InsaneJournal

Who: Elijah and Freya
What: Catching up while converting a coffin
When: 2nd week of October
Where: Freya and Klaus’ apartment
Warnings: Low
Status: Log | Complete

The whole coffin thing was admittedly a bit morbid and true, Freya probably could have just found a way to get rid of it. But there was some sort of draw to the thing despite what it represented. Plus, with the arrival of her grimoire and spell books, plus the poison from the dreams and the fact that Freya had a feeling she would be going out to buy things to do magic with (admittedly an odd idea but not so odd at the same time), a bookshelf of sorts for just that purpose sort of made sense.

At present, Freya was waiting for Elijah to show up. After the whole incident at her parents’, she knew that he was going to worry unnecessarily, just like Klaus had spent the previous week doing, so this would serve as a way to prove that yes she was fine now. He wouldn’t stop just like she wouldn’t stop worrying about her own siblings, however if it even helped to reassure him even slightly? Freya would call it a win.

As it was, Klaus had said something about needing to do some preparations for the art gallery he was opening so it would just be the two of them.

Elijah was worried. He felt it to be a reasonable response to his sister spontaneously bleeding from places she wasn’t supposed to bleed from. Then again, he had some vague idea of what was occurring. He didn’t find it to be an unnecessary sort of concern. He was more than aware that she would try to brush it off, however, and act like it was just something that happened. It wasn’t something to worry about if your name was Freya and you were wrong.

Coffins were a...well, they were an interesting subject. He’d woken up to quite a few things. At least he could destroy the coffin. Part of it was to help with his general frustration, but he didn’t trust it. He hadn’t really mentioned the dagger to anyone outside of the people who knew. He was decidedly not telling Klaus about it. As long as it didn’t have the ash to go with it, it was mostly harmless, but White Oak trees did exist here. If his brother so desired it, he could find a way to make the ash. He just hoped Klaus didn’t consider that.

Knocking, Elijah listened for his sister’s heartbeat through the door. He was relieved to find that it was beating at a normal rate and it wasn’t doing anything particularly crazy. Her breathing seemed even as well. Hopefully it would remain the same.

Elijah would worry and Freya would say it was nothing. It was a typical dynamic really, which was why she had made her quip about how they could both pretend this was just about converting a coffin into a bookshelf of sorts and not just an excuse Elijah could use to check up on her. Still, it was preferable to Klaus’ hovering.

Though she was also aware of objects showing up she didn’t want to explain. Yes, she had made the mistake to mention the poison to Vincent and it was bound to come up again simply because it was one of the things that would be placed in the bookshelf they were to make.

Hearing the knock at the door, Freya left the kitchen and went to the main room and opened the door.

“Elijah,” Smiling, she hugged her brother and stepped back, “Come on in. Want anything to drink?” Not that he hadn’t been there before but manners and all.

The arrival of the coffin had been an interesting morning conversation that consisted of stating it all matter of fact like and Klaus just claiming he hadn’t had his coffee yet and then how it was better than a horse head. Everything was relative.

To be fair, there were a lot of things that seemed to be considered normal for them. Elijah had a habit of worrying and then rolling his eyes when his sister returned the favor. They seemed to be well matched in that respect and it was easy to feel like the parents when things got complicated. He’d been doing better, all the same, at not making everything about his family. Even if he did have a terrible habit of silently worrying. He just tried not to let it seep into everything. Whether or not that was successful was still up for debate.

He stilled for a moment at the hug before returning it. It felt unusual, which probably said something about their family. Then again, it wasn’t like he’d never been hugged before. Perhaps not by their parents, but his siblings had hugged him.

“I spend almost all my money on alcohol these days, so yes. Please.” It helped when things got a little too much. He hadn’t accidentally killed anyone in a while. He tried to avoid purposeful murder as well. Still, the drink helped. He just tried not to drink when he had things to do...like work. That always seemed suspicious. He couldn’t very well explain that he was a vampire and it helped. Then again, he could always compel people to forget, but that was a mildly questionable habit.

“So where is this infamous coffin?”

Freya did her best not to read anything into the stilling before the hug. She knew that their family was… different. Though she had always been a bit more physically affectionate and it wasn’t like they hadn’t hugged one another before. But with centuries of only having Dahlia in the dreams, it was frustrating. No matter though.

“Coming up.” Heading to the liquor cabinet (because of course even if it had been less than a month since she and Klaus had moved to this apartment, they had made sure to stock up on alcohol), Freya poured Elijah a drink and herself one as well before heading back to her brother.

“Here you go. As for the coffin, it’s this way.”

With that, Freya led Elijah to her room. The coffin was currently laying down on the floor, the glass cover covered in dust, along with boards and whatever else would be needed for making the coffin into a bookshelf that would close and open. To the side were the grimoire and spell books, plus the poison, a large knotted rope she was working on magically - all ready to be put away once this project was done.

Elijah took the drink and followed Freya. He kept his attention on her heart rate and her breathing, making sure that she was still okay. “Thank you for the drink.”

The sight of the coffin brought him a moment of pause. It was different from his own. His had been wooden completely. All the better to keep anyone from knowing he was there. Then again, who really knew where his coffin would be unless Klaus told them. He wasn’t even entirely sure where his coffin was now and that was all since Klaus had daggered him once again. It was certainly something. He hadn’t dreamt for a little while since that. Now he was wondering if that was the end or just a brief pause in the madness.

