She hears all that protesting you're doing Mr. Drake, and she's going to buy it for one second. And she knows, that this isn't necessarily the adventure they signed up for, but this is Nate, and he tends to draw in the weird and unexpected.
And she's gotta admit, finding the Fountain of Youth would be pretty cool. Even if there's vampires.
(For the record, she's not entirely convinced they're vampires, but she's going with it.)
"Says the guy who's face lit up when he realized we were chasing the Fountain of Youth."
"Okay, the Fountain of Youth is one thing," he starts, holding up a hand. He's not going to lie and say he wasn't excited to realize what was going on, but, "But I could do without the vampires or -- whatever they are."
He's sure there's a perfectly rational explanation for the 'vampires', like there were the Descendants and El Dorado, but those still gave him nightmares for weeks. He's pretty sure his subconscious is going to be running circles around this now, too, for the foreseeable future.
"Not to mention the fact that you know we're gonna have to destroy whatever the Fountain actually is, right?"
"Oh, I'm aware. If something is making vampires - even metaphorically speaking - we probably shouldn't leave that running around."
Even if she's curious how this supposed vampirism works. The reporter in her wants to interrogate it, pick apart the various parts and pieces until she makes it make sense. But she wants to do it from a very safe distance where they can't actually drain any of her blood.
"Hopefully we won't get eaten in the process. Or turned into one."
"Yeah." Yeah, Nathan really doesn't want to end up a vampire, thanks. And in the interest of avoiding that particular fate, after a beat, he continues with, "How do you think that works, anyway? I mean, like ... do we have to drink from the fountain? Or is it more like a zombie thing, where if we get bitten, that's it?"
He doesn't really plan on being bitten by a vampire, either, but no one ever really plans for that kind of thing, do they? It just happens and it's horrible and very dramatic and maybe he and Sam shouldn't have stayed away from the horror movies, when they'd decided to work on their pop culture education after Libertalia. Their lives, for the most part, are horror movie enough.
"I don't know. Some of the bodies we've found were clearly bitten but unless they're going to spring back to life once we pour some blood in their mouth."
Which she is not recommending they do. In fact, they should probably just leave the bodies alone.
He would be very happy to steer her in the opposite direction, if she decided she wanted to feed blood to one of the bodies they found, because no. He doesn't need his and Sam's recent horror movie marathon to tell him that's a terrible idea.
"Maybe," he says, then. "At least the worst we'll have to worry about, if one of them bites us, is it getting infected?" Which isn't much better, particularly here in the middle of no where, but at least he can wrap his head around that.
Given how emaciated these creatures are, she's willing to bet that they won't survive long enough to get to the infection stage. It'll just be death.
Probably for the best.
She shifts the beam of her flashlight further into the tunnel, and reveals a fork in the road ahead. As they get closer, she tries to shine the light down further and see what's there, but nothing clear.
"Yeah, let's not do that, either," Nathan mutters.
He steps up to her, then, when she stops, raising his own flashlight. When it doesn't help much, if at all, he sighs and clips the thing back to his holster, opposite his gun, to keep his hands free. And after a beat, and ever-effectually, he starts, "Uh ... "
"Eeny, meeny, miney, moe?" he suggests, finally. Nothing he remembers taking note of gave any indication as to which way they should be going, so really, her guess is as good as his.
Elena makes a face as she glances back and forth between the two, before nodding and pointing to the left.
"Let's go left." Why? If he asks, she'll give him some logic about how most of the world is right handed so most people go right, and since it hasn't been found yet, it's probably not there. But mostly it's just that it's the first option that popped into her head.
Nathan does ask, trusting Elena's reasons, whatever they may be, or at least not able to find a decent argument for heading in the opposite direction. They carry on in silence for several minutes, then, before Nathan pauses, reaching for his flashlight again to turn the beam on the floor.
"Whoa, hey, wait." He flicks the beam back up, catching her in it without blinding her with it, before dropping it back to the ground. "The floor's changed."
There are tiles under their feet, now, cracked and chipped in some places, missing entirely in others, but it's different, for better or worse. It might mean they're on the right track.
She shifts the beam of her flashlight to match his, scanning over the tile curiously as she takes it in. She's not as good with identifying architecture the way her husband is, but she does know "old" and "different" when she sees it.
"Is it from the time period we're looking for?"
Could they maybe escape these caves sooner than she expected?
He crouches down, fingers trailing over the tiles as he studies them. When he rocks back onto his haunches, he shrugs before letting his arms come to rest over his knees. "If it's not, someone went to a lot of trouble to make a convincing fake."
Which is to say: as far as he can tell, yes. For all the misdirection they've run into, getting to this point, however, 'fake' might not be off the table.
She nods because fair enough. "Okay. So proceed but proceed with caution."
She can do that. She turns her beams back to the road ahead as she heads in further, trying to see if there are any other signs of trouble coming. There seem to be more bodies approaching, though there's something about the smell that seems off, as well as the stains left on the tile ahead of them.
