Archive of Our Own ^beta

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife- and though Hope Andrea Mikaelson might not be a single man, she certainly was in possession of a good fortune.

Lizzie Saltzman, however, was not as graciously set in life. And therein laid the source of most and many of her problems.

Her sister Josie may not be concerned about such earthly matters as the state of their estate, or their dowry, or their birthright but she certainly was. And, if her sister was alright with going along once more to Lizzie’s antics, it certainly wouldn’t be her fault- co-dependency was a two-way street, for as much her dear sister would like to place the blame solely on her.

And it is with this specific purpose in mind that she throws open the door of her father’s study. She watches as he startles awake from his desk, and Lizzie doesn’t have to try too hard to know exactly how many hours there were since her father had last stepped outside of said study.

She wrinkles her nose at the state of his clothes, rumpled beyond imagining, and the empty bottle resting by her feet, where it had probably rolled somewhen in the past six hours.

“Good morning, father.”

Lizzie’s father might have been a handsome man, once upon a time, but his unkempt beard and red-shot eyes did well their job to hide it. It would take a lot of her imagination to see this man as the hunter he used to be, and somehow even more as the professor he was now.

Lizzie takes the grumble he lets out as a good morning and so she continues: “The Salvatore’s manor is let at last, I just heard it from Milton. It has been taken by the Kirby’s, and the master is a young man of a large fortune. We are their nearest neighbours.”

It pains her, somewhat, to have to watch her father’s blank stare. He should be the one scheming for a marriage. He should be the one protecting his legacy. And yet.

“If you could go and call on them, it could help our prospective,” she hints again, her hand resting on top of her favourite chair.

They used to spend so much time here, Josie and her. Climbing on her father’s knees while he worked. She looks around and can only find the ruins of that happiness.

“Your prospective?”

Lizzie sighs. She does hate it when he makes her spell it out. “Marriage, father. You do intend to marry us, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. But you’re still so young.”

“We’re both of twenty and two of age, father.”

“I…” Lizzie can hardly stand to watch her father’s muddled eyes, “Yes. Yes. I’ll make a call.”

“Perfect,” she claps her hands and goes for the door, “And do shave, please. We can’t have the Kirby’s think us barbarians.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer as she walks out.

She can’t bear to.

**

Though her father keeps her promise, Lizzie doesn’t manage to actually see their new neighbours until days past the conversation, despite riding near their estate every morning. She certainly doesn’t expect to see them at the Hall.

She watches as Landon Kirby enters the room, escorting- or maybe being escorted by- a short girl with auburn hair. It takes her a second to realize that may be the rumoured Mikaelson’s heir.

And for a second it seems as if the music has stopped as every person in the room turns to gawk at the newcomers.

Lizzie first thought is that she imagined her to be taller, but everything else fits what she had heard. Her hair the colour of stained red oak and her eyes a cold blue. The spitting image of her mother but with his father’s eyes if the rumours are to be believed.

And yet… “She looks miserable.”

“She can be miserable however she wants,” MG whispers in her ear, “She owns half of New Orleans.”

“The miserable half?” Lizzie quips before she can realize just how close they were to the other party. Ms Mikaelson’s eyes bear into her then, and Lizzie feels stuck in place. They turn away from her in the same instance with what looked like a flick of disgust.

Ops.

Well, there goes the possibility of an advantageous marriage for Lizzie. Though she had expected that since her first mental breakdown in the public eye at her first ball.

(No matter. Her plan had always been to present Josie anyway.)

It takes a few dances before her father manages to approach Mr Kirby, though when he does Mr Raphael is nowhere to be found- Ms Mikaelson standing instead close to his ear.

And that, she thinks, might be a hindrance.

When they are introduced, Lizzie spots the look in Mr Kirby’s eyes all too quickly. Of course. Though this could be a good thing.

“How are you liking the country, sir?”

“Very much,” Mr Kirby replies, his focus so single-minded that Lizzie almost laughs.

The silence threatens to lead to more blushing, so Lizzie intervenes. “I hear the library of the Salvatore’s Mansion is one of the finest of the country.”

“Oh, I don’t read. I mean, I do read. I just—”

Lizzie must admit, she is fascinated by the way his blush can spread so far and wide. She can track the reddish pink all the way up to the tip of his ears.

“No, I understand,” Josie says, kind-hearted as ever, “There’s always so many things to do…”

“Exactly!”

Lizzie smiles. She takes a step back, slightly, letting Josie be the one bearing the full centre of his attention.

Or she would have, had Ms Mikaelson not tugged at his sleeve right at that moment. “Come, Landon, we should be rescuing your brother. I saw him get accosted by one too many mamas already.”

The dig doesn’t escape Lizzie, and she narrows her eyes in dislike.

“Oh. Of course,” then he turns to the twins again, though, in Lizzie’s opinion, his next words are solely directed to her sister, “I hope to find you again later. For a dance, if you’ll allow me.”

Her sister’s smile is small, but the one she reserves only for family. It makes Lizzie want to smile in turn. “I’d be honoured.”

“Do you dance, Ms Mikaelson?” she asks when the silence following the lovesick stares goes on for too long.

“Not if I can help it.”

Bitch.

“Landon,” the woman urges again, tugging once more at his sleeve like a petulant child.

“Yes. Until later, Ms Saltzman,” he bows low and proper to Josie, and then nods politely at Lizzie, “Ms Elizabeth.”

They curtsy back in unison like proper twins and Lizzie finds herself studying the shorter figure's gait as they cross the room. Her gaze lingers long enough, Josie nudges her to stand upright again with a curious look in her eyes.

She waves her off, taking a flute from a nearby waiter.

The music starts soon after, and Mr Kirby is a man of his word because he soon seeks out her sister. Lizzie’s eyes, unfortunately, fall on Ms Mikaelson’s figure then, only to be rebuked at once by her short and sharp turn of the heel when their eyes meet.

She bristles quick and hot before shaking her head and focusing back on the battle at hand.

Not letting anything go wrong for her sister.

Her task seems difficult though, as her family is hated by half the people in attendance. She feels a spike of anxiety prick her heart and fire travelling under her skin. She downs her flute of champagne. When she turns for another, she finds that the Kirby’s have been trapped in conversation by one of Lizzie’s greatest admirers.

“And no mother to speak of!”

She sighs when she realizes who of their family they're probably talking about. Of course. Mrs Lilien could not be any more of a hindrance.

“Of course, that is not to say that’s the reason behind Ms Elizabeth’s—”

Lizzie decides that was well about enough and stumbles on purpose, making her glass spill on Mrs Lilien’s cheap dress. “I’m so sorry. You better go wash up. Champagne can be so difficult to clean.”

“Oh, I should—”

“Quickly,” Lizzie suggests again, and her eyes must convey her feelings because the woman shuts her loudmouth.

She whisks Landon and his brother away from Mrs Lilien before she can add anything else unsavoury about her family that could lead the puppy-eyed boy to search for another girl to dance twice with.

“She holds a grudge towards me since I’ve taken a gentleman’s dance request away from her daughter. Please don’t hold it against my family.”

Slight lie, but then again, nobody needs to be the wiser of what truly happened between her and Dana- or the reason why Mrs Lilien despises her so.

“I wouldn’t dream it,” Mr Kirby answers kindly.

“She was such a rude woman,” Mr Raphael agrees, after his brother elbows his side, with the tone of someone that doesn’t believe Lizzie's tight-lipped lie for a second.

Less sincere than his brother, then- and by the way his eyes keep following Ms Mikaelson not a possible target for the ladies of this town.

She finds herself studying Ms Mikaelson with him, observing the way she managed to stand tall even despite her stature. She certainly was fascinating. She watches as she dodges yet another request for a dance and feels the urge to roll her eyes. Though certainly not charming.

“So,” Mr Raphael continues, after yet another nudge from his brother, “Is this the way the country entertains itself?”

She knows this ball is hardly something fit for their guests, the low ceilings bearing no ornament past the candles lighting the way, but somehow she still finds herself indignant when Mr Kirby’s brother remarks upon it.

“I’m sorry it does not fit your tastes, sir.”

“That wasn’t what he meant at all, right Raphael? The music is delightful,” Mr Kirby says with a kind smile, and Lizzie smiles back.

“You did seem to like the music very much,” Lizzie says, but her eyes are pointedly staring at her twin, laughing with her friends.

“Yes,” and when she turns she finds his eyes right where she had wanted them, “I did.”

She sees MG making his way toward them and excuses herself from the two brothers. They snatch yet another flute of champagne from one of the servants and they hide in that crowd like they used to do when they were sixteen and tired of dancing.

“I thought I had lost you for a second.”

“To whom?” Lizzie stumbles- her heels are murdering her, good lord- and Milton steadies her in an instant, “Mr Kirby has eyes only for my sister.”

“He has a brother does he not?”

She rolls her eyes. “No need to be jealous. He doesn’t seem to be much impressed with anything. Much like his friend.”

“I’m not jealous,” MG quickly denies, his cheeks alighting. “Though Ms Mikaelson does seem…” he hesitates, before settling on- “Bored.”

Lizzie snorts as she downs the flute. “That’s one word for it.”

“Lizzie, shh,” he shushes her, nodding towards where the objects of their gossip were.

She rolls her eyes. “What?”

“They're talking about you.”

“They are?”

“No, don’t go any closer, Lizzie. Elizabeth!” he hisses, voice comically high pitched.

She laughs a bit at his insistence but doesn’t stop. She rests her back against one of the columns of the hall and focuses her ears on Mr Kirby's low timbre. “Her sister is agreeable and attractive; you could partner with her for a dance.”

She feels the stare on her, and Lizzie tries her best to look as if she wasn’t eavesdropping on the whole conversation. She turns to the other side of the room and raises her glass to MG, who, from the look on his face, is ready to murder her. She can’t help laughing at the sight.

“Yes,” Ms Mikaelson says at last, “Yet I would hardly call her pretty.”

Bitch.

She walks in the opposite direction in stride.

The night was soon to be over anyway, she reasoned as she fetched her father and sister. She was not escaping Ms Mikaelson’s cold stare. She wasn’t.

Their father is soon asleep in the carriage, and Lizzie has to ask the coachman to please help her bring him inside. Not even that seems to put a damper on her mood, though, nor on her sister’s.

“Mr Kirby is just what a young man ought to be. Sensible, good-humoured—”

“Mopheaded, hobbit shaped, conveniently rich…”

“You know I’m not the one making such calculations on my marriage,” Josie snaps, and Lizzie tries her best not to take offence to it. Though her sister does amend quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s true,” she shrugs like the words hadn't stung, “I could only be satisfied with the deepest passion, which is why I will never manage to marry for love.”

(That, she thinks, and the fact the town pariah will hardly manage to marry for anything at all unless she travelled fast and far.)

“Oh, Lizzie.”

“It will not be a struggle for you, though, my dear sister. Mr Kirby did seem so taken by you.”

At those words, Josie covers her whole head with the bedsheets, the picture perfect of the ghost that MG is certain haunted the room. She laughs as she uncovers her sister.

“You need to stop being so humble, Josie.”

“I’m not humble,” her sister mumbles.

“You excel at humility the same way I do not, dear sister.”

They stay quiet for long enough that Lizzie is almost convinced Josie fell asleep mid-conversation like she used to do when they were children.

“What about Ms Mikaelson?”

Lizzie turns back to observe her. “What about her?”

“I saw her. Looking at you.”

“Yes, she was very clear in how she thinks I hardly should be called pretty,” Lizzie rolls her eyes at Josie’s gasp, “So I don’t think she much impresses me.”

