Black Castle 🖤 E. Mikaelson

Chapter Fourteen. Witches & Warlocks

Chapter Fourteen. Witches & Warlocks
ELIJAH
{My Kind Of Perfect by David Archuleta}

🖤
She's anything but typical
A sweet surprise
No matter what, she's looking at the bright side. It's gonna be worth it
Cause that's what love is
I'll keep searching for my kind of perfect
🖤

The following afternoon, Elijah watched Arabella from afar as she made her way through the Quarter with a smile plastered on her face whilst she walked past each tourist with a bounce in her step. That furry dog was right by her side too.
Overall, the image of her so happy brought a smile up to his lips. It was rare. Of course, she smiled, she joked, and she had a sense of humor. But he felt Arabella wasn't happy until now. Was it because she didn't any recollection of their lives together?
Elijah wasn't trying to pry or be creepy, he was being thorough while he kept an eye on her while he waited for Freya to figure something out that might help get her memories back. He needed Freya to find something, anything to help her.
And while he waited, he followed her at the moment she walked in and out of little shops. The one she was currently in, had been the little shop that was run by the town witches. Though he questioned why she chose that one shop in particular. But he let her go about her business.
Twenty minutes later, she walked out with two paper bags. She placed her recently purchased items in the black bag hanging off her shoulders, on the way out the door. The dog appeared next to her again while they joined the rest of the tourists. She was dressed like one too, but Elijah wasn't focused on her outfit as much as the men who walked past her were. Elijah was there to keep an eye on her strictly for her safety. So his eyes trailed with her as she found a distraction and walked toward a lemonade stand. As she waited she pulled out her wallet, just as Niklaus appeared at her side.
What are you up to Niklaus? Elijah sighed. He should have figured his brother was eventually going to step in and make matters worse. But Elijah's eyebrow went up when he watched Arabella smile when she tucked her hair behind her ear. Elijah exhaled deeply at their friendliness toward one another.
This was not supposed to happen.
"Are there any pointers you'd like to give me on surviving a city like this one?" Arabella asked curiously with a raised eyebrow. All while she patiently waited for her drink. She gave a side glance at Niklaus as she waited for his answer.
"Let me think," he chuckled. He placed his arms behind his back and stuck his nose into the air as he thought about it. When he found the words, he turned his head and smiled at her. "I'd say; pick and choose wisely on the company you keep. And also, don't believe everything you hear. Rumors are rather tenacious around here."
Arabella furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head a bit, but she understood because her smile returned shortly after that. When the man behind the stand held out her drink, she thanked him and tipped him three more dollars before she grabbed her beverage. She turned away with Niklaus walking beside her, and she became quiet as she sipped the chilled substance.
"Now if you don't mind, would it be alright if I asked you a question?" Niklaus kept his smile light while they walked, the dog trotting slowly behind them.
"Mmn," she stopped and swallowed while nodding her head. "Of course, ask away."
"Why did you want to move to New Orleans? What is so special about this place, that pulled you into its ravenous grasp?" He asked. The side grin he gave her, made her smile and look away. As if Niklaus made her...nervous?
  Elijah listened closely while wondering what Niklaus was up to. He had no idea if Niklaus was planning to get into Arabella's head, trying to gain her trust and get closer to her. And quite frankly, if that were the case, that was the worst thing he could do.
But he continued to listen and watch Arabella while she thought about it.
"To be honest, I needed to be out of a horrible situation, New Orleans happened to be the furthest I could get. So when I stepped foot into New Orleans, I don't know. I felt a familiarity with the place. A sense of belonging. That alone told me that I was home. Which is sort of weird because I've never been here."
Niklaus nodded in understanding. And Elijah was moved by what he heard. He needed to know what happened to her and he needed to punish whoever was responsible. She might have been home, but she wasn't there. Ara Michaels was there, and it would never feel like home until Arabella Sophia Bonavich-Mikaelson was present.
No one hurts his family and lives. No one.
Elijah flinched, but just barely for anyone to notice. When he thought about the Mikaelson name being on the end of her last name, he had to remember they were no longer married. He wasn't her husband and she didn't know who he was. And that broke him more than Hayley ever could.  His chest physically began to hurt. Making him lean against the post right next to him.
In the back of Elijah's mind, he wanted to be married to her, but it was impossible to think that when the woman he constantly thought of, didn't acknowledge she was ever married. The woman didn't know anything, and that alone boiled a whole different hatred for the person or people responsible.
Niklaus looked back behind Arabella to see the dog panting, looking in both directions, keeping up with the two of them. Then he noticed the vest he was wearing, where "DOG AT WORK DO NOT PET"  was printed in a yellow diamond with big, bold, black letters, and a dog collar that said, "SERVICE DOG" wrapped around his neck.
"Is there someone I need to meet?" Niklaus smiled and a chuckle soon followed behind. He stopped momentarily, which caused Arabella to stop and look down at the furry canine who had been looking up at them at the same moment.
"This is Eli, it's short for Elijah. And ironic enough, I did not name him after your brother. Purely coincidental." She scratched her head, made the joke, and laughed while Niklaus joined her. He waited till Arabella turned her head so Niklaus could eye Elijah, who he knew would be watching and listening.
Elijah straightened his posture while he broke eye contact with his arrogant brother.
"On the contrary, it's not uncommon for people or animals to be named after my brother, who I might say, is known for his nobility. The noble stag."
For what Elijah found confusing, Niklaus made a joke, and once Arabella caught on, they laughed together. Elijah couldn't tell if his brother was complimenting him or insulting him. And when the laughter died down, she looked at Niklaus for a mere second and started walking again.
