UN
1820
Anyone who does anything to
help a child is a hero to me.
Klaus was miserable.
Rebekah's incessant sobbing over her dead lover was grating his nerves. Perhaps he shouldn't have killed the yapping bastard, saved himself the trouble of having to attend the funeral.
He trailed impatiently along the funeral procession, wondering at the increasing dullness of his days with growing resignation. Perhaps it was time to wake Kol. He could always trust the deranged maniac to add some flavour to his life, even if that flavour was irritation.
The sudden, loud crack of a whip drew his attention.
Klaus stopped in his stride. He followed the sound with his eyes and turned to a stretch of field where two young children, a young boy and an even younger girl, unmistakably slaves, appeared to be on the receiving end of a lash. Punishment, it seemed, for stealing something so insignificant as fruits.
The whip struck with a lightning crack and sent the boy to his knees, tearing a shrieking cry of pain from the child's throat. Klaus frowned at the unwelcome reminder of his own childhood, those wretched years of weathering Mikael's disappointment. His father's disappointment had been quick to turn to anger, and his anger to violence.
Klaus did not often concern himself with the business of humans, but even he would never intentionally harm children, if he could help it.
To his pleasant surprise, the slave boy retaliated.
Diving for a fallen fruit on the ground, the child hurled his projectile at the overseer meeting out the punishment, quick as a rattlesnake. It was enough to stun his assailant for a short, spectacular moment — but only a moment.
When the controller raised his whip once more, the coil cracked through the air, hard enough to break skin. It was not easy to forget how inconveniently fragile humans were. Especially human children.
Klaus did not realise he had stepped forward to intervene until he was stopped again, this time by the second child, the little girl, hurriedly following after the older boy's example.
From the ground, the child scooped up several, no doubt bruised, apples. With a formidable battle cry, she began to peg them at the man, one after another, with all the strength that a five-year-old could muster. Her aim was truly atrocious, and failed to hit where it hurt, but no less admirable.
"Leave him alone!" the child shouted.
The overseer turned his eyes on the little creature in absolute fury, attention successfully diverted away from the older boy.
With a foul curse, the cretin drew back his whip to strike the girl. The unforgiving leather cord rose higher and higher to land that final, deathly blow. The child was all skin and bone. The whip would slice her to the marrow.
Klaus's admittedly limited well of patience ran dry. Without a second thought, he stooped to pick up a rock and hurled it at the man, killing the witless worm before a single hair on the child's head could be touched. The little girl did not even have time to cower.
The overseer dropped like a sack.
Silence fell.
Two pairs of eyes, identical brown, snapped up to Klaus.
The boy looked as uneasy as the girl looked suspicious. Likely, the harrowed children believed another enemy had descended upon them.
Klaus slowed his approach, finding a need as he had not since he was human hunting game to measure his movements. This was not a game.
In futurity, I prophesy see, he thought.
He came to a stop before the children. "What are your names?"
Moments passed. His question went unanswered. The girl set her mouth stubbornly and did not speak. It was the boy who eventually mustered the courage to answer, timid as a deer: "Don't got one."
Klaus sank to his haunches, some instinct leftover from another life inducing him to lower himself to their considerably much shorter height. He could hear the little girl's heartbeat pick up pace. The child was coiled as tight as a wildcat, ready to spring up and attack at the slightest provocation.
Klaus grew disproportionately amused. Before their way, a couching lion lay.
Aloud, he ruminated, "You are survivors, and survivors need names." Klaus paused for a moment, thinking. "For you—" he addressed the boy, "—how about Marcellus?"
The boy's eyebrows furrowed. "Marcellus?" he echoed.
"It comes from Mars, the god of war," Klaus imparted, "and it means little warrior." Their defiance in the face of adversity was commendable, meagre though it was.
As a child, Klaus had never dared to defy Mikael.
While the boy mulled over that tidbit of information, he turned his gaze to the other child. The girl was still eyeing him with deep distrust, much to his everlasting amusement.
"And you, little one, you have the will of conquerors," Klaus mused. "Your name shall be Bellona, for the sister of war."
The child's eyebrows furrowed in suspicion. It was the only sign that his words had been heard. Klaus was surprised the girl could even process anything he said at all. He could practically hear the thoughts racing through that underdeveloped brain, each one telling her to make a break for it.
Fight or flight, or fold.
Turning back was vain, Klaus continued mildly. Soon his heavy mane bore them to the ground.
They were coming with him, if he had to drag them. But if it was all the same, he would much rather avoid the crying and histrionics. Rebekah's unceasing snivelling had filled his quota for the day.
As he rose, Klaus held out a hand for the boy to take.
The child was rightfully hesitant. Burned too many times in his pitifully short life. Klaus regretted not giving the overseer a slower, more agonising death.
After a moment, still half sprawled in the dirt, the boy tentatively accepted his hand and rose slowly to his feet.
The child clutched Klaus's hand for only a second before letting go, that singularly human warmth there for a breath and gone again just as quickly.
But their fears allay, he recalled, when he licks their hands, and silent by them stands.
He thought of his lunatic brother again, as Kol had been, mischievous rather than malicious. He thought of Rebekah, sweet in her fierceness rather vicious in her foolishness. He thought of Henrik. Henrik.
Before him, a flicker of curiosity shone through the heavy fog of mistrust in the girl's large brown eyes, surprisingly sharp as she looked up at Klaus.
He found himself smiling. And wondering behold, Klaus thought, a spirit armed in gold.
Marcellus and Bellona.
Gods of war.
