Chapter Text
Hope Mikaelson learns early in her life what a martyr is. She’s really, in a way, surrounded by them. People who will die for what they believe in without doubting themselves.
She becomes one of them. It just takes her a while to realize it.
To be fair, death doesn't quite stick to her family. It rolls off of them like water off a duck's back. On a Thursday, Elijah dies by throwing himself into a fire, and by Friday morning, he's back in the manor in a suit, and the only clue that he had recently died was a slightly haunted look in his eye.
Rebekah chases two men down a dark alley after they try to follow a girl home from a club and even though she dies, she’s back being a watchful protector the next night.
Hope has memories of the martyrs of her life. At least, she thinks they're memories. They could just be her brain trying to make up for lost time, trying to construct a memory of a time that didn’t exist.
Her favorite memory (or hallucination) of Elijah goes like this:
Elijah will often take her hand and let her lead him wherever her childlike wonder takes them. While her father will take her into the forest in search of paints, Elijah lets her take the lead, exploring around the city and the manor with childlike glee. It's on one such adventure around the manor, while she's on shaky toddler legs and he's helping her up the stairs that he suddenly stops. He whips his head around to look behind him as Freya, observing the scene from the ground floor, snaps a photo. He cracks a small smile as Freya gives a sly wave and then goes back to helping Hope climb the stairs. Once they reach the top Hope is totally over the whole thing, so she promptly sits down, feet dangling over the edge of the stairs.
Elijah sits next to her and she leans her head on his tall, solid frame.
Freya snaps another picture of the two of them in a quiet moment of just being.
Hope doesn't know what happened to that photo but she wishes with everything she is that she still had it. Wishes she could still feel the ghost of his touch, letting her smaller frame lead him around New Orleans. Wishes she could still cling to that childlike joy of just wandering with her favorite person.
Her mother dies for her, because of her mistake, and her brain still tries to trick her with fake memories. At least, she thinks they’re fake. They might not be. They might just be locked in her subconscious, in a place where she keeps the memories too precious for anyone to see, to dangerous for herself to relive. She holds on to the precious ones she knows are real. She holds onto the mantra that “being kind doesn’t make you weak” like it’s the only thing keeping her afloat. She resolves to be kind, makes her dad promise to try to do the same, and because Klaus Mikaelson can’t say no to his little girl, they pinky-promise on the thing.
The promise lasts until he dies.
She has the faintest memory of a blonde woman, someone who speaks her mind to Klaus Mikaelson, the greatest evil the world has ever seen. Somebody who isn’t afraid of harsh words and confronting the dark history that resides in all men. Hope thinks that maybe that’s what love is, finding the person you’re willing to confront the darkness for. Hayley and Rebekah talk fondly of Cami. Hope resolves to try to confront her own darkness, for her father, for the blonde woman who took no shit from him, for herself.
Her father is not a good man. She knows this - its been repeated time and time again and reinforced in the stories she’s heard and the books she’s read. But he’s never like that with her. With her, he’s more like a scared first-time father. Like the mere fact of her existence terrifies him.
He’s a man holding something precious in his hands and afraid, more than ever, to ruin it.
There are, of course, people who don’t die for her. There are the members of her family that are probably unable to die, or those who have other things to live for.
Keelin, for example, was always there to cause trouble and helped her make excuses when Freya or Hayley caught them. They were a two-woman wolfpack and boy, did Keelin teach Hope how to get in (and out) of trouble. Freya and Keelin have something special, she knows this, she can tell from the way Freya’s hand always twitches when Keelin is near, like its sole purpose in life was to touch Keelin. She’s ten when she asks Keelin about it, with a point-blank honesty that only a child can muster.
“Why does Aunt Freya touch you so much?”
“Because she likes to remind herself that I’m right here,” comes Keelin’s simple response, a small smile playing across her face.
“Okay, but like actually why?”
“Because at one point in Freya’s very long life, she tried to touch somebody she loved and they weren’t there. So she likes to remind herself that I’m right here, and I’ll always be here.”
“It doesn’t hurt that you’re very pretty and so warm.” Freya’s soft voice comes from behind Hope, startling them both.
Keelin is the first to recover, holding out a hand to Freya, who takes it and wraps herself around Keelin without a second thought.
Hope wants that someday, wants somebody who would wrap themselves around her without a second thought, somebody who wouldn’t mind that she runs warm, somebody worth living for.
Vincent helps teach her magic sometimes when Freya needs an extra hand. He’s an animated man, full of life, with hands that move as he talks and incantations that sound like dances. Hope doesn’t know why, but one day she asks him about death. She had heard that Aunt Davina died for a while once, and most of her family was technically dead too.
“Death,” he says, with a far off look in his eye, “twists you all up inside.”
He doesn’t speak more on the matter and Hope kind of regrets asking.
When her mother dies, Vincent slips a note under her bedroom door.
Mourn, because you cannot move on until you come to terms with your sadness. And though the pain at times will seem more than you can bear, make no mistake, you will be able to move on.
Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting, it means taking one step in front of the other, for as long as it takes for you to feel okay again.
Moving on means seeing your mother in everything you do, because you are Hope Andrea Mikaelson, and you are your mother's daughter.
