entrancelogs | ƒ 006 [catch-all] open } { although there was so much she never tried

[Safe to say, this is one of Freya's least favorite events that she's managed to survive thus far. It isn't so much the threat of drowning or suffocation that bothered her, but more the jolts in time and temporal disorientation that managed to throw her for a loop. So her usual post-event drinking is delayed a few days so she can spend some time outside and feel like the less like the walls are closing in on her.

Still, eventually she finds herself back on the fifth floor, sliding onto the stool across from Cami with a small smile and a heavy sigh.]

Was this last event as fun for you as it was for me?

[Between the flooding and the ever so pleasant message she'd gotten from Klaus' mirror after the waters receded, Cami is more than happy to be returning to her regularly scheduled routine, thanks. In fact, things are looking better than they have in quite some time. It's taken a long time, months, but Cami's finally found some measure of peace with knowledge of her future--or at least, reached a point where she doesn't think about it with dread every few minutes.

Plus, the part where she and Klaus are actually together now has been kind of nice too.

It's why she smiles easily enough when Freya walks into the room.]

Oh, it was a blast. [She goes for a shot glass, and a bottle of tequila to fill it; on the whole, definitely a better way to drown.] The potential to suffocate or drown, eating out of cans, repeating time...

[...So on second thought? Cami gets a second glass, pouring herself a shot to match Freya's.]

Did you make it through okay?

[She nods slowly, taking a long sip of her drink.]

Though it definitely made me appreciate the great outdoors, whether there is snow on the ground or not.

Oh, same here. I was honestly tempted to start seeing patience in the hedge maze, just to not be inside.

[Cami leans against the bar once their drinks are poured, considering her friend as the other woman takes a drink. Although she hadn't really known Freya all that well back home, Cami's really come to value their relationship here.

Which is why she decides it's finally time to stop acting selfishly regarding everything that's happened in their world.]

I need to thank you, Freya. I know it can't have been easy, being from the future and not telling me about it. [For Klaus it had been all but impossible; though he honored her wishes, his eyes still held all his pain each time they met. When she looks at Freya, Cami thinks she can see that same agony.

Even now.]

But I think I'm ready now. I know there's more that's happened back home, even after--[She waves a hand in the air. It won't ever be a simple thing to say, even if Cami's closer to being at peace with it.]

I want you to tell me what else has happened.

[Freya knew this conversation was coming eventually, and part of her is glad that Davina, Marcel, Vincent or even her brother hadn't shown up in the process and forced their hand sooner. This is something she needed to tell Cami herself, but she wanted it to be on the other woman's terms.

Now that the moment is here, however, she finds herself wanting to stall the inevitable, even if it isn't the best choice to make.]

How much has Klaus told you about your death?

[Because context is important.]

[Context is important, and perhaps Cami should have expected that to be the first question. Still, she’s a little taken aback by it; somehow, unknowingly, Cami had convinced herself that she’d be hearing about things other than her death during this talk.

But she’s already resolved not to avoid it any longer, even if she can’t stop herself from looking down at the counter.]

Not much. I was a bit too focused on the whole “I’m going to die” aspect to really ask.

[She nods slowly, before finishing off her drink, before reaching for the bottle to pour herself another. She knows a lot of what she has to say is going to be difficult, so she'll stick to the details asked and nothing more.

The truth of Cami's vampirism was going to have to come at another time.]

Through a series of ... supernatural shenanigans, let's say, my brothers Kol and Finn were brought back from the dead in their original bodies. We later learned that this was all a ploy by the ancestors to exact their will on New Orleans. They had struck a bargain with Lucien Castle in that he would destroy my family, and in return would be made, as he called it, "their better."

Using my blood, the ancestors' magic, and the venom of the seven werewolf lines, he turned himself into a ... super hybrid, with a bite that was both strong enough to kill an Original and one that my brother could not cure. He killed Finn as a show of strength, and when we took Aurora from him, he took you from us.

