The Strix Pirate | Rebekah Mikaelson

Chapter 6

Cami found Odile passed out the next morning.

The blonde crept over to her, choosing to leave the bottle of scotch dangling from her fingertips, out of fear that Odile would grip her throat and break her neck if she touched her.

"Umm... hello?" said Cami, standing a few feet away from her. "Odile?"

She slowly opened one eye, and groaned. "What is it? What do you need?"

"It's... just morning. I'm going to make breakfast."

"Okay. Well, go and do that, then."

"Are you going to eat?"

"Depends what you'll be making. You needn't cook, by the way. I could fetch us food somewhere else."

"I don't mind cooking," said Cami. "Does french toast sound fine to you?"

"Sure." Odile rubbed her forehead as she forced herself to get up. She set the bottle on the table, then went to sit on the kitchen island, pressing her face against the cold marble.

"I'm sorry," said Cami awkwardly, "I woke up in the night and I overheard a bit of your conversation with Rebekah. I'm not sure if you meant to put it on speaker."

Odile blinked. "Definitely... not my intention." She narrowed her eyes a bit. "What do you want to say about it? Your heart is jumping. Go on, spit it out."

"It's not my place," said Cami. "Just... I'm a psychologist, this is kind of what I do, and I think you'd benefit from talking about your feelings instead of... drinking them away."

"What is there to say?" asked Odile. "Would you like me to tell you my entire life story? Have you enter my mind and witness every last bit of violence and pain?"

"You can talk about anything that you feel... overwhelmed with. I'll just listen."

"I could rant for days about my abandonment issues."

Cami raised a brow, surprised she mentioned it so quickly. Odile caught onto it, and said, "I was raised by pirates who didn't have any filter. Talking about anything and everything was common to us. Especially when it came to our feelings."

"Why do you feel that you have abandonment issues?"

"Let's see... the earliest instance was my mother abandoning me. For some reason, she carried me to term and then just dropped me on the doorstep of the man she figured was my father. I'm not entirely sure if he is or isn't. I'll never know for certain. I wonder, why even bother to have me? I'm sure she could have gotten rid of me."

"What else, do you think, has contributed to your abandonment issues?"

"I used to spend hours or days alone on my father's ship. Waiting for my father and his crew to come back. I never knew when they'd return. If they'd even..." she shrugged, and shook her head. "There were many unknowns. And then, one day, they just didn't come back. I later found out my father was killed, as was everyone else that mattered to me. It was sudden. I got no goodbye. My father hadn't actually told me about his mission that time. He just left. I never knew what his plan was. Why he ever went to Drastrup. And let's not forget how Rebekah left me in a battlefield to potentially die at her father's hands."

"Is that all?" asked Cami. "Or is there more?"

"I've lost more people than that. Most memories don't stir many feelings anymore."

Cami could tell she was holding something back. "What else? It helps most when you're... completely honest, you know."

Odile sighed. "There was a boy. A teeny little thing at the time... scrawny even though he was fourteen when I found him. He'd been sold to a group of vampire pirates when he was eight. I killed them all and was left with this... child who looked terrified of me. I didn't wish to keep him, at first. But he cast me those annoying puppy eyes that children are particularly good at. And those eyes... they were Rebekah's eyes. Mikaelson eyes. It was silly of me to think that— other people can have blue eyes. But he was a little pirate with blue eyes. I'd never seen that combination before, especially not in someone so young. If Rebekah and I had had a son... it would have looked like him. I knew I had to take him in. I thought it was a sign of something good to come. Foolish of me to believe that, right?"