* TRAVELER !

@nikolying​  “don’t judge, the old wise tale is true. making wishes and blowing it away works. it’s all in the intention.” cordelia said as she felt a set of eyes on her.

🃏 ― “sounds like magic to me,” the traveler joked. “what did you wish?”

Ellie was sitting in the back gardens of the school, taking in a moment to just exist. She had spent so much time since she had been back obsessing over all that had happened rather than just being grateful to be alive again. But in this moment, even just for the shortest of seconds, she could just be. “Oh hey..” She looked up when she heard footsteps approaching. 

🃏 ― “Hey.” Echoing the greeting. She’d been enjoying the garden, though for how long, he did not know. He’d caught sight of her earlier when he was returning some equipment. “You look good. Feeling good?” After his love had returned to him, Niko'd been absent as of late. He would take full responsibility for that and for whatever affect it had... but Ellie did look brighter, and he was happy to see it.

“Sorry…didn’t mean to disturb you…its the nightmares again…can’t sleep.” Sage said as she rocked in the chair, mug of tea in hand trying to soothe herself.

🃏 ― He hadn’t expected anyone to be up and about at this hour, so it had caught him by surprise to see her. That being said, he responded with a shake of his head, not needing her to apologize for it. “I know a thing or two about nightmares.” Openly sympathizing with her. Then he added, playfully: “My fault for skulking about.”

“You better.” Katherine playfully poked his chest with her forefinger. “The very same. She was turned the night of the carnival so I heard and it seems that those close to her are doing little to actually help. So maybe I can offer some assistance and get some intel at the same time. A win-win, right?” She noticed the look in his eyes shift. “You look like you’ve begun daydreaming.” She told him, smiling. 

🃏 ― Niko nodded, considering her plan. “Better to have them focused than dealing with one of their own... It is what the Necromancer would want.” A baby vamp causing ruckus, it was the kind of distraction they didn’t need. “Do I?” he teased, caught red-handed but caring very little for consequences. “You don’t seem surprised.” Her charm wasn’t a new development, after all. He took that moment to seize a kiss. Brief but not weak. 

“Oh, sorry.” There’s gentle laughter of her own at the mistake, and she gently nods along as he agrees with her. “It’s fine… I just haven’t been home in a long time… it brings up some memories I would rather forget.”

🃏 ― He waved it off. “Lost in translation, I am used to it.” But he did frown at her admission. “I am sorry.” It was less of an apology. He was sympathizing with her.

@nikolying​ 

“i’m glad you came.” she said honestly, offering a small smile while handing him one of the two coffees she had.

🃏 ― “we are still friends, no?  awkwardness aside.” he nodded in thanks, feeling the warmth between his joined hands. “and you did invite me.”

Emotions reaching a fever pitch, what little nerve she had left was ate away as he aired his own anger, though not directed toward her, and only himself. The guilt ridden man in front of her was never what she’d imagined when she’d pictured the man that had walked out on both her and her mother. She’d always imagined he’d left them to the wolves to fend for themselves because he was a coward, because he couldn’t handle the idea of dealing with the consequences of his actions, instead she saw a man who had been just as ravaged by the wolves as they had, and was now crushed under the weight of it all. “Did you ever look back? Even once?” The instant he pulled her to his chest, the tears came flowing hot and fast down her cheeks. She sobbed like a child in the arms of her father, in the arms of a man she’d spent her whole life missing without ever even knowing his name.

🃏 ― “Did I look back?” It struck him dead and center to have her ask such a thing. “I sought you. I sought your mother. I did not just look, I hunted. Until my final breath.” He’s cradling her sobbing head, pressing his cheek against it. Soothing her sobs with his other hand. So much about her felt familiar, even the sound of her breaking in his arms. It was like he always knew her, always meant to. “Moyata dŭshterya, my sweet, sweet Nadia. I could not have imagined anything more beautiful than you.” 

“What little Elena doesn’t know won’t hurt her. So don’t go telling her anything. Okay?” A coy smile danced on her lips. “Well, some of the students’ magic is out of control. They still haven’t narrowed down an entire concrete way to rid us of the Necromancer, oh and Caroline’s daughter is now a vampire so watch out if a blonde with a bad attitude heads your way looking for a midnight snack.” She filled him in on the few things that she had learned thus far. “Mystic Falls’ original Scooby gang figured things out a lot faster. These kids are dropping the ball. It seems like I’m going to have to do a little more digging myself.” She smiled as she was pulled in closer to him. It felt amazing to be looking at his handsome face. It was one she thought she’d never get to admire again. “What about you? Have you learned anything newsworthy?” 

🃏 ― “I will do my best to resist her interrogation.” Teasing her back. “Caroline’s daughter?  One of the Gemini siphons?” Niko knew little of siphons and their hybrid capabilities. “I agree, I have seen little progress since I arrived...” Part of that, he figured, was because the Necromancer was doing very little that warranted clues. Niko had little to report considering the timeline of things, probably and he felt a little disappointed to be offering so little. But her gaze, so focused on him, it was like the warmth of the sun. It made him smile, distracted. 

