March 25, 999
Dear Diary,
It has been a full six months since that fateful day and my life has irrevocably changed; I think for the better. My friends and family in my past life would say otherwise, but at this point, I would have to disagree with them. It's not like I will ever have this argument with them, still I do find myself asking what would Caroline or Bonnie say about this or that.
I do miss them and I catch myself staring off into space, sometimes recalling all the things we did growing up. I won't lie and say that I don't feel sad from time to time. Lately, I have been thinking of all the harm and pain I caused for both of them. It's better this way.
If I'm successful, I can keep the creation of vampires from ever happening and, who knows, if my actions here in this time don't make things better for everyone involved. Maybe Katerina could keep her daughter and if not, then she would be free to start a new life in England after when her father banishes her. No vampires mean she can't turn either Salvatore brother and break up the brotherly bond they share. Stefan would never become a Ripper. Bonnie would never lose her grandmother because of a selfish teenage girl. Caroline would never become a vampire. Aunt Jenna, Uncle John, even Isobel, my mother, wouldn't die.
There is a chance that my future self might die if Stefan isn't there to save me, but I could also have a happy life with Isobel and maybe Ric as my stepfather. What is the point of being a so-called Child of Destiny if you can't make others' lives better even at the expense of your own?
It doesn't mean I won't have a satisfying life here though, right?
I wish I could do daily entries, but making paper is time consuming and I'm not the only person in the village that needs it. Ayana has indicated that she'll help by giving me a little of hers if the need arises, but I still have blank sheets of paper in my journal. I just need to be selective about what I do want to write about.
Okay, enough self reflection for now time to catch up on events.
Tatia's pregnancy is progressing well, although we did learn something about her pregnancy that is rather concerning. Through magic, Ayana has confirmed that Tatia is having twins, girls. I've racked my brain for everything I learned from my time period and neither Elijah nor Rebekah mentioned twins, so I can only draw two possible conclusions. Either my presence in the past has altered history enough that Tatia will become a mother of twins or she loses one of them and history being the selective bastard, it is only recorded one child. Ayana said that Tatia is doing well, as is her unborn twin girls, and her due date is late July or early August. Which ironically is the same month Elijah and I will be wed. Small world, right?
Speaking of Ayana, I learned something that was a complete surprise. Actually, Tatia had mentioned it before, but I forgot. Still, it sort of makes sense considering what I know about Bonnie. But after Bekah and I found Ayana talking to herself in her Spellchamber, I found out that she can speak with spirits, or more accurately ghosts. Apparently, it is an old Bennett family magical trait. Not every Bennett witch has it, and if they do, it varies from person to person. Ayana did say it took a lot of practice to hone and her Spellchamber helps her to focus it. She didn't tell me who she can communicate with, but the impression I got from her talking about it is that they were supernatural beings at one point in their existence. It made me wonder if somehow Bonnie had passed her trait on to Jeremy when she brought him back and maybe the steep price she had to pay was passing this ability on to him. God, I really wish I could talk to them. I still have the message they sent me. I look at it sometimes to help me remember them. I worry about the day that I reach a point that I start to forget what their voices sounded like.
Adric only took about a week to find a decent piece of wood for my quarterstaff. It was made based on my specifications. It is even with the tip of my nose and sized appropriately for my fingers to wrap securely around the wood shaft. He went a step further and wrapped the end points in metal, sheathing for durability, not that the wood needs it. He surprised me when he told me he made it from a branch that had been sheared off in a lightning strike on the Great White Oak Tree in the village. It feels strange to have a weapon made from the same tree that the ash for White Oak Ash Daggers came from, as well as the stake that Mikael had intended to kill Klaus with but ended up dying when it was turned against him.
Speaking of Klaus, his sword training with Henrik is going well. So once my chores are completed, Elijah and I are going to go watch him spar with his younger brother. I figured I'd be his cheering section, considering that today is his sixteenth birthday.
A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A
March 25, 999
"Well, Elijah, I will say this about your sister she is dedicated to keeping my virtue intact." Elena groused.
Elijah, walking beside her, actually smiled before his stoic mask slipped back into place. Elena had once wondered if his mask had resulted from him being made into a vampire; she'd never considered that her future husband was always like this. Even that wasn't fully accurate either. She had the pleasure to learn on the rare occasions they were alone he let his mask come off only for her. She felt both awe and sadness that he would allow himself to show his vulnerability just with her, but he felt the need to hide it when in public.
