AMOW 3. A Long Cold Night / Doorstep Collapse
Day three of AMonthOfWhump's March Trope-a-Thon
Back to Reincarnation woes AU and the beginning, where I *checks notes* kill Elijah again, but this time with his whole family. sorry
Warning for child death.
(Mikael didn't take to learning about Esther's deal and decides to save his grandchildren by- killing them. Grandfather of the century Mikael. not)
Fun fact this Au also has the subtitle of Auntie Dahlia redemption.
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Freya had never thought she could be happy with Dahlia, since she was stolen from papa and her Finn. She grew up fearful of Dahlia’s anger and cruelties.
Some small part of her is jealous that someone else managed to get past Dahlia's cold bitter cruel self to find the person underneath that Freya had given up on, but her little brother had managed it within just a few meetings, seen what Dahlia truly wanted and bargained with her to keep his daughter with him and prepare her in the way no one had Freya.
She had followed Dahlia with growing horror when her aunt had told her of another firstborn, wondering which sibling she would watch as they had their child stolen from them.
The man that met them had Dahlia’s look but Freya knew him, since she pressed a tiny hand on mother’s swelling belly and felt the little life inside.
Elijah gave all his magic, untrained as it was, to Dahlia keep Astrid with them until she reached 16, so his daughter could grow up loved but aware of her future so any future siblings would know of the deal and be prepared not to fight it. He reminded her that if she didn’t take his offer and stole the child from them there they would never have another child from his line, holding the fact that mother had already ended their sibling’s lines and Kol disinterested in children of his own.
In a way she shouldn’t have been surprised that Elijah was the one to see though Dahlia, she never would have thought the babe she had once dreamed of holding could mirror her captor and nightmare but as she stood behind Dahlia and watched as Elijah stared back waiting her her answer, the pretty dark haired woman holding the child in question and a boy around eight behind her, behind him.
Dahlia accepted but demanded a link to the girl before she left, the other man there, barely more than a boy himself had stepped in to argue for a short lived link one that would force her to visit every few months.
She had watched as Dahlia stripped Elijah of his magic before they left that night. Watched with mild envy, unsure if it was the way Dahlia had taken all she wanted from him and he shrugged it off or the way Kol had caught him, the easy way they were with each other as Kol scolded and Elijah had laughed weakly that he hadn’t expected to feel it to be that much.
She never questions why Elijah had never been trained with his magic, why it seemed none of her siblings but Kol had, she learns to block out the fact she could always feel Elijah magic in the link she shared with Dahlia a ghost in their bond, and a constant reminder of what Elijah had given up to keep his daughter where no one had for her.
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That was how it started, how she learned Kol was a natural prodigy at their craft with no interest in joining a coven or having children to Dahlia’ open annoyance, every few months they would travel from the hut they had built a little over day away from any other humans to the village her brothers had settled, she got to know them, watched as Astrid grew.
For the first time since she was stolen she felt like she had a family.
Within years Astrid was followed by Sigrid and they had started visiting once a month, Dahlia started teaching Astrid along with her constant shadow Sigrid, Freya started to see the rare warmth that had kept her going through the worst of her childhood more often.
The biggest and clearest sign of the change was Dalla, her third niece who was named for the woman who saved her.
During a thick winter storm Hale had arrived at their hut begging help for Tatia who had gone into labour and something had gone wrong, while Kol was away from the village, Dahlia truly had no reason to help, she had her firstborn and another to continue the line if Astrid didn’t want to bring another child to face Dahlia’s resentment, Elijah may have even be easier to push into giving up astrid earlier if left to raise three children on his own.
Instead Dahlia had ordered her to grab the medical herbs and they had followed the boy back to find out Elijah hadn’t sent him, Dahlia had taken charge and by the time Kol had returned it was to a living but tired Tatia and niece named for Dahlia.
Freya had watched quietly as Dahlia took the news with wide eyes, and saw before they left Dahlia had placed a hand on Elijah’s shoulder when her brother’s mask had slipped to reveal how shaken the night had left him.
