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I know some people hate Hope but she's still gonna be born.

Chapter 2: 100 Years

Vera found herself in Chicago, in 1910. Somehow, she didn't know how, her case was filled with several bags of the blood of the Mikaelsons -including Mikael, Freya, Dahlia, and Esther- along with both versions of the Immortality Elixir- Qetsiyah and Esther's. The spells were written in her journal. She had no memory of anything. She remembered her life in Bethesda, she remembered her magic, and she knew she had a mission to save Terra from destruction. She had no memory of how she got the blood, the spells, or what they were for. She stored them away in her small closet and placed a barrier around the case. She knew she would return to it when the time came.

Arriving in Chicago before the Mikaelsons allowed Vera time to establish herself among the city's supernatural residents. She met the young Gloria and the two practiced magic together. Although she retained her abilities from Bethesda, the molding of her magic with Terran magic allowed her to cast certain physical spells such as elemental spells, enchantments, creation spells, and offensive spells. However, she could not perform certain ritualistic spells like curses, hexes, possessions, communicating with ghosts, the Other Side, or the Ancestral Plane.

She made a lot of money selling protection spells and enchanted objects to any supernatural creature and sold certain potions to humans. She came to be known as a witch willing to help any supernatural and human alike. She also became known as Persephone after she killed a whole gang of nightwalkers who wanted to shake her down for daylight rings without paying.

The most difficult part of assimilating into the world was the society. Vera was a dark-skinned woman in a society where those physical traits devalued her as a person. In Bethesda, her skin color simply meant she was born closer to the sun than her Soul Sister. For thousands of years, she had grown used to her high status as an Umpire, a keeper of the Cosmos. She had powerful magic and the best education. She had equal respect to all her peers.

Yet, in this society, she had to demean herself. She took in a homeless white man to serve as her public representative. Vera taught him the manners and etiquette of the upper class. She taught him maths, sciences, literature, history, financial literacy, and languages. She made him into a wealthy American gentleman. She would follow him as though she was his servant but through him she obtained wealth, power, and influence. In the streets, she followed behind him, but inside the walls of her Manor, he removed her coat and prepared her meals.

As the years marched on, World War 1 came. Vera joined a group of black nurses. Although they were barred from the Army Nurse Corps and the American Red Cross, with Vera's financial backing, the ladies went to Europe to aid in the war effort. "During the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, due to the nursing shortage, 1800 women of color were certified by the Red Cross to serve in the Army Nurse Corps. Only eighteen women were accepted. They were stationed at Camp Sherman in Ohio and Camp Grant in Illinois, but none of the women received any benefits or pensions as the War Department declared that they did not serve in wartime." (African American Nurses - Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine (U.S. National Park Service)

With the financial backing of several wealthy Black Americans, Vera was able to create several small health centers in historically Black neighborhoods in the United States, staffed by these war heroes to serve the black communities. Even poor White individuals were welcomed treatment so long as they didn't mind being treated by the Black nurses. Their country wouldn't acknowledge their contributions but she ensured that their communities knew what they had done in the war and for the world.

1920

When the door opened, jazz music filled her ears as she walked into the speakeasy. Vera loved the playful and rebellious atmosphere. With everyone defying Prohibition, everyone was defying all the rules. No matter the skin color, no matter the age, no matter the social status, no one cared about anything other than forgetting the outside world and having a good time. And she loved it.

Vera shrugged off her fur coat before moving further into the party. She wore a pure white dress with a beautiful pearl beaded bodice and fringed tassels from the waist down to the hem of the dress at the knees. Instead of wearing gloves, she wore a pair of diamond cuffs on her wrists matching the diamond hair clip attached to the white feather in her tightly pressed curls.

As the latest song piece slowly came to an end, Gloria motioned her forward onto the stage. Vera kissed her friend's cheeks and fell into song with her. The song finished and Gloria left her on the stage as the musicians moved onto the next song. When Vera finished her song, there were hoots and hollers from the audience as she made her way off the stage. Gloria came out of nowhere and took her hand, pulling her along.