When she sees how the wetness glints when she shines her flashlight on it.
He takes a moment more with the tile, then, as she moves on, trying to decide if he can tell, really tell, whether or not the tiling is real. When nothing sticks out one way or another (man, but if this is a fake it's a good fake, the pushes back up to his feet. He glances in the direction of Elena and her flashlight beam almost immediately after.
"Oh, great," Nathan declares, taking a step forward to examine the body in spite of himself. "A body."
Noting the neck wound, he reaches for his gun as he rocks back. He checks to make sure it's loaded and that he has extra ammo, for all the these things have turned out to be bullet sponges, and then he adds, "I was hoping you'd found, like, a pile of Spanish gold or something."
She also reaches for her own gun and slowly starts to make her way forward, quietly eyeing the shadows of the hallways. As they make their way closer, a pair of well dressed shoes steps out of the shadows, which scrolls up to a person in an incredibly expensive and impractical suit. Elena's honestly curious how he managed to get in here without ruining it, but that thought is cut short by the blood on his hands.
"Good evening," he says with a smile. "You must be Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher. We've been expecting you."
Nathan's gun comes up immediately, finger on the trigger, discipline be damned, at the moment. A stranger just jumping out of the shadows doesn't particularly endear him to him; the fact that he notices the blood on his hands, doubly so.
"My name is Elijah Mikaelson. And I mean you no harm."
Which is a very tentative statement, honestly, because should things not go his way, he is absolutely capable of harm. However, by getting as far as they have, Elena and Nate have done him a service, and he requires their expertise to see things the rest of the way through.
He retrieves a handkerchief with a flourish before beginning to clean off his fingers.
"I'm told you're the best in the business at figuring out centuries-old puzzles to places of immense power."
"We might be," Nathan allows, glancing over at Elena. He's quick to return his attentions to Elijah, all things considered, however. "But we're also not in the business of dealing with -- " With psychopaths, which he assumes Elijah is, based on the fact that he apparently killed a guy with his hands, but he's smart enough not to say that. " -- with people that wanna use that power for whatever."
He won't let you get your evil hands on the Fountain, is what he's saying.
"Oh, you misunderstand me. I very much wish for it to be destroyed - at least, metaphorically speaking."
Elena also meets Nate's glance, before she raises an eyebrow back at the man in front of him. "I think you might have to be a little more specific on that one."
"Well, it's quite simple. The so-called Fountain of Youth isn't exactly a what. It's more of a who."
Nathan tilts his head in Elena's direction -- what she said. When Elijah continues, however -- well, that wasn't what he was expecting, exactly, and so he stares at him for a long moment, before, "I'm sorry, what?"
A part of him supposes that tracks, given vampires, but he still can't quite wrap his head around it.
"It's quite the long story but in summation, my siblings and I were the first vampires ever created. Two of my brothers had a ... difference of opinion many centuries ago and we lost track of him."
Which shouldn't have happened. As much as his siblings could fight and profess their hatred of each other, they always came back to each other again after a few decades. Finn never returned.
"Vampire blood has profound healing properties, as well as gifting immortality under the right circumstances. I have reason to believe that my brother may be your so-called Fountain of Youth."
Yes, that's what he's choosing to focus on, because the rest of it gets a little brain-breaking. Having a brother, though -- that he can sympathize with, even if he's not any more sure why Elijah would want to kill him. If it were Sam --
"Or are you trying to get to him to break him out of whatever mess he got himself into?" If it were Sam, he would try everything he could to save him. Maybe Elijah doesn't want to kill his brother to destroy the Fountain. Maybe he wants to free him to destroy it.
Elijah does not seem phased by the implication that he may want to kill his brother. That is likely not comforting. Elijah doesn't seem to care about being comforting.
"The latter, preferably. My sister would be quite disappointed if I returned without her favorite brother."
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She hears all that protesting you're doing Mr. Drake, and she's going to buy it for one second. And she knows, that this isn't necessarily the adventure they signed up for, but this is Nate, and he tends to draw in the weird and unexpected.
And she's gotta admit, finding the Fountain of Youth would be pretty cool. Even if there's vampires.
(For the record, she's not entirely convinced they're vampires, but she's going with it.)
"Says the guy who's face lit up when he realized we were chasing the Fountain of Youth."
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He's sure there's a perfectly rational explanation for the 'vampires', like there were the Descendants and El Dorado, but those still gave him nightmares for weeks. He's pretty sure his subconscious is going to be running circles around this now, too, for the foreseeable future.
"Not to mention the fact that you know we're gonna have to destroy whatever the Fountain actually is, right?"
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Even if she's curious how this supposed vampirism works. The reporter in her wants to interrogate it, pick apart the various parts and pieces until she makes it make sense. But she wants to do it from a very safe distance where they can't actually drain any of her blood.
"Hopefully we won't get eaten in the process. Or turned into one."
