I'm Not Calling You A Liar

by bkgrl

The last time Klaus had seen her (Caroline) it was 1922 and she was bleeding out, calling his name, with a stake in her hand. Esther's curse involved a doppelganger and a hunter, who would spend the next 9 life times and 1000 years, distracting, stalking, killing, loving, annoying and torturing Niklaus Mikaelson, forever thwarting his efforts to break the moonstone curse.

15. 1493 AD, Christine P2

A/N: Yes I know its taken me forever to update. Sorry about that. Just a heads up, there will be some divergence from canon from now on and I'm changing the mythology.

As always thank you to Jen for being my beta. Yes, there are probably errors in this copy as well but please just be kind and ignore them. We are busy people. Also thank you to Nessa for her beautiful art.

Finally- Thank you to all of you wonderful readers that keep coming back for more.

---

996 AD

Burkara, Norway

She had not slept for even a moment the entire night. As the sun rose over the horizon, Ayana sat ready by the door, coiled like a snake ready to kill if necessary. She couldn't let her go. It was as simple as that. Ayana would have to stop Esther's apprentice from going anywhere near that fetid house of horrors.

She would be devoured before she could even fully set foot inside the house. For the things that lay within, the monsters that had once been children scratched at the doors that kept them caged, begging to be let out once darkness fell upon the village so they may feed.

"If there is a sickness, should I not go and help, Ma'am?" The young girl questioned, always a little too precocious for her own good.

"I said, you do not go there today, child, or ever again. Your training is done," Ayana insisted as she grabbed the girl and pulled her inside.

Trying to shake her grasp, Lyanna insisted, "I must, my mother would want me to and Esther is expecting me."

Ayana tightened her grip to the point of pain, as she eerily repeated her words paired with a stare that sent chills down Lyanna's spin, "You don't go there today, or ever again."

Scared, Lyanna shook her head in response, if only to free herself from Ayana's grasp. Releasing her, the older woman motioned for the girl to follow, "I have something for you."

Gazing at her rows of pots, each filled with a different herb that served a different purpose, she thought of the vial that lay hidden between those jars and the wall. It was the only freedom any of them had.

Siphoned without Esther's knowledge, it was the only weapon besides Tatia's child that could cure the disease that had sired the beasts- the things that Esther's children had become.

Ayana's hand rested on the row of jars that hid the cure. For a moment she considered giving it to the girl. Ayana considered giving up her most valuable possession if it meant that it could save Lyanna who was too naive and much too forgiving to understand what was at foot.

It was only a moment that the thought crossed and hovered in her mind before she dismissed it completely. No one would have that vile other than herself and Ayana's kin. That was the payment. That was the remittance for the peril Ayana would meet when Silas, The Watcher, discovered Esther's misgivings.

Reaching on her toes, Ayana procured a small clay jar, full of pale blue powder derived from the Vervain plant that grew at the base of the white oak tree.

"I want you to have this, Lyanna," she offered at last. Ayana gave the girl a mere repellent to stave off the beasts- no real protection to save her in the end, only to tamp down the guilt that ate at Ayana's conscience. She knew that if she were truly altruistic, if she were truly a servant to nature and God, Ayana would have killed Shae and ended it all.

The death of Tatia's child would end the line from which the siblings were sired. She could slay monsters before they grew and multiplied but she would not.

She was too cautious and too aware of the consequences if she should try to right this wrong. The things Esther had made had already cost more than one life. To take another innocent, Ayana would have to pay with something greater than her own existence. The price was never easy, never painless. Ayana would surely kill the child herself if she thought her punishment would be a swift end. But the life of her daughter to set nature in balance once more was too much to ask, even if it saved thousands.

For surely, it was the only sacrifice nature would accept.

Ayana would let them all die, the entire village and so many more, to save her own. In the end there was little to no difference between her crime and Esther's. No small intervention with Lyanna could right this wrong. This one thing was hardly enough but it was all Ayana could do. Offering the girl the repellant, Ayana watched her leave, knowing then that all she could do was bide her time. She would be forced to wait until just before the next full moon. Then she would flee.

Days later taking nothing but her vial and a jar of blue powder Ayana took to the woods, and began her journey back to Oslo, the village of her daughter's husband. She arrived in Olso telling stories to her kin of a great plague that was to come, one greater than any sickness and beast or army of an enemy that had seen. In the end together the fled: Ayana, her daughter, son in law and their children left in the night, running from Oslo and the scourge that was soon too sweep down from the north.

