qυeen oғ тнe qυarтer

Falling with a hard thump as Nik swept his feet from under him, Elijah was taken by surprise when the pipe connected with the side of his head, making his skin split and blood spill from the wound. Groaning, he glared up at his sister before quickly breaking off a leg from a nearby table, charging towards his sister and stabbing her through the stomach with the wood. “No one gives a shit, Nikolina! Everyone knows you’re fucking tough, why the hell do you have to prove it every second of every day?!”

Nik inhaled a sharp breath in as the object went through her abdomen, the force of it all making it more painful. She cried out in an almost animalistic way, her eyes flashing yellow if only for just a second. "Because if I don't people will start to assume that you're better than me!" she yelled out, not fully meaning to but not being able to stop herself. She doubled over on the ground, spitting a little bit of blood that had pooled in her mouth and grabbed the table leg, intending to pull it out. 

"Fine. You are the alpha, but you better stop treating me like I am lesser than you just because I do not have a venomous bite, Nikolina. I have not lived through a thousand years just to be belittled by my little sister,” Stepping away, he fully expected to be attacked yet again and he knew he would not stop until one of them lied on the floor unconscious.

"But what sort of message would I be giving out if I simply stopped?" She used the position she had on the floor to kick his legs out from beneath him, standing up quickly and finding the closest item nearby that she could use as a weapon which happened to be a long rusty pipe laying around. She picked it up and swung it at him, hitting him in the head. "People might start thinking I've gone soft." she emphasized the word by hitting him again.

"Like I could care less about what the hell it is, Nik." Elijah stumbled back as his sister broke out of his grasp but not before he got another blow to the face which didn’t faze him as much as he knew Nikolina wish it had. Grabbing her head, he smacked her face first against the ground before stepping the fast healing arm, pinning it with his foot on the ground. "Are you done with his childish attempt of being the alpha around here?"

She groaned in pain as he pinned her still mostly broken arm to the ground with his foot. She got angrier at his words, and tried to get up again but he was putting too much pressure on her arm. "I do not attempt at being the alpha, Elijah, I am the alpha." she growled. "So I will never be done."

"Well, I am fighting a girl.” He retorted, grabbing her wrist and twisting her arm as he switched their positions so that she was facing the ground as he drove his knee into her back. “Wouldn’t want to mess up your precious fingernail polish.”

"It's a french manicure, Elijah. If you're going to insult it, at least be specific." she growled in pain, trying to get out of his hold, but finding it was tighter than she anticipated. "I'm not a girl, Elijah. I'm your sister who happens to be the most powerful creature on the planet." she twisted her arm out -- breaking it in the process -- and punched him hard in the face with her other arm. 

A loud groan escaped from Elijah as he was tackled, bringing up his hands when Nik continued to throw punches towards his frame. Once he got an opened, the older man switched positions, pinning his sister to the ground and slapping her a few times. He’d never been afraid to get rough with the hybrid.

She struggled against his grasp for a few seconds, letting him think he had the upper hand until she roughly broke out and rammed her head into his. "You fight like a girl, Elijah." she growled. "Is that all you've got?!" she yelled, moving to where she was on top and holding on tightly to his throat.

Elijah let his little sister get the first hit before he attacked back, grabbing her long blond locks and tossing her effortlessly across the room. “Come on, little sister. You want a fight, you’ve got one.”

The anger in her increased when he attacked back, using her hair as a means to do it. "Oh, it's on, brother." The hybrid recovered easily, growling and lunging at him again, tackling him to the ground, throwing a few blind punches at him when they landed, fighting to get the upper hand in the battle. 

"Well, I’m glad I can surprise you, little sister." Elijah crossed his arms as well, challenging Nikolina as he stared right back. "Please do."

"Fine then, I will." Rolling her eyes, she shrugged, using all of her hybrid strength and speed to attack him.

"Yes, which would make you about one. Or what, you think you are the only one who’s allowed to make a damn joke around here?" Elijah rolled his eyes at his little sister. "Please do not make threats you cannot carry out."

