[2] Darkest Hour • The Originals ✓

vi.

chapter six.

Matthias walked over to Finn and Finn stiffened as Matthias held his face gently in his hands. Finn felt his chest ache when Matthias' eyes turned watery as he looked him over, and there was this undeniable feeling of guilt that was bubbling inside of him, but he couldn't stop.

Matthias could see it, the guilt swimming in his eyes and the way his eyes seemed to gloss over before it was like something in him snapped him back into his role and he was stepping away from Matthias and around him. He wouldn't say that it didn't hurt, because it did, but he also could feel Finn's internal struggle.

Sitting down beside Klaus, Matthias downs his wine in one shot making Klaus shoot him a worried glance.

Elijah poured Finn a glass of wine and he smelled it. "What an aromatic bordot."

"Well, it was a challenge to find a good pairing. What wine goes well with treachery?" Klaus said and Matthias kept quiet.

"Don't pout, brother." Finn told him while sitting down. "Tonight is meant to be a happy occasion."

The server walked over, and Finn whispered something in her ear, making Matthias and Klaus narrow their eyes in slight suspicion.

"What exactly are we celebrating?" Elijah asked him.

"Why, my return, of course." Finn said. "Remember, I spent nine hundred years... right? Lying daggered in a box. I'm rather enjoying this new body. Strolling about your lovely city that, uh, you've made your home. But do tell me- what'd I miss? Regale me with your contributions to society. Medicine? Philosophy? Art? Or have you two merely cut a path of destruction across time?"

"And what have you done since your return Finn?" Matthias snapped at him. "Aside from having a young witch be attacked by wolves in a bar when she was on a date." Matthias gave him a pointed look, "Why do you sit here and judge us when you have done nothing at all."

"The last time we met, you were helping our mother try to annihilate the lot of us." Klaus reminded him. "Matthias had to remove that nasty little spell she had over you. Let's not throw stones in glass houses."

"Are we expecting another guest?" Elijah questioned when two other spots were prepared.

"Mother will sit at the head. And, as for the seat across from me, that's reserved for another of our clan." He told them. "Care to wager an educated guess? How about a paranoid one?"

"Well, there's no way Kol would listen to anything other than his ego." Klaus told him while looking to Matthias worriedly.

"Kol would sooner rip his own tongue out before listening to you or our mother." Matthias told Finn and it unnerved him how calm Matthias was being.

"Are you so sure?" Finn asked Matthias. "Even if it meant removing that tiny little linking spell that you have with Niklaus?"

"Kol knows better than to believe Esther!" Matthias snapped and he was now enraged. "When will you all learn that the link is unbreakable, I made it so!"

Finn almost wanted to comfort Matthias, but he couldn't. "Mother has made such a compelling argument that even he, the wildest of us Mikaelson's, has seen the error of his ways and accepted his new form, with vigor. Change, dear brothers, is inevitable." Finn told them.

"You would dare face us as a mortal" Klaus said. "The only thing inevitable is your death."

Klaus flung the knife beside him in Finn's direction, but with his ability to now do magic, it was deflected into the chair at the head of the table.