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SIXTEEN, The end is near
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ELIJAH HAD NEVER seen Himari as silent, as calm, and as still as she was right now. She hadn't said a word to him since they were freed from that cold cellar by Elena of all people. Once they had arrived back at their small apartment, Himari didn't acknowledge him or Elena. That alone spoke volumes. She simply moved past them and went straight to her room, slamming the door shut.
Before Elena had explained it to him, Elijah had no idea what occurred during those hours in the cellar, while he was daggered, though by Himari's lack of conversation, he assumed nothing good. She wore this defeated, almost-dead, expression that made him recall the last time he had seen her in such a state. It was back in the 1980s when those men attacked and poisoned her. He remembered how her body convulsed, how her eyes had fluttered shut as the toxins coursed through her veins at a torturing pace.
Back then, he offered her his hand, reassurance, a declaration of loyalty, a promise of protection, and though her body had been weakened, her spirit remained intact. She'd taken his hand, bloody and stained with sins, and decided to trust him despite it.
But this... this time felt different.
It seemed that no words would mend the anguish she endured in those hours.
He couldn't lie and say it didn't worry him, because it did. More than he cared to admit. Himari had been poisoned and that meant her powers were severed. Not permanently, only temporarily. But what really concerned him was the fact that it had been by the hands of Damon Salvatore— Himari was not his biggest fan and he feared she might become fixated on revenge rather than focusing on their end goal.
The worst part was that he understood it.
The look of anger, of bitterness, of gnawing obsession— it was the same look his brother wore for centuries. A man who had been consumed by vengeance and his own paranoia, whose every action had been driven by rage and the need to settle old scores.
Revenge was a poison. He knew that better than anyone. Once it took root, it twisted your soul, and darkened every corner of your being until there was nothing left. Klaus would never truly know peace, only destruction. And if Himari succumbed to that same impulse...
