"So, the Lockwood's really have no idea that these tunnels are underneath their property?" Elowen asked as Alaric led her through the caves. She had a flashlight in her hand so she could carefully step over the rocks without falling.

"Careful where you flash that thing," he told her. "Bats hate the light."

"There's bats down here? Aren't they pretty harmless?"

Elowen felt a breeze woosh from behind her and then a whisper in her ear.

"Elowen."

Elowen turned around and flashed the flashlight in Damon's eyes. He recoiled and raised his hands up to block out the light.

"Nice try, Damon."

"Man, I can never scare you anymore!" Damon whined. "You're no fun."

"Just ignore him," Alaric told her. "That's what I do."

Elowen turned back around and continued following Alaric. "So, you can't get in, huh?"

"No," Damon replied. "Seems even the ancient Lockwood's were anti vampire."

"Are these drawing really that old?"

Damon gestured forward. "See for yourself."

They all walked further into the tunnels until they came to the opening. Damon stopped just before it.

"Well, this is as far as I can go."

Alaric and Elowen entered the chamber and she shined her flashlight up at the wall where the drawings were. She furrowed her eyebrows.

"What is this? Some type of message?"

"As far as I can tell, it's a story," Alaric responded. "In simple, archaeological terms, it's a really, really old story." He pointed to one of the drawings. "That right there is the moon cycle." He pointed to another drawing. "A man, a wolf."

Elowen nodded in understanding. "Alright, so, werewolves."

"Yeah, it's the Lockwood Diaries: Pictionary Style," Damon commented.

"The only thing confusing me is that the Lockwood's came here with the Original Founder's in the 1860s. How can these be here?"

Alaric shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe the Lockwood's did, but according to this wall, these werewolves have been here a lot longer than that."

"Obviously."

"It gets better," Damon piped up. "Show her, Ric."

Alaric pointed his flashlight to another part of the wall. They appeared to be names. "This name here, I translated it and it read Niklaus." He moved his flashlight across the wall to the other names. "And Elijah, and Rebekah."

"Are Kol and Finn here, too?" Elowen asked. "Marisol says they were Klaus's brothers also."

"There's other names here, so it's possible."

Elowen nodded as she felt a premonition coming on.

Rebekah and Klaus were standing in the same cave Damon, Alaric and Elowen were currently in. Klaus was holding a torch while Rebekah used a knife to carve her name into the rock wall.

"Rebekah, let me have at it!" Klaus said to her, clearly annoyed.

"Quiet, Niklaus! I am to have more concentration if I am not to slice off a finger."

"Father will not like you handling the blade."

"If I want to wield a blade, I shall wield a blade. Father need not know."

"He will find out. He always does."

"That is because you always tell him."

"I cannot help it. He frightens me."

"He frightens us all. That is why he stick together as one. Always and forever. Right, traitor?" Rebekah turned away from the wall to smile at Klaus. He smiled back.

"Right."

"Here, you finish it. I am to help mother with the meal."

"Yes, go tend to dinner and leave the blades to the men, little sister."

Rebekah handed the knife to Klaus blade down and used a little more force than necessary against Klaus's palm. It cut through Klaus's hand and he winced in pain.

"Agh, Bekah!"

Rebekah smirked. "It's just a little blood. Be a man about it."

Elowen was brought back to the present and looked at Damon and Alaric to make sure they didn't notice anything. They didn't.

"So, these are the names of the Original Family," she said as a statement, not a question. Alaric nodded.

"Carved into a cave that's been there since way before the founding of Mystic Falls, or even the entire New World, for that matter."

"How are we so sure this isn't one of Klaus's fakes?"

"I said the same thing," Damon said while Alaric moved his flashlight to another name on the wall.

"That could be true, except the last name up here made us think otherwise."

"Well, what's the name?"

"Mikael."

"Mikael," Elowen repeated. "The vampire hunter who knows how to kill Klaus."

Damon nodded. "Yep. I now like to call him 'Papa Original'."

xxxx

Alaric, Damon and Elowen had moved to Alaric's apartment after Alaric had taken pictures of the drawings. Alaric was looking over the pictures while Damon was helping Elowen with hands on combat fighting against vampires.

"Hang on." Elowen stopped for a moment. "Maybe I should bring out Marisol. She's the one who needs this."

"Won't she just remember everything you learn? She figured out how to use a cellphone with your unintentional help."

"Yeah, but learning this herself might be better."

Damon made a face.

"What? I thought you liked her."

"To a certain extent, yeah. She asks too many questions."

"That hurt her feelings."

Damon rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine. Come on out, Marisol."

Elowen sighed and closed her eyes. When they opened again, Marisol immediately pouted and crossed her arms.

"You said I ask too many questions. Is that such a bad thing?"

Damon had to resist rolling his eyes again. "It just gets repetitive, that's all. Now, come on, come at me."

