"I guess being diabolical has its perks."

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   DARKNESS.

   EMPTINESS.

   NOTHINGNESS.

   It was an all-consuming void. And what felt ironic was that it also felt hollow, like when you're a kid and you go into the ocean for the first time. You can feel it all around you, but when you try to grab it and take it— it slips out of your fingers like it was never there.

   That's what it felt like to be roaming the pit.

   The worst of it is probably the lack of sleep. Wouldn't want to let you escape torture for eight hours, now would they? Though she could see the upsides in it sometimes, at least she could stay alert and not get tired. The same with the lack of hunger. But what she hated was the lack of everything.

   Hope didn't know how long she'd been walking in the darkness. Time was off somehow. Sometimes it felt like hours, other times— months. Now and then, she would hear strange noises, yelling, screaming, whispering. And other times she could see a faint hint of light from above, reminding her that there was a way out— but she would never reach it. It was funny, at first she considered it to be mocking her. A constant reminder that freedom was always there but would never be hers. But in time, she came to see it as a comfort. That any day now, she'll find a way to reach that light and she'll be out of the darkness.

      Hope Mikaelson never expected this. She thought she would die and the Devourer's spell would be broken. And she figured, with the memory-erasing that came from this place, that her family and friends wouldn't feel her loss. A part of her was sad about making that sacrifice, who wouldn't be? She was giving up her first love, her family, and her brother. Henrik would have had to live his life thinking he was the only tribrid in existence. She hated that part the most. It was one thing to have only two members of your species, but now he was alone in that. Just like how their dad felt for almost his whole life, and that didn't exactly lead to him making the best choices. If anything, knowing that Henrik felt as alone as she did only motivated her to escape even more.

      Hope hated to admit the Malivore Coven caught her way off guard. For months, they all thought it to be some sentient devouring monster. She thought she knew what was waiting for her when she decided to save Landon. Unlike Dorothy and her friends when they were fooled by a con-man pretending to be the wizard, she thought that she knew what kind of evil was behind the curtain. But instead of a big bad monster, it was a group of wicked witches.

      When she set out to find Landon, she thought she was going to end up fighting every monster in the book. But she got witches and magically enhanced people instead. Werewolves and vampires that were experimented on beyond what anyone could imagine. Landon couldn't tell her much, only that he learned what he really was. He learned about where he came from, the people responsible for him, and most importantly- he found out what kept their power going. And that was enough for her to go on. He told her about the pit, about the sacrifices made to keep it growing and making them stronger.

      He told her that to create it, they sacrificed an abomination that burns in the sun, a beast cursed to the moon, and a servant of nature. A threefold sacrifice that binds the spell infinitum. Only, spells don't always last forever. There's always a loophole, and Hope believed it was her. A living hybrid of the three species they killed to make the spell in the first place. She could disrupt it. Henrik was also a possible candidate, but there wasn't a chance she would even let Henrik know about this. She knew he'd do it just to get his guilt off his shoulders.

      "Watch out!"

      Hope was pushed to the side and fell out of her usual walking route. She got up and glanced around quickly but there was only darkness. Until her head tilted down and she saw the cracks in the floor. Cracks that went in the same direction she came from, and the crumbling hole located right where she was about to fall into.

      She looked to her left to see who had pushed her out of the way only to frown at the familiar face, "Clarke?"

      "Fancy meeting you here," He grinned at her.

      Hope stood up as fast as she could, wanting nothing to do with Landon's technical brother. Though they weren't directly biological, they were made by the same people. The same coven. She scoffed loudly, "So I guess figuring you would've died when we dove in here was just wishful thinking?"

      He stood up as well, dusting off his trousers and shirt to answer her, "Fun fact about the Pit, you actually have to die first before it truly consumes you." He said matter-of-factly which only made her glare at him more. "There's more to it, of course, you have to have your throat slit directly over it, the tar rips your body apart and devours its pieces while it grows larger with it." He spoke swiftly with light humor like he was a tour guide. "It's also not technically tar, it's blood. It's all the blood accumulated since ancient times from their countless victims. This place is literally built upon blood and bones."

      "I'm more disgusted than I am scared." Hope grimaced.

      "Anyway, I have to say this is a first, no one's ever actually gone inside this hellhole without the scary-ritual-sacrifice-part, so I am very pleasantly surprised to find out we're still alive." Clarke looked to the sides as if almost inspecting the darkness they were surrounded by.

