Authors Note: After 3.08 Ordinary People, I began to really start thinking about who Rebekah is, and what led to her to follow her brother loyally for almost a thousand years. This piece is my exploration of that. I am in no way affiliated with the CW, Vampire Diaries or anything related to the work of LJ Smith. I just thank them for their contributions! Please read and review, so I have motivation to keep going!
Around 900 C.E.
The wind had a chill to it as Rebekah ran through the woods after Henrik. He was starting to get old enough that she actually had to try to keep up with him. Winter was coming, she could feel it as the wind hit her face. The whole community had already started preparing themselves for the end of harvest and storing for the long months ahead. Her mother used to tell her stories of the land they came from, of the brutally cold winters and the ice. It all sounded horrible to her. It was bad enough that they had less freedom when the harvest was coming.
"Henrik! We need to head back its getting dark! Mother will be upset if we are out here in the dark…" she called after him as she picked up her pace, lifting up her skirt. Rebekah couldn't see where her youngest brother was hiding in the thick of the forest around them. "This is not funny, we need to head back now or Mother will have my head."
She looked around and out of nowhere a head appeared. Rebekah let out a little scream and shook her head when she realized it was her brother. She grabbed him around the neck and started to drag them back towards their home. "You are a pest, really," she told him as they worked their way back.
"But you know you love me," he said with a smirk as he started to run in front of her. Rebekah always wondered where he had all the energy to spend his entire life running, but she started to run after him, trying to race him back to the community that they called home.
She nearly made it when she turned to yell about her victory, not realizing she ran straight into something. Rebekah fell onto the hard ground with an audible thump. She could hear the laughter of Henrik as he raced in front of her and to their home. Rebekah turned to see what she ran into and saw Petyr standing in front of her. He gave her his hand to help her get up off the forest floor.
He was tall and muscular, making him look much older than his twenty years. He had dark hair and eyes, like everyone other than her own family, but his hair had red tones when the sun hit it just right. Not that Rebekah had noticed, no she was always too busy running with her brothers to notice the young man that was somewhat captured by her. His personality was different than a lot of the men around the community. He was the youngest son of five male children, and that led to him being softer than the others. When his brothers were quick to anger, no one had ever seen Petyr lose his temper in that way. He preferred to learn about nature and the balance of the elements, a patient soul unlike the impulsive personalities that was common of the wolves.
Rebekah looked into his dark brown eyes and placed her hand into his. He lifted her off of the ground effortlessly. Once she was back on her feet she had the chance to truly look at him for the first time in her life. Although they had virtually grown up together side by side, barefoot children playing in the river leading to the falls, something was different now. When her eyes met his it was like her heart was beating harder than ever before. "Thank you, Petyr," she told him calmly, trying to contain the new feelings. "I'm sorry that I am so foolish, running like that."
Petyr broke out a wide grin, the dimples in his cheeks starting to show. He shook his head, his curly hair getting into his eyes. He pushed it out of the way with his hand before replying, "No, I should have gotten out of your way, I must have been lost in thought."
Rebekah just nodded and started to head back towards the place that she called home. It was getting dark, and the moon was coming, she could see it waxing in the night sky. Her father would be upset if she didn't make it back soon. He was always so nervous around the moons, even though they were always safe. The wolves didn't frighten her; there was no need to be afraid. Their mother always protected them, and always will. One day it was expected that she would marry one of the wolves of the pack and have their children, there was nothing to fear. Yet her father was so protective of them, he was always on guard saying that they were not natural beings and that the gods would not show them mercy in the days to come, whatever that meant. The religion of her father was never something that she understood.
"Let me walk you back to your home, you never know what might be out in these woods," Petyr said as he grabbed her wrist.
The touch was electric and her first impulse was to pull herself away from his touch, the other was to never let go. She allowed him to direct her back to her home and Rebekah could see the looks that she received as she passed Elijah and took her arm away from Petyr's grasp. They arrived to her door and Mikael walked outside to continue to watch the meat as it cooked over the fire. He saw Petyr bring his daughter to her and he approached him with caution. "Thank you for returning my daughter, Petyr."
Petyr bowed his head and walked away from the family's home. Mikael quickly turned to Rebekah. "What were you doing with him in the woods?"
"Nothing," Rebekah answered. "I was with Henrik and then I fell and Petyr helped me up and walked me home, nothing else."
"He's dangerous," was the only reply that came from Mikael who turned his back on Rebekah and walked away.
Klaus approached her and whispered in her ear, "Looks like someone is afraid of the big bad wolf."
Rebekah let out a short laugh and hit her brother lightly on the chest. "Don't let father hear you say that!" she told him as she entered their house. Her mother was preparing the bread for the meal and Rebekah walked over to her and kneeled beside her, taking her place in preparing the dinner.
"Running in the woods again instead of helping me I see," her mother said playfully.
"Henrik and I were going for berries but we got a bit distracted," Rebekah told her honestly. They had started with good intentions, wanting to add a little sweetness to their evening meal, but like most days they lost focus of their task quickly.
