A/N -Hello! So after The Originals episode, I started bouncing off ideas about the plot to my friend, who has occasionally mentioned my plot ideas were slightly better than canon VD. I have also managed to predict a few canon plot twists on VD. I really like what the pilot of TO has given us and want to write my own TO. Thus, my summer project was born. My goal is to type up the "first season" of The Originals spinoff before it airs and we'll compare and contrast to see how many I got right or if my canon kicks their canon's ass.

So while we wait for VD to come back on air and for TO to begin, I introduce to you my new VD fanfic! I hope y'all enjoy!

disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Diaries or The Originals. I do own the plot however to this fanfiction of mine.

Warnings: I am not from New Orleans. Before researching background info on New Orleans, all I knew about it was Mardi Gras, pretty, historic, and extremely haunted. That being said, I realize my research information can be/may be/is wrong and ask everyone who is knowledgable in New Orleans history to forgive me. I also have a problem with verb tenses. There is mention of slavery in this chapter.

Tabula Rasa for All the King's Men

Summary- my take on The Originals spinoff. He wanted to be King and so he will be. New Orleans is his city after all, and where they were all happiest. But whispering of rebellion is easy. Initiating it is a whole different thing. Especially when his prodigy Marcel succeeded where the Originals did not. She wanted normalcy in her life. He wanted him redeemed and the family together again. Here in New Orleans is where they'll fix their family...or finally break apart.

I. The Orphan

New Orleans 1742

Even though he was an orphan, Marcel knows his family history. It stings like the forty lashes his master has given him and clenches his heart as if he was drowning.

He knows his mother had been christened Isadora, that she had been one of the many African slaves brought to New Orleans twenty-four years ago. He knows his birth father had fallen for the young fourteen year old Isadora, for the striking black beauty of her, and outbidded everyone at the auction. Isadora had walked off the platform and into Prideaux's possession as the most expensive bought slave of the day. But to his birth father, it had been worth every penny.

Isadora had been assigned to Mistress Prideaux to be a caretaker for the children (Louis, Marie, and Charlotte) and under her tutage, soon learned the French language. Mistress Prideaux had held Isadora fondly in her heart but that had all changed when Isadora became pregnant. She soon miscarried unexpectantly and the next three times Isadora became pregnant, it ended the same.

Until Marcel was conceived. By then, Isadora had been recognized as Master Prideaux's mistress and was given a small house of her own in another area of New Orleans to the shame of Mistress Prideaux. But maybe the miscarriages had done something to Isadora's body for it betrayed her the night Marcel had been born. As Marcel drew his first breath, Isadora had breathed out her last. It had been Master Prideaux who named Marcel and taken him back to the Prideaux home.

(Marcel can't recall who had told him his family history. Had it been Sarah, the kind old cook who had looked after him before she had been sold to another master? Or had it been Delilah, Master Prideaux's mistress?)

Since then, Marcel had served the Prideaux family. Once Mistress Prideaux had died, Master Prideaux began to act fatherly towards Marcel. If acting fatherly meant a lighter workload, an occasional pat on the shoulder, and being randomly taught to read and write French in the master's study.

That all ended when Master Prideaux died during Marcel's seventeenth year and although his birth father never outright showed any favoritism towards him, his new master, the legitimate white son Louis, looked for any excuse to whip Marcel. Louis had been old enough to remember the anger and shame the late Mistress had gone through and wanted to retaliate on Marcel. Because Marcel had the same striking beauty of Isadora and his skin color displayed the mixed blood that ran through him. Because Marcel was the only one mentioned by name in the late Master's will, not Louis. But Louis would never mention this to Marcel, never.

Alas, even though the new Master Prideaux tried his best to beat and work Marcel into submission, to make Marcel cast his eyes down when ever Louis walked into the room, Marcel never cowered or wavered. In fact, Marcel would stare straight into Louis's eyes and even argued against him.

But Louis couldn't sell or kill Marcel. It was the last wish of the late Master and as the dutiful son, Louis can't disobey his father. (Because if he did, he'll lose his inheritance)

For four years, Louis and Marcel would continue this dance.

0o0o0

Marcel first meets Klaus and his family during the New Years Eve ball held at the Prideaux estate when he bows to them in greeting and tells the carriage driver where to park on the estate grounds. Marcel has heard enough from Louis and his wife's talks to know that the Mikaelson family were considered outsiders in New Orleans despite the fact that they were one of the first settler families and had contributed to the building of it. They were shrouded in mystery and have been rumored to have moved back to Europe. Had it been any other family, New Orleans society would have immediately shunned them but there was something about the Mikaelson family that intimidated people from doing so.

Like all the rest of the upper class, their eyes barely glance over to him as the three brothers helped their sister down the carriage and made sure she looked perfect before entering the Prideaux estate.

He thinks nothing more of the Mikaelson family.

.

.

.

Louis talks about the Mikaelson family for the next three days in outrage. They had approached him to ask if he was willing to sell the family business to which Louis had bulked at immediately. New Orleans grew larger every month and the Prideaux fabric business thrived because of it. Louis talks of the insolent tone the youngest Mikaelson male had addressed him with.

"It reminded me of Marcel." he admitted quietly to his wife while looking directly at him. Marcel ignores the bait and continued to move the decorative heavy chest from the room. Marcel thinks it is time someone finally showed Louis he wasn't the most powerful and felt disappointment it wasn't him. Marcel was a slave and did not have any power in society.

