entrancelogs | call yourself a living girl.

Entry tags:

call yourself a living girl.

who | elena gilbert + you
where | the entrance hall + around.
when | throughout august.
rating | tba? prose + brackets equally welcome.
summary | elena returns from her canon update. then there is a catch-all post for the month of august. then there is a literary question. give me everything.
the story |

a r r i v a l.

[ a young woman stands in the middle of your entrance hall, eway.

she is decked out in formal wear, and for a beat or two, looks very confused. a dozen tiny pieces of her heart, all of them belonging to wonderland, start falling back into place. it is with effort elena shakes off a sense of displacement. months went by where she could not, for the life of her, remember this place. months.

in mystic falls, that's several lifetimes.

elena turns in place, almost lightheaded with an overwhelming feeling. she's heard the stories. she's listened to other people's experiences. wonderland is a revolving door: with every swivel, people come, and then they go.

and sometimes they come back again.

don't mind the girl in the ball gown storming the proverbial castle. the mansion is eerily quiet, and she needs to make sure she isn't the only one left standing. ]

a u g u s t.

[ it doesn't take long for elena to pick up where she left off. sure, life back home is a roller coaster and then some, but when is it not? life doesn't stop, and neither does elena. she refuses to wallow. refuses to linger on what she can't change—yet. throughout the month, she settles back into some kind of routine. she jogs every morning, bright and early. she stops by the coffee shop afterward for her daily fix. every other evening, she hits the gym; there's a sandbag with her name on it, and elena pummels it with more skill than she used to.

you can thank alaric saltzman (and faith lehane) for that last one.

bump into her during any and all of these instances. alternatively, feel free to ask ella to write a ~~better~~ more specific starter for your character. ♥ ]

n e t w o r k.

[ okay, so she keeps busy. elena is a busy bee if there ever was one. if she isn't doing her nancy drew thing in hopes of uncovering wonderland's secrets, she's checking in on her loved ones, helping evelyn at the library, or preparing herself for wonderland's upcoming events. but her trip back home has left her restless and somewhat uneasy.

it means sleep is hard to come by.

it means elena is at the library, curled up on her favorite brown leather chair, with a shawl at her feet. she turns her device on and activates the text feature, addressing any and all night owls still awake. ]

Does anyone have any book recommendations? I'm not picky with genres, as long as the writer has something interesting to say. [ in lieu of her network post, there is always stumbling on her at the library proper. she'll be roaming the stacks in search of her next read. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is a mess around them.

Damon does not know how to control himself on a good day, and without Elena, it seems like he is losing what little semblance of control he has, over and over again. There are no answers except that she is not in Wonderland, which means she could be experiencing god-knows-what in Mystic Falls where at one point, Klaus starts caring about using her blood (and why- and why-)

He is going to lose it.

"You don't need to play babysitter."

It is said in a low, sharp voice to Bonnie because she sure just stopped him from creating an even bigger mess.

"Oh, trust me." Bonnie's voice wavers with a humorless laugh. "I'm not the one playing right now."

It's no secret Bonnie's sense of self is inflated a skoach. She likes to feel that she's the pillar of Mystic Falls. Its defender, the watchdog-- but here in Wonderland, her interests diverge. Of course, Damon can't see that the world has opened up beyond them all in ways none of them could ever have anticipated. His eyes are filled with one thing.

But Bonnie loved Elena first, and far more richly, and if anyone should be acting the melodramatic teenager bit? Bonnie thinks that's absolutely her purview. And yet...

"I'm not exactly thrilled to be stuck here with you, either, but I am still here. And I could be doing more important things with my time than making sure you don't paint a target on your stupid back. Because when Elena comes back, she'll stand in front of the bullseye. So cut the shit."

Damon knows- he utterly knows how true that is despite the fact he would never want Elena to stand in front of any bullseye for him. She did it before she left even, throwing herself in the middle of a fight between two far more powerful beings in an attempt to stop it.

Granted, then it had been more about saving Faith than the likes of him, but the truth is she still did it without hesitation. He growls at the implication he could be putting Elena in more danger somehow, because that is clearly the worst thing she could say to him. All he could ever want, all he could ever need is to keep Elena safe. It's the one thing he and Bonnie relate on, and it's the one thing that could reach through to him like someone tearing apart his chest with a sharp claw.

"So go! Do the more important things already. I'm not asking you to do this, and Elena isn't around asking you to either." And then there it is-- there's the growl from him (he's not human, not even close). "No, she won't, because the both of us won't let her. Understand?"

Elena has human feet and human ears.

It means she doesn't get to Bonnie and Damon as quickly as she'd like, nor does she hear the specifics of what they're arguing about—only that they are arguing. Damon's eyes are doing that wide, unsettling thing they do, and Bonnie looks a second away from giving him an aneurysm. She's pretty sure she shouldn't be relieved to stumble upon such a scene, but she is.

She'd rather a murderous Bonnie and Damon than no Bonnie and Damon at all. Elena picks up the skirts of her dress and her pace along with it. "I can't leave you two alone for five minutes, can I?" she asks by way of greeting. Elena Gilbert, it was more than five minutes.

"This is Elena! Nobody lets her do any--"

Bonnie's frustration is quickly eclipsed by joy at the sound of Elena's voice which has her whirling around to find it-- her intended words get lost in the wake of a surprised gasp.

