries and opera houses. Perhaps back then the Quarter was run by factions of humans, vampires, and witches — but they all knew better than to cross us." That remains true now, in most supernatural circles, yet it seems their legacy here has been forgotten to the annals of time. They'll soon remember. "We had never felt as if we belonged anywhere before, my family and I. This is the only place we were ever truly happy." It would be so simple to permit himself to drift into the memory, though he doesn't. "Then my father found us, burned it to the ground, and chased us to the farthest corners of the Earth."

His gaze stays steadfast on Elena's. "This was our home once, and I want it back. There's a vampire running the Quarter, who took advantage of our absence to steal what's ours. He's subjugated the witches, run the wolves into the Bayou, and proclaimed himself the king — I intend to find out how, and have it for myself." Folding his arms across his chest, Klaus pauses for a mere beat. "If I need to obtain it by force, so be it. But you don't declare the throne your own before you've built yourself an army. You build an army so big that no one would dare stand against you as you take the crown."

@everythingheard (klaus)

she's playing with fire.

the scent of coffee marries with the scent of fauna, heat rising from the nearby swamps as delicate hand tightens around her coffee cup. it's warm out, a wet heat such a stark contrast to the weather she'd left back in paris that it causes gooseflesh to appear across elena's arms as if her body rages against such drastic extremes. or maybe it's the scene playing out in front of her like some strange little play presented for one. maybe it is, in an abstract way. a display for her benefit and a reminder of his power. a macabre display of control in the form of a welcome wagon that causes a soft laugh of mixed amusement upon memory and self-chastation at not being offended by the clear compulsion used on the movers to escape her which she hides in her sip of coffee. she'd returned to america from paris once before, an ice queen entering her court as students lined the parking lot and now too she felt as if she was some regent cast upon a new land where power and conquest awaited.

he'd made all the preparations. secured her a job that fit her skills and paid well. he'd told her she'd be safe in this grand house too even if she knew there was much more to his decision to ask her to relocate than he'd told her. she wasn't an idiot and while she knew she could be vain at the best of times she wasn't just a pretty girl who would jump because someone was offering her what seemed a great opportunity on the pages of her diary. but he had protected her from the moment he'd saved her life that dark night in fells church, he'd helped her find out the truth about her mother and about herself too and only asked her to give something she had the power to grant him in return. it was an arraignment which mutually benefited them yet it had always felt as if there was something intrinsic about it. he'd always come himself to collect her blood instead of sending one of his followers and they'd found themselves talking about all manner of things over the years. art. languages. the wonders that the world held far past the borders of fells church or paris. he'd never given her a reason to doubt him and so she held no reason to refuse his request when he'd called her aside from perhaps the inconvenience of relocating from one country to the next, though that hadn't been too much of an issue either. what had was aunt judith's long-winded phone calls about how elena couldn't just move on a whim when she'd established herself where she was. oh aunt judith. elena loved her, dearly and fondly, but her aunt held too strongly to what was comfortable and normal.

still, elena knew, as light hues peered over her coffee cup with a queer fascination as men move back and forth between the truck and the house with the small amount of belongings she brought with her-- she really hadn't had that much, she'd realized, and she hadn't needed to bring furniture to a furnished house-- that she was playing with fire. she'd known it back then too when she'd entered into the deal with klaus. but she had never shied away from the fire before, not when something in it called to her, awakened something in her that made her want to seek it out. and if it burned her? well, it had been her choice to play the game. she'd deal with the consequences.

"i found this little coffee shop in the quarter before i drove out here." elena comments, somehow seeming to sense his presence before she actually sees him walk toward her. "i might be in love." she wonders briefly, if the hybrid before her would buy the shop if she asked him to, for clearly her presence there indicated he needed her for some greater purpose than distance could allow. she doesn't ask though because she doesn't actually want it further than seeing just how much power she might be able to possess in this new arena she has. oh yes, she was playing with fire. his fire and her own fire.

"thank you kindly for this." she waves her free hand toward the house with a strange little fondness in her features. it doesn't even phase her they both will reside there. it's certainly large enough for it. "it reminds me of home in a strange little way." the architecture of the south, of old manor homes that dated back to times of old. her childhood home stood since the civil war. perhaps even before it. or at least part of it had she'd discovered when she'd been required to invite klaus into her home twice due to the location of her room. how strange that was, to have the original hybrid fettling through her school notebooks while aunt judith was none the wiser. what a scene that would have been if she'd come in an seen a real life dracula giving her blood.. and taking it. maybe she'd have invited him to thanksgiving preview dinner, seating him between meggie and robert e. lee's all american quarterback. the thought nearly sends her into amused hysterics though she manages to school her features enough to speak.

"and for securing the job." let it not be said she isn't polite. ulterior motives in relation to getting her there or not, she would thank him for what he was bestowing upon her. she moves toward him then, meets him where he stands and elena thinks perhaps the air of this place has done him some good. there's a sense of belonging that seems to emit from him in this place. "i do think it is time for you to tell me what's really going on and why i'm here though don't you?" her gaze is quizzical though serious. if she's to live in this place, work in this city, help him with whatever it was he was planning, then she sure as hell needed to know what to expect.