Freya Mikaelson is Tired™ (frelsi) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-11-14 12:43:00 |
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There were many similarities between Klaus and his dreamself. Other than being the most powerful being alive. Both grew up feeling like a mistake. Worse than a mistake, an abomination. While he knew his siblings did care for him in both places, he never truly felt loved. Here he came to learn that his siblings did love him. But in the dreams? It was Aurora. Even though she was batshit crazy he had still fallen madly in love with her. He thought she felt the same way about him. Until she told him she didn’t love him, called him a cruel, wretched thing, pathetic. Told him he was unworthy of anyone’s love. With those words ringing in his ears so early on after becoming a vampire. Not long after his mother had rejected him, spelled his werewolf side. Of course Klaus became a man incapable of love. Of course he fought out against anyone who made him feel even the slightest bit inferior. But what if Aurora had never said that to him? What if she had remained true to her original word, stood beside him and loved every part of him? Would he still have turned into the monster he became?
He needed numerous drinks while the questions floated around in his mind. By the time Freya arrived he was already a few drinks in. He consumed one more before he was ready to open up. “You’re clearly ahead in the dreams. What do you know of Aurora?”
Freya wasn’t entirely certain on where Klaus was in the Dreams seeing at how siblings betraying him (at least as he saw it since even the slightest disagreement could be treated as a betrayal depending on the day) wasn’t that uncommon. Still, since she’d been back home, she at least at determined that Klaus had at least gotten past Dahlia in the Dreams and so with everything that had happened when the first sires had shown up...well, it seemed a good guess he was somewhere in the midst of all of that.
And with her latest dream of not being able to find Elijah in his mind...a reminder of all she had missed when all she wanted was to save her siblings, be a family and having to pray they could find a way to kill the Hollow as the only other sacrifice that would work would be Marcel…. Well, drinks really weren’t that bad an idea even if it was a weekday morning.
Arriving at the bar, Freya made her way to where her brother was and motioned the bartender that she’d have the same as him.
And he was asking about Aurora.
“Well she’s the reason I woke up shot the one time.” Which she was pretty sure she had mentioned but that whole thing was a blur because of waking up shot, feeling as though she’d been buried alive and everything else that dream had entailed. That had been a bad set of dreams all things considered. “Basically she’s insane, obsessed with you and hellbent on destroying our family. Well….her, Tristan and Lucien.”
Right. Klaus remembered Freya telling him Aurora shot her because they had put Tristan in the ocean or something like that. At the time he had been outraged. And of course he still was. Aurora was completely nuts. But he had loved her at one point in time and she had loved him. They could have gone on loving each other if it hadn’t been for Elijah.
“Yes,” Klaus said with a long swallow of his drink. “That is true in present dreams.” It was the past he was more concerned about. How he became who he was.
“Tell me sister, do you believe the words of someone you love have the power to shape who you become?” He wasn’t entirely sure that made sense. But it was the best way he knew how to phrase it without flat out relaying what Elijah had compelled Aurora to do.
There were a lot of ‘what ifs’ in life, and even if they might have been happy and in love for a time, who knew what might have happened had things been different. Freya certainly didn’t know. True, she only had seen what had become of the three after they had been compelled to think that they were their sires and on the run from Mikael until they had broken the compulsion. And yet….
It was a complicated web. Nor was the phrasing Klaus used lost on Freya. Present dreams. So there was clearly more to it. She had known some of it, or at least gotten an idea of it but it wasn’t like she knew it all. She hadn’t been there after all.
Nodding in thanks to the bartender as she was given her drink, Freya looked to her brother and weighed the question he had asked. Again, a complicated question with no easy answer. After all, at the end of the day, people were responsible for their own actions and the choices they made. But how did a person come to make those decisions? She was the product of being raised by Dahlia in the dreams, but she still made her own choices.
“I think they can impact us, yes. Hear a thing enough times and you could come to believe it. Live a certain way and you fall to familiarity in how you respond. But we also have agency over ourselves and our choices.” Compulsion aside. “I think it’s possible to perhaps pinpoint a defining moment, something a loved one says, that could have a specific impact but that doesn’t change the choices we make after, either.”
“I know it doesn’t change the choices I made,” Klaus shot back defensively. He finished off his drink before continuing. This wasn’t Freya’s fault. Besides she seemed to be along the same line of thinking as he was. Yes, all those horrible decisions Klaus made were his choice. He knew that. But what if he was never led to believe he was worthless or pathetic? He couldn’t help but wonder if he would have gone down that same path. And honestly he didn’t think he would have.
