Things weren't going too well.

Both Klaus and Hayley were back once she got to the Abattoir. Elijah was laid on his bed. He wasn't conscious, and he seemed to be trembling quite a bit— as if stuck in a nightmare.

"Oliver's dead," Hayley whispered once Esmeray sat beside Elijah, putting her hand on his forehead and murmuring a spell to help him sleep peacefully.

"How did that happen?" asked Esmeray, looking up at her sadly.

"He was hexed. Just after we arrived in the Bayou, he just started bleeding and collapsed. There was nothing we could have done."

Esmeray hung her head. "Will there be a funeral?"

"At dawn, yes."

"I'll head there soon, then," she said, checking her phone. She looked up at Klaus. "What happened with Esther?"

Klaus gave a rough sigh. "She wishes to sway me into accepting a new body— a mortal one. I refused. She attempted to persuade me by bringing Ansel back. She told me how otherwise, I will have to watch you die of old age and I will not be able to save you. She stated that if you and I wished to have children, it would be safer if my body was only a wolf and not a hybrid, because otherwise, the pregnancy could kill you. It's supposedly far too much power for you to have alone in your body."

"She's insane, your mother," Esmeray said, shaking her head.

"Wait," said Hayley, furrowing her brows. "What are you two going to do about that?"

"Well, for starters, we can sign her up for an intervention—"

"No, Esme, about the dying of old age thing. Esther... made a point with that."

Esmeray shrugged. "I haven't really thought about it. I'm technically two years older than I was when Elijah first woke me up, but I don't look like I aged. Maybe that Sleeping Spell preserved me a lot better than we thought."

"You're still mortal, though. Eventually, it will catch up, no matter what spells you do."

"Well, yes, but maybe I can figure something out."

"What if you became a hybrid like me?"

Klaus's fists balled up. "Absolutely not," he answered for Esmeray. "She would lose her mind if she lost her witch abilities."

Hayley frowned. "Oh, right, she'd lose them, wouldn't she..."

"I'm not even entirely certain I'd be a hybrid like you," said Esmeray pensively. "I think I should be. My nature is wolfy and witchy. I can't be a vampire and be witchy at the same time unless I'm a siphon, which I'm not. Witchy disappears. I don't think I can be just a vampire, either. So I think I should become a hybrid like you. But you're both right. Losing my magic... is losing the greatest part of myself. I know I want to half-bind it to help me be a wolf but I don't want to lose my magic entirely."

"And you would never be happy as a vampire," added Klaus. "If immortality is the only benefit, you wouldn't enjoy it. You would abhor having to feed. For all we know, you could become a Ripper after all the times my mother has meddled with your brain. You would despise your own existence. Not to mention the wolves would lose their respect for you, and I do not wish for that to happen."

"I'll figure something out," said Esmeray, looking at her feet. "I also don't want to lose the ability to have kids. I may not want one right at this very moment, but in the future... I think I will want to."

Hayley cracked a small smile. "Yeah... once Hope comes back, she'll need a sibling, and I am not going through another tribrid pregnancy, especially not with Klaus as the baby daddy."

Klaus looked offended, but Esmeray let slip a light giggle. "We'll see," said the werewitch, glancing at Klaus from the corner of her eye. "It sounds complicated, as nice as it might be."

"Nonsense, there is nothing complex about it," said Klaus. "Hayley and Elijah will inevitably see past their ridiculous ideas and be an item, and if my daughter desires a sibling, I do not see why we ought to deny her the blessing of a companion. I may loathe my family often, but I cherished, at one time, having so many brothers, and a sister to watch over."

"That's the perfect example of what I mean," said Esmeray, nudging him in the ribs. "Hayley, Elijah, you, and I, raising two babies... wow. Reality television show moment."

Elijah gave a gasp, which made the three jump in surprise. Esmeray leaned over him again, doing another spell to relax him.

Klaus sat down beside him, looking at the sweat beading on his brother's forehead. "I know you are locked in battle," he whispered, "however deep in your mind our mother has set the stage. Hear my voice. Our mother thinks she will win because she has left you alone, but you are not alone. Let me in."

He put one of his hands against Elijah's head, the other against his chest. He concentrated, as if trying to enter his mind, and Elijah immediately began to seize. "Let me help end whatever torment she has forced upon you," Klaus continued.

"Klaus, stop it," Esmeray said as soon as she saw a trace of blood slipping down his nose. When he didn't move, Hayley yanked him off.

"What are you doing?" she asked sharply.