“Oh, Lizzie.”

“Never mind that, just focus on your splendid night with your paragon of a gentleman.”

“You tease me.”

“I do not. Anyone who treats my sister so nicely has my full respect.”

“He was charming.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“You're mean.”

“And you’re smitten. We all have our grievances.”

As she falls asleep, Josie’s soft breaths puffing against her neck as usual, her mind brings back the image of Ms Mikaelson in her velvety suit.

She doesn’t like her. She doesn’t. Her pride won’t permit it.

But maybe, just maybe Hope Andrea Mikaelson was everything Lizzie wished she could be. Not a foil, but a better version of her. Someone with a family name and the power that came with it. Someone not limited by her mind or plagued by it. Someone that doesn’t carry a death sentence with their birth.

Someone free.

**

A day later Josie comes to the table bringing one particular piece of post. Lizzie knows immediately it’s important by the bleached colour of the white paper, and the too red wax seal. She smiles.

“What is it?”

“An invitation,” her twin replies, like she hardly believes it herself- which is so typical Josie Lizzie huffs a quiet laugh- “To Salvatore’s mansion.”

“Oh, Josie,” she exclaims, her hand going to her chest.

“It’s for this afternoon,” Josie’s smile falls in an instant, “Father sent the carriage away this morning.”

“You can go by horseback. I’m sure they won’t think badly of you.”

“But it’s set to rain.”

All the better, Lizzie thinks, but she says: “Then you best hurry.”

She must have given too little credit to her twin then because Josie scoffs as if she had read her mind. “You’re just hoping I must stay there the night.”

“I’m hoping my dear sister has a fine time having tea with Mr Kirby and his family.”

“You’re not as subtle as you may believe, dear sister.”

“Slander! I am exactly as subtle as I want to believe I am.”

Josie rolls her eyes, but Lizzie soon finds herself sending her off while she takes their only horse down the path that would lead her to Kirby’s new home.

It does rain, and a second bleached white letter with too red wax seals comes to their door, and Lizzie tears it open only to find that her plan might have backfired just a little.

She hastily grabs her coat and readies herself to walk through the muck. Typical of Josie to leave her with no horse to chase after her with.

By the time she arrives, she’s half as annoyed at the misty rain as she is her sister’s health.

“Ms Elizabeth Saltzman,” the servant announces as if they could have forgotten her name in the few days between now and the ball. Though she supposes such formalities are normal in rich families. Maybe someday she will be so announced to her own sister, if everything went right.

The silence after her introduction is telling, and Lizzie tries not to feel small under their stares.

She knows she must look unkempt to their eyes, a provincial bore. She doesn’t much care as of yet, her thoughts fully focused on her sister’s wellbeing. And even if they were not, there was very little that Mr Rafael Kirby could say that would make Lizzie care.

“I’ve come to enquire after my sister.”

It seems speaking first had led Ms Mikaelson to revive herself, because she stands up all of the sudden and falls into a curtsy. Before Lizzie can interpret that, Mr Kirby rushes into the room, his necktie askew and his hair ruffled.

“Ms Elizabeth! What a nice surprise.”

“I’m sorry I have not sent word but—”

“Nonsense. I assure you neither you nor your sister needs such formalities.”

His brother seems to think otherwise as he scoffs. Lizzie tries her best not to roll her eyes. She probably fails to judge by Ms Mikaelson’s undignified snort.

“How’s Josie?”

“She’s upstairs. If you’ll follow me.”

Mr Kirby leads her through a scale of stairs and two very decorated hallways before stopping at a pearly white door and- and Lizzie tries her best not to laugh at him when he does- hesitated twice more before knocking.

“Ms Saltzman, your sister—”

Lizzie walks in before Mr Kirby can finish his introduction. “Are you playing dead or are you truly sick?”

“Lizzie!”

She laughs relieved at the sight of her sister, clearly not as near to her death bed as Mr Kirby’s letter had made her believe. “Josie! I hope she wasn’t much trouble?” she asks their host, ignoring the huff Josie puffs, her cheeks all red.

“It is a pleasure,” Mr Kirby replies, and then he fumbles, his fingers going to loosen his necktie, “I mean not to see her so sick, of course, that's terrible. I will have a room made up for you. You must be our guest here until Josie- I mean, Ms Saltzman- recovers.”

“I assure you there is no need—” her sister starts to say, but Lizzie plops down on the bed and throws an arm around her stopping her in her tracks.

“There is all the need. Thank you kindly.”

“We do not wish to inconvenience you.”

“I won’t have anything else! I’ll leave you two… to catch up, then,” Mr Kirby says, before giving once more a stiff nod and walking off.

“Lizzie!” Josie chastises her as soon as Mr Kirby’s foot is out of the door, “We are not home; you can’t say stuff like that.”

“I’m sure Mr Kirby will forgive you your family members when you marry.”

Josie blushes deeply at her words, and she grins harder. “Don’t! Walls have ears.”

“How boring. He is embarrassingly fond of you.”

“I don’t think his brother is, though.”

She puts a strand of hair behind her ear. “To be fair, he doesn’t look like he would be fond of anyone that isn’t redheaded and very short.”

“Now you’re just being mean,” Josie raises her eyebrows, but she’s biting back a smile.

“Mean is my natural status. You should have seen the look on his face when I arrived and muddied their pavement. But enough about the brother, how has Mr Kirby treated you?”

“Oh, so well. He checks on me more often than a host ought to.”

“I doubt he’s playing the host. More so the lover.”

“Elizabeth!”

“Josette!”

They burst into laughter in a light way that has been hard to replicate for some years now. She likes the way happiness looks on her sister.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will need to go ask the owner of the house if I must be so impertinent as to impose my presence too in your idyllic getaway.”

“Lizzie, don’t you dare say that to him!”

She laughs at the astonished look on her sister’s face and continues chuckling all the way back to the parlour.

**

It had already been two days since her arrival at Salvatore’s Manor, and she’d be worried they were overstaying their welcome was Mr Kirby so attentive towards her sister. Still, Lizzie could feel the displeasure crashing in waves from Mr Raphael, probably discontented at their disrupting of his best wooing efforts towards Ms Mikaelson.

(She misses her bed, and the stables, and the quiet.)

As of now, Mr Raphael is making a big deal of watching and interacting with Ms Mikaelson’s letter. Lizzie tries her best to disguise her eye roll as she turns the page of her novel.

(Mr Raphael’s hate may be a bit misguided, but his taste in books was fortunately similar to hers.)

“Your strokes are so precise,” she hears Mr Raphael say once more.

“Do you write often, madam?” Lizzie says, because it sounds like the polite thing to say, and because she could not stand another second of the charade.

“She does,” answers Mr Raphael and she wonders if the man answering for Ms Mikaelson bothers her in the same way it does Lizzie. Not that she cares for her opinion. Much. “Always with a pen and wondering how her family is doing. How is little Nik?”

“He is fine,” Ms Mikaelson says, and a rare smile graces her features like lightning, quick and bright and gone in a thunder, “He’s learning how to fence and play the piano because he wants to be like his big cousin.”

“How cute,” Lizzie says, and she means it. She likes little kids, Pedro's still her favourite out of all her friends despite the age difference.

“He used to be cuter,” Ms Mikaelson says with a smile, and it’s the first time Lizzie had ever seen such an expression grace her face, “Alas, he had to grow up. He’s now thirteen and gangly.”

Lizzie laughs despite herself.

“And you have included a sketch of the view,” Mr Raphael barges in, “Your hands always manage to conjure wonders.”

And now Lizzie is convinced her will and her temperament are being judged because, what?

Ms Mikaelson doesn’t seem as inclined to throw her head back and laugh at the statement, but Lizzie would argue she isn’t that far off. She decides to rescue her.

“Do you draw, madam?”

“She’s an artist,” Mr Kirby says, a lilt to his voice that makes it seem like it’s half-truth and half-joke. “Name a medium and she will have tried it. She entertains in embroidery, as all ladies should, and in painting and drawing and sculpting. I once saw her make a card castle that defied logic and physics.”

Ms Mikaelson rolls her eyes.

“To answer your query, not as often as I used to. Not as often as I want to either,” Ms Mikaelson says after a beat of silence, “But life has become much busier since my parents…”

“I understand,” Lizzie says quickly because she does.

And then Ms Mikaelson surprises her, as her eyes find her own, and asks quite politely: “How about you, Ms Elizabeth, do you write oft?”

“Most of my acquaintances live a few minutes' ride from our house. I don’t oft have the need.”

“Maybe soon you will,” Ms Mikaelson says cryptically. Though maybe she’s finally come around to Josie marrying her friend.

Lizzie feels a pang of sadness at that. She had tried to push away the thought of the loneliness that will follow as Josie leaves her. This town had never been welcoming to them, and she will rejoice in Josie leaving it and all the tangles behind.

“Do you have many relatives, madam?”

“Yes. We are a big family.”

“Your letters are written much more neatly than mine,” Mr Kirby notes, as he had finally stood up and observed to Ms Mikaelson’s desk, and Mr Raphael laughs like it was some kind of inside joke Lizzie wasn’t privy to.

“Yes, you have too many thoughts and too little time to write them down,” Ms Mikaelson says, with a tone of voice that strongly implied otherwise. Lizzie almost likes the spark Ms Mikaelson’s eyes shine with as she laughs at Mr Kirby.

“Do you mock your good friend?”

“He deserves it,” and when Ms Mikaelson turns to her, she finds that that spark makes the blue of her eyes lighter like the sky after a summer downpour, “He must grow out of his humble façade if he wishes to go on in this world.”

Lizzie’s mouth moves before she can think of stopping it. “Humility is hardly a quality to disparage. Arrogance, on the other hand…”

“Are you implying something, Ms Elizabeth?”

“That you best finish your letter, and I my book.”

Mr Kirby laughs then, delighted it seemed by his friend’s red face.

Lizzie laughs with him, and yes, she reckons he will make one good brother-in-law, if not a bit of a puppy-tempered one. And maybe, Ms Mikaelson could be invited to their house too. Maybe.

“Be careful,” Mr Kirby advises her, “Hope is quick to renounce her good opinion once wronged.”

“Is that true?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“Are you too proud, Ms Mikaelson?”

She watches as Ms Mikaelson straightened up to her full height on her chair- that is to say, small- her face a delightful shade of red. “You can call it pride if you want, most of my family commits that sin. I think myself just. And my good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.”

“Implacable resentment,” Lizzie smirks, content in her upper hand, “What a fault to choose.”

"I wouldn't call it that."

"Pray what would you call it?"

“Protectiveness," Ms Mikaelson shrugs, "Nobody can be born without a natural defect.”

“And your natural defect is a propensity to dislike humanity.”

“And yours,” Ms Mikaelson replies with a smile that looks anything but, “Is to wilfully misunderstand me.”

Lizzie smiles back.

The next day, her sister finally is declared fine enough to travel, and Mr Kirby is forced to send for a carriage. Lizzie says forced because she’s sure she’s seen happier men on death row.

“If you are this disparaged over sending her away, good sir, I assure you there are pretences to make us come back.”

Mr Kirby, for his part, doesn’t bother to pretend not to know what Lizzie was implying. He flushes. “I assure you—”

“Yes, yes. Perhaps a ball. Dancing can be so useful to encourage affections,” she whispers waving her hand, low enough she’s sure only Mr Kirby could hear her. Only she can see Ms Mikaelson’s attention on them, so she might have been mistaken, so she adds loud enough to be heard, “Even if one’s partner isn’t handsome enough to appear tempting.”

