27 | Truths & Temptations

     "𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘!" 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 hybrid's voice echoed in the halls of the Mikaelson Compound.

He marched right after her when she suddenly sped away from them and toward one of the rooms in the compound with the most witch trinkets. The moment from which she had tuned everything out and listened to the sole sound of her heartbeat had been broken. Now she could hear everything.

She could hear her panting growing heavier by the second. She could hear Klaus's urgent steps thumping on the floors of the corridor. She could hear Maxime's struggle as he fought to break free from Elijah's grasp. She could hear Elijah reassuring him that Klaus would calm Mary down himself.

She could hear the way the map ripped a bit when she quickly unscrolled it, the scrape of the useless paperweights against the polished wooden table as she picked each of them up and placed them back down on all the four sides of the map, the mild sing of the blade when she grabbed it from the table.

And then Kol's voice.

Klaus sped toward Mary and grabbed her wrist, twisting her hand just enough to cause her to let go of it. The knife hadn't even touched the ground and Klaus had already pinned her against the nearest wall, his arm over her collarbone as he forcefully kept her there.

"You will not find him. Esther is smarter than that." he told her.

"I'm sure the witch bitch inside me will give me a loophole." Mary replied. The heretic hit her head against Klaus's hard enough to daze him and loosen his grip on her. Once she was free, she made another attempt to run only for her to be caught before she could cross the threshold of the doorway when Klaus grabbed her from behind.

He wrapped his arms around her, trapping her in his grasps as she struggled to get out. Mary's rich auburn waves were pressed against the side of Klaus's face as he spoke.

"Yes, at the expense of your soul and body." Klaus pointed out, reminding her that she was inching toward giving up her own body the more frequently she used her magic.

The woman tightened her jaw as she inhaled and exhaled sharply and deeply, panting as she tried to push down the urge to rip through Klaus's arms to get to Kol's.

"You will not practice magic, little fox. Not when you know Kol wouldn't want you doing this to yourself." He told her.

Mary shoved him hard enough to let her go before she turned around and faced him. "You wouldn't know that."

The original hybrid took one step forward and stared right into her hopeful yet still broken brown eyes.

"I know that my brother traveled all the way back from hell to be with you and he wouldn't be pleased to find you no longer here to greet him." He said.

Mary continued to pant, her breaths short yet deep as she held the original hybrid's gaze. Klaus sighed and placed his hands on her face, calming her down by caressing her cheek lightly as he looked at her as if she was one of his most precious treasures. His best friend. The person who listened to him when no one else would hear his side.

"I promise, I will bring him back to you." Klaus reassured her.

He didn't know that he actually unlocked one of the most painful nights she had ever experienced after saying those words.

"I'll bring him back to you. You have my word, little fox."

Mary did not so much as blink before she spoke. "I'm sorry but I'm still in the middle of mourning your last broken promise."

Klaus swallowed hard as he gently let his hands fall from her face to his sides, but his eyes on her not faltering.

"That promise doesn't exactly have an expiration date." Klaus responded, determination present in his blue eyes. "I will fulfill it now."

"You better. Because I swear to you, I'm one heartbreak away from completely losing my goddamn mind." She told him.

A person who had experienced at least a quarter of what Mary had been through would have already lost their minds. Mary might have already, but she always found a way to keep coming back to her sanity. Francis's death. Her stillbirth. Her son being taken from her and never seeing him again. Repeated imprisonment. Two other failed marriages that ended horribly. Cordelia's and Maxime's death. Her forced isolation stretched for over four centuries. Kol's death which played right in front of her eyes.

Klaus wouldn't blame her if she one day just snapped and never come back.

• ─────────────── •

After Elijah had contacted Hayley and found out that Esther had taken the witch that was with the hybrid as her new host, they had never sped out of the compound that fast.

"I assume you have the misfortune of speaking to my mother." Klaus marched into the room where Hayley and Esther were in. Before Klaus could take another step, the witch threw something on the floor in front of him with a spell, setting a barrier between them and her.

The original hybrid looked at the trinkets her mother was playing with before glancing back at her with a taunting smirk that only lasted for a few seconds. "You hide behind your spells like a coward."

"I did not come here to wage war." Esther pointed before digging into the things in front of her once again to throw on each doorway to the left wall and the right, setting another spell so that Elijah, who had come through the doorway to her right, and Mary and Maxime, who had come through the left, could not reach her as well.

"Everything you do is an act of war." Elijah responded. "If you touch her, so help me—"

"Hayley is free to go. I've spoken my piece, she knows why I'm here." Esther told him. The original vampire shifted his glance briefly at Hayley before turning back to his mother. "I have come to heal our family, Elijah."

"Well, that's a grand sentiment coming from you." Klaus spoke up before looking behind him to glance at Hayley. "Go, now."

Klaus waited for Hayley to run before his eyes then turned toward Mary. "You, too."

"Oh, Mary's not going anywhere." Esther said. She turned toward the former queen and held out her hand toward her before fisting her hand and pulling it toward her. At the same time, Mary felt her body being forced to pass through the barrier spell and into the same space as Esther. Mary stumbled and tripped as she dragged her in.