Wait—the witch ancestors? [She knows the answer already, but equally Cami knows enough about how they act within the living world to shake her head.] That would mean Davina was working with them, and she wouldn’t do that. I mean, sure, she hates Klaus--[with good reason]--but Lucien Castle is just as bad, if not worse.

[And Cami can’t see that alliance being made. Not when her last memory of Lucien featured him dropping Cami off at the side of a man he himself had mortally wounded. Then again…

Davina had also been desperate to bring back Kol. It had been her reason for becoming Regent in the first place.

Yet there’s far more than those semantics. Cami frowns as Freya goes on, her fingers raising to toy with the cross pendant she wears. Her eyes go wide at the truth revealed, that Lucien could kill an Original.

That the Mikaelsons retaliated is no surprise, however—and from there, it’s almost easy to see how things spiraled. She’s known of her death for months, and now? Cami knows why.

Retaliation. An easy target. The innocent bystander who simply hadn’t walked away when she should have.]

So what happened next?

No, because the community shunned her and forced her out. And my family wasn't the only ones the ancestors were trying to silence.

[Which is the cold hard truth of it. The ancestors wanted to take out all if their enemies in one hard shot. And for the most part, they succeeded.]

My brother Kol had been struggling since he came back from the dead. His bloodlust was becoming hard and hard to control, and we eventually learned that the ancestors had placed a hex on him before Davina returned him to life. They knew that Kol was one of the things Davina loved most, and they used him to destroy her.

The night you died, Davina did as well.

[She swallows, unsure if she should feel relieved or not that Davina hadn't been the pawn of the ancestors, but Freya answers that question a heartbeat later. Not just the Mikaelsons then, but Davina Claire, a girl so young she'd only just stopped being a child--but only in body. In spirit she'd been forced to grow up so much sooner, by the same community that wanted her dead as part of their Harvest and now--

Cami's eyes go wide. She doesn't need Freya to spell it out after the word "hex," because Cami knows just how terrible and devastating that brand of spell is. She doesn't need her to, or want her to, yet the truth is laid out plain before her anyway.

Her hand comes up to cover her mouth. To hold in the way she wants to cry out in denial when Freya reveals there had been another victim that day.]

[She could take the easy way out. She could offer to give Cami time for that to sink in, or just let the story end there, because she's certain that information is difficult enough, but half-truths cause even more trouble than actual lies, and once she starts, she can't really bring herself to stop.]

Marcel, my brother and Vincent brought her to me. In order to bring her back, they needed to consecrate her to the ancestors, and they knew that once they did, they would destroy her. They asked me to make a protective circle for her so that she would be protected from them, and I did.

[There's a pause, and she takes another swallow of her drink.]

But at the same time, I was trying to solve the problem of Lucien, and we were running out of time. He was hunting for Rebekah, who was incapacitated and unable to protect herself, and we were running out of time. The only solution I could see was channeling the ancestors themselves and reversing the spell so that he would be killable again. The only way to do that, was through Davina, and doing so would cancel out the protection I had given her.

[And because she's not going to throw her brother under the bus:]

I consulted Klaus, but he was against it. He wanted to find another way that wouldn't require sacrificing Davina. But he and Hayley were pinned down by Lucien himself and Elijah and I were unable to help and desperate for a solution, so we took the easy way out. I broke the circle and used Davina's spirit to channel the ancestor's power, and when I was finished, I left her to the wolves.

[There are things she could ask along the way, how do you destroy someone already dead chief among them. But Cami can only stare, transfixed by the words Freya weaves together, this terrible, impossible truth that makes her gut ache and twist with each new revelation. Death hadn’t been enough for those bastards, the ancestors who were supposed to care for their descendants. Instead they meant to destroy all hope, to not only kill Davina but erase her soul from existence.

To ensure there would be absolutely no chance she could be saved.

It doesn’t surprise her that Marcel, Vincent, and Kol would all rally to her side. For a moment, one desperate, needy moment, some spark of belief in Cami even thinks that this could turn out okay. Davina being a witch might for once be used to do her some good, instead of putting her in the path of the storm.

