Jeremy was in his room, listening to music. Jenna had to work on her thesis and was happy to let Elena have a girl's night, not even raising an eyebrow when she saw Bonnie snagging a bottle of rum from the liquor cabinet.
Elena had led her friends to her room, glasses filled with rum floats—vanilla ice cream, coke, and rum—and, after retrieving the sketchbook hidden under a loose floorboard, settled with them on the bed.
"A long time ago, like, thousands of years, there was a woman named Amara," Elena told them, appreciating the confusion visible on both of their faces at this unexpected start. Looking down, she flipped open the first page of her sketchbook. Amara's face looked back at her, hair peeking out from her cloth hood, worry in her eyes. Turning the sketchbook, Elena gently tapped next to her face. "This was Amara."
Bonnie frowned and Caroline arched an eyebrow. "That's you, Elena."
"It is Amara. She lived in a society led by powerful magic users. She was a servant, to a woman named Quetsiyah, the most powerful witch in their city. And she was in love, with Silas, Quetsiyah's betrothed and the second most powerful witch." Elena looked down at the picture, seeing the crimson cloth and the light in the dark eyes her simple lines did not convey. "She was kind and clever. She didn't begrudge her station as a servant, except that it kept her from her love. She loved Silas more than anything."
She debated silently for a moment, as Caroline and Bonnie waited, spellbound. "She loves Silas more than anything and he loved her, perhaps still loves her, though she has been sealed away and believes him dead."
Amara believed herself dead, and for her sake Elena wished it was true. She didn't know what had happened to Amara, the first doppelganger's memories too fragmented by pain for clarity. The dreams she slipped into were tormented things, slivers of her secret love with Silas the only bright spots. Elena suspected that Silas also lived still, hidden somewhere, given Stefan Salvatore's familiar face, but his fate was of less interest to her. Amara's fate was cruel and had endured for far too long, someday Elena would very much like to find her, and free her, from whatever curse Quetsiyah had used to trap her.
Fortifying herself with a long drink of melted ice cream and boozy soda, Elena looked up at her friends with a crooked smile. "Silas tricked his betrothed into creating an immortality spell, so that they could be together forever. Instead he and Amara took the elixir she created. She discovered the betrayal and cursed them both. I do not know how. I do not know if she found a way to kill Silas. But Amara she trapped in perpetual torment and she still lives, somewhere."
"That's awful," Bonnie breathed, and Caroline nodded.
"I mean, Amara totally broke girl code in stealing her fiance, but that is super fucked up."
Elena snorted, and clinked her glass against Caroline's. "Agreed."
"Despite everything I'm about to tell you, I don't know nearly as much about magic as your Grams, Bonnie, but, I know enough to know that nature wants balance and Amara becoming immortal disturbed that balance. So, as a side effect of her immortality, doppelgangers were created. Mortal doppelgangers."
Caroline looked confused but Bonnie's eyes went wide. "That's what you are. Does that mean you have to die?"
"We all die, Bonnie," Elena said, a statistically true statement given how few immortals there were. "But no, I don't have to die any sooner than a natural death would be, at least, not for that." There was at least one other quasi-immortal who wanted to sacrifice her, but the story wasn't there yet.
She flipped the page on her sketchbook before they could ask any more questions, revealing another face. The dark hair was up in elaborate curls and buns, a headdress embedded with gems holding it in place. Her shoulders could be seen, embroidered cloth draped across them and cutting deeply off the page, the top curve of her breasts visible.
"Helen of Troy. Not blonde as it turns out, despite Hollywood's casting preferences."
Elena had a lot of complex and conflicting feelings about a woman with her face being deemed the most beautiful in the world, puberty had been difficult. Her feelings about Helen herself were just as complex, but far less conflicting. The movies and myths were far from accurate, but the pain, the degradation, the being treated as a prized object and not a person, the aching loss, that was true.
"Magic wasn't in her life, not like Amara's, nor were any gods, just men with their greed and lust, for power and for her." Her lips twitched, not amusement, some bitter cousin. "Maybe Quetsiyah's curse extended not just to Amara, but to all who bore her face."
"How, how do you know these things, Elena, do you have some sort of grimoire?" Bonnie asked, her tone gentle but her eyes sharp with curiosity.
"No," Elena shook her head. "Nothing physical has been passed down between the doppelgangers. Some didn't even know they were doppelgangers. But I remember them." Her fist clenched, the other tightening on her glass until it threatened to break, and she breathed for a moment, forcing herself to release the tension. "Not everything and not everyone. Some are clearer than others. But I've had pieces of their memories, I've had their faces and voices in my dreams, since before I could talk."
Caroline finally spoke up into the heavy silence after that statement, the frown that had wrinkled her forehead since the first picture fading into something else. "Why didn't you tell us?" she asked, shock and a little hurt in her voice, quiet in a way it rarely was. "We could have helped you deal, or at least let you vent."
