{2.01 | I'll Never Give Up Hope | part one}
MAY
He walked into the cemetery with a small vase of flowers in his hands. Simple yet beautiful, the marigolds swayed gently in the breeze. Careful with each step, as if afraid of the wrath of the dormant spirits, he shuffled in front of the new grave at the edge of the cemetery. He placed the vase onto the dirt, cautious of disturbing it.
His grandmother had always told him about spirits, warning him of what would happen to him if he disturbed the dead, but she also reminded him of their kindness, and just how loving they were in life.
"So," Felix breathed out as he sat down across from the headstone, "this wasn't how I pictured seeing you again. Except we've switched places this time, Ellie."
The Mystic Falls Cemetery was quiet in the Virginia heat. The typical visitors already called it a day, granting the newest Salvatore student an opportune moment to visit.
"It took me ages to find you, y'know? Spent weeks following your trail. You went back and forth, making it harder for me to even figure out where to start. Hell, I couldn't even start untilâ well, until I dealt with this." Felix gestured towards the daylight ring on his right hand then held it out as if to show it to the grave. "It's insane how much we depend on sunlight. Going without it honestly felt impossible, but then I bumped into this blond guyâ you wouldn't have liked him, honestlyâ at a bar in Philly and he told me about this place. I thought, 'well, might as well go and take a look.' And to my luck you were here." He let out a sigh, pulling his knees to his chest. "But I... was too late."
He let an eerie silence fall over the graveyard, folding his arms on top of his knees. He placed his chin on them and stared at the freshly carved headstone, neatly adorned with a bed of flowers at the base.
Elara Davenport
Nov. 2, 2012 - April 19, 2030
Daughter and Beloved Friend
"At least your headstone looks better than mine," he joked.
Death wasn't a stranger to Felix Sykes. He'd lost his grandmother, his only living family, weeks after he'd been placed in the foster care system. His parents weren't meant to be parents, spending most of their days away from their home and Felix, but his grandmother knew that a child deserved at the very least one parent. She was fighting the legal battle to gain custody of him when her cancer grew worse.
Felix still blamed the stress from his case as the cause of her bad health.
Then, well, his own death happened months before. Granted, he didn't remember that much about the incident, but he remembered waking up after it and the fear and guilt that coursed through him.
"I-I heard from Dr. Saltzman about what happened-- well, what he was told happened. How you risked your life to save his daughters. How you then risked your life to save Landon and stop Malivore. The Elara I knew wouldn't have done any of that. She wasn't a hero." He couldn't help but grin, picturing the offended pinch of her eyebrows and incredulous tilt of her head she often showed at his teasing. "But the Elara that I heard about was. You became her, even if you didn't have any plans to."
He sat there for minutes, hours maybe, just talking to whatever would listen, and he wondered if her spirit could hear him. It was possible, he learned, for spirits to listen to the living.
The snapping of a branch at the entrance to the cemetery pulled him away from his small tangent about what he'd learned a vampire could do, which ironically was something he was still getting used to, and the sound of the branch made him flinch.
He couldn't see the newcomer from where he sat, but that didn't worry him. With Malivore defeated nearly two weeks before, he didn't have to worry about a monster appearing out of nowhere.
But he paused, waiting for the newcomer to approach or leave. In his short time in Mystic Falls-- years before he even met Elara-- he never heard a single thing about the supernatural, which meant the other locals were in the same boat. He didn't want a random citizen to hear him talking about his vampirism.
Or have them hear him talking to a grave, which wasn't normal either.
A familiar head of black curly head poked into Felix's view then a torso wearing a Salvatore school shirt. Felix shot him a friendly smile.
"I'm not interrupting, am I?" Landon asked cautiously. He and Felix hadn't spoken much, but they knew who the other was. Landon had seen the picture of the vampire, been told about him by the very person they were visiting.
"Not really," Felix said, shrugging. "I was starting to ramble, honestly."
"I, uh, do that, too," admitted Landon. He gestured towards the empty spot on the ground. "Mind if I join?"
Felix shook his head. "Not at all. I was just talking to her."
"I can always come back later, Felix-"
"No, really, I insist," Felix interjected. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "You lost her, too, Landon."
"She wasn't my foster sister."
"She wasn't, but she was your friend."
Landon offered a polite smile at that as he sat on the gravel, careful not to kick up dust. They sat in silence for a moment as both of them figured out what to say.