No one from the great northern lands heard from them again.

And that vial, the blood that would be the cure to vampirism disappeared as well. Passed from Ayana to her daughter, the cure Ayana sold her soul for would stay a secret in her family for the next thousand years.

~x~
1492

Somewhere in Space and Time

Her fork and knife cut the slab of meat into thick chunks, marbled with grizzle without her laying a hand on either utensil. Hovering around the room, attendants stared at the ground, fussed with the candles and their wax, and held their breath: each and every one of them waiting on edge to jump to her next command.

Silas seemed completely oblivious as her creatures of all different shapes and sizes moved around her like magnets, attached to her every whim.

"Did you retrieve what I asked?" she questioned, her tone nonchalant. It always started this way. It was all part of what made her so terrifying. The judge- the Watcher, could be even mannered and almost friendly as within moments the calming façade she forced into the room with magic, to loosen the lips of soldiers, would fade into horror.

"I found the girl and returned her as you have asked," Farideh replied, watching as meat floated off the tabling dropping to the floor for the gnarled, half bred beasts that lay at her feet. Each dog had only one eye but four rows of teeth. They lacked claws and instead were endowed with a set of talons that curled into the shafts of their paws like a snakes into a hole.

Hideous creatures that used to haunt the eastern forests thousands of years past, Silas kept them now like trained domesticated animals. She bred them like dogs and slaughtered them like cows.

"It is a cambion," she commented, catching Farideh's glances at the meat, "I found him feeding his way through Karaman. A bulging, lazy, pretty thing he was."

Farideh examined the meat closer, imagining how beautiful the succubus must have had been when it was alive. She had not seen one since before the Peloponnesian war. They were a rare creature even then. Hiding along the Mediterranean Sea, in nests, they had been hunted by Silas to near extinction, only the firsts of their kind surviving, shrouded in darkness, forced to near starvation.

The meat that Silas's creatures gorged themselves on was likely the last living heir to some great line of its species. By nature the Succubae fed on humans, much like the vampires but with even less restraint. It was their hastiness that ended their line, their desperate need to feed that led them to wipe out small villages and attract attention.

Gabriel had appeared on more than a few occasions in these hallowed halls, using threatening words such as "noncompliant" and "breach of contract" to force Silas's hand. Asmodeus, most often just as incredulous on behalf of the halflings would cackle at the angel's dismay, insisting in cheeky rebuttal that the nephilims must feed.

The cambions had been a thorn in Silas's side since before the reign of King David.

"What are your plans for the girl?" Farideh questioned removing her eyes from the last remaining pieces of the succubus.

Silas smiled, pushing her glass of wine across the table until it sat directly before Farideh, "What are your plans for her?"

It was less of a question and more of a demand. Without thinking twice, Farideh raised her wrist so it hovered over the rim of the glass. As her skin split open and blood dribbled forth into the chalice, the chartreuse droplets darkened the wine until it was black.

The blood of the cursed was poisonous. If tasted by any other creature, Farideh's blood would be fatal; for both the creature's life and their immortal soul. To Silas however, it was as sweet as honey and full as wine.

The glass floated across the table, fitting perfectly into Silas's hand as she drank in Farideh's intentions, taking the cliff notes of her thoughts from one taste of her blood.

Setting the glass down once more, Silas licked the tangy fluid from her lips and smiled a crimson smirk, "No you cannot have her," she answered, reading Farideh's intentions to take the girl in as her own, under her protection. "She is not a dog for you to care for so do not bother yourself with what is done with her."

Interrupting, foolishly Farideh tried, "She could be a great asset if she is trained properly."

Silas moved her finger and Farideh felt her throat close mid thought. "She will be a great asset but you will not be her trainer. I have other things in mind for you, Farideh." The syllables of her name always seemed to roll off Silas's tongue with a certain amount of unmistakable anticipation.

"The thing that you took her from…" Silas began, clearly baiting her as she used the images she found of Rebekah and Farideh's interaction, in the blood, "I want her and the others- those brothers watched.

It seems that the doppelganger has been turned. She's one of them now and is therefore of no use to me. She has a child however, one that has seemingly disappeared."

Farideh fought the panic for air that seemed to swell in all of her limbs. Thousands of years old and still suffocation felt completely human to her.

"I want that child," Silas continued menacingly, "and if not It, than whatever offspring from that line is still alive."

"Can you not use the doppelganger to expunge the lot of them?" Farideh whispered with her last breaths.