"These images tell a story," Alaric started talking mainly to himself. "To learn a story, you have to decipher these images."

Damon effortlessly disarmed Marisol when she tried to stake him.

"You're sloppy," he told her.

"I'm still new," Marisol retorted.

"Your arms are too weak. Here." He grabbed her arms and positioned them differently. "Keep them strong and locked, just like this. Try again." As Marisol began again, Damon spoke to Alaric. "'Ghost of Christmas Past' Mason Lockwood set up the cave and led us to a weapon that can kill Klaus."

"Mikael has the weapon," Marisol told them as she went for Damon again. He spun her around and pressed her flush against his chest with the stake pointed at her chest.

"Bang! You're dead."

Marisol scowled lightly and pushed Damon away.

"The problem with Mikael having the weapon is that we already found him and then lost him," Damon reminded as Marisol abandoned him in favor of walking over to Alaric. "Why aren't you trying to stop us? Klaus is your precious Nik."

Marisol got uncomfortably silent and shifted around for a moment. "He lied," she said at least.

"And that's enough of a reason to kill him?"

"He made Stefan mean. And he made Elowen do all those bad things."

"Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Even if Mikael does have the weapon these drawings are talking about, at the very least they might be able to tell us what that weapon is," Alaric cut in.

"Then all we have to do is find out what they mean." Marisol shrugged as she looked over the pictures. "Maybe I can help somehow. I know things."

"We're well aware." Damon came up behind Marisol. That nervous feeling she usually got around him was starting to happen again as she felt his breath on the back of her neck. "If I'm being as irritatingly optimistic like you two, how do you suppose to figure these out?"

Marisol shrugged. "Elowen says it's easy. We go to Rebekah."

"If you do that, you better leave it to Elowen."

"What? Do you think I can't do it?"

"Yes."

Marisol's face dropped, but she nodded. "Okay. I'll bring her back."

It only took a second, but Elowen was awake again. She clapped her hands together.

"Alright. Wish me luck."

xxxx

Elowen approached Rebekah as she did a series of gymnastic moves and landed right in front of her. She rolled her eyes.

"You! Goody."

"What? I thought you were putting up with me and my stupid puppy."

"That was before I made actual friends."

Elowen peered over Rebekah's shoulder at the cheerleading squad. "You consider them your friends?" She shook her head. "Look, I was hoping we could talk."

"About what? Stefan? Don't worry, I'm off him until he starts treating me better. In fact, you should probably take a page out of my book, if I'm being honest."

"If it were up to be, I would. Marisol's the one who won't let him go. Besides, I'd rather we talked about this." Marisol held up a picture of Rebekah's name written in Runic on the cave wall. "You forgot to mention Mikael was your father when I asked about him last."

Rebekah stared at that picture for a few moments before speaking. "I should get back to the girls. Homecoming's right around the corner."

"Cool, I'll just ask Mikael when we wake him."

Rebekah stopped and turned back around. "You're bluffing! You don't know where he is. No one does."

"So, then, who's rotting in that old cemetery in Charlotte?"

Rebekah walked back over Elowen and lowered her voice. "If you wake Mikael, we are all doomed!"

Elowen shrugged nonchalantly. "Alright, go ahead and tell me."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Why don't you want me to wake him?"

Rebekah paused again. "I need to get back to the girls."

This time, when she turned and left, Elowen didn't stop her.

"Come on, Henrik!" Rebekah urged her younger brother. "Our brother's are fighting again!"

Klaus and Elijah were in the middle of a sword fight when Rebekah and Henrik arrived.

"Oh look, our sister has arrived to watch my fast approaching victory!" Elijah boasted as he swung his sword around.

"On the contrary, Elijah." Klaus wielded his sword and slashed it forward. It cut through Elijah's belt and it fell to the ground. "She's come to laugh at you!"

A man and a woman who Elowen presumed to be Klaus's mother and father slowly approached as Elijah, Rebekah, Klaus and Henrik all laughed together.

"Relax, Mikael," Klaus's mother said. "Niklaus means well."

"That is precisely my problem."

Mikael walked over to the kids and suddenly everyone stopped laughing. Mikael took Elijah's sword away and turned to Klaus.

"So, why don't you teach me that trick, young warrior?"

Mikael lunged forward and Klaus barely had time to lift his sword and dodge his father's attacks.

"Father, we were just having fun."

Mikael continued his attack on Klaus. "We fight for our survival, and you find time for fun?! I want to have fun! Teach me! Come on!"

"Father, it was nothing-"

Klaus didn't get a chance to finish as Mikael disarmed him and slammed him on his back on the ground. He pointed the tip of the sword at Klaus's throat.

"You are foolish and impulsive, my boy. What? No more laughter?"

"You've made your point, Mikael!" Klaus's mother sternly yelled. Mikael stabbed the sword in the ground directly next to Klaus's head. He flinched slightly out of the way.

