The setting sun cast long shadows through the tall windows of the Mikaelson mansion's grand library, painting the leather-bound books in hues of amber and gold.
Klaus stood silently by the window, bourbon in hand, watching as Chicago's skyline began to glitter with evening lights.
Elijah entered with measured steps, a leather-bound tome tucked under his arm. His tailored suit remained impeccable despite the late hour, not a thread out of place.
He moved to the bar cart without a word, selecting a crystal decanter and pouring himself a measure of scotch.
The brothers shared a comfortable silence - a rarity in their millennium of existence. Elijah settled into an armchair, opening his book with practiced care.
"I must admit," Elijah finally said, breaking the quiet, "the peace we've come to enjoy in these recent times is... unexpected."
Klaus swirled his bourbon, the liquid catching the fading sunlight. "Change is the only constant in an immortal life, brother. Even for us."
"Indeed." Elijah turned a page, his eyes not leaving the text. "Though I find myself wondering how long it will last."
Klaus's lips curved into a slight smile. "Pessimist."
"Realist," Elijah corrected.
The library door swung open with unnecessary force as Kol sauntered in, disrupting the contemplative atmosphere. He made a show of surveying the quiet scene before him, a smirk playing across his features.
"Well, isn't this domestic?" Kol drawled, dropping onto an antique couch with deliberate carelessness. "The great Klaus Mikaelson, gazing wistfully at sunsets. How the mighty have fallen."
Klaus didn't turn from the window. "Good evening to you too, brother."
Kol stretched his legs out, kicking his boots onto a priceless ottoman. "I'm bored. This city has so much potential for entertainment, yet here we all are, playing house."
Elijah glanced up from his book. "Perhaps you could find a hobby. I hear numismatics is quite engaging."
"Coin collecting?" Kol scoffed. "I prefer my collections to scream."
Klaus finally turned from the window, his expression unreadable. "What do you want, Kol?"
"Just observing how... domesticated you've become." Kol's fingers drummed against the leather armrest, a restless rhythm. "The big bad wolf, tamed by his baby cub."
Stefan while this was happening, entered the library quietly, nodding acknowledgment to the Originals before selecting a book from a nearby shelf. He moved to a corner chair, opening the volume but not quite focusing on the pages.
Kol continued, his voice taking on a taunting edge. "Remember when you used to paint the streets red if someone merely looked at you wrong? Now look at you - five years without a single innocent death at your hands. It's almost like you've developed a conscience."
Klaus set his glass down with measured control. The old Klaus would have had Kol pinned against a wall by now, perhaps with a dagger to his heart. Instead, he merely raised an eyebrow.
"If you have a point to make, brother, do get on with it," Klaus said. "I know you're fishing for my research. Let's skip the bait and get to your actual question."
Elijah observed this exchange with quiet interest.
For five years, he had witnessed the gradual transformation in both Klaus and Kol with silent fascination.
Where once Klaus would have slaughtered entire families for the slightest offense, he now showed remarkable restraint.
Even Kol's sadistic tendencies had been channeled into more... selective targets. Elijah had deliberately avoided questioning this welcome change - as the saying goes "don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
He'd feared that drawing attention to their evolution might somehow break the spell that Lucien had cast over his volatile brothers. But now, with the subject broached so openly between them, his curiosity could no longer be contained.
"What matter are you two discussing?" Elijah asked, closing his book with a soft thud.
Klaus and Kol exchanged a glance - a brief moment of silence.
Klaus turned to face his elder brother fully. "What we've come to call 'The Just Laws.'"
"The Just Laws?" Elijah repeated.
"Do you remember Lucien's final confrontation with Dracula?" Klaus asked. "What he said to the Count?"
"Of course," Elijah replied automatically, but his brow furrowed slightly as he realized he was missing something significant.
Klaus smiled knowingly. "Let me refresh your memory."
------------------
Flashback:
"Good actions are rewarded with good luck," Lucien continued, his tone shifting to something almost professorial. "The world bends in small, logical ways to grant them what they need, and the more good one does, the more this happens, for a joyous life. And the opposite is true as well - the more evil done, it will catch up to you. You should have known this."
"Killing monsters curses you," Dracula countered, "and makes your luck worse."
