Searching for Always and Forever

Chapter 12

Hope and her siblings were in the Salvatore Boarding School for a week now. Everyone did great, even Jack, although he needed Hope more often than not and Hope would never leave the boy alone for too long. Thankfully Emma was very helpful and communicative with Hope, she could almost trust her. Hope spent every single night in the library since that first night. She wished the library would be open all night because sleeping was still difficult for her. At least she could do something valuable with her time, but that infuriating phoenix had to close it every single night. Hope usually went there after the kids went to sleep and she stayed in the library until Landon came to lock up. She didn't complain anymore to him, she just left when he arrived.

It was the same on a Saturday night. They didn't have classes all day, so Hope decided to spend her day with her family. She planned a little walk and picnic in the woods. Something to remind them about their home. Riley and Jack were really excited, but Grace had a plan to go into town with Lizzie. Hope was a little offended. Grace spent an awful lot of time with Lizzie. Sure she didn't mind her having a friend, but it still hurt her to blow off a family day like that, so she only took the two little ones. They had a fun day but she missed Grace all day. The evening came, and Hope did her usual research. She literally read all the books on the Mikaelsons she could find. She even read through spell books by their mother using dictionaries to translate everything from all the different languages but she didn't find anything mentioning this tribrid. She started to think she was on the wrong path, that Klaus Mikaelson had nothing to do with her parents' death. It was so nice to think she actually had a lead. She was seriously thinking about giving up, when Landon entered the library to close up.

"I'll be out of your hair in a sec." Hope said it in a slightly disappointed tone as she got up and started to put away the books.

"You know, it's Saturday. Security only checks the common areas on school nights. You could stay a bit longer if you'd like." He said, probably noticing Hope's disappointment.

"It's fine. I think I am done with this crap anyway." Hope replied as Landon helped her put the books away.

"Are you still on the Mikaelsons?" He asked curiously reading the book titles.

"Well, not anymore. I read everything I possibly could, about them."

"So, are you done with your project?"

"More or less." Hope shrugged.

"Hmm... Your research is not for a school project. Is it?" Landon asked with a suspicious tone and Hope started to get defensive, but then she saw the boy smile. Hope just shrugged without a word. "You know I'm pretty good at research... I know you don't need my help, but it seems like you are giving up without any result." Hope gave him an ice cold glare. What did he even know? Besides, she couldn't possibly trust this phoenix with her research... well, maybe he didn't have to know what exactly Hope was looking for... she never told this to anyone, not even Grace.

"Tribrid... have you ever heard about it?" Hope asked the boy with a dead serious expression.

"Well... 'tri' means three and I play a lot of D&D and we come up with some crazy monsters sometimes, even tribrids... I mean it could be anything that has three parts. It's like a hybrid of three different creatures."

"Huh..." Hope looked at the boy with a stunned expression. Why did she never think about this? She was so certain it was some kind of object... but it was actually a creature, some kind of monster.

"Does this have anything to do with the Mikaelsons?" He pointed at the bookshelf full of the books about them.

"Might be. I'm not sure, haven't found anything that would suggest it does."