"Eli is being trained by me. It's normally what I do. I'm given puppies, and I train each and every one of them to be a service dog, to help people who need them. And when it's time, when they're ready, they are adopted. Eli was given to me five months ago, and so far he's being used as my service dog for severe PTSD. But when I'm ready, he'll be sent away to help someone else." Arabella explained. And as much as conversations like that bored someone like Niklaus, he actually listened to her. For someone who despised Arabella as a whole being, listening to her wasn't something that he did. Which made Elijah assume Niklaus had an agenda of his own. As if he had a second chance to get Arabella to choose him rather than Elijah. And Elijah needed to find out what it was so he could stop him if that hadn't been the case.
Little did Elijah know, there was no agenda. Just a sheer inkling that Ara would choose Niklaus over Elijah as if they were in a warped universe. So Elijah would have been right if he could read his brother's mind.
Elijah could go into detail about the million and one possible deviant plans his brother could come up with, but he didn't bother. He wanted to know why that dog was assigned to her, and why she thought she had severe PTSD. If he knew what caused it, then he would be able to help her. For her to look at Elijah as someone who is willing to find answers instead of someone who terrified her.
Niklaus looked her in her eyes, and what he saw scared even him. He saw hurt, and when Niklaus looked at Arabella, hurt never existed. Well, until she and Elijah ended their marriage. That was beyond hurt, that was devastation. But he could see she wouldn't know anything about that. The hurt he saw was completely different from that.
"But how I ended up with PTSD, that's another story for another day, right?" She chuckled nervously as her hand mindlessly touched his bicep. That was another mistake because images came to her again as they did with Elijah, but the images she was seeing were twice as violent.
Arabella had to snatch her hand from Niklaus, she tried to calm her breathing. Niklaus didn't know what he just witnessed but it was something so unfamiliar he had no clue what to do. It felt unfamiliar because it felt like they were reliving the past, and he spent an endless amount of time trying to forget it. He was able to do that to others, and he knew Arabella could do the same. But it was different, it was hard for him to explain. Emotions he thought he got rid of, appeared like she did, out of nowhere. And he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with that information. It was obvious Niklaus knew of those memories, but the look on her face showed him she had no idea what was happening and she was terrified by what she saw. It was a horror film in her mind and she and Niklaus were the main characters and the monsters.
Elijah watched, he recognized the same reaction she gave him the day before. And he realized when Arabella touched them, memories bombarded her. But he didn't think that was what she thought they were. She had no clue they were her memories, she showed she was more scared than anything. And Elijah wished that wasn't the case. There was nothing for her to be scared of.
He wished he could find the right words to describe to her what was happening without her completely freaking out on him. But nothing came to mind.
So Elijah watched as Arabella took a safe step back away from Niklaus, she apologized and made an excuse to leave, but before she did, she glanced in Elijah's direction and stared hard at him. She sensed him, which was a good sign. But her expression was agitated. When she realized Elijah was there the entire time, she told Niklaus she would see them on Friday, then took her dog and sped walked in the direction she just walked from.
Before Elijah could see her disappear among the fading crowd, he spotted the four words across the top of her back. And when he made the words out, his heart did something weird. It started to make irregular heart rhythms, and the aching returned. She remembered something.
"Love, Always And Forever"
Elijah knew every inch of Arabella's body as if it were his own, and before she disappeared fifteen months ago, that tattoo was not there. Which meant, something or someone had to release that memory from her mind in order to have it etched on her. Which made Elijah want to get to the bottom of her situation even more.
He wanted to know what caused her to have that memory. To make her want to have those words tattooed on her. He had to know if she had seen him in her memories the day before. He had so many questions but no way of knowing how to ask them when her mind had been a blank canvas on all things Mikaelson.
After Arabella left, Niklaus appeared at Elijah's side where he leaned against a post outside of a voodoo shop where she had just exited from.
"Do you believe me now?" Elijah asked with a straight face. He looked down at his cuff link because he wasn't quite ready to make eye contact with Niklaus, he was just ready to prove a point.
Elijah pulled Niklaus aside the night before and spoke with him about the experience he had with Arabella, and right away Niklaus turned Elijah away and went to go hang out with Lucien. Although Niklaus' encounter with Arabella had nothing to do with his brother, he wanted to test the theory out for himself, and what he came up with had been too similar to Elijah's.
"Say that I do, what are we going to do to help fix it?" Niklaus responded with a question of his own. When he turned his head to his brother, he could sense the concentration, and Elijah couldn't think of anything. And when he did, he only thought of murder, which he knew Niklaus could get behind. The target was what they needed to figure out together.
But Elijah needed suspects first, he needed to find the witch who cast the spell, and he needed to find the people that stripped away every ounce of strength Arabella had, of who she was. Until then, Elijah would become a complete savage for the woman he loved, for the woman he swore to protect, and for the woman he let down. He was going to make it up to Arabella. Even when she didn't know she was being fought for.
"We need to find the witch who cast this horrendous spell and get her to undo it," Elijah stated calmly.
"And if the witch won't comply?" Niklaus looked forward, watching tourists while asking his question.
"We kill her either way." Elijah looked at his brother for a mere second and then walked off in a different direction.
He had to see Davina.