Severed Heaven (Niklaus and Elijah Mikaelson)

Chapter Eleven: Rivalry and Humility

          For someone known to love spotting defects in everyone else, I derived a certain satisfaction from concealing my actual feelings for this gala behind my usual indifference, hostility, or spite for anyone in a position to outshine me. To withhold universal approval of it all would simply alert others that I had concealed motives. As I walked in, I looked intentionally unimpressed, because I knew no one would suspect a false bottom in the arcane pallet of shadings I applied to everything else. I even urged myself to let down my inhibitions and show my joy the way everyone else was showing theirs. But I also did it so none might suspect I nursed sorrows of a far more secret and desperate kind.

I was the first to recognise her steps before she could even notice mine. "Elizabeth, welcome." Aya occupied herself before me in an instant. "Please, allow me to make some introductions."

I simply doled out my attention when the occasion suited me, and she knew it. "Straight to business, hm?" I asked.

When Aya came to me with her assistance almost eagerly, I realised how determined she was to read and understand me. Her words were prompted rather more by curiosity than by an opportunity for casual chitchat. "Well, I cannot imagine you just came here for the drinks." She told me, attempting to hide her peculiarity in her accent.

"Damn right, I didn't." My intentions, like hers, even when they gave every impression of being chaotic, were the focus of the conversation.

I realised soon enough that she wasn't trying to hide it. I was taking the place in. I dreaded missing any significant facts that could be of use to my promise to Niklaus. From where we walked, looking out over the dancing mass of vampires, I would strain my eyes in attempt to catch each and every flaw and strength. "One of our more famous faces." Aya noted when we passed a table of plenty young woman, a blonde in the exact middle. "We count amongst our society celebrated actors, artists, politicians. Of course, most of us prefer to live a life outside the public eye. That doesn't make our talents any less impressive."

As she paused, I reeked her hesitation. "Well, continue. I'm not quite impressed yet." I took comfort in her astonishment, even if it never showed. I had obviously grazed the forbidden zone and been let off easily enough.

Aya cleared her throat, and she turned to face me to halt our little stroll together. The expression on her face said it all; the Strix were inevitably arrogant and cloudy-minded. "We're on top of the food chain." She stated. "The smartest, the strongest, and we take what we want." 

"And you would like to gain me on your side?" I declared the obvious. Surely the signs had been all around me. She shouldn't be stunned.

I began thinking of nothing other but their motivates against the Mikaelsons. Hundreds of years ago I would have done anything to ruin every opportunity for them to flourish and what not; I would've even sided with the Strix. I would have slandered one sibling to the other— exactly what Aya assumed I wanted. I would have wanted to be there to see that family be slaughtered, I would have wanted to be in on it, have them owe me.

It never took me long at all to understand what she was really after.

The rebuke in her eyes told me she wasn't going to play my game of hide and seek. "Tristan has been a collector of extraordinary talent for the better part of the millennium. He chooses the best of the best and then helps them evolve."

"Well." I started, giving her a childish smile, and I stepped closer to her. "I so appreciate Tristan wanting to help me reach my full potential, but who's to say I'm not already there?" It was nothing but the truth, and Aya knew it. "You cannot afford me, and you know it. Perhaps, Marcel will fall for it, though, who knows? But I'm aware of what this is." When I brought this up, and she remained silent, I let my bottled anger define my features. I wasn't afraid of crossing the line right here, right now. I'd do it again and again. "You think I despise the Mikaelsons, but the truth is... I despise you."