Everlasting- N.M {2}

8: reigning pain in new orleans

There was a table set up in the courtyard to officially celebrate his overdue return to control over New Orleans. The whole of the vampire army, including Marcel and his close circle, were sat around the table, with Klaus and Astrid sat at either end of the table.

Klaus brought everyone's attention to him by tapping the top of his wine glass with a fork. "Let us begin with a toast to our shared gift...Immortality. After a thousand years, one might expect life to be less keenly felt, for its beauties and its sorrows do diminish with time. But, as vampires, we feel more deeply than humans could possibly imagine." Klaus motioned towards a group of compelled waitresses and waiters silently telling them to come over to the table. There was someone for each guest at the table. "Insatiable need, exquisite pain.." Each member of the wait staff cut open their wrists with knives, filling up the glasses of all the vampires. Astrid pursed her lips at the sight, seemingly disgusted for once.

"..Our victories and our defeats." He continued with his speech, raising his glass in a toast. "To my city, my home again. May the blood never cease to flow..."

Marcel smiled over to Klaus, and also lifted up his glass. "...And the part never end!" Astrid was impressed, and noted how he urged Diego to go on.

Diego nodded in agreement. "To New Orleans."

"To New Orleans!" Klaus echoed, and everyone seemed to repeat the three words, drinking from their glasses. Astrid picked up her glass and picked up the scent of the contents, and was pleased to find out it was the non-alcoholic drink called Butterbeer. She took a small sip from the glass and looked over at her husband, impressed.

"I understand that some of you may have questions regarding the recent change in leadership, and I invited you here tonight to assure you that you have not been defeated. My intentions moving forward are to celebrate what we have. What Marcel, in fact, took and built of this true community of vampires." Klaus explained, his voice reaching everywhere in the room.

Klaus walked away from his chair and to the other end of the table, where his wife was sat. "As many of you know, my wife, Astrid, is carrying my child. Now, I trust all of you to treat her with respect." He told all of them, placing one kind hand on her shoulder. "If not more respect than what I am owed. Still, it has come to my attention that some of you are...concerned by this violent rumour that I intend to use the blood of our child to create hybrids. I assure you I do not."

Everyone turned and looked at Astrid, who sat up in her seat. "I can obviously understand the uncertainty and mistrust. But, I can assure you, I have no intention of siring hybrids especially from the blood of my child. I am not a monster."

No one at the table looked convinced and Klaus growled under his breath in frustration. "It appears I will have to earn your trust. Very well. We'll eliminate the root of your anxiety. How can we sire any hybrids if there are no werewolves alive to turn?" Klaus questioned rhetorically, and Astrid smirked at his idea. "So...eat, drink, and be merry. And, tomorrow, I suggest you have yourselves a little wolf hunt. Go ahead, have fun. Kill them all!"

The 'meeting' has finished, and Astrid busied herself with unpacking some of the boxes in their old bedroom when she felt a familiar presence behind her. She sighed. "You shouldn't be here, Elijah."

He stepped forward into the room and looked at desperately. "Astrid, please. I beg of you...Talk Niklaus out of this inexcusable wolf hunt."

"Elijah, if you are here to try to get me to change Nik's decision then you can very well leave, because it hasn't worked in the past, and it won't bloody work now." She replied heatedly, while putting some clothes away. "You talk about 'Niklaus' inexcusable actions' , but what about yours? Tyler and Hayley created a fuss because they're two heartbroken babies. They pitch the fantastic idea than the both of us are intending to create a mass of hybrids with our own daughter's blood, and without a thought, you jump to their aid. Especially Hayley's. You believe them. Over your own brother."