a/n: this chapter is a rollercoaster, try and have fun with it - and the title is a ref to one of the longest chess games ever played
Remember to comment and vote <3
- Bea

MJ was back with as much of Ryos's stuff she could drag over from The Cauldron, sending out a series of messages to get people around the city moving. Yes, she could summon everything, but she needed fresh air. And, transporting anything Ryos had ever touched into The Compound was a waste of power.

She was still in Kol's shirt, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, long enough to sit against her thighs. She needed that soft white material and loose pyjama shorts. Nothing tight. Nothing suffocating. Just traces of his body wash in the fabric.

Kol flicked through one of the many books Ryos had documented his work in, a sky blue shirt, fabric similar to that of jeans but far thinner – chambray. Sleeves rolled up, top button loose. Studying ideas with a frown on his face. Not because he didn't understand them,  because he did, and because he hated admitting that her brother had been a talented witch with brilliant ideas.

MJ let herself find peace in looking at him.

Partly because of how beautiful he was, partly because it was always interesting to see how he was acting and what he was doing. The darker-toned jeans were the perfect middle between form-fitting and loose. His pallet so blue recently.

It suited him.

She wouldn't pretend it didn't, but it was a slight change from what she'd gotten used to through the summer, hair just slightly messy as he tried to work out what she needed.

Because she knew that was what he was thinking.

Constantly aware when her eyes were on him, looking up and offering a wink.

A reminder that he would get her out of there in a second.

"If we're doing this," MJ made a herb circle in the centre of the room, "We are doing this my way."

Klaus was stuck to the stairs, just watching her, Hayley letting Elijah look through the files she'd brought them, Freya close to Finn, on the left side of the room, both clearly uncomfortable. The entire situation involved witchcraft, so Freya, at the very least, wanted to offer assistance. Still, she didn't know the magic and wasn't sure how to feel about MJ's fidgeting state.

"No one steps inside," MJ neatened up the circle with her feet, "No matter what happens."

She gave Kol a pointed look.

"The only person passing in and out is me."

"If he tries to touch you – "

"I will step outside the line," MJ assured him, "He'll only be able to use magic within it."

"Can't you restrict his power?" Elijah suggested.

"Not if we want him to help," MJ moved to the wooden box, "If Ryos created this serum, he could make a cure. He needs magic to do that."

"And how will we know he is helping?" Klaus seemed lost in thought, "And not creating something worse?"

"See those candles," MJ opened the clasp, "Four, at set points around the circle."

A lime green colour.

"They create truth," She didn't want to waste energy on a rune, "Anyone inside the circle cannot lie."

He could not answer a question or dodge a topic, but that was for MJ to deal with. And, with so many onlookers, she refused to believe he'd be able to fool all of them.

Freya spoke, "Is your brother truly this high of a risk?"

"He can be."

"But we're just bringing him out?" She pointed out, "Instead of simply using his work?"

"I don't know his magic."

"And going to your ancestral well to keep him out of the realm of the living isn't an option?"

"I'm not going in," MJ shook her head, "No chance."

"He would have more power if she went to his side," Kol agreed, "However..."

MJ slowly picked up the slightly misshaped stones, once protected by Tyler Lockwood. Glowing blue, green, and red. Tallé, Quail, and Essí. The Aonso stone pulled from her neck to let all of them just sit in her hand. Nuclear weapons so easy to touch.

"My concern comes from how they need to stay here to summon him," He continued, "And giving your brother access to them – "

"He doesn't get to know where they are," MJ nodded, "And I'm keeping them outside the circle too."

"Okay," Hayley rubbed her forehead, "Can one of you explain how this is gonna work?"

"When my brother died," MJ started, "I captured his life force."

The power of the Aonso stone in her.

"Because I could use it to bring Bonnie back to life."

And because part of her had been delusional enough to save him.

"I'd destroyed this one," She threaded the necklace chord through her fingers, "Which meant it just latched his energy onto anything else in the area that could hold it."

The ones he'd wielded.

"The Pethane said he was scattered across them," She began to walk around the room, "Whether that was because he was pulling on all of them? Or because he had a backup plan? Or because I'd broken one key, so everything got scattered..."

Placing the Tallé stone in a plant pot by the kitchen door.

"No matter the reason, his soul is trapped in the Floare well, not with the spirits."

The Quail on the opposite side, hidden among the bookshelf, tucked out of sight in the seam of an oversized cover, resting on the pages.

"Meaning, I can draw him out," MJ pitched, "He's not meant to be there, so doing so shouldn't cause any problems."

"Unless he gets control of the keys," Kol reminded her, "Using them to walk freely now you've given him a foothold."

"Hence the circle," MJ was well aware, "Keep the stones on this side. The magic will hold him back."

Lifting the Essí stone out to him.

"Kol's point is important though," She spoke to the others, "If I do this spell, I'm reforming him."

Not alive, but...

"While he's scattered, he can't do anything. So doing this is, like, a massive risk."

Because unless MJ cast a spell to re-shatter his soul, she couldn't undo it.

"And Ryos Jung is a genius," She hated saying it, "Who knows what he can do with a foothold."

The magic circle was the only way to hold him back.

"And, each of these stones could be used to make that foothold permanent."

Typically, Floare resurrection had a time frame. A limit on their looser rules surrounding life and death. Yet Ryos's spirit hadn't faded. Resurrection was still an option, and MJ could not let that happen.

"He does not touch them."

Kol let her press the Essí stone into his hand, a small smile on his lips as she pushed onto her toes to kiss him. Kol's eyes fluttering shut, other hand on her hip.

Breaking back to kiss her forehead.

MJ letting her heart ease for a moment.

Then forced to remember the situation they were in.

His family around them.

"If my sanity is not enough motivation," MJ's voice shook, facing them, "Remember these can kill an Original."

Finn shot Freya a concerned look as she simply watched Elijah. It had been his point when the Pethane had first arrived, but instead of looking back at her, he glanced between Klaus and MJ again. At the hybrid's narrowed eyes.

"No matter what Ryos says or does, do not take the bait."

Another reason why MJ hated that she had to actually summon him?

She wasn't ready.

She couldn't promise to stay calm, on topic, or play along with whatever he tried throwing at them. But if she didn't?

"I think we've got everything," Cami came through the door with Pri and Josh, "Everything labelled Augustine and Whitmore. From The Cauldron."

"And our apartment," Josh confirmed, "And – "

"You're old apartment," Cami said, eyes jumping over Klaus.

"Yeah," Josh realised his close call, "Your old place."

Sam and Davina would've been the pair bringing it if it had come from her old place.

The truth?

MJ had left a ton of Ryos's stuff with her dad. So he could try to glimpse the son he'd lost. She'd limited how much magic stuff she kept in their place, so Josh had been sent on a quest at her dad's.

"And the bank accounts line up," Pri had three bags of papers and books around both arms, "Augustine was transferring money to a KLDI account."

"Kingmaker Land Development," MJ whispered.

"Once my guy could use your info, he also found all the money that kept disappearing from the rest of Lucien's account."

That Pri hadn't been able to trace previously.

"There are like three bank accounts they seem to share – joint business accounts?"

"Good for them," Josh tried, "If we minions got that benefit..."

His voice trailed off, seeing the Mikaelson's unamused expressions.

"...And jokes are not on today's agenda."

Dumping the bags on the floor.

"Thank you," MJ tried for a smile, "I know some of them were probably in the most random places."

"Whatever you need," Cami seemed uncomfortable.

Her hair was extra curly, a way she'd started styling it since transition, make-up pallet slightly shifted too. Maybe MJ was hallucinating, but it felt like everything carried just a bit more shimmer to it, making the colour of her eyes pop. Greens were such a perfect colour on her, despite the black top and dark jeans, like she belonged in a gentle cottage in a forest. Especially next to Pri's bright orange eyeliner.

For Pri, she was oddly toned down.

No jewellery other than two piercings, one on each ear, the eyeliner to make her features seem sharper, but an oversized light blue hoodie and black leggings.

"Can I tell you not to do this?" Cami tried, averting her eyes from Finn, "We can help you figure this out – "

MJ picked up a chalk pen, "We don't have that time."

"MJ – "

"We don't," She started to draw symbols along the inside of the herb circle, "And even if we did, there's nothing anyone can do to help me."

Creating a second, thicker ring, condensing the designs she'd usually draw across the entire floor into a flattened line of power.

"Like most moments of magical crisis."

Even in a city of witches?

"It's only me."

Forced to face her demon when she wasn't ready, to save the day...

"It's always just been me."

Pri's lips became a thin line, watching as MJ wrote as quickly as possible. Wanting to get the spell over and done with. Cami looked from Josh's concerned expression to Kol as he shifted at the declaration, too, unsure how he was meant to react.

In a way, it was true.

Kol always supported her, but things were often out of their control, leaving MJ to run herself dead trying to do it all.

THE WITCHES
269 Moves, 20 Hours, 15 Minutes

MJ stood at the edge of the finished circle, lifting the Aonso stone forward to watch as it started to spin, confirming the gate was functioning.

Letting it drop to her side.

Staring.

Kol appeared on her left, holding a thermos of blood, her lips managing to smile. Especially when she noted the topped-up plate of snacks by the sofa.

"You all shouldn't be here," Klaus noted to Cami, Pri, and Josh, "This is – "

"She needs her friends," Cami cut off.

MJ appreciated the thought, but that didn't change the facts. No one should be there, but as long as they implied Ryos worked with Lucien? The Mikaelsons wouldn't be leaving without answers, and Kol wouldn't leave her alone with Ryos regardless.

So many people seemed to care, but standing at the edge of the circle, MJ just felt empty.

"Convoca Si, Arunca Voalul, Puetare Del Min."

There was no joy in her words.

"Convoca Si, Arunca Voalul, Puetare Del Min."

No spark of magical excitement or achievement.

"Convoca Si, Arunca Voalul, Puetare Del Min."

Her arms moved in a pattern around her body, the truth candles sparking alongside every other tower of wax they'd left lying about the place. Turning slightly on her heels to let the air gain a certain weight to it. Like a room filled with plastic balls, she got to explore, masking her vision to create a search for wonder. Bright and adventure-filled as she spun and tapped the tip of her toe, moving through the routine.

"Convoca Si, Arunca Voalul, Puetare Del Min."

Pure Floare magic had always been so tied to music and dance.

But MJ no longer needed parts of dead animals to make it work.

She just needed the necklace in the palm of her hand, changing how it was threaded between her fingers with each sweeping motion.

"Convoca Si, Arunca Voalul, Puetare Del Min."

Back at the spot she started, everyone watching as the lines on the floor began to glow. Bright white against the golden of wicks crackling in their ears.

"Convoca Si, Arunca Voalul, Puetare Del Min."