She watches as Ms Mikaelson stumbles, and Lizzie doesn’t know what takes over her, because in the next moment, she’s holding Ms Mikaelson up, their hands joined.

There isn’t time to feel embarrassed, though, because the coachman arrives then.

“Really, I don't know how to thank you,” her sister says, for the thousand times since they’ve left the entrance hall.

Mr Kirby beams bashfully. He can't take his eyes off her, the fool. Lizzie does not roll her eyes, but she does come close as Mr Kirby replies once more: “Really, you're welcome anytime you feel the least bit poorly. Not that I wish you to feel poorly—”

Mr Raphael does roll his eyes then, but Lizzie doesn’t feel any sort of comradery from his presence.

And without knowing exactly why, only that she must, Lizzie turns to her side. “Ms Mikaelson.”

“Ms Elizabeth,” is Ms Mikaelson’s curt reply, with the sort of awkward nod Lizzie has come to expect from her. She nods back, and for a second she thinks she can spot the faintest lines of a smile on Ms Mikaelson’s face.

In the carriage, she wonders why her skin itches so, and then she notices her lack of gloves. And then recalls Ms Mikaelson’s lack of them as well. Lizzie flexes her hand back and forth, ignoring Josie’s inquisitive stare as she does so.

The touch had been cold. So cold, Lizzie thinks, that it makes sense it would burn. Though probably that’s just because it is Ms Mikaelson doing the touching.

When they get back, they find their father out of his studio, dressed, and in a good mood.

“Good evening!”

“Good evening, daddy.”

“Fine day, isn’t it?”

Lizzie squints her eyes, her nose not detecting any liquor on his breath. “Yes,” she says in the end.

“I hope you ordered a good dinner today. Cousin Ethan will be here soon.”

And she doesn’t know how to interpret her father’s actions lately. But this one is more than bizarre. Even more so than the sobriety. “You invited Cousin Ethan.”

“He wrote to me first, to be precise.”

“To come to stay here?” Josie clarifies her words as confused as Lizzie’s feels.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“There are matters of the family I shall discuss with him. You know well of the conflict surrounding the estate.”

Lizzie looks dubiously at him. “And you expect him to renounce to it all for a few pretty words?”

“No, baby girl. But you were right the other day. I have been neglecting the affair of your marriage.”

Josie’s eyes widen at the exact moment Lizzie’s narrow.

She had few memories of her cousin, and the ones she does have aren’t very flattering. Not to add to the whole inheritance dispute that will not allow Lizzie the pleasure of living in her house for her lifetime. Furthermore, she had heard from the grapevines that he had been ordained, and Lizzie would not be a clergyman’s wife.

“I assure you father, there is no need for you to get involved in our lives now.”

“Nonsense, he’s already well on his way.”

As if the gods were laughing at her specifically, the door opens right at the moment, and a crisp haircut in a black suit comes into Lizzie’s home. Lizzie would think him handsome, with a nice smile that easily reached his eyes and was as easily formed judging by the laughter lines.

“Ah, well-met!”

“Cousin! Well-met,” his father waves him inside.

“What a charming house! So convenient for the local village,” Mr Machado says, his eyes lingering around, “And some very fine pieces, if I'm not mistaken.”

Well, that’s in poor taste, Lizzie thinks. She sends a look to Josie, who lifts one eyebrow back.

Mr Machado seems oblivious to the exchange as he turns to their father. “And I must congratulate you. I have heard much of their beauty, but in this instance, fame has fallen short of the truth.”

The man then bows low enough that Lizzie half expects to find the queen behind her if she turned.

(At least, she thinks, if her father’s poorly concealed plan works their offspring won’t go bald early in age.)

“Shall we?” Lizzie asks, afraid of what torment could befall her if they stayed one minute more in their parlour.

It doesn’t take long for the torment to befall her anyway, as the dinner takes place.

“It is an excellent dinner. Which one of your daughters cooked it, may I ask?”

“Neither,” Josie replies in stead of her father, “We do employ a cook, Mr Machado.”

“Oh.”

Lizzie tries her best not to laugh outright. Mr Machado doesn’t let the blunder stop him for long though.

“Well, I must say… I am honoured to have, as my patroness, Lady Freja, you have heard of her, I presume?”

“I have not,” her father replies, and Lizzie does feel empathetic of his staring at the wine in his glass.

“She’s one wonderful lady. She inherited land by the bayou in New Orleans. Beautiful house. She has one son, set to inherit her land. Though it may not be as large as her niece’s—”

“Oh,” Josie replies politely as Lizzie rolls her eyes.

“Yes, and—” Mr Machado continues, and Lizzie fully tunes him out then.

She looks into her glass, the red wine bleeding and bleeding and annoyingly reminding her of Ms Mikaelson’s hair at night.

(It was deep red at night, strayaways of copper lit up by candlelight though sometimes it was moonlight.)

She shakes her head, annoyed by how much the woman had burrowed under her skin.

(And it was gold and rubies at first light when Lizzie spotted her shining in the fog as she came back from her morning exercise.)

She downs her glass.

**

The invitation to Salvatore’s ball comes two days after their departure from the mansion and the consequent stay of their cousin in their guest room.

Lizzie thinks it may be a bit too fast, a bit too explicitly purposeful, but the smile on Josie’s face is small and real so she doesn’t bother to voice her true thoughts.

“Bonnets,” she says instead.

“What?”

“I’m in need of a new bonnet. And you, my dear twin, will lend me the coin.”

Josie rolls her eyes, shrugging off her hand. “You already owe me plenty!”

“I just served you a ball in Salvatore’s mansion on a golden platter. You can spare fifty pence.”

And it seems Josie can’t argue with that, because they get in the carriage with almost no fuss afterwards.

“What do you need a new bonnet for anyway?”

“I don’t.”

“Then why am I buying you one?”

“Because I needed to escape our dear cousin’s too kind words about our house and our furniture and his talk of finding a wife.”

“Not too keen?”

“Obviously,” Lizzie rolls her eyes at her sister’s tone, “And I couldn’t well go into town unchaperoned.”

Josie looks at her immediately. “You are going unchaperoned.”

“You’re basically a married woman,” she waves her off, “And my reputation is well enough ruined by now to not care about such matters.”

“Lizzie!”

Just then the carriage comes to a stop, as row after row of marching soldiers pass by.

Lizzie observes them lazily, a river of redcoats and flags and music. She’s about to avert her eyes when she spots an officer, his sword drawn and resting on his shoulders.

“Seems like the militia is in town,” her sister says.

“Seems so,” Lizzie replies, her eyes still following the brown-haired officer and his startling blue eyes. Maybe that’s why she misses the spark of mischief on her sister’s face.

They exit the carriage some way off from the ribbon shop, the marching parade making traversing the town difficult enough that Josie proposed to proceed on foot. Lizzie’s forehead already aching from the drums and the yells, and she agrees.

Josie grabs her hand and starts off in the most unusual direction to get to the ribbon shop.

“Jo, shouldn’t we have—”

Lizzie doesn’t manage to finish the question, as they more or less collide in front of a man in uniform, his hat obscuring half his face. Before Lizzie can understand what’s happening exactly, Josie has slipped off her glove dropping it with a smirk in Lizzie’s direction- and really how is she the devious twin again?

“Madam, you dropped this.”

“Thank you, officer,” she answers with gritted teeth, elbowing her sister.

“Yes, thank you kindly,” Josie intercedes, bowing low and proper into a perfect curtsy- the viper. “My sister can be so clumsy.”

“Can I now?”

“Yes,” Josie hisses with a smile, stomping on Lizzie’s foot twice as hard as she had been elbowed, “We are on our way to the bonnet shop.”

“I’m sure he isn’t interested, sister.”

“Shall we all look at bonnets together? Though you must be warned my taste in bonnets is hardly expert.”

“Oh there would be no need—” she starts before being rudely interrupted by her smiling sister.

“She would love some help. Such hard decisions and I'm afraid I can’t be the one to offer it this morning.”

“Josie!”

“Lizzie,” Josie replies, a wink and a laugh away from playing her jester’s role perfectly. And then she leaves. Lizzie should invest in a better family.

“So,” she says, finding the silence unbearable, “Poor taste in bonnets?”

“And most furniture too, I'm afraid. My taste in fashion has reduced men to tears. I’m only saved in my day-to-day by the uniform, really.”

“Why not learn?”

“And deny people the pleasure?”

“Do you not mind the people?”

“No.”

She tilts her head, and the man smiles. Lizzie ducks her head behind some hanged ribbons quickly. Oh, this was tragic. She liked him.

She observes him from behind the curtain of colours, finding that the rainbow agreed with his complexion, though purple made his hair strings of obsidian while muted his eyes almost to an eerie white.

She’s taken away from her reverie when Mr Belledame brings a soft green ribbon the colour of not too watered grass to her face. “I think this would look lovely next to your eyes.”

“You’re right.”

“I am?” he asks, his eyes crinkling in the surprise of being awarded good taste.

Lizzie is almost “You do have terrible taste in most anything.”

“You are a cruel woman.”

“Perhaps it is you, good sir, who is too kind to a stranger.”

“Is that what we are?”

“Yes,” she answers because they are. But something deep in her bones tells her the answer is the opposite.

“You wound me.”

“I don’t know your name, that classifies you as a stranger.”

“Yes, I do think we missed that step,” the officer bows low, but his too-clear eyes hold their gaze steadily, arrogantly. “Sebastian Belledame, at your service miss.”

“Elizabeth Saltzman.”

She doesn’t offer her hand, yet he takes it gently lowering his lips almost too close to be polite. But then he steps back, and his smile is equal parts saccharine and mischief. God help her, she likes it.

They step outside after Mr Belledame insists on buying Lizzie the very ugly ribbon in his hand, though no bonnet to be seen, and Lizzie knows it’s not going to end well when she’s considering actually wearing it in public.

“How long will you stay in town?”

“I wouldn’t mind staying forever in such company. But alas it depends not on my desires.”

Just then they're interrupted by the sound of approaching hooves.

“Oh, Mr Kirby,” she greets, and then adds less neutrally despite her best efforts, “Ms Mikaelson.”

“I was just on the way to your house.”

“You’re in luck then.”

“Yes.”

She watches Ms Mikaelson’s face become paler and paler, her eyes layering snow on Lizzie’s skin with just a glance. Then, as if nothing had happened- as if nothing was in front of her- she turned her horse around and trotted away.

“I…” Mr Kirby, too, seems startled by the outcome, his eyes flashing back and forward, “If you’ll excuse me, Ms Elizabeth. Mr Belledame.”

“What—”

The strangeness doesn’t stop there, it permeates instead in the too straight posture of Mr Belledame, and his coldness where before there was nothing but warmth. “Are you well acquainted with that lady?”

“I have spent four days in the same house as her, and I think I find her as disagreeable as she finds me,” Lizzie answers and she watches Mr Belledame’s shoulders relax.

“I cannot pretend to be sorry.”

“How did Mr Kirby know your name?”

The corners of Mr Belledame’s mouth stretch into a weird sort of grimace. “Let’s just say I too am well acquainted with the pair.”

Before she can ask him in what way, she spots Josie and two well-known figures. She smiles. As they make their way towards them, Josie waves enthusiastically.

“Lizzie! Emma and Dorian came to visit, isn’t it wonderful?”

“I can see that,” Lizzie says, “May I introduce you to Officer Belledame?”

As they exchange greetings, she spares a glance back to the direction where Ms Mikaelson and Mr Kirby had made their dramatic exit. She observes Mr Belledame’s profile, the way his eyes crinkled as he smiled, and wonders how a man like this could make Ms Mikaelson run away in fury.

