Forewarned | Elijah Mikaelson

Tale

They all sat on the various pieces of furniture strewn about the room. Cordelia was in an armchair at the front, near the entryway, facing them all.
She never thought she would have to tell this story. Let alone to them. She spent years repressing it. Pushing it down. Shoving it away.
Delia let out a shaky breath and looked up at them all.
"Alright. It was no secret that the witch community didn't like me much. I was too loud. I didn't approve of their tactics or their prejudice." She began. "This only became worse when I met all of you. I treated you as the people you were, rather than the monsters they wanted to see you as." At this she looked at Elijah. He looked back with a concerned and guilty expression.
He was across the room, directly in front of her, with only a coffee table in between them. She knew of his tendency to put the world on his shoulders and blame himself. She didn't need that happening because of her.
"Before I continue I'd like to be very clear that I don't regret that decision. And if I had to do anything over, I wouldn't trade my experiences with you all for the world." She kept eye contact with him.
Sighing once again she looked back down towards the floor.
"The night of the solsticio celebration I had left the party early and gone for a walk in the garden for some fresh air."
—-
Cordelia walked along the rose lined path as she took in the cool night air. Her skirt dragged behind her, making a rustling noise in the grass. She smiled as she thought of the night before.
The silk sheets. The ring. The multitude of kisses. The 'I love you's. They all played through her mind on a loop and she felt a sense of content, as she had all day. She was happy. He made her happy.
The night prior he had asked her to marry him. She had said yes and she smiled even wider, if that was possible, at the thin gold band around her left ring finger.
He had also asked something bigger, if one could imagine it. He was concerned for her safety. He loved her, and he wanted to marry her there was no doubt about it. But he was scared. His father had been hunting himself and his siblings for nearly a hundred years now, and this was the longest they had managed to evade him.
Far from comfort him, this only made him more anxious. If they were found, he would surely kill Cordelia, for she was his happiness. So he asked her if she would take some of his blood, to ease his concerns. He knew it was selfish, but he couldn't lose her. Not yet.
Cordelia took it. She had no intention of becoming a vampire, at least not anytime in the foreseeable future. But she saw how worried he became, and how dark his face was when he spoke of his father. It was sweet really, she saw how much he loved her, just as she loved him.
So she smiled with glee as she strode through the garden. Her thoughts only to be interrupted as she heard a tuft of air blow next to her. She turned and saw just on the edge of the tree line; a wisp. A small glowing ball of air.
It was an omen witches used to communicate a need for help. The humans thought it brought luck, but in reality, it was the opposite. Seeing a wisp often meant that a witch was in trouble.
So Cordelia walked swiftly towards the tree line and reached out to touch the wisp. As she did a line of them appeared, leading her deeper into the forest. She looked hesitantly back towards the garden, knowing this was probably unwise as it was pitch black and she was alone. But in the end, her empathy won out and she began to follow the trail of wisps.
She followed them through the forest and reached a clearing with a large pond, or a small lake depending on how one looked at it. Once reaching the waters edge the wisps just stopped.
She looked down and saw her reflection in the water. She was too late, whoever had needed help must have drowned.
Deciding to turn back and walk towards the castle she realized she couldn't move her feat. She looked down and the muddy grass she was standing in began to sink. She panicked and began to struggle, but that only seemed to make the ground move faster.
This was a trick. She was lead her to be defeated by magic. Thinking quickly she muttered a spell to harden the mud, thinking she could use her dagger to cut herself free from the ground. And this worked. The ground stopped moving and she stopped sinking. She sighed a happy sigh of relief. But she acted too soon.
Soon, a piercing headache protruded her thoughts and she bent over in pain, towards the water. As if the pond was acting of its own accord, the water was raised from its place and swallowed her whole.
She struggled. She kicked and flailed her arms to get back to the surface, but nothing worked. She was being dragged deeper and deeper into the depths of the body of water.
She screamed but nothing came out. She was out of air. She was going to drown.