The final movement was a firm clap, air pressure lifting like water, finally able to flee a basin. Hitting the ground and running. Passing through each onlooker like a mighty wave trying to drag them to the floor, only to rush away without them. Unmoved. A spell on their soul, MJ's eyes an orange-golden colour, staring towards the centre of the room.

Three glitches in reality as the colours of the walls flickered.

Back to normal...

Nothing.

MJ frowned, looking around the circle.

The stones were still out of sight but in the right place, and while she'd given Ryos a large area to move, she hadn't given him anywhere to hide. In fact, the entire room had been rearranged. One section of the circle just about reached the wall of papers she'd hung the previous day. One sofa was left inside, a few slightly high tables were brought in, equipment and books were across them, and the standard coffee table was in the centre.

Every other chair was pushed to an edge.

MJ glanced over her shoulder, back at the confused Mikaelson's milling towards the removed furniture by the foyer.

Watching their confusion.

MJ's spells didn't just fail...

Back to the centre of the room.

"Come on, Ryos," She goaded, "I know you're here."

The spell was complete.

"You've been popping up every five seconds," She turned slowly, "But now you wanna play hide-and-seek?"

No response.

MJ rolled her eyes, facing Kol, "You know a spell to force a spirit out?"

Watching how his jaw tensed as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, everyone else turning alert too.

Not daring to face the centre.

"Come on, MiMi," His tone teased, "You know I'm not the quickest at replies."

She was frozen.

"Mira?"

The sound of movement.

"You brought me here," Ryos called, "Not even gonna look at me?"

MJ turned slowly, hands forward, the pure terror on her face enough to give everyone in the room pause. To those who'd never met him, Ryos Jung was just a young man in his twenties, wearing a cream shoulderless linen shirt with a low-cut collar, fabric slightly see-through, rust orange wrapped trousers making his features seem warmer, tight around his ankles but loose everywhere else.

MJ met his brown eyes.

Seeing how they matched hers, the only feature close to what one might call identical.

"Hello, MiMi."

He was lying on the coffee table, side on, one arm bent to prop his head up, smile casual, hair flopping around his face, styled the same as when she'd last seen him, slight curls with a hint of frizz that felt too similar to their mother.

The tiny lines of his lighting-esque tattoo looked thinner. No blue tint to them. Pure black ink wrapping around the muscles of his arms and back...

"Have we forgotten our manners?"

"Nope," MJ pointed, "No – no."

She was backing up rapidly.

"I change my mind!" She shook her head, "I don't want you here."

"Are you kidding me?" Ryos sat up, "I've been trying to warn you for months."

She almost tripped on the edge of the herb circle.

"And now you're backing out?"

"Warn her?" Kol scoffed, "You've been playing haunt-er."

"I've been screaming for her to summon me!" Ryos defended, "I saw all those wolf hunter emails in the summer, and I went 'hell no!'"

Staring at him, MJ tried to work out what he was implying.

His appearances during The Floare ritual – his voice constantly tugging in the back of her mind –

Baiting her out.

"It's not my fault she did the opposite of what literally anyone with a brain would do when running into the ghost of their dead sibling."

"I'm not sure most people would have a clue what to do when running into their ghost siblings," Josh retorted, only to freeze when Ryos's eyes landed on him.

Intimidating and uninterested.

Like he could erase someone if he stared at them too long.

"Witches should."

MJ hated that she wanted to cry.

Staring at his face. His left earring was a twisted gold stud, creating a tiny circle, the right having the same piece, only a golden feather also attached to it, just dangling there. Like a piece of jewellery could mock her. Leather bands on his wrist – wait.

How the hell was he in different clothes?

Standing up to walk away from the coffee table and towards the herb line, eyes locked on Kol.

"And are you really going to judge me on what I do while deceased?"

Leaning towards the barrier, eyeing him up.

"I'm pretty sure you're the one who died.

MJ was shivering.

"And I'm pretty sure you're the one who was ghost-stalking me."

"Wouldn't have if you weren't trying to, oh I don't know," Kol came to the line too, "Sacrifice your sister."

"You don't know shit," Ryos rolled his eyes, "You and your little family – "

MJ watched as he cut himself off, really staring at Kol.

His hand drifted up, perpendicular to the line, tilting his head like he could see something they couldn't. MJ's feet itching to just at him – waiting for magic. Waiting for an attempt to break the barrier down and hurt him –

The lines on his skin seemed to get darker.

No glow. No rush. Just Ryos, staring at him.

Kol blinked slowly.

"Oh," Ryos stepped away, waving a finger at him, "You're coated in ancestral magic."

He returned to the centre, inspecting everything she'd set up for him.

"I don't like that."

"Yeah, well," Pri sighed, "We don't like you."

MJ actually managed a laugh.

"Nu-uh, MiMi," Ryos scolded, "You can't be playing with people the ancestors got a hold on."

"And while I appreciate the mock concern," She crossed her arms, "I think you should get back to that whole 'warning me' thing you just mentioned?"

Ryos eyed up everyone in the room.

Cami and Pri were perched on one of the sofas, glares on their faces; Cami's slightly more wavering while Pri just radiated murder. Josh almost hiding in the shadows, wanting to move closer to MJ but not sure attracting attention was a good idea. That one moment in Ryos's eye line had been enough, but MJ was upset...

Then, the Mikaelson's.

Finn's hair was more ash brown than the others, and he was keeping close to a wall, like a shadow in the corner, trying to follow everything but having little understanding of what was happening. Leaving Elijah and Freya the pair with the most movement. They kept close to the edge of the circle, watching on, while Klaus sat on the staircase, giving himself that little height boost to watch down on them.

Hayley next to MJ's pages of magic, arms crossed like a bodyguard.

"You could try turning down the hostility," Ryos plopped himself back to sitting on the coffee table, "It's not like I've been screaming bloody murder at you recently."

"You've just been sitting in window panes."

"And moving chess pieces."

MJ's arms turned cold.

"Did you not think it was me?" He grinned, "In Marcel Gerard's little room of memories?"

"At this point," She glanced from Kol to Elijah, "I'd been assuming Lucien."

If he and Levi had been working together.

"You don't have a foothold. How would you move the pieces?"

"Mystical big brother powers."

MJ wanted to punch him.

"You have a whole chess set played by some invisible force," He grinned, "And you didn't even try to see what spirit was doing it?"

"I didn't want to know," She answered honestly.

Because part of MJ had been scared, it was her mother, peace playing up, leaving her trapped somewhere, involved with more mess.

"Always the same problem," Ryos noted, "You've never been able to handle the truth."

MJ couldn't look away from him.

"But sure, ask all your Lucien questions now it's too late," He leaned back, "Pretend you haven't screwed everything up."

If she'd just summoned him back then...

"By being the scared little kid you always were."

"Oh my god," Cami shifted, "You are somehow worse in person."

Kol smiled falsely, "Isn't he?"

"I think you'll find," Ryos smiled, too, "I have quite a lot of charm when I want to."

Tugging at his shirt.

"I'm just bored."

Clap.

People jumped at the sudden sound, MJ's hands together; Ryos shoved off the table as a chess board took his place.

"You wanna play?" She watched him return to his feet, "Let's play."

A piece moving to restart the match.

Ryos scanned what she'd done, fingers hovering over his side.

Since the night of the crescents, he'd been playing white, and she'd been playing black, but since it was one of their mother's old boards, it was never that simple. The black was more a marble red, outfits cut into intricate suits, instruments in hands, recreating a jazz band, Ryos's side a mix of creams and yellows.

Picking one.

Moving it to a new square.

"While you were doing your serums for Augustine," MJ started, "Lucien found you."

"Because of my work for Lucien," Ryos corrected, "Augustine reached out."

MJ made another move.

"He wanted a cure to a werewolf bite, stumbling across me."

"And The Travellers."

"It was the earlier days," Ryos picked his next piece, "He found me after a series of other incidents."

"Vague," Klaus called out.

"I made him what he wanted," Ryos ignored him, "And we formed a partnership that enabled most of my work with The Travellers."

MJ frowned.

Whit had shown her the Augustine payments – they'd started in 2009, which was when Ryos had started –

His piece was placed down.

"One day, he came, asking if I could figure out how The Originals were created," He admitted, "Which, given our family history, was easier than he probably thought it'd be."

"You were summoning ancestors," MJ assumed.

His smile said everything.

"Oh my god," She laughed in disgust, "All those times I saw spirits, it was you."

He shrugged.

"You used to periodically call me out for interacting with spirits," Her eyes widened, "But you were the one summoning them!"

All these years, she'd blamed herself.

Some unexplainable connection to the dead kept them randomly popping up around her; this whole time, it had been Ryos.

MJ had always been so confused about how he knew when she did magic – because he saw spirits when she went 'walking.' Still, she'd never even thought to question that the same family bond was why she'd spent her life seeing them, too.

He – He –

Those ghosts that had ridiculed and hurt her, and he'd told her to stop interacting with them! But the only reason they had a foothold was because he'd been across an ocean –

He'd been dipping their family line in and out of the plane for Lucien.

"You – "

"I wanted to find our family," He defended, "Summoning spirits got me locations."

"And I'm sure your Travellers loved the access to Floare families," Kol mused, "I'm sure they left them happy and alive."

"The Travellers knew better than to go against me."

A chill in the air at the drop in his voice.

"I was looking for family. So they could help us."

MJ hated her brain for trying to perk up.

He'd blamed her.

Ryos had yelled at her for spirit walking when he'd been doing it! It didn't matter if it was to track family because that reasoning was probably a lie...if not for the truth candles?

"Ended up finding out we were related to a spirit called Ayana."

The Mikaelson's exchanged a confirming look.

"She was able to offer some guidance."

"I highly doubt she knew what you were planning," Kol was tense, "She didn't want the vampirism spell cast."

"But she was more than happy to tell her young descendant where the family's holy spots were," Ryos pushed his shoulders back, "Leading me to the tombs with Qetsiyah's inscriptions across them."

"Those are hardly useable – "

"They were enough."

Her boyfriend and her brother looked in a stare-off.

Kol had left those tombs standing because he hadn't deemed them valuable enough to destroy. Too vague – hell, he'd gone back to try and work out the spell for her and failed. Or been too impatient. There was a high chance it was about the patience.

But there Ryos was...

"Once I had what vampirism was inspired by," Ryos hummed, "A little logical thought filled in the blanks."

MJ made another move.

"Your weaknesses spell out how to make one of you," He shrugged, "It's the spell that needs translating. Ancient forgotten languages, to Floare, to your tongue, to Ancestral Latin."

MJ hated how casual he sounded, watching him scan the board before making a move faster than before.

"The only thing I was missing – "

"Was white oak," She made her next move instantly, "So you came to Mystic Falls."

"I was in Mystic Falls for several reasons."