“I don’t think that it should be too difficult. We may need something more solid for it to stand on, however.” But maybe the base that already existed would be well enough. He glanced up at Freya for a moment, studying her. “We should probably start by drilling holes.”

“Of course.” It seemed par the course for her siblings with the alcohol. Not that she could blame them. And given Elijah with his vampire abilities, she had a feeling that alcohol didn’t have quite the same effect on him anymore.

The coffin was something to look at. Freya was also going to clean off the dust of the top of it. She still wasn’t completely sure her thoughts about it, she just had a pull to it and that was why it was remaining. As something a bit more useful as it wasn’t like she was going to be doing any century long sleeping stints only to be awake for one year while she gained more magic. And as magical supplies and books showed up and would also be purchased? An answer.

“Probably. Though it might also make sense to measure where the shelving will be before we drill holes?” Even as she said that though, Freya moved to the coffin to remove the the glass top as it would be in their way no matter what they did first.

Alcohol had very little effect. He had to drink quite a lot to even manage a buzz, but the buzz never lasted for very long. It was frustrating, but the drink did rather keep him from running off drinking everyone’s blood some days, so that was helpful. It kept him from craving it as much as he did. He couldn’t drink during work, but he could at least drink when he wasn’t.

“Yes. I suppose that would make sense.” He looked at the coffin quietly, wondering where and how long this had been his sister’s home before it stopped being that way. It was curious to think that even those who were not vampires had ended up with coffins, though, he supposed not entirely strange. Just that those had been prisons just the same as theirs.

He focused once more on her heart rate, gaze on his sister once more. “How long did you stay in this coffin?”

Nodding, Freya found a piece of chalk she’d gotten as well as a measuring tape so that she could do the measurements, motioning to Elijah to hold said measuring tape so that she could have her hands free for the markings that needed to be placed. Okay. A bit unsettling to be kneeling in front of the coffin but maybe not as unsettling as it should be.

She did pause at the question, trying to work the math out in her head. She’d dreamt of 1914, so working backwards…

“Around a thousand years I guess. Along with linking our lives together, Dahlia did what is essentially an immortality spell. We sleep for a hundred years while we accrue magic over that time and then for one year, we get to live. Only to go back into the sleep. During that sleep, we are in a Chambre de Chasse, or a dreamscape.”

It all sounded technical, but there was nothing quite so simple about it. Even on the run, Freya was still at Dahlia’s mercy in terms of being forced into the spelled sleep. But better to speak of it in the mechanical aspects of it than dwell on the emotional and traumatizing aspects.

Elijah held the measuring tape for his sister as she worked. It wasn’t as strange to be around the coffin, but Elijah trusted it about as much as he trusted any coffin, which was not at all. They weren’t really trustworthy.

His brow furrowed slightly at what she said. Dahlia was his least favorite person. It only got to be a stronger feeling the more that he learned about her. “I’m sorry that you had to deal with that.” And he was. It was unfair that she had to deal with all of that. It was unfair that their family had used them all the way it had. He knew that dying wouldn’t have given them a chance to see their sister again, but it also would have kept them from turning into monsters.

Finishing up marking where they were to drill the holes, Freya stood up and dusted her hands on her pants absently. She wasn’t really sure what else there was to say about it. Based on what she had dreamt of in regards to her siblings, well it was rather unsettling how normal it had seemed for Klaus to dagger a brother while Elijah held him in place. Though that was the dreams. Still, she did wonder if her siblings would show up more in her dreams, if they would actually interact instead of her just observing for that glimpse of the family she had lost.

“It is what it is.” It shouldn’t be but that was what it was, “Though who knows, perhaps we’ll get to run into one another in dreams.” Actually run into one another that is. “So, drilling now?”

Elijah was still catching up in terms of the dreams. The lack of chronological order kept things from making sense most of the time. It also kept his possibility of hearing about things before knowing them quite high. He was waiting for his apparent Katerina-looking fiancee from the past to show up, but so far, he’d seen nothing. The only one that looked like Katherine was Elena. He frowned.

“One can only hope we find one another in the dreams. It seems all very depressing otherwise.” He’d only really been around Klaus and Rebekah for years with the occasional Finn and Kol, but last he knew, Kol was dead. He just didn’t mention that. Elena and her friends. Not to mention Finn trying to kill them all by being killed himself by their mother. “Yes. Drilling now.”

He shook himself out of his thoughts and pushed them off to the side, focusing on drilling the holes where his sister had marked.

Freya quirked a brow at the frown. She knew that there was a lot in the dreams she didn’t understand because she wasn’t there. She had her own demons to deal with thanks to Dahlia and always being on the run. She also had seen a brief glimpse of the family she so longed to be part of in the dreams, only to see how easily they could turn on one another where daggering a sibling at Christmas didn’t seem at all odd.

However, they were still family, the one she was desperate to be part of. They just needed to be reminded of that. There was strength in the vows they had made.

“Yes, it would be far too depressing if our paths never converged or always just missed.”

But yes. Drilling and turning this coffin into a bookshelf while having drinks. It was apparently the new Mikaelson way.

“It would be,” he agreed. The world of their dreams was never likely to be perfect and always likely to be riddled with the ridiculous and emotionally draining, but at least now that he knew his sister was alive in the dreams, he could hope that somehow they’d find one another and stick together. Maybe they’d be better than they were.

It was a stretch, but...well, they seemed to be doing relatively well here.

Luckily there were things to focus on, like drinking and the bookshelf-coffin, work, most anything else. “I believe we’ll meet again. It would be difficult to keep us apart. We’re Mikaelsons.”