"I see, well tomorrow you need to stay around here, there are clothes to be mended…"
"Mother… I hate mending clothes… Can you teach me some more magic instead?" Rebekah asked as she moved over to set the table. She placed the bowls and utensils on the wood table and turned back to face her mother.
"We can discuss the elements as we sew," Esther responded. She loved her children dearly, but it seemed that they all had a problem with focus, except Elijah. Her eldest son was the rock of the family, the one that could keep all his siblings in line as needed. As the rest of her family entered the home to eat their meal together, her sons following their father one after another.
They chatted and ate with laughter and joy, joking with one another and enjoying each other's presence. It was then that Klaus made his announcement the one that he had been avoiding for some time.
"Mother, Father," he started, nodding at each of his parents before continuing. "I know that this goes against the normal way of doing things, but I would like to get married. Since it seems that Elijah has no interest in taking a wife I think it is more than acceptable that I should be allowed to marry even with an elder sibling."
Mikael frowned. He had known of Klaus's interest in one of the young women in the village but this was just not the way that things were done. Elijah would have to marry first, that was just the way of the land here. It might have been possible back in the homeland but not here. It was unheard of for a younger son to wed first. "I do not think that is wise Niklaus. We must follow the ways of this place."
Elijah rose from the table without a word and left through the door of their home. He was disturbed by the fact that he was preventing his siblings from moving on with their lives, yet he had no desire to marry any of the women in the village. Elijah had been in love once, as all young men fall into that trap, but it was temporary. Marriage was just an obligation that he had yet to face. He would do it for his brother, but with moderate reluctance.
Rebekah watched as Elijah left and Niklaus and her father discussed the situation. It seemed that Niklaus had already made a form of proposal to the woman and was now obligated to marry her. This infuriated her father who started to yell at Niklaus for being so impulsive.
She got up from her place at the table and left the home, following after her eldest brother. Elijah was lost in his thoughts and didn't even hear her as she approached him. He was walking along the tree-line by their home, muttering to himself. "Eli?" she called out to him.
His head jerked around as he heard her voice and he looked into his sister's sweet blue eyes. She would never understand why he was going to have to do what he planned. But it was the only way that he could allow the rest of his family to have the life that they wanted. He would have to leave. That way Niklaus could marry the girl and there would be nothing in the way. "Rebekah," he said softly. Looking into her eyes made him regret making this decision. He wanted to watch her grow up, get married, play with her children.
"What are you planning, Elijah? I know that face and I generally don't like it," Rebekah said to her brother. There was pain in his gaze, she could see that.
Elijah sighed softly as he considered the words to say to his sister. "I can't bear the thought that I am preventing Niklaus and you from living. Just because I am not able to find someone to love shouldn't keep Niklaus."
"What are you going to do about it brother?" Rebekah asked confused.
"I will leave this place. Go home, to where I was born. Before mother and father came to this land," Elijah explained. "I have the tools and the magic to get me there."
"No. You will not leave this family. There will be another way, I just know it. You can't leave us. Who will keep Father from tearing Niklaus apart if you aren't there to intervene? Or carry the firewood when Henrik and I's arms get too tired? Elijah, you can't leave us."
Elijah shook his head and turned away from his sister, unable to look her in the eyes any longer. "I do not see any other way that would allow this marriage to take place unless I were to take a wife myself, and these wolf women, they terrify me. I cannot marry one, they hold no allure for me. I will not force myself."
"Not even for your brother? Niklaus loves her, you have seen the way that he looks at her," Rebekah replied.
"Not even for him."
The night passed and the preparations for Niklaus's marriage moved forward, much to the dissatisfaction of Mikael. He felt that it was unorthodox to have a younger son wed first, but Elijah refused to take a wife. He had vanished for a few days, but after a long talk with his mother he realized that he belonged with his family and maybe one day he would be able to love one of the wolf women.
Charlotte was a young girl, maybe seventeen to Niklaus's twenty one years but the spark between them wasn't to be denied. She was quiet and kept to herself, rarely opening up to anyone. Her chocolate brown eyes and sweet smile had captivated everyone in their community, but she only had eyes for the reckless Niklaus. Rebekah rather enjoyed her company and considered the girl to be among her closest friends. She had been given the task to work on the wedding gown with the bride, so in the weeks leading up to the marriage they spent long hours hunched over the deep purple fabric.
"How did you even get to know my brother?" Rebekah asked one day as they worked together. Her stitches were sloppy and Charlotte spent more time repairing the poor work of Rebekah than making progress but she said nothing about it.
"He found me," she told the blonde simply. "I went out to gather fruit last fall and I was alone, just daydreaming when I heard his voice call out to me."
"My lady," Niklaus said as he approached the young girl, a purple wildflower in his hand. "Please take this token of my affections." A smug smile was on his face and Klaus's blue eyes pierced into her.
