Hybrid Heart

IX. Painting Pride

I had to wish Klaus wasn't so keen to know me. It didn't feel right to open up to a man who had done some really bad things. Worse than anyone I'd met before, probably. But it was still hard to ignore the fact I hadn't seen him commit any atrocities and therefore could only think of him as some charismatic and dangerous guy. Maybe the sort I would've ended up dating at University, to piss off my parents.

"Anna." My name being called stops me from thinking about my connection to the Original Hybrid. Not that I had one.

"Oh, Rebekah. You alright?" I asked, referring to her not so high spirits earlier.

"Cheered up, you mean? Yes, I'm quite alright now. I was far too melancholy for a party," she smiles as she links my arm. "Have you met Kol, Elijah and Finn?"

Finn? There's another one of them?

"Kol and Elijah I've met, yes. Finn, I haven't had the pleasure." I tell her as we walk past plenty of Mystic Falls residents decked in their finest evening gowns and suits. I recognise people that I had met or just seen around the small town, they smiled and exchanged pleasant 'hellos' and 'how are yous'.

"Trust me, It's no pleasure. He's always been a miserable so and so," She mutters. "But you've got to meet him at some point, I suppose."

"Maybe later-"

She's already linked my arm and guides me to where the three originals stand, all holding champagne glasses and wearing tuxes. Definitely brothers, the same pleasant facial figures; dark eyes and high cheekbones. I couldn't tell you why I 'had to meet Finn' but she seemed adamant as she lead me to stand exactly where she wanted me.

"Finn, this is Anna. You haven't met her." Her hand gestures between myself and them.

"Annabella." Elijah greets me with my name again, as he had done earlier.

It had stuck well, that name, though it wasn't the one I'd been born with. I'd gotten to choose it, luckily, which rarely happened in cases like mine.

As I stood there, Elijah did not strike me the same way Klaus and Kol strike me. I can tell Klaus and Kol are dangerous. Elijah doesn't come across that way, though i'm sure he is. He has a more low-key aura to him, far more temperate.

"I'm Finn, a pleasure to meet you, Anna." He raises his glass slightly at the mention of my name.

"Actually her name is Annabella. I call her Anna because we're friends." Rebekah decided to inform them as she linked me arm.

"Ridiculous, sister, you don't have friends." Kol mocks as he takes a drink.

There is an obvious family dynamic to all of them. The way Rebekah and Kol squabbled, like two teenagers who never stopped being teenagers. And not in some hippy, coming of age movie, kind of way. In the sense that they never really grew it. Simple as that.

I decide to stay by Rebekah's side and aim my questions towards her. She seems to be the safest option and her company had been good all evening. I'd forgotten the I had been tasked with distracting the woman but in reality it wasn't too harmful. Rebekah would have probably stayed by the cocktail bar all evening anyway, I was just making sure of that with my presence. No real harm done.

"You don't have any sisters?" I ask her, ignoring Kol's comment. It seemed that it may get a little difficult and lonely with nothing but men around for all eternity.

"Sadly no. But Nik likes you, so I dare say I might not always long for one." She slyly reveals, like she's been planning this moment her whole life. Though now I think about it, she has been alive for over a thousand years so that may be exaggerating a little bit.