Esther Mikaelson POV

It is nearly time. I can feel it. Isabella is coming. I shall see my daughter one last time before I end them. This has gone on too long. They have gone on too long. I should let them die a thousand years ago but I was so desperate for my family to survive I did not heed the warning Ayanna gave to me so long ago. I was so scared for my family that I did not realise how much I had upset the balance of nature. I love my family but they are abominations. And so is every sired body after them. They have caused enough pain on this earth to last an eternity. It is time for them to go where the living can no longer be hurt, the Other Side.

I was tired. Old and tired. You would think after a thousand years of sleep I would feel satisfied, but no. My sleep was short and plagued with dreams, nightmares. I force pushing from the Other Side. A force I did not wish to meet again. My old teacher Ayanna. We had plagued each other while I was on the Other Side and she will not let me rest now that I have been awoken. I used to be Ayanna's apprentice in the old world. She was The Witch. I used to feel honoured to be taught under her and my family were blessed to have such a skilled healer with them. After I lost my first born son to the plague I realised just how easy it was to lose another. Mikael and I were planning to try again and it was when I became pregnant with Finn that I realised that I could lose him too.

Having Elijah and Isabella was the most hard. Twins were unheard of in those days so having two babies both scared and elated me. I always had a special place in my heart for the two miracles. It was half a year after they were born that I met the leader of the neighbouring were-wolf pack face to face. I was enthralled. So far my life had been filled with devastation and dullness. Duran was exciting. He was dangerous and mysterious and not Mikael. He was not pigheaded, he had valour, he was not cruel, he was firm and he made me feel special. Obviously I did not succumb to his charm straight away. It was at least another six months before he had me truly. I think, in the back of my mind, I planned to wait those six months until the twins were one and Mikael and I were trying for yet another baby. I knew the risk of becoming pregnant by Duran was high but I did not care. I was foolish and my next son Niklaus paid the price for that. I still loved him all the same, even when Alyanna told me he was the result of Duran and me. Mikael never found out until the end but he always seemed to hate Niklaus. It was obvious he felt something was wrong with him. Mikael thought him reckless and unskilled.

Mikael's attention was taken off Niklaus two years later when I had Kol. By then I had ended my affair with Duran, much to the relief of Alyanna, and Kol was born looking the spitting image of his father Mikael. A year later I was happily blessed with another baby girl, Rebekah. Mikael may have always preferred the boys over the girls but he always had a soft spot for Rebekah. He had never cared much for Elijah and Isabella. He didn't like the idea of abnormality and twins were too abnormal for him. Two years later Henrik came along and I asked Alyanna to remove my fertility. Mikael hated the idea but I pointed out that we were getting old and I would probably not survive the next birth and he let it alone. Truthfully I did not want another child. I was perfectly content with my seven wonderful children.

We lived in peace with the lycanthropes, my affair the furthest thing from my mind, in the new world. We felt as if nothing could touch us. Until sixteen years later when the first tragedy happened. It had always been a rule that you were never to watch the lycanthropes as they changed at the full moon. It was for our safety because if they saw us they would destroy us. We had always honoured that rule and Mikael and I had drummed it into our children never to go out on a full moon. However, on the first full moon after Henrik had turned sixteen, he convinced Niklaus to go with him to watch the lycanthropes change. Niklaus, not being able to convince him otherwise and too scared of his own father to warn him of Henrik's plan, accompanied him, fear holding his heart in an iron grip. I was with Ayanna at the time and that evening she said she felt something was wrong but did not know what it was. I had felt it too but decided not to say, I was not too worried about it. Until I heard the screams of anguish and horror leaving my son's lips as he carried the mutilated body of my youngest son back to the village. He laid him down on the grass as the villagers gathered round and wept. I begged Ayanna to do something but she told me he was passed help. I held my boy to my chest as I felt the life leave his young body. My son's life was over and the war with the werewolves that still lives on today had begun.

It was then that I decided to act on an idea that had dwelled in the back of my mind for some time, a way to make my children stronger and faster than any creature so that they may live forever and never have to feel the cold claws of death. I relayed my idea to Mikael and he convinced me to do it despite the sever warning I got from Alyanna. She told that if I upset the balance of nature, there would be a price. And there was. The White Oak tree that grew in our village could kill them. The sunlight they once played and bathed in burned them. The neighbours that used to be our friends could shut their doors them. The vervain that grew around the village could burn them and they had an insatiable thirst for the blood that once kept them alive. And worst of all, turning Niklaus meant I unintentionally awakened his werewolf gene and exposed my infidelity. Horrified, I placed a curse on Niklaus, suppressing his werewolf abilities and turned my back on him to gain favour from Mikael. I will always regret choosing my husband over my son. After my children burned the White Oak tree, Niklaus 'killed' me for my betrayal and abandonment, placed me in a coffin and hid me. He then framed Mikael, causing the rest of his siblings to hate him as well. After that I watched from the Other Side in horror as my children covered the world in shadow. I watched and waited for my chance to come back and undo what I did so long ago. And now is my chance. I am almost ready.