Notes: Alienor = ah lee'ya nor/ ah lee no
So I'm not the best at writing, but I'll try to make it worth your while.
This is basically the introduction; next chapter will be Pilot and whatever.
"You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, love like you'll never be hurt, sing like there's nobody listening, and live like it's heaven on Earth."
-William W Purkey
Chapter 1: Another Life
Alienor screams as her body quivers in horror at the sight in front of her, shaking her head frantically as pleads erupted from her mouth. Desperation slipping with each word that escaped out of her, a pleading for her life to be spared.
There's not a single thing that she can say to live, Alienor thinks numbly. She had tried pleading for mercy earlier, but that had only seemed to amuse him.
Everything seems to happen in small motion. The knife is on her throat, a bead of red trickling down, and Alienor's life literally flashes before her eyes. Three memories stand out: Her memory of her toddling towards her maman et papa, her first kiss at twelve with a cute boy she doesn't quite remember, and her breakup with her second boyfriend that led her here. She closes her eyes to pray for anything, anything to happen (even though she does not truly believe in God) before she's pushed against a wall.
Her green eyes open at the impact of her back meeting the hard surface of a wall. The stranger is closer to her than ever before and his left arm is pinning her against it. When she looks into his dark eyes, she can see the cruelty, the madness, the amusement at her fear. To him, she's prey, and he's the predator. Why? Why is she always a victim? She hates it; feeling helpless and dependent on someone else's mercy.
Her parents are together but it's no secret her father has a string of affairs that he keeps in the manor. Her first boyfriend William cheated on her the entirety of their six-month relationship with others, driving her into the arms of the first guy she saw (who was a rapist). After she escapes that relationship, she finds comfort in another guy (who is, curse her luck, a serial killer).
A rush of anger runs through her. This is how she's going to die? At the hands of some sick murderer that got off on it?
As if he can read her thoughts, the stranger pressed his knife closer to her neck, and there was agonizing pain that coursed through her body as she felt her breath halt to a stop. Her body burned and a strange uncomfortable twisting sensation was felt inside of her.
With blinded vision and dull ears, Alienor could only see white in the midst of her unstable consciousness.
She hears a baby's wailing ringing throughout the room and gets irritated at the incessant yelling. There was still that blinding light filling her vision, blocking her from her making out anything.
Alienor is confused. Why can't she see anything? Why is she here? What's happened to her? And where is the noise coming from? She only realises a minute later that it is her; she is the one screaming.
When she stops, she realises how dry her throat has become and she can feel the tears on her face.
First she gets freaking murdered, then somehow gets stuck inside a baby's body. The realization that she is now a baby makes her want to yell and scream and cry all at once. When she starts to cry again, arms that were holding her begin to rock her, and oddly enough, it soothes her a bit. For now.
When Alienor opens eyes, she can clearly hear the voices that were talking (while she was screaming) but she hasn't really paid much attention to it. Now she does.
"...female, relatively small but healthy, 5'10 ounces, born April 1st, 1994," a female's voice drones through the air.
"..name...Alienor Forbes…" The one who talks next is the one who holds her. Her voice is tired but sounds strong at the same time.
This makes her mad. She is not Alienor Forbes, she is Alienor d'Silva! She was born on January 24th, 2001, not April 1st, 1994. She is nineteen, not a baby! She wants to say this out loud, but instead, a screech comes out instead.
She screams and yells and cries until her head hurts and the world spins. Right now, she just wants to go back. She's out before she knows.
...
When she opens her eyes again, an adorable toddler with blonde curls and innocent blue eyes is peering down at her from her crib.
Alienor blinks her eyes once, then twice. She looks up, down, and all around before her gaze goes back to the toddler.
"Who are you?" Alienor asks, only for gibberish to come out of her mouth. Damn. She momentarily forgot she was apparently an adult stuck in a baby's body. And this makes her want to cry.
As if she understands her, the toddler points her chubby fingers at herself and says, "I...Cawowine! S–si–sis-sista!" She stutters the last words adoraby, but she gets the general point.
Wait. A sister named Caroline with blonde hair, blue eyes and a mother named Forbes?
No, please no. These thoughts make her cry and she hates it. Alienor is tired of crying, but she can't speak and this is the only outlet she has. She doesn't notice Caroline, who is intimidated by the noise, runing out.
What has she ever done to deserve this?
Alienor prays in her mind to whatever deities she can think of to tell her this a cruel, cruel dream.
(It's not.)
...
