The fight between Damon and Kol escalated as Damon takes Kol by surprise and tackles him to the ground. Damon is just about to snap Kol's neck when he drops to the ground screaming in pain and clutching his head.
"Damon!" Stefan yells as he runs out of the mansion. The rest of the Mikaelson siblings spill out one by one to watch with Elena hot on their heels.
"Remind me to thank the witch responsible for this," Kol remarks as he brushes dirt off his suit. Meanwhile, Elena kneels beside Damon's writhing body as Stefan watches.
"You're welcome," a feminine accented tone says in the distance, amusement dripping in her voice, "although I shouldn't have had to. You're a thousand years old for God's sake."
A lithe figure stands in the distance, draped in an elegant white gown and adorned in a white mask that covers every inch of her face, revealing only her piercing deep brown eyes. Brunette tresses cascade down her bare back as she moves gracefully closer to them, like a predator on the prowl.
Kol lets out an indignant huff. He was about to bite back a remark when Klaus cuts him off, his wary voice resounding into the night. "Much as I love watching my little brother be saved by a damsel such as yourself — from a baby vampire, no less — I don't believe we've ever met." Cherry red lips pull up into a smirk but Klaus' eyes promise violence.
Kol, Rebekah, Klaus, Elijah, and Finn all inch closer to each other subconsciously as they prepare for a fight. Meanwhile, Elena and Stefan watch over Damon on the sidelines. He has only just stopped groaning in agony as the spell wore off but he hasn't gotten up from the ground due to the viscousness of her attack.
"What you believe, yes, but we have met before," she replies lightly with an accent much like the Originals'. She stands much closer to them now, the moonlight shining upon her form. It was at that moment that they noticed the tattoos on her arms. A blue frog resides on her right forearm, as well as a long-legged spider on her right shoulder and a large black spider that coils all around her left arm.
Elena feels the urge to demand the identity of the woman, but knows to leave it to the Originals for now, because from what she's seen so far, Damon wouldn't be able to protect her from the powerful stranger.
"Long ago and in a different time," the brown-skinned woman continues in a whimsical voice, "of course, I was a different woman before, so I suppose you don't actually know me as I am now."
"Oh, quit speaking in riddles and just tell us what you want," Rebekah snarls impatiently. Elijah sighs at his little sister then gestures to her, "what my sister means is that we wish to know of your intentions. Clearly, you are older than you appear and much stronger as well, and in our experience, people like you don't make social visits like these on a whim."
The mystery woman chuckles softly in response. "I'm not actually here for you," she says, shocking the gathered group, "in fact, I hoped to avoid seeing you again altogether, but it seems the stars have other plans."
"Great, she's crazy too," Damon grunts out as he struggles to his feet. He glares at her as his brother helps him up and Elena clings to his side, doting. Their previous fight forgotten in light of recent events.
The woman directs her attention to him. "The last time someone addressed me in such a way, I tore out his tongue and cooked him in a roasting pit like a pig in a hunting party." A chill runs down his spine as she smiles at him, though hidden by the mask. "But because you're such great friends with my sister's descendant, I'll let you off with a warning."
Before anyone else could comment, she casts a spell, enclosing all those gathered in a ring of blue fire. "Like I said, I'm here for someone else, and I can't have you disrupting me."
Klaus snarls as he hurls himself at her, but is stopped by the invisible barricade around them. "I don't know who you are but your death will be glorious," he growls.
"Why are you doing this?" Elena demands, "if you're here for someone else then just let us go."
The stranger's eyes soften as they land on Elena. The moment soon ends as her eyes instead fill with a manic glee. "I've always loved having an audience," she says.
Kol and Damon lets out a string of curses as the others wrack through their minds for a reason why the woman looked so familiar. Elena, on the other hand, looks at the mansion behind them, contemplating screaming for help in hopes of either Matt or Caroline coming to save her from the dangerous woman.
Said woman seemed to have known what she was thinking as she chuckled to herself. "I wouldn't bother if I were you. I spelled this barrier in such a way that no one I don't wish to see or hear you will be able to see and hear you," she gestures around them leisurely, "everyone is deaf and blind to you but me."
"Great," Kol bites out, "so I'm stuck in here with my unbearable family and my unbearable family's enemies."
"I don't like this any more than you do," Stefan comments.
