I do not own anything TVD obviously, this is simply a fanfiction

*The story will be told in a few different views and is not restricted to Charlotte or Klaus.

Chapter 1: The begining

Mother had always taught me to be nice and help anyone in need. Our village was not big and we needed to rely on eachother to survive. Even as children we were needed and we had our dutys to the village. Other thanour servants there was no social difference between any of us. The men were hunter, they were the brute force of our village and the females handled everything else. Disease and famish were unfortunate guest that frequented our village. Winter was the toughest. It was cold and there was never enough warmth, or food, but it was my favorite. The woods around us were beautiful and whenever it was cold the village would leave there small huts and enter into the main hut where we help feasts of special importance. We stayed in that hut as a whole, together. Instead of being separate families we were together as one. The first winter I can remember was also the first winter I met him.

He was maybe seven, about two years older than me at the time. He sat in the corner sitting with his sister. She seemed angry at him and was looking at him with a fire in her eyes. I had seen her before, I think the fire took refuge in her eyes, it never seemed to leave her. I was too afraid to approach her at the time and didn't learn her name until later. He sat with his knees up and his head back in disregard and suddenly he picked up one of his feet and kicked her. She didn't cry but instead she fought. The rolled around on the ground and kicked and hit each other for a while. Neither of them seemed to be getting hurt, how much pain could a child do to another child anyways and before I knew it they were having fun laughing and kicking each other at the same time. A older man I suspected to be there father yelled out his name from afar but they didn't hear.

"Niklaus! Stop it!"

They continued to wrestle and the man walked over to them quickly with heavy steps. Even on the solid dirt floor of the hut his steps echoed through the room. He reached his hand down and pulled Niklaus up by his arm. He dangled in the air as his father scolded him.

"Niklaus! Don't you dare test me!"

"Father your hurting me!" he said through his teeth as his face twisted in pain. His father still held him in the air and tossed his body this way and that, shaking him with his rage.

"Don't ever lay a hand on Rebekah again or I will kill you!" The man than threw Niklaus over Rebekah and into the stack of firewood laying against a wall. Nikaus rolled and tumblred until he his body collided with the rough wood and his head smashed against a log. He tried to push his body up but he screamed in agony. His shoulder was pulled out of the socket from his father rough used his other arm to push himself up and he walked slowly towards a dark spot alone. His mother ran over to him and she called Ayana the village witch doctor to them.

His father was already back with the other men joking while I stood silent. Everyone else had gone back to what they were doing before the commotion, I remember standing there crying to myself. No once cared, about Niklaus or what had just happened. That is when I learned how far apart the families of our small close nit village was. Mother walked to me and told me to calm down, she explained to me that, that family was broken and that they only knew how to communicate through a way none of the village would ever understand…..hatred, dissapointment, and sadness. She gripped me by the shoulder and pleaded me not to get involved. She did not want Niklaus's father to take his rage out on anyone other than his family and that if I got involved I would be putting myself in danger and my family.

I didn't listen to her. I walked over to Niklaus who was being healed. He wouldn't look at me for a while. Ayana was smearing some leaved and paste onto his shoulder and Niklaus did not look it was helping. He winced at her movements and his mother spoke softly to him. She was encouraging him "just a little more my baby, it will only hurt just a little more. You are so strong Nikaus, don't forget that." I liked her, she was the only one in his family who was by his side. I didn't understand, with a family as large as his I would not expect him to seem so alone.

Ayana had finished applying the medicine and told him to stay clear of his father. She said that his arm needed healing and if something happened it would hurt more to heal next time. She left along with his mother. I watched as they walked away but lost them in the crowd. I turned back to see Nikalus turning towards the wall crying. I knelt on my kneees and tried to talk to him but he didn't want to talk.

I took out a vessel of water I had on my side and offered it to him. Water was short to come by in the winter, or at least water that wasn't frozen. He took it without smiling or looking at me and drank every last drop like he was quenching an internal drought of some sort. We sat against the wall, me with my legs folded and his with his legs stright out and apart, knees slightly bent in the air. I though his posture was odd, but I learned later that it was because he never spent much time with other people to learn enough of how to do things the normal way. I sat next to him for the rest of the night and just talked. He never made any motion that he was listening or that he even cared but I stayed with him all threw the night. He feel asleep there agaisnt the wall. It was funny. I remember his hair in his face all messed up and drool coming out of his mouth. His head was had fallen down a little and his drool landed perfectly between his legs.

I continued to talk even while he sleeped, hoping it would give him a sense that someone was there. The next morning I woke up with the water vessel in my hand completely full. For the rest of the winter we played together in that big hut where all of our families stayed. We hid from eachother, drew pictres in the dirt, we made up our own fairytales staring Charlotte and Nikaus, going to the far ends of the earth and conquering all evil. We found a witch to put a spell on his father to make him nice and all was good with the world at the hands of us. It was my favorite winter ever. I was young but I remember it all vividly, especially how it all ended. Once the winter was over and the spring time came I didn't see him again for a long time and I couldn't find him anywhere. I didn't know why and whenever I asked his family no one would give me an answer. Four winters past and I had only seen him throughout those years to count on my hands. We never spoke for long and when we did he was not night in the big hut during the worst winter I had experienced at the time, his mother spoke to me. She told me he was in their home alone.

