laissez les bon temps rouler//jackson kenner

2.4

A concerned Elijah immediately steps in to stop him. "Leave her. She's a puppet. Niklaus, look at her! She has absolutely no idea."

Nik reluctantly lets go of her, which only makes Cassie more scared and overwhelmed. She starts to cry. "What are you talking about? Who are you?"

"Shut up! Stop talking right now!" Nik shouts.

Cassie gulps nervously and stops talking. Elijah pats Nik on the shoulder comfortingly before Nik begins to pace around.

"Our mother orchestrated this entire evening just to torture us, and then simply vanishes." I walk towards Cassie. "Why?"

Elijah looks horrified. "What if we are not the only minds she was hoping to poison tonight?"

Elijah calls Hayley on the phone. "Elijah? I'm at Lenore's shop..." That's all she can say before the line cuts out.

My brothers and I rush out of the compound to find Hayley.

"Why would she want Hayley?" Elijah questions.

"To kill her? To punish us? To learn the truth about my child? For one of any number of reasons, all of which will be rendered moot when I send her screaming back to hell," I tell him.

When we get to Lenore's store we run inside without hesitation. Esther is there in Lenore's body. She is talking to Hayley. When she sees us she stops talking. Suddenly she uses magic to throw my brothers out of the door. I can hear them trying to get back in but Esther must have used magic to seal it shut.

I go to move closer to her and Hayley, but she blows a powder at me creating a boundary spell. "My dear daughter, I'm sorry. No one should ever have to lose a child, I of all people know that."

I look at my mother with sympathy for a moment. "No. No one should." I pause for a moment. "Why are you doing this?"

She smiles at me. "Love! What besides love can inspire such pain and cruelty?" She pauses for a moment. "The promise of a child shows us all the possibilities of a future that could be. Children are meant to save us from the worst parts of who we are. A truth that makes my own circumstances all the more tragic, wouldn't you say?"

I look at her for a moment. "I don't pity you, Esther."

Esther looks offended for a moment. "It's a terrible thing for a mother to fail her child." She picks up the starling necklace that was on top of the cauldron. "As you well know. But now, I offer you freedom. The gift of a new body. Freedom from being a hybrid." I look at her unsure of how to react. "I have the ability to return to you all that you have lost, Else. To make it so that you could have a family of your own." She smiles. "More children of your own. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Suddenly Esther flicks her wrist and the door opens. Elijah and Nik rush. Nik looks slightly concerned. "I assume you've had the misfortune of speaking to my mother?" Nik tries to rush towards Esther but she blows the same powder at him. "You hide behind your spells like a coward!"

"I did not come here to wage war!" Esther shouts. She picks up another handful of the substance and throws it sideways toward Elijah, who has just tried to run toward her from behind to catch her off-guard. "Everything you do is an act of war. If you touch her, so help me..."

Esther interrupts him. "Hayley is free to go. I've spoken my piece to Else, she knows why I'm here. I have come to heal our family, Elijah."

"Well, that's a grand sentiment, coming from you," Nik states. He turns back to Hayley. "Go. Now."

As Hayley turns to leave, Esther threateningly explodes a light bulb with magic. "My intent was never to harm! Only to heal, as I have already healed your brothers Finn and Kol. For you, I will undo everything that has been done, thereby giving you a new life!" Another light bulb explodes overhead. Esther stares intensely at my brothers and I. "One without the vampire curse I inflicted upon you." Esther starts waving her hand above a cauldron, and the earth begins to shake, rattling all of the inventory on the shelves of the store. "Ask Else to share with you my loving proposition."

Nik grows angry. "You're a fool if you think we'll accept anything that you offer!"

"Oh, you are wrong, Niklaus!" Esther shouts. The earth continues to rumble below them as more light bulbs explode, and Esther holds her arms open wide. "There will come a time, my darlings, that you will beg for it!"

The glass in the windows shatters inward, I raise my arms over my face to shield from the broken glass. Esther lifts her arms over her head as hundreds of starlings burst their way through the windows and descend upon the store.

Elijah, Hayley, Nik, and I return to the compound. We sit in the courtyard processing all that has happened tonight.

"Of course she used those damn birds to make her offer!" Nik shouts.

Elijah cuts him off. "Besides the offer of rebirth, what else did she say?"

I shake my head. "What do you expect our mother to say? She tried to reason with me. She tried to blame you and Nik for what happened to Jolie."

Nik is appalled by what I say. He stops pacing to look me in the eye. "Well, I hope you're not thinking of taking her offer?" I can't look him in the eyes. "Else! I'm talking to you!"

I stand up to face him. "What do you want me to say, Nik? I lost my daughter. So, yeah, when our mother offers to wipe the slate clean, excuse me if I'm tempted."

Elijah turns to Hayley. "What did she offer you?"

"It doesn't matter does it?" Hayley turns to leave. "By the way, thanks for your help tonight, Elijah. I'm sorry that it takes me being in danger for you to even talk to me." Hayley storms out of the room.

Elijah is about to stop her but Nik interrupts, "Leave her. I need you with me." He pauses for a moment. "Our mother, Elijah the woman who brought us into the world, made us what we are and the whole time, she lied to me! She made me weak."

Elijah looks sad. "You were never weak," He looks over to me, "Either of you. You are, you have always been, the most fierce of us all. In a thousand years, I have never seen anyone successfully stand against either of you. Not even our wicked father. Not one of the countless devoted to your destruction. You'll both protect our home, even in the face of an adversary such as our mother, because that, that is what you both do."

I look at Elijah slightly surprised, but very grateful. I grip onto his shoulder. "You remain ever the wise counsel, brother. The rest of the family could learn something from you."