"Some days, it's a miracle you're still alive, boy."

Mikael stood up and walked away, leaving Klaus on the ground.

Elowen tilted her head and watched Rebekah after being brought out of the premonition. No wonder she didn't want Mikael to be woken up.

xxxx

Esmeralda and standing next to Alaric at his apartment as he tried to decipher the pictures spread across his table. He wrote 'vampire' on a post it note and stuck it on a picture that looked like a moon, thinking it represented how vampires were creatures of the night. Esmeralda tilted her head and picked up another picture that held a drawing that looked more like a sun. She set it down, took the post it note off of the picture of the moon and transferred it to the drawing of the sun. Alaric watched with furrowed eyebrows as she wrote something on another post it note and stuck it to the picture of the moon. The note said 'werewolf'.

Suddenly, Esmeralda started to falter. All this talk about the Original Family was reminding her of Elijah and the secrets she was keeping from Alaric regarding him. Alaric noticed and tilted his head. His arm came up, wrapped around her shoulders and brought her close.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

Esmeralda looked down at the ground and slowly backed away from Alaric. "There's something I need to tell you, and you're not going to like it."

Alaric was confused, but nodded his head anyway. "Okay. What is it? I can handle it."

She shook her head. "No, this is going to really upset you and you're going to want space."

"You're starting to worry me a little bit. Esmeralda, what is it?"

Esmeralda bunched up the bottom of her shirt with her hands and bit her bottom lip and she worked up the courage to say something. "You've been so good to me and the kids, and god do I love you, but you don't deserve to be lied to."

"Lied to? Es… come on, you can tell me."

Alaric tried to grab onto Esmeralda's hands, but she quickly drew them back. When she finally looked up to look at Ric head on, she had unshed tears in the corners of her eyes. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

"I kissed Elijah."

Alaric stared at Esmeralda in disbelief and was unmoving. She waited in the agonizing silence for him to say something. Finally, she realized she couldn't handle the way he was looking at her, so she bowed her head and started for the door.

"When?" Alaric finally asked at last. His voice cracked slightly and Esmeralda almost couldn't face him. He was so hurt and betrayed and it made Esmeralda's stomach turn knowing she was the cause of this. She slowly turned back around.

"The day Elowen and Elena undaggered him. He escorted Elowen and Toby home that night."

"You… you kept this from me for that long? That was months ago!"

Esmeralda flinched at the volume of his voice. "I know. I'm sorry. I didn't know how to tell you and part of me thought that maybe you'd be better off not knowing. I sort of forgot about it until now."

"Oh, so the fact that you kissed an Original vampire you used to be in love with while you were dating someone else just slipped your mind?"

Esmeralda looked down in shame. "I'm sorry," she said again. She heard Alaric scoff.

"You're still in love with him, aren't you? It's why you kissed him. God, I am such an idiot."

A tear spilled over Esmeralda's cheek and she wiped it away. "You're not an idiot. I am. I'll, um, give you some room so you can pack your things and move out, if that's what you want. I'll understand."

She hastily turned around and fast walked across the apartment towards the door. Alaric sighed and started to go after her. She reached the door before he did and when she opened it, she found Elowen on the other side. She took in Esmeralda's appearance and looked between her and Alaric in confusion before her mom pushed past her and headed for the stairs. Elowen cast one last glance at Alaric before going after Esmeralda.

"Mom! Mom! Slow down!"

Esmeralda ignored her until Elowen was able to catch her arm at the bottom of the steps.

"Mom! What happened? Talk to me."

"Just let me leave. Please."

"Not until you explain what's going on."

Esmeralda wiped more tears off of her face and caught her breath. "I made a mistake. A big one."

"Which was? I'm not going to judge, mom."

"I kissed Elijah."

Elowen sighed. "Oh, mom." She brought her in for a hug. "If anyone is going to understand what it's like to be in love with two different people, it's me." She pulled away from the hug and placed her hands on either side of Esmeralda's face. "Are you okay?"

Esmeralda shook her head. "No."

"Okay, well, let's get you home, and-"

Elowen's phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket. It was a text from an unknown number.

Come over for a chat. Rebekah.

"Damn it," Elowen cursed under her breath. "I'm sorry, I have to deal with this. Will you be fine driving yourself home?"

Esmeralda finished wiping the rest of her tears, sniffled and nodded her head. "I will. Go."

Elowen gave one last quick hug to her mom before taking off.

xxxx

Elowen entered the boarding house. There was music playing loudly as Rebekah walked into the foyer with a champagne glass. Rudy was trailing behind her and barked excitedly when he saw Elowen. He bounded up to her and jumped up onto his hind legs to greet her.

"Hey!" Rebekah cheerfully acknowledged her. "What's up?"

"You invited me over to talk, remember?"

