[Blood Diary Entry]
Nico turned around, his steps muffled by the soft dirt beneath us. Though rather strangely, whatever footsteps he left behind were erased by the ground, as if the soil healed itself.
He headed for a couple of shelves made of the same roots that held this whole chamber in place. There was an assortment of jars, all containing strange and eerie things—ranging from glowing thick liquids to preserved body parts of who-knows-what.
He grabbed three jars. One of a glowing white-yellow sap, another jar filled with colorful eyes, and lastly a gallon filled to the brim with blood.
Then he walked towards the center of the chamber and set the jars down.
"I thought druids were supposed to be guardians of nature," I spoke aloud.
Nico paused and looked at me. "We are." He simply said.
"Then why do you have that?" I pointed to the jar filled with eyeballs.
"One thing does not exclude the other. Not all creatures are natural, and not all are worth protecting. In the service of nature, I have amassed quite a lot of ingredients."
I crossed my arms. "Isn't that contradictory?"
"Tell me…" He trailed off, a smirk forming on his lips. "Do you think those ghouls should be protected? Do you think wendigos are not harmful to nature?" Then his whole complexion changed, madness crept in, though this one was from a different brand. It wasn't the same as he exuded before—no, this was old, primal… "Like gardeners uproot weeds and exterminate harmful pests." He smiled cheerfully and pointed to the jar of eyeballs and the gallon of blood. "In doing nature a service, I have at times come across useful things."
He dipped his hand in the blood and started drawing strange patterns on the ground. Gaelic runes, also known as Ogham. A strangely beautiful alphabet.
He made three full circles drawn in blood.
Two-thirds of the bottle was gone in the process.
He then set it aside and turned to the jar of sap.
Dipping his hand in it, he resumed drawing new circles that criss-crossed the previous three. Interconnecting the circles into the shape of a triskelion.
He dug a small hole in the center of the patterns and dipped the remaining sap, along with what was left of the blood as well.
"What about the eyeballs?" Rebekah asked, with a small hint of disgust in her tone.
Nico didn't answer. Instead, he picked up all of the eyeballs and tossed them inside the hole. Then he clapped his hands together, and a vibrant leaf-green flame flared to life from his palms.
He pushed his hands forward, and a torrent of the same green fire reached the center of the triskelion.
The liquid in the hole bubbled violently, and pure energy seeped out, channeled through the patterns drawn in the ground.
The chamber was lit up in a vibrant green hue.
Nico turned to us.
"Please step inside the circles, would you?" He gestured towards the ground with a flair of his hands.
"I hope you know the consequences of trying anything funny," Rebekah said with the sweetest smile—though her words carried more venom than any viper…
Nico's face was entirely devoid of amusement, his expression deadpan. "Keep your threats to yourself, Miss Mikaelson. We druids, have honor. I won't deceive someone who has done me a service and literally saved my life in the process."
With those words, Rebekah nodded and stepped inside the circle closest to her.
Following her lead, so did I, and Mother followed soon after.
"The 'spell' you're supposed to cast on me is different from the one you'll use on them; shouldn't it require different rituals altogether?" I asked.
"That is not how druidic magic works." He spoke. "Besides, by linking the three rituals into one, using the triskelion, I can make the spell three times more potent. Which will be quite useful in your case."
"What's the catch?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" Nico questioned, tilting his head to the side.
"If it were easy to use such methods to potentiate your spells beyond normal means, you could probably curse those ghouls and be done with them, or something like that," I said with a skeptical tone.
Nico pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am not a warlock. I cannot curse anyone. Besides, this method has strict conditions that need to be met before it can be used."
"Such as?" Rebekah asked.
"Such as deep trust between the targets, and a strong connection that ties them together." He gave Rebekah a knowing look. "Your mother used a similar method, you know? She made clever use of a valknut to create you and your siblings. That is the reason why all of you are tied to a certain element and are so powerful. Something that shouldn't be possible given her own meager powers."
Rebekah's eyes turned a bit fierce. "And how would you know that?"
He scoffed. "Please, anyone who is worth their salt has studied the Mikaelsons' case. Fortunately, though, no one has ever been able to replicate her feat."
"And how does this relate to us?" My mother asked.
His eyes turned pensive. "Normally, this shouldn't be possible for the three of you… But somehow, all of you share a blood connection. It is faint, but it's there. And it all leads back to him," he pointed at me. "Most peculiar indeed…"
I cleared my throat. "We have a ritual to undergo, don't we?"
All three of them gave me dry looks. But Nico shrugged his shoulders and started walking around us, chanting and singing in Gaelic.
The runes and patterns on the ground glowed fiercely, thrumming with power with each new syllable Nicodemus uttered.
I felt a faint heat all around my body, like my blood was on the verge of overheating.
This kept on for another minute, until all of the runes on the ground lost their glow, and the soil healed itself, leaving no traces of the intricate pattern behind.
I felt as if a thin cloak was dropped on me, until the feeling vanished altogether.
"It is done," Nico spoke.