"Glory, you're quite excitable today."

Gloria pulled Vera with her to the VIP area where most of the supernaturals who came to the bar ate their meals. She led her to a velvet booth where two beautiful blondes sat. "This guy here's Klaus and his sister, Rebekah." Gloria introduced her to the siblings. "This here is my friend, Persephone."

"A pleasure," said Rebekah with a tight smile.

"Ah, the Bringer of Destruction, Queen of the Underworld." Klaus stood up and greeted her by taking her hands in his and kissing her knuckles. "Have you come to take me to Hades?"

Vera simply smiled and returned his barb. "Not as long as you're a good boy. You'll find I'm a much better ally than enemy." Her irises flashed a light blue color for less than a moment, but Klaus noticed. "Perhaps in 90 years, I'll be helping you with that nasty curse you've got there."

Klaus' face became menacing as he crushed her hand before pinning her by her throat to a wall. Rebekah grabbed Gloria, restraining her from helping Vera.

"How do you know about my curse, Witch? The truth, unless you'd prefer to be without your head." Klaus pressed harder on her throat, causing her to wince slightly.

"Wait, please. She can read people and see parts of the future," Gloria explained. "That's why I brought her to you."

Klaus lightened the hold on her throat but he still didn't let her go. "Seers are notoriously unreliable."

"Lucky for you, darling, I'm the kind that doesn't speak in riddles." Her brown irises swirled into an endless pit of blue that pulled Klaus in. Flashes of images played before him.

He saw three rings of fire with individuals cloaked in shadow. "I've got the moonstone. I've spent 500 years looking for this. I hate to part with it."

He watched as he drained the life from the Petrova doppelganger before he felt the shackles of his curse breaking. "I can feel it."

The scene shifted to a morning as he awoke. He heard Elijah's voice. "You've been busy."

There was pure joy, contentment, and satisfaction in his voice. "That was amazing. How long has it been?"

"Almost two days. Full moon came and went. You remained a wolf."

"I can change at will then. That's good to know. I remember every single kill."

Klaus pulled away from her as the visions ended. He had just seen his curse broken. He spent five hundred years searching for the moonstone and the witch said he would come to her in 90 years. That means he would break his curse sometime in the 2010s. A gleeful grin spread across his face. "Well, my goddess, I believe we're going to be great friends."

With a flick of her hand, Vera, telekinetically, pushed Klaus into a wall. She approached him as she examined her previously broken, now healed, wrist. "Call me Vera." She returned his smirk as she walked up to his face. "And what's a little violence between friends?" She placed a nail on his throat, drawing a bit of blood before letting him go.

Klaus chuckled heartily as he came off the wall. "Oh, I like you. Rebekah, release Gloria." He motioned to the booth. "Join us for a drink?"

"It'll be my pleasure."

The two drank and talked. Rebekah came and went from the dance floor while Klaus kept Vera in her seat, listening to her stories and watching her display her very shiny magic powers. "Ninety years, huh? And you're promising to help me?" He was leaning close into her personal space with his arm draped over the back of the booth. "To you witches, I'm nothing but an abomination. I've heard it many times before. I should not exist. I'm an abomination of Nature."

"Don't listen to those fools. They regurgitate the same lies their ancestors have been spouting for over nine centuries."

"Well, it's gone out one ear and out the other."

"The witches do not have as strong a connection to Nature as they like to think. They only pull power from the Earth. Nature does not speak to them. And even if she did, I believe she would give them quite the tongue lashing. Nothing can exist on this earth without Nature's will. Had you truly been an abomination, you simply would never have been born or the spell that made you into a Hybrid would simply never have been cast. Being of two natures as you are is balance. The witch who cursed you committed an act of imbalance when she bound your wolf."

"What do you mean?"

"What is your goal once you become a Hybrid?"

Klaus paused for a long moment before answering. "To make more hybrids like me."

"You've walked the earth for 900 years. Had your wolf been unlocked, you would not only be the powerful king of the vampires but also the Alpha of all the werewolves. You would be the bridge between the two species and the animosity between Werewolves and Vampires would not have grown to the level where one species is almost extinct and in hiding from the other."