Falling into a rhythm of moving between clauses of sentences.

"A white oak hunt was one of them."

"And the others?"

He tilted his head, "Is it truly so hard to believe I wanted to reconnect with you?"

"Considering how you tried to murder me."

Nothing.

MJ had expected an argument. A retort about how his spell wouldn't have killed her, but that she'd ruined it by fighting back, and yet? Just staring at her. Letting his head nod.

MJ felt her insides boil.

"I take this," He gestured to the wall, "Means Lucien got it off you lot."

"No way!" MJ gasped, "There's something you don't know?"

"Death is complicated. It comes and goes," He crept towards the papers, "You all left town – so I have no idea what happened."

"I had mum's necklace on me."

"And I'm not in mum's necklace," His hand pulled a page off the wall, "Cute."

MJ raised an eyebrow.

"You've been trying to decipher my work."

MJ turned to look at Kol, his face keeping her from screaming.

"Failing," He chuckled, "But trying nonetheless."

"Look," MJ stayed facing the family, "As much as I'd enjoy some answers."

Since it felt like her entire universe was on the brink of collapse.

"Now we know you definitely wrote the spell?"

Why waste time on him?

"Time to write the reverse," She demanded, "Or at least explain what language your notes are in so I can figure it out without you."

Since she had to think the spell was somewhere in the books she'd gotten.

"Sadly," Ryos didn't sound sad, "Not sure it'll be that easy."

Just reading through the sheet.

"I never finished my version."

MJ shifted, pausing to frown at the chessboard. Elijah watched her hand move from her instinct to a different one.

"I gave Lucien a guide and a potential spell," He added, "But it's doubtful he used the same one I gave him."

Freya scowled, "Why not?"

"Because," Ryos pressed out a crease, "I was waiting on him."

He placed the paper back on the wall.

"I had estimations for amounts of venom," He explained, "It's not some simple, three drops of each."

His hands started to move with his words.

"I ran tests with different amounts and got to one I thought would work, but until we had white oak, we could never be one hundred per cent sure I was right."

"You tested this?" Josh's eyes were wide, "On other vampires?"

"Originally, I created a spell to tell me if it would have a positive or negative reaction," He clarified, "Then we got some vampires to see if there were alternates to white oak that would work."

MJ grimaced.

"But it clearly wouldn't – and we were wasting venom – like, it's tough to get pure strands of venom nowadays, barely anyone has a useful amount knocking about it them so you're stuck sucking stuff out of every werewolf you meet, separating their strands, and god, it's just such a process."

He made his next move.

"So Lucien focused on wolves while I focused on The Travellers."

MJ had to ask, "Did Lucien know you planned to destroy all magic?"

"Love 'em and leave 'em."

His hands brushed over each other as she made another hesitant move.

"Creating an upgraded vampire would be a ridiculous achievement, and," Ryos smirked, placing a piece down, "If it ended with dead Originals wiping out the rest of the vampire species – I'm not gonna complain."

"You were using him," Klaus almost gloated, "How quaint."

"Whichever spell worked first? I got what I wanted."

"Which was the destruction of all magic," Cami was less than impressed.

"One spell," He tensed, staring at them, "No more vampires, sure – pretend that's a bad thing."

Finn scanned him.

"But every werewolf is free of their curse," He spoke smoothly, "No more broken bones, no deaths following your every step – no agony – no way to be trapped or weaponised."

Klaus and Hayley had both admitted they didn't want Hope to trigger her curse.

"Just life."

He made another move on the board.

"And the weight put on witches?" He clicked his teeth, "Can't be played by the ancestors if there are no ancestors to play you."

MJ tried not to react to the phrasing.

"How many children have been sacrificed?" He listed, "How many people have had to die – thrown into the middle of vendettas?"

A lot of their lives would have been very different.

"How many nights did you wake up screaming, MiMi?" He lowered his voice, "How many nights did I hold you through the terrors while they punished you for our mother's choices?"

No one was looking at each other.

"Because I know the number."

"Counting your reasons to hate me?"

"Counting how many times our mother left you like that."

Both made another move on the board.

"Because she always left you to them," He lifted his chin, "Every vampire would have died, sure. But is every vampire worth more than every witch and every wolf?"

Hairs starting to stand up on all of their necks.

"Have they not spent history hunting us?" 

'bedded and burnt' in the words of Elijah Mikaelson.

"Nature must have balance," His hands came out, smiling, "So now it hunts them.

"Through you?" Kol called out, "Nature didn't make that spell; you did."

"Why wait on a higher power when you can be the higher power?"

Such innocence in his tone.

It was like a pitch in a meeting hanging over them for a moment, waiting for them to invest.

When no one responded, Ryos's smile grew, seeing how their eyes followed each of his steps. Trailing back and forth to look each in the eye. Wanting to hold each stare, posture so relaxed, words calm and flowing, a welcoming dream...

"A world where there is no more craving for blood. No more screams in shadows, chasing nightmares, and ways to end the world. No sacrifices. No hurt. Just the future."

It was like they could all hear a breeze in their ear.

"Sounds like a pretty nice world to me."

Elijah walked towards the left side of the circle, "But you failed."

Ryos rolled his eyes.

"Your sister stopped you," He pulled on his suit sleeves, "And you had admitted your uselessness concerning Lucien's new affliction."

"Whatever he did," Ryos corrected, "Is based on my work."

Elijah just raised a mocking eyebrow.

"Lucien wouldn't be shit without me."

"Prove it."

Ryos laughed, "You think I'm that easy to bait?"

"I think," Hayley spoke, "You said you were trying to warn your sister."

Stillness.

"Meaning you wanted to help her."

"And," He placed his hands on his chest, "I answer that accusation with a question."

MJ felt sick.

"Who's willing to get bit?"

Standing in the centre of the room, Ryos had gotten all the tall genes, taking after their dad to carry just about the right height to match the average Mikealson.

"You get me a sample, and I can tell you just how much Lucien's changed."

Elijah turned from the circle, drifting to the kitchen door, fingers twitching.

"And then I can consider making a reverse."

Turning from Elijah to watch MJ.

"I mean," Ryos leant against the sofa arm, "If none of the family are brave enough..."

Nodding to her.

"You should be immune."

A series of looks jumped around the room.

His hand shot up like an excited child, "Who wants to share with the class?"

"I got bit," MJ answered, "And I siphoned it."

Something changed in his eyes.

"But I couldn't siphon it off anyone else."

"Perfect," Ryos slid to sit, making another move on the board while summoning a pen, "Brilliant starting point."

Quiet, watching him write.

Draw.

Creating a prominent symbol on the centre of the page, looking up to meet MJ's eyes.

Lifting his hand up with a smile.

Stabbing the pen directly into his palm, coating it in blood without a flinch.

Each tap of the end caused a crimson drop to fall, the symbol flashing orange, sending a ripple through the room as every text that had initially belonged to him sparked the colour too. Works on the wall starting to move. Lettings morphed into different ones as MJ realised what was happening.  

He'd spelled the pages.

The exact same way all her work was protected, the reason Tia had hesitated, then attempted to translate it when MJ showed it to her. They'd assumed it was in some forgotten tongue similar to hers, but no.

"It wasn't jibberish," MJ murmured, "I would've realised – "

"My spell is like a code," Ryos revealed, "Rotating between different languages, similar enough to the original, it could be considered true and readable, yet so far from the truth."

She swallowed, trying not to feel embarrassed.

"A projected spell, too," He grinned, "Stops you needing an obvious rune on every page."

Pure magic, locking them out.

Yet...

MJ hadn't sensed it.

Screw her fucked up Floare senses and their recent lack of functionality!

Screw Clio for not figuring out how to fix her –

No.

No.

MJ wasn't allowed to think of herself as broken. Kol would have instantly shut her down. She was just dealing with some unknown power that was screwing with her, and she was going to be stronger than it. She was going to figure it out. And Ryos could stick his smug demeanour up –

"Why is she immune?"

Ryos took a second to locate the voice, Elijah moving away from the plant pots to look at Josh quizzically too. The young vampire shifted closer to Cami, both expressions unreadable as Pri's was powered by even more anger than before.

"You already knew she might be," Josh rushed, "Why?"

Silence.

Kol's lips twitched, "Cat got your tongue?"

"Why is MJ anything?" He moved another piece, "She got all the good genes."

She could feel a knife scraping along a plate in her brain.

"Second-child siphoning. No power dip," Ryos's flat expression didn't help, "And when stuff like this pops up. For some reason, it can't affect her."

Pri scoffed, "Take that 'can't' back?"

"It's the truth," Ryos was scanning his books, "It can't."

"And you sound disappointed about it!"

MJ could feel her lip quivering.

"Semantics," He waved a hand, "You're all far too sensitive."

~Push his jabs away~

"She's a living loophole."

He didn't deserve to get under her skin with his half-compliment, half-insult.

"And – "

"What the hell?"

MJ turned to see Sam in the foyer, practically on fire; Davina instantly stepped in front of protectively. He knew the face from the pictures in MJ's old apartment. From the photos Ryan had picked from the storage locker scrapbooks, their childhood years dotted around his house.

Storming forward, "MJ – "

"He made Lucien's upgrade spell."

"Of course he did!"

Ryos pulled a face, "Do I know you?"

"Nope," He leered, "But I know you."

He lifted a large vial up.

"You wanted venom?"

"Thank you," MJ felt relief, "So much."

His face was a reminder that not everything her family touched became poisoned.

"But I told you to drop it at mine for a reason."

"You thought you could hide this from me!"

MJ gave him an unmistakable look.

They both knew why MJ hadn't texted him about it.

"I, uh," Davina said. "I wanted to give an update on the bodies."

As she stared at Ryos, running a finger up a leather spine, Sam drifted back to her side, unblinking.

"I can do it later."

"We don't know how long this was gonna last," MJ rubbed her cheeks, "What's up?"

"There was no magic," Davina focused on her, "Like, no souls. No power to manipulate. Nothing."

Kol hesitated, "In the hybrids?"

She nodded.

"There has to be something – they're magical creations."

"Whatever happened to those bodies?" She was baffled, "Drained them."

MJ faced her brother, "You know anything about that?"

"You'll have to be more specific," He flicked a page, "I know a lot of things."

Cami and Klaus snorted, instantly cutting themselves off, eyes locking, then dropping. Cami's going to MJ apologetically, Klaus staring at the sky, feet starting to tap all over again.

"And Hybrids are far more your expertise – "

"The Sisters," MJ rephrased, "The Strix. Lucien, ever introduce you to them?"

"No," He pulled specific pages out, "I've exchanged a few grimoires over the years."

Walking back to place them on the table.

"But I try to limit myself to one sociopath in a suit at a time."

Sam gave Hayley an amused look, forcing a smile, while Freya drifted to the bookcase, back pressed into it like she was exhausted and uncomfortable.