"I need a human, with the original's blood that sired the five of them. You will find me that human and I will solve this vampire problem once and for all before I endure another long winded visit from Gabriel on this topic. Are we clear?"

Releasing her invisible grasp on Farideh's windpipe, the witch gasped for air and then fell silent, considering the thought that one woman was the key to the euthanasia of thousands of vampires sired from the original lines. It would be the largest species massacre since the eradication of the Ekkimu clans in 1000BC.

"Do this for me Farideh and I will end your sentence," Silas's words hung heavy in the air with promise that couldn't be real and was surely a trick.

End her sentence...

"All of it?" Farideh questioned cautiously, afraid to say another word that may change her mind.

Silas smiled, her fingers lingering on the rim of the glass before she dipped inside to meet the black liquid, "You find her and I will give you, your final five deaths with no more delay."

Farideh pondered the possibility that Silas was serious, true in her intent. That this time, this promise was not just another one of her games. Over three millennia and only seven deaths lived and repaid and now she was offered such a short ending?

There had to be a condition, one that would make the task impossible to complete in its entirety. Silas would never let her go so easily.

"If there is no other human, if this one has died with no one left behind?" she questioned, waiting for the conditional strings that dangled, so clearly attached.

Silas's eyes flickered with anticipation, looking through Farideh, peering into another place, pockets in time, past or present that Farideh wasn't privy to.

Distracted Silas finally answered, "Find me that human."

~x~

1493

Kingdom of Aragon, Valencia

Loneliness had always been a kind of pathetic desperation for her. She couldn't help it. She could pray to every God from London to the far reaches of the eastern sea for solace in just herself but Rebekah knew: she would not find it. She could rip out the throat of any human that approached her. She could die a thousand deaths and her body would bundle itself back together, stitching skin to hands, replacing bones back in each socket and yet she still feared death.

Not the human death that was the long cold prelude to an eternal ending in a cedar box but the death of emptiness- of being forgotten. Who was she if she could not find herself on the lips of a lover, or in the thoughts of a sibling?

Rebekah was nothing and that was what truly terrified her. It was the nagging fear that wrapped itself around her ankles, crawled its way up her thighs and planted a stony weight in her throat. The green eyed witch that left her drunken with confusion had given her freedom from her brothers. She had taken from Rebekah the ever present need to seek them out, to follow whichever one would take her to whatever ends their lives would lead but not the need for someone to fill the silence.

It had been less than four days since her encounter with the Farideh and Elpitia's departure, when she saw her. Rebekah could have had her pick of companions and with all of the beautiful faces wandering the streets of Valencia, her choices were limitless. Habit would call for her to take a male. Attractive, young and naive was her favorite breed.

This time would be different however; so much different than the long list of temporary companions she'd taken in those years she was with Kol. Perhaps it was the desperation of the situation, Rebekah's hasty grasp for anything that could be considered familiar or give her some sense of normalcy.

It certainly was selfishness, but that of course should come as no surprise. There was little Rebekah had done in her non-human life that wasn't born from some self-serving motivation. The abduction of Alma would be no different.

She wasn't a man, a human of any supernatural gifts or even particularly attractive. Alma was nothing but the simple laundress that had come to her rooms to remove the linens as she always did on the first Monday of the month.

She had children, a husband an entire life that needed to be lived but none of that meant anything to Rebekah when she took Alma's weathered, middle aged hand, pressed it to her cheek as though she were the child and this stranger was her mother, and compelled her to forget anything that had come before Rebekah.

A husband and two children not quite grown left the laundress's mind before she could utter a word of protest and in their place, that horrible void; there was a flood of memories of Rebekah. Faint, superficial and hastily crafted, a story of their lives together was pasted over Alma's previous as though the two were interchangeable.

"It has always been just you and I- no one else and that is how we prefer it," Rebekah coached, "My father has died as has your own family. There is only me, your daughter Rebekah. Do you understand Ester?"

The laundress blinked, a few times, as though she were flashing through her new memories to confirm before she replied, "Yes…."

"Yes, what?" Rebekah questioned, waiting for the word of endearment she had not heard for over half a millennium.

"Yes… daughter," Alma answered, as she became Ester.

Packed up in a small carriage, the horses pulled out of Valencia in early evening. With Rebekah's head in her lap, fingers entwined affectionately in her hair, Ester looked between the curtain and the carriage watching Valencia as they passed by. She tried to ignore it, Ester tried to place the feeling but for some odd reason, as they left the city, she couldn't help but feel a pull somewhere inside her subconscious.

