The Overlooked

“Damn it…” Freya was not the type of girl who couldn’t find any other words but cursewords when life didn’t go as she had planned. Her life had never gone as planned ever since her aunt had taken her away from her mother and her family. She had slowly grown used to it over the many years she had lived and the many years she had spent asleep in a coffin. But there were no words that could describe the chaos her mind was slowly into and the fight she was having with herself and her own morals.

She had sworn to destroy the evil that was her mother and her sisters. She had sworn to use her new power, even though she was not used to using it yet, for good. She had sworn to not help those evil witches, but destroy them to leave the world a better place than she had found it. But she had also sworn to find her brother and to reunite with the family she had longed for her entire life, but had missed for almost just as long. And maybe the key to get back the first member of her family, was helping the woman she had sworn to hate. 

“Fine…” Freya gave in, even though she couldn’t believe it herself that she was so easily to be persuaded. All Jennifer had needed to do was saying the name of her long lost brother and revealing that she had the coffin harnessing his body, somewhere, somewhere she for sure couldn’t remember in her current state. “I’m gonna find you a body. You’re gonna stay here and be nice.”

It was in the other’s hands now. Jennifer was loosing the ability to keep talking, dragged under by fatigue. She’d hardly had the mind to scavenge food within Mary’s small cabin in-between the din of her ambition dragging her into an almost fugue state; attempting the impossible and trying to make sense of utter chaos. If not for the manacles securing her wrists then the cabin, the bayou and likely a great portion of the city would have been destroyed by now, her unable to control of dictate her thoughts and impulses beyond a few seconds at a time.    

Her heavy head rose and a slow blinked followed Freya’s word of acceptance. It took time to process. Fine? Not fine. Not fine at all. Far from fine! All too much and no work and no stories, no prayers or bug killer or- “Fine.” her hoarse voice whispered the word before her head dipped once more. There was nothing more that could be said. Her eyes seemed to glaze over even further, the closest to sleep she was possible of obtaining...

The more Jennifer talked, the more Freya realized that either she was plagued by a powerful spell Mary or whoever had left her here had cast over here, or had finally drowned in her own magic she had used, plagued by all the souls she had taken for a spell she would never complete. “I could always drill a hole in your brain and get them out for you, of course.” Freya murmured and crossed her arms over her chest. If Jennifer wouldn’t find back her sanity, this would last awfully long and the longer it lasted, the longer she would be separated from Finn. If Jennifer indeed did have him and remembered where she had left him. 

Freya furrowed her eyebrows and tried to make some sense of the words and incoherent sentences that did escape Jennifer’s confused mouth. Freya couldn’t imagine what was really going on in the woman’s mind, but she did understand that it must have been terribly bad if this was what it caused. Freya looked up when she did hear something that did make sense. “You want me to take your soul out and place it inside another body?” She let out a deep breath. “And where do I find another boy to your liking?” She rolled her eyes. “Or can I pick whoever I want?” She could find something that ugly and disgusting that even Jennifer would have wished she had asked someone else.

Jennifer didn’t even hear Freya’s murmured suggestion tugged under by the currents of thoughts and speech not her own; there was nothing else to be heard when the voices were this loud. All were calling, fearful, active, so desperate for some kind of answer that they were burying the only spirit within the body that held such information. But they were joined in still muttering that one sentence over and over, ‘A fresh start.’ All sought it but only one soul within this body would have one. Perhaps that hope served as a kind of soothing to make the noise just a little more bearable.

She remained buried under the sounds for a time, unsure how long; minutes, hours.. days... What was time when only sound persisted? Cries of spiders, cries for God, cries of books and needs to work. Freya spoke again and her head rose heavily, as though weighed down but the sounds only she could hear. Moments later the head fell once more. A nod. Albeit an undignified one. It took longer still for her to respond again, so tired from having to speak, to think beyond the noise in what felt a long time but again, who could know? “Don’t care.” barely heard within a breath the words were still an answer. She could be a wizened crown or a child and wouldn’t care... Just as long as the noise stopped.