"The good luck overweighs that, doing good is easier than evil. Even a kind word is good." Lucien responded without hesitation. "It's how God made the world, so that there is justice. Free will is truly free - there is true responsibility, and no one is innocent in their pain.
For if they did more good, they would have had a better fate to not get into that evil situation, or be saved from that evil situation."
---------------------------
Klaus's smile widened at Elijah's expression of dawning comprehension.
"He gets it," Kol observed, watching Elijah closely.
"So that's why you've changed," Elijah said slowly. "Both of you." He straightened his already impeccable cuffs. "I must admit, I didn't think either of you would believe such a thing so readily, much less alter your course according to it."
Kol lounged deeper into the couch. "How couldn't we? We'd be fools not to at least look into it. The Son of God himself stated it."
In the corner, Stefan shifted in his seat, his fingers tapping restlessly against his book's cover.
"Don't take us for blind believing fools," Klaus said, his eyes narrowing. "We've done our research on this - it is, after all, what Kol is so slyly trying to get out of me by taunting me. To see if both of our findings line up."
He moved to refill his glass. "After all, like every reasonable person, we should at least take into consideration such a significant thing. We are immortals - five years of restraint for testing and researching is nothing."
Elijah set his book aside completely. "And what did you find out? Will you continue this course, or return to your former ways?"
Kol and Klaus exchanged another look. Klaus moved to sit in a leather armchair, glass of whiskey cradled in his hand.
"After things calmed down," Klaus began, "I immediately began searching for evidence of the boy's words. To see if it was true or not."
His voice took on a distant quality. "I consulted countless witches, various gods, people who could be called saints, and even demons. But none of them could truly confirm it for me."
Klaus fell silent, his gaze fixed on some middle distance. The quiet stretched, broken only by the soft sound of Stefan's increasingly restless movements.
"The Bennett ancestral witch, Ayana - you remember her, Elijah - her spirit spoke through a medium," Klaus finally continued. "'There is a pattern to fortune and misfortune,' she told me. 'Those who act with cruelty find themselves facing cruelty in turn. Those who show mercy often receive it when most needed. I've observed this across a thousand years of watching my descendants.'
But when I pressed her for proof, she merely said, 'The patterns are too vast for any single example to suffice.'"
Klaus took a measured sip of his whiskey. "I sought out Baldur in Norway. 'Brother Wolf,' he called me, with that infuriating smile.
When I questioned him about cosmic justice, he became serious. 'Even we gods are subject to certain laws of consequence. Why do you think Odin feared you so? Your destiny was shaped by how they treated you. Their cruelty created their destroyer.'
Yet when I demanded evidence, he merely shrugged and said, 'You've lived a thousand years. Look to your own experience.'"
Stefan closed his book, no longer pretending to read. He stood and began to pace slowly along the bookshelves, his movements drawing a brief glance from Elijah before Klaus continued.
"Most interesting was Abaddon's lieutenant - before she died, of course. I caught him in Budapest. After sufficient... Let's call it persuasion, he admitted, 'Hell's contracts exploit a natural law. Actions create echoes. We merely... amplify them. The truly vile souls often come to us without deals; their own choices drag them down.'
When I demanded proof, he laughed through broken teeth. 'We've been collecting data for eons. The patterns are there, but Hell keeps its research private.'"
Klaus fell silent again, studying the amber liquid in his glass.
"Why did you stop?" Stefan asked suddenly. "Does that mean you're still testing, or did you get your answer already?"
Klaus merely smiled and gestured with his glass toward Kol. "Your turn, brother."
Kol lounged back in his chair, swirling amber liquid in his glass with practiced nonchalance that belied the intensity in his eyes.
"Unlike my dear brother who sought wisdom from the divine and damned," Kol began with his characteristic smirk, "I pursued a more... practical investigation. I ventured where few dare to tread."
He set his glass down, leaning forward slightly as he warmed to his subject.
"I crossed the Ice Wall again," Kol said casually, though the statement caused Elijah's eyebrows to rise sharply. "Yes, brother, I went to the ancient monster kingdoms beyond- and before you try to tell me how dangerous that is, I honestly don't care. I went there, disguising myself as a trader of rare magical artifacts."
Kol rose, pacing with restless energy.