Rebekah was only a single stride pace behind them, distant enough to give them some modicum of privacy but still close enough to break them up if they did anything considered too familiar and thus inappropriate. Elena might have pointed out that she'd been technically married before, all thanks to the magically implanted memories courtesy of Ayana, but she also knew that no matter how real they felt to her, they were still fabricated.
"Well, if you too behaved I wouldn't have to step in." Rebekah huffed.
Elena sighed and on a whim took Elijah's free hand into hers. A little act of defiance seemed called for, she decided. The exasperated look her future sister-in-law was throwing her direction felt more than justified. Her other hand was busy holding the quarterstaff her friend Adric had made for her several months ago. In private, she found time to practice with it, following the routine Ric had drilled into her. Along the way, she'd discovered that it had multiple uses other than being a weapon. Right now, she was using it as a walking stick.
Less than two weeks after she first approached Adric, he'd presented her new quarterstaff. At the time she'd felt guilt for the possibility of taking his attention from work he was getting paid for, but Romana had reassured her that her father was currently waiting for a customer to decide on what custom work he wanted done for a sword.
She smiled to herself, remembering the curious looks the other villagers had given her the first time they'd seen her with the quarterstaff; most had come to believe that it was what she was using at that moment a well crafted walking stick. If they suspected it was a weapon she had heard no one refer to and if she was being honest with herself, she'd preferred it that way. What better a weapon than one that is hidden in plain sight?
The three of them walked, enjoying the spring air. She smiled at the surprised look Klaus had given her and Rebekah when they started to braid his long blond hair that morning. She'd suggested the idea to Rebekah the day before as a birthday present for him. It still amazed her that people at this time didn't celebrate birthdays like in her former time period. But it did make sense when survival in this premodern world was tenuous. Still, she couldn't resist doing something nice for him. It had taken a while, but she was starting to warm up to him and they had grown closer as a result.
The sounds of clashing metal were at first distant and had only increased in volume as they neared the training area Klaus had set up where he and his baby brother could safely practice their swordsmanship. She had been here before with Elijah as they discussed months ago, and even now she could see a vast improvement in how Henrik handled himself and his weapon. The first time she watched them spar she'd been horrified for them both, but to Elijah and Klaus's shared amusement at her expense they demonstrated that the blades were the same weight as normal ones, but the sharp edges had been blunted for training purposes. If needed, they could've sharpened, but for now, they sufficed as training weapons. She was relieved since Henrik was a very sweet innocent boy who was curious about everything he did, like getting stuck in trees after climbing them, but he always had a smile on his face. Today she noted that he seemed confident with his hard won abilities and while he wanted to push to learn more, his brother's consul for learning the basics first was the mantra they were trying to hammer into him.
They arrived just as Henrik deflected a blow that would've been a lethal one if it had struck home and the blade had been sharpened as well. Rebekah clapped as she watched her two favorite brothers spar. Elena would never tell Elijah or his siblings what she had told Elena in confidence, she didn't have the heart to tell that she suspected Elijah at least already knew and he seemed fine with that bit of knowledge. It was taking a little effort, but she was beginning to see his slight tells in how he held himself to sense his mood. In private he was definitely more open, but with Rebekah acting as her self imposed shadow, those times were rare and they didn't want to waste them.
They watched as the two brothers circled each other, looking for some weakness in their opponent to exploit. She couldn't overlook how aggressive Klaus was in his feigning attempts to draw his little brother out. A thought from when she was still a little girl, she could still recall being warned by her parents that she should be cautious when experimenting with Tyler Lockwood. When she asked why, they'd just told her that all Lockwoods had anger issues for as long as they had been in Mystic Falls. Her parents had tried to be judicious about telling her all this, especially after he reached puberty. He had an over tendency of being too aggressive as a child and it had only gotten worse as he got older. Channeling it into sports had helped him some, but she wondered if that was the norm since he had the werewolf gene. But who was she to judge? She had been a wild child too, according to her mother, but she had taught her at an early age how to mitigate it through meditation and now it was almost second nature for her. So she wondered if she'd be able to teach the same meditation techniques to Klaus. With all that she is planning to do to keep her future family from being made into vampires, there was still Klaus's werewolf curse he could inadvertently trigger. But she couldn't even talk openly about it to anyone without causing literal heads to roll.