“TAKE WHAT AWAY, JENNIFER?” Freya rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. She wouldn’t mention it and made Jennifer wiser than she probably was in her current state of mind, but she was losing her patience. There was a part of the woman in front of her that could think clearly and could scheme and plan and play with her like she used to do when she was her all powerful self. But there also seemed to be a part of her that was overcome with madness. It was impossible to only talk to the sane version of her former sister. 

“What do I need to do, Jennifer?” Freya tried to reach the sane part of the woman once more, knowing that if Jennifer would slip through her fingers, there was a chance her brother would to. She wouldn’t risk it. She wouldn’t risk her poor brother, locked up in a box, who had done nothing wrong. “Stop freaking out and start giving clear instructions, else I can’t help you.” Not that she actually wanted to come to Jennifer’s aid in the first place, but it seemed that people were willing to sacrifice a lot to gain the one thing they wanted much more.

“THE VOICES!” she yelled back, her head jutting forward for a moment before falling back down to rest limply against her chin. Too loud, to many, all the time, no reprieve... Too hard to talk. Perhaps pray instead? God was a work of fiction- blasphemy! No... never. “Never... never, never leave-” she mumbled, “Sacrifices in me... too loud... too loud, I’m a good girl...” A good girl who needed to take her medicine. No medicine for this, no freedom- need them to go. Or her go. We all need to go far far away into the land fiction and fairytales. Just a happy ever after.

“Take... Them... Out.” Each word careful, delivered as though it were a precious gem, a small fraction of her remaining sanity. “Put them... somewhere else.” she bit out, head swaying slightly to the rhythm of a din just for her. “Put me... somewhere else...” she didn’t care how, simply- freedom! Freedom in the land of God, of learning, of stories with happy endings in hardback sleeves. There was no happy ending. No ending. A new start... A new start... “A new start.” she whispered, the words coming several times like a small chant to God almighty.  

Freya hesitated and her mind was filled with doubts and ifs and whens. She knew better than anyone that Jennifer couldn’t be trusted and always had another plan that was hard to understand and get around. But she also knew that if Jennifer spoke the truth, it was very well possible that the only brother who had known her, who could maybe remember her, who could love her, would be lost forever, depending on the spell Jennifer had used to hide him.

It felt like Freya had little to no choice. She could not risk Finn’s life for her own revenge plans, not yet. She could always execute her current plans once she could hold Finn safely in her arms again. She was stronger than every Jennifer knew and with more time and practice she would certainly be strong enough to finish what she had started today, even if by then she would face a healthy Jennifer.

Freya took a deep breath and hoped that she would get through to the troubled woman in front of her, plagued by things she could neither see nor understand and feel. “What do you want me to do?” She exhaled and closed her eyes, before she focussed. She was not letting Jennifer live. She told herself and repeated it over and over again. She was simply extending her life a little longer because it benefited Freya herself. There was a difference.

How was she supposed to know what to do!? Jennifer could barely maintain a coherent line of thought for more than a few moments before- lord God save us from this evil- and all was brought back down. Silence, silence to overcome the din, an encompassing, everlasting din that needed to stop! Peace! Peace! Peace for the good girl, dear lord God. Something to alleviate the pain.

“Take them away...” she murmured, eyes glazed, seeing much worse than Freya before her; only the visions that swirled in the din. “Take me away from them-” a whisper for freedom from the noise. She needed peace- peace dear God- great comfort in religion- peace with a cat? She needed it gone. “Alone... Me alone.” No others, power was useless when the noise drowned all out...

The manacles on her wrists shook once more as she jerked, a little blood running down the crusted wounds, unnoticed by the overcome witch.

Freya was unsure what to feel and what to do. This was the ultimate chance to end Jennifer’s life for once and for good. When she had woken up from her way too long slumber she had decided to use her powers for good and to erase those who harm the world from the globe. Jennifer had quickly moved up to the top of the list when she had decided that gaining all the power over New Orleans was worth loads of innocents lives. And Freya knew Jennifer much longer than she could even remember. There was a chance she was lying and simply had heard some rumors and was now using them to her advantage.   