"I think we should use this opportunity to relieve ourselves of the Salvatore brothers and their tramp," Rebekah remarks.
"I agree. I have unfinished business with that one," Kol says while pointing to Damon, "and didn't that one steal our coffins? Why are they still breathing?"
"Brother, calm yourself. We do not need to fight in here like a couple of barbaric gladiators for a madwoman's amusement," Elijah reprimands him as he lays a gentle hand on Rebekah's back. He ignores said woman's hysterical laughter as he continues, "and Niklaus still requires that Elena remain alive and human so her blood could be used to feed his hybrids."
"And your mother promised no violence," Elena reminds smugly, to which Rebekah replies with a scoff.
"Speaking of which — brother, you have not spoken at all as of yet. Why, have you suddenly lost your tongue?" Klaus remarks. Six other pairs of eyes look to the eldest of the Mikaelson siblings as he stares silently at the mystery woman, who stares right back at him with a contemplative gaze.
"Raya?" Finn asks softly. By the startled look in her eyes and the way she suddenly tensed, Finn knew he was right.
There was complete silence for one second as everyone processed the implications of his question.
"Wait, if you know her, then..." Eyes transfix on the woman again as Elena's voice trails off.
"Motherfucker," the woman grumbles. In an unexpected move, she takes off her mask and burns it to dust in an instant, revealing a frustrated look on a youthful face. "Here I was trying to be mysterious and you completely fuck it up!" Her audience stares in a dumbfounded daze as she continues her rant, "of course, I should've remembered that I didn't bother wiping your memories like I did with the others — you were in a coffin after all! How did this slip my mind, damn it!"
"Raya, what is this madness? When I asked about you, they thought me mad. I simply thought that something happened while I was indisposed that made them pretend you didn't even exist!" Elena, Stefan, and Damon all watch on hesitantly, interest gleaming in their eyes, as the others look either confused, angry, or both. "What of Elijah? What of your oath to our family?"
Raya laughs sharply. "I needed a break from your family. Thought the best way to achieve that was to make them forget about me." She shrugs, casting an image of innocence. "Seven hundred years was a long enough break, I suppose."
Before Finn could reply, she continued. "And that oath? It broke the day I found out that Elijah killed my sister." Her eyes hardened as she fixed her gaze on Elijah. "I would've killed him had I not made a vow to myself that I would never kill family."
"You'll have to forgive me if I seem a little lost," he says sharply, "but who exactly did I kill?"
"Tatia," she says simply.
The Mikaelsons look startled while the trio who remains silent look confused.
"I did not kill her," he says resolutely, "I loved her with all my heart."
"And the plot thickens," Damon murmurs to Stefan who nods, transfixed.
"That love was not for her. I simply used her to fill in the gaps of your memory so as to incite guilt from you the moment things begin to unravel in your mind," she shrugs, "petty, I know. It was either that or I kept you in my torture chamber."
"Elijah in a torture chamber?" Kol guffaws, "that, I would like to see."
"Remember when you found Nik the day after he first turned into a wolf?" She asks, ignoring Kol, "he was beside himself with grief. He had just killed six villagers in his rampage and was naked, crying in a clearing surrounded by the severed body parts of his victims. You brought him clothes and promised him that he was still your brother, despite not sharing the same father—"
"Yes, I remember that day distinctly. Tatia found us there then ran. I found her and compelled her to forget," Elijah says insistently.
Raya scoffed. "You hadn't even discovered your ability to compel yet, much less learn how to control your blood lust." She pauses for a moment. "The reason you think so is because Esther spelled you to forget you killed her because you were inconsolable because you knew what she meant to me," she adds a moment later.
"A second ago, you said you altered our memories. Now you're saying mother altered his as well. How do we know what you say is even true?" Rebekah questions.
"She's got a point, love," Klaus adds, "though you did raise a valid point as well. None of us knew we could compel until many years later."
"No, no, no," Elijah mutters to himself.
Raya rolls her eyes. "Why don't we ask the very woman I came here for? After all, she's the one who made us all believe that she drained Tatia of all her blood for Nik's curse."
"Mother?" Finn asks, "what do you want with her?"
"That oath that I made a thousand years," she explains, "though broken for a time, now stands again."
"What the hell is this bloody oath you keep blabbing on about?" Kol exclaims, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation.