Klaus had never been told that by a witch before. Most witches who worked with him did so under the threat of violence. A few others came to work for him because they wanted something, notoriety, the knowledge he had collected over his nine centuries of life. Some even fell in love with him to the point of infatuation. They wanted to tame the abomination he was. But no one had ever accepted him as he was, curse and all.

And yet this witch, with glowing blue eyes and magic sparks coming out of her fingertips is telling him that he was always meant to be a Hybrid. That his mother and everyone else who called him an abomination was wrong. And her heartbeat remained steady. She didn't want anything from him. Not money or notoriety or love, and she certainly didn't want to fix him. She was powerful and there was nothing he could use to buy her. He tried to seduce her, to become his personal witch, like he did many others but she shut it down quickly. "I can be your best friend for an eternity, Nik, but you will never have me in your bed."

And he almost believed her. He wanted to believe her, but after hearing abomination for over 900 years, it had become internalized. The self-loathing and the belief that no one could ever love him. The first woman he loved chose his brother over him and the second and last ripped his heart out after he shared his deepest secret with her. Even his own family's love for him is conditional. There must be something wrong with him. But he didn't care. No. He was the most powerful creature on this earth. Love was for the weak. And he was not weak.

Years passed and almost every night, Vera met with the Mikaelson siblings at the speakeasy. She and Klaus had become fast friends while Rebekah was much more prickly at first.

Rebekah believed Vera to be like everyone else, looking to take advantage of her brother. But when she never entered into bed with Klaus, Rebekah had some reluctant respect for the Bethesdan Witch.

The two bonded even more over the unequal society in which women and people of color had lesser rights compared to wealthy white men. While Rebekah had her brothers to protect her from most of it, she understood that Vera didn't have a powerful family and had to use other means to protect herself and make her wealth.

When Rebekah met Stefan Salvatore, Vera tried to dissuade the younger teen. She advised the young girl. "You deserve better." She thought that Nik would help her keep Stefan away from Rebekah but Stefan charmed his way into Nik's heart and the Hybrid came to consider the younger vampire his friend.

Vera simply resigned herself to being around the ripper. She wasn't their parent and they could make their own decisions. But she wonders how these paranoid fools can't see that while Stefan's lips smile, his eyes remain cold. His humanity is off and he feels no love nor loyalty toward them.

1922

Klaus moped in the booth as his sister danced with Stefan. "If you keep staring so hard, you might light your sister and her boytoy on fire."

He smiled up at Vera. "Are you ever going to tell me why you dislike Stefan so much?"

She shrugged as she sat beside him in the booth. "You and your sister are adults, Nik. You can make your own decisions. And just because we're friends doesn't mean we have to agree on everything."

The smile on Nik's face fell as he quickly stood away from the booth. "What is it? What's wrong?" Cobalt flashed in her eyes and she knew he was coming for them. She erected a shield around herself just as wooden bullets came raining into the building. Vera helped Rebekah out through a secret tunnel in the basement. Nik soon joined them as they came to the opening on the other side of the street. It was a building Vera owned.

She turned to look at her friends, who seemed anxious and more afraid than she ever thought they could be. They were 900 years old and yet she saw the youth in their eyes. They looked like a 17-year-old girl and her 22-year-old brother running from the monster nipping at their heels. She kissed Rebekah's cheek. "This is where we part, my darling."

She kissed Klaus' cheek and pulled him into a hug. His body remained stiff in her embrace. "Should you need anything, do not hesitate to contact me. I will help you." She turned around and walked away. The two siblings' presence behind her disappeared.

As she made her way back to the speakeasy, where her ride waited, she sensed him just before she was thrown into a wall. She fell in a heap onto the ground that shredded the skin of her hands and knees. "Where are they?" Her body froze at the sound of his voice. She slowly raised her head to come face to face with the father of her new friends.

"What?" she asked as she groaned. She had to consciously prevent her injuries from healing. "Who are you?"