But, there was also a chance that Jennifer was surprisingly enough telling the truth. What if she truly had Finn, locked in his coffin, in who knew what state exactly? What if killing her would ruin every chance of ever finding or unlocking him again? Freya reached for her head, a thrumming pain taking over her skull. She could not be to blame for Finn disappearing and never seeing the light of day again. She could not be the one having the chance to save him and not doing it.

“What do you need me to do?” She hissed between her teeth, hating every word she spoke with a burning passion. “Do you want me to save your life? Is there any reason to believe you? To know that you’ll be giving me Finn when I help you survive?” Freya knew she allowed the girl to look into her cards too much, but she couldn’t help herself. She had been looking for Finn, the only brother she had known and have, for quite some time now. She couldn’t let the chance of finding him slip through her fingers.

For all the deception she’d shown with her ‘Ms Blake’ persona Jennifer was surprisingly honest when she was among her own kind. She told Mary what she thought of her and the same with all other witches. She’d kept the finding of that coffin to herself out of her ambition for power rather than a need for secrecy. And it seemed that small sliver of her grand ambition could be what saved her from this torturous situation. The din returned and  for several moments anything save staring into her own personal void was beyond her; the voices each clamouring to be heard in a swirling vortex of pain, fear, anger, confusion, love, flashing of things she’d only been able to use as words before...

It was too much, too much- Dear Lord, - too much -SPIDERS - too much - work late - good girl- alpha- “Ugghh.” she let out a growl of pain and her head fell forward, the voices overtaking and taking and swirling and grinding and clenching and gnashing everything away to exposed nerves and bare bone; things that should never be exposed, all ripped asunder under the cavalcade of voices that should have been rotting along with their bodies in the ground.

“Take... Them.... AWAAAAAAY!” She screamed to be louder than the voices, to hear herself and no one else if only for a moment to be her, her power and strained vocal cords- though as soon as the moment came it was gone and all that remained were her spasming hands trapped within the manacles. It was minutes later before strength enough to rise above the voices returned, this time so very difficult to hear. “You don’t.... risk... lose...” words all but unable to be strung together yet the meaning still shone through.    

Freya froze and all the thoughts stopped running through her head. Even though Jennifer was not in the state Freya had expected her to be in, Freya wouldn’t dare to not believe any word Jennifer was saying. After all, there weren’t that many people who knew about Finn and the box he was located in and considering the amount of information Jennifer gave her, Freya knew that not believing her would be one of the worst mistakes of her life.

It was noise on all sides within her mind, yelling outside of it had little effect on her, it only cause Jennifer to remember the other’s presence and look up at the woman, the coward- why was she here? Here to kill- been killed - should be with the Lord now... But no, not to be killed no no no, Jennifer had something- what did she have? It was so hard to- SPIDERS! All over in every nook and cranny of the library!

“Tell me where he is. Now!” Freya hissed between her teeth and she reached for Jennifer’s shirt to grab it tightly. “You have no right to have my brother here!” She thought about the boy who had been her best friend, the boy she had hold when he was just a baby, the boy she had carried around and loved, the boy she had seen growing up for a few years before she was violently ripped away from him.

It was noise on all sides within her mind, yelling outside of it had little effect on her, it only cause Jennifer to remember the other’s presence and look up at the woman, the coward- why was she here? Here to kill- been killed - should be with the Lord now... But no, not to be killed no no no, Jennifer had something- what did she have? It was so hard to- SPIDERS! All over in every nook and cranny of the library!

Her head lolled to the side grimy hair once more falling to obscure her dirty face, Finn, brother? I miss my brother- never liked him he as an ass- family is sacred; family... Rain... She wanted Rain - I want my mother!? “Finn?” the world barely a mumble under her breath, who was Finn? Why was he important? She didn’t have Finn- Coffin... CofFinn? Jennifer laughed once more.

