To a Fault

“What a gentlemen you are.” Nellie laughed, “If you are sticking around to save my life at some point during my meal, we should probably introduce ourselves first.” She wiped her fingers clean then stretched her arm out towards him “I’m Nellie.”

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“It’s a character flaw, really,” Jackson smiled.  “You’re right about that, we probably should - saving your life would probably be more impactful if we knew each other.”  He took the offered hand and shook firmly.  “Jackson.  It’s good to meet you, Nellie.”

W A S  I T ?? “ love is not meant to be fair . “ she says absently. she doesn’t know why she says it, but knows she believes it. knows that somehow she has too. “ aphrodite is not the goddess of love because love is kind. and gods are not gods because they show mercy. “ ( her chest aches , as though she’d had a love like that before ) amara watches the sky unseeing. “ can you imagine it ?? “ she asks soft and wounded though she doesn’t quite know why. “ being loved so much that he shatters the sky just to keep you with him , even if only in starlight . “

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“Isn’t it?” Jackson wasn’t arguing, but he did want to hear her perspective on things.  Her words carried more hurt than a woman her age should bear, and Jackson was an expert on that.  “I guess you’re right about that - I’ve never had much time for gods, myself.”  Amara’s voice brought him back from wherever his thoughts were wandering, and he nodded.  “I do, actually.  I’ve seen the love of a daughter for her mom bring the dead back to life, and that’s about the closest I can imagine to putting someone in the stars.”

It took a moment for Gianna to fully process who had been in front of her. The random man she had met in a bar not too long ago wasn’t exactly the person she had expected to see and definitely not the kind of person who would stop to check on her. Of course with a display like she just showed, she knew it was kind of difficult to just walk past. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.” she shook her head. “you go and enjoy that corndog.” she averted her gaze down to the ground.

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Jackson almost did; it would have been easy to walk away.  But Gianna had come to his aid once, and he wasn’t the kind of person who would want to leave a good deed unpaid.  “Maybe it’s none of my business, and feel free to tell me so, but I know a witch or two.  And that didn’t feel like something you were in control of.  So if you need to talk, I’m here.”

T H E C O N S T E L L A T I O N is reflected in her dark eyes as she looks up at it. “ that one is callisto. “ she tells him gently. “ she was beautiful, so much so that zeus seduced her even though she was a maiden of artemis’ hunt. “ amara doesn’t clarify exactly what happens next, she doesn’t need to be so explicit. “ together they bore a child, and when zeus’ wife, hera, discovered her growing stomach she turned callisto into a beast. a bear. “ she gestures to the stars above, tracing the lines of the constellation with her finger tip. “ and convinced artemis to hunt her. after she was shot, zeus sent hermes to rescue the babe from her womb and then placed her amongst the stars. “

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Jackson was enraptured as she spoke.  As a wolf, and particularly while under the crescent curse, he’d spent a lot of time under the night sky - but his attention had always been fixed most of all on the moon.  It was fascinating to hear the tales of the stars, and he smiled as Amara reached up to trace out the lines of the constellation for him.  “That seems awfully unfair,” he murmured.  “That a person should get punished for being in love.”

“I mean, dad suffered for 1000 years without his werewolf half trying to get it back, to do it just in time for mother to be born. That feels a little like fate to me. If I believed in that kind of thing,” she tried to shrug off. But honestly she liked it. The way it sounded. Like she belonged. Maybe it was just all the fairytales her aunt told her as a child. 

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A M A R A  F R O W N S looking from him back to the sky. “ it’s not like this everywhere ?? “ she can’t imagine it, not being able to see the stars each night. “ how lonely , “ she murmurs. amara shifts to the side before patting the grass. “ come, star gaze with me. do you know the constellations ?? “

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“No, definitely not,” Jackson explained, taking a seat beside her.  “Big cities, places like New York, you can barely see the sky at all - and what you can see, the city lights kind of drown out the stars.  It’s not a view I’d ever want to have.”  He gestured to one part of the sky.  “I know that one’s the bear...beyond that, I actually don’t.  Would you educate me?”