A week later, the Mikaelson family became partners to the Prideaux fabric business and to Louis' indignation, he couldn't remember why they became partners.

0o0o0

When the "insolent young Mikaelson male" was announced to have dropped by for a visit, Marcel was being lashed furiously by Louis. Marcel feels he had gone too far this time, that he would not survive the remaining lashes. Blood drips unto the ground, a small pond forming, making him tremble and it seems to motivate Louis more since the lashes became sharper, quicker, agony.

"Have I come at a bad time?" he asked, leaning against the doorway, his eyes flickering between Louis and Marcel. The fashionable fine clothes he wore betrayed his wealth status, higher than the Prideaux family could achieve.

Louis blinks and the whip stills. He straightened up and flung the whip to the side of Marcel.

"We're not finished yet, slave." he spat before he began to escort Klaus Mikaelson into the parlor. But Marcel can't resist getting the last word, even if it will cost him later, and he says, "I thought we were since the lashes kept getting weaker."

Louis's face flushed with anger and his eyes promised him retribution later when the guest has left. The corners of Klaus's mouth quirk up as if amused and he stares at Marcel a bit longer than was proper. Neither Marcel or Louis notice this.

0o0o0

Klaus suddenly appears before Marcel when he is limping to the courtyard under the guidance of the full moon for the continuance of his punishment (and more for his disrespect earlier). Marcel flinched back automatically and his back punishes him for it.

"Master Prideaux has quite a nasty temperament concerning you, Marcel." he says nonchalantly, as if he randomly pops up in the night to escort slaves to their masters. Marcel does not respond and instead he walks past Klaus. A sign of disrespect but Klaus just chuckled and appears before Marcel again.

"Tell me, Marcel, what do you want most in this world? Freedom?" he asked, his eyes flickering to Marcel's bloodstained shirt. Marcel shouldn't raise to the bait that was laid out in front of him, he was already keeping his master waiting, but like the fool he was, he answered Klaus.

"I want power the most. Everything else comes with it. Everyone will do anything for power." Marcel responded, looking at Klaus straight in the eye. Marcel might be a slave who doesn't know anything else besides a bit of French and his family history but what he does know is power counted. Having power mattered. It was the reason why men like Louis and Klaus can walk around as if they owned the world.

Klaus smirked and drew even more closer to Marcel.

"But will you do anything for power?" he drawled, the tension spiking between them. Marcel barely had time to think Klaus might be a sodmist, looking for a new slave, when Klaus suddenly drew Marcel forward and sank his fangs deep into his neck.

A few moments later, a barely unconscious Marcel was fed blood from Klaus. Marcel drank deeply and was about to slump backwards unto the ground when Klaus snapped his neck quickly and painlessly.

This is how the slave Marcel dies.

0o0o0

When Marcel comes to and opens his eyes, the result made him aware of just how thirsty he was. He also recalls perfectly who had told him about Isadora-it had been the late Mistress Prideaux. He sits up and looks around to realize he was in a richly decorated bedroom. Klaus sat by his bedside, half hidden by the shadows of the candle lit room. But the shadows did not hide the dark-haired woman on Klaus's lap or how he was sucking her slender neck. The sight sent shivers down Marcel's spine before anger took over.

"What have you done to me?" snarled Marcel furiously. There were no mirrors in the room to reflect the way his face momentarily distorted and the veins around his eyes popped up or how fangs flashed as he spoke.

Klaus stops what he was doing and smirks at him, the vivid red of blood on his lips and chin contracting against the pale candle light and the darkness.

"What have I done to you? Why, I have given you what you wished for, of course." replied Klaus, leaning back against the chair and letting the woman slump further down on his lap. The revealed fact that she was unconscious did nothing to relieve Marcel's fears.

"And what exactly is that?" he shouted at him. If it was even more possible, Klaus's smirk grew larger and with eyes glinting maliciously, he flung the woman on the top of the bed. Blood dripped from her neck, where two small puncture wounds laid, and her breathing was far too shallow to be normal.

"I have given you power, Marcel." Klaus announced triumphantly.

A/N- In The Originals episode, it is revealed that Klaus and his family were run out of town "100 years ago," which according to the Vampire Diaries wiki, happens to be in 1911. However, Marcel's remark, "Three hundred years ago, you helped build a backwater penal colony into something," is inconsistent with the founding year of New Orleans (1718) because his remark puts it at 1711. I can then conclude based on his flippant remark and the fact that Marcel was basically raised by Klaus after his turning ("You taught me everything I know" and a synonym of protégé is dependant), that Marcel is almost as old as the city itself. Klaus's remark about Marcel having being a "pathetic little scrapper still trembling from the lashes of the whips of those who would keep you down," supports this idea because in my ignorant mind, whipping means middle ages to Civil War era (1860s) or ending at the 1900s.

But wait, Klaus says "When I left 100 years ago you were a pathetic little scrapper..." and doesn't that throw off my theory? No. I figure Marcel would have been a mere shadow of himself all those years ago, afraid of and grateful to Klaus just as Klaus's siblings love and hate him, becoming the Marcel we know after Klaus has left and he had to pick up the pieces, becoming more confident and assured as vampires began to follow him instead. (In the Marcel trivia section of the VD wiki, it mentions all of the above but it doesn't in the profile and history which confuses me so I'm just going to stick with my own theory.)

With that said, please review! Comment on my argument, argue against it, or tell me what you think so far. I hope to update every Thursday with a new chapter but we shall see if I do. Reviews will help greatly ;)