She waits a bit after Josie and their two guests enter the carriage, stepping away with Mr Belledame.

“I hope your plans in favour of Mystic Falls will not be affected by your difficult relations with the lady we’re speaking of.”

Mr Belledame’s chest puffs up, his cape swishing with the movement. “I’m not fond of running, and as such, she must go and not I.”

“Why?”

“Why I'm not fond of running?”

“No.”

“Why must she go? Because she already ruined my pride well enough without me having to tend to hers.”

“What happened?” Lizzie asks before she can think it imprudent. She doesn’t know whether the impulsivity flows from her interest in Mr Belledame or Ms Mikaelson. In any case, Mr Belledame must not think her untrustworthy, because he speaks without pause.

“My father managed his estate. We grew up together. His father treated me like the son he couldn’t have. Oh, he was a kind man, and he wished to support me in my wishes to become a cleric. But then he died, and she refused me. Out of jealousy, for her father loved me more than her.”

Lizzie could believe much about Ms Mikaelson, but she did not seem like a woman who could go back on a word given. “How cruel! Are you certain?”

“And out of pride, for she considered me too lowly to be worth her consideration.”

And prideful Lizzie knows her to be.

“I must say you behave yourself much better than I would in your circumstances.”

“I dare say,” Mr Belledame answers back, “That my circumstances aren’t so unfortunate.”

Lizzie blushes under the intensity of his stare and the obvious subtext of his words. Just then Josie calls for her, waving her arms. She rolls her eyes. “Thank you. For the ribbon, and for accompanying me.”

Sebastian bows low.

She’s quiet on the ride back, thinking, despite her companions’ best efforts to converse with her.

She passes the rest of the day brushing the horses but not even after that does she know what to think. It is one thing to dislike the woman because of her arrogance, because of her own dislike for Lizzie, and another entirely to discover such an ugly truth.

She decides not to tell the tale to anybody but Josie, low whispers under the bedcovers like they were children all over again. She doesn’t know why she wished to be telling tall tales once more instead of this truth she had received.

“Are you certain?”

“He seemed truthful. You cannot fake the hate with which Ms Mikaelson had glared at him.”

“Maybe he’s mistaken. She doesn’t seem like one who would do that.”

“All the world is good in your eyes.”

“Perhaps. But I know Mr Kirby would not be friends with such a woman.”

“Perhaps,” Lizzie sighs and turns to snuff out the candle.

(What Lizzie doesn’t have the heart to tell her sister is how even the kindest man knows how to turn a blind eye.)

**

As they enter Salvatore’s mansion, Lizzie’s almost too busy admiring the sparkle of the millions of candles to even notice Mr Kirby’s little awkward bow at her sister. Almost. She stifles a giggle.

“I’m glad you could make it.”

“Yes,” her brilliant sister replies. Lizzie rolls her eyes and pulls her sister closer, interlinking their arMs “We couldn’t have missed it, after your kindness when Josie imposed… we must say again how thankful we are, right father?”

Now, if Alaric Saltzman had been a better father and man, he would have not already been drunk and disconnected from the reality of the conversation. Alas, he was not. So Lizzie has to nail him in the ribs to have him grunt a: “Yes, yes. Very grateful, indeed.”

“We shall leave you to greet the other guests now.”

“Yes, I’ll see you, Ms Elizabeth,” and then, to her sister, much more puppy dog-eyed, “Ms Saltzman.”

She waits before they’re a reasonable distance away from their hosts before she turns to Josie, a smirk already in place. “Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“You stayed up all night and that’s the best you managed to come up with?”

“Shut up!”

“Stop antagonizing your sister.”

She turns to find MG, in a light grey waistcoat and his darkest suit- not unlike the one he usually wore to church, though the fabric was much nicer. “I’ll gladly antagonize you, Milton. Since you are so inclined to herohood.”

“You’re in a good mood.”

“Not for long if dear Cousin Ethan won’t stop smiling and helping around the house and—”

“Sure, it sounds atrocious.”

“It is! Kill me now, spare a coin for the ferryman, and live with my laugh in your lungs.”

“Have you already had to drink?”

Josie shakes her head, linking her arm with Lizzie absentmindedly. “No, I checked her stash before we came.”

“Maybe I am in a good mood,” Lizzie admits, her hand playing with a lone ribbon in her hair.

“Why would you be?”

“Must be her new acquaintance,” her sister replies before Lizzie can have the pleasure.

“Shut up,” Lizzie says, just as she starts to turn the room over at the search of said acquaintance.

“Who?”

“A redcoat,” Josie whispers conspiratorially, laughs happily when MG gasps in turn.

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Will you two stop it,” she hisses, looking around frantically.

“Not so fun when you're on the receiving end now, is it?”

And such is that Lizzie then spots a well-known figure walking their way, so she smirks. “No, so I will gladly return the favour.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yes, it is a very tragic affair that we do not have a dancing partner for you, Josie,” she says, maybe much too loudly, maybe much too on purpose, “For you see, Milton already agreed to dance with me and—”

“May I cut in?” Mr Kirby says then like clockwork.

“Oh, Mr Kirby I had not seen you,” Lizzie batts her eyelashes, and Josie elbows her hard enough she doesn’t have to fake the tears.

“Ms Saltzman, if I may be so bold as to claim your next two dances?”

Josie blushes prettily in the way that usually made all the men in the town write sonnets to post on their door, and then nods and takes his hand.

She observes Landon as they dance with the same amount of care she usually reserved for checking her horse’s hooves. He cannot stop staring at her sister, his feet more than once faltering when the dance demanded they parted. A giggle escapes her without intent.

That’s when she spots Mr Machado making his horrible way to her across the room.

She grabs Milton’s arm, more dragging than escorting him out of the hall and into the first hallway she finds.

“Wha—”

“My cousin.”

“Is he—”

“Yes,” she interrupts again, looking frantically behind her. MG urges her forward with too much strength in the meantime, and she stumbles on her gown. And since Lizzie’s luck always looks out for her, that’s when Ms Mikaelson appears in front of her.

She almost steps into her but stops just in time so that she finds herself inappropriately close to Ms Mikaelson instead.

She takes a quick step back and bows down into a curtsy. “Pardon me, Ms Mikaelson.”

Ms Mikaelson bows in turn, her eyes glacier and never straying from Lizzie’s own. “No harm done, I assure you, Ms Saltzman.”

“Yes, well…” she looks to MG then, shrugging at the weirdness, “We must—”

“Dancing… are you so inclined?”

Lizzie finds that this type of awkward interaction has almost the potential to grow on her. Then she remembers Sebastian, and the moment passes. “I think that between the two of us you would be the one less inclined.”

“No, I meant…” Hope turns to her fully, her hand slowly reaching for the card at Lizzie’s wrist, “Would you do me the honour of partnering me in the next dance?”

The question shocks her enough that the words fall from her mouth without her meaning. “I… would, Ms Mikaelson.”

Lizzie watches bewildered as Ms Mikaelson takes the little pencil and writes her name on the slot and then just like as soon as she appeared, Ms Mikaelson bows her head and walks away, leaving Lizzie to interpret what the hell just happened.

“Didn’t you hate her?”

“I…” she trails off, still staring at where Ms Mikaelson had exited.

Come next dance, Ms Mikaelson is by her side at the start of the first note as promised. She offers her hand. And well, Lizzie supposes there isn’t much to do other than take it. It’s small in comparison to hers, and softer, too.

They walk to the centre of the room, and Lizzie spots MG laughing under his hand.

“I suppose you’d like for me to lead?”

“Because I’m short?”

“Yes,” she smirks, despite herself. She reckons that with both their heels off there would be still more than a head of height difference between them.

“No.”

“No?” she repeats, as they bow their greetings.

“I’ll lead.”

Lizzie rolls her eyes at the stubbornness, but she is soon proved wrong when Ms Mikaelson spins expertly around her, her hand perfectly tucked behind her body. “You do know how to lead.”

“Why are you so surprised?”

“I thought you disliked dancing.”

Ms Mikaelson smiles. “Anyone ought to change opinion if you are their partner.”

(There was no denying that Ms Mikaelson was beautiful in the kind of way that left an imprint on one soul.)

(Each time Lizzie noticed it, though, she got more and more annoyed at nature’s rule.)

“I quite like this dance,” Lizzie blurts out as Ms Mikaelson’s hand brushes lightly once more against hers, her cheeks probably lightening up in pinks, “My mother—”

She stops in her tracks, but Ms Mikaelson doesn’t allow the dance to falter, nor does she ask for Lizzie to continue her thought.

They switch partners, her hand meeting a man on Ms Mikaelson’s right and it gives just enough time for Lizzie to gain her composure back. “And now, you must carry the conversation on yourself.”

“Pardon?”

“I commented on the dance, so you ought to make some comment on the size of the room. Or the number of the dancers.”

“I counted ten, ourselves included,” is Ms Mikaelson’s instant reply, serious and diligent and Lizzie’s half sure she could ask her the number of candelabras and she would answer with the same quickness.

Lizzie almost wants to laugh, and she knows it shows because Mr Mikaelson’s eyes brighten in turn.

“Perfect. And perhaps, now, I will say that private balls are more pleasant than public ones. Now, we can stay silent.”

“Do you often talk by rule while dancing?” Mr Mikaelson asks, her hands annoyingly warm as they hover against Lizzie’s own.

“I was merely trying to spare you the need to come up with conversation topics all on your own,” Lizzie replies as she steps closer, the dance finally coming to the climax of touch.

Ms Mikaelson’s hand is warm against the side of Lizzie’s dress, resting impeccably on her waist. Her eyes are as piercing as ever, and Lizzie warms in not so unpleasant ways. Ms Mikaelson on the other hand was imprescriptible even now, no sweat to be seen on her brow…

(Lizzie grows bored of it all.)

(Probably not smart.)

“When you met us there the other day, I had just been forming a new acquaintance.”

And that finally elicits a reaction, her knuckles paling even her already fair complexion where they grip Lizzie’s fingers. It should hurt. It doesn’t. “I’m afraid his ability to make friends isn’t equal to his capability at retaining them.”

“For that, we shall only wait and see.”

“I did not take you for the kind of girl that would follow a redcoat around.”

“We just happened to meet.”

“And yet you defend him as if he were your kindest friend.”

“I just found myself curious enough to inquire as of what he did,” Lizzie says, and maybe she had let this conversation slip away from her, too, in a way she hadn't meant to, “I remember you saying your resentment once created was unappeasable.”

“You remember that?”

“The quickness with which one can lose your favour? I doubt I could ever forget. But now I wonder if you're ever so cautious in it being created.”

“I am. May I ask the reason behind these questions?”

“I’m trying to understand what to make of your character.”

The moment the dance switches back to spinning around each other and Mr Mikaelson’s arm releases her, Lizzie thought she would feel relieved and is surprised when she only feels cold instead.

“And what have you discovered?”

“Too little,” Lizzie admits almost with a shrug, “I hear such different accounts of you as to puzzle me exceedingly.”

“I’m sure your friend spoke enough of me to entertain such accounts.”

“He told me what I had already realized in part.”

“Which is?”

“You have a tendency to make your own life a battlefield.”

“And what would be your advice for such a poor habit?”

“To be careful of warzones, least you be slain by them.”

“You must let me—”

Only Lizzie will never because the orchestra plays their last note, and the music must end to their bow.

She stalks off quickly in the direction of Milton, frowning slightly as she sees him leave the company of her cousin behind to match her gait.