Both she and Rebekah gasped in surprise when Henrik, not watching his footing, overextended himself, leaving him wide open. Klaus being Klaus took advantage and the next thing she saw was poor Henrik laying flat out on his back with a dazed look as he stared up into the sky, his sword lay where he'd dropped it. Elena anxiously waited as Klaus stood directly above his baby brother with his blade held in an at ease position. After another silent minute or two, he extended his free hand to help his brother right himself.
Elena was about to congratulate them both when a booming and annoyingly all too familiar voice rang out from behind her and off to her side directly behind Rebekah. Jarl Mikael Mikaelson, my future father-in-law; she couldn't help to think about the sheer irony of the situation.
"Is this how you go about training your little brother, boy!" Mikael spat. Pushing past them into the training circle where his two offspring appeared seemingly frozen, as if by magic. However, after a quick glance, she couldn't see either Esther or Ayana nearby. So that only meant fear was holding them in check. To think I want to be part of this family, perhaps it is a good idea that Elijah and I take it slow with having children of our own with this man as a grandfather, Elena thought. She knew she was just trying to distract herself from what was most likely going to happen.
"Father, I-" Klaus started, but his father cut him off with a slashing motion with his hand. Then Mikael held out his hand and reluctantly Klaus handed his sword over to him.
"What is your excuse this time? You had the advantage, yet you failed to follow through with it," the brute of man grated out. Elena couldn't believe her ears. Did the man imply what she thought he was implying, and based on Elijah and his siblings' reactions, they'd interpreted it the same way too.
"Talk about learning the hard way," Elena muttered under her breath. The warning look Elijah gave her did mollify her some, but she still felt rather incensed by what was transpiring before their very eyes.
"But I didn't want to hurt my little brother." Klaus stated, looking at his brother as he spoke.
"Did I suggest that you permanently injure him, No boy! These blades are dulled for a reason." Their father snarled and before Klaus or Elijah could react, Mikael swung the flat sided on and struck Klaus on his bicep. Leaving an angry welt where the blade's broad surface made contact, Elijah's brother winced in obvious pain. To his credit, Klaus didn't even make a sound, but Elena felt her own anger grow after watching such brutality.
"Next time you have the upper hand, I expect you to take full advantage of it." Mikael ordered.
"You're wrong!" The words just slipped out, Elena was just as shocked by her outburst as the small crowd that had grown around the training circle when it finally registered in Elena's head that it had been her that had uttered those two innocuous words.
Nice going there Elena, talk about putting one's own foot in your mouth, she mentally chastised herself privately.
That simple self admonishment was all she really could do at the moment as Mikael had now centering his full attention solely on her and stalked his way over where the three of them were standing. Elijah, being the noble person he was, moved to stand in front of her to block, but his father's stern glare stopped him in his tracks.
"Father-"
Mikael stopped within arms reach of her and she tried not to flinch as his eyes raked over her and her future husband and sister-in-law.
"What makes you think you're still even that?" a voice which to Elena sounded way too much like Katherine Pierce asked aloud inside Elena's head. It seemed even here in the past she still couldn't escape her antagonistic ancestor.
"No son, I would like to hear what she has to say," Mikael interrupted as looked her over almost as if he was judging her already and she didn't know why but a fire grew in her to push her to take the man head on. In the last few months since her accepting the courtship, she'd watched as her future father-in-law all but brutalized her former enemy. It had taken her a while to come to that realization. If she was going to change things, then her previous perceptions of Niklaus Mikaelson would have to change as well. She'd learned from Caroline growing up the best way to deal with a bully is to sometimes stand up to them. She only hoped that she wasn't going to be making a rather large mistake.
"Well Elena Petrova, you seem to disagree with how I teach my own son. What makes you an expert in weaponry usage?"
"My father taught me Jarl Mikaelson. Would you care for a demonstration?"
"Elena!?" both Elijah and Rebekah cried. Even Klaus and Henrik looked shocked by the audacity of their future sister-in-law. Mikael glared at her, but she wasn't willing to back down now. If she was going to change the future, she might as well try to take some of the heat off Klaus and redirect it somewhere else.
Mikael didn't like to be challenged, but both he and Elena knew that he couldn't back out of this and neither could she. Holding up his hand as an invitation to step into the ring, Elena took a step only to feel Elijah's hand on her shoulder preventing her from proceeding.
