03x05 - The Axeman's Letter

[bunniefuu]

Previously on "The Originals"...

Cami: Right now, people like me are out there getting k*lled, conveniently timed with the arrival of your old acquaintance.

(Lucien gasps)

Cami: He's the first person you ever turned.

He's the first of your sire line.

Elijah: So you say that you're in conflict with those of my sire line.

Am I to assume that the lord Tristan de Martel is up to his usual tricks?

Lucien: This is no quarrel, Elijah.

We are on the brink of w*r.

Tristan knows that if he kills Klaus, he will eliminate all his enemies.

Freya: If this prophecy is fulfilled.

You will all fall... one by friend, one by foe, and one by family.

Klaus: The lady Aurora, she is exquisite.

I'll be in New Orleans shortly.

Don't start the party without me.

Klaus, voice-over: I never meant for you to know me.

I never meant to let you in...

But then I should not have kissed you...

Not the first time...

Certainly not the second...

But there is a light in you so bright, it makes me feel like the man I wish I was...

And forget the thing I am.

I am chained to certain hungers and have damned another to my fate.

You have seen what we do... we hunt, we feed, we k*ll...

Aah!

Klaus, voice-over: But what I am I cannot answer... my family are the first; there is no name for it...

(Sobbing)

But I also desire deeply...

And I can love, as I love you.

Aurora: It was the most beautiful letter I'd ever received, and I did love him with all of my heart...

But then eventually, our love, like the letter, crumbled to dust.

(Sighs)

Deliver this, will you, with my special instruction?

So my first sire wants to k*ll you.

Yours wants to k*ll me.

Makes you regret turning any vampires in the first place.

Well, the division of labor seems crystal clear... two of them, two of u... us.

"Roses are red. Lavender is blue. Come find me before I find you."

I remember her a better poet.

Oh, I wouldn't say that this is lacking in poetry.

She wants us to find her, so let's.

You're so eager, Niklaus.

Last time you even said her name was a thousand years ago when you told me never to speak it again in your presence.

So I'm to wait till she leaves her little calling cards all over my home.

There's something you should know.

When mother seized control of my mind, unleashing those monstrosities that lurk behind the red door, I saw something.

Aurora was there.

If you mean to confess a thousand-year-old secret that will divide us after our hard-won reconciliation, then te absolvo, brother.

There is nothing you could have done involving her that would be worse than what she did to me.

Please do not dismiss this, Nikla... whatever it is, it can wait.

We have a plate of here-and-now problems, and I mean to clear it.

If it makes you feel any better, we can k*ll Aurora together.

Then neither of us need play her little mind games ever again, hmm?

Cami: So there is an active serial k*ller at large, and the city's response is the throw a serial-k*ller-themed festival.

Axeman's Jazz Fest is a big deal, Cami.

Ain't nobody gonna sit that out because some active, second-tier serial k*ller is on the loose, and as far as K*llers go, Axeman is the best this city's ever had.

What? The year was 1919, and after terrorizing the city or months with an actual a*, he writes a letter to the "Times-Picayune," claims he's a demon.

He says he's gonna k*ll thousands the next night.

Only way he wouldn't was if every house in the city threw a party and played jazz as loud as it could.

Every single house in the city did.

No one d*ed. Ha-ha!

Now, some people think it was a vampire.

He was actually a witch.

How do you know he's a witch?

Oh, he's a witch.

The day he chose was Fete de Kado.

That's the day that every witch gives a gift to the city in the hopes that the city gives one back.

Now, Axeman's idea of a gift was not murdering people for a day, and in return, look, this city threw him the greatest party it has ever seen.

Wait, so what you're saying is, while frat boys celebrate an a* m*rder*r, the witches are having their version of Christmas, which makes them all easy pickings for whoever our k*ller is.

You still think our playboy vampire is the best lead we got?

My gut's telling me he's involved somehow, which means if he kills again, it's my fault for convincing Klaus not to k*ll him, so I want to keep tabs on him.

Well, well, well. Speak of the devil.

(Sighs)

Brother, she could be anywhere.

How, exactly, do you intend to find her?

She'll leave a mark.

That is, after all, her favorite game.

Oh... Oh...

Well, that was fun... delightful, delirious...

Ha-ha!

Delicious fun.

Mm...

Ah, and yet you would appear to want more.

I fear I've not satisfied you.

Your fears are absurd.

Ha-ha!

Ha-ha!

I'm not fragile, you know.

You do not have to treat me so gently.

I do not wish to hurt you.

Well, then make me like you.

Do to me what you did to Lucien.

