Whispers in the Dark

Chrysanthemum

"You have got to be joking," Olivia hissed.

"Give me your burdens," Kol said calmly. "You'll be free once you do."

Olivia thrust her palm forward, and he was sent flying into the fountain. "Are you fucking stupid? You think some flowery words will make me wanna hold hands and sing Kumbaya? I want power, and you took it from me. Guess I'll just have to settle for revenge." She squeezed her hand shut, and the water in the fountain froze, with Kol only having his head and shoulders out. Olivia approached, laughing like a maniac. "The power of the mind matters here. You may be an uptight, boring goody-two-shoes, but you do have quite the willpower on ya. I knew I'd never beat you if I went after you directly." She smirked. "Thanks for exhausting yourself."

Kol looked up at her. "Take my hand."

Olivia laughed again, but it was clear she using it to hide her anger. "You really are a moron! I'm not fucking doing that! I'm a grand witch! I've been around since the fall of the Roman Empire! I've killed hundreds over the years! I'm powerful! I'm great! I'm stronger than you! I'm better than you! You're about to go bye-bye forever!"

If she was expecting it to frustrate Kol, she was wrong. "It's okay," he told her. "You can be free of that."

Olivia broke. "I am fucking free! No one can make me do shit! I'm stronger than everyone! I'm better than everyone! Quit looking at me like that! QUIT LOOKING AT ME WITH THOSE DAMN EYES!" She threw a ball of fire at the fountain. It exploded, destroying everything. Smoke rose up, covering the entire area. Olivia's own dress was singed, and Kol was surely gone.

Impossible.

She saw him getting back to his feet. His left arm was burned black as tar, but he was still standing, looking at her.

"DIE!" she roared, hitting him with a blast of lightning. It hit him directly, but he only took a step back. Olivia ran at him, screaming like a banshee. She knocked him down with wind, then got on top of him and started wailing on him. "Die! Die! Die! Just die! Your eyes - they're not... I'm better than you are! Die! STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT! STOP! I SAID STOP! Stop! Stop! S-Stop!. Stop. I- I said..." The more she hit, the more tired she got. Kol's face was bruised all over, but it did not seem to hurt. "Both eyes," Olivia realized. "H-How?"

Kol simply looked up at her. "It's okay to be tired."

Terrified, Olivia backed off him. Her legs were frozen with fear, and she knew she wouldn't be able to move. "Helping them - it mare you stronger? B-But how? Who are you? What the hell are you?"

Kol stood over her. "Someone had to help them."

"But why you!?" Olivia cried, tears forming in her eyes. "They never did shit for you! You never even met them! Everywhere you go, people see a freak that shouldn't exist! You talk to the dead! That's not normal! They see a nuisance they want to be rid of when they look at you! Why help them!?" Her nose was getting stuffy, and her eyes hurt from being so wide open. "Why?"

Kol offer her his hand. "Someone had to."

Olivia broke as tears slipped down her cheeks. Voices rang inside her head.

"Don't touch me, you devil child!"

"Olivia's a monster! Olivia's a monster!"

"Mom, she was in the fire again!"

"You never should have been born!"

Olivia turned on her side and began to sob. She couldn't look at Kol anymore; Couldn't stand looking at those eyes. They weren't natural. They couldn't be natural. There was no hate in them - no anger. She had done horrible things to him, and he kept looking at her like that. That couldn't be normal. Where was the loathing? Where was the disgust?

Kol knelt down next to her, and gently touched her cheek with the back of his hand.

Her tears stopped flowing.

All those eyes - the eyes of her parents and sister, the eyes of her friends and neighbors, the eyes of strangers, and the eyes of her victims - they all went away. She couldn't see them anymore.

Suddenly, she smacked Kol's hand away and pushed herself to her feet. She was a mess and she knew it, but she didn't care. A sword materialized in her hand as she willed it. Kol did nothing to fight back.

"It doesn't have to be like this," he told her.

"Yes. It does." For once, her voice was controlled. "It was always gonna end like this."

"We don't have to keep fighting."

Olivia snorted. "I tried to kill your friends."

"It's not on me to judge you for that."

Olivia snorted again, and a single tear escaped her as she grasped the sword's hilt tightly enough to make it hurt. "What a ridiculous man."

"We can stop fighting if we understand each other," Kol spoke calmly, standing up to full height. A sword appeared in his hand, too. "We can choose to understand each other, or we can choose to fight. Nothing is set in stone."

"A better future, huh?" Olivia chuckled. "It's like listening to a child. There's no way it's that simple. The past is still there, and you can't do a thing about it."

Kol allowed himself to smirk. "I did it to Martin and Oliver, didn't I?"

Olivia chuckled again. "Fair point." Moving the sword, she spoke slowly, looking straight into Kol's eyes. "Not everyone is like you, you know. The world would be a better place if we were, but we're not. You can't help them, and you can't help me."

Kol readied his own sword. "Let me try."

His eyes widened as Olivia turned her own blade toward her chest, then pushed it through. Blood covered her white dress once more as she fell to the ground, already beginning to fade. Kol rushed over and knelt beside her once more. He looked down at her with those eyes.

Olivia reached out to touch him, but her fingertips faded before she could, and the rest of her arm followed. "If only we met sooner."

Kol touched her head just before she disappeared, trying to help her move on. He felt a small part of her go, but the rest vanished, and Olivia was gone.