Elena smiled and, after carefully setting her still half-full glass on the nightstand, leaned forward and pulled them both into a hug, kissing the top of Caroline's head. "You did help. Both of you. I could not have survived any of the last sixteen years without you."
She pulled back, taking one of each of their hands instead. Caroline looked a little teary and Bonnie took her other hand, squeezing both in support. "And I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It was private and, well, I have more to tell you, but it's dangerous too, and I never wanted either of you to get hurt."
Wrinkling her nose, Elena let go of their hands and brushed her fingers against Helen's face, captured in a rare, genuine smile. "And I was selfish. I wanted to just be a girl for as long as I could, before my face made it impossible."
"Well, I say screw the impossible, you can be whoever you want to be," Caroline said, her brief moment of tears burning away into the fierce sharpness she wielded so well. "No curse is going to stop you if we have anything to say about it. And clearly things have changed since this tragic history because you are gorgeous, but certainly not any more than me and Bonnie," she added with an only semi-serious huff and a flip of her hair.
"Caroline!" Bonnie slapped her arm, but couldn't hold in her giggle, and Elena didn't even bother to try, laughing until tears appeared at the corners of her eyes.
"I love you both so much. If any of my predecessors had been blessed with you, things might have gone quite differently," she told them with complete sincerity, the warmth of their love for her and hers for them protecting her from the darkness of the story.
Loneliness was a strikingly common factor in all of the doppelgangers' lives, much of it stemming from the role women were forced to play in the societies they had lived in. Elena was deeply grateful for her friends, and for the ways society had changed. Taking a deep breath, she sat back and picked up her glass, the ice cream melted enough that she could drain it in one go, eliciting a whoop from Bonnie and cheers from Caroline.
"Rhea," Elena said firmly, determined to finish this recital. Their names and stories had burned within her for her whole life and they deserved to be told. Flipping the page, Elena revealed a determined face in the soft lines of a nun's habit. "Rhea lived in Italy, outside of Sicily. Competing offers for her hand in marriage led to violence and she chose to refuse them all and join a convent. She fell in love with one of the other nuns, who loved her deeply in return. She might have had the happiest life of all of us, if Sicily hadn't been invaded."
Bonnie winced and Caroline flopped back against Elena's pillows. "This is a depressing story, Elena. Can we please order pizza before you tell us about her presumably brutal death in the arms of her lover."
Elena laughed, then leaned over and returned her friend's earlier pinch, aiming for Caroline's hip. "Yes we can order pizza. And if you are patient, I promise you will love at least part of this story."
Carolline stuck her tongue out and then pushed Elena away, pulling her cell phone out to call for pizza. "The usual?"
"Plus coke! I need another drink and we used the last of it," Bonnie said and Elena nodded. She waited for Caroline to finish ordering and then picked up the sketchbook, drawing attention back to the pages.
"While we wait, are you ready for the next one? It's big. The creation of vampires big."
Bonnie's eyes widened and then narrowed in intent curiousity and Caroline nodded, setting her cell phone down. "Just tell me how depressed I'm going to be after."
Elena waggled her hand side to side. "Uh, less depressing than eternal torment. But complicated. And more personal."
"You get to convince my mom to pay for therapy again if I need it after this," Caroline said with a huff, but didn't argue further, instead picking up one of Elena's pillows to hug and leaning against Bonnie.
Elena flipped the page and for the first time a version of her face didn't look back. Instead the penciled lines revealed an older woman with strong features and long, fair hair pulled back from her face. "Esther Mikaelson was born a thousand years ago. I don't know much about her early life, but at some point she and her husband and their children migrated to the Americas. To here, in fact. Long before it was Mystic Falls."
"There were Vikings here?!" Carolline exclaimed. "Why didn't we learn that? That would be so much more interesting than yet another unit on the Battle of Willow Creek."
"Seriously. If they make me write one more paper about the confederacy, I will not be responsible for my actions," Bonnie said, genuine rage in her tone.
Caroline, still leaning against Bonnie, dropped the pillow and wrapped her arms around her friend instead. "Bonnie, as Chair of, well, every single committee in Mystic Falls, I promise you that this year's founder's festival will not have any celebration of the confederate army. Even if I have to get Elena to use either the orphan card or magic to make the Mayor listen to me."
Bonnie smiled and hugged her back, the anger in her eyes still visible but dimmed, and Elena smiled at both of them, then looked at Caroline. "I'm so glad we're at the point of using each other's trauma against other people," she said dryly.
Caroline winced and reached out for her without letting go of Bonnie. "I'm sorry, Elena, I," she grimaced. "I'm still working on that whole thinking, then speaking thing."
Elena laughed and waved her hand away, pushing down the grief that had flared at hearing the word orphan. "It's fine. And we really should have done something about the gross confederate shit years ago, I'm sorry, Bonnie."
Bonnie nodded, accepting her apology. "Tell us about the Vikings, Elena. I'm definitely ready to hear about a different history for Mystic Falls."