“I take it the dance has gone—”

She passes him in a rage, forcing him to follow behind towards one of the terraces. “The nerve of that woman!”

“—Well,” MG finishes already following after her, all too used to her antics by now she’d think to bother with anything else. “Are you fond of making enemies of powerful women?”

“They seem to find ways to do that without my help.”

“I’m sure Ms Mikaelson was the one who turned the conversation away from civility.”

Lizzie blushes, caught. “I wanted to understand.”

“Understand?”

And how is Lizzie supposed to explain the pull she had felt for her since they met? This sort of impossible recognition when their eyes meet? Lizzie can hardly make sense of it herself.

They're similar, is what she has ended up deciding, and if they're similar enough then Lizzie must be so much worse than what she had previously thought. And if she can recognize the fact, so can others, and thus her public ostracism was explained and packed with a pretty ribbon.

She sighs. “I cannot wait for them to leave.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Maybe I do, even if they bring my sister away with them.”

“I don’t think the brother would like that very much.”

“Oh leave him be. It must be difficult to hold a torch so bright for a person so hell-bent on being blind to it.”

MG's laugh is a bit strained at that, and Lizzie went and did it again, she reckons, with her bad habit of putting her foot in her mouth.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” MG reassurers her, before changing the subject, “I suppose she is rather stunning.”

“Who?”

“Ms Mikaelson.”

“She’s fine.”

“Lizzie, you can admit the girl is beautiful even if you don’t like her.”

“On the contrary, that’s exactly why I must not.”

MG shakes his head, by now used, she thinks, to her antics. “You’re still the prettiest girl in the room.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“You made quite the pair on the dancefloor.”

Her mouth falls open and she knows MG is only teasing but she hadn't expected the shivers at the thought of Ms Mikaelson and her making a good pair. Only she doesn’t have to analyse anything as that’s when Josie finally reappears.

“Who’s a pair?”

“I think you, my dear sister,” Lizzie says, all too glad to have a reprieve from Milton’s inquiring eyes, “If the rumours are to be believed you will be married at dawn.”

“Shut up.”

“He has eyes only for you.”

“He danced with other girls.”

“Not twice in one night. Your dancing card might as well have had all the slots full by the claim he staked on you.”

“He didn’t claim me!”

“No, he’s fare too polite to do that. Though, perhaps, if you demanded it…”

“Lizzie!”

They erupt in giggles, MG looking at them with a fond look.

And the night could have been perfect.

The first ball Lizzie had attended without anxieties or prejudiced stares directed at her, the first ball when, while she danced, the stares where all directed at her partner curious and envious.

The night could have been perfect- had her father not found how deep the liquor cabinet at Salvatore’s mansion was. They find him passed out in a puddle of his own vomit and the stares come back.

It seems Lizzie cannot escape one public appearance without having to hide for months after.

**

She’s not even a day past the embarrassment at Salvatore’s mansion when Mr Machado marches down the living room as they're breaking their fast, his father still asleep somewhere and her sister by her side.

“I think we must talk about the reason why I came to your house, dear cousin, as my leave extends only to this Saturday and we are dangerously close to losing our time together.”

And it would be such a tragedy indeed, Lizzie thinks maybe a bit too cruelly to be fully deserved. She sighs instead. “Must we?”

She pleads her sister with her eyes. Josie shrugs and leaves the table. Traitor.

“Yes. You must be aware by now, cousin, that I came here with the intentions of finding a wife.”

“Mr Machado, I—”

She knows it makes sense. She knows she should accept, for the good of her family. But she doesn’t want to. And if the possibility of Mr Kirby is truly as certain as his eyes make it seem- and he is honourable, her sister had told her so- she might not even need to.

“And even in the midst of all these admirable ladies, I assure you I had no intention at all, well, perhaps a little—”

“Mr Machado, I assure you there is no need to discuss this.”

“But there is!”

“There is not.”

“I am well aware I do not need your blessing—”

That offends her a bit. “My blessing is exactly what you need, actually.”

“So you disagree?”

“I’m afraid I must reject you, cousin.”

“Reject me? Do you hate the thought of me marrying Milton so?”

“Milton?”

“Yes, of course. I had come with the intention of finding a wife, but I’m not unhappy with returning with a husband.”

“MG,” she clarifies once more, in case there was another Milton in Mystic Falls that had hidden for twenty-two years.

“Yes.”

“And he accepted.”

“Yes.”

“But I thought…”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

“Anyway. I wanted to reassure you I am not stealing your dear friend away. You must come and visit us.”

Lizzie’s head is still reeling as she answers. “Certainly.”

“And also that there is no need for you to worry about your fate when your father… I have no intention of leaving you or your sister on the street. Your father and I have come to our conclusions already.”

“Thank you, dear cousin,” Lizzie says, remembering her manners, and bows down into a curtsy.

But the reality of MG leaving, well, it made it all too heavy still.

(Another drop falls into an already too full vase.)

**

She’s in a meadow she hardly recognizes, but the warmth under her thighs is familiar and comforting as she rides through the field. The wind is flowing through free hair, and the women of the town would talk, but she’s alone.

Only not quite.

She hears the thundering of matching hooves on her right side and she turns to see a sea of red hair and white skin and white teeth laughing and smiling.

**

Lizzie wakes up to a creaking door and an upset sister.

“They're gone.”

She sits up, yawning and scratching at her temple. “Wha—who?”

“The Salvatore’s house. It’s empty. They're all gone, Lizzie.”

That wakes her up quickly. She stands up and rushes to her sister’s side. “Oh, Josie.”

“It’s no matter,” Josie shrugs her off, “I told you not to expect much from the affair.”

“Josie, please. We can fix it. You could write him a letter—”

“I think you’ve done enough.”

And that’s unfair, and Josie can see it too because she flinches together with Lizzie at the words.

“I’m tired from the walk from town. I’ll see you at supper.”

She leaves Lizzie behind as quickly as she had come in.

Hope Andrea Mikaelson.

She knows it’s her fault somehow. She just needs to know how and then she can fix this.

It takes two days before Josie speaks to her again about the matter. And it is to deny her feelings on the said matter with the same sort of fervour she had reserved only to speak of Landon Kirby. It seems to her, that her sister only switched the direction of her sentiments without touching the intensity of them at all.

“He will be forgotten, and we will go as we have gone.”

She waits.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t not believe you. But Josie—”

“He never made any promises to me, and so there's nothing to reproach him with. And nothing to feel such pain over. It was my mistake.”

“Josie—” she tries again, but there's very little she can think to say that will bring back the sister she’s used to.

“It was my mistake and so I hurt only myself in the process,” Josie pauses, steeped in her poison so deeply she turns half purple as she continues, “And I suppose you shall be happy, that you were right about Ms Mikaelson. About them all.”

“I’m not happy at all. Josie you're allowed to be mad at him.”

“No, I’m not. You may be ruled by inconstant emotions, but I refuse to. I won’t be ruined.”

Josie seems to realize what she has said only after she had spoken the words, a sort of regret washing all over her face like a wave. Lizzie decides that this time, it was the pain speaking, and not her sister. Nevertheless, she leaves the room. Josie calls for her, but she doesn’t stop.

Her sister may only ever hurt her by accident, but that didn’t mean she didn’t hurt her.

The stable smells like it always did, like horses and sweat and hay and polished leather. It should be comforting, but right now it makes Lizzie want to scratch her own skin off. Flake by flake. And she knows nothing will make the voices calm down, but sometimes if she rides fast enough the wind drowns them.

(There’s a feeling of Deja Vue, and a sudden desire to turn and see… someone.)

She’s at the Greasley’s manor before she knows it.

“You're angry with me,” Milton greets her.

And well. “You’re engaged.”

“You know?”

“If I didn’t the matter of your hand and of your smile would have ticked me right away.”

“And you’re angry.”

“I’m not angry with you. Not now. I guess you did manage to marry into my family after all.”

“Shut up.” And then. “He’s not who I expected. I'm probably not what he expected either, the disgraced preacher’s son…”

“MG!” Lizzie hits his arm, and yeah she might be angry about it, a little bit but still, “Don’t talk about yourself like this.”

“I’m sorry. I entertained his proposal only because it was the most sensible thing to do.”

It takes MG's words to realize that maybe Ms Mikaelson had nothing to do with the disappearance of Mr Kirby from their lives. Maybe, Mr Kirby had made the same choice Milton is making now. A level-headed one that includes the fate of his family and- what Lizzie had been trying to ignore- the advantages a wedding with her family would not bring.

She had thought Mr Kirby better than his duty because she had thought of Josie in the same way.

And yet. “That’s a lie.”

“It isn’t, but it is how it started. I’ve come to realize it’s not how it must end,” and when he looks at her, his eyes had never been clearer, “I’ve loved you a long time, Lizzie, I think it’s time I love someone else.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know. I know you didn’t mean to. I never meant to either. But I think we need space.”

“Did you have to marry the man who will inherit my house, though?”

“You don’t trust me not to protect you?”

“Is this what it was?”

“No,” Milton smiles sadly, “It wasn’t.”

“You’re my dearest friend.”

“And you are mine. You must come to visit.”

“I will.”

“Let yourself be happy, Lizzie.”

And a part of her remembers that conversation once upon a time with Ms Mikaelson, about correspondence and her lack of necessity of it- she had been right, after all, though not in the sense Lizzie had thought she would be.

**

Not much longer after MG had gone away, so does Josie, going to their aunt and uncle in Richmond and escaping Salvatore’s mansion looming over their house and the pitiful glances spared in town.

Correspondence with them becomes the only sun in the suddenly rainy Mystic Falls. Mr Belledame had gone away too, his service taking Lizzie’s last source of friendship away with him.

Lizzie had never been alone before.

She’s always been a part of something, and she doesn’t know what it means for her once she’s apart from her nature-prescribed half.

The days pass slowly and Lizzie mostly counts them by letters.

Another day passes, and another letter from MG arrives telling her to come by.

And then one day she does. Sends a reply and starts her journey with hardly a glance back at her father. The house had been excruciatingly lonely with Josie gone, and Lizzie had finished all excuses to not go.

She arrives at the small cottage on the propriety of the rumoured Lady Freya one fated Wednesday night.

(Later, she will wish to have arrived on Thursday.)

“We dine with the lady twice a week,” Mr Machado says, “How fortunate for you to arrive today of all days, for Ms Mikaelson is here as well.”

“Ms Mikaelson?”

“Yes, yes. She’s her ladyship’s niece, you must have known that.”

Lizzie hadn't, in truth, but what else could she do but follow as Mr Machado and Milton as they lead her through the path that would bring them through the mansion’s garden and into the home of Lady Freya Mikaelson?

They are introduced to a woman with a stern mouth and pretty eyes and her wife, a cloud of curls and a warm smile.

“Don’t sit next to your husband,” Lady Freya waves Mr Machado on the other side of the table, “Sit on next to Hope. Marcel, leave Rebekah for once.”

The man called Marcel smiles and sits next to Lizzie without much argument.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance at last, Ms Elizabeth.”

“At last, sir?”

“I've heard much of you and the praise hasn’t been exaggerated.”

She can’t help to look at Ms Mikaelson then, expecting at least some sort of reaction, but she’s as imprescriptible as ever. Though, she is staring.

“Pray, do you know why Ms Mikaelson’s been staring at me so?”

Mr Marcel is about to answer when Ms Mikaelson speaks herself. “I hope your family is in good health.”

“They are, yes. Thank you,” and at her perdured silence she continues, “My sister has been in Richmond these past weeks, and yet she hasn’t been able to meet our mutual acquaintance.”

“I see.”