Clouded and forlorn, it begged for her to remember something of value that she had lost- to make sure she would not leave it behind. But the harder she pondered the matter, the more elusive the answer became until Ester felt as though she was lost in fog of panic.

Her hands stilled in Rebekah's hair, her mind screamed for her to reach for the curtain, to tear it down so that she may see the lights of Valencia fully and remember what she had lost once more. But as Rebekah sighed and shifted in Ester's lap, tucking herself in closer, the mother of two let the burden be forgotten. For what could she possibly need that wasn't already with her?

As the pair headed off into the night together, to a destination unknown, an orphan found a mother while two children were left without.

~x~

1493

London, England

Farideh found Mikael not by choice but rather by demand. She preferred to work alone. Hunting down one human child could not possibly be such a difficult task but unraveling a monster, finding the girl before Klaus or his siblings would prove to be much more daunting than Farideh could have imagined.

Farideh had arrived in Kotel, Bulgaria by the first of December, 1492. It had been little more than a month since Katerina's disappearance after the burning of Greyshaw Manor. The fire and the aftermath of Klaus's attack had left little to none workers alive from the estate. And the few that had survived, making their way to the abbey had no information or knowledge as to Katerina's history or her whereabouts. There were only a handful of persons in Scrathclyde whom may have known of Katerina's previous life in Bulgaria, none of whom were known to have survived the fire. The cold trail had lead Farideh back to Kotel, although she knew without doubt that there would be little to find. By the time she had arrived Katerina Petrova's human home had been all but destroyed, the remnants of her family left behind, were just beginning to rot. Stepping over corpses, examining the remains of those that had been slaughtered only recently, Farideh questioned how no one had found the bodies.

Where there no neighbors who would call? The land owned by the Petrova family surely had a tenant or two that would notice the absence of the family before long. There must have been a passerby that could sense the oddity of the property's silence and would be curious enough to inspect.

As Farideh moved into the surrounding community and questioned neighbors, tenants, even the local priest it was as though the Petrovas had never existed. Their memory wiped from the minds of the residents of Kotel. Their home considered abandoned for years, although the bodies showed signs of only being recently deceased.

Klaus had obviously already come and gone, leaving only this calling card of destruction in his wake. Farideh had considered that there was a possibility Klaus had no knowledge of the child, prior to the burning of Greyshaw Manor. Although had he, there would have been little motivation to hunt for the toddler before his plan unraveled. However, after Katerina slipped from the brothers' grasp, it was possible, if he knew of Katerina's bastard child that Klaus had come to retrieve it as either leverage to draw Katerina out or possibly somehow using the offspring instead of its mother to break his curse.

It was apparent as Farideh examined the corpses that the family had not been slaughtered without some thought. Their bodies had been dismembered in the most brutal of ways and left to rot, making it clear that the scene had been staged for someone to see. And it wasn't difficult to discern who that person may have been.

Klaus had come to Kotel in part for information, curious to see if the girl was stupid enough to have escaped and then returned home, and possibly for the child but most certainly for revenge. One he sought without mercy or conscience. Klaus was obviously unaware that anyone may be looking for Katerina or the child outside himself and possibly his brother. Therefore his motivation for inspiring the amnesia of the villagers could only serve one of three likely purposes. There was the possibility that Klaus had found Katerina's child or information of the child's whereabouts and meant to snuff out the trail for anyone who may be looking as well. However, that conclusion failed to explain as to why the deceased had been intentionally untouched, which pointed to the second of the three possibilities- revenge. Klaus had no motivation to inspire the amnesia of the villagers, leaving the home and its deceased residents undisturbed, other than for his desire to share this image with someone else.

What little Farideh knew of Niklaus Mikaelson painted a picture of someone who often let his emotional entanglements of his motivations overshadow his perceptions of any situation. However, no man, no matter how driven he may be by rage would be foolish enough to miss such an apparent loose end. Which led Farideh to her third and most likely conclusion: Klaus knew where the girl was and planned to use her against Katerina.

It was then that Farideh knew, finding the girl would not be so easy. Although Klaus lacked knowledge of the child's true power in the situation, he wasn't short on reasons to toy with the girl. If it was as simple as him killing Katerina's, Farideh would have left him to his own devices- allowing Klaus to euthanize himself, his siblings and their sired offspring in the process.