Really, she should know better by now. And yet even so, even with all the darkness that exists in their lives, always on the outskirts until it swallows each of them whole?

Cami cannot believe what she hears next.

Perhaps it had been an impossible choice. Perhaps someone removed a few steps more might see it that way. But the only thing burning in Cami’s throat now isn’t the alcohol she’s swallowed down; it’s vile revulsion, the sickening realization of what Freya means to say even before she says it, paints that picture of merciless Mikaelson self-preservation, always and forever, family above all.

Their family, above a girl who had only lost her innocence because she’d been forced to survive instead. Cami’s eyes are wide, shocked, as she stares at Freya. Her hand has slipped down from her mouth now, resting on her chest but Cami can’t feel it. She can hardly feel anything but the swirl of thoughts, of truths, of what she’s always known deep down but never really let herself believe.

She can’t even feel the tears streaming down her face. She just braces herself against the bar, her knuckles white where she grips the edge.]

You just left her there. [To save Klaus, to save Hayley, to make sure a babe didn’t grow up without the parents who loved her beyond words: this is what Cami does not, cannot think in this moment. Not when her head is full of Davina’s screams, her pleas—the memory of the fear when the ancestors merely called her a traitor in their twisted version of an afterlife.]

Why didn’t you restore the circle? [It should have been simple, right? Just as easy as condemning Davina. Freya had the power of the ancestors themselves—she should have been able to restore the circle.] --You could’ve. You…you could’ve helped her, or done something!

[Davina didn’t have to be condemned. She shouldn’t have been.]

[There are a lot of things Freya could have done.

She could have asked Davina if she was prepared to sacrifice her life for the cause of stopping Lucien and taking away the ancestors' weapon. She could have given the girl the choice instead of taking it from her by force. She could have brought Davina back and combined their power to see if that would bring them the answer they were looking for. Between the two of them plus Kol, maybe they would have found a better answer.

But Freya wasn't thinking of those options at the time. She was thinking of how Finn died in front of her after trying to save her from Lucien. She was thinking of the family she had spent a thousand years trying to find dying before her eyes, and she couldn't let that happen.

Davina was one girl who was already dead. Lucien was a threat that was bent on destroying all of them.]

If I closed the circle, the energy I channeled would be cut off and I wouldn't be able to do what I needed to do. By the time everything was done, the ancestors already had Davina.

[A beat.]

I'm not proud of what I did, but I didn't want you to hear it from someone else.

[She makes it all sound so simple, so completely logical, as if it were somehow a matter of course that this is simply how things had to be. But it’s not simple, or easy, or clean in any way. Not when Freya’s standing there, as soaked in Davina’s blood as the damn witch ancestors themselves. She dipped her hands into it for power, and in the moment it really doesn’t matter to Cami if that strength saved the lives of other dear friends, of the man she’s chosen to love.

All she can see is her loss, and not just of Davina.]

Maybe you’re not proud of it—but you were happy enough to keep acting like my friend this whole time. [Yes, Cami herself had requested to not know the truth, but that had been made under the assumption that there hadn’t been anything like this lurking in the shadows. Freya should have told her, regardless of what Cami had asked. Instead, she’d masqueraded as a person Cami could trust and believe in, someone Cami could count on.

Someone she could turn to in a time of crisis.]

Get out.

[As far as Freya is concerned, Cami was still her friend, and she thought that part of friendship was respecting her wishes. Or maybe she's getting it wrong (again). Either way, Freya knows that this wouldn't have ended any better if she hadn't waited, so she doesn't really see what the difference was.

Still, she again respects Cami's choice. She finishes her drink and gets to her feet. There's probably something she should say here, an apology, maybe, but she's not sure that Cami is in the place to hear it.

So after that moment of hesitation she nods, before heading off to get drunk elsewhere.]

ƒ 006 [catch-all] open } { although there was so much she never tried

don't try to hedge your bets, you're bound to have regrets | cami

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