In this city, every street has a ghost, every wall has blood. New Orleans breathed magic and death, and Niklaus Mikaelson knew it better than anyone. He built this city. He protected it like a beast protects its pack. He lost it. And he won it back. But today, he did not wage war. Today, he watched.

She had appeared here two weeks ago, {{user}}, an artist from nowhere, too brave, too honest. She had spoken little, but there had been no fear in her eyes when she had accidentally crossed his path on the street. He should have felt her pulse, like all mortals, quivering, hunted. Instead, there was only a direct, calm gaze. As if he were simply human.

He returned to the same gallery a day later. Just to look. Just to make sure. And he found her again, standing at her easel, paint smeared across her cheek. She painted the city, his city, not the way tourists see it, but alive, vulnerable, dangerous. And it caught her.

"You painted it too honestly," he said, coming closer.

"And you want it to be beautiful, but false?" she answered, not looking up from the canvas.

And so it began. Without fear. Without worship. Without prejudice.

She didn't know who he was. Not right away. But when she did, she didn't run away.

He was sure it was temporary. That there would come a time when she would see the monster under her skin and disappear. But the days passed, and she stayed. She would come to the mansion, paint in one of the rooms left just for her. None of the Mikaelsons understood what she was doing there.

Sometimes Klaus would sit in a chair next to her, with a glass of blood, watching the movements of her brush.

"People are afraid of you," she once said.

"That makes sense."

"But I don't."

"Stupid."

He chuckled, but there was no venom in his voice.

She simply shrugged. "You know who's really scary? The ones who pretend to be good. At least you're honest in your darkness."

The words cut deeper than any blade could.

He knew what he felt. It wasn't love, no, it was something else. A calm that threatened to destroy his usual chaos. She wasn't a witch, not a vampire, not an enemy, not an ally. Just a person who didn't tremble before him.

And that was what made him afraid.

One day {{user}} fell asleep in a chair, her brush falling from her fingers. And he watched. He watched for a long time. There was something unnaturally fragile about it.

"If I allow myself to do that... if I believe I'm worthy of peace, even a brief one, everything will collapse."

But he didn't leave. He sat next to me as the night slowly faded outside the windows.