"My grandmother used to talk about spirits like they were real," Felix suddenly confessed. He didn't know Landon, not really, but he understood the pain of the foster system. That pain was something he knew they'd always share. "She'd talk about how they'd try and reach their loved ones by trying to touch our world. They could see and hear everything, but they couldn't touch it. Some could. They'd push over things in people's homes or run a cold hand down their backs. Like they were just trying to let the living know they were there."
"Makes sense." Landon leaned on one hand. "I mean, there's a lot of magic that uses the strength of the spirits, and witches have recorded being able to talk with them. Maybe she is listening to us and trying to reach out," he voiced.
"Maybe." Felix sighed, fidgeting with his daylight ring. He shot Landon a curious look. "Were you coming to talk to her, too?"
Landon nodded.
"Josie and Lizzie came by yesterday to see her, too. So did one of the wolf guys. It's kinda funny." At Landon's confused brow raise, Felix clarified, "Ellie always emphasized how much she avoided friends, yet it seems like she ended up with a lot of good one here."
"I don't know if I'd say she and I were good ones," Landon began, but he didn't finish. Right before Elara (somehow) defeated Malivore, he remembered being angry with her. He remembered her punching him in the face and threatening him, yet at the same time, he felt like he deserved it, the same way that she deserved his anger.
He remembered Elara hurting him, but he couldn't remember how she did.
Landon cleared his throat. "But there were a lot of good moments, and we, uh, were friends. To be honest, I... don't remember why I was mad in the first place."
"You don't remember?"
"No. Malivore probably played a part in that, and truthfully it is hard to be completely mad at her." He tapped his fingers on his knee as if debating his own words. "She believed in me when no one else did."
Felix smiled sadly at him. "I believe in you, Landon."
Landon couldn't help but laugh at that. "You're not serious."
"I am!" Felix was quick to respond. "Ellie was the type of person to analyze the crap out of everything and everyone, which often made her a little paranoid, but it meant she could find the right people to be around. If you weren't a good person, I doubt she would've befriended you."
Weirdly enough, Landon found that comforting.
They talked for a while longer, both talking about their own foster siblings, but eventually Landon had to leave. He'd developed a schedule of when to meet Rafael at the Olde Mill, and he wasn't going to miss it.
Another hour passed before Felix left. Reluctantly, he rose to his feet. The Salvatore School didn't have an exact curfew for the few students who stayed during the summer, but Felix knew it was time to leave.
With him gone, the cemetery became empty once more, nothing but stray critters and lingering spirits moving throughout the falling night. The sun set just beneath the horizon, coating the the town of Mystic Falls in shadow once more.
An owl landed on the headstone, hooting softly. It turned its head as it examined the area in search of prey. Calm and collected, safe in the silence.
Until the splintering of wood startled the bird away. Cracking, breaking, burning came from the dirt under the headstone. Black smoke pushed through, growing bigger and bigger as the dirt fell deeper and deeper into the grave before bright orange flames forced themselves to the surface.
Then a hand shot through the earth, wearing a ring on the middle finger.
~-~-~
As much as an expert Josie Saltzman was with emotions, she always struggled with her own.
And processing the death of her friend was one the biggest obstacles.
Josie did her best to stay positive, focusing her attention on preparing for finals despite them happening at the end of the month, helping Dorian organize the library although the copies of books on werewolves made her feel sick, and figuring out how to stop the Merge.
Lizzie was hurting, too. She found other ways to distract herself, and their newfound determination to no longer be codependent made the lines between codependent and helpful hard to see.
Josie was in the library, helping Dorian manually reshelve books. Like every other night Josie spent in there, they worked in silence. Josie would just grab a stack and disappear into the shelves.
That night, she strayed from her norm, sitting at one of the tables with an open book.
"Anything interesting?"
She didn't need to turn to know who it was.
"Maybe," Josie sighed, leaning back. "If I could read French."
"I can," Felix said. Josie's brows raised. "But I can't understand it. Only had about a semester of high school French and didn't pay attention at all." He moved to stand on the other side of the table, leaning against it. "Why are you trying to read French anyways?"
"I don't know," she grumbled. "I just... needed to do something."
Felix eyes scanned over the page faster than humanly possible, and his lips pulled downwards into a frown. Gently, he pointed at one word.
Laurent.
"I can't read the rest of that, but I know that one-- sort of."
