Disclaimer ; I Own Nothing of TVD or the Originals
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Kol's grin widened as he twirled a finger through the air, and suddenly, glowing ember-like symbols flared into existence around him. Fiery runes — ancient, angular, and shifting — spiraled in a slow orbit. Their forms were alive, mutating with each heartbeat, the letters themselves never static, as if reality strained to read them.
The air thickened. Heat distorted the space between them. The ground beneath his feet began to smoke.
"Magic," Kol mused, voice smooth as molten glass, "isn't just about hurling fire and praying for aim. A true sorcerer doesn't cast spells — he sculpts intent."
He traced another curve in the air, and the rune followed, burning into existence with a hiss.
"Symbols. Concepts. Meaning woven into will."
Bonnie narrowed her eyes. "You're writing with energy."
Kol smirked. "Not quite. I'm commanding it to remember."
The last word echoed. The runes pulsed once — and then detonated.
A gust of heat burst outward, spiraling through the clearing. The shockwave rattled the trees and sent Bonnie stumbling backward, hair whipping in the wind.
Davina instinctively threw her hands up, conjuring a sheet of flame before her — but Kol's rune-born inferno tore through it effortlessly, the fire twisting as if alive, devouring its own kind.
Kol strolled through the heatwave like it was summer sunlight.
"Runes," he said conversationally, "are the oldest language magic ever spoke. Each one condenses an entire concept into a single vibration. This—" he pointed to a sigil spinning lazily over his palm, "amplifies force. And this—" another appeared beside it, spiraling into being, "redirects energy."
The runes glowed, pulsing in rhythm to his heartbeat. And then he flicked his wrist.
A ribbon of fire tore across the clearing — twisting midair, bending like a sentient whip. It carved a crescent of scorched grass in its wake.
"Think fast, loves."
Bonnie reacted first. She slammed her palms together, spreading them outward as a fiery shield flared to life. The twisting inferno veered — curved around the shield, snapping toward her flank. She dove, rolling across the dirt as heat licked her heels.
Davina's eyes narrowed. She'd seen the rune glow when the fire bent — he was bending the vector of the element itself. If the path curved, then it was the pattern — not the flame — that needed breaking.
She dropped to one knee, her fingers tracing invisible sigils into the air.
Her voice was low but steady. "Reverto ad terram."
The fire lunged — and then slammed into the ground, scattering into harmless sparks.
Kol arched a brow, amused. "Clever girl."
Before they could breathe, he moved again — and the runes shifted.
The air flashed crimson.
Three separate firebolts formed around him, each carrying different resonance — one humming, one whispering, one utterly silent. They streaked forward, each with its own unnatural path.
"Shit," Bonnie hissed. There was no time to dodge all three.
Davina shouted, "Take the left!" and threw her will at the rightmost flame.
Bonnie thrust out a hand — but instead of repelling it, she remembered what Kol said: Magic has a structure.
If she could find the pattern—disrupt it—
Her eyes glowed faintly gold as her power rippled forward, unraveling the rune's signature. She didn't fight the fire — she corrupted its language.
The sigil embedded in Kol's flame blinked once, flickered, and vanished.
The fire collapsed into smoke.
Kol let out a delighted laugh. "Now that is more like it!"
Davina went further. Instead of destroying the magic, she hijacked it. She wove her will into the second bolt, mimicking its runic frequency, inverting its directive. The fire shuddered, uncertain — then turned, streaking back toward Kol.
He sidestepped neatly, letting it dissipate against the ground. "You're learning," he admitted, "but tell me — if the element changes, can you still keep up?"
The question was almost casual. The danger wasn't.
Kol raised a hand. The warmth vanished. The night air tightened.
The runes surrounding him flared blue, their edges rimed with frost. The heat evaporated, replaced by an unnatural stillness that sank into bone. When he breathed, it came out as mist.
And then — fire was born again in his hand.
Except this time, it burned cold.