      Hope's face twisted into a happy mocking grin, "Does that mean if I kill you in here I'll never have to see your face again?" She asked, not exactly kidding.

      "Now, Hope, why would you want to do that when I'm the only person in here with you?" He tried to appeal to her more reasonable side.

      She sarcastically leaned her head to the side in mockful thinking, "Infinite darkness leading to possible insanity or having you as my only company?" She pondered on it for a moment, "I'll take my chances."

      "By this point, you know you've failed in disrupting the binding spell—"

      She turned to leave, "And now I'm going." But she was just faced with more darkness. More nothingness.

      "Going where?" He asked as if he could hear her thoughts, "There's nowhere to go."

      Hope turned back to him, now angrier than before. Though whether she was angry at him or herself was left unanswered. "I'm not going stand here and let you have the satisfaction of telling me that I failed, over and over again." She walked away again.

      "You mean you don't wanna hear that you're in the Pit?" He started following after her. "That the witches above us have plenty of fun plans on doing who knows what to you?"

      "No." She shook her head at the idea, still not turning back.

      "You don't want me to point out that all your romantic heroics were for nada? That the enemy lives to see another day and all your friends have forgotten you ever existed? Your family too?" That made her stop in her tracks. The only reason she sacrificed herself was for her friends, for Landon, for her family. For her brother. She knew it had to be her or he'd take the chance and do it himself. And she would never let him do that.

      "Stop talking." Her voice lowered dangerously and if he didn't catch it, there was a distinct growl coming from the back of her throat.

      "If I were you, I'd make peace with that." He said but, fed up with his comments, she turned and started walking away once again. He called out to her, regretting his words, "Hope, wait, I can help you."

      She turned around and shrugged her shoulders, having given up completely and in deep dread over her situation, "I don't see how."

      "I've spent decades with these people. And while you cannonballing into the belly of the beast didn't seem to destroy their power, it has changed things. So stop being a dick to me and maybe I'll elaborate." His attitude eased up a bit, trying to be inviting. He wasn't particularly good at it either, she imagined he didn't have much of a social life because his techniques at trying to be gentle were abysmal.

      "Okay." She nodded, still annoyed at Clarke's know-it-all attitude. "I'm partially listening."

      "The Pit is used for ritual sacrifices, people always died before becoming part of it and being devoured and erased forever. But when we jumped, we were alive. I think your presence disrupted that and kept us that way. Instead of becoming part of it... we're roaming it. And these cracks?" He gestured to the crackling ground, "They're just another sign that the spell is crumbling slowly. But I don't know when it'll break, they're going too slow."

      Hope narrowed her eyes downward in deep thought, "If I can do that, maybe there's a way to escape by just breaking the entire thing." It stood to reason, if the witches drew power from this place then it cracking and falling apart must be affecting their abilities as well. They can't cure it with poison still inside. The poison being Hope. She just had to find a way to make it spread faster.

      "So what do you say?" Clarke gave her a massive grin, "Partners?"

      "Pass." She declined harshly. Now that she had her information, she didn't need— nor want to include— Clarke. She turned away, finished with their conversation.

      But he wasn't. "You are such a child. No wonder you failed." Hope had come to realize that Clarke and Lizzie both had the same type of reaction to getting rejected: taking it out on whoever was around.

      "Says the guy whose entire life has been about failing his makers." She replied, annoyed, "I don't trust you, okay? And I never will." With good reason too, Clarke had been involved with this coven for far too long to just turn against them. Sure, maybe he'd do anything to get out of the Pit but she doubted he would stay on her side once they escaped.

      "You're the one who brought me into this mess," Clarke shouted, following after her. "If you'd just let me hand in my loser little brother, then we wouldn't even be—"

      Mentioning Landon was the last straw, "Imitantor pupulis." She spoke the words instantly, hands moving in the process.

      "Not again." He covered his mouth, copying her as she covered her own.

      She slowly uncovered her mouth to speak, "Your old friend, the mimic spell." Hope gave him a mocking grin and she took a few steps forward, he mimicked her in perfect tandem. "You will do anything I intend you to do, and it is my intention that this is the last conversation we will ever have." She finished with a harsh glare. "If I were you, I'd make peace with that."