That however, would have been simply too easy and altogether unprofitable for Farideh. Silas's instructions were always specific for a reason. If the human daughter of Katerina Petrova was not delivered to Silas directly, the agreement between Farideh and the Watcher would be null and void, leaving what little hope Farideh had of redemption destroyed.

It wasn't enough to kill the girl. It became apparent that Farideh would have to likely kill Niklaus Mikaelson as well. Another soul to add to her conscience only this one was decidedly less innocent.

After her unfruitful visit to Kotel Farideh obeyed Silas's instructions and sought out Mikael. Following reports of his arrival in Scrathclyde from a low level soldier in Silas's army, Farideh followed him to London.

Mikael spent months in the English court, hovering on the periphery of Henry's inner circle, gathering any evidence he could find on the whereabouts of Niklaus but the residents of Harte Manor had all but disappeared from existence. Not a word of where they were going or when they would return.

For five centuries Mikael had tracked them, coming so close this time that he could practically still taste the ash of Klaus's destruction when he stepped onto the old Lockwood property only to realize he was no closer than he'd ever been. An eternity was a more than gracious period of time to harbor a vendetta, to feed a ravenous hatred and Mikael was nowhere near satiation.

He'd quizzed the help of Harte Manor a dozen times a piece. He'd traveled to every local village, spoken to each and every member of court whom had even made the briefest of acquaintances with the Lords of Harte Manor and still none of it had lead him anywhere except back to the ruins of that great house. And although he'd found a few items of interest, mainly one left undisturbed in the deep cellars of Harte Manor, it felt as though he were moving in circles. Mikael should have moved on months ago. He should have followed what little evidence he had of Klaus traveling potentially south. Now whatever trail may have once been there had surely vanished. He cursed his short-sightedness, the gamble that he'd made by staying in London and waiting for some sign of return. Mikael would have left English court immediately once his well of clues had dried up, had the body he'd found at Harte Manor not left him somewhat torn. In retrospect it seemed foolish to stay but in all actuality, waiting was what would bring him closer to Klaus than ever.

Mikael liked to think that he found her, that he was able to put together the pieces of this muddied puzzle with the rumors of a few house boys and a forgotten drawing of a now dead girl. Mikael liked to think that he could have solved the mystery himself, if given enough time but Farideh and he would know that without her intervention it would have been likely another few centuries before Mikael would have picked up the trail of his children again.

It was Mikael's vitriolic hatred of Klaus that inspired Silas to encourage Farideh to bring Mikael into the fold. The Watcher fully intended to exterminate the entire Original family and their offspring but before she could, she would need to eliminate the competition- Klaus.

Every scheme no matter how large or small needed its pawns and Mikael or Lord Crow, would serve that purpose to perfection. Unlike Farideh, Mikael was easily disposable to Silas. He was just another vampire Silas would gladly euthanize after the girl was found. Fortunately for Silas, Mikael's hatred of Klaus and need for his destruction and misery trumped any logic or true sense of self-preservation Mikael had: making him an easy target to be manipulated.

He was the perfect candidate.

To Mikael, Klaus was the boy that had slithered his way uninvited into Mikael's home. His selfishness had led to the death of Henrik, the ill-fated catalyst that had driven Esther to change them all. Klaus divided the siblings amongst themselves, pitted parent against child and in the end was the ultimate ruination of Mikael's life. His mere existence taunted Mikael with the knowledge that he could have had it all if it had not been for the poisoned seed of Hrolf Lockwood.

Farideh effortlessly found him, lingering in the English court, licking his wounds, hatching a plan with no real plot. Mikael on the other hand, never saw her coming. One moment he was speaking with the men of the king's council, ignoring the prostitutes clamoring in every man's lap looking for their evening meal and then next he found himself dazed and confused lying on some strange floor.

Opening his eyes, his head throbbed at the base of the skull sending sharp pains into lens of his eyes causing his vision to blur. Rubbing them, gripping the back of his head, Mikael rolled on his side, his face pressing against icy stone floors, trying to make out anything in the room. The only problem was he didn't seem to be inside any type of enclosed structure. There were no walls, no ceiling, only stone floors for as far as the eye could see lit by tall thick sable candles burning with a green flame.

"Are you going to just lay there?" a voice called out to him, low and supple. Stepping into view, Mikael took in the sight of long bare ocher legs draped in white. Holding his head, he shifted himself up to sitting only to find a woman standing before him with dark hair, flawless skin and black eyes staring down at him.