You know not what you ask.

Well, I know we'd no longer have to hide our love... not from my father, my brother, not from anyone.

If I were like you, I would be beholden to no one, and we could be together truly with no boundaries.

You are perfect just the way you are.

Take, for example, these lovely, long locks.

Hmm, now, how did you manage to capture the scent of a summer's day in the tresses of your hair?

This mark that you speak of, see nothing, brother.

I knew you would find me.

Hello, my sweet love.

I have to pick one. Orange or purple?

Did you seriously call us here to play "Fashion Police"?

Ok. I know this is sacred oil, but can we please not do that right now?

Thank you.

(Sighs)

Sorry. Thanks for coming.

Like we had a choice, Davina.

Either we do your bidding or you blow out that candle of yours and you turn us back into wolves, so we're pretty much your slaves.

Now, Hayley, come on. This is the deal we made.

Let's let her say her piece, hmm?

What do you want?

This is my first kado as regent.

Since I represent the city, the covens have to pay tribute to me, and I throw them a party.

I need them to respect me, but this is the first public event since... since you had me k*ll those witches in the ninth ward?

I have a feeling it might not go so well, especially since Van Nguyen blames me for what happened to his mom.

He vowed to get back at me.

Actually, he said he would erase me.

I mean, who even talks like that?

So you want us to be your bodyguards.

Look. I know that you're not exactly thrilled with me right now, but if I die, that candle's magic dies, too, and then there's nothing stopping you from changing back into wolves.

Well, why don't you stay with Davina, and I will check out the crowd?

I'll keep you alive, but if you wear that awful, orange scarf, you'll wish that I hadn't.

A thousand years.

Can it really have been so long?

Looking at you now, it feels like yesterday.

If yesterday were the apocalypse.

Are you saying that leaving me felt like the end of the world?

Leaving you alive.

I notice Elijah's not with you.

Was he reluctant to tag along?

On the contrary.

He's been calling me incessantly since I ditched him to find you raving about some ancient secret and the possibility of using your head as a footstool.

(Both chuckle)

Well, I'm sure he would rather have his footstool than have me share that little secret.

Let me guess.

In the time between being with me and seeking refuge in the arms of your brother, you slept with mine.

Oh, your accusations are so banal.

The truth is, I've never been with your brother, at least not in the way that you think.

Why are you here, Aurora?

The witches here, they celebrate Fete de Kado...

Feast of Gifts.

It made me remember that very intimate gift we gave each other so long ago.

(Sniffling)

I always thought the day of one's birth was an event to be celebrated.

(Sniffles)

And yet I wish I'd not been born.

(Sniffles)

What saddens you so?

Aurora, what is it? Tell me.

The day of my birth is no occasion for joy.

My mother d*ed giving birth to me.

That's my first act on this earth, was to k*ll the one who gave me life.

It makes me cursed and broken, an abomination.

I...

(Sobs)

You believe that you are cursed, but you are not alone.

There is a thing that I have done that I never told anybody.

It will break Rebekah's heart.

Kol would rage.

Finn would disown me, and Elijah... would never forgive me.

I k*lled my mother...

Not in childbirth, but in a fit of rage.

Twice she birthed me... once as a bastard and then once as this thing I am now.

She crippled me from becoming who I was meant to be, and then she turned her back on me in shame...

And so I k*lled her, and I blamed it on my father, and we've been running ever since until now, until you, so, you see, how ever broken you think you are, you are not as broken as me.

See, once again, you seek to repel me with our differences, but all I can see is how you and I are the same.

Well, then let us share this gift with each other.

You will forever hold my deepest shame, and... I...

I will hold yours.

Never again shall we speak them to another soul, and never again will they have any power over us.

Would you think it base of me to ask one more gift on my birthday?

I would give you anything.

Oh, then, please, Niklaus...

Make me like you.

You've had a thousand birthdays since.

If I forgot to send a card, it's because I forgot about you.

Is that why you're here, to remind me?

I am here for the same reason Lucien and Tristan are... to protect my sire.

Now, if you turned me that night like I'd asked, I would be here to protect you, but since you didn't, I need to know where in the hell is Rebekah?

Elijah.

I didn't realize we had a meeting on the books today.

We don't.

Unfortunately, your assistant refused to accommodate me.

What would you like to discuss?

Recent events would suggest you've been less than forthcoming about threats facing my family.

A thr*at to you is a thr*at to me.

Naughty, little liar.

I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, I'm quite certain you do know precisely what I am talking about, Tristan.

I can hear that heart of yours racing away.