      Hope ignored his pleas as well as she did her own thoughts that told her isolation would not be a good thing. She reminded herself that even when her brother told her he felt at peace and relaxed, he was lonely by himself. She remembered from her own experience that solitude never did her any favors. That even if she didn't trust Clarke, it was better than being alone. But then she reminded herself that it was Clarke, and suddenly she felt very confident with her decision.

      "Hope! We can work this out. Don't do this to me! Listen to me, they'll destroy you! They will rip you apart and see what makes you tick. Please break the spell so I can help you." He screamed and his yelling got lower the more they went in the opposite direction. "Hope!" He called out with his last shot, the last thing he had to offer, "I'll tell you about the coven!"

      That made her hesitate to take another step.

      When Clarke was forced to stop as well, he gave a small sigh of relief, "That's right!" He panted loudly, "I'll tell you all about them, come on! Don't tell me you aren't curious, you want to know what you're up against don't you?"

      Hope gave a long-winded sigh and raised her head. No one knew anything about this coven, they were ghosts. When she got out of here, she would need to know everything she could about them. What was that saying about the devil you know?

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      They had been walking for who knows how long. Like she said before, time means nothing in the pit. Hope was stuck with one person for conversation and company, and by that point, they had gone over so many topics that they landed on classic literature. With Clarke mentioning that Shakespeare's works were derivative and much too dramatic for his liking.

      As someone who's read plenty of his plays, Hope rebuffed him and defended the playright whilst Clarke held his ground. As stubborn as the guy was, he reminded her of someone.

      Hope scoffed as he talked about how boring he found Romeo and Juliet, "The whole love at first sight schtick is jaded enough as it is, the actual characters barely said a hundred words to each other before they were willing to die for each other." He said.

      She chuckled and it felt good to smile, even for a bit, "I tried getting my brother to read it, but it made him fall asleep. I'm not kidding, I found him on the couch with the book on his chest."

      Clarke laughed with her for a moment. And for a moment it felt nice, to laugh and act like they weren't in a hell dimension with bloodthirsty witches waiting to kill them. "Wait, you have a brother? What, on your mom's side?" Clarke knew a little about the young tribrid and how she came to be, the name Mikaelson certainly left its mark on history but it didn't provide many details.

      "Uh no, he's my twin actually. I'm older by like thirteen minutes but if he were here he'd be reminding me that it should have been two minutes or some crap like that."

      "So, he's like you? He's— you know?"

      "A tribrid, yes." She nodded, "But he doesn't practice magic anymore, it's private. He triggered his werewolf curse a few months after me though, it gave him something to focus on." She still remembered finding him next to that dead man on the streets of London. He was in shock for three days, telling her over and over again that he hadn't meant to do it— a spell had just... gone away from him. But after a while, and after talking to Keelin and other wolves back home he started to act like himself again. Until he chose to lock away his magic indefinitely. She hadn't mentioned that to anyone outside the family, if the wrong person caught wind of that it could prove to bring all sorts of trouble to him.

      It felt nice to talk about her brother with someone who didn't know him. Hope avoided mentioning Henrik at school- not because she didn't want to but rather just to avoid the awkward silences, Lizzie's eye rolls, comments, and the even more awkward conversation as to why he wasn't in the school with them. Henrik actually tried to get her to say that he died just to figure out what would be their reactions— she refused but laughed at the idea. And while Hope did mention her brother to Landon, it was only in passing. She didn't want him getting curious and ask the wrong people about him lest yet another family member of hers be disrespected in those halls.

      Clarke didn't say anything after that. He didn't let on to what he was thinking and neither did Hope. While he was lost in his ideas over another tribrid making things different, she was wondering if Henrik had forgotten her too. She knew that being what she was made her the perfect loophole for unbinding the spell that held this place together, and she knew that destroying it would've killed her. She also knew that if Henrik knew about this place, he would've been the one to jump instead.

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      They landed back on the topic of the forming cracks, "The cracks on the ground are a sign that the spell is breaking, just not fast enough. And every crack gets mended by the ones upstairs." Clarke said.

      "You mean the witches." She motioned with a hand upwards.

      "Exactly. The scary, creepy, Malivore Coven. Devourers," he called them, his tone of voice filled with disdain, "They're the ones that built this place."