"What's the problem?"

"No, no," MJ waved her finger, "You find your spell and write me a reverse or a cure."

There were two ways to stop Lucien from hurting them ever again.

"You only get to help if you're secretly involved, Mr Mastermind."

Sam looked ready to spit, "He probably is involved."

"What have I done to you?"

In front of the table, Ryos smiled in confusion, brushing down his thin shirt, exposed arms stretched back like he was trying to remember what it felt like to have form.

"You seem very personally offended."

"Maybe caring about MJ is a foreign concept to you?" Sam nodded falsely, "But I'm not a massive fan of the guy who carved her face up!"

"I'm helping!"

Hands up in exasperation.

"Lucien and I had a deal," He huffed, "He's broken it."

MJ rolled her eyes.

"Beyond that!" He pressed his hands to his chest, "It's my duty to help my baby sister actually achieve something."

"Oh," Sam lunged, MJ repelling him for Kol to catch.

"Don't cross the barrier," She instructed, "He can't use magic beyond it."

Sam pursed his lips.

"And is that the worst you got?" MJ faced him, "Your insults used to be more coded. Smarter."

"Now The Travellers are dealt with? I don't need you to love me."

Her jaw clenched.

"Lucien made me quite a lot of promises," He leaned over the higher table, "And he's broken them."

MJ hated herself.

"I want that dealt with."

She hated that part of her had hoped the cooperation was out of amends.

That maybe Josh's point and Cami's conflicted expression were on to something. Poking him on why she was unaffected. Hayley calling out his want to warn. The thread of hope he did love her was replaced with reality.

He just wanted revenge. Or control. Or something.

"It kills you, doesn't it?"

MJ was snapped out of her thoughts by his high tone.

"That you can't read me."

MJ begged her eyes to roll, turn, or focus on anything other than his voice, but she just couldn't. Following how he pushed against the table, head rising higher to loom over her.

"Hiding behind truth spells..."

"Think that says more about you than me."

"It says that I understand people," His gaze hardened, "While you continue to be as lost as ever."

Was she lost?

Clinging to any liferaft that would take her?

What was a home?

A real one?

How was she twenty-one and still having to ask that – she had her dad. She had her family. She had friends. She had – she had -

"Listening to every voice in your head," He was soft-spoken, "Until it breaks you."

Fingers drifting over the different tools on the tables.

"Magic holding every one of your relationships together."

Finn glanced around the room, finding Klaus unable to look away and Elijah looking everywhere else. To the sky. To Hayley. To the upstairs balcony. To how Freya leaned against those books, drifting from left to right, too anxious to still.

"But when someone actually points out how you're used, abused, and abandoned?" He shook his head, "They're made out to be the bad guys in your story."

Ryos wasn't yelling.

He didn't need to yell.

His power came from how each word held a punch yet silk on the ears.

"Over the actual serial killers who benefit from it."

Sam and Davina shared a look.

"I mean, even now," Ryos picked a syringe up, "Standing in here with me?"

Tapping it lightly, looking at the venom in MJ's hand.

"You clearly didn't want to do this."

MJ was biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, forcing herself to make another move on the chessboard to try and ignore the pain in her lungs.

"Yet you have."

Walking around the table, rusty trousers graceful.

"And you're here."

Magic made Ryos's next move, and MJ instantly responded, like forcing him to look at the board would make him stop.

"And I'm here."

Stilling before her.

"And I'm the only way to prove you still have use to them."

Lifting the syringe, he wasn't doing anything.

Just running the sharp point down her face as MJ began to tremble, joints locked as it relived the last time they'd been in that position, nervous system on fire. No knife. No spell forcing her to scream her sins – and no agony – just them. It wasn't the same.

MJ couldn't let herself think it was the same.

Her breathing –

Her lungs –

"What happens to you if I don't figure it out?"

MJ's couldn't let her eyes look down. It was like two hands were ripping her ribs open, blood spilling out, no spleen left to be ripped away – just her heart. The hand so tight around it. The distinct feel of fingers ready to make her vomit, trying to decide what to do with her.

"What happens to you..."

The metal tip tapped against her temple.

"...If I just – "

As he swung to stab, Kol rammed him straight into the floor.

One punch hitting –

The second caught by a frozen force.

"Kol!"

"Durzhani."

His entire body locked, Ryos driving the needle directly into his heart, pulling the end back to fill the syringe with a deep scarlet liquid, MJ's scream rippling out.

Force travelling with it.

Only for Ryos's second hand to turn into a fist, slamming the power directly into the floor, a shake spreading through it, herb outline fizzing, but holding it back.

"Bezplatno."

Kol fell free, shoving back to his feet, eyes wild.

"Good to know the stories about impulsive anger issues are true," Ryos inspected the colour, flicking it with his nails, "Exactly what you want near your baby sister."

Turning from them to tip it into one of the glass beakers.

"Then again, you're starved of genuine affection from everyone else," He pulled a face, weighing his options, "Meaning you are unwaveringly loyal to her."

Lifting the beaker to a stand, a flame formed beneath it.

"The snippets of life I've seen are more positive than anticipated."

Kol was pulling his front collar forward to stare down his chest. The mark that meant he was stuck drinking MJ's potion or dealing with spiritual control.

"Still," He tutted, "Do you have no self-preservation?"

Kol went to retort, but the ghost spoke fast.

"Obviously not; how else would you have been turned into an ancestral puppet."

"I'm not a puppet!"

"Kol," He went into autopilot, "What are you currently taking for your ailment?"

"You're buying time," Klaus noted, "To avoid admitting you can't do anything about Lucien."

"I can do plenty about Lucien," Ryos gestured behind at him, "There's just a bigger issue here."

Meeting Kol's stern glare.

"Creatures come, and creatures go."

Finally, responding to MJ's last move.

"The dead exist forever."

A different book flew out from Ryos's notes, opened against the table as he stirred the bubbling beaker, free hand tapping a rhythm against the glass.

"And they are capable of quite a lot of chaos."

Davina and MJ shared a look, knowing just how true that was.

Only for Ryos to whistle.

A tune against the taps, somehow just out of sync with each other, yet overlapping just enough to create a song in the air. Multitasking without hesitation, leaning his body back as he worked, taking in the daytime sky of New Orleans.

The breeze shifted to turn around him, flame growing taller, fanning across the bottom of the beaker, his muscles tensing as the black lines seemed to thicken again.

Silence.

It hit harder. Like the general existence of breath and heart was snatched away with the tune's end, all eyes were on Ryos as he pulled the stirrer out. 

MJ flicked her wrist to make her next move.

She wasn't looking at the board – she didn't have to. Tiny squares memorised, watching Ryos's choices and adapting her image of it to reflect them, the best three moves to make in response, a video game in her brain. A calming familiarity. Comfort as Ryos picked up a knife. A silver blade over his palm, dripping blood on either side of the beaker.

SSSsssssss.

The flame went out.

Ryos leaned forward to breathe the steam in.

Eyes going wide and spinning to face her, "You've been feeding him your blood?"

"Mixed with a potion," MJ clarified, "Human blood hasn't been staying down."

"MiMi."

She hated how her body reacted to his tone, "He's – "

"No – "

"We have other problems – "

His volume went up, "Do you not realise this might be the plan!?"

MJ had considered it.

"Get him hooked on your blood because if you get drained, you'll be possessable?"

Gesturing wildly at Davina.

"Soulless bodies sound like spirit snatching, which means someone's messing with possession magic."

"Sacrificial magic," MJ couldn't help but correct him, "It's tied to sacrifice."

Ryos let his face turn puzzled.

Focus back on the blood, hands on either side of the beaker, eyes shutting to hone in, a soft note humming in his throat, slowly amplified into the world as the liquid began to mix.

"He was touched by Le Gemme Vital?" He sensed, "Meaning his soul is in disarray."

Tone back to calm.

"There are a million realignment charms, and, sure..."

Like he could sing them to sleep.

"While this is more powerful and also tied to death, and also tied to a million other potential problems, you could have a better starting point than – "

"I get it!" MJ snapped, "You think I'm useless."

He didn't say anything.

"I don't care what you think!"

How dare he comment on Kol's situation?

"You don't know anything about me – like!"

How dare he talk like her solution wasn't valid enough for him.

Like he cared!

After trying to kill her, how dare he speak like he gave a damn if she risked her life.

"You didn't even bother coming to my graduation!"

So separate to the point, but MJ couldn't stop herself.

"I was the valedictorian!"

So many years of work...

"I had a perfect SAT score despite being locked in a room for three days the week I took them!"

No revision, just Katherine and Klaus.

"I still managed to speak three languages and play all my old instruments. I got two prestigious scholarships and early acceptance to my dream Uni. I have a cool job where I get to do something I actually like."

Ryos looked bored.

"I'm the youngest and only elder of a whole coven!"

Throat scratching.

"A nineteen-year-old coven leader! You don't get to tell me how to heal – "

"I was leading a coven at eighteen."

The fact was delivered so flatly.

"And I took the IB," He reminded her, "Which is undoubtedly harder than American exams. Achieving a forty-five."

The highest grade you could.

"Getting into my dream university and doing a job that contributed something to the world."

Her fingers trembled.

"I became a doctor while supplying for you."

"Good to know that being an overachiever is genetic," Josh commented.

"The universe has done nothing but give her chances," Ryos picked a stirrer, "If she didn't achieve something from it? What is she doing?"

MJ felt her lungs about to give out.

"I was handed bad hands," He hissed, "And I turned them to gold."

Back to her, waving the stirrer.

"But did you enjoy your little boasting session?"

They knew from Maci and Marcel that people had been hunting him the minute he left the city. Not her. Everything that had happened to MJ had been an accident while he'd been on a hunt list, still managing to win...

"That do something for you?"

MJ pressed her knuckles into the table, "I don't need you."

Ryos looked amused.

"You've taken the spell down," She snatched the papers he'd laid out, "I don't care what I have to learn or do."

Seeing lists of ingredients and measurements.

"But I'd rather be locked in here."

A pretty big declaration for her.

"Then rely on you to do the right thing."

"You want to talk about right and wrong?"

MJ turned, reading.

How dare he –

How dare he say she had it good?

Obviously, he thought she had it good! She'd been able to have friends. She hadn't been hounded by The Travellers and forced to lead them to survive. She hadn't chased family around Europe looking for help, only to be forced to turn to spirits! He'd met Lucien pre-2009, meaning he'd been a teenager faced with an a-thousand-year-old vampire demanding aid –

The timeline...

MJ stared at the page, all the ramblings about white oak and what that would bring to the serum – positives and negative. Seeing how using it to bind the venoms both together. To a person. How that could create problems...

"Mira," Ryos gestured around, "You're standing in the home of The Original Family."