"Who are you?" he barked, ashen veins of acrimony darkening below his eyes as his fangs dropped in defense.

"Your keeper," Silas snickered glancing over at a woman that hovered in the distance, as though she were making sure all parties were accounted for before she continued.

Quickly recognizing the stranger's companion Mikael rudely interrupted, "I know you. You're a whore brought from the brothels of Southwark."

Before Farideh could respond, Silas was pulling Mikael from the ground, his feet scraping against the stone until he was dangling before her like a fish on a hook.

Pulling her mouth into a tight expression conveying her irritation at his interruption she continued, "My name is Silas."

Silas, her name rolled around the back of Mikael's mind, trying to find an anchor after briefly striking a note with some long forgotten reference. And then he saw his wife's face.

"I know who you are," he answered at last, this time exhibiting the proper reverence. It was a name only spoken in the briefest and most hushed of exchanges between Esther and him many years ago.

"Then you know what I am capable of?"

Mikael shook his head this time dutifully, like a child listening to its parent.

Stepping forward, she began to circle him, like a predator examining its prey, "Good. I have been watching you Mikael. So many years pursuing your son and still you are no closer to finding Niklaus then right after you left that human village in Bukara."

Speaking out of turn, again, Mikael venomously corrected, "That worthless boy is not my son."

Smiling as she baited him, Silas continued, "Oh yes, I forgot…nonetheless, I am offering you a deal, one that will give you what you want."

"And what is it that you think I want?" Mikael replied, his mouth going dry with anticipation.

Stopping in front of him, Silas answered, "A chance to kill Niklaus Hrolfsson as he deserves to die- slow and painfully."

She was right; of all the things he wanted, the death of Hrolf Lockwood's son was Mikael's only priority. Still Mikael had been searching for his opportunity to do just that since he'd found Esther dead in their home but he'd always found himself constantly outpaced by the bastard and his siblings. An offer so appealing from a being so clearly above the tawdry wars of one family was obviously made with strings attached.

"Why?" he questioned.

Smiling this time, Silas's lips curved into a smirk that was both alluring and terrifying all at once, "We have a similar interest. You wish him dead for your reasons and I for mine. I will help you achieve what you have always wanted and you will remove a pest from my watch."

"If killing that boy was so easy, you think I would not have already done so?" Mikael replied wearily.

"I never said that it would be easy, however killing Niklaus will be much simpler once you actually find him," Silas answered condescendingly.

"And how do you propose that I do that?" Mikael questioned, waiting as the Watcher, leader of his species and so many more, glanced in Farideh's direction. He watched as the women participated in a silent exchange amongst themselves before Silas's gaze returned to him.

"How strong is your faith, Mikael Snorrnson?" The question hung as a non-sequitur between them, confusing Mikael in its absurdity.

"With the Old Gods, those of my people?" he replied, slowly.

"No, not the Gods of the Norse but the God of Abraham, Moses and his son?"

"The God of Abraham and Moses?" Mikael questioned, bewildered once more, irritated with the inquiry's lack of relevancy to the death of Horlf Lockwood's son.

"The Catholic church," Silas clarified, amused that Mikael had lived amongst the Christians and their governments for so long but not been bothered to learn of their God.

"False, a fantasy formed by desperate humans."

"So you are not a man of faith, of the church or faith of any kind?" Silas questioned again.

"If there was a God, My Lady, you are it, in its closest form."

Silas couldn't tell whether his profession was the mere pandering of a sycophant or the confession of a truly faithless man. Either way it didn't matter.

Silas glanced at Farideh once more, before answering, "Good, then you will have no objection to what I will ask you to do."

"And what is that?"

"You'll find that the Roman Catholic Church and its most devout, serve the same cause as you."

"The same cause as I?" Mikael questioned, wanting the details of any agreement he made to be made plainly clear.

"Yes," Silas smirked again for the last time, "The death of Niklaus," and consequently any and every other vampire but Silas was never one to define all of the conditions of an arrangement.

~x~

1495

Dublin, Ireland

Kol had been gone, whoring, drinking, and killing his way through Dublin for little more than two weeks when it came to him. The last piece he needed for the sacrifice.

The tavern was crowded wall to wall, drunken bodies swaying against one another as ale flowed as freely as water. Glassy eyed and oblivious, the patrons of the establishment this evening would be treated to a party like none they had ever seen before.