"No!" Maxime protested as the two Mikaelson brothers did the same thing.

The heretic slammed a hand on the table to balance herself before finally regaining her composure, standing straight in her boots that made her a lot taller than Esther's host.

"My intent was never to harm. Only to heal. As I have already healed Finn and Kol." Esther told the three before looking back at the auburn haired woman."I was told that dear Mary has recently joined our family. And so I shall provide her with the same offer I intend to give all of you."

Mary did not let the stern expression on her face falter as Esther boldly took a step toward her before she spoke. "A chance for a new beginning."

The heretic furrowed her eyebrows at the original witch's offer.

"Your beloved Kol is in a witch's body. I can help do the same for you." Klaus could see the way Mary swallowed hard as his mother tempted her, using her problems to bend it at Esther's will. "You'll be cleansed of your vampirism and be free from the evil spirit that lurked in that polluted body of yours."

Mary clenched her jaw. She could see it vividly. A new life far from the troubles of her previous one. Clean, happy, and peaceful. Something that she hadn't known for a while. Her life had become so tainted with darkness and evil that she forgot that a peaceful life actually existed.

But despite it, Mary gave an answer Esther wasn't expecting.

"I disrespectfully decline." The auburn haired woman answered.

Esther took a step back from the heretic and scoffed. She really wasn't expecting her to not accept her offer. She could see the temptation in Mary's eyes. It was reachable. Yet she still managed to say no.

With a grudge, Esther pushed her out of her space the same way she came in, forced through the barrier spell. Maxime had to catch Mary as she stumbled out of the spell.

"It seems my intentions are still misunderstood." Said Esther as she averted her gaze toward her two sons who looked at her with such spite. "For you, I will undo everything that has been done, thereby giving you a new life!"

A light bulb exploded from the ceiling, startling the four as they listened to the original witch's intention.

"One without the vampire curse I inflicted upon you." She said.

Then the witch proceeded to let her hands dance gracefully before an earthquake began to shake the entire area. The objects around them rattled in their place as the four of them looked around them, confused as to what was happening.

"You're a fool if you think we'll accept anything you offer." Klaus growled at the witch.

"Oh...you are wrong, Niklaus. There will come a time" Esther said, her hands slowly rising to the air. "...my darling..."

Then all of a sudden, an unbelievable number of crows smashed through the glass windows and flew into the room wreaking havoc, causing the four to duck and get away from the birds as much as possible.

"...when you will beg for it!" They heard Esther say before she disappeared through the chaotic mess her birds had created.

• ─────────────── •

Mary was in her room in the compound, one that she was given when she strolled into town unannounced. She was at one corner of the room, sitting on a chair stool in front of a slightly tall, rectangular table. It was filled with ceramic pots, some broken, some taped together, and some beautifully finished.

When Klaus walked into her room, Mary was holding a half-finished pot. She was holding a thin brush as she traced the gaps and cracks the pot had with gold lacquer.

"Why didn't you accept her offer?" Klaus asked, straightforward, not wanting to waste anymore time trying to dance around what appears to be quite a sensitive topic.

"It was my understanding that we're not supposed to." Mary answered, not looking from what she was doing.

"I wouldn't blame you if you had taken that offer, given what you've been through." He stated as he took a couple of steps toward her.

Mary gently sighed before stopping what she was doing. Her hands dropped on the surface of the table, one still clutching the brush before she finally craned her head up to meet the original hybrid's gaze.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted." The heretic admitted, causing Klaus to suck in a breath. "A new body, a new life, possibly one that is peaceful and far from the life I have been living."

He could imagine it, Mary thriving on the good side of the world, finally unburdened by the things that once haunted her. It was a nice scene, but one that was quite impossible to reach.

"Complicated is all I've ever known. I was barely a week old when I was named Queen and subjected to a life of peril and horror. I was a bit curious as to what it would feel like to not be haunted by the ghost of my past." She explained.

"Which leads me back to my question. Why didn't you accept it?" He asked again.

Mary shrugged her shoulders as a small smile tugged on her red stained lips. "I happen to like my body."

She looked back down on the pot she was repairing and returned to filling in the gaps with gold lacquer as she proceeded to speak.

"It might be corrupted and flawed, but it has been my armor for the last four and a half centuries. It hasn't given up on me yet despite the things I've endured, so why should I give up on it now?" She said.

Klaus watched as Mary finished fixing the pot, the traces of gold lacquer done beautifully across it. She then looked back up at Klaus before standing up from her seat, holding his gaze and not letting it waver.

"If someone's going to take it then they better prepare for one hell of a battle. Because I'm not going down without a fight." She declared.

The original hybrid could not hold back the grin that crept its way onto his lips at the presence of the former queen's fierceness, one that he had admired the most.

"And that is why you are Queen. Because despite the peril and the horror, you're still standing." He said, causing a smile to curl on Mary's lips as well. "Now, I believe we have a reunion to plan."

• ─────────────── •

I thought I should do a double update to make up for not updating for a while <3