Chapter 14: Restless beast
Klaus stared down at the woman who had somehow come back from the dead without him even having to persuade a witch to revive her. That wasn't possible, and now, even though he knew she was alive once more from the thumping pulse of her heart that was beating blood through her limbs after centuries of it not, she still wasn't conscious.
The nurse whom he'd compelled walked in, a metal tray grasped tightly in her clammy hands. He regarded her with interest. "What is this?" He inquired and she smiled through the compulsion. "We're just putting an intravenous drip into her arm to attempt to get some fluids into her. Miss Elle is severely dehydrated." She explained.
Watching like a hawk, he settled back into a chair across the room. He hadn't just compelled this nurse -he had compelled a whole ward of nurses, and made sure Elle wasn't recorded anywhere other than as Jane Doe. Only this nurse knew her name, and he had made damn sure no one would find out from her, what with her being compelled to slit her own throat should she let it slip, not that she would.
Having Mikael after him once again was not what he had wanted, especially not when he was about to go off around the states and begin to sire his own, new species that would dominate over all others. And well, could he do that with a comatose past lover beside him all the time? He could, if he put enough effort behind it, but did he want to? No, and it could place her unknowingly in danger too, something he wasn't willing to chance.
How it was possible that she had came back was baffling him. He hadn't had a hand in her awakening, even if it was a temporary one. He sighed, standing before he pulled a card from his pocket. "I will be back within a fortnight with someone to watch over her other than you. Call me should anyone unwanted come looking for her, and if she shows any signs of waking, or does wake, call me and then keep her sedated until I get here. I'd hate for the past to strike again."
MvM
Following Alaric into the tunnels, Elena kept the flashlight steadily pointed ahead so she wouldn't trip. "So the Lockwood's had no idea that these tunnels ran all underneath their property?" She asked and her guardian looked around. "Careful where you shine that thing, bats hate the light." He stated, ignoring her question. She froze. "Wait what?"
"Elena." A voice eerily whispered and she spun around to see Damon concealing his laughter. She gasped before lashing out at him. "Damon!" She said angrily and he smirked. "Scaredy cat." He teased, and Alaric, unamused, piped up behind her. "Just ignore him; I do."
Elena sighed, glancing back at Damon. "So you really can't get in?" She inquired and he shook his head with a sigh of his own. "No."
Following Alaric deeper into the cave, she was stunned with what she saw. Runic carvings covered the ancient cave walls, stories of old. "What are all of these?" She asked and her guardian moved forward, shining the light off of the drawings. "Well, as far as I can tell its a story, in simple archaeological terms, its a really, really old story."
He shone the light on a series of moons that were scratched into the wall. "That, right there, is a moon cycle. A man, a wolf." He explained and Elena also shone her light on it. "A werewolf," she concluded and he nodded.
"Yeah, its the Lockwood Diaries," Damon added sarcastically with an amused smirk. "Pictionary style."
Elena moved her flashlight beam further over the vast drawings. "I don't understand," she said slowly and turned to look at the two others. "I thought the Lockwood's came with the original founders in the 1860's." She continued and Alaric nodded. "Well, maybe the Lockwood's did, but according to this wall here, these werewolves have been here a lot longer than that."
She frowned. "How long?"
Alaric shone his light onto the wall once more as Damon spoke up behind them. "Long. Get's better -show her the names Ric." He called and Alaric moved his light to a certain part of the wall. "Name's." He began. "And they're not native. They're written in runic, a Viking script."
Her eyes widened in disbelief. "Vikings?" She echoed.
Alaric moved his light further up. "This name here, when translated, reads Niklaus." Elena gaped at him, dread yet confusion covering her face. "Klaus." She echoed and he nodded, moving the light to another spot on the wall. "Elijah," he added before moving it again. "And Rebekah."
Elena moved forward slightly to see better. "These are the names of the original family?" She asked and Alaric nodded. "Carved into a cave that's been here since way before the founding of Mystic Falls or even the entire new world for that matter." He replied, wonder filling his voice.
She shook her head. "Okay, this has got to be one of Klaus's fakes." She started but Alaric shook his head as Damon spoke up again. "That's what I said."