Nellie swiped up the napkin and wiped the ketchup from the sides of her mouth. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve had a burger.” She grinned, “And these burgers.. these burgers are good. Good enough that I’d have to refuse help if I did choke.”

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Jackson laughed.  “They are good burgers, I can’t argue with you there.  Especially when you haven’t had one for a while.  But try not to choke, because even if you didn’t want it I think I’d have to help you out.”

“Or maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be,” she said, playing completely into her name for a moment. “If the world was meant to exist where I existed with Hope, then it stands to reason that Hope had to go through all the things that she went through to make her wish for me. Which means she had to loose everyone and then make a deal with the hollow and bring everyone back and then met the jinni.” She nodded more to herself than the other person at that point. She didn’t know if it was true but it sounded nice that all the pain was worth something. 

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“You mean because otherwise Hope wouldn’t know who her father was,” she said. She hadn’t missed what the story meant, that her mother had happened to steal Hope from her father and as a Mikaelson. Dad won. Though in the same breathe she consider what it meant if they had done something else, what her world was like. “Well… I know when they stayed to fight, everyone died,” she said. “So seems like dad’s paranoia was for the best… yours as well. If it wasn’t for the mistrust you all had in each other, you would all likely be dead.” At least in her world that’s how it ended up.

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“That would have been part of it, yeah.  It seemed safer for her to be away from the litany of enemies the Mikaelson family has.  But in the end, none of it worked out like it was meant to.”  Despite himself Jackson had to stop and consider that.  “I don’t know if there was much good that came out of that mistrust, but if it meant we survived then I’m glad for that.  Some of us for longer than others, but all the same.”

Nellie was stuffing her face full of food for what felt like the first time in forever, maybe because it was. She was grabbing multiple fries at a time in one hand, while taking bites from her burger in the other and still managing to lean over the table to take sips from her drink. It was the first time she had been able to buy herself a meal with her own money since arriving in this town recently and she was enjoying every minute of it. “Oh, hey! Can I get another napkin?” She called out to the person passing by her table, assuming it was her waiter because she was far too busy chowing down to check for sure.

@mysticofthefallenstarter​

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“Easy there, kid,” Jackson laughed, “probably no need to act like someone’s going to steal it from you.”  He grabbed a napkin holder from a nearby counter and set it in front of her with a smile.  “There you go.  Careful you don’t choke, alright?  The heimlich maneuver works but it’s not a fun time.”

// @mysticofthefallenstarter

the moon is bright above and amara lays back in the grass, staring up at the stars. when she was younger she used to try and count them, wondering if there were new ones , the creation of something bright and everlasting that she failed to witness. “ have you ever seen something so beautiful ?? “ she asks when she hears approaching footsteps. amara pushes herself up on her elbows to look at them. “ hi . “

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“Hi,” Jackson greeted with a smile.  “It’s a nice night sky, isn’t it?  There’s some advantages to being in a small town, and one of them is being able to see the sky.”  It wasn’t the same as being able to see it back in the Bayou, granted, but it was still gorgeous.

Alex listened silently for a moment, taking in the information and turning it over in her head. Her first reaction. The fear of her father working with Dahlia was confirmed to be to false. That he had been doing what he always did and trying to protect them. But the second part, that she didn’t understand. She looked up at the other. “Why were you leaving town?” She felt like there was other questions she could ask. Why didn’t her dad like that? Where were they going? Could she even trust him now if for some reason her father hadn’t in the past? But she choice to remain silent. 