She chuckles to herself. "Oh, Kol, you've never changed." Before he could reply, she cut him off. "I vowed to keep your family safe if you vowed to never harm mine, that included my sister, her daughter, and her descendants."
"You? Protect us?" Kol guffaws.
"I'm not your run of the mill witch," she smirks at him.
"It's true," Finn confirms, "we would not have survived as long as we had without her aiding in our escape from father."
Klaus takes a second to process that information. This woman who dares to alter his memories, makes him remember three hundred years of his life differently, actually protected them in all that time? From his father, no less, a man he himself had feared for all his life.
She smiled a toothy smile. "And the reason the oath I made stands again is because I brought her back." She gestures to Elena, "I harvested her blood not too long ago,—" Elena, Stefan, and Damon all stiffen upon hearing that, "—which was the last ingredient I needed. I found my sister's unmarked grave shortly after we buried Esther, and I preserved her body in preparation for her return." She giggles madly, "It wasn't easy. I needed either the blood or the bone marrow of all of Amara's shadows which was few and far in between, but I found them all. Gaia, the first of the doppelgängers, born more than a thousand years ago, then Yara, born before my sister, then Juliana, Katerina, and finally Elena. The hardest to find was Amara herself."
"Wait," Elena cuts Raya off, "there were more?!"
"Of course," she says matter of factly. "Did you think you and Katerina were the only ones?" She pauses, taking in the dumbfounded looks of those around the teenager. "Do you not know of the purpose of the shadows?"
"Yeah, you keep calling her that, but what does that even mean?" Stefan asks.
"A shadow is what you call a doppelgänger. They're physical copies of an older being. You should know," she smirks, "you're one too."
"What?" Damon exclaims, unconvinced. "My brother's a doppelgänger? No way."
"The shadow selves are copies of the immortal couple, Amara and Silas. Nature, in the hopes of achieving balance, created a line of doppelgängers, whose entire purpose is to die in their places since they could not." She smiles at the two pleasantly. "Each generation of doppelgängers I find always fall in love. And like with Amara and Silas, despite being soulmates, they never end up together."
Stefan swallows the lump in his throat while Elena shakes her head. "This is a lot to take in," Elena mutters.
"Hold on a second," Kol interrupts, "that's what Silas looks like? The one prophesied to unleash hell on earth looks like an angsty teenager?!"
Raya lets out a bark of laughter. "Don't let him hear you say that," she says after finally stopping, "he'd beat you into the ground."
"I would love to see that," Rebekah comments, teasing Kol, who simply rolls his eyes in response.
"We've gone off track," Finn sighs, "what are you doing here, Raya?"
"I think you know, Finny," she smiles pleasantly, "after all, you know of my oath."
Finn stills, which Elijah and Klaus notices. "What does she mean, brother?" Elijah asks, finally finding his voice after the revelation that he not only killed the love of his life, but that she actually wasn't.
"What, does she mean to save us from you?" Klaus asks rhetorically.
"You could say that," Raya says gently. "You know I have my ways of finding out, Finn."
"We are abominations," Finn finally says. "Mother knows this. She will right her wrongs and finally end our miserable existences."
"I knew she was plotting something," Elijah said to himself.
"But, I thought mother..." Rebekah trails off dejectedly.
"I'm the original hybrid," Klaus says smugly, though hurt all the same at the revelation that Esther didn't actually forgive him or intend to reunite their family, "I cannot be killed."
"Oh, get off your high horse, Nik. Anyone can die with the right spell," Kol points out, "even you."
Elena slowly backs away and hides behind the Salvatore brothers as she realizes that her actions against the very family she's currently stuck in a circle of fire with are about to be revealed.
"Mother intended to bind us all together using the doppelgänger's blood," Finn resolutely says, "and I planned to take my life after it was done."
"Must you hate yourself this much?" Kol mocks.
"Ah, Finn, you've always been mother's little lamb," Klaus remarks.
"Will your crimes against my family ever cease?" Rebekah snarls at Elena.
"Klaus has taken too much from me," Elena snarls back, "from us," she says a moment later after glancing at Stefan. "I just wanted to be free from him."
"You lied to me," Elijah points out to her, with a bite in his tone.
"Oh, grow up, brother. Haven't you learned from Katerina, yet?" Rebekah says, "all the doppelgängers are selfish, lying little tramps, and the world would be better off without them."