The hill he was willing to die on.

"All those names," He shook his head, "The sins I made you confess?"

Focus on the words.

"You and I know just how much blood you have on your hands."

"Shut up."

"What was that?"

Read, MJ.

"You think you can talk to me like that?"

Figure it out.

"Awe," He batted his eyes, "Finally growing a backbone?"

Klaus's blood wasn't enough, so did she need to collect blood from every line? Because he was quite possibly the only pure source left. He and maybe the Malraux, but MJ couldn't reach out to the Malraux's – according to Jules's writing, every other line had started deliberately mixing to become stronger.

"Is it just for me, or are you gonna start putting your foot down with this lot too?"

"She told you to put a sock in it," Kol snapped, "Before she shatters you back into pieces."

"You think she's strong enough to do that?"

If they needed pure blood, they were screwed, so that couldn't be the solution.

Everything had a reverse. MJ knew that nothing was created without an opposite to give it balance, no matter how many ancestors screamed about a lack of balance towards every new creation. Even when they created it, there had to be a cure or a fix.

The cure?

"I think we're both aware that MiMi will never be able to hurt me ever again."

Was shoving that down Lucien's throat their only solution?

"She could have all the power in the world..."

There were currently three known cures for the normal werewolf bite, so there had to be something else – something more straightforward that wouldn't take however much ingredient sourcing and international travel to recreate. Maybe sending Katherine or Stefan on a quest would be easier than expecting Ryos to do anything other than destroy her.

"...And she'd stop herself."

Her hands tensed around the page.

"Lest we forget."

Every light flickered, Ryos's face suddenly pale, MJ unable to stop herself from looking back at him. Staring over her shoulder as it morphed from flesh to bone. Eyes wide at the blood filling his shirt, torn pieces over his chest –

Smack.

Heart hitting the table, MJ's scream ripped from her throat, lurching towards him like she could –

No.

Her hand hovering just above it.

"Not gonna do it?"

She refused to touch it.

"Not gonna plead with the gods to bring me back?"

Refused to look at it.

"Shove it in my chest like you can give it a second chance?"

Eyes trailing up his neck as it turned skeletal, black holes instead of matching eyes. No light or energy bouncing through them. Somehow able to smile wide. Nothing but bone. Her mother's corpse in every sunken feature –

Identical.

Warmth beneath her skin as a final beat pressed into her palm...

"Do you not like the reminder you ripped my heart out?"

MJ slammed the papers into the table, snapping his illusions away.

"LOOK AT MY FACE!"

Every piece of glass in the room cracked slightly, every onlooker freezing.

No one had ever heard MJ yell that loud before.

Even when she'd seemingly lost control, beating Elena into the ground or siphoning Elijah to hell –

"You did this to me!" MJ's eyes bugged, "After murdering two of my closest friends!"

So many corpses were burnt into her memory.

"Trying to imply I'm in the wrong?"

Kol couldn't help but smile slightly.

"Are you kidding me?"

Mind racing.

"If you're so fucking great, Ryos, you wouldn't need to reread all this shit!"

Sentences about how each ingredient tied into it all.

"You'd know the answer!"

How all the weakness and representational magic added up.

"You'd be able to look at it and realise that white oak was a stupid binding ingredient because it means you don't need a powerful counter! You can just use fire!"

They both stilled.

MJ processed her words.

Kol's finger lifted, "Representation of the sun combined with a thing that can destroy it."

"Channel the sun at its highest point," Ryos continued, "Bidning the anti-serum together with a flame."

MJ gawked at him, "You don't get to say it."

"Why not?"

"I'm the one that figured it out!"

"You wouldn't have done it if I hadn't pissed you off," He gleamed, "You do your best work when temperamental."

Her hand gripped the table like she might flip it.

"I mean, it's deeper than that."

She paused, waiting for the insulting analysis.

"Still need to piece together an anti-serum from wolf toxins, or!"

Somehow, it was worse to realise he hadn't even been about to talk about her.

"You can use voodoo to cook up something really cool," He started to get excited, "Or create the voids I used in the ripper virus and let it tear him apart – overtake the magic to destroy the immortality."

He started to write in blue ink next to his black-printed prediction measurements.

"But you'd need a powerful spell if you wanted to go the voodoo route," His hand moving quickly, "But we know how to bind it all together, which is a start."

"Ryos."

He kept scribbling.

"Ryos," Her power raised his head, "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Screwing with me to get results."

"Do you not...want results?"

Why did he look genuinely confused?

"Or am I being accused of stalling because you're actually about to try stalling?"

"Why would I want to – "

"Because stalling means," Ryos lifted his hand, "We can talk about this."

Metal formed in his palm, an intricately designed dagger.

Gleaming in the daylight.

Kol moved, Klaus, getting their first, crossing the barrier without hesitation to rip it from his hold, eyes raging as MJ's heart hammered.

How the hell had he summoned it?

"OOoooooOOOoo," Ryos tutted at Klaus, "Very much missing the point."

"The point?" Kol raged.

"Everything with The Pethane," He lourded, "The blocked magic?"

The knife had been in her pocket dimension of things, not loose on a table or anywhere in sight for him to have noticed through hauntings.

"It's not some mental block," He mocked, "Do you not feel it?"

As long as it was in sight, MJ couldn't breathe.

"Your body has been mid-sacrifice for nearly two years."

Davina shook her head, "What are you talking about?"

"I started the spell," Ryos spelt it out, "It's not the type of spell that just stops."

Everything was blurring in MJ's vision, feet unsure they still stood on stone.

It didn't feel like stone.

It felt like being sucked through the stupid spirit world during her last trial – dirt swallowing everything whole, no way to stop it –

"Like people who have possession branding but no one entering them," He rephrased, "They don't seem like they're spelled, but the magic is still there. Active. Waiting."

"Screwing with everything else..." MJ barely whispered out.

She was mid-sacrifice? The signs that something wasn't working were the scars on her face and their refusal to heal. And Ryos was telling her that refusal was because they were waiting for the end of the spell?

"...I haven't been able to sense magic properly."

"Because you're supercharged with a ritual," Ryos confirmed, "Meant to banish magic."

"I – I – "

"Hold up," Sam shook his head, "What does that matter?"

"It means," Kol's face was slack, "The only way to deal with Mira's magical ailments is to banish that magic."

"But," Ryos meant his look, "You know you can't just banish that type of spell."

MJ spun to face Kol, brain screaming.

Sirens were the only sound in her ears, and no thought could exist for more than a millisecond before it was swallowed into the rest of the panic. Not her theories about the timeline. Not her confusion about the timeline. Not the year 2009 –

"It's rooted in her," Kol's voice, "It'll reform."

Just think about Kol's voice.

Think about his shirt wrapped around her body and how warm it was and safe – and how he wouldn't let the knife near her. It wasn't going to hurt her. Nothing was going to happen to her while Kol was there to keep her safe –

But when had MJ ever actually been safe!

"It survived her literal death."

"Twice," Ryos felt the need to add, "Both deaths."

Which explained Clio's confusion.

All the spells seemed to work, yet none of them lasted.

Because it had been carved into her face...

"If she wants to return to being a good practising Floare whose senses aren't fried? Who isn't sent into weird dream spirals?" Ryos stressed, "If she wants to live past thirty before it strips away her entire being? Bursts of pain ready and waiting?"

MJ was staring at the floor.

"The spell has to be complete."

All of her problems.

She wasn't tainted by something she'd done or some part of her failing to let go.

She was tainted because her brother had welded magic into her. Unable to be ripped away.

"Luckily for you," Ryos eyed how Klaus held the knife, "You're a vampire now."

"The spell you switched to was the one that killed me!"

"And hybrids wake up!"

"It releases my power across the planet!" MJ panicked, "You're telling me the only way to fix this – "

Gesturing at herself.

"Is to destroy magic!"

That stupid Floare prophecy in her brain.

Telling her she'd rise so high, only to have further to fall, taking them all down with her.

BUT PROPHECY WASN'T REAL.

"Ha-ha, Ryos!" She swung out, "Not falling for it for a second time!"

"The spell doesn't destroy magic," He defended, "It freed The Travellers."

"It killed – "

"That version of it!" He defended, "You let me finish the spell now; nothing will happen!"

"Bullshit," Hayley walked closer, "Why would we believe you?"

"Because I have no reason to lie?"

"Other than your previous attempt to wipe out all magical creatures?" Kol retorted, "The entire motivation being to banish the power because of how much you hate it?"

"I can't lie!" Ryos motioned to the candles, "MJ made it, so I can't."

They were all forced to have a rapid conversation in looks.

"Trust me however much you want."

"Not at all," Pri hissed.

"But I'm being honest," He pointed to the knife, "MJ is gonna be stuck in a power cycle, losing her mind, magic at war with herself, until the spell is finished."

It was her or all of the rest of magic.

"And it won't wipe out the magic because the only part of the spell that did that was based on the siphoner dying! Your power can't be transferred to the earth unless you die!"

And he was implying she'd wake up like it was a neck snap.

Everyone just stared at MJ.

She'd been working fine even while tainted, but she couldn't be the Regent as long as she had that reputation. But Ryos was implying it was going to get worse. That she'd start to feel pain. Start to go mad. Start to be torn apart properly, until no amount of magic could save her.

All her weird visions, ghost mishaps, and power struggles came from whatever was tampering with her, so if that was gone?

If she could clear her system?

Vincent could step down and give MJ the crown, and the ancestors would have no way to mess with them. It wasn't the Floare spirits messing with her but the ancestors. They'd infiltrated the ritual through her. Through whatever wasn't right with her. And Ryos was there, offering to fix it?

But if he was lying?

If he was manipulating them?

How could he lie!

The candles were up! It had to be the truth! But it was Ryos, and MJ couldn't see straight, her stomach doing backflips as it raced through the options, knowing that one wrong move would cost every vampire their life.

"I want the timeline."

Not what anyone had expected her to say.

"Right now."

Ryos raised an eyebrow.

"You were with Augustine in 2009; I want the exact dates of what you were up to."

"Why?"

"Because I need to know!"

After years of sending him video diaries documenting every moment of her life, she knew nothing about him. She could list clubs, hobbies, and achievements, but how did she even know they were real?

She'd been to his sixth form graduation dinner and met his friends, yet?

The timeline was wrong. He was lying about the dates. He couldn't have met Lucien before 2009. And if he had? He couldn't have – it wasn't –

"You want me to roll with that plan?" She shivered, "You want me to trust you?"

If he could lie about meeting Lucien first while the candles burnt, he could lie about anything.

And she was going to catch him in it.

For once in her life, MJ was going to beat him.

"You're gonna tell me exactly when you met Lucien," She made another move on the board, taking one of his pieces, "When you met The Travellers."