As the years go by, Alienor slowly comes to accept the fact that she died, somehow got reincarnated into a bloody American TV Show named the Vampire Diaries.
How does she know this? Well, she has watched and finished the show before once with her cousin Diane when she was visiting her in the US during summer vacation.
Her opinions on the characters? She feels a mix of emotions for most of them.
Elena? Alienor can't help but feel a mixture of pity, hate, and empathy aimed at the character. She just keeps losing people (her adoptive parents, her biological parents, Jenna, etc.) but that doesn't excuse freaking genocide. And a love triangle with two brothers? She's not judging much.
She's also the only one with a happy ending, and that makes her bitter. Why does Elena get the happy ending? Why not Bonnie or Caroline? It's not real, but she can't help feeling what she does.
Stefan? She hates him and his hero hair and how he will always put Elena and Damon first no matter what (she hates that she admires that too). Alienor also hates him for Enzo's needless death.
Damon? Don't even get her started. She hatehateshateshates– Damon. She's never forgotten his abuse of Caroline in Season 1 and his role in Abby's vampirism nor the fact that he killed a pregnant woman. He's pretty to look at, sure, but his personality is less than desirable.
Bonnie? Sometimes, she feels less like a character, more like a plot device. She's always the go to witch; her family slowly dies around her, she is so judgemental yet self-sacrificing and she feels conflicted.
The villains? She feels bad for most of them; there's a reason why they became bad in the first place. Betrayal from someone they trusted. But most of them are revenge driven and mad and she's not touching that with a ten-foot pole.
The only character she feels positive about (admires) is Caroline, who is coincidentally her sister in this life. Who's 18 months older. The word sister is utterly foreign to her at first, but she thinks she can grow to like it.
Caroline was her favorite in the show. Caroline's growth from a petty, miserable girl to a strong and powerful vampire makes her love her character. She is just so relatable and likable. In a way, she reminds her of herself.
As Alienor d'Silva, she grew up as the only daughter of a wealthy family from France. She adored her maman et papa (mother and father are for her new parents) growing up (her grandparents were dead before she was born) and she can't help but feel the pang of their loss every time she looks at her new family.
She tries not to think of how her old parents would react to news of her death, but when she does, her thoughts are morbid and depressing. Would they care? Do they still exist? Did they love her?
They plague her frequently when she is younger, but as she grows older in this new life of hers, they come less frequently.
Her way of coping was to try to forget and block out the emotions from the memories. It's not really healthy, but it's how she does it.
When she's five and still remembers, she puts it all down in a notebook. Knowledge is power in this world, and even if she may never use it, who's to say her sister won't? It's an insurance thing.
Everything that happens in the Show, from Vampire Diaries's Cade to the Original's Inadu to Legacies's Malivoire (well, for the utmost latter part, she's never exactly watched it, but she's heard about it), she writes down. She titles it the Vampire Diaries.
Alienor can't really define why she names it that. Something to remind herself of her past life? Mayhaps. Leverage for the future? Hmm. She doesn't really want to get involved in the drama in the future. No matter how intriguing it sounds.
She'd rather be boring and safe and alive, than always be in danger and wanted and dead.
That's why she avoids her sister's best friends Bonnie and Elena. She's polite to them, but they don't really interact at all.
She does have a survival instinct; befriending a future Benett witch and the doppelganger will not make her life safer.
...
2001
Alienor is seven when her parents divorce. To her, it's an almost inevitable thing; it had happened on the show but it still stings. She had somehow hoped that her parents would stay together now that she was born; instead, it just drives them apart a year earlier.
When her mother drowns herself into her work and her father moves away with his new boyfriend Steven, she and Caroline have each other. They both cry their heart out and it hurts. In her old life, her parents had never divorced even though they didn't exactly love each other. They stayed together for her. In this one, they don't.
She can't stop comparing both her lives, and it's not fair to herself. Logically, she knows she needs to move on, but she can't force her feelings. Maybe one day she'll move on without realising it, and trying to embrace her new life is one way to go. She doesn't want to be miserable.
At least she has a sister in this new life, Alienor thinks. It was utterly lonely without a sibling before, and there's always a warm feeling in her chest every time she thinks of her older sister.
Bright, bubbly, Caroline, whom she absolutely adores; she can't imagine a world without her in it.
…
2003
Alienor is nine when she makes her first real friend. Re-attending elementary school again puts things into perspective. On one hand, everything is just so easy because she's already done this before. On the other hand, she has to measure how smart she wants to appear; she is supposed to be a child.
