"Please, Father! I will get better!" the boy cried, cowering away from the man before him.
Mikael Mikaelson held a stick clutched tightly in one hand. He looked furious, his eyes gleaming black pits as he advanced. His dirty blond locks fell over his shoulders, his muscles showing prominently in his anger, veins standing out against his skin.
"You are a failure! You cannot hunt! You cannot fight! You can do nothing but help your mother prepare dinner! You do not deserve to have the name Mikaelson!"
And he raised the stick, stepping forwards so his shadow fell over the small boy, only seven years old. He had sandy blond hair, his eyes a dark blue.
"Father!" he pleaded.
"No! You will be taught these things or I will throw you out into the forest!"
Mikael brought the stick down with a sickening force. The crack was heard as an echo from down in the village, though no one really payed it any heed.
But the cry of pain Mikael heard wasn't that of his weak son. No, the cry he heard was that of the young girl who had put herself in the way and taken the blow. Her hair was long and blond, her eyes a blue-grey. Even then, at age six, you could see she was going to be beautiful when she grew up.
Mikael almost hit her again, but thought better of it, realising that if he did, there would be consequences. Instead, he let the stick slip from between his fingers and he sighed.
"Good morning, Leta," he said stiffly, speaking between his teeth.
"Leave Niklaus alone, Mikael. He has done nothing." She folded her arms and glowered at him.
Mikael only laughed. "Get out of my way, you foolish girl!" Mikael snarled, spit flying from his mouth.
Leta shook her head vehemently. "No. I will not let you harm him."
"Leta Mitchell, stay out of things that do not concern you!" he shouted. Leta could see the anger, violent and deadly, bubbling, only just controlled, beneath the surface.
That was what set her resolve. "You shall not harm Niklaus as long as I am alive. If it is with my dying breath, I will defend him. I do not care if it is the last thing I do, even if I have to break my curse in doing so!"
Mikael only shook his head and walked away...
Several years later...
The point of the knife etched the words into the bark of the tree trunk. Leta whispered them quietly as she wrote, gently keeping one hand around a moss covered branch to keep her steady in the tree.
"Niklaus get up here," she called when she had finished, looking down at the young man sitting on the bank of the river, his dirty blond hair hanging around his face as he bent over a small wooden chess piece he was carving. But at her call, he looked up with a smile playing upon his pink lips. His eyes were a deep, dark blue that contrasted with his pearl pale skin. He was handsome, his face long since lost any boyishness, though he retained a light hearted attitude that suited a boy better than someone of his age.
Niklaus didn't make a move to get up, and Leta started to think...
Laughter sounded from a little way-away before Niklaus could open his mouth, and from a knot of close trees appeared a pretty young girl with plaited fair hair and light blue eyes. She ran over to the trunk of the tree, grinning up at Leta with her perfect teeth. Her lips were full. She could only have been nineteen at the most and slim with a dusting of freckles across her nose.
"Have you finished, Leta?" she inquired, not climbing the tree, but staying on solid ground.
"Yes. Nik, are you coming up or not?" Leta asked, tucking the knife into its sheath and adjusting her position to a more comfortable one in the trees branches. She stretched her arms and swung her leather clad legs backward and forward a few time while awaiting his answer.
He didn't say anything however, didn't look at her. His shoulders tightened, hunching slightly. Leta knew those signs well and in moments she was dropping from the tree, landing perfectly on all fours beside him. He flinched away involuntarily, but Leta knelt facing him and took his face in her hands.
"What did he do to you, Niklaus?" she whispered, almost resignedly, forcing him to look her in the eye. "What did Mikael do?"
"He was in one of his rages. He decided to take it out on me..." He closed his eyes, a single tear sliding down his cheek. "I did not want to worry you."
She clenched her teeth in anger, bile rising in her throat at the image she had seen so many times. The thought of her best friend being beaten disgusted her, but nothing as close as the disgust she felt for the man who did it. She loathed Mikael Mikaelson with a vengeance you wouldn't expect of someone so beautiful and fair.