Raya glares at Rebekah, who sighs. "Except, apparently, Tatia — who, by the way, I don't believe is alive. She's been dead for a thousand years! How was the blood and bone of all of these shadows and Amara herself apparently supposed to bring her back?"
"You're truly asking that when your own mother walked back into your lives after having her heart torn out a thousand years ago?" Raya asks incredulously. A moment later, she smirks. "I could always bring her here."
Raya whips out a dagger out of thin air and sliced into her palm, letting the blood run down and onto the ground while muttering an incantation. Seconds later, the spilt blood forms into a circle on the dirt, which Tatia shows up in out of nowhere.
"You rang?" Tatia says with a lazy drawl.
Elijah's breath hitches. Tatia looked exactly as she did a thousand years ago, with her hair still braided in the way that she liked, except for the modern dress she has on.
"It's been a long two hours, sister," Raya says teasingly as she pulls her sister into a hug, which she returns. Their thousand year separation only seemed to strengthen the sisters' bond.
"This night is getting freakier and freakier," Damon exclaims.
"True that," Stefan says, in a daze.
"Tatia?" Elijah breathes out.
"Great," Rebekah snaps, "she's alive."
"Little sister," Tatia interrupts the comments, "when you said you altered their memories, what exactly did you mean?"
Raya, to the amazement of the spectators, looks sheepish as she glances at her older sister. "Whatever do you mean, Tati?"
"I think you know," she bites back, "why does your ex-husband seem to love me? I can practically taste his emotions wafting in the air."
Laughter bubbles out of both Kol and Klaus as they look at Elijah's taken aback expression. "Don't tell me you were married to her!" Kol guffaws.
"It's true," Finn confirms, a small smile on his face, "Mother always wanted Raya to be married into our family as she always wanted Raya to officially be her daughter. As you know — or don't, I'm not quite sure what memories Raya left intact — I was already wedded to another. Kol was much too rowdy to be married and father would not grant Niklaus' desire to wed her, so they arranged a wedding between you and her instead, Elijah."
Raya sighs audibly. "We got married a few months before Henrik died, was together for three centuries, then I had our marriage annulled when I looked into your mind and saw you drain my sister," Raya rolls her eyes, "blah, blah, blah, basically, it's all ancient history."
"Just wait a goddamn second," Damon interrupts, "Klaus wanted to marry you too?!" He asks with an impish grin on his face.
Raya sighs for the nth time as she turns to look at her sister. "This is exactly what I hoped to avoid," she shakes her head. "Sister, I simply replaced myself in their minds with you."
Tatia laughs loudly, "great, if this wasn't awkward enough as it is." She pauses and turns to look at Rebekah, "and why exactly does she hate me? I can feel her disdain for me a mile away."
"Sorry," she offers her another sheepish grin, "by putting you in my position, I had to erase her friendship with you."
"I was friends with the village harlot?!" Rebekah exclaims.
"Excuse me," Tatia says with an indignant huff, "just because I refused to let myself be burned at the pyre after my husband's fall in battle does not mean I was a harlot." She sends a smirk in Raya's way. "The real harlot was my sister."
"I resent that," Raya proclaims.
Klaus, who has been reeling with the news of his reassigned affections, asserts himself in the conversation. "And, yet again, we find ourselves off track."
Stefan nods in agreement with Klaus in spite of himself. "So, let me get this straight," Stefan calls out, "because frankly, I think we all need a refresher after everything we just discovered."
Eyes focused in on him and no one made a comment, so he took that as a sign to go on. "You're a thousand year old witch who was apparently married to Elijah for three centuries. They don't remember this because you altered all of their memories except for Finn's. You were the Original vampires' protectors, but stopped being one after finding out that Elijah killed your sister—"
"Which hurt by the way," Tatia proclaims.
"I apologize," Elijah says sincerely after a moment of hesitation. He hasn't quite accepted the idea that he had lacked that much control before.
Tatia rolls her eyes. "I know you didn't mean to," she says in a softer tone. "The only reason I was even in the woods was because I was trying to escape from Esther. She put me to sleep long enough to take some of my blood for Nik's curse because she knew I wouldn't have agreed to let her use it, knowing what I know about the power of blood magic from Raya. I was walking around covered in my own blood when I found you and Nik in that clearing. When you finally caught up to me, you fought yourself. You even told me to run, and I did, but obviously you were much faster." A moment passed. "If forgiveness is what you seek, then I forgive you. Me not holding a grudge is what brought Raya back here in the first place, to uphold her oath."