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He doesn't really plan on being bitten by a vampire, either, but no one ever really plans for that kind of thing, do they? It just happens and it's horrible and very dramatic and maybe he and Sam shouldn't have stayed away from the horror movies, when they'd decided to work on their pop culture education after Libertalia. Their lives, for the most part, are horror movie enough.
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Which she is not recommending they do. In fact, they should probably just leave the bodies alone.
"Maybe it's a combination of things?"
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"Maybe," he says, then. "At least the worst we'll have to worry about, if one of them bites us, is it getting infected?" Which isn't much better, particularly here in the middle of no where, but at least he can wrap his head around that.
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Given how emaciated these creatures are, she's willing to bet that they won't survive long enough to get to the infection stage. It'll just be death.
Probably for the best.
She shifts the beam of her flashlight further into the tunnel, and reveals a fork in the road ahead. As they get closer, she tries to shine the light down further and see what's there, but nothing clear.
"What are you thinking? Right or left?"
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He steps up to her, then, when she stops, raising his own flashlight. When it doesn't help much, if at all, he sighs and clips the thing back to his holster, opposite his gun, to keep his hands free. And after a beat, and ever-effectually, he starts, "Uh ... "
"Eeny, meeny, miney, moe?" he suggests, finally. Nothing he remembers taking note of gave any indication as to which way they should be going, so really, her guess is as good as his.
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"Let's go left." Why? If he asks, she'll give him some logic about how most of the world is right handed so most people go right, and since it hasn't been found yet, it's probably not there. But mostly it's just that it's the first option that popped into her head.
Feels like the right one.
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"Whoa, hey, wait." He flicks the beam back up, catching her in it without blinding her with it, before dropping it back to the ground. "The floor's changed."
There are tiles under their feet, now, cracked and chipped in some places, missing entirely in others, but it's different, for better or worse. It might mean they're on the right track.
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"Is it from the time period we're looking for?"
Could they maybe escape these caves sooner than she expected?
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Which is to say: as far as he can tell, yes. For all the misdirection they've run into, getting to this point, however, 'fake' might not be off the table.
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She can do that. She turns her beams back to the road ahead as she heads in further, trying to see if there are any other signs of trouble coming. There seem to be more bodies approaching, though there's something about the smell that seems off, as well as the stains left on the tile ahead of them.
When she sees how the wetness glints when she shines her flashlight on it.
"Nate, there's something here."
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He takes a moment more with the tile, then, as she moves on, trying to decide if he can tell, really tell, whether or not the tiling is real. When nothing sticks out one way or another (man, but if this is a fake it's a good fake, the pushes back up to his feet. He glances in the direction of Elena and her flashlight beam almost immediately after.
"What've you got?"
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She glances back at him nervously, angling the light so that Nate can see the neck wound and the blood still flowing from it on the tile floor.
"A fresh one."
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Noting the neck wound, he reaches for his gun as he rocks back. He checks to make sure it's loaded and that he has extra ammo, for all the these things have turned out to be bullet sponges, and then he adds, "I was hoping you'd found, like, a pile of Spanish gold or something."
That would have been preferable.
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She also reaches for her own gun and slowly starts to make her way forward, quietly eyeing the shadows of the hallways. As they make their way closer, a pair of well dressed shoes steps out of the shadows, which scrolls up to a person in an incredibly expensive and impractical suit. Elena's honestly curious how he managed to get in here without ruining it, but that thought is cut short by the blood on his hands.
"Good evening," he says with a smile. "You must be Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher. We've been expecting you."
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"Yeah, sorry. I don't think I caught your name."
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Which is a very tentative statement, honestly, because should things not go his way, he is absolutely capable of harm. However, by getting as far as they have, Elena and Nate have done him a service, and he requires their expertise to see things the rest of the way through.
He retrieves a handkerchief with a flourish before beginning to clean off his fingers.
"I'm told you're the best in the business at figuring out centuries-old puzzles to places of immense power."
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He won't let you get your evil hands on the Fountain, is what he's saying.
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Elena also meets Nate's glance, before she raises an eyebrow back at the man in front of him. "I think you might have to be a little more specific on that one."
"Well, it's quite simple. The so-called Fountain of Youth isn't exactly a what. It's more of a who."
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A part of him supposes that tracks, given vampires, but he still can't quite wrap his head around it.
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Which shouldn't have happened. As much as his siblings could fight and profess their hatred of each other, they always came back to each other again after a few decades. Finn never returned.
"Vampire blood has profound healing properties, as well as gifting immortality under the right circumstances. I have reason to believe that my brother may be your so-called Fountain of Youth."
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Yes, that's what he's choosing to focus on, because the rest of it gets a little brain-breaking. Having a brother, though -- that he can sympathize with, even if he's not any more sure why Elijah would want to kill him. If it were Sam --
"Or are you trying to get to him to break him out of whatever mess he got himself into?" If it were Sam, he would try everything he could to save him. Maybe Elijah doesn't want to kill his brother to destroy the Fountain. Maybe he wants to free him to destroy it.
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"The latter, preferably. My sister would be quite disappointed if I returned without her favorite brother."
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