Klaus looked startled, and only just seemed to realize that he was bleeding. He wiped the blood off with his sleeve. "I'm trying to enter Elijah's thoughts to wake him. Esther's locked me out."

"Don't try it again, he needs to rest with the spell I put over him," suggested Esmeray. "If I can fight back hard enough against Esther's hold on him..." she furrowed her eyebrows, seeing something had become visible when Klaus and Elijah had both moved. There seemed to be a petal-shaped wound on his neck. The only reason Esmeray recognized it was because of Klaus's memories— otherwise, she wouldn't have known what it was. She gestured toward it, and Klaus frowned.

"I haven't seen this since I was a child," he murmured, tilting his brother's head to observe the wound. "Mikael would return home from battle more blindly temperamental than usual, and our mother would use the petals of a rare merlock orchid to put him to sleep. She would mend his mind with a spell, and then wake him with the roots of the same plant."

He straightened up as if he had an idea. "If she has access to it now, then maybe it also grows in the Bayou." He faced Hayley. "You stay here with your wolves and mind the fort."

Hayley rolled her eyes. "I'd rather rip your mother's head off."

Klaus was unamused. "Stay clear of her. I mean it, Hayley. She already got to you once. What would happen if Elijah were to wake and find you a victim of her madness?"

"I won't go after her," Hayley relented. "I promise."

Klaus nodded, and came to kiss Esmeray gently on the forehead, tilting her head up to look at him. "And you, my little werewitch, don't run too deep into the Bayou. Tend to your friend, and come straight home. I will not have Finn or Esther laying a hand on you."

He walked off, and Hayley came to sit where he'd been before, looking down at Elijah. "I've learned a few things from your mother," she told him, brushing some strands of hair away from his face. " won't go after her. I'll go after everything that she loves."

Esmeray's lips quirked into a small smile as she checked the time. "I should get going if I'm going to make it to the Bayou in time. He'll be alright, for now. As long as Klaus comes back with the herb in seventy-two hours, it'll be fine."

It was a quiet ride into the Bayou. A taxi took her right to the door of the cabin she had fixed up, and she found Jackson there, preparing Oliver's body by wrapping it with a sheet. The sun was just starting to come up.

"Hey," said Esmeray quietly, seeing he had already prepared the small boat to send him into the water. "Need help?"

Jackson nodded, gesturing that he wanted to lift the body onto the boat. She helped him pick it up, and together, they set it down. Jackson was silent, waiting, looking around every now and then to spot for guests that never arrived. Once the light of a new day washed almost entirely over them,he could no longer afford to wait, and with the bottle of whiskey he'd had in his hand, doused the body and beckoned for Esmeray to light it on fire. She did, then leaned down to push the boat into the lake. The pair moved to the dock, where Jackson sat on the edge, watching the Oliver's remains burn in the distance.

Hayley arrived about an hour later, once Jackson and Esmeray had watched the last of the fire dissipate. "I'm so sorry, Jack," she said quietly as she came up behind them.

"This is bull, Hayley," said Jackson angrily, finally letting out the emotions he'd been bottling up. "Crescent tradition says you have a funeral at dawn and no one is here. That loyalty... loyalty is gone. They didn't accept you or Esme into the Pack because you hadn't been here with us for long, and look— you're the only two who had the decency to show up."

Hayley winced. "I know, Jack. And it sucks. But we're standing around moping over Ollie's body when there's a war to be fought. I understand that you have to grieve, Jack. You waited for me, so I'll do the same for you. But, our people needtheir Alpha." She reached for the bottle of whiskey he'd been holding and patted his shoulder before walking away.

"She's right," said Esmeray quietly. "Just know that she doesn't mean that you have to suck it up and pretend you didn't lose one of your best friends. She just means that the wolves are lost, and they need to be guided back to the way things were before— before they were swayed into accepting moonlight rings from a witch that only wants them as slaves."

"I want to be the Alpha they need," he mumbled. "I just don't know if I can do it right at this moment." He rubbed his forehead. "I feel betrayed, Esme. Ollie betrayed us. Ansel... didn't even do me the courtesy of telling me who he really was. I just wanted to know more about all those things you told me. I guess I should have realized... when he told me things in greater detail than you did... that he must have been there and old enough to fully understand it."

