"Opey!" Marcel cried out, opening up his arms for a hug. "What brings you 'round to this part of town?"
"Boredom." I replied sarcastically. "And these freaks won't stop following me."
Jabbing my finger over my shoulder, Marcel greeted the two of his vampires that had been assigned to watch over me with a smile.
"What? Joe and Kevin aren't interesting enough for you, your highness?"
"Maybe they would be if the 2/3 of the Jonas Brothers would speak to me instead of guarding the bloody door like I'm the First Lady of the United States."
Marcel chuckled and shooed the men off for a bit, bringing me into a hug. I actually kind of liked Marcel. He had that whole fatherly vibe to him, which was something I completely lacked as a child.
"So what's got you so bored? Can't you conjure up a little spell and entertain yourself for the time being?" He teased.
"Like this?" I responded, snapping my fingers and thus changing Kevin and Joe into goats. "Or maybe this?"
Then they were back to their human form, but with bright blue and purple hair. Crinkling my nose, they went back to normal and tried not to lash out on me.
"Damn, girl!" Marcel laughed with a clap. "Most of the witches in the world can't even do anything like that without a grimoire and calling upon the ancestors! But here you are, in all of your witch-y glory, wiggling your nose and snapping your fingers! Damn!"
I smiled slightly at his amused reaction, happy that someone was happy at the sight of my revenge upon the wannabe Jo-Bros.
"The point is, Marcel, I'm still bored." I said, conjuring up a chair from thin air and sitting in it. "Being cooped up in my apartment all day isn't exactly my idea of fun. So, I figured that the King of the Quarter might need some witch-y assistance of some sort."
He nodded, deeming my reasoning fair enough before gesturing me to follow him. Grinning, I got rid of the chair with the bat of an eyelash and followed him excitedly, finally ridding myself of the vampires behind me. A girl can only handle so much death at once. Not good for the soul.
"So, whatcha need?" I asked, following him down the busy streets of New Orleans, entering what looked like a closed down church. How ironic.
"I actually don't need anything at the moment. I want you to meet someone." He said, leading me up a staircase.
Furrowing my brow, I watched as he opened the door and revealed a young girl, no older than sixteen or seventeen years. Letting out a gasp, I watched as she ran into Marcel's arms happily and let out a string of heartwarming giggles.
"D, I want you to meet a friend of mine-"
"The Coven-less Queen..." She interrupted in shock once she laid eyes upon me.
"I prefer Ophelia, but hey, who am I to deny my title?" I said bleakly, standing guard just in case she might try and pull something on me. "I take it you're his resident witch?"
The girl nodded slowly, jaw still slacked slightly from the shock of seeing that it was actually me who wandered into her little prison.
"Davina was a Harvest girl," Marcel interrupted. "I saved her before she was going to get sacrificed. And before you judge me and give me some lecture on why you don't trust vampires with witches, I'm keeping her here to keep her safe. You're not the only one being hunted, you know."
I smiled sympathetically at the girl, knowing exactly how it feels to be tracked down to the ends of the earth and wanted dead. But then again, I've been running for years. She's been running for weeks. But who's counting?
"Well you could at least give her a little more room to breathe," I joked, looking around. "It's like the attic of an old, creepy, abandoned church in here! Oh, wait..."
Davina laughed at my joke and Marcel rolled his eyes, trying to contain his smirk.
"The point of me bringing you here is that you're both endangered, both powerful witches, both young girls, and both are bored and won't stop complaining to me about it. So, I thought that you two could become friends and paint each other's nails, do whatever girls do these days." He shrugged.
"Like this?" I asked, winking at Davina and thus painting Marcel's nails lime green.
"Yes." He said tiredly. "Exactly like that."
Davina and giggled at the man as he kissed Davina on top of the head and bid me goodbye, walking out of the door and locking it on the way out, claiming it was 'for our protection' and that he'd 'be back in a few hours'.
"So, Harvest girl, huh?" I asked, plopping down on her bed, watching as she follows suit. "That's rough, and to be honest, I don't even quite know what the hell even goes down at those things. But hey, they don't call me the Coven-less Queen for nothing!"
Davina giggled a bit more and nodded after a bit, tucking a piece of her brown hair behind her ears shyly. This girl was as cute as a button, I swear.
"Long story short, it's this ceremony where the coven chooses five girls to be sacrificed to the ancestors and then brought back to life. They originally told us that we'd just be going into a deep sleep, but when the night came, they killed all the harvest girls before me, letting me absorb their powers. But right before they could do the same to me, Marcel showed up and saved me. He's been looking after me ever since." She explained briefly, toying with the loose threads on her quilt.
"So you have the powers of all the other Harvest girls that died along with your own?" I asked, getting a nod in return. "Wicked."
She laughed lightly at my pun and filled me in on more of the gruesome details of how her so-called 'family' betrayed her and quite literally tried to sacrifice her to appease the ancestors.
"Well, you think you've got it bad, kid," I chuckled solemnly. "Every single witch, every single coven, everyone who even know of my mere existence wants me dead or wants me as some sort of weapon for their cause. And to make it worse, I'm going to live forever and they're never going to stop hunting me down. Being a witch can certainly suck sometimes, huh?"