You see, even as we speak, I suspect Niklaus is with your sister.

I don't have to tell you what a volatile combination the two of them are.

And you think I'm hiding her.

Wherever you go, Aurora follows.

It's true, on her good days.

Years ago, Rory fell into one of her dark periods.

It's been a long one and has yet to lift.

I saw she got the care she needed.

I don't care. Where is she?

Are you that afraid of what my sister might have to say to your brother?

Your sister has a habit of cultivating misfortune.

I can't disagree, and as it happens, I don't know her current whereabouts, but I know she can't be here.

I'm the first person she'd come to.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Cami: Do you think in a hundred years they'll be throwing him a party... smiley face carver blues fest?

Vincent: Eh, well, everybody likes a charismatic k*ller.

You and me know that better than most.

Excuse me?

You and Klaus, me and my psycho ex-wife.

Why do you think I don't practice magic anymore?

There was something in me that was drawn to Eva's darkness, and I will always be on guard against that part of myself.

Cami: No. No, no. What just happened?

No. No. He's stringing us...

Cami...

Cami?

Uh!

(Pants)

Cami, so good to see you.

I've been dying to get you alone.

(Sighs)

You do know I was cleared of suspicion by real detectives, yet you hound me.

Why is that?

It's my job to read people, and you aren't that hard to read.

Ha! Now, on that, we disagree.

One thing we can agree on, this delicate, little theater between us does need to reach a conclusion, so...

How do we end it?

Heh. If you hurt me, I know a certain someone who won't react very well.

Ah, yes.

You think because you know someone like Klaus, you know someone like me?

Well, you don't.

You have no idea what I'm capable of, but you are about to find out.

(Man gagging)

Oh... Oh...

No. No. No.

Uh...

You came all this way to protect Rebekah?

Bit of a wasted trip, really.

Your sire has moved on to greener pastures.

My fate is bound to hers.

I should be allowed to protect her.

You needn't concern yourself with Rebekah.

Besides, I doubt she'd make the same mistake twice.

The first mistake being...

Ever trusting you.

(Door opens)

(Panting)

Uh!

(Gasping)

You stupid girl, why would you do this to yourself?

(Panting)

It's Tristan.

He forbade me from seeing Niklaus.

Everything inside of me was screaming.

I had to let it out.

To take your own life?

Aurora, this pain, it will pass.

You do not understand.

My own mind is a demon that haunts me.

It tortures me and hunts me, but you... you are not saddled with such disease.

You and your family, you're never ill, and if you are wounded...

You heal like Lucien after Niklaus fed him blood.

We have our own torments, Aurora, none that I would dare wish on another.

Your torments of hunger and blood do not frighten me.

Niklaus once told me he never felt more alive than when he became what he is.

And do we seem alive to you hiding in your family's manor, pretending to be of a class and a stature that we are not?

We are cursed.

Perhaps, but your curse is nothing compared to mine.

Please go. I want to sleep.

Oh, sweet girl.

(Creak)

Aurora, voice-over: Your sister smelled of wild berries... it was intoxicating... and the night smelled of lavender.

(Wind whistling)

I could see the garden from above.

The last thing I remember as a human was that scent, which clung to me all the way down.

(Baa)

(Chickens clucking)

(Baa)

Another goat. How lovely.

(Baa)

I'd like to thank the Gentilly coven for their generous gift on this day of Fete de Kado.

(Oinking)

(Baa)

I apologize. I need a minute.

(Murmuring)

Not a fan of goats, huh?

I love goats, but do you know how many of them I've had to sacrifice?

Just once, I'd like to get a gift card.

I mean, I know this is all tradition, but it's just not me, and you know what I really hate?

That choker scarf?

This choker scarf, and I only wore it because Josephine did and I thought that maybe if I were more like her, then... then maybe they would respect me.

Here. You need this more than I do.

(Chuckles)

You know, Davina, I...

I wasn't ok with what you had me do to the Versailles coven...

But I'm guessing that you're not ok with it, either, so you're running from it, pretending to be someone that you're not, someone who you think that they want you to be.

You know what I learned?

No one is gonna respect you until you show them who you really are, so if you're gonna wear old-lady choker scarves...

You're gonna get old-lady goats.

(Chuckles)

(Chuckles)

Marcel: Is that all you got, a hunch?

Elijah: I don't do hunches.

I've known Tristan a thousand years.

He's not easily shaken, and yet I heard that little weasel's heart pound when I accused him of working with someone and, strangely, nothing when I mentioned Aurora.

He may be telling the truth about that.

But he could be hiding something, and now you need my help finding out what.

