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riderofblackdragons · 6 months ago

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Day 26: Heatstroke

Let's gooooo! I have 3 minutes until midnight, my time, so let's post today's because I'm still on the right day! I had a lot of fun, and a lot of angst, writing this, so I hope you enjoy! And thanks to @crimsonlyinglilly, for being my sounding board whilst i was writing this.

This one's a return to An Original Mother, from the POV of Elijah's youngest son, Henry Hale. His surname is the name I've decided to use for Tatia's child as well, so his name is literally a callback to Elijah's lover's child, and to her youngest brother Henrik.

Hope you enjoy!

As he was dragged into the quarry, Henry felt as though he wanted to cry. His hands were bound, and the pain inside felt like it was ripping him apart, unlike any other full moon transformation he’d ever had. The witch dragging him wasn’t being gentle either, shoving him to the ground once they’d reached her desired destination.

“What did you do to me?” He snarled at her.

He was hungry, he was tired, he was in pain, and above all, he missed his mother. This witch had taken him from his home, where he’d been waiting for her call, and hadn’t even had the decency to answer any of his questions on their way here.

“I cast a spell, to slow down your transformation,” The witch knelt down next to him, although not close enough that he could attack her. “Your insides are trying to tear themselves free,”

Henry frowned at that, ignoring the witch as she moved away, casting a ring of fire around him. He ignored the pain, too, trying to focus on the niggling feeling that something was wrong.

He shouldn’t be in this much pain, he realised. When Henry had been a child, after one of his very first transformations, his brother and mother had worked together, creating a necklace for him. Not one to suppress his wolf, though he knew that both would have preferred that Henry never activated his curse in the first place. Nor did his necklace slow it down, in case that might lessen the pain.

It was a simple thing, big enough to stay around his neck even as a wolf, that was spelled to numb the pain. To reduce the agony of his monthly transformation, so it wouldn’t hurt so bad for him.

Henry grasped at his neck, but his fingers only touched bare skin. His necklace, with all its magical protections, was gone. And for a moment, he felt real fear, even as the pain overwhelmed him again.

There wasn’t even the chain left, to allow him to grasp onto it. He didn’t have anything to remind him of his mother, his family, and it unbalanced him. Henry had never been through a transformation without at least a token to remind him of his mother and brother, although usually his mother was there anyways.

Sobs began breaking free from his body, causing the pain to intensify with each gasping breath. Still, he got himself under control again. This was the witch’s fault.

Because of his little breakdown, Henry knew he’d missed something. The little witch was smiling proudly at a new man, someone who’d recently arrived - and the doppelgänger, Elena Gilbert, was glaring at her.

Henry knew Elena. Of course he did, the whole school did. He’d been friends with her brother Jeremy, before their parents had died, and Jeremy had gone off the rails. The younger Gilbert had pushed Henry away, so Henry had left it, and gone to their other, non-druggie, friends afterwards.

They were both going to die here tonight, Henry suddenly understood. He didn’t know who the vampire was, but he could smell her, and he was sure that it wasn’t a coincidence that here they had the components for the sun and moon ritual his mother had offhandedly mentioned once.

Well, not if he could help it, Henry decided. At first, he thought about targeting the new man. He was clearly in charge, so if Henry put him down, then maybe…

But he looked at the man, and something in Henry recognised something in this man. Klaus, he thought he heard them call him. There was something in his eyes, in his stance, that made Henry think of his mother. She was old, he knew, far older than even his friends’ great grandparents, and she’d never quite hidden it from him or Lukas.

Klaus had that same ancient power, the knowledge that no one could really stand against him, in his eyes.

It was comforting, a little, to see something familiar here. And Henry’s mother had told him and his brother that she had siblings, although she didn’t know where they were. One time, she’d said the bottom of the ocean, but that had to be a joke.

It was also terrifying, seeing his mother’s eyes in this stranger. This man, this vampire, didn’t want to help him, to rock him to sleep when he got nightmares. No, Henry knew, this man wanted to kill him.