Instead of saying anything in response, Rebekah turned around. "Alright, girls, have at it!"

Six different girls came walking into the room, all wearing different homecoming dresses.

"Okay, now twirl, please," Rebekah ordered. They all twirled and showed off the dresses.

"You compelled your own private runway show?" Elowen asked with a quirked eyebrow. Rebekah shrugged.

"I need a homecoming dress. So, what do you think? Pick one."

Elowen sighed, but looked over the dresses anyway. "The red one. Marisol likes the blue, if you want her opinion at all."

"Go away," Rebekah told the girls. "Remember nothing."

Elowen couldn't help but snort in amusement. "Why do you care so much about homecoming anyway? You're, like, a thousand years old. This is kid stuff to you."

"Modern teenagers have so many traditions that I never got to experience. Besides, I need something to do with my time, considering my own brother dumped me in this pathetic little town." Rebekah took a sip of her champagne and walked over to Elowen. "You'll learn what I allow you to learn. Is that clear?"

"Crystal."

"Good."

Rebekah walked off and Elowen followed her. She led them into Stefan's bedroom. Elowen tilted her head in confusion, but came in behind her anyway.

"How fun is this?" Rebekah asked as she walked over to the dresser and started opening drawers.

"What could you possibly gain from this?"

"Don't act like you've never wanted to snoop." Rebekah lifted up a pair of Stefan's underwear. "Boxer briefs. A lot has changed since the 20s."

Elowen walked over to the shelf she knew Stefan kept his journals and pulled one out. "If you want to find something juicy, try this." She tossed it at Rebekah, who caught it easily. "Now, story time."

Rebekah thumbed through the journal. "Alright. What do you want to know?"

"Well, Elijah said that your father was a landowner in Europe. How did you guys end up here?"

"My parents had just started a family when a plague struck their homeland. They lost a child to it. They wanted to escape and protect their future family from the same fate."

"Okay, and that led you to Mystic Falls, before it was Mystic Falls. How did you find out about this place? I mean, it's not like there was any known expeditions that would've led you here."

"My mother knew a witch by the name of Ayana, who heard from the spirits of a mystical land where everyone was healthy, blessed by the gifts of speed and strength. That led my family here, where we lived amongst those people."

"The werewolves."

"To us, they were just our neighbors. My family lived in peace with them for over 20 years, during which time my family had more children, including me."

"You make it sound so normal."

"It was. Once a month, our family retreated into the caves beneath our village. The wolves would howl through the night and by morning, we'd return home."

Rebekah was looking at different sorts of necklaces and talismans hanging from a rope in someone's house. She saw one that she liked, which of course happened to be the same necklace Stefan gave Elowen, and reached out to touch it. When her fingers made contact with it, it burned her. She winced and withdrew her hand.

"Ayana, you burned me!"

"That is not yours to touch," Ayana told her. Suddenly, a scream cut through the air.

"Mother!" Klaus cried.

Rebekah furrowed her eyebrows and turned to Ayana. "Is that Niklaus? Something is wrong."

Rebekah turned and ran out of the house. Outside, Klaus was carrying the body of their younger brother, Henrik. Everyone had ran out to see what was happening. Klaus set Henrik's body down as his mother ran forward.

"No! No! What happened?"

"The wolves. I am sorry. I'm so sorry!"

His mother turned to Ayana. "We must save him. Please, there must be a way!"

Ayana reached over to feel for a pulse, then shook her head. "The spirits will not give us a way, Esther. Your boy is gone."

"No!" Esther sobbed. "No!"

"One full moon, Klaus and my youngest brother, Henrik, snuck out to watch the men turn into beasts. That was forbidden. Henrik paid the price. That was the beginning of the end of peace with our neighbors, and one of the last moments my family had together as humans."

Elowen blinked as she was brought back to Stefan's room. Elowen's phone began to vibrate, snapping Rebekah out of her thoughts.

"You better get that. It'll be Damon checking up on you."

Elowen answered her phone. "Damon. Hey." She furrowed her eyebrows at the loud music she could hear through the phone. "Where are you?"

"No idea, but I'm pretty sure I'm overdressed. Still standing?"

"I'm fine. I'm always fine, remember? I'm a little busy at the moment, though. Can I call you back?"

"I'll be at the bar," Stefan's muffled voice came through the line. Elowen tilted her head.

"Was that Stefan?"

"Yeah, I kinda went off a bit. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."

"Oh, I'm not mad. I'm not the one who had the idea to lock him up, remember? Marisol, on the other hand, is upset."

"Well, she can suck it. I got this."

Damon hung up and Elowen pulled the one away from her ear to stare at it for a moment. She shrugged and put it back in her pocket. She turned back to Rebekah, who was lying on her stomach on Stefan's bed, going through the journal Elowen had given her.

"Alright. I'm back. What's next?"