Black Castle 🖤 E. Mikaelson

Chapter Thirteen. Pups & Peach Cobbler

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"Can you for a second, listen to what I'm about to say," Rebekah stomped after Niklaus, obviously whining over her brother who was trying his best at ignoring her. Niklaus did that quite often. He felt since he and Elijah's relationship had been estranged, then he had nothing to say to Rebekah as well.
After all, she would choose Elijah over Niklaus any day. At least, that's what Niklaus thought. And it wasn't true. Quite the opposite really.
"Please Rebekah, for the last time I do not care what you do, I don't care who you do it with. Just don't tell me because I do not care." Niklaus rolled his eyes. He was trying his best to put some distance between him and Rebekah, but she was relentless.
"But you need to care, this prophecy is tearing us apart when we should be figuring out how to get through this together. Instead, you're sulking and putting everyone else in a bad mood." She stopped in her tracks. She crossed her arms over her chest while Niklaus stopped at the table where the alcohol was.
"You could always leave Rebekah. That's what everyone else does when they don't get their way." Niklaus smiled. He brought a bottle of seventy-year-old scotch to his lips and threw his head back.
"You know, you weren't acting like this until-."
Niklaus didn't allow Rebekah to finish that sentence, he threw the bottle against a nearby wall, and then he threw her up against another wall and held her by the throat as he grew angry.
"Until what? Because the last I've checked I'm always like this. I'm always in a bad mood."
Rebekah glared at Niklaus while Freya ran down the steps from hearing the altercation, and as soon as she saw Rebekah being held in a death grip, she knew she had to stop her younger brother from hurting her even younger sister.
What Rebekah meant, was Niklaus wasn't so horrible until she disappeared. Sure; he was gloating and making fun of the situation at first, but as soon as the reality of it kicked in, that she was in fact gone, he seemed to have gotten worse. His attitude, his behavior. It was clear that he missed her presence.
"Let her go, Klaus," Freya advised. And lately, she too was annoyed with his behavior but there wasn't much she could do to put him in his place.
"Yeah, Nik. Let me go."
After a few more seconds of Niklaus' glare, he released her, and for that, he felt there was some sort of growth within his maturity which sparked a light within him. He figured he could have so easily ripped her heart out or even snapped her neck, but he didn't. Rebekah's taunting could have set her fate, but he released her, in hopes that both sisters would leave him be for the rest of the day.
Rebekah opened her mouth but decided it was time to walk away. Elijah didn't know which was worse, having one sibling in a bad mood, or both. He wouldn't know for the moment because he was nowhere to be found. He was around, just not at the compound.
"Oh, what? You're going to pout now when you started this mess!" He shouted after her. Which made Rebekah stop and immediately turn right back around, baffled that he had some nerve to pin his attitude on her. She wasn't having it.
"None of this is my fault Nik! I wasn't the one who drove Ara away, that was all you! If you would have just kept your mouth shut, and not bullied her, she would still be here!"
Rebekah approached Niklaus just when his face fell into a frown. He didn't like being yelled at, but in the back of his mind, he knew Rebekah was right. There was no way he was going to admit it though.
"Please, that blasted abomination is the least of my worries. I'm glad the girl is gone because I've been at peace ever since!" He threw his arms out at his sides while his voice boomed off the walls in the courtyard. Rebekah didn't buy it, and quite frankly, neither did Freya.
"So the excessive drinking, the borderline psychotic rage, and relentless anger is just your normalcy?" She crossed her arms over her chest again. "I don't believe that for one second Nik. You miss the girl. Admit it!"
"Guys." Freya interrupted. She was watching what the others were oblivious to. So of course she was ignored.
"Hello?"
"What I miss, dear sister, is the silence this compound brought when you were nowhere to be found. What I miss, is drinking a fine bottle of scotch with no one around to complain just how much I drink. What I miss -."
"Guys." Freya tried again. She was staring at the gates while her siblings argued. But again, she was ignored.
"What you miss, is a certain girl who questioned your very ethics. Who challenged you when no one else would? Who had your back when you didn't deserve it? The only reason why you won't admit you miss her is because she chose Elijah over you. And when he chose you over her, that broke something inside of you entirely. We all can see it, so why can't you just admit it!"
"Guys!"
"WHAT?!"
"WhAt!!"
They both turned their heads to Freya, who had been staring at the gates the entire time, but it wasn't the gates at all.
"Hello!"
Niklaus' face fell again, he slowly turned around because he might have gone a long while without hearing that voice, but its familiarity brought fear and excitement to his stomach nonetheless. But Rebekah thought she was seeing a ghost.
"I'm sorry, I was knocking for a while, but this place is huge so I kind of figured you wouldn't have heard me." She chuckled as she walked in, and she was also holding something. She was looking down, not making eye contact with any of them. She explained the reason for her intrusion and that just brought confusion to everyone else.
Her French accent had always been distinctive, so that was how Rebekah, Niklaus, and even Freya knew it was Arabella. What confused them was how she walked through the doors as if she never stepped foot inside the compound. Like she wasn't gone for fifteen months.
Rebekah looked at Niklaus, but he was too stuck to say anything. He couldn't move.
To Niklaus, Arabella stepped out from the shadows and into the sunlight as if she were moving in slow motion. It was total a cliche, he knew of them well, but when the girl he once was madly in love with, disappeared for fifteen months, and then casually showed up as if she hadn't been there before. It made him feel like he was seeing a whole different person. A doppelgänger nonetheless. Ironic enough.