Charlotte had seen the boy quite often, he was of the outsider family in the community but she had never spoken with him before. He was quite beautiful, and he was one of the few men that had made the effort to approach her. Most of the young men just stared at her from a distance and whispered.
"Sir, I don't even know your name, you should guard your affections and save it for a woman you know well," she replied softly, pushing a lock of her wavy brown hair behind her ear.
"I may not know you yet, but I will," Niklaus answered arrogantly. "I am just making my intentions clear from the beginning, I didn't mean to offend."
Charlotte blushed softly, a pink glow rising on her cheekbones. She had never acted this way before, but there was something about his boldness that she found alluring. She held out a hand, "Charlotte," she told him.
"Niklaus," he replied as he put his lips to the back of her hand.
"After that he just would find me, meet me when I was doing chores or out in the woods. I began to trust him and when he finally proposed the idea of marriage I knew I had to agree, I just love him," Charlotte told Rebekah when she finished the story of her meeting her fiancee.
Rebekah had made the proper reactions at each step of the journey but she still didn't understand Klaus's love for the simple girl. She didn't seem like much to the blonde, just an average girl with pretty looks. Was she really worth dividing the family and making Mikael even more aggressive towards Klaus?
A month later Rebekah came to understand Klaus's feelings towards Charlotte when she herself found a young man to love. On this particular afternoon she was watching her brothers, all four of them duel each other, two vs two. A small crowd had gathered to watch the boys hit one another with their wooden weapons, and across the fight from her stood Petyr. Rebekah looked up from a hard blown taken by Finn and made eye contact with Petyr and something within her changed. She felt exposed, like he could see into her soul, at her core, and it made her walk away from the duel and the boy that made her feel the discomfort.
She was heading towards the butcher when she heard the footsteps approach and Petyr was behind her. "Rebekah," he called.
Rebekah pretended that she didn't hear him and continued walking along the dirt path. She felt a hand grab her arm. When she turned around she ran once again into Petyr's chest and blushed as she stepped away. She hadn't thought of him since their encounter in the woods when she fell. Rebekah could hear her heart beating loudly in her chest and felt as though she couldn't breathe, like she was about to faint.
"I have to go," she said quickly and quietly, pulling her arm free from his grip. She didn't like this feeling at all. Rebekah needed to get home to her mother, see if there was any remedy to the sick feeling she was experiencing.
"Don't," he pleaded. "I… I… think you are feeling this too, please tell me you are… like your chest is collapsing and your skin is on fire when I touch."
Rebekah shook her head, not answering no, but just not believing that he was feeling the same thing. "What is it?"
"You don't know?" he asked. She shook her head again. "It's love. My brothers explained it to me like this. The nervous feeling, the shortness of breath..."
She couldn't believe her ears, this wasn't happening to her. A part of her knew that it would take place eventually but unlike the other girls she never thought about boys in that way, she didn't yearn for the day that a man came and took her away from her family. The idea frightened her actually. "What do we do about it?" she asked.
"I need to speak with your father for his permission to see you and if he consents things will go from there," Petyr told her simply.
The days went on and Rebekah found herself spending her free moments thinking of Petyr and their possible future together. The home that they would create, the children they would have. She would have to be careful around the moons, but that could all be worked out in time. They would have all the time in the world to figure those problems out.
Almost a week later she saw Petyr walking beside her father, speaking in hushed tones. Part of her wanted to run up behind them and hear every word, but she knew that it would anger her father if she was caught listening in on the conversation. She instead ran home and waited for his return, to hear what he had told Petyr about the matter. Pretending to sew at a torn shirt of her brother's she waited nervously for Mikael to return.
Mikael came home almost an hour later, a crease in his brow, which Rebekah knew would not bring good news. He walked into their home and turned to her. "First Niklaus, now this? Rebekah, they are dangerous, there's no telling what could happen if you married that young man."
"Did you expect that I was going to stay alone forever, Father? That we all would just stay here with you and never venture into the world?" Rebekah asked, tears starting to gather in her eyes.
"I do not know what I expected, Rebekah. I never considered that you would marry a wolf; that any of my children would. It is my responsibility to keep you all safe, don't you understand that?" Mikael asked her with a sigh. He didn't trust his neighbors, and that was well known by the members of the community.
"What are you going to do then? Make us all suffer?" Rebekah asked with tears starting to run down her face. She wiped them away and continued to look at her father in defiance.
"Give me some time, Rebekah. You are still young. Maybe your mother can find a solution, a way to keep you safe from those creatures," Mikael said calmly, hating to watch his daughter upset because of him.
"Petyr isn't a creature, father, he is a man and I love him," Rebekah told him as she rushed out of their home. She ran into the woods, as fast as her legs would take her, the tears still streaming down her cheeks. Rebekah ran to the river and sat on its shore.
"Rebekah?" Niklaus's voice came from behind her. He sat down next to her, seeing the tears on her face, he wrapped an arm around his sister. Niklaus had heard about Petyr's proposal. "We will find happiness sister; I will make sure of it."