"That could be true except for the last name up here that made us think otherwise." The history teacher claimed as he shined his light onto that specific patch and it highlighted another name written in a Viking runic script. Elena shone her light over it too. "What's the name?" She asked and Alaric glanced back at her. "Mikael."
Damon smirked from behind them both as he leant against the ancient caves wall. "Or as I like to call him -Papa Original."
MvM
Later on in the day, after witnessing a shocking use of compulsion by Rebekah to find a prom dress of all things, Elena followed Rebekah downstairs after finding out that the Original Witch was in fact the mother and the woman who created vampires. "Stefan mentioned a name that wasn't on the caves wall, and Klaus vanished with her when he fled Mystic Falls. Her name is Elle -who is she?"
Rebekah scoffed as she came to a stop in front of the fire once more. "Oh, I was wondering when I would be pestered about her. Sweet girl caught up in our family drama. Long story short then and then we can get back to actual business." She glanced back at Elena, pulling the top of a wine bottle clean off with a cracking sound. "Mikael had been hunting us for decades, and we found a lovely little mansion in which to rest. We found it with the help of a very powerful landowner and his wife, and in 1482, they betrayed us to Mikael when he came knocking on their door and apparently threatened the life of their newborn daughter, a young mite by the name of Ellevira."
Elena frowned and then her eyes widened. "Elle, right?" She breathed and the blonde nodded with a humming answer. "Indeed. We walked into their home, slaughtered the lot of them for their betrayal, and yet Elle's witchy nanny managed to incapacitate my brother, Nik, and flee into the night with her infant charge."
The brunette walked further into the room, taking a seat on one of the numerous chairs that was opposite the fireplace. "So what happened then for her to end up dead and in one of Klaus's coffins?" She pressed and growing irritated, Rebekah scowled. "We remained in the home that Katherine fled from in 1492, and in 1500, Nik began to distance himself from us. We, of course, didn't know that he had been secretly meeting with her in the forest behind our home. He didn't know who she was at that time, and her witchy mother or nanny or whatever she was then had made sure to plant in her mind that someone called Ellevira had died as a young child, her witchy nanny along with her."
Elena frowned again. "But that wasn't the case, was it? How did you find out who she was?"
Rebekah sighed, leaning against the mantle of the fire. "We celebrated Nik's birthday each year, and he invited her. I, of course, didn't like that, for I then believed her to be a commoner. Almost ended up with a dagger in my heart for ordering her to leave too. Clever Nik had given her a vervain filled necklace, a trinket she still wears even on her deathbed. Anyways, they went off to his room and well, I'm sure you know what followed then."
The brunette wrinkled her nose but didn't speak, instead letting the blonde continue. "Anyways, Nik came down to dagger me I suppose for interfering in his business, but we had been searching for the witchy nanny once it had been reported that she wasn't dead after all. Elijah found her, Niklaus revived another brother who had been daggered soon after the beginning of this drama, and they went and killed the witch, leaving her in a right mess for her charge to find. And come morning, once the wench had dragged herself out of my brothers bed, she discovered her adopted mother in a right mess."
Elena raised a brow. "You just slaughtered her mother?"
"Oh, I didn't, that was all Klaus and my other brother. Nik didn't know what to do. It was a little amusing, if not sickening to watch if I'm being honest. Well, Elle went comatose almost for a short while, grieving I suppose, but then she overheard us all discussing what had happened, and discovered the ugly truth about who we were. She ran, Nik followed, and she threw herself out of an upstairs window. Nik, of course, being stubborn and refusing to let her go as most of us wished he would, healed her as she laid dying in the rose bushes. She remained unconscious for a little while, apparently gossiping with her dead biological parents, and then stabbed my brother with a piece of wood that had "magically" appeared in her hands."
"So she survived, but that still doesn't explain how she ended up dead in a coffin." Elena countered and the blonde glared. "Well bloody shut up and let me speak then!" She snapped. "The wench ran to her home which we had since torched, and apparently she found some sort of poison that her adopted mother had been stockpiling. She drank it, and she died, and like some creepy stalker, he kept her body preserved until your boyfriend, or is it ex now? Anyways, he probably did something that revived her, and Nik fled town with her, leaving me in this hellhole. Glad you know now, and lets get back to business."