So when her nude pumps stepped into the sunlight, then so did the rest of her. And when that happened, Niklaus' heart sank into his stomach, which was a feeling he didn't experience too often, so he tried to hide it with a straight face.
By the time Niklaus reached her face, he watched as the corners of her mouth curled up into a smile, and after that, his mind went blank. He had no words to say to her at that moment.
Her hair was longer, she seemed to have gotten darker, and she looked so much younger than she did fifteen months ago.
That was when the one question popped into all of their heads for the second time in two minutes.
Why was Arabella so casually walking into the compound as if she wasn't just gone for fifteen months?
Rebekah then clocked the dish in her hand and raised an eyebrow. And when did Arabella learn to bake?
"I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself, my name is Ara Michaels. I'm your new neighbor, and I've baked you something sweet. It's peach cobbler." She smiled shyly at Rebekah while she held out the dish.
Rebekah's mouth fell open as if she couldn't find the words to say due to shock, and clearly, she had some things to say.
"Oh no." Freya crossed her arms as her eyes widened. And when she spoke, Rebekah turned her head to her sister with confusion while Arabella raised her eyebrows.
"Oh no?" Arabella repeated, as her smile slowly disappeared. Rebekah quickly turned around and tried to make her feel better again, which was why she approached Arabella and took the dish from her hands.
Arabella's smile became small as Rebekah inhaled the dish's scent, and instantly fell in love with its aroma. "Don't worry about her, she wasn't referring to you."
"But you know-."
   "Why don't you go and fetch some refreshments for our guest, Freya?" Rebekah turned again to Freya, silently trying to get her to leave and not make the moment any more awkward than it already was. When she finally nodded her head at Freya, she caught on and then left toward the kitchen.
When she focused on Arabella again, Ara seemed confused by Freya's behavior toward her. And Rebekah knew what Freya meant, but it was her job to make Arabella as comfortable as possible, although she had no bloody clue what was going on.
"Don't mind her, we're still working on her people skills. She's sort of antisocial." Rebekah smiled lightly. Trying to make calm the situation. Arabella just nodded in total understanding.
After a couple of seconds of silence, Arabella turned to Niklaus since she had been aware of his existence, she just didn't want to feel weird about leaving him out. No matter how he stared at her. When her eyes met him, she was immediately star-struck by his features. She believed him to be quite handsome, actually.
"Hi," she started. He blinked when he caught on to how she greeted him. Almost as if he made her nervous. Which was something that never happened in his lifetime. Arabella despised him, she didn't have a nice bone in her body when it came to Niklaus. "And you are?"
Niklaus went to open his mouth as Arabella placed her hands softly behind her back, all of a sudden he was slapped with confusion as his brain deciphered what was going on while he snapped out of the little trance he was in.
"This is my brother Niklaus, don't mind him either, he has no manners," Rebekah added while she rolled her eyes. She was the only one who was handling the situation calmly, though she was going to wait til Arabella left to get to the bottom of what was happening. "I'm Rebekah, and you met my sister Freya. My other brother is somewhere handling some business, he shouldn't be long."
Rebekah walked to one of the many tables and sat the peach cobbler on top of it, and then motioned her hand for Arabella to take a seat. Her siblings might have been acting foolish, but she found it her job to keep everything under control until Elijah returned. Very mature of her if she could rub it in everyone else's face.
Elijah.
What was he going to do when he walked through those gates to find the girl he had been looking for forever, sitting in a chair, acting as if she didn't know who they were?
Rebekah's best guess was he was going to lose his mind. Both in a good way and a bad way. He was going to have so many questions, and by the looks of things, Arabella wasn't going to have the right answers. Because of the simple fact, she thought her last name was Michaels. Or that she never met the Mikaelson family, and that she never stepped foot inside of the compound. Arabella had no clue who she was and that was a huge problem in Rebekah's eyes.
Arabella was going to see Elijah's face, and not know who he was. And Rebekah didn't want to be around when that happened because that would be when Elijah lost his mind, and no one should be around to see Elijah's heart shatter into a million pieces once again. But she already knew she was going to get caught in the crossfire so instead of dreading it, she mentally prepared.
And Rebekah had a crazy theory, maybe the same as Freya. She knew she'd be crazy not to have one. That there was a strong possibility Arabella had her mind wiped by a witch because, well,  there was no other explanation. This initially sparked another concern for Rebekah, seeing as witches were physically unable to cast a spell on Arabella. So that placed more concerns in her brain that went along the lines of mental and physical torture. And if it were true, then Arabella would have been made weak enough to have her memory wiped, which meant she didn't leave of her own free will. Which also meant Elijah knew something was wrong and he was right. He trusted his gut while the rest of them simply thought she went on to join her newfound freedom of no longer being married. He knew something was wrong, so he should feel better once he found out she was safe.
But that was what Rebekah thought anyway. She didn't know if it were true, but it made sense. Is Arabella forgetting her family? That wasn't natural. She woke up after a thousand years and the first man she thought of was Elijah. And Rebekah still worried for Elijah though.
Or maybe Freya was on to something and Rebekah was too quick to send her off. It wasn't to be dismissive, but if Arabella didn't know who they were, let alone who she was. Then it wasn't safe to point out what was wrong.
"Come, sit. I'm sure my brother would love to meet you." Rebekah smiled again. She needed Elijah to see her. If he saw Arabella, then he could stop searching for her. Then he and Niklaus would have nothing to fight over any longer and they would come together to help figure out how to stop the prophecy from happening altogether. Meanwhile, they would attempt to get Arabella's memories back. Even though Rebekah and her brothers wouldn't know where to begin. "Tell me about yourself."