“As you can see,” she directs towards Mr Marcel, “We are not the best of friends.”

“I'm surprised.”

She dines on in semi-silence, listening to the chatter but hardly joining in it. She observes Ms Mikaelson, mostly.

“I hear you have a small family,” Lady Freya addresses her suddenly. She doesn’t miss the panicked look on Ms Mikaelson’s face.

“I do, madam, yes.”

“Only you and your sister. And your parents.”

“My twin. And only my father.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. We lost our brother recently enough too.”

“My condolences.”

“Yes, I figured you already heard from Hope.”

“I hadn't, madam.”

Lady Freya changes the direction of the conversation swiftly. “Can you play, Ms Elizabeth?”

“I…” Lizzie trails off, gulping her red wine to delay answering, and choosing her words very carefully. “Am able. A little, and ill. I wouldn’t wish to excite your anticipation.”

“You’re humble,” Lady Freya nods once, precise. “Good. Well, we are in need of music.”

“Aunt Freya—” Ms Mikaelson interjects.

She doesn’t give her the time to try.

“Don’t be so overprotective darling it isn’t a good quality in partners.”

Lizzie walks to the piano wondering why Freya Mikaelson would be concerned about over-protectiveness in partners between herself and her niece.

Lizzie starts to play the only piece of music she has ever managed to memorize hesitantly, her fingers barely remembering the shape they have to assume- her wrists are too high up, she knows, but they keep rising unintentionally in Lizzie’s struggle.

She isn’t spared any humiliation as Ms Mikaelson follows her to the corner of the room with a soft smile.

“You are able to play.”

“Those were my words, yes.”

“Chosen so carefully.”

“As were yours.”

“I’m sorry, for the way my aunt…”

“It is hardly your fault.”

“I want… I wish for us to be civil. I wish not to upset you.”

You could try sewing your mouth shut, Lizzie thinks. She doesn’t say that, she doesn’t say anything at all, as Mr Marcel appears, a head floating more than a head taller than his cousin.

“Hello! Littlest one, we must have taught you once upon a time that toys are meant to be shared.”

Lizzie isn’t sure she likes to be compared to a toy exactly, but Mr Marcel does bring a reprieve from a dangerous conversation, so she will forgive him.

(And the way Ms Mikaelson had blushed at the nickname… Lizzie will forgive him for that too.)

“Marcel!”

“So it’s true,” Mr Marcel smirks, “Rebekah had said and after all these years I still haven’t learnt not to doubt her word.”

“You make for a terrible husband.”

“And you a terrible acquaintance, as Ms Saltzman will soon finish to tell me.”

“Please,” Lizzie says, “You can call me Lizzie. Let me tell you the tale of how your dear relative behaved herself on our first meeting.”

“Ms Elizabeth, there’s no need.”

“There’s all the need,” Mr Marcel says, and Lizzie quite agrees so she smiles sweetly. “Yes, Ms Mikaelson, listen to your relative.”

Mr Marcel laughs and Lizzie watches as his wife looks over with the fondest smile. It feels a lot like intruding in a bedroom, so she looks away.

“She stood, as I recall, with a rather discontent look on her face, and had not danced once even though many had beseeched her.”

“I knew nobody outside of my own party,” Ms Mikaelson replies with a huff.

“Oh, yes. Nobody can be introduced in a ballroom.”

“I am not… good with strangers.”

“Maybe you should practice. Make more than just one friend and his brother.”

Ms Mikaelson’s eyes seem to pierce Lizzie right on the spot, her finger faltering and the ivory ringing wrong. She swallows and looks away. She starts again.

“I assure you, Ms Elizabeth,” Ms Mikaelson says, so quiet Lizzie wouldn’t even have been sure she was addressing her if not for her name, “In your presence friendship has been the furthest thought in my mind.”

Which Lizzie would assume to be rude and uncalled for, had Ms Mikaelson’s voice not sounded so… wistful. Her hands stop once more.

“Pray, madam, what—”

“Why did the music stop?”

“I was distracting her, aunt, I’ll get out of Ms Elizabeth’s hair.”

And Lizzie can’t even watch her getaway, as Mrs Mikaelson stares her down waiting for Lizzie to start playing again.

Mr Marcel lingers for another second, his hand thrumming on the piano forte thoughtfully. “You will do well, I think,” he says cryptically before following his relative to the bridge’s table.

And since Lizzie cannot begin to understand his words, she shrugs and gets back to poorly playing music. At one point she thinks she catches Ms Mikaelson staring at her deep in thought. But that can’t be possible, what reason would she have to do so?

**

Ms Mikaelson comes to visit the cottage the next day.

“Hello.”

“Good afternoon.”

“This is a charming house.”

“All thanks to your aunt’s patronage,” she says, maybe a little too sarcastic and she winces. Ms Mikaelson is trying her best and here she was being a brat.

Ms Mikaelson stays there, her hands close to her person and her arms rigid.

“Are you okay, madam?”

“Are you worried about me, Ms Elizabeth?” Ms Mikaelson shakes her head, and copper flames fall around her, “No, pray, madam. Don’t answer. Let me misunderstand you.”

“What?”

Just then Milton comes back, arms full of fresh bread, and Ms Mikaelson bolts out of the door.

“Lizzie… what did you do to poor Ms Mikaelson this time?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she says with honesty, and can only stare at the door in wonder.

**

Lizzie had just put the horse back in its stable when the first drop of rain started pouring down. She sighs and falls down into a pile of what she hopes is hay and little muck. Just her luck, as of lately.

Only her luck becomes worse not one minute later when Ms Mikaelson steps into the stables, her necktie askew and her hair wet. She stands up and brushes her pants as subtly as she can.

“Ms Mikaelson.”

“Ms Elizabeth,” she greets her, and then stops.

They stay like that, still in the dusk, before Ms Mikaelson continued, her arms straight to her sides and closed down in fists like they had been the day before. Only this time, Ms Mikaelson speaks.

“Ms Elizabeth, in vain I have struggled, and I cannot bear it no longer. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

It takes a few seconds for the words to register in Lizzie’s mind. Even more for her to process them properly. So much time seems to pass that she’s sure if she looked out at the horizon she would see the sun set in the drowning rain. Ms Mikaelson takes her silence as an encouragement to go on because she does.

“I’ve fought against my better judgement, my family's expectation, the inferiority of your birth. All those things, but I'm willing to put them aside and ask you to end my agony. Please do me the honour of accepting my hand.”

Lizzie regains her sanity just in time to reply. “I’m sorry for I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am very sorry to have caused you pain. Believe me, it was unconsciously done.”

The only sound in the stable is the soft rush of the water and the sporadic blow of a hoof on the wooden floor. It is enough to make Lizzie feel mad.

“Is this your reply then?” Ms Mikaelson finally asks.

“Yes.”

Another beat of silence passes before Ms Mikaelson inquires, her voice trembling slightly with emotion. “Are you mocking me?”

“No.”

“But you are rejecting me.”

“Ms Mikaelson,” she warns.

“I’d like to know why you're so adamant in your rejection.”

“Why?” she exclaims before she can stop herself, her voice rising in turn, “Have you heard a word of what you’ve said? You chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character.”

“Ms Elizabeth—”

“You have insulted my family and my person, and all this I could have forgiven as the typical arrogance fuelled by your station, had you not also destroyed whatever hope of happiness my sister could have.”

“Your sister,” Ms Mikaelson replies, as if completely dumbfounded.

“You deny it? You deny convincing Mr Kirby to leave Salvatore’s mansion and all hopes from a proposal to our family?”

“I do not deny it.”

“How could you do it?”

“She did not love him!”

“How dare you! How dare you pretend to know my sister’s heart when she hides her desire even from me? She loved him. So much so that she left town herself when she could not stand the thought of staying home with her sister.”

“I did it for his own good. It was made clear that an advantageous marriage…”

“How dare you! My sister had no such intentions.”

“Your father made his clear, though.”

“He was drunk!”

“Precisely my point,” Ms Mikaelson sneers, her whole face a mockery of Lizzie’s family and pride.

She bristles, her vision red, and her mind starts working faster and faster before she can stop it. She usually hates the feeling, but this time she lets it flow. “And what about Mr Belledame, what is your explanation for the evil you’ve done to him?”

“You’ve taken such interest in him?” Ms Mikaelson asks, in a tone that only seemed half as interested in the reply as she was in the question.

“He told me of your treatment and his misfortune.”

“Yes, of course. So this is your opinion of me! Thank you for explaining so fully. Perhaps these offences might have been overlooked if your pride had not been hurt—”

“My pride?” she yells, her hand waving around.

“—by my honesty in admitting scruples about our relationship. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your circumstances?”

“You are mistaken, Ms Mikaelson, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you. I had not known you a month when your arrogance and conceit made me realize that you were the last person in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.”

By the end of this exchange, Lizzie finds herself much closer to Ms Mikaelson than intended, her chest heaving as she regained her breath. Ms Mikaelson who then backs away as if struck, her eyes usually so vivid had gone dull, as if the words had nailed shut a coffin Lizzie hadn't realized she was burying.

“I’m sorry for having exposed you to my presence for this long. It will not happen again.”

Ms Mikaelson bows low and steps away, her boots sounding final in their stride. Lizzie does not know if she hopes to hear the sound ever again.

**

The next morning she wakes up to post, and an unposted letter.

She takes the papers and her tea back into her room, careful not to spill any of the contents.

She opens her sister’s first, finds it pleasantly unsurprising, and carries on to the most bothersome piece of coorespondence on her desk.

She sighs and starts to read.

Dear Ms Elizabeth,

do not be alarmed by this letter as it does not contain the sentiments you so harshly rebuked the other night. You have accused me of two offences to you and I shall rectify the account of both. In regard to your sister, I have seen Landon fall often. I held my tongue on my apprehensions, and during that time I observed your sister and your family. I observed you most, in truth.

Lizzie looks at that line over and over. It does not disappear under her scrutiny, so it mustn’t be a hallucination caused by lack of sleep.

Nevertheless, Ms Saltzman looked unbothered but also unaffected by my dear friend’s affection. And the matter of your father spoke and speaks for itself. I must apologise if that wasn’t the case if with my words I sprung apart two lovers, as you have said, but that had been my impression and I had to protect my friend. Landon had no knowledge of my meddling and for that, I hope you won’t hold him accountable.

And Lizzie would have liked it more if Ms Mikaelson wasn’t so similar in expressing her affections. She would have liked it more because she would have been able to dismiss her, she would have been able to keep her hate blind.

Onto the other matter, my father provided for Mr Wickham a valuable living as it was his costume to pay back his debts. But upon his death, however, Mr Belledame told me that he had no intention of taking orders and would I recompense him to the tune of $3000 so he could go to town and study the law.

This I did, though by now, I had some doubts about his character. These were confirmed by reports that he had sunk into a life of idleness, gambling and dissipation. The money was soon used up, whereupon he wrote demanding more money which I refused, whereupon he severed all acquaintance.

I thought the matter was done, until this past summer wherein he had tried to take advantage of my family’s goodwill once more by attempting to kidnap my nephew and attempting to sign him into the army as a foot soldier at twelve years old. You can imagine why I despise him deeply.

All this I was desperate for you to know, the truth behind whatever narrative Mr Belledame has told you and the truth of every event in which we have been concerned together. I hope you won’t dismiss all my words in the manner you’re so fond of.

How was it that someone with all of Ms Mikaelson’s fine breeding and education could always say the exact wrong thing?

I will add only my regards to this letter and my regrets,

Hope Andrea Mikaelson

She doesn’t know how long she stares at the letter once she had finished reading, but the light had changed over and around her, deepening the shadows creeping on the paper.