@nikolying​

“There you are.” Katherine approached Nikolai outside the school. “You know, there is one upside of being a regular old human again. I don’t have to be invited in. I’ve been talking to some of the students, doing a little recon to learn more about this whole Necromancer situation. Luckily they think I’m Elena and will tell me just about anything I want to know.” 

🃏 ― His head shook, amusement curving his lips. “Oh, she will love that.” A sarcastic, half-hearted comment as he pulled his girl in by the hand. “Anything I should know?”

“Protecting us by leaving? How? How did you think her father would react? What did you think you think he would do to her? To us? To me?” Tears cracked the surface as he referred to her so lovingly, as he tried to explain away why their stories had ended the way they had, but it all served to nearly push her to the edge, and she could hardly remember to breathe. As he grew closer, she didn’t know whether she wanted to pull him in or push him away, and it only made the whole moment so much harder. “You and my mother were the only people in the world who were supposed to love me for always… and I had to spend over five hundred years without you both…”

🃏 ― “I didn’t think,” he spat out in Bulgarian. He was young and foolish and scared. To think would imply he had even the tiniest idea what he was doing, loving Katerina. He didn’t, and it took him years to come to grips with that. And he was still scared, afraid of what loving Nadia would mean, for her and for him. “I failed you both.” An amendment. This girl, whether he held any claim to her as her father, was falling apart in front of him. He reached for her and pulled her against his chest. “I will never forgive myself for that,” he whispered.

“Caroline always has so many friends… it’s the personality.” It was easy to see why, Caroline could be a bright ray of sunshine on a rainy day, when she got out of her own head of course. Thinking of her friends brought a weak smile to her face and she nodded. “Yeah… something like that.”

🃏 ― That made Niko laugh. “I meant witches but.. yes― those too.” Headmaster Forbes was popular and there was no confusion as to why. She was very charismatic, and beautiful. He noticed the change in the girl. “You can ignore me. I am usually not this, nosy?”

even still when katherine tried to kill them all one last time and let mystic falls burn, a part of her still felt for the elder petrova doppelganger because it easily could have been her path had her friends not brought her back from her humanity after jeremey died. “maybe you could tell me more of what she was like when she was human?” elena asked, a genuine curiosity of just how similar she was to katherine. “oh.. nadia, well. i didn’t know her very well. but she was very passionate and cunning. i’m sure you’ve heard of the tales of the immortal silas back in your day? she even double crossed him to try and save her mother from him.” as much as their actions messed with her life, she didn’t want to give a bad memory of nadia to her father so she kept quiet on putting katherine inside of her head. 

🃏 ― his head took on a curious tilt. “katerina?” he asked, though it was rhetorical. he didn’t need the clarification. “i bet not too different from the woman you know. very much passionate and cunning,” he clued with a twinkle in his eye. “always three steps ahead. always wanting to learn; about magic and our clans, about me... but above all, she wanted independence. i think that is what drew us together.” his brow rose at the mention of silas, and especially of nadia double crossing him. “of course silas was freed.” his head shook, as he was still pretty amazed to hear. “not my battle. i left that all behind.” though he was curious: “what did he want with them?” if the answer even mattered now. “nadia, she sounds intimidating,” he added fondly.

The vampire felt like she was going to be sick, as the words kept spilling out of him. As a child, it had never been a secret to her that she was someone else’s child. She’d grown up with the idea that she was unwanted hanging over her shoulders, something that only continued after she was married off to a man who couldn’t have loved anyone if he tried. Always unwanted, always unneeded, and she was certain of this until her child had been taken from her, and with the new hollow part of her, she knew her mother had to have loved her, at least a little bit, she’d just never considered her father could care too.  “… Are you truly him?” Her cold exterior melting away to reveal a more fragile interior. “If you’re him… why did you leave her? Why did you leave us? Why did you - why did you leave me?”

🃏 ― Nikolai could only nod to her question, dark eyes full of pain as she dissected him with her own. It was horrific, watching the switch in her. He could handle her disbelief, even her anger, but this wasn’t that. This was a nightmare. “Oh, skŭpa,” he called her lovingly, his breaking heart manifesting as a tight throat. “I did not want to. Our love was forbidden... I thought I was protecting her. Protecting you.” He hadn’t meant to approach Nadia but he couldn’t stop himself, seeing her so upset. He just gravitated toward his child. “I lost you both, and nothing I did could fix it.”

The vampire noticed he was getting upset, though she wasn’t quite sure why. Had she touched a nerve asking to know more? Pushed the wrong button perhaps? She didn’t know, not until he started to rant about the commonality of her name here, a fact she found arbitrary, and then everything came out all at once. The story was one she knew well for obvious reason, it was her story, but it wasn’t the story he told that left her cold, it was his choice of words. Our daughter. The rest of it was all white noise, and she simply stared at the man. “My father is dead.”

🃏 ― Hearing her call him that, it was the final straw. Even if she didn’t believe him. Why would she?  Why should she?  What did it matter, in the end, when they didn’t even know each others names until now. “I was no father to you,” he admitted. “All I wanted.. I had hoped ―” The moment he learned about her and her death, he needed her to return. Nadia, she was beautiful just like her mother. An angel on earth. His hand threatened to rise, to reach out to her, but it fell back to his side, limp. “She will be happy to see you.”