Born of Chaos ☽ E. Mikaelson¹

thirty ☽ hope

It turned out that Cora's home for the past four years was not as important to her as she'd once thought. Maybe it was cheesy, but Cora was really starting to believe that whole sentiment that home wasn't a place, it was with people.

Elijah was her person and his home was New Orleans. Cora supposed that meant she'd end up there more often than not. Maybe even on a more permanent basis.

Whatever the case, Cora was going through her belongings, trying to downsize her material possessions. She was sitting amongst a pile of her clothes and she caught a look at herself in the nearby full-size mirror.

The talisman wasn't exactly what Cora would call her style, but somehow, it looked at home around her throat. Cora touched it softly, watching as it shifted in colour and then she saw Jason standing behind her via the mirror.

"What's going on?"

Cora turned to look at her brother and exhaled deeply.

"Maia. Tell me about her." 

The chaos witch watched as Jason seemed to light up at the mention of his twin. Even though he was just a spirit, he sat down nearby to her.

"She's in a band."

With that, Cora almost wished that she hadn't asked. One sentence and Cora now knew that the sister that was so distant from her was a musician. Not unlike her. They had something in common. 

"You into music?"

"Played piano for a year when I was ten. I hated it," Jason answered with a laugh, resting his elbow against his knee. "I was always more into magic than Maia was. She wanted to be normal."

"Did she get that? Normalcy?"

"Maia was happy. At university with her friends. Less happy when I..." Jason trailed off, looking at Cora in a slightly pointed way.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

So together they sat for a while longer. Jason told her about Maia and slowly, Cora's guilt only grew. Again, she thought about the prophecy that loomed over her for her entire life. Maybe because she'd been running from it, the prophecy was just getting closer to fruition. After all, no one good kills both their father and brother.

☽

It had been a long time since Elijah had experienced a night as horrible as this one. From the witches' betrayal to Hayley's death to the kidnapping of his newly born niece, Elijah was far from his usual facade of calm. Most of all, he wished Cora had been there. Maybe the outcome of the night's events would've been different. She certainly would've come in handy dealing with the maze illusion that the witches had put up in Lafayette Cemetery.

Klaus marked yet another tomb with a piece of stone and let out a sigh.

"It's ingenious. I can see them, I can feel them, and yet, they are not real."

Elijah ran his hands through his hair, messing up what had once been a rather pristine appearance. His heartbeat was unsteady, panic becoming less of an underlying emotion. Somewhere in this godforsaken cemetery, his niece was being held by witches as they waited for the right time to enact a barbaric sacrificial ritual.

On a baby.

A baby who'd barely been alive.

"There has to be a way. Even if we could just push through—" Elijah said, trying to remember what he knew about tactile illusions like this. It was something that Cora was good with. If only she'd been here.

"—what we need to do is focus."

"My only focus right now is that child and her safety, do you understand me?" Elijah snapped, his tone becoming something furious as he looked at his younger brother. "This—all of this—this is the world that you created, Niklaus."