Would be splendid, Marcellus.

You do have that fabulous, new Strix membership.

Hmm, I'm only with those people because I want to know why they're in my city, and I'm not blowing my cover just because you heard a guy's heart skip, but, lucky for you, I got the city wired in ways you don't even know about.

I'll have my people trail your boy.

Let's see what they find out.

You can always catch an insect with the smell of a flower...

But it's the smell of blood that draws a carnivore.

And what draws a snake?

Ooh, how you loathe me, so certain I've come to do you harm, yet, as I recall, we did plenty of harm to each other, and, if I'm not mistaken, we both rather liked it, didn't we?

What have you done?

Remade myself into your equal.

No!

Yes.

Now we need never be alone.

(Chomp)

Mm!

Ah.

(Panting)

Aurora, voice-over: Do you remember what that first time felt like to be with someone who's every bit as powerful, as tormented, and as cursed as you?

Yes.

Look me in the eye and tell me that you haven't thought about what we had every day for the last thousand years.

You want to know why I have come?

Because after a thousand years of trying to erase your touch, your smell, the taste of your lips...

I'm here for you...

For this.

(Police radio chatter)

There's nothing I could've done.

Well, I could've. I could've.

Lucien's our k*ller, right?

I mean, is there really any doubt?

And, like you said from the very beginning, you can't use cops to take down a vampire.

You got to use something else, something like me.

What if I told you there was a way you could use magic without actually doing it?

Kinney: You had quite a night, O'Connell, hmm?

I guess I took a wrong turn.

You mean to tell me you just turned a corner and happened to find a victim in the m*rder case you're independently investigating, huh?

Vince, you were there for all this?

I got here, she was trying to save the guy.

She was too late. That's it.

Right, so you found her after she'd been alone with the victim, is that right?

Are you accusing me?

All I know is, I used to have to call you to these crime scenes.

Now here you are, part of one.

(Men chanting)

In the name of those we lost, we will have justice for them.

Hey!

Uh! Uh!

Uh! You're a little old to be playing with dolls.

You gonna finish me like your people finished off my mom?

Come on.

(Panting)

(Gasps)

We could've been the greatest love story ever told.

Perhaps you've forgotten why we're not.

Oh, I remember quite well.

The night you left without me, you didn't even bother to look back.

I knew it would come to this, be it Kol's antics or yours or those creatures you and Rebekah created.

What is it?

Word has spread.

The villagers talk of beasts who feed on blood, and if these country imbeciles know...

Father will come. We need to flee.

Run away with you?

Leave my brother, this house?

Klaus: The world is bigger than this house.

Let me show you.

How, as we hide fleeing your brute of a father, always on the run, living like dogs?

I think not.

Your brother has turned you from me.

No. I turned from you because I do not love you.

I...

I thought I did, but it's as if I see you clearly for the first time, and I find you a cruel, wretched thing, pathetic, really, and unworthy of anyone's love, let alone mine.

You don't mean that.

After all, your own mother turned against you.

If she who gave you life could come to loathe you and then be snuffed out by your own hand, then what hope is there for you?

You're breaking my heart...

And you swore that you would never speak of this.

I owe you nothing.

We are not alike, and I could never love you.

You know, you should count yourself lucky.

In a thousand years, no one has talked to me that way and lived.

Yes. I was rather cruel, wasn't I?

Some might say uncharacteristically so.

What are you getting at?

I was not the architect of our heartbreak.

In the moments before you asked me to flee with you, I saw your brother.

Aurora: Where are you going?

Father is coming. We have to leave.

Well, then I will come with you.

No. No.

His curse is ours and ours alone to bear.

But I am like you now.

You are not our blood.

What difference does blood make, all this talk of your sacred family bond when I know things about him that you never will, even that which weighs heaviest on his heart.

What did you say?

I told him I wouldn't betray you and that true love transcends blood, but he wouldn't listen to me.

He just had one question.

What could you possibly know about my brother that I do not?

What, precisely, did my brother say to you?

Speak!

And so you told him.

I couldn't stop the words flying out of my mouth, words I swore I would never tell to another living soul about how you k*lled your mother and blamed your father and you had to lie to them all so that they would flee with you.

He... he k*lled our mother?

Niklaus.

Why did I tell you?

I swore I would keep his secret.

So he... he lied to me.

He's lied to us all.

And yet I love him in spite of it.

He does not deserve your love.

You listen to me.

You must only see him as the wretched, deceitful monster that he truly is.

I see him as the monster that he is.

When you came to me not minutes later begging me to go with you, I could not say yes.