"No, but you've never made one in your life that wasn't completely lame and unfunny, so I wasn't expecting anything like this from you." Nik crossed her arms, glaring at him. "I could so carry it out and you know it."

"Well look at who’s being serious all of a sudden. It was meant to be a joke, Nikolina. You know, that thing you love to do all the time? J o k e. Must be that time of the month,” He rolled his eyes at his little sister.

"What, are you five? I didn't know you had a sarcastic bone in your damn body. Glad to know I was mistaken but.." her eyes widened. "That time of the month? Do you want me to rip your limbs from you and beat you senseless with them because I will."

"Why not? You are already half way there."

"Oh, that's hilarious, because I'm a wolf. Yeah, finally after a thousand years that sense of humor kicks in and its about this of all things." She wasn't laughing. "Why do you think of all the things I could possibly spend my time doing that I would choose to spend it being your dog?"

                     “Could you possibly go with asking me a question minus the insults, little sister? I would be more inclined to say yes without trouble. What is it that you need?”

"And that is the obvious difference between you and I. You do not believe but that does not believe that I cannot. Just because we are monsters, as you so loosely say, does not mean that we have to act like monsters. If you want to, so be it, but I will not stop my quest just because you are so closed minded to believe that you can be anything but. Your words mean nothing to me because you say them out of spite and self-loathing for yourself and who you are. I may not be human, but I refuse to saddle myself with the regret and burden that you often throw away because you are not capable of anything else. No matter what you say, Nikolina, I will continue on my quest for your salvation. We only have an eternity to do so. Call me a fool if you wish— That word lost all its sentiment years ago along with any other degrading term you think you can muster up to hurt me.” Walking up to his sister, Elijah placed a soft kiss on her cheek before pulling back to look down at her. “Are we done?” Without awaiting and answer, he turned once again to walk out of the room, determined to retreat for the night.

Nik watched as her brother walked away, frozen to the spot. She didn't know why, but his words had affected her, not that she would ever admit that to anyone, least of all him. But still, she stood there, wanting to be angry and furious at him for his words and yet not finding any way or reason to be. Elijah had been the only person she had ever truly listened to and even he couldn't get through to her now. Perhaps he had a point.. shaking her head she went after him, catching up in a second. "What if I let you go? What then?" she asked, her expression showing too many emotions at once to settle upon just one. "You say that every time you attempt to leave I dagger you and shove you in a box and that is why you cannot, but.. what if I let you go? What would happen then?" she looked broken and lost in a way, not entirely sure of what she was saying or even going with this. "Would you then abandon this quest doomed to failure? 

                     “Could you possibly go with asking me a question minus the insults, little sister? I would be more inclined to say yes without trouble. What is it that you need?”

It was the same old song and dance, one they have had many times before in their thousand years on this Earth. Elijah was used to Nikolina’s patterns; she’d get mad, act offended, probably even tear a time or two, and when your guard is down, she will stab you in the back. No, not even. She’d stand you right in the front while staring into your eyes with soulless orbs. He had humored her before but now, he has had about enough. Even if leaving wasn’t an option, he wasn’t about to sit around and be treated like some sort of slave when all he’s done and wanted to was be by her side and help in whatever way he could. “You do not need to accept anything, Nikolina. My mission is my own even if it involves you, but I am way too invested in it to just give up now. You are my sister and no matter how damned you may be, you will always be my blood. I may assume the worst of you, I may call you the Devil, but that does not mean that I do not love you. That I do not believe you are not capable of salvation. You feel, you love, you hurt— And any person capable of those emotions are able to one day be free of the self-loathing they feel within themselves as I am sure you feel in you.”