It shimmered in shades of pale sapphire, licking upward with impossible grace, distorting light as it exhaled frost instead of smoke. The ground beneath him froze in spiderweb patterns of ice.
Bonnie's breath hitched. "Oh, hell no."
Kol grinned, eyes glinting with childlike glee. "Hell yes, sweetheart. Adapt."
He flicked his wrist.
The frozen flame tore through the air, slicing toward them like a blade of glass.
Bonnie dove aside, but even at a distance, the chill bit into her skin, leaving white frost where the air brushed her. Davina tried to counter, pushing her magic forward to deflect—only to gasp in shock.
"It—it's feeding off me!" she choked. The blue fire latched onto her magic like a leech, drawing energy through her spell. The glow around her hands dimmed.
Kol clucked his tongue, strolling through the frozen mist as another rune materialized in the air. "Ah, and there it is — the lesson. You still think fire and ice are opposites. They're not."
He gestured lightly, and the frozen fire spiraled lazily between his fingers, shedding pale sparks. "They are perspectives of energy. One consumes warmth, the other radiates it. Both devour."
Bonnie hissed, "You're loving this."
Kol smiled like sin. "Oh, immensely."
With a graceful wave of his hand, the air ruptured. A crescent of blue flame erupted before them — a wall of frostfire, roaring like a storm. The grass died instantly, freezing solid, the ground cracking as it turned brittle and white.
Davina's instinct screamed to defend, but Bonnie stopped her with a sharp whisper.
"No. Barriers won't hold — he'll invert them. We need to counter the magic itself."
Davina blinked. "How?"
Bonnie's voice steadied. "If it's still fire, it obeys elemental law. But if it's been rewritten into something conceptual, we fight the concept, not the element. What cancels magic?"
Davina's eyes widened. "Other magic."
The wall of blue fire bore down on them. Both witches thrust their hands forward.
But instead of summoning an element — they released pure energy.
Their magic pulsed as a resonance wave, invisible but immense, disrupting the delicate structure of Kol's sigils. The blue flames flickered, their shape fracturing — the runes destabilized, unraveling under the assault.
Then, with a sound like glass shattering underwater, the frostfire collapsed — gone in a single breath.
Kol stopped mid-step. His eyes gleamed with something dangerous and pleased.
"Oh, my sweet little prodigies," he said, voice rich with amusement, "you're thinking now." He tapped a finger against his chin. "I might actually shed a tear."
Bonnie, still panting, glared. "Shut up and fight."
Kol's smirk turned feral.
"Oh, gladly."
He lifted both hands. The air convulsed.
Runes of fire and frost flared simultaneously — gold and blue intertwining like celestial veins. The clearing became a furnace of contradictions, heat and cold coiling in an impossible dance. Flames hissed as they met frost, forming a shimmering barrier between worlds.
Kol stepped forward through it, his aura thrumming with primal resonance.
"Let's see," he said softly, "if you can survive creation and destruction colliding."
He snapped his fingers.
The world ignited in both fire and ice.
And then the real battle began.
Kol moved like an artist conducting a symphony of chaos.
With a single sweep of his hands, the glowing runes around him fractured, then reformed — not symbols now but equations, lines of meaning shifting through fiery fractals. The ground trembled under the resonance, grass flattening as invisible heat bled through the air.
The flames themselves grew unstable, flickering from crimson to cerulean, from molten gold to glacial white. He wasn't attacking — he was testing them. Each pulse of magic was a question; each attack, an equation they had to solve before it devoured them.
Fire lashed forward like a whip.
Bonnie met it with air — twisting the current so it arced sideways, spiraling harmlessly into the dirt. Ice followed, jagged and fast, and Davina shattered it midair with a burst of pure, vibrating mana, the shards exploding in a glittering rain.
But Kol was relentless.
The symbols orbiting him blurred faster, glowing brighter, each one birthing a new form of elemental chaos. Heat and cold coexisted, rippling across the clearing in waves that tore the air apart.
