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❝ we all do what we have to for the sake of family. ❞
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SOMETIMES ALL IT TOOK WAS ONE PERSON TO INSIST THAT THINGS WERE GOING TO BE OKAY. Even if they knew they weren't. Even if you could feel the fragility of your skin against the knife's edge. Somehow, their confidence was enough to fall into. Their faith in you—in the universe, in other things holding it together—gave you scales and you could feel yourself changing.
And, of course, you always knew it was dangerous. Dangerous to relinquish yourself like that to a non reality—somebody else's reality. But in another way every reality was the same: similarly plausible and implausible, similarly predictable and chaotic, happy and disappointing, devastating and nonchalant. Every reality had its seeker and narrator, its perpetrator and victim, its heroine and sidekick.
So the realization came in stages of escapism; stepping into somebody else's frame. It would be a painting much brighter and more picturesque, with love at its pinnacle. If you stayed long enough you could learn the colors by heart and be stained by them; long enough to bring back to your picture. Love, as an imprint. And hope, not as a last resort, but as a certainty.
Unfortunately, that is not how the world worked. If it did, Enola wouldn't be in the study looking over many of the reasons why Klaus would probably be dead by the end of the week. She had no hope he would survive this considering he had spent the last one thousand years making enemies left and right. It was only a matter of time before all of that caught up to him considering his connection to them was severed the previous night by Miss Davina Claire.
"You collect trophies from all your victims?" Freya scoffed in bewilderment.
"Letters to their loved ones to be specific," Elijah corrected.
"So you would have your victims write goodbye letters?" Enola blinked. "That is just cruel. Even for you, Nik."
"It was a phase," Klaus defended lamely.
"A phase in which we were forced to learn a different kind of stealth," Elijah scoffed. "You see, over time, Niklaus' enemies grew so numerous we had no choice but to artfully withdraw from the world." He paused in thought for a moment. "And then . . . well, I wouldn't exactly describe our presence in this city as discreet, wouldn't you agree Niklaus?"
"We all saw the white oak destroyed," Klaus spoke with finality. "Plus, this city was crawling with vampires—all of whom had no choice but to shield me from potential foes. Were I to die, they would die too, I couldn't have been more safe. And now my sire link is undone and those very foes will come for me like never before."
