Summary: Hers is the story of hollowed cheeks and too wide eyes, of hazy memories she cannot quite recall. {Anastasia Kalijah AU}
Hers is an unremarkable story, one of hollow cheeks and dulled brown eyes. They tell her she was found wandering the streets of Russia, too proud to beg even as young as she was, with a torn gown and a belly that was never full, even after being taken to the orphanage and eating three bowls of porridge. They call her Kat, because of a little chain around her neck that is engraved by those three letters and a charm of the Eiffel Tower.
They do not like her- Kat is always trying to feed the other children more, and engages them all in games that are far too loud for the somber greys of the orphanage. She is unsurprised when she is thrown into the snow on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, and told that she may find employment at the fish factory in the neighbouring town. Instead, she finds herself making the trek to St. Petersburg- Kat has never been afraid of adventure, and all she wants is to make sense of the hazy memories that cloud her mind and confuse her so.
"Find Elijah," a hag whispers when she is denied access to Paris, and she knows she must, for there is nothing left for her here.
She waits in the alleyways of with soot stained fingers for a man who they whisper will help her get to Paris. Kat does not ask for what price- she may have no money to offer him, but she is strong and resourceful and a woman besides. And anything is better than working in a fish factory while she has hazy dreams of glittering ballrooms and a woman with Snow White hair she has learned to identify as the Grand Duchess. Why the Grand Duchess appears so frequently in her dreams she cannot say, and lingering on her dreams only ever makes her head hurt.
By day, she works for anything she can get, often sweeping floors, often aiding chimney sweeps. And finally, there is a whisper that Elijah is in the Old Palace, the one everyone swears is controlled by ghosts of the last Tsar and Tsarina. She goes there anyway, dirtying her already filthy gown on the streets in her haste to get there. The wooden planks barring the main entrance set something stirring in her heart, and she pulls the wood with a strength in her arms she did not know she possessed. The doors come open easily, gliding as if pulled by spirits, and Kat steps inside.
x
For a moment she takes in the dirt encrusted marbled floor and the dusty gilding on the high ceiling, but all she sees in her mind's eye is swirling silks around her, brightly coloured as candies she sees in shop windows. There is a man that towers over her with the same dark hair as she, and instinctively she knows where to put her feet, and she curls into his embrace gently, salt tears falling from her eyes and onto her lips-
"Hey? What are you doing?"
Just like little pieces of glass, the illusion is shattered; all the vivd sights and smells are gone, and she is left with a cobwebbed hall with rusted chandeliers.
The man in front of her blinks, once, twice, when she looks up, and feels his undead breath catch in his throat. He has spent years studying these paintings, looking for a girl with a little nose and thick raven hair and a kind smile, a girl who was lost so long ago. "Katerina," He says, and she looks up at him with wide eyes.
"You're Elijah, right? I'm Kat." She walks towards him and sticks her hand out, and he notes the soot staining her fingernails and the rough surface of her palms. This cannot be Katerina, can it? He has searched far and wide, left no stone unturned in his quest to find the girl whose blood Klaus so desperately requires.
When his lips brush her knuckles, she gives a snort and wrenches her hand away from him, footsteps echoing on the cold stone of the ballroom. (This was once so brightly polished I could see my reflection in it). "I need to get to Paris." She says, turning away from him to look out at the chipped crystal chandeliers. "I was told you could get me there."
"Elijah," Rebekah says, descending the staircase with all the grace of a Queen, "we need to get moving."
Kat turns to look at the feminine voice and finds herself speechless. No more than seventeen, but this girl has hair like spun gold, falling straight to her waist, and sapphire blue eyes. She looks at Kat with a faintly surprised expression, before rolling her eyes and continuing.
"I could get you to Paris," Elijah says thoughtfully, careful not to look at the girl who looks like one he knew so long ago, a highborn lady who let him kiss her (oh, but only if you ask me nicely, she'd say), "but I only have one ticket, and that is for the long lost Duchess Katerina."
"But everyone knows the Grand Duchess was lost over a decade ago, and that she is not coming back." A tiny frown, appears on the pale marble of her forehead, and he wonders how she has got this far so completely unaware of her beauty.
Rebekah catches on quickly, smiling innocently and sweeping over to Kat, laying her hand on her arm. "Was she?" She asks with a peculiar smile. "Everyone knows the Grand Duchess was sent to an orphanage to keep her safe, and we're only looking for her.
Kat thinks- she was left out in the snow the same night the Grand Duchess disappeared, and named for her because she remembered nothing, save for some snatches of song, and the smell of mints. The idea plants itself firmly in her mind.
"In fact," Elijah is careful to keep his words slow, and exaggerates a look over her face, "you look almost exactly like her, now I look at you properly. Where did you say you were from?"