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Jackson sighed.  “I’m not sure where to start with this, because I know you didn’t live through it.  But I’ll give you the short version of it, and if you want more details I’ll fill ‘em in.  Dahlia had stoked your dad’s paranoia, for one.  Done a masterful job turning him against everyone, and everyone against him.  She set it up to make it look like he’d killed a friend of mine and your Mom’s, one of the pack.  He didn’t deny it.  Your Mom and I thought it was best to cloak Hope’s magic and get her as far from the family as possible, because that’s where Dahlia would be looking.  Elijah agreed, however reluctant he was.  Klaus...did not.”  Jackson shook his head.  “It didn’t work, as you can probably guess.”

open starter | @mysticofthefallenstarter​​

Hayley flipped through the baby clothes on the rack sitting right outside of a shop door. She was nearing the end of her second trimester and hadn’t even thought about buying anything for the twins. Lifting a pair of outfits from the rack, her face scrunched in disgust. “Do these people want my babies to hate me? Who would dress their kid in this?”

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Jackson hadn’t exactly been able to be a part of buying clothes and the like before Hope was born, and he found himself treasuring every moment of it.  Even when they were looking at some truly horrible outfits that neither of them would ever want their twins wearing.  “I have absolutely no idea,” he laughed, resting a hand on her lower back.  “Are they designer or something?  Because there’s no way they could expect regular kids to be wearing those.  We should go look for some flannel,” he teased.

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Gianna had gotten so comfortable when all the magic in the world was gone. But now that it was back, she could practically feel it coursing through her, more than she ever could. And being this close to her birth place filled her with anxiety. The thought of the possibility of her parents finding her had her looking over her shoulder at every moment. It had gotten to be too much when she saw a couple walking through town who she could have sworn were spitting images of her parents the last time she saw them. Before she could even think, her emotions her boiling over and the street lamps and store lights around her began to flicker, the displays in the store window began to shake. It wasn’t until the voice of another snapped her out of her trance and the lights in displays returned to normal. “I- I wasn’t doing anything.” she all but whispered. “What were you saying?”

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With a corn dog in hand, Jackson was window shopping for something to give Hayley for the New Year.  He didn’t know what she needed yet, exactly, but she definitely needed something.  After all, it was the first New Year since they returned, and it called for more than just a kiss at midnight to celebrate.  As he peered through a jewellery store window, though, the lights began to flicker on and off in concert with the street lights around him and he turned to try and find the source - only finding a familiar face looking terrified.  He approached slowly, cautiously, not wanting to cause any further harm by startling her, and just called out a soft “are you alright?”  As he’d almost expected, the moment she turned to look at him the shaking lights went away.  “I was just asking if you were alright, that’s all.  You looked upset.”

“Well we were looking for not very good,” she admitted. Though she already had Dahlia in her brain the other made her freeze, looking up at him. “Dad worked with Dahlia?” She asked. The thought pausing her completely as she tried to process it. Why? When? Was that something he would do again? He had died fighting her last time. 

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“That makes sense, yeah,” from what Hope had told him of the other worlds it sounded like the norm.  Her question startled him into a realization that he needed to be more careful with his words.  “Look, your dad and I...we’ve made our peace.  But I’m not going to shy away from the ugly parts of our stories, either, because there’s no reason you shouldn’t know.  He was only pretending to work with her, part of one of his schemes - without what he did she probably wouldn’t have been killed.  But as part of that scheme he saw a way to punish your mother and me for trying to leave town with Hope.  So we spent six months under the curse, and Davina ended up being the only reason it got lifted.”

She laughed. “Yeah, well dark magic kind of requires you to kill things, so…” Alex had never really been a fan. “That’s not a thing here anymore, right? It was kind of over before I was born.” At least in her universe. 

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“Think it’s a pretty good sign that something’s not good when it involves a sacrifice,” Jackson nodded.  “No, fortunately that’s over now, although it did make a comeback when Klaus and Dahlia cast it on us again - your mom included.”  He couldn’t help but sound a little bit bitter, especially knowing that Hayley had missed out on six months of her daughter’s life because of it.