      "You said you'd tell me about them. What do you know?" She had only met a few of them on the way in here. They were much too dramatic for her own taste. The black cloaks that moved like shadows, the burned insignias on their palms and foreheads. Their skin wasn't just pale or gray— it was completely devoid of sunlight like they had never come out of the darkness in their whole life.

      "I know that they made me everything that I am. Some are very old and very powerful. The rest are born into the coven and devote their whole lives to it, raising whatever offspring they may have to do the same. They push the boundaries of magic as far as one can take them. They're the ones responsible for my brother's nifty little healing trick. It's not that he can't die, it's that he keeps healing."

      Landon had mentioned something like that to her when she came to save him, but they didn't have enough time to get into it. He barely understood it himself. Something about how he wasn't a phoenix, he just... mends. "But he couldn't heal before," She said, "I did dozens of tests on him to see if he had the smallest hint of magic but there was nothing."

      "Probably because it needed to be triggered." He said as she stopped in her tracks, the reveal suddenly made sense to her. It all made more sense now. "Werewolves have to trigger their curse, right? Same with these fun little tricks the Devourers give their experiments. It's always something different, in Landon's case, he had to die for his regeneration to kick in."

      Hope stood there for a few minutes, processing that information. She remembered right after Landon came back for the first time, they fell asleep together in her room. She had a nightmare about losing him and in the process of him trying to wake her up, she magically threw him across the room. He ended up with a large bruise on his shoulder... and by the next day, it was gone. She wondered if she had checked earlier— had it healed faster than a day? "So, Landon can mend his body back together," she stated before glancing at him, "what did the witches do to you? Did they change you or did they," she paused uncomfortably, "Make you?" She questioned, still confused and morbidly curious about how extensive their experiments went. She had a hunch they didn't exactly have anything off-limits.

      "The Devourers don't make anything. All they do is change." He said, his head low and staring at the ground as they walked. "Take my little brother, his mom was normal, a normal human who didn't want to keep her baby. She went to some people who could take care of it but instead, she was taken away by the Malivore Coven. They locked her up and did all matter of regenerative experiments on the fetus. Gave it different herbs every day, force-fed the mother different potions, did dozens of spells on it before he was born."

      "They forced Seylah to have Landon?" Hope whispered in shock. No wonder Seylah could barely look at Landon, the woman never wanted to be pregnant or a mom, and here these people were using her body for their fucked up experiments. She was going to be sick.

      Clarke nodded, his face grimacing at the memories in his head of all the screams and crying from that time. "I had been in a similar boat," he paused after taking a moment to breathe, "My birth mother had been one of their test subjects, and when she had me they killed her once she wasn't useful to them anymore." He was still avoiding her eyes, she could hear his throat closing up now and again. "Seylah was smart, she knew what they were going to do once she had the baby. So, she found a way out, she got away, had the baby at the nearest hospital, and then she just... disappeared. Landon ended up in foster care and she stayed on the move."

      Hope narrowed her eyes and tilted her head in thought, something was off about the story he was telling her. Something was missing. "She just," she shrugged her shoulders, "Got out? Escaped at nine months pregnant?" Clarke refused to meet her eyes, "All by herself?"

      He clicked his tongue and his jaw tensed, "She did," he muttered.

      She crossed her arms, "Why don't I believe you?"

      He sighed inwardly, hating this conversation and the fact that he was being so open. Was it part of being in the Pit? Were his emotions more easily read down here? Was it because there was nothing else to focus on, just themselves, and thus they just— came about more naturally? He hated everything about it. "She did get out by herself." He said once more before quietly adding, "I was the one who found her outside the grounds. But instead of taking her back, I just... I just told her where to find the road."

      Hope's eyes widened in realization, "You let her go?" She whispered. After a little while, she also added, "You were made by the same people, that's why you call him your brother." She said thoughtfully but more so to herself than to him.

      "What else would I call him?" Clarke asked rhetorically, not really wanting to get more into it. "Pretty sure the coven always knew about it." He shrugged, "And once Landon took that knife, they knew exactly how to get back at me for it. The knife was a sort of beacon. A way to signal that something of Malivore's was out in the open and they could come in search of it. There are tons of them all over the world, specifically placed in areas with a strong supernatural presence. Mystic Falls, New York, Massachusetts, New Orleans, you get it?"