Nik scoffed, the emotions held within her just seconds prior completely disappearing, indifference replacing them. "Your irrational sentimentality will prove to be the death of you, brother. Mark my words." she said casually, brushing herself off. "As will your contradicting beliefs about me. You say you assume the worst and yet you expect the best time and time again. Any sane rational man would have long given up by now and yet you continue, despite my thoughts on the matter." she looked at him, the hurt in her eyes barely lingering but clearly still there, although she quickly replaced it with a hardened expression. "A person cannot be saved if they do not believe in their own salvation, Elijah, and quite simply put.. I will never be saved. Not by you, not by anyone." she said, walking closer to him now, a smug look on her face. "You're wasting your time if you think you can change my mind, that you can force some sort of emotion or humanity into me." she spat. "I do not want to be saved." she said firmly, before laughing and turning away. "But just as your words are utterly meaningless to me, so will mine prove the same for you." she said, laughing without emotion. "And round and round we go." she said as an afterthought. "Never ceasing, never failing." 

                     “Could you possibly go with asking me a question minus the insults, little sister? I would be more inclined to say yes without trouble. What is it that you need?”

Elijah didn’t let the shove affect him, straightening up quickly and continued on proving his point, even if it went over his little sister’s head. “Yet if we had turned our backs on you, we would have ended up with a dagger in our hearts! You have never given us a choice, Nikolina. You are an obsessive bastard in every sense of the word and you have the audacity to stand there and call me a hypocrite when you are the biggest one of them all. I may be a monster but compared to you I might as well be an Angel for God himself because at least I am trying to embrace even the shred of humanity and decency that I still have in me while you have abandoned any and every hope of it years ago in your ridiculous quest to ruin the scraps of anything good in your life, including your own flesh and blood. You stand there and talk about us being a family yet dagger us the moment we decide to set off on our own or side against you so don’t you dare call me out of my name without pointing a finger at yourself first!”

"I try my hardest, Elijah.." she said softly, the edge in her voice still lingering yet it was fading with every passing minute. "I try my hardest and yet every time I do so I am reminded of my own failures and shortcomings. I do not apologize for any of my behaviors in the past, Elijah, because I know that feeling guilty about things long since past is absolutely moronic and counterproductive." she confessed bitterly. "How am I supposed to just accept your foolish mission for my so-called redemption when I know within my heart that there is none to find." she admitted, looking up at her brother. "And do not tell me that you haven't thought that yourself many, many times. I was damned to hell the moment I took another life and was bound by mother's curse so why not embrace every facet of it? And it isn't like our family has led lives of purity themselves.. you are the only one who ever had faith in me and even then it will never be enough. "Every single time I try and be better.. one of you assumes the worst of me and we end up back where we started." 

                     “Could you possibly go with asking me a question minus the insults, little sister? I would be more inclined to say yes without trouble. What is it that you need?”

Elijah ducked as the flying object neared him, letting it crash into a million pieces on the wall. “Relax, Nikolina! I am tired of your victim act. You can call me all types of names from here to the ends of the Earth but the moment I speak the truth, you throw a tantrum? I am done tip toeing around your sensitivity. You want the God’s honest truth from now on, that is exactly what I am going to give to you. I did not follow you around for a thousand years to be your fucking lapdog! Treat me like I am your brother and I will give you the same respect otherwise you might as well rip my heart out because that is the only way you are getting rid of me.”

"I do not recall ever asking you to follow me around, Elijah!" she yelled back, speeding over and shoving him with all of her strength. "I didn't want that. I never wanted that. You tell me that I am your sister and that you love me and yet you treat me like vermin every chance that you can get! You and your saintly noble facade that you wear so well can get the hell out of my town and leave me alone because I don't want you here judging me with every breath that you take. Using me as some sort of goddamn reminder of your fleeting morality. You're a monster like us all, Elijah. But you're not man enough to admit it so you look down your nose at the rest of us as if we are detestable when in reality you're a hypocrite. Now leave me alone,"

                     “Could you possibly go with asking me a question minus the insults, little sister? I would be more inclined to say yes without trouble. What is it that you need?”

"Goodnight, sister. "Waving Nikolina off, Elijah made his way to his room, intending to get some rest.

Nikolina let out a growl and grabbed the nearest object and swung it at her brother. "No." she said loudly, clearly angry now. "Do not ignore me, brother."