Before Grace could say anything her stomach let out a loud growl leaving her mortified and blushing red.
"Looks like someone's hungry." He said standing to his feet. "Come on let's get you some food, six months is a long time to go without eating."
April 29th 2010
"I guess I am kinda starving." She said following him out the room. "Niklaus is a little bit of a mouth full do you prefer Klaus or Nik?" She asked but before she could get her answer and blur of brown hair pounced on her knocking her flying into the couch.
"Kathrine." He yelled sending the other girl flying in the opposite direction. "Restrain yourself."
"You've been feeding me blood bags for forever and then you go parading her around and expect me not to jump and drain her dry the first second I get - I can smell her blood Klaus."
"Yes and you are not getting any, not a drop - Grace is not to be harmed."
"So, Klaus then?"Grace asked, her tone unsure.
"No, you call me Nik, she and everyone else in this bloody town calls me Klaus but you, you call me Nik. Now Kathrine remember what I said, I'm just poping into town to sort a few things out but it shouldn't take too long so play nice you two."
"Alright Nik." She said with a smile walking towards the fridge freezer at the other end of the room - the flat appeared to have an open plan design with bookshelves being used to section off areas.
Inside the fridge the top half was what you would typically wish find in such a place but the bottom half was brimming with what appeared to be blood bags.
Grabbing one she weighed it in her hands she had seen blood bags before when she'd been to the hospital with her mum. Getting a juice carton she closed the fridge door and turned back around, Nik was gone but Kathrine was sitting on a bar stool.
"Catch." Grace said before throwing the blood bag to her. Kathrine caught the bag and looked back at her quizzically. "I would rather not be drained dry so can have that - I guessing its not as good as the real thing but I'm also guessing he's got you on a short supply."
Nodding her head in agreement the other girl stooped down and buried her head in the bag, her fangs piercing the plastic before she emptied it of all the blood pulling away with the red liquid staining her lips but a satisfied gleam in her eyes.
"Thanks."
"Its alright."
Grace took a seat opposite the girl and set about her own juice with slightly less vigore.
"So Grace-Louise Elizabeth Verde?"
"You heard that?"
"Klaus didn't tell you all the perks of being a vampire." She said with a smile. "Not only are we super strong and fast we also have heightened sense and emotions so yes I could hear you, I can also hear your heart beat and the blood gushing through your veins."
"And that's irritating, distracting or both."
"You handle it better with age."
"So immortality as well, how old are you?"
"I'm in the five hundreds but Klaus he's twice as old as me."
"And so is he old in comparison to other vampires or are there older ones."
"No he's one of the originals. One of the first Vampires."
"Who are the others?"
"His family." Grace nodded taking another sip of her drink.
"What about yours, is your family vampires too or are they...I mean did they stay human."
"They're dead, I mean my mother, father but I have decedents."
"Is that why you look exactly like Elena, is she your decedent?"
"Yes she is, my decent and my Doppelgänger, my family is cursed to bare girls in the mirror image of this form - I don't know why but they appear every five hundred years. I'm the second or so I'm told."
"So Elena's the copy cat of a copy cat. She may be your exact image but your eyes are different."
"How so?"
"Her's are dull and fearful almost glassy, yours just seems to have more life in them - they're more daring her's are just plain and boring."
"You don't like Elena very much so you?"
"No I do not, she locked me in a coffin for six months while I was in magical coma with full knowledge that I am claustrophobic and when i woke up she called me a liar and an introvert who doesn't understand the pain of losing parents."
"Ouch, but your parent are dead right?"
"Yeah they died a few years ago."
"And you were there when happened."
"Yeah and the similarities to the death of Elena's parent end there, it wasn't a car crash that killed them, they killed and I was tied to a chair made to watch. The guy was psychotic, after he killed them he kidnapped me by he's on death row now so no more killing for him."