"Yeah, but you're the most powerful witch in the history-"
"In the history of witches, I know, but don't you ever get tired of all the politics? Like take the feud between the vampires and the witches for example. It's the biggest load of crap I've ever head of. Like... witches created vampires... against their will, apparently, and now they're pretending they never did and want them dead? For the natural order of things? No offence, but they've been around as a species for how long? Over a thousand years? This is the natural order of things now - none of us know anything else. Vampires are never going to be irradiated or whatever, no matter how many spells you do, but there's always going to be one or two vamps around to make the species continue on. I don't know, it's just a thought."
"Well you could." Davina shrugged.
"Could what?"
"Irradiate vampires once and for all." she said simply, like it was completely obvious. "Ophelia, you're more powerful than the original witch, and unless someone burns you at the stake after a long and fair trial, you're going to live forever. If you wanted, you could wipe out any race with your power and advantage. You're even more powerful than the witch-vampire hybrid. More powerful than Klaus Mikaelson. You could probably create a new species if you wanted to. That's why everyone's trying to kill you. They believe that you possess too much power for your own good, and that someone with that much power should be stopped before they do anything drastic like that."
"So they think I'm going to create another species or wipe one that's in their favor out? That's their excuse for wanting to kill my ass?" I asked. "Man, here I am, thinking it was just because I'm too pretty for them to handle. Also the fact that I'm technically their queen and they think that I am going to bring eternal damnation for some reason."
Davina and I were quiet for a bit before erupting into a fit of giggles, cracking up at how melodramatic our very existences are. And we continued doing just that, making fun of all the supernatural species' and folklore we have heard and studied over the years.
"So what is this about a vampire-witch hybrid I hear?" I asked, wiping the tears from my eyes. "Sounds fake to me."
"Okay," Davina laughed, leaning forward. "So there's this coven, right? The Gemini Coven. Known for having twins that eventually battle to the death and have the loser be absorbed into the winner's body. But one set of twins was 'different'. The girl was a normal witch, nothing that remarkable about her. But the guy, however, was. Remarkable, that is. He didn't have his own powers, but he could siphon them from other people. To sum the rest of his living existence, he killed most of his siblings and then got banished to this weirdo spirit world where he relives the same day over and over again. Well, some idiots let the guy out, and he is even more crazy than before. Goes on a killing spree, completes the whole battle to the death thing, whatever, but then he gets turned into a vampire. And since he didn't have any actual powers to begin with, he went through the transition pretty normally. But he still had his siphoning abilities. Then eventually the same idiot who let him out karate chopped his head off or something, and that was the end of that."
I looked at her with wide eyes, shocked at all the information she had just told me before bursting out into a ginormous grin, laughing harder than I have ever laughed before.
"That's the biggest load of crap I have ever heard!" I howled. "A witch who doesn't have powers, but can siphon magic, killed his family, got sent off to purgatory, came back somehow, and then turned into a vampire?! What the hell even is that?!"
"You forgot the part where the guy who let him out in the fist place karate chops his head off!"
We fell into a fit of laughter once again and leaned on each other for support.
"Wanna know the best part?" She asked through her laughter. "The doppelganger was involved in this too!"
That was what tipped us over the edge. We had previously discussed the topic of the doppelganger and what her deal was, constantly switching in between brothers and eventually becoming what she hates (but loves) the most. A vampire. What? Mystic Falls was a brief stop on the way here, but as soon as I heard about how many bloody supernatural creatures lived there, I left as fast as I could. Those witches we not coming for me in that sad little town. Not if I had anything to say about it.
"Those doppelgangers can never just stay out of trouble, can they?" I asked sarcastically, making Davina laugh again. "I mean, talk about a drama queen."
"She even got involved with Klaus Mikaelson." She said in disbelief. "Tried to kill him, and quite literally died in the process."
"Yeah, what's up with him?" I asked curiously. "I keep hearing his name pop up everywhere I go. 'Klaus' this and 'Klaus' that. Who the hell is he? And why does everyone hate him?"
"Wait. You don't know who Klaus Mikaelson is?" Davina asked incredulously.
"Not even the slightest clue. Never met the guy."
"Well you don't want to!" Davina said. "He's a monster - as evil as they get."
"What are we talking here though? Like... killing puppies evil? Or more Disney movie villain evil?"
"...Is there even any difference? There is literally a Disney villain dedicated to killing puppies and using their fur for coats and things."
"Good point. But seriously, what makes this guy so damn special? How is he any different from the villains we face any other day of the week?"
"Klaus Mikaelson is the devil with a smile, Ophelia." Davina said lowly, not joking around anymore. "He'll kill anything with a pulse, lie, cheat, manipulate, and ultimately seize control of any situation. If anyone dares to cross him, he will rip them limb from limb without even blinking. He terrorizes whatever town he is in, and he's currently here in New Orleans. It's only a matter of time before another war between him and his siblings breaks out across the city. He's the bringer of death wherever he goes. You're lucky not to have any run ins with him, and you should keep it that way."
"Wow." I responded with wide eyes. "What's he a hybrid of then?"
"Vampire and werewolf. Correction: Original vampire and werewolf."
"So..." I said, trying to defuse the tension that this Klaus Mikaelson character. "Is he cute?"
Davina threw her head back with a laugh, eventually succumbing to a nod.
"Oh, you have no idea."