Scanning the position of their pieces to double-check her mental map of it.

"And what you did in England when you told me you gave magic up."

Ryos shifted uncomfortably.

"Now."

Her eyes burnt orange as his mouth was forced open and moving.

"Yeah, I found the spells you used to make Bonnie talk."

2006

"You know," Lucien spoke into the darkness, "Odd choice for a meeting spot."

London was a busy city, filled with bars he loved, restaurants, and plenty of bodies to feed on, yet he was standing underground. Through a rusting gate, locked in place to keep humans from stumbling down it, onto a train platform filled with rot and dust, leaning over the edge to see sheets pinned along the gloomy structure, sleeping bags and abandoned food scattered over the tracks.

'Closed for reconstruction'

Yet not a worker in site.

"I'd be happy to take you to dinner – "

"Funnily enough," A young man snapped his fingers, broken lights flicking on, "Not sure I wanna go to dinner with the man who sent a rabid wolf after me."

Lucien stilled, taking him in.

The tube station was small, the sign overhead leading to a cut-in wall where Ryos Jung was sitting, leaning forward to look at him, unimpressed.

"Not to judge on appearances," Lucien frowned, "But you are not a voodoo spirit."

Ryos simply lifted his brows in amusement.

"And you do not look like someone who could summon one."

He laughed, "You're looking for Legba?"

"I was told – "

"Whoever gave you a way to find me," Ryos stood up, "I can't help you."

Lucien narrowed his eyes. Watching as the teenager walked smoothly through the shambolic space, like rubble wasn't about to fall from above, his grey sweatpants somehow clean, satin indigo patchwork shirt loose over his shoulders, sleeves long enough to reach his elbows, their wide shape made from a firm seam, one singular lower button holding the pattern together above his belly button despite the cold.

"Whatever Legba promised you, or did to you, or – "

"I am not an enemy," Lucien tilted his head, "How old are you?"

Ryos pursed his lips.

"Working for a spirit when you can't be more than what?" He walked towards him, "Eighteen? Seventeen?"

"I know my power."

Thin black lines peeked out around his collarbone from his shoulders.

"And I know the people who come looking for Legba."

"That's not an answer to my question."

"I think appearances can be deceiving."

Any sense of joy he'd had from the interaction was slipping away, replaced with a low tone of voice.

"You'd think a vampire would understand that concept."

"My werewolf was torn to pieces in an alley," Lucien pointed at him, "You did that?"

Ryos didn't respond.

"Come on!" He shook his head, "Wayward witch, with too much power and an unknown amount of people after him?"

"No one's coming after me."

"For you to be this on edge," He countered, "I can't be the first person."

Ryos was entirely still.

"I have been travelling across Europe," Lucien crept closer, "Looking for someone with enough knowledge of voodoo – "

"You can't use voodoo – "

"You don't know what I'm asking yet."

"I know it won't be worth it."

"Worth more than this?" Lucien stilled at the platform's edge, "Hiding in an abandoned station like a stowaway. When I could give you everything you desire."

"I don't live here."

Lucien glanced at the mess of sheets again.

"Some people are not well; I am trying to help them," His voice gentle, "And a guy sending rouge wolves after me - "

"I apologise!" Lucien put his hands up, "But surely you'd like to work somewhere better than this?"

March 2014

"That's not what I asked for," MJ cut him off, "Give me dates."

Ryos gave her a look.

Klaus had his hand still wrapped around the knife, creeping out the circle and back to his perch on the stairs, away from Ryos's magic, leaving MJ conflicted. She didn't want the knife in the vicinity, but if Ryos could just summon it anyway?

Klaus's hands.

Her heartbeat picked up slowly, Kol drifting to rest a hand against her wrist, attempting to be comforting, only to make her hyperaware of his heartbeat, too. His jumping eyes.

Sam stood at the circle's edge, arms crossed, like a hawk about to descend, Davina glancing between the centre of Cami and Pri on the sofa. Pri's legs up, crossed on the couch, leaning forward like Ryos was a profile she'd been tasked with getting for her job. In a mental conversation with Josh, Cami was incredibly aware of how pale MJ was getting each second. How erratic her movements on the chessboard were.

That chessboard.

Just sitting there.

Each turn was a tap; a clonk.

A sound that she didn't want to think about, nausea washing through her like it was all a trap. Elijah no longer the only one playing in his own head. Finn had moved closer. The man who had hexed her boyfriend to die was in the same room as her screwed-up older brother, watching their game, hand trying to move subtly as he tried to play. To understand what was going on.

Maybe MJ should focus on that.

Finn was managable.

He enraged her, but he was being quiet and watchful, and he'd apologised, and he was trying to predict her brother's moves. While Ryos? He just...

"You went to the UK while I was in New York in 2004."

"I didn't go to England," He corrected, "I went to Europe, looking for family."

MJ sat beside the chessboard on the coffee table, facing towards the foyer, while Ryos worked around her. Slowing the game down slightly. He was sifting through her venom store, testing each one to see if it was usable. While she'd once been a collector, most of it had been sapped of use since she'd used it to track people and anything else?

Preserving venom had clearly been written in a weaker spell than her blood stores.

A lot of it had gone off while she'd been in the prison world because MJ hadn't realised it was a thing that could go off that majorly. It wasn't blood – it was venom...

It made sense it needed a specific environment to thrive, but –

Not the point. The point was Ryos testing each vial, sorting them into healthy and not, while slowly distilling the second vial of Pri's blood. Separating the vampirism from the cure Lucien had given her to see just what it was made up of. Check it was still the thing he'd provided the man with.

"It wasn't safe," He poured his sample from Kol into a bowl, "Nowhere was."

A pen started to float, marker against the material, inscriptions she didn't recognise printed into the side. There were three different experiments in motion, and, for the first time, MJ experienced what it was like to watch herself. She begged her brain to stop moving in slow motion over the sight of him standing there and to just keep up.

"There was a lot of bloodshed in my life," Ryos was writing something down, "I'm sure you understand how annoying coincidences can get."

Freya had picked up a notebook, scanning his every move.

"In the same place as a few murders? People start to think you're the problem."

Hayley lifted her chin, "Were you?"

"Depends who you're asking."

"I hardly doubt a few stories or bodies caught Lucien's attention," Elijah droned.

"They didn't," Ryos agreed, "I made a deal with Papa Legba."

MJ and Kol's eyes met.

"He helped me survive."

Her hand graced over the board, swallowing nervously, taking another one of his pieces.

Hyperaware of Elijah watching her move and frowning.

Ryos lifted a pawn, taking a castle.

"Only problem?"

"Making a deal with a Lwa," Kol mused, "Comes with consequences."

"A vampire saw me turn a group of Travellers into birds."

MJ's head snapped towards him.

"It was the middle of 2005," He explained, "I met my first one."

She didn't move.

"They were dying."

She'd donated money to that halfway house in Brienno...

"There was this woman," His voice turned distant, "She was willing to do anything to stay in the same city as her daughter. But every spell she tried?"

Mind racing.

"Nothing stopped the curse."

MJ's heart felt like someone was stabbing it.

"I knew the history," He almost seemed guilty, "But watching someone die isn't easy."

Eyes locked on each other.

"So I tried to help."

"And you turned them into a bird?"

"I failed."

MJ blinked, eyes dropping to the table, looking at how many ingredient boxes he'd opened while she'd been listening. Playing their silly little chess game. Trying to keep her heartbeat as steady as his was.

"She died," He picked up a shaker, "I spent the rest of the year trying to pretend I was okay with that."

MJ moved cities to pretend she wasn't affected by the people dying in her wake.

It wasn't her fault.

She wasn't the curse; it was just the life they led.

"We're Floare," He recited, "The Travellers are the monsters in our history."

Why she'd always clung to Ryos. No one knew exactly what she'd been through; no one could ever understand that feeling. Carrying that much guilt as a child, and the only common denominator, death after death.

"They'd skin us alive. Roast our bodies over a fire."

MJ had always craved matching scars.

"But this woman?"

"She just wanted her daughter to be okay."

Silence.

"Thinking I could just walk away was ignorant," Ryos looked to the blue sky, "I got pulled right back in. Like an idiot. And I couldn't stop myself..."

"What was it?"

"A group found me, thinking I was you."

MJ almost wished Marcel was there to give her any sense of comfort.

"I lashed out, and the power Legba gave me turned them into starlings."

"And they viewed you as a god," Kol could assume, "Unlocking their lost Floare abilities."

"Little bit, yeah."

MJ made another move, "Which you embraced."

The placement of pieces was like a metronome.

A constant click.

Slowly, both sides got smaller, pieces huddled to the side, the pattern of squares the only thing in MJ's eyes.

"I realised they'd do anything to break their curse," Ryos corrected, "And they knew they needed our family line to do it."

Because Ana had altered the spell when she'd remade the stones.

"Focusing them on me?"

MJ didn't need Ryos to say it for her brain to fill in the blank.

He'd played cult god to keep them from looking for her. Because it had always been about her – everything in their life, from their childhood to their mother's love, was all her fault. She was the reason he'd never had a normal life. She was why he'd almost been ripped to pieces by Legos growing up.

She was the reason he was dead.

"You can't just become a coven leader," He nodded to her, "You have to prove yourself."

"So you do small tasks to gain favour."

"And vampires started to learn about it."

Werewolves had been hunted by them out of fear.

Witches too.

It made sense someone had reported about him.

"People don't like powerful witches," He made another move, "They'll do anything to stop us from remembering that we started this."

Everyone had a different origin story they chose to believe.

"Every creature out there comes back to us."

What had really come first?

"And that means it's our birth rite to be their end."

"And you wonder why we might not trust your spell," Freya mused.

"You want something powerful?" He lifted a beaker, "I'll give you something powerful."

"And that attitude," Klaus lulled, "Brought Lucien to you."

"He thought Voodoo was a way to overpower an Original," Ryos tipped the contents into a mix of herbs, "Create a new type of creature or spell in a rival form of magic that the ancestors feared."

"And you'd been helping The Travellers using their magic and voodoo," MJ followed, "Since the ancestors wouldn't help them."

"Lucien had been expecting some old woman," He smiled fondly, "But when he met me?"

"A seventeen-year-old," Klaus mused, "Is a lot easier to manipulate."

The temperature in the room automatically went up, his body rigid at the slip.

At his desperation to talk – to control a situation so out of his depth. Everyone was incredibly still, glancing around the edge of the room as MJ refused to look at him. At that damn knife behind her. Staring forward, only to be faced with Elijah.

The sleek click of a piece going down.

Klaus hadn't started manipulating her until the summer. He'd been openly violent and cruel, to strike fear, not to use. Elijah had played nice, bought her things, then snapped her neck.

"He didn't manipulate me," Ryos shifted, "He just paid for everything."