He raised her by the throat, squeezing the breath out of her as he pinned her to the wall. This was nothing like Klaus. She didn't want to fight back when Klaus hurt her because she wanted him to trust her. She wanted him to welcome her. Even in his anger, she knew if Klaus found her more useful as a friend, he would let her go. But Mikael, his eyes weren't angry. No. He found pleasure in her clawing at his hands, begging for breath.

"The abomination. I can smell him all over you, you whore. Where is Klaus?" He released her just enough to allow her to speak. "Speak."

She inhaled quickly and spoke. "I- I don… don't know. They… they made me show them the back exit and disappeared." She forced the hatred back and tried to channel her fear. She hadn't felt afraid in a long time but she remembered the fear when she was faced with the men who killed her parents, believing they would kill her too. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "I swear I don't know anything. They forced me. Please don't kill me." She cried to him for mercy as she once did when she was a child.

Her back slid down the side of the wall when Mikael released and vanished. Vera kept up the act for several minutes, curling into a ball against the wall as she continued to cry. She couldn't sense anything and the police cars had left the speakeasy. She stood up and allowed her wounds to heal. She dried her tears, repaired her clothes, and fixed her makeup and hair with magic before she returned to the parking lot.

"Miss Vera." The white man held her bag and coat for her. She put her arms through the coat and waited for him to open the car door for her. She smiled at the man before stepping into the vehicle.

"Let's go home, Jon."

Once again, years and decades passed. She was able to weather the Great Depression and spent most of that time in Asia and Africa. Although she suffered financially, she kept most of her money in the food industry while also investing in raw materials such as precious metals.

Then came the war and once again, Vera went into service as an underground French Resistance fighter, sabotaging the Nazis and helping move individuals persecuted by the Nazis to safety in Switzerland.

She had never used so many cloaking spells as she used during the few years of the war. Vera even created -what she referred to as a "notice me not" spell- a misdirection spell to keep the Nazis from actively seeking and finding the people under her protection.

Vera also had a network of safe houses for the refugees to move through while still in occupied France. The safe houses were a network of human and supernatural contacts she had made years prior.

As the war came to an end, Vera quickly gobbled most of the Black veterans, men and women, alike, and put them to work in her various businesses. She stopped using white representatives in her legitimate businesses with the Black community but still used the same method to gain loans from large banks and investments from white investors. These representatives were also necessary for her to expand into businesses and neighborhoods she would've been unable to otherwise.

Several of the people she had worked with over the decades had decided to be turned into vampires, including her coworkers and allies from the world wars.

Jonathan Prior was the homeless man Vera had taken in during the 1910s. She chose him because even though he was white, he still helped his fellow Black homeless in the streets. He was a kind and loyal man and did not mind being the front face for Vera's businesses so long as she would offer work and housing for his fellow homeless. After years of working for Vera, he met and married a like-minded woman who did not mind that her husband's master was a Black woman. Their children had grown in Vera's Obsidian Manor, surrounded by people and children of color whom Vera had also taken off the streets and trained to work for her. White people growing up with Black people allowed them to not be blinded by the myth of race their society continued to propagate. They were all for equality between the races and they were all aware of the supernatural. Jonathan and his wife had decided to spend an eternity together and became vampires after they had finished having children. And their children and grandchildren followed. The generations of the Prior family continued to work for the eternally young witch as the white public faces for her businesses.

Vera had met Dominique Bruneil during the Second World War in France working with the Resistance. Her father had been a colonial soldier in the French army during the First World War from what became known as the Ivory Coast. Her father remained in the country and married a Black Frenchwoman, and had a son before Dominique came along. She was only 16 years old when her family, also resistance fighters, had been captured and executed for killing Nazi soldiers. She had been an excellent planner and helped Vera plan the best routes to help the persecuted escape from occupied France. After the war, Dominique attended college in France to study business before she reunited with Vera in America. She took control of Vera's businesses that primarily served the African American community in the country, which were mostly beauty products like hair and makeup specifically for women with darker complections and natural hair.