Josie took a deep breath and reached out for the book, closing it. "How was the visit to the cemetery?" she deflected swiftly.
Felix huffed in defeat. Getting Josie to open up about the topic was going to be difficult, especially when the twin avoided him most of the time. He had an idea why, thinking that Josie avoided him because he was a reminder of her dead friend, but he didn't understand why she always looked ashamed when she saw him.
"Good. Landon swung by at one point. We had a conversation, which is, y'know, more than usual." He twisted his daylight ring in thought-- a habit that Josie wasn't oblivious to, nor who else had always done it. "Is it.. normal? Losing people to this world?"
Josie blinked in surprise. From what she'd seen of the new kid for the past week, he joked around, attempted to avoid heavy topics. Even when her dad sat down with him after they returned to the school, he still tried to smile through his tears.
"It's--"
The sound of a vase shattering on the floor sliced through Josie's answer. It came from the hall, and they knew they had to act quickly. On alert, the duo made a dash for it, half-expecting another monster to appear. Dorian ran right behind them.
No monsters had appeared, not a single threat to the school was made in the weeks after Malivore's demise. Josie couldn't help but anticipate something going wrong.
They skidded to a halt, ready to jump into action, and took in the shocking sight before them.
Elara Laurent, covered in dirt and smelling of smoke and ash, using a dresser to properly stand.
A weak smile hit her lips, and one word escaped her.
"...hope."
Then she collapsed to the floor.
~-~-~
Elara sat on the couch in the headmaster's office, eyes trained on Alaric Saltzman as he fiddled with the kit at his side. She was watching him, but her mind was elsewhere.
Alive. She was alive. She should've been happy with that alone, but the emotions--or lack of--on her face were impossible for Alaric to read. He couldn't tell what she was thinking at all.
Tensions were high as Alaric walked past Josie to crouch down next to Elara. The results of the ballot regarding his position as Headmaster didn't end in his favor, and he may or may not have overreacted.
But there were problems bigger than that in that moment.
"Elara?" he gently called out.
She hadn't said another word since she arrived. Even when Lizzie and Josie helped her clean up and got her a clean set of clothes, she remained silent.
Felix stayed outside the office with Dorian, keeping his back to the door. Elara hadn't seen him, or remembered seeing him, and he wasn't sure how she would feel about seeing him. Hell, he wasn't even sure how he felt. He'd been burying his feelings for the past two weeks and had refused to process her death. Now he had to process her death and her resurrection.
Alaric racked his brain for anything that could explain Elara coming back from the dead. Cedric had been his friend for multiple decades before he died, but that didn't mean Cedric was keen on sharing every secret the Hellhound possessed. The Hellhound remained in hiding for several centuries because it kept its secrets close to its chest. Or mind. Or whatever.
Alaric reached over to a medical kit that he kept in his office. He didn't understand how her coming back to life was possible, not in the ways he knew, at least.
"If you poke me with that needle one more time, I'm going to stop being cooperative," Elara said through clenched teeth. At the rasp in her voice and the suddenness of it, everyone nearly jumped out of their skin.
Hesitantly, as if afraid to push her back into silence, Alaric tried to reason, "we just have to make sure--"
"That it's not a repeat of the stupid Necromancer I get it. You don't have to stab me to figure that out," Elara interrupted. Whatever weakness had overcome her earlier seemed to vanish as she regained the energy to argue. "I wasn't brought back by some white light and memory loss." She licked her lips. "Can I have some water?"
Lizzie was the first one out of the office to answer the request, surprisingly. She hadn't said much since Elara's reappearance, but her relief was evident on her face.
Elara was alive. Granted, she looked like she'd been through hell and back, but she was alive.
She sighed, pushing her damp hair back and out of her face.
"What did you see?" Josie asked in a whisper from her dad's old desk.
Her neutral expression shifted to a hardened mask, and Elara turned her gaze to the twin. The last time either of them had seen each other, Josie had been dying from the same thing that killed Elara, and they'd made some sort of peace, but the brief look in Elara's eyes made the twin wonder if that peace had been forgotten.
Slowly, her eyes softened at the sight of her friend. Thoughts of seeing Josie dying covered thoughts of her betrayal, and Elara couldn't understand how she felt. She barely understood what she even went through the past two weeks.