"What I found there, dear brothers, seems to contradict my dear nephew's charming theory entirely." His tone carried genuine frustration.
"The Obsidian Citadel of the Deep Ones has thrived for over fifty thousand years through systematic slaughter of human settlements. Their Lore Keeper proudly showed me records of their 'harvests' - millions of innocents consumed over millennia. Yet they prosper still, with no sign of this supposed cosmic justice."
He paused by the window, gazing out briefly before continuing.
"The Blood Court of the Crimson Dynasty was even more damning to Lucien's theory. Eight thousand years of uninterrupted rule through unspeakable cruelty.
Their Sovereign bathes in virgin blood weekly, sacrifices children by the dozens for minor rituals. 'We take what we desire because we can,' she told me with utter conviction.
I spent months searching their records for any hint of karmic retribution - nothing. Their power only grows with each atrocity."
Kol returned to his seat, expression unusually serious.
"The Frost Giants were perhaps the most frustrating example. Their raids have decimated northern settlements since before recorded history.
Their Stone Carver boasted that their most successful expansion periods came after their most brutal campaigns. 'Mercy is weakness,' their king declared, 'and the universe rewards strength.' Five millennia of evidence in their conquest tablets seems to support his claim."
He picked up his glass again, examining it, his expression shifted to something almost defeated.
"So you see, brother," he said, addressing Klaus directly, "I've grown... skeptical. Five years of restraint based on a child's philosophy, and all my research contradicts it."
He paced forward. "That's why I've been pressing you. You've always been more pragmatic than sentimental. If you've found evidence I've missed, I'd genuinely like to know."
His fingers tightened slightly around his glass, betraying his tension.
"Because frankly, I'm growing bored with this experiment, and the only thing keeping me in line is the possibility of regaining my magic. But with our dear nephew's inconvenient ability to sense intentions..." He let the implication hang in the air.
He finished his drink with a flourish, his casual demeanor not quite masking his genuine frustration.
"So, Nik. What convinced you to continue this charade?"
Klaus smiled at this, a slow, knowing curve of his lips. "I met someone who gave me... evidence. Evidence on this matter - whether my son speaks truth or pure idealism."
He set his glass down deliberately. "I met the goddess of fortune - Fortuna. She is apparently one of the oldest of gods, and has had the... pleasure to once speak with God Himself."
"And?" Kol prompted, impatience clear in his voice, despite his internal surprise at her having met the literal Creator of the Heavens and Earth.
"She showed me," Klaus said simply. "She showed me Luck itself. The essence that permeates through all, and is apparently based on actions.
The essence that cuts off paths of fate, and forms ones, based on actions. She showed me my past, and each action and the bad luck gained or the good luck gained.
My evil actions granted me bad luck, and my rare good ones granted me good luck."
Kol remained skeptical, straightening slightly as he spoke. "How does that explain our current situation? You have quite the good life right now - and we, your family, who are connected to you in fate and life, also have it quite good right now, having the literal Son of God care for us."
He gestured expansively. "With how much evil you've done, that doesn't add up."
"Shut up and listen," Klaus said, not angrily but with the tone of an older brother telling his sibling to be patient.
Stefan's pacing had become more pronounced, his path taking him back and forth along the far wall of the library. The movement was beginning to draw attention, though no one commented on it yet.
"You're missing the point," Klaus continued. "Tell me, what do you think the point of bad luck based on evil action is? To grant suffering of course. And of course, the point of good luck is to grant, of course, good to those who do good."
Klaus fell silent for a moment, intending on letting them process, and get to it themselves.
"We have suffered," Elijah finally said, realization dawning in his eyes. "Suffered... quite a lot actually."
Klaus gestured toward Elijah, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Now you're getting it. Our own extreme forms of suffering balanced it out."
Kol straightened, eyes narrowing as he processed this. "If that's true, then I get it about us" he said, gesturing to himself and Elijah, "but not about you. We've gotten quite the many daggers in our hearts because of your nonsense, over the past millennia. That is well and all, quite the substantial loss of time and good, but you haven't.
So how does that work, Nik?"
Klaus fell silent once more- remaining so for a long moment, as his expression began to... colden.
Elijah had a bad feeling about this. Readying himself to intervene.