"How can you speak so freely about it? If that happened to me I think it would take a little more then a few years before I could come to terms with something so horrible." Kathrine' tone meant no harm, she was genuinely inquisitive and Grace understood that, it must be hard for someone half a millennia old to have a true grasp of human emotions.
"I guess I learnt early on that I wasn't the kind of person who could bottle up their emotions. If I did it just all came out it one big torrent of mess and that was more painful the. actually talking it through with someone. I'm not ashamed of what happened, I didn't do anything wrong, I mean it still hurts, their death and the brutality of it all but I learnt to make peace with it early on. I've accepted that they're dead, that they were killed. Doing so helped me deal with all the emotions. I haven't forgiven the killer though, he hasn't even repented from his actions, he admitted to being guilty and relived every moment of the kill with joy and elation in front of the judge and jury." Grace spat with a fire that she didn't expect from a human, Kathrine sat there silently, for someone so young she was wise, humble and gracious beyond her years. She was defiantly worthy of her name.
"Klaus killed my family you know." She said, maybe the young girl could give her some wise words, she felt silly seeking council for someone so young compared to herself.
"Retaliation I guess?" Kathrine nodded her head in agreement, that was one way to put it. "He seems like the kind you don't really won't to cross."
"You could say that but how would you know he's been nothing his normal self since you got here. In reality he's a monster - and they don't do story time."
"Well pacifists don't normally throw people across rooms." She said giving Kathrine a look as if to say 'pot kettle black'. "Look I can tell he's not a saint but as long as he keeps his promise to me I have nothing against him."
"Yeah well we'll see how long that lasts won't we."
"We will." Grace agreed in all seriousness.
Silence enveloped the girls, not the uncomfortable type but more a pause before Kathrine could say what she had been dying to say since she had overheard Grace talk about her family.
"So your mum, she's from Sophia. I was originally from Bulgaria, my name was Katerina Petrova. I haven't been back since I was turned."
"That's a shame, I love it there, we used to go every summer to see my grandparents and if couldn't they would come over here."
"But you haven't been since your parents died."
"Most ties were severed with them and my aunts and uncles when my parents died because I wasn't really their daughter, I was adopted and they value family as blood apparently, it's a shame it took the death of two people before they would tell that I didn't really matter to them."
"The world full of those kind of people." Kathrine said laying her hand on top of Grace's over to table. "Thankfully not everyone is like that."
"Your not too bad yourself." Grace said with a laugh, lightening the mood.
"So what are you doing here with Nik, I can tell you don't really like each other."
"We don't, I'm here because five hundred bloody years ago I betrayed him by turning into a vampire and rendering my blood useless."
"So this is stage two in his elaborate revenge plan, strange one being the murder of your family."
"Yep."
"That sucks."
"Ahah, and you are here because he rescued you from the evil clutches of Elena Gilbert and her army of small spaces."
"When you put it like that it sounds stupid but yeah, I am. So you hate Elena too?"
"If you are asking if I dislike the feeble, weak version of myself then yes, yes I do."
"So if you had to pick between Team Elena and Team Klaus does your loathing of Nik out way your hatred for your doppelgänger?"
"No, Team Klaus any day, all little Gilbert can resent me but Klaus can the rest of eternity pure misery I rather be on his side then hers."
"Amen to that!" Grace said raising the carton of pineapple juice.
:::
Hope you don't mind this different side to Katherine, I always thought that given the proper circumstances and someone who she could level with (i.e. not her doppelgänger who seems to think the whole world revolves around her) she would be a loyal friend.
The only reason she double cross everyone and trusts no one is because she was renounced by her father and betrayed by Klaus - he did try to kill her after all and when she wasn't all for laying down her neck for a man she had just met he snapped and then killed her entire family as revenge.
If someone set her free from this cycle of pain and misery they would be close as close can be.
If you can tell but my little rant here, I have big things in store for dear little Katherine 😉
Your cunning and devoted author,
Emma xx