Chapter 1: Bloody Beginnings
Early 10th Century
In another time, another world, one soul would not be born, and the world would go through a very different story. But not here, not now. Instead at the start of the 10th Century, the North East Atlantic Werewolf pack sees a new cub join the pack, Magnus Henrikson. The boy is born frail, with pale blonde hair, closer to silver in shade, skin like the first snowfall, and eyes of cerulean blue, like ice itself. Henrik Fjordson, the boy's father, cares little for a weak cub that will not be able to serve the pack, nor those he cares to bond with the babe in its crib. His Mother Aela had died birthing him. It was only the kindness of the elders, and the alpha, Ansel, that he lived at all.
But live he did, he was small, and skinny and considered weak by the pack. Bullied and put down by the others, pushed into corners with no way out. He was forced to adapt, or die. He began to steal when he could, food, clothes, weapons, anything small or easily forgotten and lost. He began to lay traps for his attackers, luring them into situations where he had the advantage. He trained everyday, until he was bloody and bruised and could barely stand. The father that had abandoned him at birth, took in his son once more after one of such days, tending to his wounds and showing him how to improve on what he was already doing.
But eventually he began to thrive. He'd had to work so much more than everyone else, he'd had to run further, fight longer, strike harder and it began to show. By the time he reached his early twenties he was just shy of 6ft3, with a lean, wiry frame of muscles. The hair on his head had grown long, ending just below his shoulders often needing to be pulled into a tight braid. A short and well maintained beard framed his lower jaw. Whilst he had been the runt once, he was not so now. Throughout this his place in the pack never changed, especially with his lack of motivation to pick up the True Hunt, not being able to bring himself to kill another living being. It left him ostracized at times, even damaging the bond he had regained with his father.
So he chose to sneak away at times, it was not unusual for the young man to disappear for days and weeks at a time, ranging as far as he dared with only the barest sense of home drawing him back each time. He wasn't without friends however. His peoples village did involve others outside of the pack, with whom he held a passing acquaintance if not a burgeoning friendship in some places. The younger Mikealson's a group of vikings from the so-called Old World, a world Magnus had never experienced only heard passing mention. The eldest Mikealson, Finn and Magnus were close in age, personality, and mindset making them easy friends, though at times their arguments and clashes could cause them to break off this friendship for weeks and months at a time, though they considered themselves as close as they could despite this. From this friendship he gained a burgeoning respect and friendship from Elijah, with whom he often spared and trained with, spending many a time in the village square in brief clashes of steel, and he was not ashamed at all to lose to the younger man, often in fact. He spoke often with Rebekah, the daughter of the Mikealsons, and to him, the beauty of the family, though he would often joke that Elijah often vied for the title. The other members he was nowhere near as close to, and he deeply feared the ruthlessness of the family patriarch.
His closeness to Rebekah was what drove him to an important decision. In this time, most marriages were for the sake of simplicity, to continue the family, and strengthen it in turn, within the pack even more so. Magnus had thrown so much of the pack's traditions aside, that many of the female members of the pack would not have him nor want him, much less would their family allow the union. There were others in town, such as the beautiful Tatia that his friend was smitten with, or others who were just as beautiful, smart or strong. But it was companionship that drove Magnus. Did he love Rebekah, no. Could he? Most certainly, she was caring, kind, sweet and supportive with a smile that could brighten the dreariest night, and the dankest cave. She was fun to be around and he was a friend to both her and her eldest siblings. So, after a full moon, Magnus gathered up his meager wealth of values, in trinkets, ores, gems, and gathered pelts and coats, a map to the cabin he had slowly begun to build for himself away from the village but not so far as to be unable to return within a days trek, and made his way towards the Mikaelson homestead. Only to be cut short by the sight before him.
Mauled, broken, bloody and surrounded by family, covered in marks and scarring that Magnus had seen all too well over the years on animals and other such creatures. Henrik Mikealson, youngest of the family, a boy who was barely three and ten. Dead. Mikeal raged, he roared, he blamed Niklaus, for taking his youngest into such folly and danger, he cursed the werewolves that had taken him, and when he saw Magnus, he drove him through the belly with his sword. Magnus did not blame the man, how could he, grief appeared in powerful ways for different people. The loss of a chance at love, at true friends for instance, caused Magnus himself to spiral. He began to drink, deeply and without care, taking booze from wherever he could, in bottles or mouthfuls. He was deep in his cups, when he stole a mouthful of wine, from the Mikealson's themselves, he was even deeper when he wandered out into the woods and was lost. He was even deeper by the time the arrow sank into his chest, piercing his heart.
To say he was startled then, when the next morning he woke to the forest floor moving slowly beneath his feet as the horse carried him further and further. It hurt to move, to breathe, a pain crippling him in his chest, and his thirst was unbearable. Whilst Magnus was startled, the fear that most had spread through Alf, one of his constant instigators, who had decided Magnus was to be the kill that awoke his wolf, must have been even more so. Magnus was able to shove himself off the horse and pull the young man off with him. Crushing him to the ground. He tried to pull himself away only to realise, the arrow still pierced his chest, his heart, and now Alf's leg.
Magnus did not remember what came next. Only waking many miles north, further than he'd gone before and far more north than he should have ever been, feeling far more tired, yet more revitalised than he'd ever been. His clothes bare scraps that hid nothing, and offered no protection, his body caked in dried blood, specifically around his mouth and hands, with splatterings on his chest. He knew what must have occurred, he must have somehow killed Alf, he must have awakened the curse. He had broken one of the crucial rules of the pack, and did not know that Alf seeked to do the same, so he ran. He ran further and further everyday. Faster and stronger than he'd been before yet nothing slaked his thirst, he travelled further and under several turns of the moon but no transformation ever came, growing weaker, gaunter, his skin greying and roughening. Then one day he stumbled upon a village not unlike his home he'd left now many months alone. They helped him. Cleaned him up, clothed him, fed him. And in return when one member of the village cut their hand that night. He slaughtered them.
They stood no chance, how could they, he was faster than them, stronger than them, and unlike them, he couldn't be killed. When he came to clarity, and realised what he'd done, how he'd torn out their throats, how he had drunk the village dry, how he had killed every last one of them. He cried. Tears of sorrow, of guilt, of shame. For what he had done. And for the fact that he knew he would do it again. Because now the thirst, the thirst that had been slated on slabs of raw meat from time to time, was now negligible in amount. He burnt the town completely and fled.
He spent the next 10 years trying to kill himself, to no success. He tried every method he could find to no success. He killed any human he came across as he wandered the New World, and searched for something to end his torment. Eventually he made it to his birthplace, only to find it ruined and destroyed and the pack in the wind, at least he hoped. He spent as much time as he could away from humans, he tried desperately to survive on animal blood, which stated his thirst, but barely. Slowly he moved West, eventually crossing unknowingly into the Old World. Thus at the turn of the 11th Century, he arrived and thus there were seven Originals in the Old World.