"Nik, how bad is it?" Rebekah said jerkily, pausing between each word. She was standing on his other side looking upset and worried. "And why wasn't I told? Better yet, why didn't I hear it?"
Suddenly the whole wood seemed darker, gloomier, and grimmer to them all. The sun seemed to have gone behind a cloud and the bird song, instead of being pretty, sounded harsh and crow-like to their ears.
"No worse than last time," Niklaus muttered, avoiding eye contact with them both.
Leta bit her lip, worried, angry, not just at Mikael, but at herself for not realising sooner. Niklaus had kept it hidden well, but now she could see the way he held himself, afraid to move too much.
"You should have told me," Leta said, sitting back on her heels, remembering only that morning how trivial things had seemed so important. How happy they had all been together.
Leta drew in a sharp breath and slammed her hand into the ground, hard enough to cause bruising, and hissed, "He made you keep it a secret, didn't he?" her eyes angry and her hands clenched.
She didn't need Nik's half nod to tell her yes, she knew it already.
"He said that if I told anyone he would do it again," he whispered, barely moving his lips. He was frightened. "He said that if you started another fight with him to defend me then..."
Rebekah and Leta both gasped and Rebekah clapped a hand to her mouth in horror. "He wouldn't."
"He would," Leta muttered, springing to her feet lightly.
"Please, Leta, do not challenge him again, it will not end well," Niklaus pleaded, grabbing her hand to stop her pacing up and down, fuming as she went.
Leta glanced at him. She sighed, reached up her free hand and pulled open the knot securing her long golden hair in a ponytail. It fell around her face and her grey-blue eyes shone slightly in the fading light of the wood.
"I will not, Niklaus," she told him kindly, a sad little smile playing on her perfect lips.
Leta Mitchell was twenty years of age, one of the most beautiful girls in the village. Her long blond hair reached down to her waist, shining in the setting sun like a wave of molten gold. Her skin was light, unmarred by blemishes or scars of any kind. She was willowy, her waist slender. If you looked closely at her hands, you could see the dirt that collected underneath her fingernails from being out in the forest, the chipped edges and the small marks that indicated she was never idle.
Amongst the villagers she had gained the title The Forest Nymph, on account of her hair and her astounding beauty and even her voice when she sang. Her figure also lent to this name, as did her smile, though her personality did not. Where the nymph was said to be hollow and uncaring, Leta was warm and cared very much about the people she loved, sometimes even to the point where she would actively put herself in harms way for them.
She had always been like that, and she hoped she always would be. She didn't want to end up like Mikael.
Leta had lived in the village since she was born, her mother and father both having been born there themselves.
A moment passed, then shouting was heard. Calling, really. It was Esther, wanting her children to come home.
"We should be getting back, it's almost dark," she smiled at them both, then turned and began to make her way through the trees. Niklaus and Rebekah followed at a slower pace, until Leta stopped and looked over her shoulder at them.
"Nik, meet me here tomorrow. I want to see how bad it really is."
Niklaus nodded, not meeting her eyes, and Leta smiled faintly. Rebekah gave her a small smile in return.
"See you on the morrow then, Nik, Bekah." Leta nodded once to each of them, then, before either could do more than react, she ran off into the forest, leaving them behind her.
Running was a part of who she was, it made her feel free, like she could do anything. Then again, holding a sword made her feel strong. A lot of things made her feel like she could do whatever she wanted, even though she knew she would never be able to do that.
Her hair whipped back from her face as she jumped over a fallen log and ran down the bank, using tree trunks to stop herself from tumbling to the ground.
But that all ended abruptly when she left the safety of the trees and came face to face with her very angry looking mother.
"Leta," Canna said coolly, folding her hands in front of her. "Where have you been?"
Leta folded her arms and sighed. "You're not judging me on what I'm wearing then?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Canna huffed and grabbed her by the wrist, shaking her head in exasperation. "Of course I am, but that won't stop you so I don't care."
And so my torture begins...
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