Women danced on the tables baring their breasts, their skirts hiked up, their thighs showing their world to any man that wished to look. The men danced and sang to the tune of any song Kol chose, partially dressed themselves as couples fondled each other, copulating against any hard surface. It was the makings of a small rival to the city of Gomorrah.

Like crazed animals, the patrons thrived in the chaos; feeding their every desire as one by one another male was led forward.

In his chair placed on top of the nearest table, Kol positioned himself as king and director of the debauchery, his ale cup rested on his knee and a female companion stood by his side, her hand draped over his shoulder. Below the table they, the males, lay, piled like sheets of paper upon one another. Some had their throats had been ripped out, others drained until they were so white that even their puncture wounds had been licked clean.

"I will ask this once more, is there a man here that can say that he is the perfect specimen?" Kol yelled out over the crowd.

Thus far all candidates had been deemed unacceptable, relegated instead to the pile that littered the tavern floor. The witches were particular when they asked for something. And finding a young virgin male, of perfect height and figure, lacking blemishes or scars was essentially like hunting for a unicorn.

There were so many applicants, boys pushing themselves forward, begging to be chosen, for a fate they were too stupid to understand. By the time his candidate had arrived, tall with broad shoulders and coltish figure, Kol had almost called off the search for the evening.

Stumbling forward, ale spilled from the young man's cup splashing over the bodies. Eyes half lidded he looked down at the pile of applicants that had come before him, his eyes growing wide with the momentary realization of death.

"W-what is this?" he rambled, falling back on his heels in horror.

"Now, now… shh… hush, my man," Kol called out as a pair of men grabbed the candidate by each arm preventing his exit. His face had fallen ashen with his eyes open to the horrors around him. The young man looked up to find Kol smirking down at him from his throne.

"Do not be afraid," Kol coaxed, their eyes locking with each other as the boy, barely a man, felt a wave of calm rush over him. Settling back into a state of complete denial, befitting the rest of the dazed crowd, the candidate smiled up at Kol ready for his examination.

"Now, isn't that better?" Kol commented, motioning for the boy to step closer. "What is your name?"

"Daniel, My Lord."

"Daniel?" Kol's lip twitched at its edge, curling up kiss the dimples of his cheeks, "A fine Christian name and I must say, fitting indeed. How old are you, Daniel?"

"Nine and ten, My Lord," he replied shoulders straightening with pride.

Sipping from his cup, Kol reached behind, taking the hand of his companion, leading her forward as exhibit A.

"Have you had a woman, Daniel?"

The boy's face flushed pink from both drink and foggiest realization that he should be somewhat abashed, "Yes," he announced proudly, gazing at the woman that stood by Kol's side as though perhaps she would be his prize.

Clicking his tongue, Kol reached out bringing his hand into Daniel's field of vision, drawing his gaze back to Kol, "Now let us be honest, Daniel. We can't start our acquaintanceship with lies."

Watching the boy's eyes dilate with compulsion, Kol waited for the boy to spill his truth and answer, "No, My Lord."

Emptying his mug of ale, Kol tossed it towards the nearest serving girl and clapped his hands together, "Now we are getting somewhere. Strip yourself, if you would please. I would like to take a look at you."

Complying without further resistance, the young man proceeded to lift his tunic over his head, slip his leather boots and stockings from his feet and remove his breeches exposing flawless skin.

White and creamy as porcelain, etched with muscle, his body was nearly as hairless as a female's. Following Kol's instructions, he turned showing a full view of himself for Kol to inspect.

Leaning back in his seat, Kol turned his head to his the female by his side and asked, "What do you think?"

Licking her lips, her long ivory fingers reached out in admiration, "Can I have him?"

"No not this one," Kol commented, deterring her as her fangs descended.

She was only one of the thousands he had sired in his immortal life but unlike so many others. She was the only sire he remained in contact with, the others simply sent out into the world to kill at their leisure with little to no instruction.

They had been lovers briefly when he'd turned her close to a century before. Now, they were more business associates than an old romantic entanglement. Cara's beauty was just as terrifying as her feigned innocence. Like a siren, her auburn hair and heart shaped face drew men in as though every word from her lips was a song, enticing them to their death.

She was as close to a friend as Kol had. Loyal to him without question, she would come when he called and do Kol's bidding no matter the price. As Kol remained marooned on the Isle of Man, she watched his investments and traveled from London upon his request bringing Kol the thing that he needed for the witches more than their sacrifice.

"Cara, take Daniel and tie him up," Kol instructed, catching her wrist as she moved to grab the young man he warned, "Any other but this one. We need him."

