Youth ☽ ☾ Klena

6.

'Elijah!' Klaus roared, his voice echoing in the shadowed corridors. 'Where is she!' His voice rang out as clear as a bell as did his thumping footsteps, he glanced around the corner, averting his gaze to find Elijah. He sure as hell had heard someone else in the house and he knew for definite that Rebekah had left the home not minutes before.

'Elijah, come out, now!' He spoke, once again. This time, menacing, soft, dangerous. It was what Klaus was truly good at: trickery, mockery. Lure Elijah out with softness, not that it would work. Elijah was too clever for his own good and had learnt not to be lured out unless he had assessed the situation, so Klaus waited.

A mere thirty seconds later, Elijah appeared as if out of thin air and faced Klaus, his permanent tight-lipped scowl prominent on his face. It was present in the air that he was still mad at Klaus and had only not expressed his feelings out of pure fear and a new addition to the family, one which he was hoping to use.

'Elena's gone.' Klaus spat, striding towards Elijah, who made no move to step away. Klaus leant his weight forward, his balance on the balls of his feet, and left his face only inches away from his brothers: 'where did you put her?' He grinned sardonically, expecting the answer to be instant but all he could see was a mild form of panic on his face. His brother's eyes had widened by a fraction and his lips looked thinner than ever. His face had paled only visible to those with enhanced sight and his eyebrows furrowed as he did as he so often calculated his options.

'Elijah. Where. Is. She.' Klaus gritted his teeth, baring his fangs at his brother. He clenched his fists, letting them turn white under the pressure and breathed heavily as he tried to control his vampiric urges.

'I don't know, brother.' His words caused Klaus take a step back. If Elijah's face had not been enough of a warning, his words truly were. He didn't know. Elijah was not the one to blame here, there was someone else. Or not, no one came near the house- he would have sense it...unless he hadn't.

Even though the original had sensitive hearing, maybe better than any other vampire, a child's footsteps- if he wasn't listening out for them- could be easy to miss. Klaus left nothing to chance and he was rash, going for his first option, leaving no time to care whether it was a waste of his precious time.

'Elijah, search the forest. Go West, I'm heading East.' He ordered, leaving no time for Elijah to reason with him as he shot off at vampiric speed and headed East. Once again, he felt his hands clenching themselves into fists without him even being aware. Now, the veins under his eyes were prominent and he felt thirsty for revenge. It was perfectly reasonable that Elena had run off but Klaus, under a mirage of his paranoia, had clouded judgement and against his rational mind, he assumed only one thing- Elena had been taken.

If he could step back and look at the whole picture, he would have been able to see that Elena had run off for her own benefit, her own desire, but Klaus was blinded by the thought that Elena was too dumb, too inefficient by herself, to even contemplate that.

Klaus was wrong, so, so wrong. That was what made it all the worse when he finally found Elena huddled under a tree, alone, tears streaming like tsunamis down her cheeks.

'Elena.' He breathed, hesitantly bringing her to his chest, cradling her like the child she was. He felt at a loss, he had no experience with crying when it was an adult doing it, much less a child. He felt incapable of comforting her but apparently his being seemed to calm her and soon her sobs had faded to just a few tear stains on her cheeks.

'I'm so sorry.' She cried out, burying her little face into his shoulder, covering the tattoo that was poking out of his shirt.

'Sorry for what?' He asked, naively, still unaware of the simple situation.

'For running away.' She cried again, a few lone tears spilling onto his V-neck shirt. He sighed, comprehending at last what had happened. Without a word he sent a quick message to Elijah, proving the child's safety and got a relieved message in reply.

Klaus lifted Elena from the ground, keeping her cradled against his chest and her head laying peacefully on his shoulder. For now, she was calm and he hoped it would stay that way. He felt all anger flood from him just at the sight of her. Any thought of punishment had long from been thrown out of the window.

'Let's go home. Shut your eyes for me, little one, don't open them until I say so.' He cooed into her shoulder, still unaware of his paternal affection for this young girl. She nodded, letting out a content sigh, closing her eyes shut and burying her face further into his shoulder.

He ran, at a speed unknown to man, towards the house and released Elena from his grasp and ordered her to open her eyes. She did as she was told and blinked a few times as she saw the house. Her eyes immediately lit up as reality set in and she could see the large, rustic-looking mansion standing proudly in front of her.

'Come on, little one.' Klaus encouraged, urging her towards the door.

'Elena.' Klaus heard, recognising Elijah's voice from behind the door. 'What were you thinking!' He raised his voice just enough to let her know he was angry but still not enough to frighten her. 'You can't just run away like that!' He leant down to reach her height and looked at her level in the eye. 'Now go to your room and stay there until I say you can leave.' He glared menacingly, looking like he forgot that he was punishing a five-year-old.

Klaus made a move to comfort her as she hung her head in shame and slowly wandered up the steps, her feet dragging behind her, but Elijah stopped him. Clutching his arm with an iron grip even the famous Klaus Mikaelson could escape from without struggle. Klaus shook the grip off but it remained as tight as before.

'What are you doing, Elijah?' He spat, trying to release his arm once again- Elijah wasn't going to let him leave, though.

'Stopping you. You've already gone soft, Klaus. A child needs to punished, I thought you knew that.' He looked down on his brother patronisingly as if he knew better than Klaus did. In fact, he did. Elijah wasn't clueless. Klaus may have already raised a son but it was Elijah who had educated him, punished him, trained him all whilst Klaus became friends with the boy and he could see it happening all over again.

Klaus was letting his weaknesses show and Elijah couldn't allow that. Klaus was invincible but that didn't protect him from harm and no matter how much Elijah despised Klaus, forever and always was never to be forgotten.

word count: 1200

published: 17/01/17