"I'm from an orphanage," Rebekah gives a gasp and pulls Kat by the arm to one of the numerous paintings lining the ballroom walls.
It's dusty, and purple and blue paints are faded, but her face is there. She can see herself in the young Grand Duchess, and her hands go out to touch the face, remembering the hours she sat still to pose for this particular protest, and she can't tell if this is a memory or a dream.
"It's you, you are the Grand Duchess Katerina!"
"I suppose the ticket is for you then," Elijah smiles at her, and Kat reminds herself that she was absolutely prepared to do whatever it took to get to Paris, and she would be a fool not to take this chance. So she smiles as prettily and innocently as she can muster, and thinks- I am the Grand Duchess.
x
{"You could have just compelled her," He whispers to Rebekah while they are waiting for the train. And Rebekah smiles at him, and runs her own gloved fingers over his arm, slow and deliberate so he shivers.
"But brother, that's not fun at all."}
They catch a train, and Kat runs her ungloved fingers- still black with soot, still dirty, but these are Duchess' fingers- along the rich cherry wood of the compartment when no one is looking. She inahles the scent of the fresh baked bread Rebekah brings for them, but is careful to eat it slowly (they must not know that her stomach is an animal, howling for more, she must be the epitome of a lady, for she is royal now).
She sleeps easily, exhausted from the day and content to curl up into the plush velvet of her seat, aware that the soot on her fingers is marking the fabric yet too tired to care.
"Sleep well?" He asks her in the morning, and she doesn't like the gleam in his eyes.
"What is it to you?"
"I only wish to see to my Grand Duchess's comfort," and he is mocking her, with laughing eyes yet a firm line of a mouth.
"Rebekah is so much nicer than you are," She spits at him, and he has half a mind to tell her that Rebekah sees her as only prey to be eaten and nothing more. Rebekah will savour her as if she is a delicacy (and she is, Kat is the finest he has ever seen) until she has no voice left to scream with.
x
They crash, and Kat hears the whisper of 'witches' that escapes Elijah's lips as they watch the remainder of their train go up in flames from where they lie on the crushed snow. "We have to help them!" She cries, and it is a shrill, human sound that makes Rebekah cringe and put an arm around her to comfort her.
"Help is on its way for them, but we must leave now if you are to be reunited with your grandmother in time for her birthday celebrations."
She lets them lead her away, one pale fist clenched around the necklace at her throat, and she stumbles into the woods with them, the two beautiful siblings who want to help her and save her.
The ship is less grand than before, and already Kat finds herself wrinkling her nose when one of the deckhands makes a lewd remark towards her; she is forgotten that to the rest of the world, she still looks the same as Kat, a beggar girl dressed in a filthy grey gown of simple, itchy wool.
Elijah comes to find her, something tissue paper wrapped in his hands, and she raises her eyebrows at him. "It's for you," He says, and his voice is low and gravelly as he shakes the dress free of its wrappings.
It is beautiful; she has never seen any lady wear anything so pretty as the simple blue dress, cinched in place by a white satin sash, and she is already imagining the feel of the fabric against her bare legs.
"Thank you," She says, and realises it's the only nice thing she has ever said to him. "It's beautiful."
He frowns as if he is unused to compliments, and she giggles and leaves to change into it.
"You two should waltz," Rebekah's eyes light up as she grasps their hands and joins them together. "A Duchess must know how to waltz."
Kat takes his hand with a shy smile and looks downwards; she is unused to presents that are not hastily scribbled drawings from children. His hands span the width of her waist as he spins her, and her laugh spirals and rises, echoing over the water and catching in his heart.
She watches his face change as the dance, and is careful to grip him a little tighter when he spins her. She enjoys ensnaring men, new as this experience is to her. The waters below turn inky black and swirl with the promise of a storm, but still he holds her up to him, and she watches shadows play over his face as he begins to lean in, and she angles her face shut and allows her eyelids to flutter close in anticipation-
Rebekah clears her throat.
x
Jump, you will fly. Her dreams whisper, and she barely registers the rough wood of the floorboards beneath her feet. You are better off without them anyway, better off dead than used. Take another step, Katerina. Take another, one more.
There is a spray of salt around her face, and she grips the mast with wide, unseeing eyes, one small bare foot extended in front of her. It would be so easy, her dreams say, and she sees a man she knows is her father reach for her. I have missed you, he whispers, arms outstretched, and she loosens her grip on the mast.
"Kat!" He shouts, and pulls her off the mast and into the circle of his arms.
She blinks up at him, and lets out a shocked cry.
"What happened? What did I do- I'm not-" Shh, he thinks, and holds her close to his chest, pretending he doesn't notice the press of her against him. She feels the hot tears roll down her face and clings to him tightly, only pulling away in the slightest when they stop falling.