So his attention went to the witch. If she died, this Klaus would have to stop his ritual. He’d have to leave, because if there was something Henry remembered about his mother’s old stories, it was that a witch was essential.

Or, well, he hoped that the witch was essential. Henry would have to kill her, either way, even if it didn’t do anything. Better to try, he remembered his mother saying once, and fail, than to never try, and never know if you could’ve succeeded.

So, he started muttering. He’d only have one chance at this.

And he didn’t know if it was his imagination, but Henry swore he heard the witch start to stumble over her words. He kept at it, muttering his own words under his breath, trying not to draw attention to himself as he heated her body up from the inside.

A heatstroke spell. Henry and Lukas had been messing around one day, looking through their mother’s grimoires. They come across it by accident, but their mother had encouraged them to learn it. Elijah had told them they’d be in danger some day, as her children, and as the children of their father, and so she’d urged them to keep at it.

But they’d only ever practised on their mother. Elijah was immortal, after all, truly immortal, and they’d known that she would get back up afterwards, and give them tips on the spell.

This was entirely different. This was Henry using it on a living person, a witch, someone who would most likely die from it.

Still, he kept his eyes on her, continuing the spell under his breath. She was his enemy, after all, and if there was one thing Henry had learned about enemies from his mother, it was that they were to be utterly destroyed, so they could not retaliate.

Sometimes, Henry wondered what kind of a life his mother had lived, that she would tell her sons something like this. And then he would remember how old she was, and that she’d probably had to deal with enemies coming back for vengeance, and he’d shut his mouth.

The witch’s dark skin made it difficult to tell if the spell was working, honestly. Henry could remember what his mother had looked like, under it, but she was a vampire, and fair-skinned besides.

If he squinted, Henry thought that maybe he could see a red flush creeping across her cheeks, but he could hear the way she was tripping over her words more frequently now. Her body swayed, but she held on, and continued, and Henry reluctantly had to admire her resolve to finish this.

Klaus was looking around, as though he was trying to see who was doing this. He didn’t seem to consider that it was Henry, or either of the women in the circles next to the boy. Which was logical, really.

Henry had hidden the witch thing on purpose, at his mother’s suggestion. The werewolf thing was difficult to hide, really, given that he transformed every full moon, and he couldn’t stop it. Comparatively, hiding his magic, only practising when he was sure there wasn’t any non-family members around, was easy.

But there wasn’t anyone around to take the heat, and Henry knew that sooner or later, Klaus would realise that. There wasn’t anyone else around. This was the Quarry, and even the stoners had stopped going here after Vicki Donovan’s death. No one was here.

The pain that he’d pushed to the back of his mind sprung forward, almost making Henry pass out. It definitely stopped his chanting, though, and let the witch go back to her own chanting.

Or not, as the case may be. Henry had been so focused on Klaus, despite the way his eyes had never left the witch he was cursing, that he hadn’t realised she’d collapsed. Collapsed behind her little bowl, which was frustrating. Henry wouldn’t be able to finish her off, now that she was out of his eyesight.

And it seemed Klaus had realised that the mystery witch wasn’t here, as he turned back to his own witch. Or maybe it was just that he realised that said witch had collapsed, and probably wasn’t going to be able to continue the ritual.

Honestly, Henry was hoping it was the second. He hated that he’d taken her life, but he didn’t want to die. He really, really, didn’t want to die, after all.

But Klaus wasn’t as dumb as he appeared, Henry soon found out. The vampire sped down to them, to his three sacrifices, glaring at each of them. His eyes trailed all three, even as Henry finally finished his transformation, fully becoming a wolf now.

And, unfortunately, unable to do witch’s magic. His wolf mouth just couldn’t form the words, and Henry hadn’t ever been all that good at mental spells.

Klaus growled at them, clearly frustrated, before he headed back up the slope to his witch. Henry watched him with a wolf’s eyes, seeing the way Klaus opened up his wrist, dripping blood from it into his witch’s mouth.

A multitude of swears, some in languages he knew were long dead (he’d learnt them from his mother), ran through Henry’s head. The vampire blood would heal her. He was going to die anyways, no matter what he’d done.