Bonnie turned, barely ducking under a streak of blue flame, only to sense another surge at her back. A rune detonated behind her — a silent flash that blasted her across the clearing. The air rippled with static.
"Too slow, love," Kol chided, twirling a rune between his fingers like a coin before flicking it at Davina.
She didn't dodge.
Instead, she caught it.
The fire clung to her hand, alive, furious. It burned against her skin but didn't consume her. Davina's jaw tightened. "No," she whispered, "you obey me."
Her aura flared — a golden ring that pulsed once, twice — then wrapped around the stolen flame.
It resisted, writhing, until her magic bent it into a new shape. The glow dimmed, shifted hue — and in a heartbeat, it was hers.
She spun, throwing Kol's own attack back at him with a shout.
Kol's laughter rolled across the clearing. "Now that was interesting."
He caught the fire effortlessly, letting it flow around his palm before dismissing it with a flick. "Color me impressed, Davina Claire."
Bonnie exhaled sharply, wiping sweat from her brow. "Great. She's doing magic gymnastics. How the hell do I counter this?"
Kol smirked. "You tell me, darling. The fight's not over."
Then he raised both hands, and the world erupted.
Every rune ignited at once.
The clearing exploded in a spectrum of impossible fire — red, gold, violet, and blue — each hue a different temperature, a different property, each alive with purpose. Flames twisted upward, then dove like serpents; frostfire slithered across the ground like liquid glass.
Bonnie's instinct screamed — she summoned a barrier. The moment it rose, the flames curved, learned, and reformed behind her.
She barely rolled aside before they struck, shouting, "Are you serious?!"
Davina darted between waves of fire and ice, redirecting bursts of energy — her movements fluid but desperate. Kol didn't relent. His runes evolved with each gesture, recalibrating to every defense they used. His was adaptive magic, alive, predatory.
He's not fighting us, Bonnie realized, he's studying us.
Her heartbeat thundered. We're reacting. Not acting. And he's punishing us for it.
She closed her eyes briefly, drawing in breath, tuning herself to the hum of magic in the air. The elements weren't random — they resonated. Every spell had a frequency. Every flame sang a note.
And suddenly, she understood.
She stilled.
Davina froze mid-step. "What are you doing—?"
"Follow my lead," Bonnie murmured.
Kol smiled faintly. "Bold choice."
The next torrent of fire came. Bonnie didn't block. Didn't move.
She reached out — not to resist, but to listen.
The fire's pattern, its pulse, its rhythm — it was just energy. She stopped thinking of it as flame. She treated it as motion, as vibration, as will.
Her hand moved in a subtle spiral — and the fire obeyed. It bent, hesitated, then vanished in a shimmer of harmless sparks.
Kol's eyes gleamed. "Oh, there she is."
Davina caught on. She turned toward the next surge, fingers slicing through the air. Instead of meeting fire with force, she wove her energy around its core, unraveling the rune's directive. The spell disintegrated before it reached her, its power melting back into the earth.
Kol's grin widened, pleased. "Finally."
Then — silence.
He snapped his fingers, and the storm ended. The flames died. The runes flickered out.
The clearing was still again, scorched and shimmering with residual energy.
Bonnie dropped to her knees, breathing hard. Davina wiped sweat from her temple, pale but exhilarated.
Kol clapped, the sound echoing through the night. "And that concludes today's lesson."
Bonnie glared up at him. "That was a lesson? You were trying to roast us alive!"
Kol scoffed. "Roast? Please. That was encouragement. If I wanted you dead, darling, you'd be a fine layer of ash by now."
Rebekah, lounging against a tree, let out a slow whistle. "That was more entertaining than I expected."
Caroline, beside her, smirked. "Told you. His teaching style is just torture with extra flair."
Kol ignored them, folding his arms. "Now — what did we learn?"
Bonnie took a shaky breath. "We focused on reacting instead of commanding."