—-
"You drowned?" Rebekah asked, tears in her eyes.
Taking a deep breath, Cordelia looked up from the spot she had been staring at on the carpet.
"Yes. I did. As I said the witches didn't like me much." She responded with a hint of bitterness in her tone.
"But you died with vampire blood in your system. You should have awoken a vampire." Kol said on edge of his seat.
"And I did. But not immediately." She looked towards him and continued on.
—-
She felt something hard beneath her, and heard whispering around her. Her eyes shot open, remembering what happened at the bottom of the water. She sat up and noticed she was dry. Looking at her surroundings she saw quite literally nothing. It was as if she was in an endless abyss of blank nothingness.
While she may not have been able to see anything, she heard everything.
"We should send her back. It's the rules." Her head swiveled to the right.
"She's a witch Talia. We've never encountered this before." Her head moved back to her left.
"We should just let her die. She sided with them." Her eyes shut tight, not knowing where the voices were coming from.
"Wouldn't a better punishment be to have her wake as a vampire, without her powers."
"To what? Have her be with her true love for eternity. Sounds more like a reward to me."
"Our rules conflict. We leave it to you Esther." Now that name she knew.
"We send her back; as both."
"But Esther, nature wouldn't allow that-"
"I know what nature will allow. We send her back for one purpose. To kill them. Now that is punishment enough." Her heart dropped.
"No!" She spoke for the first time into the abyss. "Just let me die. I can't kill them. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to do it."
"Oh yes you will. We will have control of your powers. We will act through you so you won't have a choice but to kill when near them."
"Esther please. These are your children." She implored her fiancé's mother. "Killing your own children will be an abomination."
"They are already an abomination. And you are going to help me rectify that."
"No! Please-"
Everything went black and she awoke with a sharp breath next to the pond, once again soaked, tears already staining her cheeks.
—-
Her eyes were red and puffy as she finished her tale. She looked around the room and everyone's expression bore either shock or guilt.
"I stayed away," She said as she took in ragged breaths. "Because I don't know what will happen if I'm near you all. I cannot hurt you- I will not hurt you. And if I lose control of myself, even for a second, the witches on the other side will take advantage of that, and use my power to kill you."
There were a few moments of silence.
"Well... you've been sitting here for upwards of thirty minutes and you haven't managed to kill us." Klaus said, making her roll her eyes.
"Yet." She said. Trust him not to take this threat seriously.
"Well we are just going to have to go on faith then, because we need your help to keep my daughter safe so if you think you can keep yourself from destroying us in the next few days then-"
"Klaus!" She interrupted loudly. As she did, he was thrown backwards into the wall. Delia stood and looked at him with a hand over her mouth; this was exactly what she was afraid of. She sighed, frustrated.
"Can't you see I don't have control over any of this. I am going to hurt you all. This was a bad idea. I'm leaving before I can do any more damage." She began to hurridley walk out of the room, but she didn't get as far as the archway before a hand wrapped around her wrist. She turned and saw Elijah.
"Hold on a moment." He said, not moving his hand. "Freya, can we do anything about this? Is there a way to harness her power?" He turned toward his older sister.
"I could maybe attach it to an object. A necklace or a ring." Freya suggested, knowing they needed her.
"It wont work, believe me I've been trying for 900 years." Delia said as she shook her head. She knew she should remove her hand from Elijah's grasp, but she couldn't deny his touch felt so nice after so long.
"If an original witch did this, an original witch can undo it." Freya said.
Cordelia contemplated this. She knew she shouldn't, but she had been alone for so long, and had missed them all.
"Alright. Maybe. We can try it at least." She gave in and Freya smiled. "But I shouldn't stay here, or anywhere near all of you until we do figure it out." She reluctantly pulled her wrist from Elijah's grasp. She looked at him with tears forming yet again in her eyes, and turned around to start walking.
She didn't want to leave him, not again. But for the first time in a long time she felt something brewing inside her: Hope.