Vera put Minerva Roth, a nurse she had served with in the First World War in charge of her clinic in the Chicago area. Under her leadership, the clinic became a large hospital that served the Black community. It had been her idea to bring witches without covens into the hospitals to help the patients using their magic as they couldn't always use vampire blood to heal patients. The magic was to only help ease the patients' pain and make them feel at ease and at home.

With all the work she had been doing in the hands of capable and trusted individuals, Vera focused on one of her other passions: medicine. She had become intrigued by the advances in medicine that the wars had brought. With new, better technological equipment, it was easier to study the building blocks of the human body. She was especially fascinated with blood and its properties, both biological and metaphysical.

She still had the preserved blood of the Mikaelsons -which she still had no idea how she got- and both versions of the immortality elixirs. She wanted to scientifically study the effects of magic on mortal blood as well as study the complete effects of the Immortality Elixir on the Originals.

She went to college and medical school. Over the decades she received MDs and PhDs in Hematology, Microbiology, Biomedical Research, and Biomedical Engineering.

The blood of the Originals held the magic that would allow Animalia to become vampires. And yes, she tested the blood on mice, dogs, cats, and other small animals. However, unlike humans with some semblance of control, most of the animals, the mice, cats, and untrained dogs, became rippers.

Vera had a dog, a well-trained Belgian Malinois, she was very attached to. As the dog reached the apex of middle age, she turned him into a vampire. Traits that made Lux, the dog, well-trained and well-mannered were enhanced. The dog still reacted to fresh blood with its fangs growing and eyes turning red, but he never lunged for the blood. He waited until she told him it was time to feed. He still ate kibble dipped in blood but preferred raw meat and fresh animal hunts.

After doing extensive research on each of the Originals' blood, she went on to create her own Immortality Elixir, version 3 (just known as IE 3.0), which was a mix between Qetsiyah (IE 1.0) and Esther's (IE 2.0) version of the spell. The person who took IE 3.0 would still gain all the strengths and weaknesses of Original Vampires (Vera calls them Procreators), but their strength would increase 2 times their age, they would share a stronger connection with their direct sires, and are unable to be killed with the white oak stake. Also, the spell would allow for natural hybrids, so witches or werewolves would keep their abilities when turned.

Direct sires (Vera calls them Offspring) also increase in strength 1.5 times as they age and are able to become hybrids if they were a witch or werewolf or any other supernatural. But, they themselves cannot make other supernaturals into hybrids. Any vampires they turn (called Relatives) would be like any other vampire from the Mikaelson's bloodlines.

1988

The teenage boy marched out of his house. Throwing a bag over his shoulder, he grabbed his bike and sped away as a dark-haired teenage girl followed after him, calling his name. "Kai!"

He rode quickly, his legs burning as he drove to his hiding spot. His tears were carried away in the wind as his lungs burned with every breath. Once again, he had been rejected by his family. His father was taking his twin sister and their four younger siblings to train with their magic and once again he was left out. He never asked to be born and he definitely never asked to be born a Siphoner. It wasn't his fault but the members of the Gemini Coven acted like he chose to be born without any magic of his own. He loved being a witch, he loved the Gemini Coven, and he wanted to learn magic with his twin and his younger siblings.

But his dad always excluded him. The young boy had long since realized that his parents and the rest of his coven treated him differently from his siblings. He was not allowed to practice magic like they were. He was not even allowed to touch them. He grew lonely, isolated, and angry at himself for being born different, at his family who mistreated him, and at the world for allowing him to be born.

He had yet to become the sociopath who would be driven to murder his younger siblings.

Kai could never understand why it was such a crime for him to be born without his own magic.

Kai left his bike closer to the road before continuing on foot, deep into the woods. Ever since he was a child, he had come to the boulder jutting out toward the riverbank. Whenever his father beat him or belittled him, whenever he was lonely because he wasn't allowed to play with his siblings, he always came to the same spot. He couldn't feel nature around him but the sound of the rushing water numbed his destructive thoughts.