"Father, please. It's been a long day and I think she has been out in the sun too long," Elijah pleaded. Elena's heart warmed at his attempt to protect her, but if she could turn the tables on Jade kidnapping her and surviving all the nonsense she had from her past, she could handle this she knew. Or at least she hoped, so she was far from being an expert, but thanks to Ric's training and ironically the implanted memories with the skills gained from them, she felt somewhat confident that she wouldn't make a total fool out of herself.
"Henrik, give her your training sword," Mikael ordered as he took his place in the ring. With a degree of reluctance, the youngest Mikaelson moved to do as his father had commanded when Elena surprised everyone present by holding up her hand.
"I don't need it I already have my weapon of choice." Elena declared. Getting over his initial shock, Mikael pointed at her dagger, still in its scabbard.
"A dagger against a sword is only done in an act of desperation, girl. Either accept the weapon or call this nonsense off."
Elena held out her staff and then with practiced ease, assuming the middle guard position, her left hand acting as the pivot point while her other hand would control the running in and wrenching actions. Not that it mattered; she could switch the order of handling as the situation required.
"What is this?" Mikael asked incredulously he motioned towards her staff.
"It's called a quarterstaff and it can be a lethal weapon if handled properly."
He regarded her and her weapon with curiosity and, with a shake of his head, he advanced.
20 Minutes Later:
Elena was just as surprised that she managed to pull it off. She was sweaty and breathing from having exerted herself. She hadn't counted on his sword blows on her staff to be so jarring, but she wasn't going to give up. He quickly found that her reach with it was greater than his own ability to the same with his sword fully extended. Which only would open him up for counterattack.
It had been pure luck that she caught him when his footings were placed just so she could use the staff in between his legs to send him toppling to the ground on his back. Before he could recover, she swung the iron tip of her staff up and over in a great arc only to catch it before it could strike his exposed forehead.
Standing above him Elena peered down at him, the tip of her staff was less than the width of a hand span away from his head. She prayed that he finally got the meaning of her unspoken intent of her demonstration. She could have easily let the tip strike him and the blow would have either caused serious injury or death.
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March 25, 999
Ayana's Dwelling
"What were you thinking? Challenging our father like that, he could have seriously injured you!" Elijah demanded, just as soon as she had shut the door, giving them some modicum level of privacy.
"I know he could have Elijah, but I couldn't take it anymore!"
He was upset with her, she knew just by the way he was holding himself in check. Ever since the incident with Jade, he'd been overly protective of her and while she appreciated his attentive nature of her, now was not the time.
"How can your father be so cruel to your brother?" she asked instead.
"Our father is a hard man to please Elena. I've had my own share of bruises from him." Elijah blurted.
Elena backed away with a horrified expression. She knew that Mikael had abused Klaus but she should have considered the possibility that he'd done the same with his remaining children. Rebekah hadn't ever said anything about it, but in retrospect Elena could distinctly recall her changing the subject whenever he wanted to reach out to her, but she wasn't going to let him until he explained.
"When was the last time he's done that to you?" Elena's voice climbed with alarm just as her gaze swept over him as if she could still find the evidence of physical abuse.
Elijah took her in his arms and held her trembling form. It took him a minute to realize that she was afraid for him and for his siblings.
"Lovely Elena, I'm not entirely sure when was the last time he did that to me but it has to have been over four winters ago that he went after me specifically. I've tried to intervene on behalf of my siblings, in particular Niklaus, but I've seen Niklaus with bruising that is partially healed. I've asked him, but Niklaus always said he must have gotten it from rough housing with Kol or Henrik."
Elena could hear in her future husband tone that he didn't quite believe his younger brother's excuse either.
"Elijah," she sighed and pulled him closer, molding her smaller form into him. "I really don't know how we can protect him from your abusive father. The only other thing I can think of to help Nik would be to just be there for him."
They stood like that, enjoying the simple feeling of just being there for each other. "Elijah, promise me something?"
"Anything my Kærasta," he breathed into the top of her head.
"When we finally have children, promise me that you and I will try to be better parents."
His body stiffened under her touch, but as quickly as it had come, it was gone, which made Elena relax more into his embrace. She'd worried that she might have broached a too sensitive subject, but his body language helped to reassure her as did his voice as it rumbled through her own. So she felt more than heard it.
"I promise, " Elijah said finally, and she believed him. Knowing that he took a big step in revealing the vulnerable side of himself, she could only do something that she'd wanted to, but until now had been too scared to declare so openly to him as well as herself.
"I love you Elijah Mikaelson."
"I love you too Elena Petrova."