Her head jolted forward, the touch and closeness between the two again giving her a moments reprieve from the chaotic din. “No,” she breathed, “Help... me.” Even in this state it was not begging, it was bargaining. She laughed once more, “Then Finn.” The bitch (Virgin?) Wasn’t here, no one here, alone, alone and dead and dead forever!? Help, she needed help... Freya... power... help? Another quiet laugh right in the other’s face.      

Freya had never seen such a sight and she had to admit that she had seen quite a few things in her life. Her sister Jennifer had always been the determined one, the one Dahlia would have been proud of. She had been unafraid and focussed on her goals. Her goals had been all wrong and had broken laws of both the human and the supernatural world, but it had been the kind of goals Dahlia would have wanted Freya to have. It had been the kind of goals Mary had betrayed Freya over.  

“You’re pathetic.” Freya shook her head in absolute disbelief and she was not sure what to do right now. “I was looking for a strong-willed woman who would not that easily give up on her dreams of ultimate power and breaking this vampire dynasty.” Freya let her glance rest on her so called sister and something she had thought to never feel for her washed over her. “Mother has always been wrong about us. In the very end, I am the strong one and you are the weak one.”

A smile spread across her face and she walked closer and closer towards her sister, her hands held high ready to attack with whatever power she needed to end this for once and for all. “I don’t think there will be a warm welcome for you in the next life, but I would have loved to witness all those so called sacrifices waiting for you, knowing that their deaths have been for absolutely nothing." 

Pathetic? Pathetic? Pathetic!? She was many things but not that! She’d found where she belonged and gone beyond-to God- with her magic-stories and fairytales with witches and wizards- Harry Potter? No. Wrong story, huge spiders! And now she’d paid the price for one miscalculation of an alpha’s power- power- we were taken for power? Power of the Lord - of knowlegde- of medicine - faith! Power... The ability to make things happen and ohhh the things she’d made happen.

Things she was still to do- future! “Mo-ther?” The dear virgin- not that bitch!- I miss my mum... - she died when I was a kid- What mother? The woman she talked about before? Unseen, unknown, pointless to her. Jennifer kept her gaze up and laughed a little longer after the single word escaped, mother-family-family in coffin! Even in this state her mind schemed. Jennifer’s hand jerked slightly, the manacles cutting into her mauled wrists and the pain offering a moment of clarity, a few seconds of silence.

“Kill me and your sibling goes....” she half sang the words, like a child teasing someone about being in trouble, “I’ve got a coffin-“ she carried, “Locked away, half-dead forever and ever and ever and ever till open sesame! Mikaelson appears!!” she laughed once more and the moment was gone, her head dipped down, overcome by so much speech and the noise erupted, even she forgot what she’d fought so hard to say...

Freya couldn’t help but wonder what she had looked like while she was asleep for almost 500 years in a coffin, punished by the woman she had called mother for way too long. A term Dahlia had never earned or deserved in anyway. She had not behaved like a mother, she had not cared like a mother and she had done quite some damage on all her so called daughters. Damage not parents should inflict on their child, damage no child ever deserved. 

But in this state Jennifer looked pathetic and Freya felt almost bad about her desire to kill her sister, to end that life. No matter what she had done, she seemed to be quite close to being nothing at the moment. 

Her murmurs couldn’t even be called answers, the sentences weren’t coherent and it was hard to determine whether she seemed to understand who was standing here, who was looming over her. Maybe Jennifer had not been as afraid of her as anyone else who had known the powers Freya possessed, but she would have been afraid right now, especially in this state. 

“Jennifer?” Freya raised her eyebrows while the insults thrummed in her ears. Jennifer might have been the braver one of them, they both knew where it had led and how it had ended. Sometimes bravery could be as much of a curse as ambition. It could poison your brain, especially when that ambition is to overthrow someone way more powerful than you. “I came here to end your life. It seems like I would be doing you a favor.”

She’d always been brave, fearless to the point of reckless but she’d needed to be to do great things, to perform the acts that been performed, she’d gone beyond what any other of her kind had attempted and- experiments results were inconclusive, further tests needed to- study more, got to study more as good girls should or else- She closed her eyes. The cacophony of thoughts rising up like the peak of a tsunami only to come crashing down and wash everything else away.