Klaus signaled for another drink before continuing. “But do you think,” he went on. “That if someone wasn’t led to believe such horrible things about themselves, they could have made different choices? Would have made different choices?” He didn’t know why he was using ‘they’ instead of flat out just saying himself. He was pretty sure Freya knew he was talking about himself.
Freya didn’t even react to when Klaus responded defensively to what she had to initially say. It wasn’t like she was in any danger and honestly, she was just used to it. Besides, she knew that it was common for people to say ‘well if x didn’t happen it would have been different so not my fault’ which just wasn’t something she believed it. Experiences and situations could inform decisions and choices, but they were still choices and decisions that were made.
The eldest Mikaelson sibling also didn’t quite know why Klaus continued to use a hypothetical ‘they’ when it was clear this was about himself and something from the Dreams, Elijah based on their network conversation but she just went along with it.
“Well sure. There are plenty of what ifs that could happen based on any one thing being different. But in the end that’s all they are. What ifs that can lead down the rabbit hole of all the things that could have been as well as the things that wouldn’t be.”
Taking a sip of her own drink, Freya looked to Klaus and contemplated what to say. She had seen him work to change his initial reactions and choices as he began to see himself in a different way, had other things to fight for. Had different influences in his life, ones that made him think it was possible to not always lead with fear.
“However, I also think it’s possible to change the way you might react if you decide you want to. You see that turning point where things could have gone one way, you acknowledge it but you don’t let it define you anymore. You see how things could have been different or how you might have made different choices and start applying it to your life. Nothing is ever set in stone, we’re always changing.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Klaus replied sharply. Of course Klaus was indeed going down that rabbit hole of what ifs. And yes, he had basically just voiced all those to Freya in question form. But that wasn’t the root of what Klaus wanted to know.
“Do you believe, what a person is told, can shape who they become?” That was the heart of what he was trying to figure out. What part of him already believed deep down. If Aurora hadn’t relayed his deepest fears and insecurities about himself. If she had gone through with running off with him like they both wanted. He wouldn’t have become a monster.
Again, Freya gave no reaction to Klaus snapping at her. There were plenty of reasons she had said more than just what he had asked. Part of it was that there tended to be the follow up question of if that was all there was then, and the fact that Freya genuinely did believe that just because someone had formed into one way of being based on their life that didn’t mean they couldn’t change.
So instead she sighed.
“The reason I said what I did is because, yes, I do believe that what a person is told can shape and form who they are and become, but I also believe that just because that’s who you’ve become that doesn’t mean that’s who you always will be because we are always changing and growing.”
It really wasn’t that hard a concept to grasp but Klaus was spiraling in what ifs and so Freya would focus on the future and not the past because that usually was the only way to pull oneself out of that spiral even if said person was Klaus.
Klaus chose to ignore the part about the future. He didn’t care about whether his dreamself would change or not. Not right now. Right now he was too angry with his brother.
“So you agree. If it wasn’t for Mikael and Elijah I never would have become a monster.” Klaus practically growled the words, especially when he got to his brother’s name. He still couldn’t believe Elijah could do that to him.
Klaus was very good at picking and choosing what he wanted to hear and how he wanted to interpret what was being said. Which Freya was all too familiar with and honestly it gave her a headache at times. God she hoped this didn’t turn into a situation like after they had defeated Dahlia where one was bitter and the other obstinate and she only had tequila to deal with it.
“You still made your decisions and choices on the actions taken later on,” Which he had already acknowledged and yet he was trying to place the blame of that on others which… okay she was definitely going to need to get drunk, “But if you hadn’t heard everything from Mikael and been treated as he did you and if Elijah hadn’t acted idiotically in a moment of desperation, then sure, you would have seen yourself differently which undoubtedly would have led to different actions and choices.”
Because she also knew Elijah and while Klaus was angry at him for something from the Dreams, she knew that both here and there, Elijah wouldn’t do something to hurt Klaus just for the hell of it. They’d been on the run and he had let fear and desperation cloud his judgement. It didn’t change the fact of what was done, but it also didn’t mean that Elijah had actually been against Klaus and was plotting against him either.
“That’s all I was asking,” Klaus replied ordering another drink. He the choices were still his. But that wasn’t the point he was trying to make. The point was that without the actions of his father or Elijah he probably would have become a different person. Less of a monster. “Now let’s get drunk.”