She is surprisingly popular with the other kids, even with the reincarnation thing. Perhaps it's the way she holds herself; with confidence.
Sometimes, she fantasizes about throttling her classmates when they bother her too much. Surely, companionship isn't that hard to find?
Alienor meets Charlotte Donovan at a library of all things during a Saturday afternoon. She's one of the many kids in her year who she's acquaintances of and not friends.
"What are you reading?" Alienor's tone is curious as she invites herself on the chair opposite of Charlotte. There's a book in her hand that Charlotte seemed engrossed in, enough to startle her when Alienor talked. In a small town like this, most kids are more interested in having fun playing with their friends than setting down in the library.
Color stains Charlotte's cheeks as she looks and recognizes the person who startled her. It could be none other than Alienor Forbes, the most popular girl in their grade. Smart and pretty and confident. Long, golden hair and sea-green eyes. Just like everyone else, she wants to be her friend, but unlike some, she's too shy to approach her.
"I-It's a Natural G-Geographic book on Pandas," Charlotte stutters shyly and burrows the book near her face to hide herself.
"Interesting," Alienor says, even though it's not really. She doesn't really like animals, but she doesn't want to hurt the other girl's feelings, so pretends as if she's really interested. It slowly transforms into something semi-interesting the more the girl talks, and Alienor finds that she's not that bad.
She's the exact opposite of what Alienor had in a friend her past life; Charlotte is shy, sweet, passionate, and timid. She also has soft brown hair and hazel-grey eyes and looks so innocent.
Charlotte's passion about the environment makes Alienor's heart pang and reminds her maman; instead of shying away, she leans closer to try and embrace. She can almost imagine her maman with her right now instead of Charlotte.
...
2007
Alienor is twelve and walking home alone when she's attacked.
There is a man in the shadows hiding behind the trees and he flashed out to slam her against a tree, one hand choking throat.
His dark eyes dilate weirdly and he's saying words but Alienor can't hear it. She's panicking and hyperventilating and the pounding of her heartbeat drowns everything out. She faintly registers that there is a hand on her throat but she doesn't feel it. Instead, her mind flashes to the memory she tried to forget but never could.
The man with the knife to her throat, herself pleading for mercy that he never gives. His eyes gleaming with a sadistic amusement as he slits her throat.
This time around, she will not be the victim. He will.
Shaking her head to rid herself of the memory, Alienor tries to scream but she can't; there's a hand choking her throat, and the man's face transforms. There are black veins on his face and his eyes are red and there are fangs where his teeth are supposed to be.
On pure instinct on seeing the face, she grasps on to his arm, and she can feel it. The power that suddenly rushes through her veins like a drug; she doesn't see how her hand emits a red glow nor how her attacker is trying and failing to shake her off before stopping.
When the power rush finally stops, Alienor is panting but standing. Barely. There is also an ache (bruise) around her throat where the vampire had choked her. Because what else in this world has black veins on their eyes and elongated teeth?
She feels powerful but exhausted at the same time, while said vampire is lying on the ground with his veins popping out and greyed and most likely dead.
Alienor hopes he's dead; he tried to kill her and got killed instead. Is it so wrong that she doesn't feel any remorse or guilt over her actions? It's a kill or be killed world, and it was only her instincts that had saved her from death, causing her to latch on and suck his life away.
Wait. She sucked his life away. That's not possible, is it? She took something from him, which left him desiccated and dead.
Alienor doesn't feel different except for the power that now courses her veins.
Alienor tries out her newfound powers; willing herself to heal, she feels some of the power she took from the vampire drain away, and when she touches her neck, there's nothing there. Well, fuck.
She's a siphoner. Oh no.
Alienor remembers with clarity what happened to the other siphoners in the show. They were hunted down like animals by the Gemini Coven before being shipped off to Prison Worlds. She wasn't really sure if other witches had heard of their existence, but she was betting yes more than no.
Well, fuck.
…
Alienor has it all planned out. She'll tell her sister about the supernatural when Stefan and Damon come to town, after the summer that Elena's parents will die. That's when Bonnie will learn about her witchy powers from her Grams, and maybe Caroline will believe it.
Charlotte? She's grown to enjoy her friendship the more time she spends with her. She's just so nice and kind and likable and is her own person. She's not her mother reincarnated to her anymore. Her initial shyness of Alienor had gone away after they spent more time together. She'll definitely tell her about vampires and such, but after she tells Caroline.
Charlotte's current interest lies in 'saving the environment'. She loved to talk about nature and how they needed to do things like recycle, not throwing trash on the ground, etc. Alienor humored her, for a lack of better word, but was more interested in art and languages.