Away... away. It was all gone; what she’d worked for, how could she finish her great plans like this? Alone. Mary-The Virgin?-The Bitch had left her, Rain poured away never to be seen...

Catching Freya’s words, probably a while after she’d spoken them, Jennifer blinked, end of life? Death-DEATH!? What would that be like? And end- finished-complete-with our lord- and maybe silence? Quiet at last from the noise, too much noise clicking, screaming, wailing, whining all because of death-DEath! It was not to be feared! It was a gift! A gift she could give-

Give... give... take and give and find and use-use a coffin, coffin? Her coffin for death? No. Another coffin. Jennifer’s head tilted back, some strands of grimy hair falling away to reveal more of her face, her mouth (slightly agape) opened wider and curled up into a disturbing smile and what followed was an equally disturbing laugh that echoed off the empty space around them.

Jennifer was broken beyond repair it seemed and Freya wanted to feel the joy she had always thought this moment would bring her. But somehow she had always hoped that her destroying her family, or those people she had wanted to be her family but had never bothered to act like one, would be a display of her own strength and power, would be given to her by the old Gods who had given her much more than she would have asked for, would have wanted, would have wished for.

There was no fair fight or epic display of her new talents to be found here in this situation.

Jennifer was barely a shell of who she had been before. She looked like a broken toy with the batteries taken out. She looked like someone who was simply waiting for death to knock on her door and take her away from this miserable place. 

In a way Freya should be relieved that this would be easy, maybe not even a fight. But there was a part in Freya that refused to simply attack a defenseless woman, no matter if that woman had caused so much chaos and death. She didn’t need to hurry. After all, if Jennifer had wanted to go anywhere, she would have done so by now. 

“You’re not so fierce and strong now anymore, are you?” She lifted her chin and stared at the sister who had never felt like one, had never really been one. “I came to end your life, but it almost seems like I would do you a favor by doing so.”

It was odd, why was she here- here? Who was here? The woman - the murderer! No... No... No murderer. The one who couldn’t kill... fool. There was no fear in Jennifer’s single-eyed gaze, and a hazy recognition at best, as though she were fighting hard to simply remember anything. Remember what? Death... only death- God have mercy. No mercy. There would be none; she gave none. Why should some be given? Given treatment to cure all wounds, just for a good girl, a good girl...

“No good girls...” she whispered. Eye still fixed on the witch before her.

Who was talking, what was she saying? Hearing was hard, speaking was hard, all so hard... so much noise. A din, constant din in a dim place all alone but not. Never alone, voices, people, eyes, thoughts, hands, legs-SPIDERS always there and never silent, quiet was faded, gone...

The body moved slightly, the clink of the manacles around her worn wrists was just another loud noise to her ears, to her mind a mind in pieces but with a strong thread between that had yet to snap, bloodied, not unbound.

Enough that she could raise her head, dirt on her face, mangled hair still covering most of it, “Bitch.” she muttered, “C-coward.” came next, the two words enough to put a ludicrously bright smile upon the deadened face.

Freya had to admit that she was not as pleased with the sight as she had thought she would be. Somehow she had imagined herself to feel triumphant or victorious when she would bring Jennifer down, but there wasn’t much honor in killing someone who was already down to her knees and weak to begin with. Jennifer was in a more horrible state than Freya could have imagined though and she let her eyes wander over the once so fierce and pretty woman.

It seemed as if every part of her, both the physical and the mental parts, was broken into a thousand pieces, shattered all over what used to be. She looked like she had not gotten anything to eat for a long while and there was a certain hollowness in her eyes that almost scared Freya, especially because somehow she could have imagined her to look like this if life had chosen a different course.

“Well, well…” Freya’s heels ticked on the pavement while she walked closer to Jennifer. “I was prepared to find an empty house and some cryptic hints to where you might have gone, but it seemed someone made sure you couldn’t go anywhere.” Her amusement reached her voice, but it wasn’t the amusement she had hoped for, it wasn’t that amusing. Maybe she had actually been looking forward to a more fair fight.