"You're alright," He promises, and impulsively brushes his lips over her cheek. He can count her eyelashes, he is so close.
She leans up and kisses him, hesitantly at first- this is her first kiss, how is she to know what to do?- just a little brush at first. And then another, and another, until her lips are bruised and all she can taste is him mingled with salt water.
As she pulls away to look at his face with a wide smile, she thinks this is what falling in love must feel like,
x
"Teach me how to be a Duchess," She asks Rebekah as they walk through the country fields, splashed with greens and pinks, and long grasses that tickle her feet under her dress.
"Be gracious, keep your head high and back straight," Rebekah advises, and makes Elijah fetch them a stick to put on Kat's head. She is careful to brush her fingers over Elijah's and send him a secret smile when he does pass her the stick, a blush blooming on her cheeks.
{"Klaus is growing restless" Rebekah whispers as they watch Kat walk ahead of them, "He will kill her and make it messy." He watches Kat bend and thread a flower into her hair, the white daisy stark against the wavy length of it.
He has curled his fingers through the length of that hair, he cannot stand by and watch them kill her, he can't.}
Instead he comes level with her and she smiles and threads her fingers through his own, like a spider spreading her web.
"I have gowns for you, in Paris," Rebekah lures her in, ready to trap her and spirit her away, and Kat's eyes light up but she is careful to keep Elijah's hands in her own.
"You don't need gowns to look beautiful," he whispers into the soft skin at the nape of her neck, and thinks how easy it would be to drain her dry.
Kat giggles and loosens her grip on him, twirling in her new dress with the grass cushioning her barefeet. Rebekah links her arm through Kat's and they walk, light and dark together, although Kat is the true light and Rebekah the true dark.
x
They drive in a motorcar to get to Paris, and Kat tries to be composed as royalty should be, but cannot stop herself from crawling to the window and looking out at the glittering city laid out before her.
I could rule the word, she thinks as her fingers trace the fog her breath makes on the glass. She feels so far away from home now (the orphanage was not home, but the children and their laughter was) and she feels an inexplicable sense of loss, as if she has lost herself and there is nothing there anymore, just a shell of a girl pretending.
She slides across the leather of the seats and curls up under the broad length of Elijah's arm, inhaling his scent of wood and fine wine.
They pull up outside the mansion, and she feels the crunch of the white stone beneath her feet as she looks up to the white marble of the house, greater than any she has ever seen. "Go inside," Elijah says, giving her a gentle push. "I'll wait out here."
He is sending her to the lion's den alone, and she feels a brief sense of panic before she straightens her back and walks as they taught her to do, measured steps to the front door. She has barely wrapped on the lion knocker once before a hand graps her and pulls her inside.
"Katerina," someone says, and the smell of mint surrounds her (the powdered feel of someone's cheek against her own, the kisses before bed and the mints she used to sneak to Kat's bed).
She realises her grandmother is shaking. "Grandmama," She cries, "Whatever is the matter?"
"They are monsters- you have to run or they will eat you alive. The boy out there- he wants your blood. You must go, before they catch you."
"But Elijah loves me-"
"He places family above all. I have a letter he sent to his brother not two days ago, finalising his plans to kill you. You have royal blood, darling, and he wants that."
Kat feels her world waver, then shatter all around her.
x
Outside, Elijah strains to hear any sounds of Kat, but finds all he can hear is the sound of leaves crunching underfoot- fiery leaves, autumn reds- and her own, frantic breath.
She has run, and he must follow, or Klaus will catch her and kill her.
Katerina feels the frightened whoosh of her own breath in her ears, building and building into a tsunami, and she has to stop and lean against a tree, just for a few seconds-
Elijah is there.
She stumbles, back, turning, skirts in hand, but he is there again.
Back again, but he follows.
"What are you?" She screams, and he looks at her grimly.
"You have to trust me." And she is laughing, shakily with her back to the tree, for he is surely deluded.
"I don't want your blood- but my brother does. Just take a chance and I will get you out of here."
"Please," he begs, when she shakes her head, his forearms coming out to ensnare her.
"I love you," he says, and something inside her tells her that he is telling the truth.
"Take me away," She whispers, and he lifts her into his arms and begins to run.
x
She ends up in his manor in England, hiding away from any siblings in the cold countryside, so dreary and grey.
"We will defeat him together," He says of Klaus, and they begin to plot.
x
"Turn me," she asks after they have had sex and are tangled in the sweaty sheets, while he presses kisses down the smooth column of her throat.
"You'll be stuck with me forever then," He laughs, and she uses a slender finger to bring his face back up to hers,
"I love you," She promises, and kisses him again, just as wanting as ever.
"Turn me," She asks again, later that same night, when the sun is painting the sky a pale blue, and he agrees.
x
fin
a/n; this originally started out as a drabble for an anon on tumblr and exploded into this.