"It's not your fault for not realizing it," she told him, rubbing his back affectionately. "He didn't want you to know. My guess is that he wasn't ready to face Klaus. He knew that if you knew, you'd want to tell me so that I could see a familiar face and feel some comfort. He knew that you saw me in pain and that you'd want to keep me from feeling that anymore. It was his choice, and it doesn't mean anything bad about you. As for Ollie... we'll always remember and honor what he did to try and redeem himself after helping Francesca. He was manipulated and tricket, and it happens to the best of us. It was because of manipulation and trickery that I met Klaus to begin with. We can't control the cruel intentions of others. We just have to fight against it whenever we can, and make things right. He did that, in the end, and it's what matters."

Jackson looked down. "Doesn't stop it from hurting any less."

She remained with him only until the afternoon. Once she knew he would be alright, she returned to the Compound, seeing Klaus wasn't back yet. She did another few rounds of spells on Elijah that kept him as calm as possible while they waited. In between, she texted Hayley, who was working with Aiden, Marcel, and Cami to take Finn down. Apparently, Finn seemed to fancy Cami, much to Marcel's dismay. Esmeray was wondering what would happen in the future with them. Rebekah would not take kindly to Marcel and Cami being together. But then again, Esmeray wasn't entirely sure they were officially dating or not. Perhaps Cami and Finn wouldn't make a bad couple.

Klaus arrived in the evening, bringing a cloth over and dabbing it against Elijah's neck, smearing the poultice on it to heal him. He put his hand on his brother's shoulder, as if going into his mind to speak with him, drawing him out. Esmeray watched for any signs of damage to Klaus, but it seemed this had worked, and he wasn't locked out of Elijah's mind this time.

"How did you find the flower?" she asked him quietly once Elijah had woken up and he'd gone to bathe.

It was only then that she realized how much Klaus was shaking. "What's wrong?" she asked worriedly, coming over to take his hand. "What happened, Klaus?"

"Ansel helped me," he whispered.

Esmeray frowned. "Is that a bad thing?"

"I spent the day with him, Esmeray," Klaus said, bringing his other hand to cover his face as if he was ashamed of himself. "I spoke with him. It made me wonder what I might have become if I was raised as his son."

She gulped, not sure where this was going. "You and I would have been married, you know," she said, thinking it might bring him some comfort. "He wanted to arrange that between us." She paused, squeezing his hand. "Did something happen with him?"

Klaus started to tear up. "He knew about Hope."

The hybrid tensed. "How?"

"The call of his brethren, he called it," said Klaus, turning away as if he thought she'd be angry with him. "I wanted to trust him, Esmeray, but I couldn't be sure that he was worthy of it. I would have never forgiven myself if something happened to her because of my selfish desire for a father. I killed him. Without hesitation, I killed him."

Esmeray wasn't angry. He sensed this, and turned around, allowing her to cup his face, her fingertips caressing his cheeks, one hand moving up to smooth his hair back. "You did what any good parent would have done," she told him gently. "You sacrificed your happiness for the safety and wellbeing of your child. Ansel would have done the safe for you, if he were in your shoes. I knew him, Klaus, and you're more alike than you could possibly know. My memories will support that for you. He won't be angry with you. I'm not angry with you. You did what you felt was right and that's something that I respect. I see the hurt in your eyes. I can feel how you're trembling. I know that you didn't want to, and I know you worry that I think it was wrong. But you protected that innocent little girl better than Mikael ever protected you. You did it, Klaus. You became the caring father we all knew you could be. You feel remorse and that's a sign that you didn't do this because you're an emotionless prick the way everyone else makes you out to be. You did it because you have a heart, a heart that beats for your daughter. Ansel would understand. He would be proud of the man that you have become."

She brought her sleeve up to dry his tears as he began to cry, then pulled him into a hug, resting her head into his chest.

Soon enough, she was crying, too.

Marcel and Hayley had succeeding in capturing Finn, as well as Kol and the white oak stake. The night had come to a triumphant end, and she'd laid beside Klaus, arms around him, caressing his body and rocking him to sleep. Her phone had rang, and she'd pulled back, confused as to why Stefan was calling her.

"What the bloody hell does he want?" said Klaus irritably. This was the second time Stefan had disrupted a rather nice moment between the two of them. And this one was nicer than the last time.

"Dunno," said Esmeray, deciding to answer. "Stefan, isn't it like one in the morning for you?"

"I didn't check the time, but I do know that my name isn't Stefan."

Klaus sat up, seeing Esmeray's eyes go wide. "Damon?"

"The one and only," he said, and she started to cry. "Aw, Esme, don't get all sappy with me."