"Alone? How is that possible? It is too cold, surely he will freeze to death. We must go get him"

"No young one, he cannot leave, if he leaves my husband Mikael will be very upset and will hurt him. All we can do is hope he survives the winter. I left him food and as many blankets as I could spare. Ayana has assured me he will be safe as long as he does not leave the house" she told me.

"but it is so cold, if he does't die from freezing he will die from sickness"

"Please young one, please stop persisting, I know you care for him but you musn't do anything rash"

I was now nine and while that is still young, I had grown up fast.

"How can you do that to him. How can you let him stay out there, are you too afraid of your husband to protect your own flesh and blood?" I told her softly while a tears gathered in my eyes.

"This is as much as I can do for him now…" After that she walked away. I tried to sit patiently through the days, hoping it would get warmer and spring time would come sooner. After a few days of sitting around in that large hut that now felt cold and lonely to me I could live with it no more. His family home was not far from the big hut and if I was quick and the weather was not too harsh I knew I could make it. I slipped through the door while no one was looking and was immediately pushed to the ground by the wind. I brushed the snow out of my face and stretched my sleeves over my hand. I ran as much as I could and spent the rest of the time hiding from the snow and wind as much as I could. I found refuse behind large trees or behing other family homes. My feet began to hurt, not from walking or frome exhaustion but from the snow freezing my feet. My fingertips were turning purple and I knew I had to get there quickly. I could see it in the distance and began to run. I took a wrong step in the snow and tripped over a boulder burried beneath me. I fell head first onto the hard white blaket of ice and couldn't get up again. My ankle was hurt and would not allow me to go any farther.

I called out "Niklaus! Nikalus!" but the wind swept my voice away before it could get far. Now I was alone with death looming over me like a pesky crowe just as he was.

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He saw her, Charlotte. He could see her through a tiny hole in my homes wall. What was she doing outside. She was supposed to me in the big hut with everyone else. She was supposed to be warm, sitting by a fire, laughing a joking with all the other kids. Not out here, alone, in the snow, and especially not dying. He pushed against the door of my families home but it wouldn't budge. The wind must have been keeping it closed or something. Klaus hit my side against it and still nothing. He needed to get out there and save her. Mother told me not to leave the house and I promised I wouldn't. It had been weeks and he was here in that small space, and he was ok with that. He was used to it by now but Charlotte was going to die and he was only a few yards away.

"Let me out! Let me out!" Klaus yelled out. He hit pushed against the door some more and each time he fell to the ground. He stepped back as far as he could and ran straight at the door. Klaus ran straight into the door "Let me out!"

Nothing, not a budge.

Klaus collapsed to the ground. He knew that if he didn't get out there she would die. He would have to watch her through this whole and see the life slip from her body and know I did nothing.

It never occurred to him until now that air never came through that hole. Wind had never brushed his face throughout the entire winter. "Ayana must have done something" he thought to himself. He sat on the ground. His head in between my arms "Ayana. Please, let me out. I need to save Charlotte" He didn't know if she could hear me or if she could do anything but he kept pleading. "Please Ayana, I just want to save her. I don't care if I die but she is good, her life is valuable" he pleaded.

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I gasped for breathe "Klaus" I ran towards his mother when suddenly another mother in the village ran frantically through the hut searching for someone.

"Charlotte? Charlotte? Where are you?"

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The door flew open suddenly without any cause. I ran towards her with all my might and knelt onto the ground next to her. A put on hand under her neck and the other under her legs. I pulled her up off the ground as I stood and pulled her close to me hoping to give her some body warmth. The air around her mouth got white as I relaxed knowing she was breathing if nothing else. I swiftly ran back to the house and closed the door behind me. It now shook against the wind and the house was colder than it had been before. I set her down on the ground in what was my bed and wrapped all the blankets I had around her body. I may have gone a little overboard wrapping them so tight she could not move.

"Charlotte. Are you ok? Charlotte I need to hear your answer" I told her

I knelt down next to her and wrapped my arms around the blankets I had on her.

"mmmmm, Klaus...thank you " She told me through chattering teeth.

"Thank you? No, thank Ayana" A rolled over on my side realizing I was too scandalously close to her, this type of closeness was only allowed by husband and wife. I blushed and folded my arms with a hint of a smile spread across my lips. I was so happy to see her here.

I had been abandoned and left alone many many times before, and only two times has someone ever come to me. Both of those times was this small frail girl who had so much more strength than I did. That is when I decided to protect her and take care of her because she was the only person who felt that way about me.