Gods & Monsters ✧ Elijah Mikaelson

VIII ✧ Black Roses

Chapter Eight

When she finally came back, it was late at night. She didn't know if Levi and Aspin were asleep, but she hoped so. They would have likely been tired from the night before, when Aspin had had her visions and Levi was busy looking after her. That would have been one of the first times in weeks that they would have slept.

She went out to the garden, looking down at the carnations that adorned the ground. There were roses, as well. Black ones.

Elijah had come out to see her while she admired the roses. She looked to her side to see him, having immediately sensed his presence as he came out from the bad of the castle. He wore one of the suits that she had had brought to his room, and he looked very good in it. It was almost strange seeing him looking like his old self again; the self that she had seen for many years.

"I thought that black roses did not exist," he said.

His expression was calm and controlled, but his eyes were slightly widened and showed just how much he marvelled at the colour.

"They do not," she informed him, looking up and taking her hand off the roses while he touched the edges of his fingertips to the roses as if ensuring that they were actually real. "At least, not in your world."

He looked to her, slowly taking his hand away. He was awaiting her explanation.

"Your world is full of life, Elijah. Ours is full of death and decay, which is what a black rose symbolizes. It is only natural for them to exist here."

"And the pink and white carnations?"

"They also symbolize death."

He blinked, then looked at her in disbelief.

She couldn't help but smirk a little. "I know. Rather strange, isn't it? Such bright colours should represent something good, such as a new beginning. Not an end," she hummed, then turned from the roses. She walked to a gazebo that had been surrounded by the rose bushes, and went up the steps. "But of course, things are not always as they seem, now are they?"

The gazebo was dark, and she decided it needed a little light. Her world was full of darkness, after all.

She put her hands out, palms to the ceiling. As Elijah went up the steps of the gazebo, he almost smiled in amazement while he watched her. Elijah wasn't exactly one to show much of his emotions; he had become accustomed to hiding them from his enemies and thus hiding them from everyone. But he couldn't help but stare on in astonishment when the smallest spheres of light appeared in her hands. They left her hands and went to the top of the gazebo, and along the poles that held the roof of it up. They adorned the structure and twinkled and shone in the darkness like stars on the darkest of nights. It was truly beautiful.

"Tell me, did Vanessa take good care of you?" she asked him, taking a seat at the bench.

Elijah, however, stayed standing at the opening of the gazebo, a hand resting on one of the poles while his other hand was in his pocket. He wasn't afraid of being near her, but he was at least a little cautious. He did not trust her entirely, but he was a Mikaelson. It was rare for anyone in that family to trust another person, even their own siblings.

"She is my head of staff for a reason. She is a remarkable young woman."

He nodded. "Indeed, she is."

Then a curious look flashed over his face before it vanished as soon as it had appeared.

"You want to know what she is, do you not?" she asked.