I had been compelled otherwise.

I believe it was the first time he experienced the ability to compel, and when he understood what he did, he did not come and undo it.

So that's it...

Elijah's secret.

Yes. You made him suffer the loss of a mother, and this was his revenge.

You've already taken everything away from me, so go ahead.

k*ll me. Get it over with.

You tried to m*rder a regent, by which law you should be hanged.

m*rder?

Is that the first place your mind goes?

Do you even know what I was using to att*ck you?

This isn't to k*ll me.

It's a figure veritas.

s*ab it in the heart, and the victim must confess their darkest truths.

You wanted me to admit what I did to your mom so I'd be shunned.

Maybe I'd rather see you dead, but at least that would be justice.

Look. She's the one who att*cked me.

She wanted a mutiny, and if that happens, what's next, an all-out witch w*r to decide the next regent?

How many more people will die then?

So you think the covens are better off with you.

I do. I've seen things done the old way.

I've done things the old way, and it doesn't work.

If you don't want peace, then, fine, go... you're free... but I'm asking you, please stay.

We can work together. We can change things.

Elijah: Niklaus, would you kindly return my call?

Marcellus, talk to me.

Yep. We got a problem.

My guy stayed on Tristan's tail all day, followed him to this place called the Candide Royale.

He goes in, never comes out, so he's obviously using it as a way to get to somewhere else.

How and where?

The building has hidden passageways leading out the back.

Now, bootleggers used them in the twenties to run booze to a secret storehouse on Dauphine, and you'll never guess who just bought that storehouse.

Kingmaker Land Development, owned by one Lucien Castle.

Now, that sure as hell isn't a coincidence.

Either they're brokering some kind of truce...

Or they've been working together the whole time.

You have had a thousand years to tell me of Elijah's betrayal.

Why now?

Well, there's never been a prophecy witch spelling all of our doom until now.

What do you know of her?

I know I k*lled her.

My brother told me of her prophecy, but...

(Sniffles)

I needed to see her for myself, and what did she show me?

The clan Mikaelson destroyed, including my sire, and I believed her, but a dangerous toy in dangerous hands must be removed, so I poisoned her, and now I'm going to change the future she saw.

By turning me against the only brother I have left.

The prophecy said that you would fall by friend, by foe, and by family.

Have you thought of who that family might be?

Because it just might be the one closest to you.

Happy... witch day or whatever this is.

(Chuckles)

Hayley, I wanted to thank you.

For what, the free fashion advice?

(Chuckles)

You were right.

Since I became regent, I've tried to control everything and everyone, but that's not me.

I don't want to be that person anymore.

I asked the ancestors to give me the magic to lift your curse.

Since it's Kado...

They granted it.

Huh.

Keeping you as a sl*ve seems like something the older generation would do.

I'd rather have you as a friend.

You realize half this stuff comes from the Treme witches, right?

How would I know? I inherited it all from my uncle.

You don't even want to know what this stuff does, Camille.

Why didn't you tell me about it before?

Oh, yeah. "Hey, Vincent, you want to check out my creepy collection of black-magic knickknacks?"

See, this is not a joke, all right?

In the wrong hands, this stuff could destroy the city.

Kinney: Define the wrong hands because I'm taking all of it, property of Nola PD, evidence in a m*rder case.

Detective Kinney, how did you... you really think it was hard for me to find this place?

Search warrant was easy.

I just gave the judge your history.

Your twin brother was a mass m*rder*r.

Your Uncle's death smells of a cover-up, and the forensics from tonight's crime scene, crazy thing, only prints on the victim are yours.

Combine that with whatever the hell this is, call that probable cause.

Cami O'Connell, you're under arrest.

I've given you much to think about.

I'll leave you to work through.

Go to Elijah. Ask him yourself.

I suspect you know what you will find...

And when you do, come find me.

See who's really on your side.

(Gulp)

She told you.

How convenient to voice this ancient grievance in the very moment we need to stand united against our enemies.

You speak to me of enemies when the greatest traitor of my life stands before me.

What you did to Aurora, to me, you set my course!

I protected you.

I protected our family.

Aurora was the sister of a lunatic and a powerful lunatic, at that.

Father was in pursuit.

What was I supposed to do, Niklaus?

And despite every one of your despicable deeds, I alone have always stood by you.

And why is that?

Guilt.

You knew that your secret betrayal was the cause of everything I became!

Aagh... Haah...

Agh!

All this blame!

Will you ever look at yourself?

I have carried you for centuries, Niklaus.

No more.

You want a fight?

So be it.