"Nothing," she said blankly. Josie almost would've believed her if she didn't catch Elara subtly picking at one of her nails. Elara was great at lying, almost an expert, so Josie had to learn all of her tells. "I saw nothing. It was dark and cold, and I was stuck there the entire time I was dead. One out of ten. Would not recommend."
Lizzie returned with the water, handing the glass to Elara as she took a seat on the far side of the couch. Elara didn't seem to mind the twin joining her on the couch.
"What do you remember?" Alaric asked as he closed the kit.
"I remember getting shot trying to protect your daughters, Ricky," Elara answered.
Alaric's eyes widened at the nickname. Only one person had ever called him Ricky, and he'd been dead for eleven years.
"Then I drove to TRIAD and saved Landon," Elara continued, tapping her fingers on the glass. "Oh, and then I died a slow and painful death after realizing I got hit with Maligoo. Alone."
At the silence, Elara continued with a sigh. "I'm still me. A little agitated and hungry enough to eat an actual horse but still me."
"...How are you here?"
She took a long sip from the glass before she answered. A tense pause filled the air when Elara took a deep breath. She knew the next words that she was about to say would change everything.
She still remembered the last voice she heard before succumbing to the darkness, a voice that felt all too familiar, yet she couldn't explain it. The voice sounded like her own combined with someone else's. It felt safe. It felt powerful.
It made her feel indestructible.
The heat swelled in her chest, then pushed its way throughout her tired body. She felt her muscles tighten, felt the weight that never left her shoulders shifting, and she closed her eyes.
When she opened them, they glowed a vibrant color like a werewolf, but the amber had been replaced by a burning orange.
"Because my name is Elara Laurent, and I am the Hellhound."
~-~-~
The night kept on without pause. An event as momentous as the Hellhound coming back to life couldn't stop its cycle.
There was so much to learn about the Hellhound, but she had to relearn control first.
Elara had gone to her room and settled into her window, staring out of it at the stars. Everything felt familiar, everything felt solid, yet she felt out of place. Her mind moved at a mile a second, jumping from place to place.
One moment she was in the room, staring at the confusing pages of her father's journal, and the next she was standing in what used to be a living room, arguing with Damon Salvatore himself.
Much like a werewolf's mind, hers was divided between the human part and the Hellhound part. There were memories that belonged to her and memories that belonged to the Hellhound. The only difference between that and a werewolf's was that the lines blurred much more for her.
Elara closed her eyes. Her oldest memory had been when she was six years old, right when she moved into her first foster home, but the Hellhound changed that. The Hellhound's memories were now hers; its skills were now hers.
She leaned her head down, feeling a wave of dizziness. It felt the same as when the anti-magic had breached the school. Then she was suddenly yanked back to the beach.
Her fingers dipped into the sands beneath her, their warmth encasing her skin like a comforting hug. She thought she was alone, looking up and down the entire stretch of the beach. A part of her knew she was back in South Carolina-- back on the beach her foster family had frequented.
"Am I dead?" she questioned out loud, looking down at herself. She wore the clothes from before, the ones she stormed off to save Landon in, but the hole from the bullet was gone, and the blood on her shirt had vanished.
What was the point in questioning it? She knew she was. Elara died in TRIAD's field, not on a beach. The Maligoo had killed her, and she had died all alone.
"Yes," the air suddenly responded. It shifted around her then moved out of view. "And no."
She heard footsteps. They grew louder and louder until they were gone, then a figure appeared before her, as if shaping itself from the light of the setting sun.
Cedric Laurent, wearing a yellow, Salvatore sweatshirt and a big smile, stood in front of her.
"Oh, what the--"
Then she was back in her dorm room.
She shook her head to reorientate herself. That had all been in her head. In reality, she was in her room, sitting in her window.
Elara took a deep breath, focusing her eyes on the extra bed in her room.
"My name is Elara Laurent," she muttered to herself. "This is real, and I'm alive. My name is Elara Laurent. This is real, and I'm alive."
She repeated the words under her breath two more times. He'd advised her to do it, to find something true that she could focus on. Grounding was one of the important things for her to do. It kept her there, it kept her tethered.
Learning about the Hellhound and its place in her mind and body was going to take ages, he explained, and she had no choice but to listen.
Or else she'd prove Alaric Saltzman right.
A hesitant knock at the door cut her off. After the twins led her back to her dorm, everyone had left her alone despite their curiosities. It wasn't every day the girl who died defeating Malivore came back from the dead.