‘Regrets’ Lizzie noticed on one of those rereads was written hastily and almost on the corner of the letter, as if she had doubted whether to add it until the last second.

Her eyes study over and over the strokes forming the signature at the end of it, and she wonders whether that ink blot next to her last parting had been an incipit of an uncertain send-off that had ended in a sterile signature. She wonders if Ms Mikaelson usually ended her letters with a ‘yours’. She wonders why she had expected to see…

She shakes her head.

There’s a hand coming to rest on her shoulder. “Lizzie… are you alright?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.”

She doesn’t stay much longer on Lady Freya’s territory, even though almost all of Ms Mikaelson’s family members had gone away days earlier. She feels on the edge of a breakdown that hadn't been far from her future ever since her sister’s departure.

She arrives back home with barely the lungs left to breathe, her mind still reeling with all the new knowledge it acquired. She’s almost glad now, that Sebastian hadn't had a way to contact her while she was away.

She finds her sister sitting on her bed in their room, luggage barely opened and disposed of. She tears off her bonnet in one swift movement and sends it flying on the bed.

“Josie, I must—”

“Lizzie,” her twin intercepts before she can go on, “How was your trip?”

“That’s what I'm trying to tell you. I met Ms Mikaelson.”

“You did,” Josie says, though it sounds more like a question.

“Yes. And, well, she was civil. Lady Freya’s apparently her aunt. We had to dine with her, and… let’s say Cousin Ethan was a bit altruistic in his description of her. And I met her other aunt and her husband…”

“Lizzie I don’t care about the Mikaelson’s family.”

“Well, you will be surprised to hear that Ms Mikaelson was very interested in ours.”

“What do you mean?”

And Lizzie was ready to tell her about the proposal, but the words die on her lips. “She has admitted to being the one who convinced Mr Kirby to leave.”

“Oh,” Josie sighs, her face pale.

“Oh? Josie, don’t you—”

She watches the colour come back to her sister’s face. “I’ve no idea why you would tell me this. I’ve forgotten all about him!”

“Josie…”

“I have. I’m not going to linger in this house misery.”

“So you want to leave me again? Do you truly think evading your feelings by surrounding yourself with new pretty things will help your favour?”

“I really don’t think you get to tell me this.”

“You left me, and I understand why you had to. But you left me.”

“You’re unfair.”

“So are you.”

“You expect too much from me, Lizzie. You expect too much from everyone. You say it is all Ms Mikaelson’s fault, that she pulled Landon away from us, from me, by deceiving him. I say if he could be convinced he never felt more than a passing fancy.”

And with that Josie left, as lapidary in her tone as she was in her tone.

The door slams. Just like that everything comes crashing down.

Lizzie needs… her head swims in a sea of unwanted thoughts. Lizzie needs to drown. Them. She doesn’t want to drown herself, does she? She counts slowly to ten, upwards and downwards and then upwards once more.

She swallows the bile in her throat.

It isn’t enough.

She wants to run outside. She wants… She can’t help the scream. It builds up and up her throat like water flowing through a broken dam. She screams until she doesn’t have any air left and then she screams some more.

(She really thought she was getting better.)

**

One day, a week past Josie’s new departure, Emma walks into her room.

“I feel you would benefit from leaving this home for a while,” Emma says, her eyes kind.

And Lizzie had known what this visit had been from the start- a poorly disguised assessment of her mental health- and yet it stings, all the same, to have the confirmation stated so clearly.

“Is it doctor’s orders?”

“No, you know you always have a choice.”

Lizzie tries her best not to laugh at that. If it were true, Lizzie could inherit the estate. If it were true, Lizzie would not be ushered by whispers wherever she went.

Alas.

“I’ll come with you.”

“Wonderful.”

So Lizzie spends the rest of her summer riding around with her doctor and her husband. All in all, it could be worse.

It doesn’t become worse until they propose to visit New Orleans.

“I’m not sure…”

“We touch there and then we move north again,” Dorian reassures her, “I’ll send words to your father.”

Lizzie doesn’t know how to tell him that her father is the last of her worries, as of late.

“And I heard you can visit the Mikaelson’s compound.”

She chokes on her spit. “The what?”

“Beautiful building. It’s the heart of the French quarter.”

“Oh.”

**

The compound is beautiful and massive, towering over the street and opening to a small [chiostro], vines overgrown in such a careful matter that couldn’t be anything else but planned.

(Wishing not to have turned away her proposal now, are you, a mean voice sing songs in her head.)

(Yes, she would like to answer, and not at all for the money.)

She doesn’t much pay attention to what their guide was saying, much more concerned in deciphering the home she’s walked into. She searches for traces of the woman she’s known in the past months and has known all over again with just one letter.

Does she sit in that parlour with her guests, does she walk these hallways quickly at night, does she sneak into the library to read in the sun and avoid her duties…

Lizzie doesn’t find herself wrong so often, so completely, as the letter suggests she did with Hope. And she has hated the sole suggestion of it so much, that some part of her knows that it’s true.

It is with such thoughts that she walks hallway after hallway, trailing along her chaperons, and it is with such thoughts that she finds the previously white marble floor stained under her feet.

She looks up and finds the most beautiful window she had ever seen.

There's a girl, surrounded by seven figures each with one of their hands on the other’s shoulders like a Celtic knot with the girl in the centre, and they glowed their holy light down on the pavement, bathing Lizzie in reds and greens and blues.

Lizzie doesn’t know how to react to the sight of what could only be Hope Andrea Mikaelson and her family immortalized in sunlight and stars spun from molten glass.

“Oh, how pretty,” Emma says, appearing as if out of thin air. Or maybe Lizzie had been much too absorbed tracing the familiar lines of Hope’s halfway there smile. The artisan must have known her well. A stroke of jealousy caresses her shoulders, leaving them tense in their wake.

“Yes, the mistress’ father had it made when she came of age, only months…” their guide trails off, “Well, you know.”

Emma must find the silence as awkward as she does because she turns to her. “Lizzie, does she much resemble the lady of the house?”

“She does.”

“Have you met Ms Mikaelson?” the guide asks, the surprise clear in her inquiry.

And only then does it hit Lizzie, that she’s started to think of Ms Mikaelson as Hope in the comfort and privacy of her own mind.

“I have. You’ve said she’s away on business?” Lizzie finally answers, but she finds herself addressing the air, as her father’s friends are already the next room away and so is their guide.

Even so, she can’t help but stay a beat of the clock longer, tracing over and over a face she doesn’t know if she’s even allowed to miss.

The letter had brought forward feelings she had shown down ever since her eyes had met the ones of the heir of the Mikaelson’s. Not that it mattered, anymore. Not that it ever did. She would let her house burn to the ground before she accepted Hope’s outstretched hand- her loyalty to her sister’s happiness repulsed it.

Her heart, however…

By the time she breaks out of her reverie, she’s so far removed from her group that she decides to wander on her own, trusting she would not end up in a ditch if this was Hope’s home.

At one point, her feet carry her towards the soft sound of a piano. And well, Lizzie was much too curious for her own good.

She doesn’t recognize the piece, and she ardently wishes all at once to have paid better attention when their teacher had taught them. Though she doesn’t suppose it matters. It isn’t much the piece as it is the player, and Hope was making the notes come to life.

Her eyes are closed, and her fingers swift in the way that spoke of years of practice. She watches the sunlight play together with her, the sun dancing around the room and lighting it on fire and Hope at the centre of that inferno untouched.

She doesn’t know how long she stays there, listening. She supposes for far too long when the last notes linger in the air and Hope finally opens her eyes.

A well-mannered lady does not run, Elizabeth Saltzman. Hope’s eyes make contact with hers.

She bolts.

She can hear Hope calling her name. She doesn’t stop.

“Ms Saltzman! Please. Elizabeth! Lizzie—”

That stops her immediately.

“I thought you were in Boston,” Lizzie says, all too frantic, all too guilty, “I never would have bothered you, if I knew—”

Hope interrupts her before she can. “I was not.”

“I can see that.”

“Yes.”

“And my father’s friends I'm travelling with them you see, and we were riding nearby and they wanted to visit. I love riding, you see.”

“Yes,” at that Hope smiles, a shiny little thing that blinds her. “Yes. I know.”

“This is embarrassing. Sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault I shouldn’t have followed you.”

Lizzie then decides to remember her manners. “You have a beautiful home, Ms Mikaelson.”

“I’m glad it was to your liking, Ms Elizabeth.”

“And you play beautifully,” she continues, before the soft look in Hope’s eyes could corrupt her furthermore.

“Oh, please.”

“No, really. I’m ashamed to have subjected you to my own playing.”

“You play quite well.”

“Perjury.”

“I mean it.”

And this is so stupid. And embarrassing. But Hope is so close now, that she forgets herself. Can only stare at her ice blue eyes and think of the pond by her garden that past winter, and how infuriatingly beautiful Hope would look if she were to stand there too.

“I… assume you’ve had time to read my letter.”

“Yes. I—” and God, this is more embarrassing than the running, “I was rash the last time we spoke. I apologize.”

“I gave you reason to be rash.”

“Yes,” she acquiesces, though a touch too quickly to be polite, “Maybe.”

Hope smiles kindly. “Most certainly.”

The silence lasts longer still before Lizzie has to admit it. “I must go now.”

“Must you?”

“I—”

She longed to know what at that moment was passing in her mind- in what manner she thought of her, and whether, in defiance of everything, she was still dear to her.

“To impose my desire would be impolite of me, but I must at least ask you if you’d stay for dinner.”

“I do not know if I should.”

Ms Mikaelson seems to sober up all at once. “Of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insistent.”

“Not at all. It’s just—I must go back. To Mystic Falls.”

“Tonight?” Hope asks her hand so close to Lizzie’s sleeve she can feel her warmth seeping through.

“Ms Mikaelson…”

The hand goes back as if scorched. “My apologies.”

But that hadn't been Lizzie’s intention. Or had it? She’s been so confused since that letter. And she had been too prideful before it. She doesn’t know how she’s meant to fix this. She doesn’t know if she wants to.

“I assure you,” Hope rushes out and Lizzie thinks back to that dance floor and the need to watch her unravel like she is now- “That I did not mean anything untoward by it. I would be satisfied with the thought of you—I mean to say, I am satisfied with just your presence in my life. For as brief as you will decide it to be.”

She doesn’t recognize the woman in front of her, and it couldn’t be for her. It couldn’t be for her sake that her manners have so softened. Her refusal couldn’t have done this. It is impossible that Hope would love her still. Not after her refusal.

“You once said you didn’t wish for my friendship.”

“No,” and Hope’s smile is strange and beautiful, “Your friendship at the time hadn't been my goal.”

The breath escapes Lizzie’s lungs, fast. But before Lizzie could think of a proper answer to give, Hope turns on her heels and walks away with the same sort of military strut she always seemed to have.

And she can’t stand it.

“Hope!”

Hope turns with a weird little noise that could have been choking or clearing her throat. “Yes?”

“I’ll be glad to stay for dinner.”

(She doesn’t know what she wants, but she knows she wants more.)

(More of her time, her presence, her smile.)

They sit for dinner and Lizzie is partly relieved that she has Emma and Dorian with her, but mostly annoyed at the intrusion. Which is weird, because it’s not like Lizzie wants to monopolize Hope’s attention. She just would like to…

She shakes her head and shovels some more food in her mouth.

“So, how do you find New Orleans?” Hope asks.