Stefan clears his throat. He'd have had more tact if his humanity switch was on, but he was growing impatient. "Anyway, you brought back your sister from the dead with doppelgänger blood and bone marrow, which turns out to be a lot more common than we first thought, as well as Amara's, who turns out be an immortal and the reason Elena exists."
"You also said that Amara was with Silas, who is also an immortal and the reason Stefan exists as well?" Raya nods in confirmation at Elena's inquiry. "And, apparently, he's some kind of doomsday button?" Damon quips, referencing Kol's comment earlier about Silas.
"You also said that, um, me and Stefan were soulmates?" Damon lets out an indignant huff at Elena's question to hide the hurt he felt, to which Tatia nodded for Raya.
"My first love's name was Samuel and looked exactly like him," Tatia confesses. "He was to be my husband until I found him in bed with another." Tatia all but growls out her next words, "the traveler who bedded him forced herself on him to carry the next generation of Silas' shadow selves."
"Of course, I did not believe him when he said he could not recall ever entering her chambers. It was my sister who revealed to me the truth shortly after he was mauled to death by a wolfman. She spoke to his spirit, you see—"
"Now you can talk ghosts as well?" Rebekah asks Raya incredulously.
"Yes," Raya confirms, "a gift passed onto me by my father." She looks to her sister, "if you haven't noticed, my sister and I don't exactly look alike. I had a different father, the brother of the powerful witch Ayana of the line you now know as the Bennett's. It's also one reason for how I know as much as I do — all the dead do is speak as there isn't much else left to do on the Other Side."
"And these travelers—" Stefan continues, but she cuts him off.
"This has gone on long enough. If you want to know more about these things, research about it yourself," she says with finality. Raya then turns to her sister. "Thank you for coming when I summoned you, but I need to finish this now."
"Aww," Tatia playfully whines, "I wanted to watch."
She smirked, "I know you do, Tati. But do not forget your duty, sister," Raya reminds her, to which Tatia replies seriously, "I have not." They share an indecipherable look.
"Do not die," are Raya's parting words before she mutters another incantation that causes her sister's image to disappear.
"And now for the million dollar question," Klaus says, "what are you planning to do to Esther?"
For a time, he was glad his mother was back in order to mend his relationship with his family, but if what Raya and Finn said was true, if she indeed intend to kill them all, then he planned to kill her before she got the chance to.
Elijah had the same thoughts as Klaus. In his mind, his mother ceased to be his mother and became only Esther after receiving confirmation that she had less than noble intentions for her children. Esther was about to learn how important family was to him. Family above all.
It was harder for Rebekah to stomach, on the other hand, as she had only just gotten her mother back. She loved her mother greatly and craved for her affection all her life after her first death. Which was why she convinced herself that Elijah was only being paranoid when he shared his thoughts with her regarding their mother's rather surprising mercy. Oh well, she thought glumly, it seems this family would be orphans soon.
Meanwhile, Kol felt indifferent. Or at least, he convinced himself that he was. Growing up, he didn't feel his mother's love as greatly as the others did. He was always the black sheep of the herd, never truly fitting in. This was just more proof that he would never obtain his parents' unconditional love. He would just have to deal with that.
The one who found it hardest to deal with the idea of losing his mother again was Finn. He was disgusted with himself, at the creature he became because of her. He lost his wife to this curse. He lost her to himself. He was a beast, a monster. He did not want to live — if this was even considered living. But after spending more and more time out of that coffin, he questioned his own desires. He desired to die eventually, he knew that for a fact, but must he take his siblings down with him? Elijah, especially, who seemed to still contain a shred of humanity. And he himself did not even need to continue on as a killer. Modern medicine has allowed him to consume blood without hurting another human. And above all else, he wished to see Sage once more. The woman he was sure breathed life into his miserable existence all those years ago, the woman who made his heart beat once more. She made him feel alive, yet he was uncertain if she even still walked among the living as it had been 900 years since they had last spoken. He would have to find out...
"Wait and see," Raya replies, her lips pulled into a smirk.