Every invisible string in the universe yanked her body up.

Paid?

Lucien wasn't just using him but paying him?

"Our work – our tests, caught Augstine's attention."

"In 2006?"

"2006."

The timeline.

It didn't make sense.

The payments started in 2009 – they had to begin in 2009 because MJ had been broke as shit until 2009, and she'd still been poor in 2009, but Ryos had only bought her a place to live in 2009, so if he was tossing that number upside down –

Thump – thump – thump –

"But – " MJ couldn't breathe, "I..."

2006.

Not, 2009.

"You – "

"MJ," Kol's hand was on her wrist again, "What's wrong?"

Ryos' equally confused expression did not help the situation, her hand shoving over her mouth as a million calculations started in her mind. All at once. Too many numbers, and names, and faces, and jobs, and –

He had to be lying.

But the candles.

How – how –

They –

"2006!"

"Dos mil seis," He nodded, "Or do you need the Mandarin?"

Footsteps hurtled into the space at an almost comical speed, Marcel's voice behind them, confused as Vincent came to a shaking stop.

2009.

Vincent had locked himself in St. James until he regained control of his magic. Yet, there he stood, handing pointing forward, trembling, eyes unable to blink as Ryos straightened up, lips parting.

"MJ."

The hybrid in question was back to seeing blurs, riptide around her ankles, sand between her toes, but not in the way that reminded her of summer. The way that was trapped in socks and shoes, and never shaken off.

"We – we – "

Two-thousand-and-six.

"We need to talk."

His legs were shaking like his knees might give way at any second.

"Right now!"

"And you two know each other?" Ryos started to clap, "Brilliant!"

Vincent's voice got louder, "MJ."

Two-thousand-and-six.

Her throat was sandpaper, air scratching down it with such a force she was ready to throw up – every second was another moment she might vomit – she was so sick of vomiting, but –

Two-thousand-and-six.

"Outside – "

Every second, Vincent's face was turning paler, a slight tinge of green like he might throw up too, not even acknowledging Ryos's question. Staring at her older brother. His old friend. Marcel's hand on Vincent's shoulder, tugging like he might wake him up.

"Please," He panted, eyes still on Ryos, "MJ."

As Kol ran his fingers higher, MJ flinched.

"Please."

Two. Thousand. And. Six.

"I, I, I – we – we need to go."

"So quick to leave?" Ryos stretched up, "That's a bit rude."

Each step forward had Vincent scrambling back.

"You need some fresh air?" He dripped fake sympathy, "You look awfully unwell."

"You can't – "

"Relax! Vince," Ryos grinned like a cat, "You look like you've seen a ghost?"

"I – I – "

"And you're friends with my sister?" He tutted, "Interesting!"

Dos. Mil. Seis.

"MJ," Vincent's eyes finally met her, "We need to talk."

Dos mil seis, or 兩千零六

Her entire body swayed like she'd been punched, mouthing the words.

Two-thousand-and-six.

"In private."

"You have something to hide?" Ryos gasped, "From a dead man!?"

Vincent's heartbeat overtook MJ's in volume.

Vibrating through MJ's entire being.

~TwO-tHoUsAnD-aNd-SiX~

"What could you possibly have to hide from little old me!"

They could all watch as Vincent looked from MJ to Ryos, to the rest of them, back to MJ, like someone had taken a cheese grater to his insides.

Still stumbling back.

Like he wished he hadn't charged in, Kol's eyes honing in on how his arrival filled Ryos with a burst of energy. Hands clenched behind the table. It wasn't just confidence – it was nerves.

Vincent Griffith made Ryos Jung nervous?

Kol glanced back at MJ, still struggling to breathe; another attempt to make contact whacked away as her hands clutched her own throat. 

"How long have you guys known each other?" Ryos perched on the sofa arm like a nosy parent, "If it was before I died, you would've mentioned it."

MJ couldn't feel her heart or lungs, staring at his face and doing maths. Trying to convince herself it was a lie. Trying to test if the spell wasn't working, but she could feel it. Honesty rode each nerve, making it impossible to mask her reaction.

Her panic.

The ringing from her temples, everything too bright to look at. Too vague. Back in that hospital room in Mystic Falls. That operation. The metal tools in her brain, trying to drain the thing killing her, every slice and voice seeping into her skull, healing the anaesthetic, cursing her to feel every second of it, snow prickling around her toes –

"So around year?" His grin grew, "You guys have been friends!"

Pitch getting higher with faux excitement.

"For a year!"

Vincent's inhaled deeply, "If you're gonna kill me – "

He tilted his head, "Why would I want to kill you?"

"Ryos – "

"What could possibly cause that reaction?"

Vincent's mouth was opening and closing, desperately looking at MJ for help, only for her to be almost unaware of his presence. Allowing Ryos to focus on the other new arrival, losing the pep, the shadows on his face seeming to darken.

"You."

Marcel stepped forward, arms crossed, scanning him.

"I see you're still running behind witches while pretending you're in charge."

The vampire's jaw clenched.

"You squash your daddy issues yet?"

"2006!"

The yell from MJ created a ripple.

"TWO-THOUSAND," She yanked at her hair to wake up, "AND SIX."

"What about it?"

"Lucien was paying you?"

"Obviously," Ryos looked confused, "Never work for free."

Confused.

cOnFuSeD.

How dare he be confused?

"Have you seen this economy?"

"YOU LET ME BE HOMELESS?"

The pop in the air had everyone looking for a source, but nothing had exploded.

It was just the air around MJ.

Fizzing as tears streamed down her face.

"You were getting paid by some multi-millionaire vampire from 2006! While I slept in a car!" Her arms whipped out, "Pretending to be eighteen to get work, and tips – I – I – I – "

Her state woke Vincent up too, heart dropping to his stomach at her contorting face.

No fangs were coming out, no darkness in her eyes, just a continual flood of tears.

"It was Chicago!" She screeched, "Do you know how much it snows in Chicago?"

She'd been lucky that 2006 wasn't even that much of a hell-storm year.

"And I couldn't afford fuel, meaning I eventually ran out of heating!"

And her boarding school had been shut for the holidays.

"They have these little trucks that clear the roads by pushing all the snow to the sides," She was twitching, "It buried my car!"

It wasn't a book. They didn't stay open just for her. She didn't run around having adventures. She had tragedies. And not the supernatural kind.

"With me in it."

Every word was fluctuating between hissed, yelled, and panted.

"And I didn't have a grimoire!"

All her weirdly unique spells existed for a reason.

"I didn't know heat spells back then - not ones that worked without candles – I didn't know strength – I just knew so much agony, nearly five days, no food, limited water, no hygiene, that after four and half days, when I was about to collapse, and I couldn't feel my toes, that it finally moved!"

To that day, MJ still didn't know if her magic had come through or if the snow had just melted enough.

"I could get out!" She cheered, "I got to sleep on the street instead!"

Not risking getting trapped like that again.

She'd lived through a loop of panic-passing out those four days. Waking up, realising she couldn't leave, starting to hear voices in her head. Hear her mother. Marcel. Too weak to summon her mum from the necklace – too embarrassed – never taught of the power that had just been sitting there. Hung on her. That could have got her out!

Because Ryos had never told her.

Her mum had never told her.

Hearing the heart come out. Hearing the body crash through the door and into the bed –

Unable to breathe.

Never sure if she was hallucinating from lack of food, water, or claustrophobia.

"Everywhere was closed!"

But she'd learnt how to make fire.

"I had no income!" Her fingers sparked, "I had to route through trash for anything that would keep me alive!"

When she'd told Kol she'd felt like a shivering rat? That she couldn't talk about Chicago because of that? It wasn't just the supernatural trading ring that had forced her to run. MJ always would have left that summer. She'd found a scholarship to Los Angeles before then.

Not just because her stupid magic map had pinpointed it.

She'd jumped coastsides for a reason.

"And you had money to spare?"

"You didn't tell me – "

"WHAT DID YOU THINK I WAS DOING?"

Her spiral through Vincent's arrival had been reliving every second of it. Something her brain was still doing. Trying to wipe her cheeks, but nothing would stop the stinging heat. Every month, Ryos has sent her money. Tiny amounts that usually got her through, but sometimes it didn't. Sometimes, things happened.

Sometimes, she did the math and realised he was sending her the majority of his human income and that she couldn't ask for more. If she lived like that, what was he doing?

Every day: is Ryos okay?

Every minute: can Ryos afford food?

Every second: he's giving up everything for you.

"You had an ancient vampire at your disposal!"

They were meant to have been living through it together.

"And you still didn't do anything!"

Whacking her hands into his chest to shove him back.

"You knew what happened in New York - you could've handled it!"

She'd been kidnapped twice.

"How many times I wasn't allowed to sleep because some drunk guy tried to grab me on the way home, and if I fell asleep, he'd find me again! Or my boss would make a pass, and if I said no! I'd not get work! But I couldn't say yes, so I just starved!"

The Compound was full of people.

Part of MJ was aware of them, but most of her had forgotten. How cared who saw her spiral. How cared about anything when Ryos was there, and telling her it was all for nothing.

Kol grabbing her arm, only to be battered back. 

"GET OFF ME!"

Her fist hit Ryos square in the jaw, but he didn't even flinch.

He was a ghost.

There was no pain threshold because he was already dead.

But she felt pain!

The ancestors had been able to torture her – and then he'd had the nerve to say she had the good genes? She got things handed to her? Imply, the universe held him back while she'd had it easy!

"I – I – "

Palm pressed into her mouth to try and stop her scream, then shoved to the side as she laughed.

"It's a friend group in-joke that I got hot when I turned eighteen!"

Mystic Falls had gone from seeing her ignore romance to all of the college attention Whit had got her, to Emma, to Kol, to Stefan, to Sam and Marcel flirting with her in New Orleans. A joke meant to be stupid. Meant to be a tease because they all knew Tyler had crushed on her prior. Because Caroline had always called her beautiful, and they knew she'd dated at her other schools, yet MJ couldn't help but find some truth.

Because MJ had to change bra sizes that summer.

Caroline and she had gone bikini shopping, and MJ had gotten herself remeasured because nothing fit right.

Because?

"I could finally afford three meals!" She waved an arm towards Klaus, "Every day!"

It was the first year she'd been able to eat every day since New York. When Maci took a day as her day, Pri's family had to. And Gina's. And Beni would then split some earnings and prompt MJ to cook them both something until she enjoyed cooking again.

"Do you know how much better life is when you can eat every day? What it's like to stand on a scale and see yourself go from thirty-seven kilograms to fifty-eight in three weeks."

MJ couldn't stop the word vomit, tears pricking her eyes.

"I thought I was dying!" She grabbed her neck, "I was in another country with a friend."

Elliot.