"Let me ask you this brother," Klaus began, "Do you really think I haven't been suffering?" His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.
"I have been suffering for over a bloody thousand years, thanks to that damned curse of our Mother's sealing my hybrid side.
You can't possibly understand what it feels like to have a part of you chained, hollow, like a giant pit inside your soul you try to fill, but never does. A coldness that burns, yet no warmth can temper." the Hybrid finished, glaring up into his younger brother's eyes.
The tension in the room thickened, Elijah was ready to spring the moment one of them begins attacking.
Stefan though, suddenly, stepped between them, his movement quick and deliberate. "What about the things Kol mentioned?" he asked, his voice steady despite his obvious unease. "The monster kingdoms. They're clearly thriving. Good people suffering. Why is that?"
Drawing focus back on the subject of the matter.
After a long moment, Klaus forced himself to calm, his shoulders relaxing with visible effort. "I'll keep it real simple." He raised two fingers. "There are two paths when it comes to good and evil actions.
One: do good and you are rewarded with good. Do evil, and you are punished with evil. It is simple enough, right?"
He raised a second finger. "Path two is where it becomes more complex. When beings reach a certain threshold of doing evil, their fate becomes... set towards immense suffering. God can be... quite wrathful, as we know.
No one is born evil, all do good in their lives at some point, and this makes them in God's eyes deserving of good for the amount of good they have done. But with that immense amount of evil done, God decides to fate them towards eternal suffering."
"You mean Hell," Elijah interjected.
Klaus nodded. "Or purgatory - for the monsters. God gives the equal measure of good done before he finally leads the evil ones to their fate of damnation."
Stefan's pacing had slowed, though he remained visibly tense. "What about the good people who fall victim to these monsters on the way to that fate? Since with these monsters thriving till they reach it, people die because of them."
"Apparently, God - with how he has sent his religions, and how He in His Books has stated of rewarding good with good, and evil with evil, he finds He has informed people enough of His ways.
With people not doing enough good, they fall victim to these monsters, bringing it down upon themselves." Klaus answered.
"But God always gives also apparently a way out to these people, whether they know it or not, there is a possible way they can escape them, it is there.
Worshipping Him is something that pleases God immensely it seems - Fortuna was quite adamant about that - not because He needs apparently, since He is Omnipotent, but because worship means obedience, and God cares for his creations.
Obedience means doing good, doing good within God's 'Just Laws' means receiving good. It is a form of protecting yourself."
"What happens to those who don't do enough good, but are still good?" Elijah questioned, intellectual curiosity rather than empathy driving his query. "Do they just... suffer? Get in the path of evil and die?"
"No," Klaus replied. "The suffering these victims experience balances out - if not exceeds - the amount of bad they have done in their lives.
So they get an express ticket to Heaven, being at peace, waiting for Eternal Paradise. For an infinite life of good."
His lips curved in a sardonic smile. "It is honestly a good deal, wouldn't you agree? Mauled once by a monster - instant ticket to Eternal Paradise, if you were an average person."
After a long moment of processing Kol spoke, "So it is about Balance," a note of realization in his voice.
"Always has been," Klaus replied simply.
Stefan had begun pacing again, more agitated than before. His movements had become impossible to ignore, his footsteps creating a restless rhythm against the hardwood floor.
Elijah finally addressed him directly. "Stefan, are you quite all right? You look worried."
Stefan paused mid-step, opening his mouth as if to deny it, then catching himself. He fell silent, for a long moment, shaking his head slightly before finally speaking.
"I don't know why, but I'm... worried." His brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
"Worried about what?" Elijah questioned.
Stefan was once more hesitant before finally he answered:
"Worried about Damon."
--------------------------
Across the city, Lucien stood perfectly still, his expression cold.
His arm was extended forward, disappearing to the wrist inside Damon Salvatore's chest.
Damon's eyes were wide with shock and pain, his body frozen in place as Lucien's fingers were wrapped around his heart.
--------------------------
(Author note: Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter.
Do tell me how you found it.
I hope this didn't feel like an info dump- but I had to address it eventually. Been throwing bread crumbs of this, throughout the past 100+ chapters.
Also, what do you think is going to happen to Damon?
Well, I hope to see you all later,
Bye!)