Sometimes he wished he could kill his father, the man who always tormented him. He wanted the rest of the Gemini Coven dead just like they wished him dead with all the scorned glances they gave him. He wanted to kill his mother who never did anything to protect him. And worst of all, he wanted to kill Jo and his siblings for the magic they had, so he could take it for himself. Those thoughts scared him so he pushed them to the back of his mind.

Kai tossed his bag onto the ground and pulled the runestone from his pocket. He had stolen it from a small fantasy magic shop when he sensed the magic in the stone. The human wouldn't miss it since he wouldn't be able to use it anyways. Kai held the stone in one hand and began to siphon. A small warmth raced through his body when he felt the magic from the stone. He loved it. He raised his other hand up to a fallen tree branch. "Phasmatos Incendia." A small flame ignited the branch, causing a wide smile of unadulterated joy and contentment to form on the young boy's face. He laughed as he cheered at the small spell he cast.

When he turned back to the branch, his smile fell as the fire had grown and began to spread to the dried leaves and grass on the ground. Kai raised his hand again to try to put the fire out, but he didn't know the spell to extinguish it.

Before Kai could panic, a voice rang through the clearing. "Do you need some help?" He turned to find a woman in a pair of red joggers and matching sweatshirt with her hair up in a ponytail. She was sweating, a clear sign that she had been jogging before she found him in the clearing. Kai almost wanted to run. He had been found out, but something kept him rooted in place. The woman wasn't panicking or surprised to see him casting spells in the forest. And the fire that still burned stopped spreading. "I've contained the fire. Would you like me to teach you to extinguish it?"

He furrowed his brow but still nodded. No one had ever offered to teach him magic before. If he ran he would never get a chance like this so he stayed and nodded his head.

The woman smiled. "I'm Vera." She extended her hand out to him.

Kai looked at the hand but didn't take it. "Kai." He couldn't control his siphoning. If he touched her, he would surely reveal himself as a siphoner to this witch. He didn't want her bright smile and warm eyes to turn cold with a frown.

Vera didn't push. She simply raised her hand to the flames and spoke the spell. "Stinguo." And the fire vanished. The burnt patch and surrounding trees rejuvenated into beautiful green grass and foliage, even though it was the middle of autumn. Kai watched the display of magic in awe.

"You have a lot of power but not enough control. You put too much magic into the spell." She picked up another fallen branch and held it in front of her. "Here watch, Incendia." She lit the branch of fire and placed it on the ground, in the grass. Kai watched as the fire burned the branch to ashes but left the green grass untouched. "With enough control, you can contain the fire enough that it will only burn the object you cast the spell on and nothing else."

"Teach me," Kai said excitedly.

"That stone doesn't have enough magic." Vera held her hand out to him. Kai backed up as he looked at the hand. "It's okay. You can take as much as you want. You won't hurt me."

Kai looked at her face with wide eyes. She knew he was a Siphon, but nothing in her expression changed. There was no apprehension or fear. There was only kindness.

When he placed his hands in her, the power from her that flooded him felt like he had been struck by lightning. It didn't feel like a warm hearth or a bonfire, but like he was standing in an active volcano. It was just pure, untapped power and it was just flowing into him, fast and strong like Niagara Falls. He quickly pulled his hand away as he began to feel full. It was just a few seconds, yet for the first time, it felt like he had had enough of magic. It almost left him feeling bloated. "That was…" He looked at Vera, who showed no sign of pain or fatigue after he had siphoned power from her.

Vera and Kai spent the rest of the day together. The only spell Kai practiced was em Incendia. /em Vera was teaching him precision and control so his spells only affected the target rather than the whole of the surrounding area. They spent hours in the forest. They practiced magic and took breaks where they talked before they continued their practice.

Kai was an excellent student. Everything Vera taught him, he swallowed up like drinking water. As the sun began to set and the evening chill came in, they walked back toward the road. "You should try to learn more about your coven's history," Vera told him.

"But dad won't let me practice."

"You don't need your father to teach you magic. I will. Just tell him you want to learn more about the coven. Learning the history of the Gemini Coven will allow you to understand the origins of the Merge, why you're a Siphon, and why you're treated differently because you're a Siphon. You can absorb any and all types of magic. That is a powerful skill. You can dispell any and all enchantment, remove curses and kill any supernatural creature by taking the magic from their bodies. The problem is your body somehow can't contain the magic. It's always leaking."

