"RISE AND SHINE, Nightwalker Nation." Klaus shouts as he busts into Marcel's penthouse. "If it was your aim to get my attention, then I must say you've been wildly successful. I am now singularly focused on your impending suffering. And to whomever sent this coin and took my sister... it's time to show your face." Cullen stands back watching as Klaus kills everyone vampire in the room until there's only one left.
"It's me you're looking for." Greta speaks up. "Perhaps we should talk."
-
"You know, for someone who organized this little summit, you're woefully short on details. So I'm going to ask you one last time. Where are you keeping Rebekah? You knew we'd have this little chat. No doubt you binged on vervain till your throat was red and raw. And now, sadly, drip, drip, drip... All over the floor it goes." Klaus quips as Greta sits in front of them, stakes stabbed into her hands so she can't move.
"Sein Mangel an vision... wird sein untergang sein." Is Greta's only response though Cullen doesn't understand any of it.
"His lack of vision will be his downfall." Klaus translates.
"That's what he always said about you." Greta sneers.
"He?" Klaus arches an eyebrow.
"You and I have a friend in common." Greta states.
"Oh, I sincerely doubt that." Klaus smirks, taking a seat across from Greta while Cullen stays, standing beside him.
"It's true. August Müller." Greta exclaims. "I don't blame you for forgetting. It was a long time ago. Rostock, Germany. Spring. 1933." Greta dives into her story, talking about a man Klaus and Elijah once knew. "Do you remember him now?"
Klaus takes a deep breath, standing form his seat. "As an elephant considers a gnat... merely a trifle."
"That trifle is my Bodhidharma, my Guru Nanak, my Jesus!" Greta cries. "August is the touchstone to everything that I believe, and the reason that I and my friends have taken your sweet Rebekah. Your daughter is dangerous. A menace, a threat. We had to get your attention somehow."
"My daughter is a child." Cullen speaks up, glaring at Greta.
"A child born of werewolf blood, who can create hybrids at will. Her defect must be corrected." Greta continues.
"Her defect is my defect!" Klaus shouts. "Say that again, I'll pluck out your eyeballs and eat them like olives off my fingertips."
"I'll call it what it is... A dirtying of my species." Greta drawls. "Which diminishes the pure and superior nature of vampires."
"Make your point." Klaus states.
"Your daughter will purify herself, submitting to the same spell that your mother, Esther, once used to bind you. Once her werewolf side is sublimated, Hope will no longer be capable of creating her abominations." Greta exclaims.
Klaus and Cullen are quiet for a moment as they glance at one another, slightly in shock. "And what if we don't agree?" Klaus turns back to Greta.
"It's a simple choice." Greta shrugs. "Your daughter's werewolf nature or her aunt's worldly life. Clock is ticking."
-
"The man was a forgettable artist, a virulent fascist and a murderous slob who slaughtered werewolves by the pack." Klaus explains to Marcel, Cullen, and Hayley.
"And what did you do to him?" Hayley speaks up.
Klaus smiles slightly, glancing around the room before back to his audience. "What makes you think I had any piece in this?"
"Oh, I don't know." Hayley quips. "A couple hundred years of history."
"She's not wrong." Marcel chimes in.
"That hideous Greta woman with her reverence for a dilettante who made no mark upon the world. I will not entertain her hateful ask and bind my child." Klaus ignores Hayley and Marcel's dig, turning to focus on Hope and Rebekah.
"All right, look, shouldn't Hope get a say in this?" Marcel questions.
"This fate which she demands, the curse which I bore for a millennia, I can't put my daughter through that. It's a pain worse than death. No, I will see that woman roast upon a pyre before I give in to the demands of these cultists." Klaus states.
"I agree." Cullen adds. "Hope should be able to make her own choices, but it wouldn't be right to censor a part of herself. There's nothing wrong with her, it's Greta and her people that are the problem."
"Klaus if Hope isn't given a chance to save Rebekah, she will not forgive you, either of you." Hayley looks between Klaus and Cullen.
"And if I impose this shame upon my daughter and then they kill her aunt anyway? I won't forgive myself." Klaus states, not even wanting to think about his sisters death.
-
Hours later and Klaus would not stop bothering Cullen about the feeling he had in the pit of his stomach. "I can feel it." Klaus exclaims, glancing towards his wife.
"Text Freya." Cullen shrugs. "See what their doing."
"And if I call and they are in the middle of binding Hope's werewolf side?" Klaus drawls, tilting his head.
Cullen sighs, shaking her head slightly. "What would you like me to do?"
"Do the astral plane thingy." Klaus waves his hand around. "Send us to Mystic Falls."
Cullen is quiet for a moment as she stares at Klaus, squinting her eyes at him before finally giving in. Taking a breath she focuses on the school, the grounds surrounding it, and Hope and in a matter of seconds Klaus and Cullen are standing in an open area, a run down house in the distance.
Klaus is the first to move when they see the scene in front of them, speeding to grab the burning coal from his sister before she can place it on Hope's forehead. "Hope James Mikaelson." Cullen raises her voice, Hope shrinking in response, recognizing that tone. "What do you think you are doing?"
Klaus cuts in before Hope can speak, his voice raising as well. "I will not let my past become your future. Do you understand? Do you understand?"
"Marcel told you." Freya mutters, knowing both parents were unhappy with her.
"He didn't have to. A thousand years of family has taught me to expect betrayal from those I hold most dear." Klaus states before pointing towards Hope. "Bind her? Really? How many times have you heard me rail against the shame our parents gave me?"
"How many times have you heard me cry, devastated over having lived my life without my family?" Freya bites back.
While Klaus continues to argue with Freya, Cullen turns to Hope. "Hope, listen to me. For years things have been fine. And once we find Rebekah everything will go back to normal. This ends... now."