“It’s beautiful. So full of life…” Lizzie trails off, feeling Hope’s eyes on her. “It’s wonderful.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Yes, we visited—” Emma starts only to be interrupted by a boy breaks in the hall.

“Hope! You will never believe what Marcel showed me.”

“Nik, we have a guest you can’t just—”

“Did you know our house is the oldest in the quarter?” the boy, Nik, continues undeterred.

“Nik!” and this voice she recognizes as Lady Freya’s wife, who appears a second later, “There are guests!”

The boy seems to come into himself all of the sudden, and Lizzie can see the Mikaelson resemblance in him immediately as he bows once, neatly. “Welcome to the compound.”

Hope’s face is open in a grin and Lizzie finds herself mirroring her. “Thank you.”

“Are you Elizabeth Saltzman?”

“I am,” Lizzie says, though it sounds like a question.

Nik turns to her cousin. “You’re right, cousin, she is very pretty. Though I wouldn’t describe her hair as ‘moonlight’ exactly.”

Hope blushes as red as her hair. “Nik!”

“You… described me?”

“Endlessly,” the boy continues with a shit-eating grin, “In long written letters.”

“Nik! One more word I swear.”

The boy laughs, and Lizzie wonders if Hope too sounded like this when she was younger.

Lizzie wants to know more, though, so. “How did she describe my eyes?”

“Cerulean,” is Nik’s instantaneous reply like he had been eagerly waiting only for Lizzie to ask him.

“I would have said—”

This time it’s Dorian who reprimands her. “Lizzie!”

“Tell me later when mixed company isn't present,” Lizzie says under her breath, and Nik winks at her in all his thirteen-year-old glory.

And she can’t help it. She laughs, loud and unladylike.

She doesn’t think she’s ever been this happy.

(All things must come to an end.)

**

The letter arrives the next day, the messenger all too grave as he shows it to her. The black ribbon on it is the first giveaway, the second is the messy handwriting on the back- uncharacteristic for Josie.

She’s sure she knows the content of it even before opening it.

She falls to her knees at the confirmation.

**

The funeral is a quiet affair.

Her father hadn't been well-liked in quite a while. Some parts of her half expect this all to be a bad dream. She knows it isn’t by Josie’s red-rimmed eyes. And she wishes intensely for New Orleans and its colours.

(She wishes intensely, mostly, for its red.)

**

The only thing she remembers is her sister’s hand in hers.

A united front.

**

It takes about three weeks for the grief to truly set in, and three months to settle into their new kind of life. Cousin Ethan had been true to his word and had left them time to grieve, and time to settle their affairs, not even hinting once about the inheritance problem and generously sending part of his stipend to them every twentieth.

And still.

And still, Josie doesn’t play the piano anymore in a house growing quieter and quieter by the days. And still, Lizzie didn’t ride each morning any more. And still, they both ignored how they were grieving more than just the loss of their father.

Lizzie didn’t think anyone could have shaken them up.

Until Mrs Greasley stops them in town, their clothes still dark but lightening up month after month. “Mr Kirby is back in town.”

“Mr Kirby?” Josie asks, her voice breathier than she intended Lizzie’s sure.

“Yes, they opened the house today.”

“Today? Not that I care about it,” Josie rushes all in one breath, regaining some sort of sense, “Mr Kirby is nothing to us and I'm sure I never want to see him again.”

Lizzie rolls her eyes. Overcompensation much?

But still. United front. “Yes, sister, well said.”

And Lizzie had meant it under the soft daylight that managed to make Lizzie forget about all the shadows. She had truly, truly meant it.

But at night…

To say her name out loud would bring the sting of tears to her eyes. Thus she must satisfy the need of it by whispering it in her mind, over and over.

It isn’t enough.

But Hope is and will always be the girl who sent Josie’s love away, and that would always be too much.

Josie was her twin, her reflection and her yardstick- Lizzie would sacrifice her own happiness for her. And Lizzie knew in her heart that Josie would do anything for her too in the same fashion. Therefore she had been always ever so careful not to ask for too much.

She won’t ask her this.

(Not that there is anything to ask, anyway.)

(Barely a letter in three months.)

But Mr Kirby was back, and Lizzie dreams of red hair and red lips.

"Are you sure you're alright?" she asks the next morning, head still hot from the memory of her slumber.

"Do you want the pretty lie?"

"You know I don't."

Josie sighs, clearly aggravated by her meddling sister. "I will be fine as long as he doesn't come to visit and he has no reason to."

As if the heavens themselves want to prove her wrong, the doorman comes to announce Mr Kirby's visit. If Lizzie were a better person she wouldn't feel like laughing at Josie's terrified face.

"Mr Kirby," Lizzie greets because her sister cannot, and then less certain, "Ms Mikaelson."

She watches Mr Kirby's throat bob up and down. "Ms Elizabeth. I must offer my condolences for your father, and my deepest apology for not being able to--"

"It is no matter," her sister interrupts him.

"How long are you in town for?" Lizzie asks, partly to save the conversation's civility, partly to satisfy the intense need to know how long her torment will endure.

"I'm afraid not for too long," Hope answers her, and Lizzie's heart drops.

"You must stay for dinner then," she says all too desperate.

"We will gladly accept," Mr Kirby says with the sort of grateful smile that Lizzie had gotten so used to receiving what felt like lifetimes ago.

Mr Kirby manages to make it through all of dinner, all the way to dessert, before clearing his throat awkwardly. "I, erm, I know this is all very embarrassing, but I would like to request the privilege of speaking to Miss Josie alone."

Lizzie had never stepped out of a room faster.

That's how she finds herself standing in the chill spring's nighttime air with one smiling Hope Mikealson. And yet she hadn't felt this warm since New Orleans.

(It hadn't been her father’s funeral, it had been Hope’s absence.)

(She had expected her, after all. She had fallen for her, after all.)

“You’re here,” Lizzie says, stupidly. Of course, she’s here, she berates herself, she had just dined with her and her soon-to-be brother-in-law. She had seen her slip out of the house.

“Am I intruding?”

“Stay,” Lizzie says before she can think better of it, her hand reaching out to hold her in place. She retracts it just as quickly, blushing. “Please.”

Hope sits next to her, careful not to touch her.

“Thank you.”

“There’s nothing I should be thanked for.”

“For coming.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the ceremony. It hadn't been my intention to miss it, but,” Hope looks away from her, “I had to stay away.”

Lizzie looks at her, properly looks at her. She studies the divot of her upper lip and the way the moonlight bounces off her skin. She studies how her brow bends when she’s sorrowful, and she wishes to see how it would in happiness.

She turns away.

And while her courage was high, she speaks. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Especially since what you’ve done for our family.”

“I’ve done nothing.”

“You’ve done more than enough. You’ve brought back my sister happiness, and I'm certain that if I were to ask my cousin where the money we received came from... Let me be selfish in acknowledging it, I cannot ignore your kindness towards my family anymore.”

“I don’t want you to mistake what could bring you discomfort if seen in a misguided light.”

Lizzie shakes her head no. “My family will forever be in your debt.”

“Your family had little to do with my actions, Ms Elizabeth. Your family owes me nothing as I only ever thought of you.”

Lizzie’s breath gets caught in her lungs at the words, at the intensity of them, and at the intensity of Hope. And it may not be proper, but Lizzie Saltzman had already been reputed disgraced in every way by society, and she rather thinks Hope knows that very well.

So she bends down and kisses her.

For a terrible moment, she thinks Hope won’t kiss her back.

And then.

And then Hope’s hands tangle in her hair, previously resting scandalously loose around her shoulders, and Lizzie wishes she could do the same but Hope’s own hair is tied tightly on top of her head. She grabs Hope’s jacket instead and pulls her closer relying partly on what she’s read she should do and partly on this need that cuts through her veins and into her flesh.

When she cups her face, her hands touch wet cheeks. She moves her lips, needing to taste the salt of her. But that’s hardly enough, so she kisses her lips once more.

“Wait, Ms Elizabeth, please.”

And Lizzie wants to kiss her again, but she has learnt all too quickly how Hope so rarely speaks her desires.

“If your feelings are the same as we spoke last, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me forever. If however, they had…”

Lizzie makes no motion to speak, but she knows her eyes betray her as do her cheeks hurting from how wide she’s smiling. Only Hope, she thinks, would still give her the gift of backing out after compromising herself.

“If they had I would have to tell you, you have bewitched me body and soul, and I love I love I love you. And never wish to be parted from you from this day on.”

And she reckons this is where Lizzie is meant to reply with something equally as charming, equally as lovely and romantic as Hope’s confession had been. Only, she cannot.

“This proposal would have been better had you brought a bouquet and a ring.”

Hope smiles, and there's a laugh bubbling at the bottom of Lizzie’s throat. “I didn’t think of those. Please, forgive me.”

“You shouldn’t abuse my magnanimous nature thus.”

Hope laughs then, full and happy and the prettiest sound she had ever heard, her hand slowly coming to hold hers. Lizzie rests her head against the side of her head, nose brushing rebel hair around Hope’s temple.

“May I hope your answer is favourable despite my lackings?”

“You have overlooked mine.”

And she thinks she’s never been this happy before in her life. They stay like that, holding each other tightly against the night, for what could have been months or seconds before Lizzie feels the need to speak again.

“How did you know?”

“Do you wish to mock me?”

Lizzie shakes her head fond now of Hope's seriousness. “I wish to know.”

“I don’t know the moment or the hour," Hope fulfils her request, her fingers tangling in Lizzie's skirts, "You had charmed me, and it wasn’t until the middle that I had even noticed.”

Charmed, she thinks, that’s one word for it.

“Did you like me because I gave you grief?”

Hope doesn’t answer, which is an answer in and on itself, Lizzie reckons.

“You liked it. My impertinence. You liked how unamiable I was to you.”

“Perhaps.”

“Though maybe it’s for the best you already saw all my bad sides. I have seen yours after all.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“You allow it.”

“I do.”

“And yet when you came to visit with Mr Kirby you hardly gave me a nod, at first.”

“So did you,” Hope replies, her fingers betraying her unease as she drums them against her thigh, “You were silent and couldn’t hold eye contact for much long.”

“I was embarrassed.”

“So was I.”

“You could have talked to me more, then, at dinner.”

“Someone who had felt less, could.”

And well, after that they're too busy smiling to do anything else.

**

When they step back into the house, Josie is there waiting.

“Where have you been?” Josie looks at their joined hands, “You must not be serious.”

“I am.”

“Are you out of your senses? You hated her.”

Lizzie blushes at the thought of her past rants. “No.”

“Is this because of our father? I would not cast you away when I marry.”

She grits out a smile, pulling her sister away to at least pretend to have a private conversation. “Thank you for the kind words sister.”

Josie rolls her eyes and then stares at Hope some more. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. Do you even like her?”

“I do like her, Josie. I love her. She has no improper pride. I misunderstood her. We all did.”

“Can you even be happy with her?”

“I don’t think I can be, without her.”

“I don’t think I could change your mind then.”

“Don’t, Josie, I would hate to be angry with you.”

“Is she smiling?”

“Yes.”

“Does she always smile like that?”

Lizzie studies Hope’s face. And, well— “It’s the only smile she has ever shown me.”

Like a trance, she goes back to her side.

“You’re back.”

“I am. Do you wish to know what we spoke about?”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude on sibling camaraderie. And I can guess.”

“She inquired about your smile.”

Hope frowns slightly. “Am I smiling?”

“Not nearly enough.”

And since she cannot kiss her in proper company, she brushes her fingertips secretly the back of her hand. Hope blushes a delightful shade of pink and Lizzie laughs.

(They are married that fall under red oak trees.)