"What the hell?" she sobbed into the phone. "You were dead! You were dead for months! And I can't get sappy?"

"There's just... a lot of ground to cover. Hope I didn't interrupt any steamy hybrid sex."

At this, Klaus snatched the phone away. "Mate, do me the decency of never saying that again. Congratulations on returning to the land of the living." He handed Esmeray her phone back. "I'll be in my art room, love."

Esmeray was flustered as she took the phone back, able to hear Damon laughing on the other end as Klaus left. "How are you back, Damon?" she asked. "The Other Side collapsed. Did a witch pull you out and hide you in another body?"

"Huh? Why would a witch do that?"

"Because it's happening right now with Esther, Finn, and Kol."

"Oh, you're kidding me. I'm gone for a few months and Mama Original springs a family reunion on you the instant she hears that you're banging her son?"

"Damon, you really didn't need to word it like that. I don't think Esther is thinking about the fact I'm sleeping with her son. She just knows that I back him up when it comes to kicking her ass."

"Great, does she know about prison worlds?"

"Prison worlds? Aren't regular prisons terrible enough already in this country?"

"It's not a government thing. Apparently, it's a Gemini Coven thing."

"Hold on, I've heard of them. In Klaus's memories from 1903, he has a memory of hearing that some coven did this major spell to imprison some heretics. I don't know what they had against people who practice religious heresy, but..."

"The plot thickens, honey, just you wait. In 1994, they trapped this sociopathic kid named Malachai because he killed his siblings. The contributing witch for this Ascendant contraption was a Bennett. Long story short, Bonnie and I got sent into a prison world with this maniac as a present from her Grams, because apparently, this was better than being ripped apart by the Other Side. Not complaining, thanks Grams. But anyway, Bennett blood is needed to get out. Bonnie's still stuck in there, Esme, and she's with this Kai idiot. I know you don't know about prison worlds, but do you think you could send over some spells that our witches here can try so we can get her out? There are these twins that go to college with Elena and Caroline, and they might be able to do the spells."

Esmeray stopped crying. "Is Damon Salvatore asking me to help save Bonnie Bennett? Last I heard, you couldn't stand her, and refused to acknowledge any potential relationship that could happen between the two of you."

Damon heaved a sigh. "If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to spill?"

"Oh my god, you two hooked up in there, didn't you?!"

"Jesus, woman, you didn't have to figure it out right away! Why are you so excited to hear that I slept with someone?"

"Damon, I'm fangirling, I can't help it! I've been wanting you and Bonnie to get together for ages. Was it like a, 'there's no one else here so we might as well, unless you want to with Kai' or was it like a, 'we've been stuck together and finally realized that we actually kinda like each other, so let's do it' thing?"

"To be honest... mostly the first... then towards the end... the last one."

"Details!"

"Well, this Kai loser didn't appear until recently, so we were alone for months in the 1994 version of the Salvatore House reliving the same day. It got boring. We bickered a lot. Eventually, the sexual tension won over a few weeks in, I remembered what you told me, and... I kissed her. She slapped me. I joked that I liked being slapped. She kissed me after saying that she hated me for saying that. We... went for it. After that, we didn't talk for like a week because Miss Bennett was a bit too shy when it came to facing me after what I'm pretty sure was her most enlightening sexual experience ever. I'm convinced her time with little Gilbert was full of plain vanilla sex. I might have scared her with all the things we did. Eventually, we talked about it, I told her it didn't have to mean anything if she didn't want it to, she laughed and said, 'Isn't that what you told Esmeray?' I rolled my eyes and told her to shut up. She said 'make me.' So we did it again, and she was more comfortable with it. From there, we both got to talking more. By the time Kai arrived, we were... coping with the thought that we'd be stuck there for the rest of our lives. So yeah, Esme, I really want to get her out, because I care about her. Is that what you wanted me to say?"

Esmeray let out a happy squeal. "I'll send the spells over first thing in the morning!"

A/N: Y'all, I'm barely about to write The Originals Season 2 Episode 8 next chapter, so we still have quite a bit to go. Lots of episodes are going to be skipped here and there, obviously because certain problems could be solved faster with Esmeray and also certain things can just be omitted to make it easier for me. Thank you for those who are still here following Esmeray's story. I love this girl to death, seriously, she's babey, and probably my favorite TVD/TO Original Character so far. Also, I will be on summer break soon (even if it's gonna be short because summer classes) so updates should hopefully be quicker than usual starting in a few days. Thanks for reading, comment for more!