So many thoughts all in one head, it was a constant barrage of alternating narratives stuck in moments of anger, fear, confusion. She’d given up. Jennifer rarely thought much nowadays, instead she listened to the constant hum of words emitting from her mouth and was carried on the convoluted loop of thought after thought. It was a prision but she built her own little cell, the monster thoughts raged outside but within it was dark, it was nothing, she’d become nothing.

And lacked the strength to care.

She noticed the elder witch, heard her words but they took time to process over the roar-like hum of her own madness. For a second the tiniest flicker of hope flared, that help was here to fix her to take away all the-SPIDERS-DEAR GOD- the noise... Had see seen Mary (the virgin?) it was so hard to remember. Rain-to wash the spider out-was gone and she could not save herself.

The single-visible eye blinked slowly and reopened with an ember of recognition. The hum of her word grew slightly louder; it took so much to-Read books when there are no books- or work! MUST WORK! Talk over all those clamouring to be heard... So much effort for one so tired. The hum went on and on and on and- “Freya-” her voice seemed almost hoarse when used by choice, and the silence that followed all the heavier for it.

graphics battle // scottinpanties vs thenemeton ↳round two: jennifer x kate + four square graphic 

Anger ran through Freya’s veins, although she was not entirely sure what made her more angry. The fact that she had not realized that Jennifer was powerful enough to kill an Alpha werewolf, or the fact that Jennifer really had had the courage to continue the ritual even though Freya had warned her what the consequences would be.

No matter what Jennifer said, there was a certain line that no one could cross. Blood sacrifices had always made Freya a little sick, but this one had been too big to justify, especially since Freya didn’t get the impression that this town under the control of Jennifer would be much better off. 

Actually she should have known when the news of the Alpha werewolf dying that someone powerful had been involved. Which means she shouldn’t have needed those conspiracy articles in the newspaper to discover the truth. She should have been searching for Jennifer weeks ago already. Who knew what other damage the girl could have done in the mean time? 

But today Freya was going to end this for once and for all. If Jennifer could justify her killings because it was for the greater good, she could justify killing Jennifer because of the very same reason. One life to save all those she would have killed to complete the ritual and to save all the ones that would have gone lost during the war that would have without a doubt followed. 

Freya stared at the address on the note in her hand once more and then she stared at the small cabin. Luckily there were certain traditions that she was becoming quite familiar with and therefore it had not been too hard to gather the information on where Jennifer, according to her official files, was living. Of course, it would have been smarter if she would have left this place after the damage she had already done, but Freya had to start somewhere and maybe Jennifer had left some tracks that could lead her to Jennifer’s actual whereabouts.

Freya knocked on the door of the cabin just in case, but after a few moments of not getting any answer she used her magic to break the spell that was used to keep the door locked. The cabin seemed lost, deserted for quite some time, but when Freya opened another door she stood still and stopped breathing. Jennifer had not left her cabin. It seemed someone had left Jennifer hear, as an easy target for Freya to kill.

Time was a concept long gone past Jennifer’s capacity to note; it just seemed to keep going and going while her mind kept whirling and whirling. What sanity, what control, had remained was ripped to tatters against the barrage of so many others vying for dominance within her mind. Her long hair was matted and caked with dust, dirt and other grim substances, her face seemed hollow, cheek bones more pronounced as weight had lost, her clothes hung too loosely to her skeletal frame which was curled in the darkest corner of the cabin.

The manacles were still taught around her wrists, the skin there ragged and raw, crusty with dried blood from weeks of incoherent struggling. Worst though, was the murmuring, the near-constant stream of whispered words flying one after the other into the musty room like dust motes illuminated by the light of a window. Too fast, too low to really make sense of and all the more disconcerting for it. 

She remained in the fetal position in the corner, her hair half concealing her dirty face but a single-glassy eye was visible and it locked onto Freya the moment the door was opened; aside from that, the mad witch showed now indication that she’d noticed the other’s presence.