save my soul : k.m.

you suit silk - chapter 23

Astrid arrived at the balcony just as Finn was speaking and her hands wrapped around the railing. She eyed Finn like she was examining him, tracking his every move. 'What you don't yet seem to understand is that the only thing that can exist between your two degenerate species is hatred, war, and death.' His words were venomous as he stood between the two rival factions and he slowly began to back away as they grew angrier and angrier. She paced down the stairs as Finn reached the outside of the compound, 'Finn, what are you doing?' Her brother in law smiled at her. 'You won't know the treaty works until it's tested now will you?'

He clicked his fingers as Astrid went for him and the hybrid suddenly went flying back into the compound. Hayley ran to get her as Astrid looked up at Finn with a scowl. She bent down to Astrid's level and held a hand out, 'You okay?' She gladly accepted it and let Hayley pull her to her feet. 'We're locked in here.'

...

'Nik!' Astrid found the brothers in his room still and caught him just as he was about to test the barrier. 'Don't, Nik. It hurts.. trust me.' He turned to her and she pointed to her elbow that was just finishing healing, covered in blood from where she fell back. He paced up to her quickly and took hold of her arm examining it, the husband and wife not noticing Kol on the background.

'Did he really just trap us all in here?'

Klaus kept his eyes on the torn fabric of Astrid's shirt and the blood that spread underneath it as he replied, 'He certainly did. Which means we have a witch problem. You're a witch. Fix it.'

'And what the bloody hell do you want me to do about it?' Kol was flabbergasted and Astrid rolled her eyes at the brothers bickering. Klaus's tone was calm considering the situation and Astrid in amusement smiled when the two made eye contact before her turned around to Kol.

'Well, considering the crowd, I think you'll be more motivated to find a solution. After all, I can easily out-wait our brother's antics. You, on the other hand, might find yourself looking rather appetizing to some of our fellow prisoners.' Kol looked panicked and suddenly looked around the bookshelves, 'I'm gonna need some help.'

Nik hummed and turned back to Astrid with an innocent smile, 'Let's get you another shirt, love.'

He slid past her and left the room, allowing Kol and Astrid to make eye contact. She smiled at him before leaning back to see Nik had gone and when she saw he had, she turned back to Kol. 'I'll ring Davina.. and there's some grimoires in the main library that might help.' A glint appeared in his eye at her offer and he crossed his arms, his lips lifted in a smirk, 'I always liked you more.' He sat back down in his seat and jumped as Nik's voice rang out from down the hall, 'Stop flirting with my wife, Kol!'

A shining smile appeared on Astrid's lips and she looked back to her brother in law, 'When the Devil comes knocking.' He smiled and she waved at him before sauntering back to her bedroom

'You've always suited silk.' Klaus stood over their bed admiring a emerald green shirt with his arms crossed, his left thumb resting on his lips. 'Oh really?' She smirked and leaned up against the door frame. 'Yes.. really. I remember the gowns you would wear when we posed as Lord and Lady back when we first ran.'

Nik kept his eyes on the shirt but smiled to himself at the thought of her adorned in those dresses. Every manner of style and colour suited her in his eyes. 'The one thing I didn't like was how Sebastian De Martel had the same opinion as me.' He looked up at her now and his lips contradicted his eyes. Sebastian was the youngest of the three De Martel siblings and the young man never did care that Astrid was already spoken for.

She swayed over to her husband with pursed lips and came behind him, a delicate hand touching each of his shoulders and massaging slowly and she hummed, 'Well Sebastian isn't here anymore is he? Now only you get to admire me in silk.'

Her touch melted him.

His shoulders unhunched and Astrid heard his heartbeat slow down as he turned around to face her. 'You want me to admire you, Mrs Mikaelson?' Her breath hitched in her throat as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, their faces centimetres away from each other and she could feel his breath fan her lips.

'Answer me, sweetheart.'

Astrid grew flustered and began to smile, looking up at him through her eyelashes and she spoke quietly, 'You're annoying, you know that?' A low growl escaped his lips as he closed the space even more, their noses touched as he teased her, 'We'll see about that.'

The gap finally closed between them.

...

'Are you alright, love?' Astrid looked up from his chest and frowned, 'Why wouldn't I be?' It looked like he hesitated for a moment before he shuffled around in the bed and turned onto his side to face her. 'Can you promise me that? That you're okay?'

Astrid brought her hand up to his face and ran her left thumb over his cheekbone for a while before running it through his hair and speaking, 'Nik, please talk to me. I know that tone.'

'I get paranoid.' He stated and she scoffed making him laugh, 'I do, Astrid honestly. So much has changed and with Finn rambling about family fables-'

'I'll be fine, Nik.-'

'I know but I just-'

'Nik, we work side by side through every bloody charlatan that comes our way. That's why we work. No looney Aunt Dahlia is going to get in the way of us, ever.' Nik had rolled onto his back half way through her sentence and Astrid rolled back onto him, both husband and wife laced with cheeky grins on their faces.

'I am so in love with you, Astrid.'

'As am I with you, Niklaus.'

Fauline Mansion/Witch Asylum.

'The say this place is haunted.' Cassie spoke to Rebekah Mikaelson. Turns out the sneaky younger Mikaelson Kol had double crossed them anyway and jumped the Mikaelson sister into a different body and not Angelica Barker. Her new body used to be home to a woman named Eva Sinclair, who had recently been put into the witch asylum known as Fauline Mansion.

'How could you possibly tell?' Rebekah's voice came out with a layer of thick sarcasm and tenseness. Her inability to escape the asylum had begun to scratch at her.

'There's lots of versions of the story, but they all start the same way with Astrid Malchance and Mary-Alice Claire, imprisoned here over a century ago by your brother. Imprisoned here over a century ago... by your brother. Then, the coven started to put others here, too. Ones broken by magic. Witches like me.' Cassie replied, she had been put into the asylum not long after Esther had left her body.

'Bloody Astrid. It'd be nice to have her here.' Rebekah mumbled and Cassie smiled, 'She was always kind to me.'

Rebekah / Eva looked at her with a raised eyebrow which provoked Cassie to explain, 'Marcel never really cared for paying attention to the coven like Astrid did. She always made particular effort to get along with the other factions.'

'Mhm, sounds like her... so, that's it, then? They just lock you lot up and throw away the key?'

Mikaelson Compound.

'Astrid?! Klaus?!'

Marcel called out as the two quickly got dressed. The Prodigal son entered the room just as Astrid done up the last button on the shirt Nik picked out. He scoffed and shook his head making Astrid scowl and swear at him, 'Learn how to fucking knock then.'

'Davina's here.'