More specifically, painting.
In her past life, her accomplishments were the violin and sketching. She had never given painting a try but did dabble in watercolor and fashion design from time to time.
For languages, she knew two fluently. Three was kind of. One was English (obviously), the second one was French (her family had French origins), and the third one was Italian (from high school and a visit to Milan, Italy for her 18th birthday).
This time around, she wants to know more. Travel to more places, learn their language, taste their food, and have fun.
She has a checklist of things she wants to do:
Number one is to get vervain. Since finding out that she's a siphoner, she can't be compelled and doesn't need it. However, her sister and best friend are ordinary humans so they needed it.
Second is to find a magic source.
Third is to find a place to get grimoires and an object to store and put magic in so whenever she needed it, she could use it. A necklace or bracelet would do.
Fourth was to keep on saving up the weekly allowance of $50, which had started after her parents got divorced.
She has plans for the money, and one of them is to travel in the States somewhere to go skiing for Charlotte's 16th birthday during Winter Break. Charlotte's birthdays on the 24th of December, which lined up perfectly. Another was to go on a shopping trip or something with her sister for her birthday. Third was a trip to Europe or something for Spring Break for her own birthday. Some of them are ideas for now, others are planned out.
(The first she finds at a Herb Store [vervain is a plant, and she regularly doses her sister and friend], the second by draining everything she saw with magic [vampires, the odd objects imbudded with magic], the third at an old lady's shop [who sold her a magic holding necklace and some old grimoires], the fourth, her savings were currently [$2850].
...
Sometimes, Alienor hates Mystic Falls. There's something about the place that makes her skin crawl. It's a small town of 6,900 which means a small-knit community. People have nothing better to do with their lives than gossip and get drunk.
It's disgusting and exhausting, really.
How can people be so content to be miserable?
People in the town liked to delude themselves that they're happy, but they're not. She can tell; whenever she passes the adult couples, most of the smiles on their faces don't reach their eyes. They're unhappy.
Her own relationship with her new family is very complicated. Before her father moved to Florida with his new boyfriend, they weren't really close. She loved him of course, but was distant (the same went with her mother); that was when she was still trying to separate both of her lives and was more close to her sister than parents as a result.
Also, she never forgot how her new father had tortured his daughter (who was now her sister) on the show; that left a wariness from her side of their relationship. How could he torture his daughter while claiming to love her?
Despite that, she loves her new parents, and her sister the most.
The Forbes Sisters.
Her sister, in this world, is more confident.
Maybe it's because she's more close to her than their parents and knows she's loved. In another world, she only had herself to rely on. Absent father, overworking mom, no siblings. Always second guessing herself, desperate for any shred of attention or love.
Having a sibling changes everything. Unconditional love, for one.
Mystic Falls is peaceful for the first 15 years of Alienor's life, but that changes the summer Stefan Salvatore and his brother come to town.
…
Interlude: Self Reflection (15 years)
Sometimes, there are days when Alienor goes outside at night on the porch to look up at stars and reflect. Ponder. Plan. When she first realised that she died and was reincarnated into a baby–a baby that didn't exist in the show, she was planning on just being invisible while the timeline ran itself.
Then she discovered she was the sister of a main character. She wasn't planning on getting attached; to her sister, to Charlotte (who also wasn't supposed to exist). Alienor wonders when she stopped seeing them as fictional characters from a TV Show but as real people that have feelings and lives too.
Perhaps it's when Caroline comforts her after a nightmare, or her mother (no matter how distant their relationship is) reading her a story just like when she was younger, or Charlotte who she supports after she cries about her mother abandoning them again.
Her memories of her past life (that's how she distinguishes them) are slowly fading away; unimportant ones like shopping trips with her parents, going to Church, spa days with her friends. Some things, some people, she can't forget.
William, her first boyfriend at seventeen who she lost her virginity to (adoration, hurt, heartbreak, devistastion). Aleksander, whom she met at a party and dated right after William (hope, fear, pain, terror). The glint of sadistic amusement in her murderer's eyes (resignation and fear).
Her first dog who was named Spotty. The last words her maman said to her before Alienor died.
A rush of impulsive anger goes through her. She stands up. Fuck the timeline, she thinks. It's not just a TV Show anymore; this is her reality, her new life.
A second chance of life, and she's not going to ruin it; she'll live it to the fullest. Nobody is going to stop her.
If worse comes to worse, she can always run away.