When they arrived in downtown Portland, Vera showed Kai to a home decoration store, which confused the young teen. She led him toward the back of the store, where there were several objects under the name brand em "Spelled" /em from candles to jewels to cosmetics.

"Okay, what are we doing here?"

"We're here to buy a candle for you."

"What would I need a candle for?"

Vera turned to look at the boy incredulously. "Its brand name is a little on the nose, don't you think?"

He expanded his senses and felt the magic around him. "Oh, you mean they're…"

"They're spelled by witches. This is a candle of spelled sage, for privacy spells, but it's also good for memory and focus. This is a mix of rosemary and thyme. They help with concentration. Meditate and practice your magic while the candle burns, it will help you gain better control."

He took the candle in his hands. With the glass between him and the wax, he didn't siphon the magic from it but he still wanted to taste the magic once more. But he controlled himself. "But I don't have any money."

"You don't have money?"

"I don't get an allowance. I stole the runestone."

Vera smiled tightly and rolled her eyes. "Right. You don't get an allowance, like millions of teenagers in this country. And do you know what they do to make money?"

Kai rolled his eyes. "Get a job. But I don't have any experience."

"That's what McDonald's and Starbucks, and all the retail stores on the street are for. We literally just walked past a street of stores with job flyers on the windows. What do you think other teens with no money do? Go work corporate?"

"Okay, I get it. I'll get a part-time job."

She snatched the candle from his hand. "I'll buy you this one for today." She walked with him to the cashier, paid for the candle, and left the store. "Give me the runestone." He handed her the stone. "Do you know what it says?" When Kai shook his head, Vera explained, "It says power. This is a magic battery. The witch who owned it most likely placed portions of her magic in the stone every so often so she could use it later, maybe for a more powerful spell." Vera held the stone in her palms and channeled her magic into the stone. "I will put some of my magic in it for you to practice at home. Let's meet in the same place in about a week. Okay?"

Kai nodded and they parted ways. When he arrived home, he went straight into his room and locked the door to practice his magic. He couldn't just light anything in his room on fire, so he practiced the telekinesis spell.

Kai had finally worked up the courage to ask his father for access to the coven history books. Joshua Parker resisted at first but when Kai told him he just wanted to know more about the coven history, and would not look at the grimoires, Joshua relented so long as he was chaperoned. Kai rolled his eyes and accepted. Frankly, he didn't care anymore. He already had a teacher and it seemed that his father would never trust him so he was no longer surprised or angry or saddened by the treatment. He just became indifferent to it.

They only allowed him access to a few books written by the more recent ancestors but nothing further back to the start of the coven. Nothing about the start of the Merge nor about Siphoners. So Kai took matters into his own hands.

Even though he was not allowed to practice the coven's signature spells, he still lived in a house full of excitable siblings. They practiced all over the house and they were loud. He watched them practice the cloaking spell the coven was most famous for. "Invisique." He followed Jo into the library so he wouldn't register when he passed through the barrier and searched for the books he wanted. He copied as much as he could before the spell could wear off and left the library. He copied several grimoires too.

And every weekend, from Friday after school to Sunday evenings, he met with Vera at their spot by the river to practice the spells he copied from the Gemini coven. He even went vampire hunting with her to learn and practice the aneurysm spell. Every time they met, she filled him up with her magic, and no matter how much he took, it seemed to only be a cup in the ocean that was her power.

For the first time in a long time, Kai was happy. Vera gave him the acceptance he craved. She gave him the kindness his family would never offer him. He gave him knowledge when she taught him the history of the different supernatural species. And she gave him power by allowing him to siphon magic from her.