If vengeance is what you require then know the words of Ecclesiasticus ‘Vengeance as a lion, shall lie in wait’
Bide your time, strike smart, strike true.
You are a Mikaelson after all.
Hope understands what he said about death twisting you up now.
Freya has a habit of getting so into her work that she won’t stop to eat, drink, take breaks, or really even realize the world exists outside of the magic she works on. Hope will sometimes linger outside the door of her room and just watch Freya do magic. It's ancient and terrifying if you really think about it, but Hope finds it comforting, like coming home to your favorite book. The aura of it washes over her like a cold wind and she instinctively wraps her arms around herself, tries to warm up.
The movement causes Freya to shake her head, as though coming out of a trance, before looking over to Hope with a smile “Chilly?"
“Why does your magic feel so cold?” Hope cocks her head to the side as she steps further into the room.
Freya hops up, sitting on her desk and pats the spot next to her, summoning a book from across the room. Hope hops up next to her as Freya flips through the book.
They’re silent for a moment until Freya makes a victorious noise.
“Magic always leaves a trace and some supernatural beings can tune into it. As a witch, you can always sense it and since you have the werewolf gene, it manifests in more physical ways like smell. Keelin says my magic is cold, like a forest from the Mikaelson homeland.”
Hope cocks her head to the side, reading the passage and taking in the new information.
“What’s my magic like?”
Freya smiles softly “A little bit like springtime, a fresh start, a… new Hope.”
“You’re really corny, have I ever told you that?”
“You love it, don’t lie.” Freya elbows her softly.
“Mom’s busy, so that means it’s your turn to make lunch.” Hope grins, hopping off the desk and grabbing Freya’s hands to pull her with her.
Freya goes willingly, but stumbles and falls into Hope’s arms when she tries to stand upright.
“Freya? Aunt Freya?”
“I’m okay, I’m okay just a bit lightheaded after all that.”
“When was the last time you ate? Or drank water?” Hope helps Freya over to a chair, runs down to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
“Just a little bit ago, at eight a.m. when I had breakfast” Freya tries to justify herself as she downs the water.
“Freya… it’s two p.m.”
“Two? Shit, that means Keelin will be-”
“Keelin will be what?”
Both of the Mikaelson’s look up to see Keelin standing in the doorway, arms crossed.
Freya looks from Keelin to Hope and back to Keelin before standing up. “Hope, why don’t you just go order lunch, my purse is downstairs.”
Hope nods and hurries out of the room, brushing past Keelin as she does so.
Hope has seen lots of different kinds of love in her life, but nothing warms her heart quite as much as Keelin saving Freya from herself.
The memory of Keelin smiling and giving Freya half her lunch is one that Hope unexpectedly treasures, one that she keeps in the part of her mind reserved for sad nights and reminding herself that love exists.
Aunt Freya said her magic was a bit like springtime, like a fresh start. Well, going to the Salvatore School was supposed to be a fresh start away from all of the martyrdom and darkness. It makes sense then, in a sadly ironic way, that going to the Salvatore School gives Hope a reason to become a martyr herself.
She embraces the darkness within herself and snaps Landon’s neck before she looks into the dark pit beneath her.
Maybe it was always supposed to end this way, but the voice in the back of her head who sounds suspiciously like her mother says, “live.”
The other voice in her head, the one that sounds like her father, says, “make sure she can live.”
Even though she knows she’s just in the company of a dead man, Hope can’t help but look around, because did those words conjure that image? Why did she just think of blonde hair, blue eyes, and a sharp tongue?
She’s been trying to get a better hold on her feelings, but she is still an emotionally-constipated teenager, so she keeps trying to fend off the emotions she knows would come if she let herself think of them.
Because she despises Lizzie Saltzman. Until she doesn’t.
She hates Lizzie Saltzman until her feelings get all mixed up, jumbled, and confused.
At first, she just sees the sneering comments, the bitchy banter, and the disregard for anyone not in Lizzie’s inner circle.
Later, when she’s not sure how she feels about the girl (that feeling in her gut is probably closer to indigestion than it is to hatred now), she notices the softness when Lizzie helps a young witch with correct her runes, the sarcastic streak a mile wide, and the way she defends MG from a wolf who makes it his business to insult the kind vampire.
(If that wolf wakes up on a mattress in the middle of the lake the next morning, there's no way for him to prove it was Hope.)
(The grin on Lizzie's face as she watches him doggy-paddle back to shore makes the lecture Hope receives from Dr. Saltzman later so, so worth it.)
After her father dies, Hope tries so hard to be good. If she can be good, maybe she can change her father’s legacy or make his death worth it or something.
She looks at the dark, bubbling pit below her and feels an intrinsic need to do the right thing, even though she’s not totally clear what the right thing is.
She’s not sure what she's aiming for but maybe this is it.
Maybe this is the time she makes his sacrifice worth it.
She thinks of the martyrs of her life, sacrificing themselves so that she may live.
Thinks of the people she can save. Thinks of the wide smiles from MG, the twinkling laughter of Josie, the affectionate eye rolls from Lizzie.
Then she just stops thinking.
And she jumps.
She jumps into the darkness of Malivore, becoming one of the martyrs her life is measured by.