"And we were googling diseases because being a healthy weight was such a foreign concept to me! Waking up and not feeling sick or dizzy. Not needing to chew gum to stop my stomach from crawling inside out!"

Maybe MJ liked clothes and make-up growing up because it helped her feel less noticeable. As ironic as it sounded. If anyone looked at her figure – at how much she worked out? They'd get distracted by the style before they could realise that she was muscle, bone, and nothing else.

But no one had really cared.

One school had flagged her as thin, but she was pretty. And she knew how to dress. And she was someone else's kid, so why would they care?

"All because you didn't give enough of a fuck to make sure I could afford to eat!"

Ryos had the nerve to watch, resting against the stupid standing table.

"Fuck. You."

She slammed a final chess piece into position.

"Fuck all of you."

For standing there.

Expecting her to talk to him.

Treating her like shit because their bad choices were biting them in the ass.

"Checkmate."

Ryos glanced, "That's not checkmate."

"Check again!" She spun, arms out, "I could have beat you twelve moves ago!"

Spitting the information into the air.

"But I didn't!"

The hesitation Elijah had noted.

The confusion on his face.

The strange choices she'd made that left her open to attack.

"I have been playing in circles!" Her tears were drying. "Waiting for you to do something!"

Every confident move he'd made was so dull.

"Trying to let you win!"

Fuck 2006.

"The way I always do!"

Fuck Ryos having money.

"But I just can't anymore."

MJ didn't give a shit about the Floare ritual or The Travellers. They could yell at each other about sins, magic, and righteousness, but the supernatural world wouldn't change because they yelled out their damage. None of it really mattered! The scar on her face was just some spell he cast – the true cut?

The deepest wound?

That came back to human matters.

"I quit the never-ending game our mother thought would teach us about the universe."

The supernatural trading ring meant so little to MJ in the grand scheme. That was actually incredibly normal on her scale of insanity. It was the life.

Her life.

The thing that kept her going every day wasn't even true!

"I didn't need to let you win! I never did."

The entire conversation just proved an inescapable truth to MJ.

No one would ever understand.

No one could ever really help her.

"Because I thought that might finally make you love me."

Lungs like tiny fists scrunched up in her chest, every sob half-finished, leaving her on the brink of a panic attack.

"The only reason I am still alive is because I had you!"

Back then.

"I forced myself to keep going because I knew you were out there!"

As he stayed, leaning on that table, MJ shrunk to the floor, arms wrapped around her knees as she tried to stop herself from screaming.

"Because, I thought, that as bad as it got?"

Leaning forward on her feet, like a tiny mushroom in the centre of the room, teeth against the bend in her arm like she might tear it off.

"You were out there! And you would understand."

Ana Ruiz had asked her to survive, so she had.

She'd managed to carry sunlight in every step because of Ryos.

Because she had a big brother. She still had family. She had a reason to smile every morning, even when she'd just escaped frostbite or a burial.

"I didn't need anyone else to understand my life!" MJ had never asked them to, "Because you would."

She never liked to play in the trauma Olympics; it was against her nature. She was understanding. She thought about situations, and she knew people could handle different things. But this? So many years of being patient and kind?

"And I loved you!"

Pathetic little MJ, always giving people too many chances.

Always the doormat.

Constantly demeaned for being kind, like it wasn't a good thing! Like she was the problem! How was she ever the problem? The people who couldn't hold their tongue, the people who thought they were better than her because they had the patience of a todler –

"I thought you were sacrificing everything for me!" She sobbed, "And, one day?"

Why was she sobbing?

"I might be good enough to deserve it one day."

But he'd had everything.

"All I ever wanted," She buried her head further down, "The only thing I ever wanted!"

Every word cracked.

"Was for you to come home."

Burying her head into her knees to hide her face.

"Was to be good enough for you."

Unable to watch a Traveller die, but leaving her to wither away.

Because she hadn't done anything.

All those stupid voices telling her that all the bad things in her life were justified?

"I used to think that if I just did my best?" She croaked, "If I was kind? And fun? And easygoing? And smart? And hard-working?"

Why were tears hot?

"One day, you'd realise you missed me."

The way she missed him.

"But I shouldn't have had to try!"

She reinvented herself in every city, Mystic Falls, the first time the personality felt right. Bridged her worlds into one without costing her everything. Seemed to make her friends.

That first year had been good.

She'd won Klaus and Elijah over!

If she could do that, why couldn't she get her brother back?

"I should have been the only thing that mattered!"

Lillian and Tom had let MJ take The Floare Sacrifice from The Book of The Dead. A spell they would never have gotten off her mother. Ryos's name the one in the elder's mind. The Travellers circling her in the town she'd let herself feel safe in. 

"But you just wanted to sacrifice me!"

Rocking back, MJ hit the floor properly, legs stretching out, palms craving the cold stone.

"It was the only thing I could offer you."

Offer anyone.

"I'm only useful," Her voice going quiet and soft, "When I take everyone else's problems."

Kol was incredibly still, watching her recite Ryos's early point.

"When I'm perfectly sympathetic and responsive. And useful."

A smile across her face, eyes unblinking.

"Who cares about treating me like a person!"

Her voice fluctuated in pitch.

"I'm a name to be under someone else's!"

Finn was creeping towards Kol, unsure what to do as everyone seemed scared to get close.

"If they even let me choose my own name!" MJ laughed, "Most of the time, I'm told what I'm meant to be called!"

Who had she become?

Just sitting on the floor.

Just some thrown-away toy Ryos had never wanted to play with.

"And now I'm done!" She stood up, swaying, "I don't have to be here!"

The spell was working.

"Have fun!"

Stumbling to the door.

"Mira," Elijah caught her shoulder, only to be whacked off, "MJ."

"What?" She hissed.

Hesitation at the hatred.

"What do I owe any of you?"

"The sire line?" Freya muttered.

MJ actually laughed, spitting at her, "Fuck you."

Her brain was mushy peas pounded by scissors, any sense of self ripped to pieces and thrown into the toilet. Not a bin. That would be too kind. Mira Jung Floare-Ruiz was being flushed away until nothing but cruel rage was left.

"How many times I have sat here, or there, or wherever you want," She lorded, "Listening to you wail 'woe is me!'"

Spinning dramatically.

"'My life is so tortured and awful!'"

Sam and Marcel locked eyes while Cami and Josh had a mental argument.

"And I offer advice!" She laughed again, "I'm the child here!"

One of the people they'd hurt.

"I'm not the vampire family with all the power in the world!"

The shivering witch with no spell books or elders willing to teach her.

"Your parents may not be nice people," She mocked, "But you have not suffered."

Each consonant cut.

"I don't think any of you know what suffering really is!"

Freya's eyes raged.

"Oh no!" She looked to the sky, "I get to live forever and practise magic! What a shame!"

Turning to the rest of the group.

"Oh no! I betray people, and then they hate me? You mean?" Her voice dropped to hushed shock, "My actions! They have consequences?"

Her body still swaying like she was drunk.

"I destroy families, then complain they don't want to be cooperative!"

Blaming Elena like Klaus hadn't ruined her life.

"My life's so awful because my dad isn't nice! Boohoo!"

As if Sam wasn't right there to prove it wasn't an excuse.

As if Josh's family hadn't literally kicked him out for being gay.

As if Marcel wasn't the result of rape and racism, going from one evil father to Klaus and his issues. And Kol's. And Elijah's. Yet still trying to keep kids safe. Still trying to do good. 

"I may be able to compel everything I want, move at the speed of light, destroy any enemy with a touch – but I'm definitely the one who needs sympathy!"

Ears ringing.

"I'm the one who's suffering!"

So many years of swallowing it down because her better judgment knew it wasn't fair to compare.

"Not the teenager we pass around like plaster to our problems!"

"Who we only have access to because she was a prisoner!"

Locked in that stupid apartment that she loved.

"Who is alone! Because of our fucked up family tree!"

Whether tracing Marcel's origins, Maci's, or Scary Mary's.

The Mikaelson's had been at every step of her journey.

And now they dared look at her with hatred?

But –

Who was she anymore?

Why was she doing any of it?

How did she live? And how was she meant to keep going? Why did she have to keep going? It – it –

She was so tired.

The cliff MJ had been dangling off of to keep herself from spiralling was officially gone, like Esther Mikaelson was somehow watching and upset MJ was talking badly of her precious babies. Ripping away nature to send her screaming into the raging sea below, hitting every rock she could as the tide shallowed around her.

The stupid list Ryos made her recite to justify his actions –

The sins the ancestors tortured her with –

Kinney's police file, holding every taunting experience over her head –

"I'm twenty-one."

The weight of the world so heavy on her shoulders.

"I should be roller skating around New York, eating stupid vegan cupcakes, and questioning the point of a university degree, but still showing up to class each week – not trying to get a group of self-centred brats to give a crap about me."

Hurt people, hurt people.

"Like they deserve a thing."

The build-up spilling out turned MJ into someone they almost didn't recognise.

"You want a solution?" She pouted tauntingly, "You want a cure?"

Nodding like they were babies.

Slowly letting every inch of teasing turn to hatred.

Making sure to look each Mikaelson in the eye.

"Get it yourself."

Storming to the door.

Kol moved, "Mira – "

Hayley cut him off, shoving him right back into the room.

"Get out of my way."

"Did you listen to a thing she said?"

"She's – "

"Stay here."

Holding his look, Hayley used her eyes to gesture back.

To the monster in the centre.

Leaning on his table, pretending to whistle as attention fell back to him.

"I've got this."

Pri was up, "She's my – "

"No offence," Hayley puffed her chest, "But the last thing she needs right now is the vampires with two loving parents and a perfect older brother."

Pri's eyes dropped.

"What did you think was happening?" Hayley pushed past Kol to stare down Ryos, "While you were running around, 'living it up?'"

He just looked to the sky.

"Did you think, for even a second, what it might be like to be a homeless girl?"

Voice tremoring, it became clear Hayley wasn't about to let anyone else chase after MJ.

"You're scum."

"You gonna go catch her or what?"

Hayley just scoffed, looking from Elijah to Kol.

"Tik, tok," Ryos sung, "Tik, tok – "

"I'll find her," She assured Kol.

Beyond the shared experiences that had bonded them in Mystic Falls? MJ's emotions were a wreck and as the only other supernatural mother?

As Finn watched, waiting for his lash out, Kol swallowed, accepting.

Hayley exhaled, "You get a reverse out of him."

Kol managed a stiff nod.

As Hayley scanned the room, she watched Klaus go to move, only to grip the stair railing as his eyes met Cami's. Taking that as her sign to head off. Seeming to take all the sound with her. Leaving nothing in the air.

Nothing but Ryos.

"Screw this," Cami pushed up, heading right after her.

"Camille – "

She was already gone.

And Ryos wasn't looking after her.

His eyes were on Vincent.