      She nodded, understanding, "Yeah, any lost supernatural souls remade by the Devourers would be drawn to the artifact, they touch it, the signal comes up and the creeps come running."

      "Exactly," He nodded.

      "Could I ask," Hope started tentatively, she was aware just how personal this conversation was going, "what did they do to you?" She asked him.

      Clarke had an easier time answering this part, probably because he wasn't around for it, "They fed my birth mother essence of mandrake daily." Hope's eyes widened at that, knowing how dangerous that tree root was. Done right, it could be a powerful hallucinogen but too much and it could be fatal. "It was mixed with a matter of who knows what other herbs but that was the main idea. Small doses to make sure she wouldn't overdose but just enough for it to reach me." He sighed, "I was a failed experiment. When I was born, I was expected to trigger the effects around puberty or even before that. They didn't want to wait that long and began doing experiments with the mandrake root, merging it with my system. I didn't drink milk but I basked in sunlight. I can either drink water or absorb it." He added in like it was a fun fact, trying to make the topic sound less tragic than it was. He knew it wasn't working.

      "But, why were you a failure?" The conversation between them echoed in her head. It brought her back to when she was talking to her uncle about how she believed her brother and herself to be cosmic mistakes. They were just... random coincidences that probably should never have come to light. So much pain and suffering all to keep them safe. The universe has been trying to kill them since before they were born. Elijah reminded her that they weren't a mistake, but rather that they were a part of something bigger. Henrik never really believed either of them, he didn't care about the universe or whether or not they were important to the cosmos. He cared about their family, everything else be damned. She remembered Elijah smirking softly when he heard that, and so she smiled to herself at the memory.

      Meanwhile, Clarke continued, "Mandrake symbiosis was in part meant to get me to slow my aging extensively, they were hoping for centuries instead, I age every five years. Both physically and mentally." He was annoyed talking about this subject now, he was angry at them for messing him up and blaming it on him. Having to be the same age, the same way for half a decade. Puberty lasted twenty years for him, and that enough made him want to jump into the pit by himself on repeat. Of course, until Hope came along that was just a loathful idea. "And then there was the lack of the infamous Mandrake Wail. Matured Mandrakes can deliver a deafening scream that can potentially kill your enemies but I never came close to it." He shook his head with a quick eye roll, "All I have are the fun extras."

      He clicked his tongue and Hope didn't know what was more obvious. His hatred for the ones that made him or the self-loathing he felt for not living up to their standards. She found herself thankful that she and her brother were raised without that kind of pressure. Sure, sometimes they put it on themselves in school but neither their Mom, Dad, nor Aunt Freya had ever made them feel lesser than if they had failed something.

      She made a mental note to talk to the Saltzman twins when she got out of there, they too needed to stop the self-loathing train before it reached them in ways that could never be undone. But for now, she could at least try to help the only person around. If the coven above them got their hooks into Clarke through hate and abuse then she needed to make sure that he would align with her for the opposite reasons. She had to be kind. "What kind of fun extras?" She gave a playful smile.

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      "How long do you think we've been here?"

      "Hard to say." Clarke shrugged, just as deflated at her, "A week? A month? A year? What difference does it make?" He muttered.

      Conversation seemed to die out naturally. The more time they spent down there, the less things seemed to matter. And despite her namesake, she wasn't feeling so hopeful for a rescue or an escape. She assumed it was all part of it, despite her being poisonous to their very prison, it could still affect them. She could feel the air they breathed burning her lungs with every breath. Her head— which had been pounding for what felt like days— now was just an annoying buzzing. And no matter how much they walked, there was no end to this hell.

      They were interrupted by a loud booming ruckus that sounded like the world was split in two and crumbling to the ground. Maybe had it been. Hope welcomed it.

      "What the hell was that?" But Clarke still had enough self-preservation for the both of them, he yelled as they both dropped to the ground, trying to stabilize themselves.

      "Probably the Pit cracking and collapsing within itself. About time." Hope said bluntly before noticing Clarke's unease and frowning, he was sweating and glancing around them. It took her a second before she saw that he had been shaking. "Are you—" she paused as she settled on the ground, "Scared?"

      He blinked, dusting off the dirt on his trousers before sitting down next to her, "I'm just—" he mumbled, "Someone who's afraid of his makers and will do anything to get away from them. My entire life's been about figuring out how." He admitted quietly. "And failing miserably." He added regretfully. Part of him seemed that he didn't want to admit any of that at all.