Davina nodded. "And we treated fire as just fire — instead of the energy behind it."
Kol's smirk softened, almost proud. "Precisely. Magic isn't poetry to be repeated. It's music to be composed. Every note you strike shifts the whole song."
Bonnie frowned. "Even when I got it right, you were still ahead of us."
Davina sighed. "Yeah. I want to move faster. I was always one step behind."
Kol's smile turned wolfish. "Excellent. The moment you see your weakness, you're already halfway to power." He leaned casually against a tree. "Here's how this works: after each lesson, you'll choose one aspect to improve. Speed, reaction, control — your pick."
"And if we don't?" Davina asked.
Kol's grin sharpened. "Then I choose. And you won't like my lessons."
Bonnie groaned. "Homework. From a sadistic Original. Fantastic."
Kol spread his arms. "Marvelous! Now go reflect on your inadequacy. It's how progress is born."
Bonnie muttered, "I hate you."
Kol winked. "And yet, here you are."
He turned toward the house, whistling softly — then stopped.
The air shifted.
The world seemed to hold its breath. The clearing darkened, though no cloud crossed the moon. The magic in the soil trembled, rippling outward in concentric circles like water disturbed by an unseen hand.
Davina's voice was a whisper. "What is that?"
The temperature dropped. The light dimmed.
And then — she appeared.
A shimmer of silver and violet condensed before them, taking shape — a woman robed in flowing silk that glowed faintly with its own light. Her eyes were old, fathomless, carrying aeons of knowledge twisted into something sharp. Power coiled around her like mist — ancient, silent, alive.
Bonnie's heart froze. She knew that presence.
Rebekah's posture stiffened. Caroline's breath hitched.
Kol's lips curled into a knowing smirk.
"Well, well," he drawled. "If it isn't the infamous Qetsiyah." He gave a shallow bow. "To what do I owe the pleasure, love?"
Qetsiyah tilted her head. Her voice was silk and steel. "You intrigue me, Kol Mikaelson."
Kol's smirk deepened. "Darling, I have that effect on people."
She stepped closer, her presence pressing against the air like gravity. "Tell me," she murmured, eyes glinting, "where did you learn your magic?"
The earth itself seemed to hum at her question.
Bonnie felt her connection to the spirits flicker — as if even they were listening.
Kol's laughter was low, almost fond. "Oh, that question." His gaze never wavered. "If you must know, I was once your greatest admirer."
Qetsiyah's expression didn't change, but the faintest flicker of curiosity crossed her eyes.
Kol went on, voice softening, nearly reverent. "You redefined what magic could be. You stopped worshipping nature and made it bend. You created immortality itself. I only wished to do the same — to understand the weave, not obey it."
Caroline whispered to Rebekah, "He's flirting with a myth."
Rebekah muttered, "He's flirting with death."
Kol ignored them. "You were brilliance and madness made flesh," he said, smiling faintly. "If we'd met, I rather think we'd have burned the world together."
Qetsiyah's lips curved into something like a smile — cold, amused, intrigued. "You assume I would have let you live long enough to try."
Kol chuckled. "Oh, I don't doubt you'd have tried to kill me, darling. But we both know love and murder are merely different rituals of obsession."
For a heartbeat, even Qetsiyah looked almost entertained.
Then her gaze flicked to Bonnie — sharp, searching.
Something ancient passed between them — recognition, inheritance, warning. Bonnie's pulse stuttered.
And then, as suddenly as she'd appeared, Qetsiyah was gone.
The air loosened. The clearing breathed again.
Rebekah exhaled. "What the hell was that?"
Kol smiled faintly, though his eyes still lingered where Qetsiyah had stood. "That," he said softly, "was history reminding us that gods never truly die."
He straightened, brushing off his coat. "Now," he said briskly, clapping his hands once, "who's ready for lesson two?"
Bonnie groaned. "You're unbelievable."
Kol grinned. "I know, love."