"Oh my god." Literally stunned, Bonnie isn't actually sure what she and Damon were fighting about. She just looks-- well, starstruck. Elena did you woke up like dis?

Damon is a cave man so he could totally argue that if he wasn't distracted as well by the sound of Elena's voice, turning in place as his mouth parts, and he stares at her. The whole world stops turning, and there's Elena Gilbert in a gorgeous gown.

His thoughts have left him. The fight has left him.

She's back, and she is gorgeous, and he is absolutely smitten.

For once (in all its rarity), he's rendered speechless.

Bonnie coughs.

And shoves her elbow into Damon's ribs.

"Damon." Her wide eyes slide up to his face and then back to Elena. Dude.

Elena straightens in place, doing her best not to fidget under Damon's gaze. Her eyes avert to Bonnie, but that doesn't feel entirely safe, either. She swallows a little, mashing down secrets. Emotions and reasons. It's been months.

It feels like a lifetime. She sees, and pretends not to. And she feels, but that comes later.

"What. No hug?" she asks, trying for a smile.

Damon blinks as Bonnie elbows him, and then he looks at her abruptly like What? He coughs lightly since oh yeah, he was staring. He folds his arms across his chest and then pokes Bonnie since he knows Elena is talking about Bonnie there.

It's not like Damon does hugs, and he's still speechless so he's not one for words at the moment.

Also, Elena is back, and it's like everything else settles into place now that he knows it and sees her.

The poke gets a particularly cranky scowl out of Bonnie, but she admits defeat and skips toward Elena to throw her arms around her shoulders for a Bennett Bear Hug™. Her hands scoop under her best friend's arms, and she pulls Elena in close with no regard for avoiding the soft brown waves of her hair.

"You look like a princess!" Welcome back, bestie. A+ choice on your manner of return we'd expect no less.

Elena sinks into the comforting embrace. She draws from Bonnie's warmth, with little thought to how much it is that she is taking from her. When Elena pulls back, she is steady once more. Steady, if not sobered.

"I'm—I was at a ball. Esther's ball." A small pause follows that particular declaration. Certain pieces are still falling into place. "We were right. The coffin you couldn't open belonged to Klaus' mother."

Damon just shrugs at that cranky scowl before he awkwardly steps forward behind the two of them, and his voice gets caught in his throat. His gaze drifts over her again from up close, and he has to say he agrees even if he can't find his voice at the moment.

"You look beautiful." His voice is soft. Yes, he... nailed that. Oh, right, there is another conversation happening, which is likely more important (no, it's not, but he can pretend). He tilts his head to the side, falling back into that sarcasm, even as his gaze drifts over her still as if trying to see whether or not she's okay. "...we've already met the father. I can only imagine how delightful the mother must be."

Elena's allowed to take whatever she needs from Bonnie, and Bonnie takes an energized step back when she's released. She very blatantly rolls her eyes at Damon's first comment because what is a successful will save? Bonnie knows not.

"OK, so ... vampire mom is extra scary because she throws parties?"

S-so smooth, Damon.

Elena's lashes lower, swallowing thickly, and not without regret. Grateful for Bonnie's concentration on the matter at hand, she exhales slowly. "More like she's extra scary because she's the powerful witch responsible for creating Original vampires."

Damon's gaze narrows at Elena even as he ignores that eye roll of Bonnie, but he's distracted at least from the talks of how beautiful she is and Elena looking down by what she says.

"She created vampires," he says, because that is-- Well, it makes sense. The bonds of family. She'd want to keep her children alive forever, but how does that help them unless something changed? Unless she didn't mean to create monsters... "So what were you doing at her ball? Did she just pass out invites?"

"What was she doing? Look at her. She was..." Bonnie purses her lips in thought, swiftly ignoring her forgetfulness regarding the details of Esther's existence.

"Doing recon?" Right? Because Elena definitely wasn't doing something stupid. It's Elena!

...Oh. Right.

R u d e.

"She needed my blood."

Aware of how alarming that might sound to the both of them, she is quick to elaborate. "Just a drop of it. She regretted turning her children into vampires. Nature punished her for it, and she saw what the Originals turned into while she was on the Other Side. She was going to help us kill Klaus."

"She what?"

Alarming is underestimating his reaction to what she says. Damon swallows, shaking his head when she elaborates, because he doesn't trust it. He doesn't trust the woman, needing only a drop, but it's far beyond him. It's not here. It's not.

"Both father and mother so willing to kill him."

It's murmured in a low voice.

"Elena!" Bonnie's voice raises alongside Damon's initial comment in a cacophonous harmony. But it is laced with concern of a different sort. Doppelganger blood-- surely a powerful component in any spell? As a witch, Bonnie finds herself oddly protective of the blood.

As Elena's friend, the protective streak is hardly odd.

Elena still finds it incredibly jarring whenever Damon and Bonnie agree on something, btw.

"We could've finally taken Klaus down, once and for all!"

Isn't that what they've wanted for nearly a year now? Nights where she could practically taste it. "The way she explained it, it was a spell that linked all the Originals' lives together. So if one of them goes, they would all go."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

call yourself a living girl.

do you want the truth or something beautiful?

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