I'LL REMEMBER APRIL // KLAUS MIKAELSON

CHARLESTON

           

"Today, a new future awaits. Forget your animosity toward Elijah and myself. Instead, join us against she who truly deserves your ire-- our mother." Klaus spoke as his brothers hung from the balustrades. Kol rolled his eyes. Odette immediately recognized his status as youngest brother in this, being blasé was a talent in itself.

Finn just looked bored, he was the eldest of the Mikaelson siblings, he had lived a thousand years as a grown man and he was finished with it. Klaus called him boring, Odette would call him tired instead.

"Do this, and we will welcome you with open arms!" he continued.

Kol seemed to contemplate the question, "Well—" his pale arm reached towards one of the silver, pastry filled plates. Before he could reach it, Klaus had pulled the plate out of his way. If Kol rolled his eyes any harder, they might pop out.

"But, if you continue to oppose us, a denial of pastries will be the least of your concerns."

"If all you wanted was my allegiance against Mother Dearest, you should have said so! Save me a night shackled to the wall." Kol sighed.

Elijah stepped forward at the same time as Odette moved around the stairs and sat down on the second step. She didn't have much to say, family was family after all.

"Yes, this was Niklaus. My recommendation was to remove your limbs, one by one, until you comply."

Nik got up from the chair he was seated on and laughed, "we've—we've no desire to toruture you."

He squeezed his brother's shoulders. It was strangely intimidating, and Odette remembered how deadly Niklaus was, that him cuddling her in his large and imposing bed wasn't the only version of him out there. That others saw him as a constant threat to their lives and that they weren't wrong for thinking so.

"Provided you stand beside us as brothers." There was a glimpse of mischief in Nik's eyes, like he was enjoying his current situation. That frightened Odette a bit.

Finn shrugged himself out of Klaus's hand and scowled at him, his mouth pulled downwards. His mouth? Vincent's mouth.

"Brothers... does that word even apply to us? After all these centuries of betrayal? And, had loyalty to you ever rewarded? If so, tell me, Niklaus—where is our sister, Rebekah?"

Odette's eyes shot towards Klaus's. he pretended not to be looking at her, Elijah glared at Finn as he spoke and an uncomfortable feeling filled Odette's stomach. They were asking question that were getting too close to a truth no one dared speak about. Odette didn't know Rebekah, yet she did everything in her power to protect her from evil. There was innocence in her hands.

"She was blindly to you for a thousand years, and now? Nowhere to be found."  Odette wondered if Finn had confused loyalty with love. If maybe all these years he had thought that they were one and the same. Rebekah loved Klaus, yes, but she had not always been loyal to him. and she shouldn't have been, Klaus had done terrible things in his life.

The only reason she returned to his side time and time again was that she loved him.

"Where did our sister go? And, did she escape your vile machination."

And Odette understood. The difference between loyalty and love. She had been loyal to her coven, but there was only one person in it she had truly loved. When she died her loyalty broke away in chunks until it was no longer there.

It was the hatred in Finn's voice that convinced Odette that he did not love his younger brothers.

Odette was awakened from her deep thought by Klaus's fake and threatening laugh.