      She took a second glance at him before releasing a small sigh and whispered, "Papilio lux." Her joined hands reached up and let the spell out. The magical glowing butterfly flew gracefully above them and they both took a silent minute to watch it.

      "You think that's our ticket out?" He asked, lowering his head back down to address her as he stood back up.

      She chuckled, "No." She answered with a shake of her head, "It's a comfort spell. It's- it's supposed to provide peace of mind." Hope hadn't seen or used the spell since she was a kid, Aunt Freya used to use it to help with Hope or Henrik's nightmares. But then after her parents passed, she had come to rely on it during her more restless nights.

      "Thank you." Clarke was genuine in that, she assumed he wasn't used to the idea of being comforted or even given something without some hidden agenda behind it. He stuck his hand out for her to take so she could stand back up as well. She wished she could say it was only out of pity, only out of kindness, but that wasn't true. She needed Clarke on her side and he needed her on his. She took his hand and got back on her feet.

      Of course that didn't last long, as another rumbling waved through them beneath their feet. Hope was focused on not losing her balance but even with her attention diverted she did not miss the way that Clarke immediately gripped her upper arm. From beneath her feet, cracks sprouted and fanned out around her until she couldn't see where they led. Soon, there were no more cracks, no more rumbles, and Clarke's hand dropped.

      She narrowed her eyes at him, "Why did you do that?"

      "Do what?" He asked absentmindedly— or at least he did so intentionally. His head was turning in all directions as if awaiting an oncoming attack. Before she could say anything, he kneeled to look at the ground, "Hey look, the cracks are smaller here," but just as he said that, the lining up of the cracks fused together like a healed cut. As if they were repairing themselves.

      "What does it mean?" Hope muttered to herself, but Clarke still answered.

      "It means they're repairing it. Trying to fix the damage you've caused." His hand trailed over the mended cuts. The only evidence that something had even changed were small lineal bumps as if scar tissue had formed inside the Pit.

      Her head whipped up when the faint sound of whispers began, "Can you hear that?" Multiple voices from above were chanting a familiar spell that Hope knew. "They're looking for us, it's a locator spell."

      "Probably to kill us." He morbidly states and the usual tiny light in the dark sky became larger and more cascading as if it were an actual searchlight.

      "Sumus pallium." She casts as soon as she sees there aren't any more cracks. They were closer than before, way too close for her liking.

      He did a double take when he noticed she used magic, "Meaning?"

      "I'm cloaked to them."

      "You're cloaked. What about me?" Clarke panicked for a full minute before the whispers died out, the faint light above them darkened again and for the first time, they were okay with that. "Guess we're partners after all."

      "I didn't say that." Her tone changed, more stoic than before and he noticed.

      "But you did just save my life."

      She tilted her head, "Because you're keeping things from me, and I want to know why. Veritas tempus." She all but hissed at him.

      "Would you stop with the magic already? It's not fair." He complained.

      "Think before you answer. Is it unfair, or do you deserve it?" Hope tested out the spell.

      "I totally deserve it." He said quickly with a shake of his head and a small grin before it died down. He realized he said those words aloud, "What? Wh-why did I just say that?"

      "Because I cast a truth spell." She replied, "You can answer me honestly and quickly or I can cast a much harsher version that forces you to tell me exactly what I want to know regardless if you want to or not."

      He sighed, annoyed, "Why not just do that, then?"

      "I'd like to have an honest, civil conversation with you instead of seeing you get an aneurysm." It wasn't her favorite spell, it got answers fast but would leave the person with a headache and most likely out cold from the effects. "You should be thankful I picked this one. You can only answer me honestly. Now, how does that make you feel?"

      He clicked his tongue, "Like this isn't gonna end well for me."

      She nodded in agreement, "This entire time, I've been working on a theory, you know, trying to figure out why they keep finding us so many times. And then I realized, it's always after I do magic. Am I getting warm?"

      "Scalding." He replied with anger in his eyes.

