Who: Lydia and Elijah What: Lydia is having a premonition When: Oct 9 Where: Streets Rating: low
Maybe it was the full moon, but Lydia felt on edge. She wasn’t a werewolf or anything so she shouldn’t feel on edge at all and yet, she did. She hadn’t been sleeping so well the last few nights and it was bothering her. You’d think after the whole Clown Motel that the Dome would give them a break, and yet, she had to wonder.
Not that she was wondering anything at the moment.
Lydia was standing near the side of a brick wall of an establishment. She had children’s sidewalk chalk in her hand and she was writing a Latin phrase over and over again.
Quod semel factum erit, tunc revertetur
What once was will then return.
Over and over and over again.
Elijah left the apartments, on his way to pick up blood. While he still had enough for a few days, the vampire didn’t want to be caught without and tonight he found himself with time. Tonight the original decided to go for a longer walk first.
He caught a scent of Lydia in the breeze and decided to go greet the redhead. Elijah found he liked her and a friend didn’t sound like a bad idea to him.
When he approached the young woman, he found himself concerned. Why did Lydia keep writing the same Latin phrase over and over? “Lydia? Are you okay?” Elijah asked, voice full of concern.
The combination of running out of chalk and Elijah’s voice had Lydia pause. Her hand was still outstretched like it wanted to finish the sentence that was three-quarters done. She remained like that, motionless, for a long moment before Lydia blinked and her vision came back to normal. She blinked and the first thing she felt was how tired her hand was. She let out an unhappy sound that wasn’t quite pain, but was a protest as she lowered her arm. Her other hand moved to grasp the wrist of her writing arm to almost cradle it. She hadn't quite yet registered Elijah.
Elijah watched as Lydia lowered her arm, as it obviously didn’t appreciate her writing line after line after line. He could translate the words she wrote, and wondered, again, why the young woman seemed obsessed with writing that phrase again and again.
“Are you okay? Lydia?” Elijah spoke softly, so as to not startle the young woman too much. “I can help with the arm pain if you’d like.” The original didn’t move, though, realizing Lydia might need more recovery time from…he had no idea. The redhead didn’t smell strictly human, but he didn’t recognize her scent and felt more concern than anything.
Lydia jumped slightly and turned, registered who it was, then looked entirely embarrassed. Of course. This was her life, after all. The Dome really did enjoy embarrassing her, didn’t it?
“Elijah.” Which wasn’t an answer to his question, but she wanted to make sure she could trust her own voice. She was entirely back which was good. “Sorry… I’m fine.” In her mind she added dryly depending on how you define dry. “And I’ll be okay.” She had a sneaking suspicion he was about to say ‘by drinking my blood’ and Lydia would have to pass. It’d be an even great irony for her to suddenly end up tasting every Mikaelson brother or something.
She looked back at the wall and really saw it for the first time. Crap. She looked like a crazy woman. “What once was will then return….” She said it out loud like it was the first time she was saying it. “Great.” She sighed. “A riddle…”
Elijah noticed the look of embarrassment and felt kind of bad. He decided then he would at least try to be a safe person for the redhead. The original vampire found he liked the young woman.
“Okay. I’ll assume you mean physically and don’t want to drink blood.” Which was fine for Elijah. He offered, but a muscle pain probably didn’t warrant a drastic measure like drinking blood. “Okay, so physically, but something obviously happened to make you write these things?” His confusion sounded plain in his voice, but he obviously wanted to check on her.
“Do you often write in riddles you are only semi-conscious while writing?”
Lydia looked back at Elijah from the words she had been studying. She thought he knew for some reason. “...I’m a Banshee. So I tend to get visions or premonitions from time to time when something’s about to happen.” Sometimes she predicted people’s deaths, but thankfully so far all those predictions hadn’t been permanent here. “The only problem is most of the time the warnings come like this.” She gestured to the wall. “I have no idea what they mean.” It was annoying in that sense. If she had a power that just said ‘zombie are coming’ or whatever then at least she could be helpful. “It also varies on how soon the event is that I pick up.”
Elijah hadn’t expected the word ‘banshee’, but he knew in this town? Plenty of people and creatures existed who didn’t at home, including different versions of vampires. At least based on a conversation he had with Miriam at the blood bank.
“So less useful and more like talking to an oracle?” Elijah asked sympathetically. Look at him trying to care. It helped that he actually liked Lydia.
She had enough time dealing with her ‘gift’ that she regarded what she was more as an annoyance now as anything to cry and pity herself over. “Sometimes.” She nodded with a half tilted of her head that was sort of like a physical sigh. “Sometimes I can see people who are about to die and stop it from happening, but it’s a lot of work to figure out who or where.” But she had stopped some people from dying and while she sometimes couldn’t either - and it was definitely not fun just waking up from sleep walking to a dead body - she at least was thankful she could help people on occasion.
“It at least means I’m not just a helpless human in a world filled with werewolves and other supernatural creatures.” Since she was technically one. She couldn’t be turned, as Peter had demonstrated, and sometimes she could defend herself. The fact that Parrish would find her if he could, being a Hellhound and drawn to her, was also a bonus… not that Parrish was here in Madison.
“...I’m surprised you didn’t already know, actually.”
Elijah listened fully. “”I’m glad you can keep people from dying.” It sounded like a lot of work, especially if it involved Lydia writing Latin phrases over and over in chalk and then deciphering what it actually meant.
“I’m glad you’re not helpless, although nothing about you strikes me as helpless.” The redhead held a fierceness that Elijah found he liked. Something about her reminded him of Hope.
“Why would I know?” Elijah sounded confused for a moment.
Lydia hesitated for a split second, but it was probably best if she explained rather than someone else. “I had a… run in with Klaus before. Not exactly this one, but the one before.” Which made things a little better, but she had run into this Klaus as well and he had not been much better. She didn’t mention Kol, but only because she liked Elijah and didn’t exactly want to come off as a psycho unable to be friends with any vampires. She got along with Mariam just fine.
At the mention of his brother, Elijah sighed. “I’d ask what my brother did, or the previous one, but with Niklaus, it wouldn’t involve a cup of tea and a chat.” Elijah could apologize for his brother, but it wouldn’t mean much coming from Elijah. Given his brothers, Elijah wouldn’t blame anyone for not getting along with them.
“I assure you, I am not my brother,” Elijah commented. “Nor do I blame you if you’re unable to get along with Niklaus.”
That was strangely comforting, she realized. While she was sure Elijah was capable of getting quite angry himself, it was also nice to see that he was reasonable. Lydia relaxed and then she nodded. “Well, thank you for that.” She wasn’t going to tell the tale unless he asked since it was in the past and kind of embarrassing now with retrospect.
“I just thought I should mention it so it doesn’t seem like I’m lying or whatever.” She liked Elijah enough to want to spend time in his company, like they had at the fair.
Deciding not to dwell any longer on that, she turned back to the wall and sighed. “I should probably find something to clean this off.” It was just chalk, thankfully, but it wasn’t like she carried around a pressure washer or anything with her on the daily.
The Original liked time with Lydia and would be happy to continue with this friendship. Perhaps a part of him felt grateful he could still make a friend, after all of these centuries. No, he wouldn’t ask what Niklaus did.
At the mention of cleaning the wall, Elijah used his vampire speed to procure a bucket of water and a couple sponges.