Elara rose from her perch and slowly approached the door. She listened for any noises outside her door: a heartbeat, someone breathing, and she figured out it was just one person. She opened the door fully, standing in the way.
Lizzie Saltzman stood there. She smiled at Elara, her constant fidgeting exposing her nerves, and Elara lifted a brow at that. In her short-ish time at the school, the two hadn't been very close, only associating with each other when it involved Josie, but things had changed as the semester went on. They were frenemies, sure, but a part of Elara knew she and Lizzie shared more similarities than either of them wanted to admit.
"Hi! I didn't know you'd be in here," Lizzie blurted.
"...You walked me back here," Elara reminded. She took a step back from her doorway, keeping a light grip on the edge of the door. If she pulled just a little too hard, she knew she would rip it off of its hinges.
"Right, right. Totally forgot about that." Lizzie clasped her hands together. "How silly of me-"
"-What do you want?" Elara cut her off. She hadn't meant to sound curt, but she was still learning to control her anger again.
Lizzie smiled nervously. "I wanted to check on you, see if you're in a better mindset... because there's a lot you missed."
Elara rubbed her jaw. Lizzie was right. While Elara was dead and trapped inside her own mind (even though she wasn't going to share that fact with anyone yet), the outside world kept moving. She sighed, deciding to at least hear Lizzie out.
With a nod of confirmation from the older girl, Lizzie took a step backwards. "Okay," she began, "so, while you were, ah, gone, a new face decided to show up at the school. My dad didn't think it was best if you met him yet, but I thought it might help. The guy mentioned Roman, talked about finding his way here, and, well..."
Elara lifted a brow. "Well, what?"
"It's better if I just show you." Lizzie turned her head to the side and nodded.
At a speed normal for vampires, Felix walked down the hallway. When he stopped, reuniting speeds with the slower supernaturals, Elara's fingers dented the wooden door.
Her breathing quickened, her eyes widened, and Elara felt her chest tighten.
Felix. Alexander. Sykes. Alive and in the flesh.
Lizzie wasn't sure what reaction she expected out of Elara, but she didn't expect Elara to look afraid.
Elara let go of the door, taking a step back. Her hand instinctively reached for the ring on her hand. Her eyes darted between Felix and Lizzie.
"This- this isn't real-- it's not possible," Elara whispered, her voice shaking. She lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut. "I killed him. I killed him..."
Felix glanced back at Lizzie, who looked equally confused about what to do.
Elara took another step back, placing her face in her hands as if to hide behind them.
"My name is Elara Laurent. I'm alive, and this is real." Even through her hands, they heard her voice crack. "My name is Elara Laurent. I'm alive, and this is real. My name is Elara Laurent-"
"I'm alive," Felix reassured. He stepped right in front of Elara, hesitantly reaching out a hand towards her shoulder. His cool hand warmed at the unnatural heat radiating off of her. "This is real, Ellie."
Hesitantly, Elara peeled her hands away from her face, looking straight at her foster brother. His hand was on her shoulder. He wasn't a figment of her imagination. He wasn't just a memory. He was real.
"Felix," she sobbed as she threw her arms around him and pulled him into a hug that would've crushed a human. Her tears fell free, and she didn't care if Lizzie saw in that moment.
Felix returned the hug as tightly as Elara did, nearly lifting her off the ground, and Lizzie smiled warmly at the sight.
A lot had happened in the past few weeks. Monsters terrorized the Salvatore school, TRIAD attempted to raid the school, Elara died, Malivore was defeated, Alaric got the boot as headmaster, Elara's allegedly dead foster brother arrived at the school, and then Elara came back to life.
The Hellhound made itself known in Elara's mind, pushing itself through the barrier between the wolf and the woman when she died.
It truly was a lot to process, but in that moment, almost nothing mattered to Elara as she tightened her hold on her brother like she was afraid he'd disappear if she let go.
There was one thing that remained higher in the rank, a fleeting thought that reminded Elara of something impossibly important, and Elara couldn't even remember what it was.
[a.n. howdy guys, the next few parts are going to be a bit all over the place content wise. It's probably going to be confusing at first, so feel free to comment any questions that y'all may have.
If you've made it this far thank you so much! I know there's a lot to read (like 9 and a half hours is what WP says), and I truly appreciate all of you for dedicating time to read this little story!
~NYM]