Dahlia looked, even at a distance, very clearly unused to comforting someone one but it wasn’t until Elijah said something to her was her hand tightened enough that it looked natural.
It takes Freya two months to realise Dahlia had started to look at Elijah like she looked at her and Astrid, a possessive ownership, doesn't really want to know what he had said to her to earn that.
Still as Dalla grew to join her sisters in their monthly lessons with Dahlia is was clear Dahlia paid a little more attention to the girl with her name, neither Astrid or Sigrid care much perhaps they would have the older they got but when Freay had asked the two while Dahlia was distracted by the younger one they had shrugged and informed her it made sense since their mama had Hale, and papa had Uncle Kol, while they had each other.
Not that she’ll admit she was any better when it came to Frey, her littlest nephew, the one named for her by Astrid, the little boy who reminded her of her own shadow, her Finn.
She learns later of Elijah’s second deal, offering all his children for Dahlia’s claim on Kol’s line, that Dahlia had laughed when she realised he had given her a choice of the coven she wanted, one she had grown and trained or give that up on the off chance the prodigy she had once wanted, changed his mind.
She had accepted the deal and for a few years Freya had seen a future where instead of it being her, Freya and Astrid, they could move to the village, live as normal as life as she could.
Two weeks before Astrid turned sixteen she, though the temporary link she had with her nieces and nephew, felt that dream end.
Sharp, sudden and painful she felt each of her nieces die, they were already out of the house running before Frey vanished.
It’s too late when they arrive, they know it would have been but somehow she hadn’t pictured the full horror until she found Kol and Hale alone surrounded by cloth wrapped bodies. Moved past them without thought somehow still hoping it was a nightmare and all she had to do was step past the door to find them all their alive.
The home is covered in blood, puddles and pools she can almost see where they fell, her legs give out in the doorway, it’s Hale that catches her in her collapse, her nephew in all but blood, the only nephew she had. She hadn’t cried during the run, desperate denial keeping her going, she did then, in Hale’s arms, the boy she watched grow into a man the way she hadn’t been able to with any of her brothers, the way she wouldn’t with Frey.
She’s numb as they’re told what happened, Dahlia’s rage shakes the trees at news of Mikael taking from her again but Freya feels nothing but a hollow ache.
Her little brother, his beloved wife, her precious nieces, her treasured nephew taken, murdered by the man she loved, the only parent she had cared for.
Her papa was a monster.
It was a very long cold night, she sat as Kol and Hale built the pyres and carefully transferred the bodies,
They each take a moment to say they goodbyes, Freya ignores over hearing Kol promise Tatia and Elijah that he would watch over Hale the way she ignores the way his voice breaks.
It wasn’t fair after the weeks she had wished to see Elijah born that she would miss that but see his funeral.
She focuses on the funeral shroud of her oldest niece when instead of the tight grip Dahlia has on Elijah’s shroud.
She lays a hand the head of her little shadow, her Frey the smallest body on the pyre, and wishes she could feel his soft hair under the cloth, wishes she would see his bright crooked grin that he had gotten from his papa but was much freer showing it.
After they say their words, Kol lights a torch for Hale, who lights the pyres for Tatia and Elijah, she watches as Dahlia and Kol follow and light Astrid’s and Sigrid’s, leaving Frey's to her.
She takes a breath and lights it, realising as she had to dig for it that Dahlia still held the magic she had taken from Elijah years earlier separately.
She’s not as angry at the thought of it anymore, it was something they had of him, a reminder of the decade and a half of happiness.
It was a very long cold night, despite the flames as they all stood and watched the pyres burn.
Dahlia and she leave within a month to return to the place they had lived before they had been called by Astrid’s birth, there was no point to remain since the only living line Dahlia still had a claim to was exhausted in a night.
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A few centuries later it’s the memory of happy magic lessons with her nieces and the awe in Dahlia’s eyes as she held Dalla after learning her name that gives Freya the courage to speak to her instead of running with Matthias, that lead her to the chance of watching as her son take his first steps, seeing both her children growing older than her brother's children, of decades loving a good man.
That meant even when she lost Matthias after years of marriage she still had her son and daughter by her side when they returned to their century sleep.