The weeks turned to months and the holidays came and went. His and Jo's birthday came. It was a weekend. He was supposed to be with Vera -he wanted to be with Vera- but his parents wanted him present for the birthday party because several members of the coven would be attending. He hated his birthday parties. Even though they were twins, the parties were usually political, all about his father and the other coven families. Then, there was also the fact that Jo was the only one who received most of the better gifts like grimoires, enchanted items, and tools while Kai received books and clothes so it wouldn't be rude to the coven leader.

It was as though he wasn't a witch like Jo.

When the first guest began to leave, he left the house too. Before he could get his bike, a car horn sounded across the street and the window lowered to reveal Vera. When he got in the car, Vera sped him away from the house. She dragged him to a street festival in the middle of the city before she took him shopping. She chose a pair of dress shoes, slacks, and a dress shirt for Kai while she dressed in a black cocktail dress with gold accents. She took him to a five-star restaurant and treated him to a five-course meal, which included a birthday cake. Vera placed a rectangular box on the table beside the cake. "Happy birthday, Kai."

Kai's eyes were wide as he looked at the box and the cake and the people in the restaurant, clapping, wishing him a happy birthday. "It's your birthday, Kai. And I care about the day you were born. Because if you were never born, then I would never have met you. Like I told you, Nature doesn't make mistakes. And if your family doesn't want you, then I shall take you for myself."

Tears welled up in the young man's eyes. Vera's kindness had brought him to tears many times in the past few months. He hadn't cried so much since he was a child.

With trembling fingers, he opened the velvet box to find a silver clustered tennis bracelet with diamonds studding each cluster. The thick clasp had small diamonds that spelled out his name "KAI" on it.

When his fingers touched the bracelet, magic rushed into his palm. "This is…"

"Your own witch's Talisman. Every witch needs one. I placed my magic in it. Now, every time you need access to magic, you can siphon from the bracelet. And any magic you siphon from other sources you can store in the bracelet."

Diamonds, like all other gemstones, also had magical properties that could not only reflect negative energies and protect from dark, and harmful spells and curses but also amplify positive and neutral energies and magic. Silver is the best conductor on the periodic table of elements, which allows it to easily absorb and keep magic.

He laughed and hiccuped as tears fell from his eyes. They weren't tears of sadness but of joy. It was the best gift he had ever gotten. He loved magic and he loved being a witch so being able to practice at any time was his greatest wish. What he had been denied his whole life, the part of him he couldn't access was now at his fingertips. And it was a nosy woman whom he had only known for a few months who had wormed her way into his life and mended his broken heart. Without prompting. Without asking for anything in return, she granted his greatest wish like some annoying fairy godmother from a cheesy fairy tale.

A week later, as Vera was getting ready to go out to meet Kai in the clearing like she had done for weeks now, someone knocked on her door. When she opened it, she found Kai standing there with a suitcase and his backpack. "Kai?"

"Did you mean it?" he asked.

"What?"

"When you said if my family didn't want me, you'd take me for yourself, did you mean it?"

"Don't say it like some innuendo. I meant I'd take you to be a part of my family."

"Good." Kai walked past her into the apartment. "I don't want my horrible family so I'll take you. So, what now?"

I know a lot of people will rage that Kai is OC because Kai's a sociopath in the show, Kai met Vera when he was 16, 6 years before he killed his siblings. Sociopathy is also known as Anti-Social Personality Disorder, it's a mental disorder that develops over time starting in the teen years. Kai still has thoughts of violence, but like any other teenager, those thoughts scare him. With all the abuse and neglect he gets from the Gemini Coven, it's no wonder it triggered Kai's disorder. But Vera got to Kai early and he got help for his disorder. In the story, he might show some similarities to his TVDU counterpart, but he will be closer to the Kai who merged with Luke, with the ability to feel empathy toward a select few.

And yes, Kai absolutely had problems controlling and focusing his magic. He tried turning Elena's blood to acid but instead melted her ring. That's why I think the Gemini Coven didn't allow him to practice magic with the coven, making him entirely self-taught.

We don't know Jo and Kai's exact dates of birth but it has to be some time before May 1972 because they were already 22 years old when Kai killed his siblings on May 9th. He killed them because his family wouldn't allow him to perform the Merge to become Coven leader.

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