And he couldn’t even go back to killing that witch, since his stupid wolf mouth couldn’t shape the words he’d need for it. Briefly, he tried anyways, envisioning the words he needed, trying to push his intent towards the witch, even though he couldn’t speak.

But there was something, at least. It was something his mother had come up, during the full moon. Henry whined, and chuffed, at the witch, feeling his magic taint his own scent.

It wasn’t an exact art, not like it was when he was a human, but it was enough to injure a witch, at least. Henry’s mother had never known another witch-werewolf hybrid, not like Henry, so they’d been purely guessing when she’d come up with the idea, but it seemed as though it was working.

From heatstroke to intense cold, Henry tried to direct his magic to freeze her. She was going to kill him, was all that ran through his head. She’d taken away his gift from his mother and she was going to kill him.

And his magic reacted to it. It was a lot easier, like this, to cool something down, rather than to heat it up, and so Henry reversed his heatstroke spell easily. The witch’s body temperature lowered drastically, and Henry didn’t stop.

A slight whine sent a portion of his magic to his brother, to alert him that something was wrong. Henry didn’t know how to do it as a human - this could only be done when he was a wolf, and it was coming in handy now.

The witch above him was shivering, he noticed. Good. Henry lowered her temperature even more, until she stopped. He still couldn’t quite make out if she was changing colour or not, but he supposed that it didn’t matter. She’d die either way.

But the way Henry could only train his werewolf magic once a month came back to bite him. After all, this was a trained witch, and he had barely 5 years total of training his wolf-magic. He was going to die here, he realised suddenly, when the witch released him from his circle of fire.

His pack bond with his brother indicated that Lukas was getting close, but Henry could tell that it wasn’t going to be enough. Why would things go that way? Still, he ran towards Lukas. If he was going to die, he wanted it to be with at least one of his family members, even if his mother wasn’t here.

It was futile, he knew it deep down. Klaus was a vampire, naturally stronger than a werewolf, and old. Old enough to be able to defeat most vampires, Henry reckoned. But trying to flee was his only option, given everything. This witch wasn’t dying fast enough, but Henry didn’t know any fast-acting spells he could cast on her like this.

He was caught, of course, and caught fast. He’d known he would be. His mother would play with him on full moons, whenever she was in the area, and he’d always have to resort to tricks and hiding to beat her. Speed alone wasn’t enough.

But he’d managed to bite the vampire, at least. A big bite mark, right on Klaus’ shoulder, as the man had grappled him to the ground. He held Henry’s jaw down, after that, as he ripped out the younger’s heart.

Looking up at him, Henry felt like his heart would’ve jumped, if it hadn’t been in Klaus’ hand. Close as they were, he could recognise even more parts of his mother in this man: her nose, the shape of her eyes… His wolf instinctively recognised it; this man was his kin.

And his killer.

“No,” Henry heard a quiet whisper from above, and he rolled his eyes to look at its source.

They didn’t make it, the cold of death already creeping through Henry’s body, but he didn’t really need the visual confirmation. It was his brother, he could tell by the voice. He could smell Lukas’ familiar scent, from so many nights where he’d snuck into the elder’s bed, scared of the dark and not wanting to be alone.

He didn’t like it now, though. It was tainted with the dark smell of grief, like his brother was giving up on him already.

But he had the necklace. Henry’s favourite necklace, the one he loved the most out of their mother’s collection. It seemed to swirl whenever he’d look at it, getting lost in the deep blues of it.

And now, he hoped that this would work. Hopefully, he would now become it, one of its swirls forever.

Henry faintly registered that Klaus had left, not even going after Lukas. Maybe the ritual was more important? He probably assumed that he’d be able to hunt Henry’s older brother down later, before he could tell anyone about what happened.

His paws felt sticky. Henry’s vision started blurring, the colours sliding into each other. It was beautiful, he thought to himself, before it faded to black.

And then, everything was blue.

#tvd #to #the vampire diaries #the originals #elijah mikaelson #female elijah mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #oc - henry hale #greta martin #AU - An Original Mother #whumpay

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