Changes ~ Klaus Mikaelson **

46: Desgosto

desgosto; disgust

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Klaus didn't find Hayley or Cameron's body where Hope's mind revealed it was. But what he did find was blood, fur, and fear. Along with two broken coffins. You could tell they fought and they fought hard. The question is: Who is strong enough to put down a hybrid and a tribrid?

Klaus pressured all of New Orleans to find out while Hope was worried sick back in school. The one lead Klaus caught was a suburban house. "Freak Filth Crossbreeds," was written in Cameron's blood. Thorns with Marcel's venom, wolfsbane, and vervain were made into ropes.

Push came to shove and led them to the nightwalkers. And finally, someone confessed.

"You know, for someone who organized this little summit, you're woefully short on details," Klaus said, blowing out candles. Gretta was hanging upside down to get the vervain out of her system. "So I'm going to ask you one last time. Where are you keeping them," when she didn't answer Klaus sighed. He snatched her up and put metal stakes through both of her hands that held her down on the dirt. Quite biblical.

"You know we'd have this little chat. No doubt you binged on vervain till your throat was red and raw. And now, sadly, drip, drip, drip-- all over the floor it goes," Klaus taunted. I miss her, Klaus thought.

"Sein Mangel and vision... wird sein untergang sein," Gretta spoke in a foreign language. "His lack of vision will be his downfall," Klaus translated. "That's what he always said about you," Gretta said. "He," Klaus questioned. "You and I have a friend in common," she said. "Oh, I sincerely doubt that."

"It's true. August Muller. I don't blame you for forgetting. It was a long time ago. Rostock, Germany. Spring, 1933."

They both had a flashback of August as she described him. "Do you remember him now," she asked. "As an elephant considers a gnat-- merely a trifle," he said. 'That trifle is my Bodhidharma, my Guru Nanak, my Jesus! August is the touchstone to everything that I believe and the reason that I and my friend have taken your sweet wife."

It took everything in him not to snatch her head off of useless corpse after he'd torture her for as long as Cameron had been missing.

"Your daughter is dangerous. A menace, a threat."

"My daughter is a child."

"A child born of two hybrids, who can create hybrids at will. Her defect must be corrected."

"Her defect is my defect. Say that again, I'll pluck out your eyeballs and eat them like olives off my fingertips."

"I'll call it what it is-- a dirtying of my species. Which diminishes the pure and superior nature of vampires."

"Make your point."

"Your daughter will purify herself, submitting to the same spell that your mother, Esther, once used to bind you. Once her werewolf side is sublimated, Hope will no longer be capable of creating her abominations."

"And what if I don't agree?"

"It's a simple choice. Your daughter's werewolf nature or her mother and Hayley's worldly life. Clock is ticking."

...

"You shouldn't underestimate the movement," Gretta said as Klaus played with the coin with a nazi sign on it. "We will not fail," she said. "You know, history is littered with eugenicists who overstate their sway. The Khmer Rouge, the Hutu, the Turks in Armenia. All of whom left death and suffering in their wake and all of whom buckled under the weight of their own hatred. Still... if you're feeling confident, tell me the names of your co-conspirators," Klaus compelled. "Sorry. Tank's not quite empty yet," she said.

"You know, August was very weak and very small..."

"And yet he spawned a crusade that lasted a hundred years."

"I don't see a crusade. I see a lone woman grasping to justify her last gasps of hate."

"And I see a man who knows that's a lie. But what you can't figure out is how many of us there are and just how deeply we have infected your world."

Meanwhile, in Mystic Falls, Hope just had her first kiss with her crush. "Wait, was that just your first--"

"Can we not talk about it," Hope walked away from Roman with a deep blush on her face. She went back to the broken tree stone to start the binding spell with Freya. She tried cutting herself but she just kept healing. "There's gotta be an easier way to do this," she said. "Your blood is the key. Just need enough to soak the moonstone," Freya dipped the moonstone in the bowl of Hope's blood.

"Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka. Anima marcam--"

"That word. "Marcam." What does it mean," Hope asked. "To mark," she asked. "The drenched stone is heated and used to brand the afflicted," Freya said. "Brand me? Where," Hope asked. "The palms of both hands, the soles of both feet. And... the site of the third-eye chakra. And, Hope, listen to me you can't pass out or ever stop breathing, okay," Freya explained.

"And if I do," Hope asked. "Just don't. If you ever want me to stop--"

"No. Just do it."

"Hope, I--"

"Do it."

"Anima marcam. Iskoristi vuka," While repeating these words Freya took the drenched moonstone into the fire and heated it. She came back, still repeating those same words, and healed the moonstone up to Hope's third eye. Right before it hit her head Klaus snatched it away. "I will not let my past become your future. Do you understand? Do you understand," Klaus yelled. "Marcel told you," Freya assumed.

"He didn't have to. A thousand years of family has taught me to expect betrayal from those I hold most dear. Bind her? Really? How many times have you heard me rail against the shame our parents gave me," Klaus asked Freya. "How many times have you heard my cry, devastated over having lived my life without my mother," Freya said back.

The plants around them began to die. "You have to go, Klaus. You can't stay here with Hope," Freya said. "Hope, listen to me. This ends now," Klaus said and he sped off with the bowl of her very rare blood.

Klaus went back to New Orleans and turned a bunch of werewolves with Hope's blood. Gretta escaped using Joshua's good heart against him. Hope trusts Roman with sneaking out of school to go finish the binding spell. 

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1080 words