For All My Love And Rage |Originals AU

20. The Last Cruel Truth

The siblings moved back to the French Compound, after hours of crying and sharing their new tender memories of Mikael. Their loved ones gave them all the support they could, but the Mikaelsons were inconsolable. Hayley and the others began to organize things for their departure. There had been an unspoken agreement that the family would honor what, for all they knew, was Mikael's last wish and move to the property he had in Norway. In their rush to organize things quietly, Hayley and the others left the siblings to rest and talk on the patio.

The truthful, heartwarming words Mikael left for his children had the opposite effect than he expected. Thankfully, he was long gone, and not around to see the pain and heartbreak his note caused to the Mikaelsons.

Sadly, however, someone else was watching as the Mikaelson siblings regained their long-lost tender memories of their father.

"Oh, don't cry, my dear grandchildren..." Hollow's cruel voice echoed through the French compound. In her weakened state, it took all her strength to appear as a ghostly figure to the Mikaelsons. She decided to not show them her actual face, instead wearing the face of a witch the children of Mikael knew rather well... and would fear.

"Dahlia!" Freya screamed, jumping up and holding Henrik close to her. "No, it-it can't be—you're dead! We killed you!"

"Don't worry, dear girl," The Hollow's voice differed from Dahlia's, which almost calmed Freya. "That old hag is dead and gone. You're right," The Hollow smiled maliciously, her eerie blue eyes radiating power. "I'm simply wearing her face... A familiar face to greet my son's beloved children."

Her tone was nothing close to smoothing, and soon, all the Mikaelsons were up and ready for a fight. A familiar face could not deceive them. But, then, the Hollow was not trying to appear to them as a benevolent figure.

"Your-your son?" Finn mumbled, scrambling to his feet. "You don't mean..."

"Mikael," she said, the word burning her lips. "My little Mikael... He cheated me, you see. When we created him, through our powerful magic, his father and I never intended for him to grow, or age..." She glared at them. "Or to have you, little parasites... But then, the little devil found Esther and Ansel. That whore and that coward tricked my sweet boy; forced him, with empty promises of love, to betray us... And he did.... all so we couldn't touch his precious little family. You." Her cruel blue eyes cut through their souls, as though she wanted nothing but to carve out their hearts.

The Mikaelson siblings, with their hearts broken, stared dumb folded at the cruel ghost who came to tell them one last horrible truth. They thought there was nothing else they could learn about Mikael's past that would make their pain worse. The Hollow, of course, was there to prove them wrong.

"Oh, the things I would have done to you when you were little," she laughed viciously, delighted by her own thoughts of torture and violence. "With so many of you, too! I could have killed one of you every week, just to watch my Mikael suffer..." She raised her a hand to her chest and mouth, savoring the images her words conjured. "But he ran with the witch whore and that scared wolf. And he hid from us... My son, the mighty Destroyer, who could burn down entire nations... Reduced to a farmer, a hunter, a good little husband and father..." she spited the words with disgust. "He should have been so much more. Mikael was more, before you, wretched little ones... Oh, but the sacrifices he made for you... It was never as good, of course, as when I could cut him, burn him and watch him scream. His screams, they were so sweet when he was a boy, hm... Still, watching him sacrifice so much of his soul, his health, his life and happiness just to protect you... hmm, it was surely something..."