      "You know, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it." She mused, "I thought that I was wrong about being the only one who could dissolve the spell," she didn't mention her other theory: that it was supposed to be both her and her brother for the loophole to work. One to go into the pit, the other to kill the witches. She tried not to think too much on that theory. "But I think my actual mistake was that I wasn't a fully activated tribrid when I dove into that pit. I've never died, so my vampire side hasn't been activated yet. And what I'm realizing now is that those Devourers up there don't want me here." She stated, it finally all made sense to her, "I'm toxic to their source of power. Keep going, please?"

      He rolled his eyes before speaking, the spell forcing his words to only be truthful, "They're trying to expel you. To send you back from where you came. And every time they try... I grab hold of you to try to get expelled with you." He chuckles, "But as much as my makers want you to leave, they want to keep me here even more. I'm the reason they lost Landon, the reason you came here, I've failed them too many times. So they're trying to see if they can wait me out until I die from this place. But I can't, not as long as I'm—"

      "As long as you're around me." she finished for him, another revelation. "That's the real reason you wanted to stick together. I dragged you down here, I kept you alive, and if we had parted ways you would've just been... devoured by this place." She spoke plainly, but her voice was deeper and darker than before.

      "I don't want to die, Hope." Clarke said, surprisingly emotional, "I messed up with them, they want me gone. Added to their stupid power supply."

      Just as he admitted that and she sympathized, they looked up to see the usual faint light that could be seen from above getting larger and larger. The witches were looking for her again, sensing her magic from the truth spell.

      She looked back down to him, "That's my ride."

      "Hope, you can't leave me here." He pleaded, grabbing her hand.

      "I can't leave with you, okay?" Hope's voice was regretfully gentle, surprising them both, "I have to get back to my friends, Landon, my family is out there."

      "I can't lie, right? So you know I'm telling the truth when I say that if you help me go back too, you will never see me again. I promise."

      "I'm sorry. But do you understand why I can't take that risk?"

      "Yeah." He let out a frustrated yell, "I would do the same thing if I were you. God." He cursed heavily, knowing this spell and his own words are screwing him. He tried another approach. "You really want them to get you out of here? What so that you're forced to take on an entire coven by yourself?! They're just going to kill you by the time you get out of here! They'll dump pieces of your body miles away from their precious Pit or whatever's left of it. Or worse, they'll chain you to some dungeon, experiment on you, you'll wish you were dead." He panted, "Stay. It may take a while but at least here you can burn it from the inside out!"

      Her eyes were wild, thinking up different scenarios of escape and attacks, she went back to what motivated her, "My friends, my family—"

      "They don't even remember you!" He screamed at her. "At least here you can finish the job and keep them safe! Then when we get out you can focus all your energy on getting their memories back." "Please, Hope." He begged.

      Hope Mikaelson had been drifting in a sea of darkness, emptiness, and nothingness for too long. It surrounded and consumed her being, but all the while— it could not kill her. The witches above them were powerless to stop her.

      Once this was over, the Pit would be destroyed, she'd tear it apart from the inside if she had to.

      And then she'd do the same to the coven above them.

        Hope stayed.

────────── ⚜︎ ──────────

so, we get to find out what Hope's been up to so far!

- i rewrote the malivore bullshit, hope ya'll like it

i mean it's better than a puddle right?

- i also rewrote Landon's whole deal. no more phoenix, now just a kid that was heavily magically experimented on before he was born. so, he heals, he never gets sick, etc. basically, think Claire Bennet from Heroes.

- i also rewrote Clarke's backstory. made him more sympathetic, too. also yes, he ages every 5 years (both mentally and physically). he was born in 1917, chronologically he's 112 years old, but biologically and mentally he's 23. (puberty really did last 20 years for him, sucks to be him)

- Hope also makes the decision to stay, another difference from the show that will allow me to keep Henrik in MF longer and try to find her.

- also no, Hope is not aware of the fact that tribrids like her and her brother are not affected by the memory-erasing effects the Pit has.

In this version of Legacies, while they know about how Malivore has to do with erasing creatures from people's memories, they never learned that Hope (and thus tribrids in general) were immune from the memory-wiping effects. We did meet Seylah, Landon's birth mom, but she didn't return to Malivore like in the show. Instead, after meeting Landon and thinking he was going to attack or take her back to the coven, she tied him up and ran away. Unfortunately with the coven tracking Landon down, they found her first and she was captured by the witches of the Devourers, disappearing and leading Landon and the rest to believe that she just ran off.

no mundanes allowed

- polaroized