"Right. Esther and her family joined some other settlers from their people, and a local Native American tribe. She was a powerful witch, but their life was quiet, hunting and farming, raising their children. One of the neighboring villages, also a mix between Viking settlers and Native Americans, was a werewolf clan."
"So we really are living in Underworld," Caroline snarked.
"Not a terrible comparison," Elena agreed, thinking of werewolf bites and hybrid curses. "Their werewolf neighbors were friendly, but came with particular dangers on the full moon. Esther and another witch in their village, Ayana, spelled some caves to protect them from the wolves, giving the humans a safe place to reside on the night of the full moon. One of those humans was Tatia." Elena turned to a new page, once again revealing the face of a doppelganger, her hair in complex braids and her expression fierce.
"Tatia was a Viking, a shieldmaiden. Her husband died in battle and she brought her daughter to the Americas for a fresh start. She had a fierce love for life, and for her daughter, and she refused to let grief steal them." Tatia was something of an inspiration for Elena, a reminder to not lose herself to her losses, to mourn, and to move on. "She was a warrior, a mother, and the life of any party, and two of Esther Mikaelson's sons fell hard and fast."
"Elijah Mikaelson, second oldest son" she said, flipping to the next page to reveal a handsome man with shoulder length hair and a serious demeanor. The page after that was the hardest to turn to, the face that had haunted her worst nightmares. "Klaus Mikaelson, third son."
"Oooh, hotties despite the unfortunate hair," Caroline cooed, leaning forward to study the pictures.
They were, handsome. Tatia had thought so and Elena agreed, if she ignored their memories or her fears. It was hard to see anything but a monster in Klaus' face. He hadn't been a monster to Tatia, and he hadn't been the first monster in Katherine's life, but he was the monster still haunting her every move. He was the monster who would tear Elena's throat out if he knew she existed, and would not hesitate to kill every family member she had left if he felt like it.
Her feelings for Klaus were very simple, in the end. Fear, and deep beneath it, dark and violent hatred.
Elijah was far harder to define. Tatia had loved him, had chosen him, but her choice had never been realized before Henrik's death and Esther's fatal decision. Katherine had not loved him, but she'd wanted to. She might have, in another world. One in which her father hadn't been her first monster and Klaus wasn't her second.
"I'm sure they have better hair now," Elena said out loud, and smiled as Caroline's eyes widened. "Tatia enjoyed the company of both brothers, and befriended the rest of the family. Once she'd had time to know them both, she'd chosen Elijah. The night she told him, the night she was going to bring him home to her daughter, was a full moon."
"Klaus had a difficult relationship with his parents, his father was cruel even by Viking standards and by ours would have faced child abuse investigations. But he loved his siblings and they loved him and when his youngest brother, the baby of the family, wanted to go spy on the wolves, he agreed." She hated Klaus. She would always hate Klaus. But Niklaus, kind middle son who'd made Tatia and his sister smile with his flirting and his opinions on dyes, him she mourned as she mourned all of her fellow doppelgangers' lost loved ones. "They got too close and Henrik was killed. Mikael, their father, was furious and led their village in a slaughter against the wolves, when they were human again and vulnerable the next day."
"That's so sad and awful, for everyone," Bonnie said, her lips twisted in a frown and her hands tight on her glass.
"It was. And yet, it wasn't enough. Esther and Mikael wanted to ensure they would never lose another child. So she turned to magic, dark magic. Magic that required blood. And, conveniently, blood that was one of the most powerful magical binding agents in the world, filled her son's betrothed."
"No, she killed Tatia?" Caroline breathed out and Elena shook her head.
"Not yet. She used her blood though, didn't tell her why, but Tatia trusted her and Esther was known for her magic in the village. And, with that blood, Esther Mikaelson created an immortality spell and with it, the world's first vampires—Finn, Elijah, Klaus, Kol, Rebekah, and her husband, Mikael."
Not all of her knowledge of the events of that time were Tatia's, whom Esther had kept in the dark. Katherine had done her homework in the centuries since meeting Klaus, determined to know everything she could about an enemy so much stronger than her.
"They didn't know, at first, what the spell would entail. I don't know if Grams has told you about werewolves yet, Bonnie, but it's an inherited curse. And it's triggered by killing another person."
Bonnie seemed to be pondering the nature of such a curse while Caroline gasped, realizing where Elena was going before she said it. "When they first lost control of their bloodlust, Klaus began to change. Mikael was not his father and he had become a hybrid, werewolf and vampire in one."
"That is some Buffy meets Desperate Housewives level of drama," Caroline said, her eyes practically glowing with fascination. "Also I so called it with that Underworld reference."
Elena snorted, but didn't respond. "I don't, I don't know everything that happened. I know Esther thought it an abomination and killed Tatia to bind Klaus' werewolf side in a curse. I know that Esther didn't survive the night either, but I don't know how she died. I know that the rest still live, including Mikael, who is determined to kill his children and Klaus."
Glancing back down at the page, she stared at Klaus' eyes, seeing feral blue instead of pencil and creamy paper. "And I know that Klaus must sacrifice another doppelganger to break his curse."