Elijah.
How many times have I thought about the small, brunette girl that had his admiration over a thousand years ago. Tatia. Who died for his family, her blood spilled and mixed with wine that he and his brothers and sister would drink without knowing what it contained. The young woman, who in another time had given birth to another man's child, yet still held the eyes of a small viking village despite her past.
She must have been spectacular.
Perhaps it was different then, when he was so much younger, into only his first lifetime. Maybe he was more given to cherishing beauty than substance; but I don't think so. Elijah is Elijah, in any age. She must have been smart, charming. Judging from the doppelganger, she would have had delicate hands, a bright smile.
What would she sound like if she spoke Russian? That must have been her mother tongue, with a name like Tatia. A fierce language, but commanding. I bet she was brave, until the very last moment. Living amidst werewolves. Native Americans in a new world. Guarding her child as the one thing that, having marked her as unmaidenly, might have brought out a caring, empathetic nature.
Katerina was always a fighter, at least from what Elijah tells me. That quality, among others, had drawn him to her. Before she was a vampire, that is. Their conversations of love, lazy afternoons of running through the grounds of Klaus' estate. It must have been enchanting. Courtly, politely intellectual and yet delicately stirring. Just like him.
So many years have passed between that time and now-centuries of moving from country to country; of dealing with thousands of humans, living out changes in their societies, advances in culture. Two doppelgangers, one a vampire whom he used to love. One a teenager living a recreation, almost, of his and Klaus' feud over Tatia. I wonder if she realizes how close it all comes to those days in Dark Ages Virginia. One dark brother, one light. Who the better is. Who the more worthy.
Elena. She must know how the lives of her predecessors ended. One by a knife in Esther's hand, another by a rope at her own. Katerina's story hasn't ended yet. Will hers, ever? I've seen the way Elijah looks at her, how his eyes see in her what he found in her ancestors. That light. Love for those she cares about. Persistance. Strength.
Do I have any of these things in my own character? Is it possible, really, to live up to two dead women, locked firmly as they are in the mind's eye as faded and perfect? Or a living one, who stands apart with her uncommon devotion to those she loves.
Sometimes, when I look out the window, and imagine Elijah in Mystic Falls, wearing out his loyalty to his family in the culmination of an age-old grudge, I'm acutely aware of the history that preceeds me. How heavy a thousands years' memories weigh on a person that hasn't experienced them, let alone on one who has.
What can you provide to a vampire that has seen everything? How silly a human with only two decades of life under her belt must seem to an Original. What little wisdom resides there that a thousand years hasn't already made clear?