~x~

1495

Bukara, Norway

When they left Valencia, Rebekah's head in Ester's lap, the five centuries old orphan was just as lost as her 17 year old self. Only instead of clinging to Klaus and Elijah's hands, over the grave of their mother, Rebekah had wrapped herself around a human woman that knew her no better than any stranger.

It seemed now Rebekah would be forced to be the shepherd instead of another lost sheep in her brothers' flock. The prospect of it both thrilled and terrified Rebekah. Where was she to go when she had no real home? What kind of life would she live, without the condemnation of her brothers. Rebekah could have went anywhere at that time. There was their estate outside Venice, which she was wholly unaware was now the property of the English king, the Manor her brothers' had acquired hovering somewhere between English and Scottish territory or any of the dozens of cities she had inhabited with Kol over the past three centuries.

In the end, the carriage drove north until the horses dropped dead from exhaustion at the shore of the North Sea. Taking whatever the pair could carry the women sailed across the bitter water to beaches of Norway. Landing on Norwegian soil, they traveled for close to week across the lush green land until they were in the northern lands.

The estate outside Venice, the property in Scrathclyde and everywhere else Rebekah had been were never home. In Rebekah's mind there was only one home she had ever known- the home of her human life.

Pedestrian as it may have been, Rebekah returned to the village of Bukara- the last place she had known a full family and some measure of happiness. The pair settled in a modest home, claiming to be relatives of the unwed law speaker that quickly perished from unknown causes after their arrival. The next three years would serve to be the most modest and consequently joyous of the last four hundred and ninety six Rebekah had spent exiled from this place.

In the village of Bukara, the two women who were strangers in reality became the mother and child of Rebekah's compelled fantasies. In all the time that had passed, the village although grown, was no different then what she had remembered. Taking simple jobs at first as a way to assimilate into the population and dispel suspicion, play at a human's life became a reality to Rebekah. Other than her feedings, outside the village population, the two lived with as little immortal intervention as possible.

And they flourished… until disappointment and loss found Rebekah as it always seemed to do.

It started as simple fatigue that would slow Ester throughout the day. Until soon Ester's slight languor developed into oppressive exhaustion that kept her in bed throughout most of the day. Later Rebekah would sicken herself with the guilt of her naivety. She would promise herself that she should have known.

If Rebekah had only done something sooner, if she had only known and understood human fragility, she promised herself something could have been done to stop it. That Ester could have been saved. But there was nothing that could have been done. All roads, no matter which one was taken would have led the pair back to this same place.

There were moments when she considered leaving. As the days wore on and Ester paled and thinned, her incontinence worsened and finally she stopped eating all together, Rebekah found herself tempted for even the briefest of moments to walk out the front door of their little home and never look back.

It would have been so easy for her to disappear and leave this woman, who was no relation to her to die alone in her own misery. It would have been so completely like her brothers to consider doing so. Wasn't that after all what she had learned in her years as a vampire?

The weak shall fall and the strong endure. Thoughts of contrition, of sympathy- feelings of compassion were wasted. Those were the things her brothers had taught her. Survive at all costs. Separate yourself from the humans.

Learn to forget the elation of love but remember to savor the sweet kiss of death.

Yes, there were moments when she considered leaving, when Rebekah was sure that if she did not, she would find herself just as withered and lost as Ester was now.

She just couldn't bring herself to do so. In the back of her mind, somewhere compartmentalized in her brain in the areas housed by logic and reasoning, Rebekah knew it was never real.

She understood in complete clarity that this was not her childhood home. Ester was not her own mother. Rebekah was not human and this life was not hers, but instead something stolen. She knew she could not undo what had already been done no matter how hard she tried to right this old wrong.

But even in its tainted realities, it's tragic end, it all felt so real. This place, this village, 500 years changed was still her home and this woman, someone else's mother, was her surrogate. Rebekah was losing it all once again; making a reality that was enough to drive any person mad.

She had attempted to feed Ester pints of her blood, in hope that a mended bone or healed wound in others could be equivalent to a cure. A remedy for whatever it was that ate at Ester night and day- that eluded the village laeknir. Instead, all it rendered were sheets soaked in runny fecal matter and vomited blood.

The cancer that grew inside Ester was well out of the scope of Rebekah's immortality and sixteenth century medicine. It had metastasized and slithered its way from her breasts to her limp nodes and finally Esther's liver until her skin had turned from ashen to dandelion yellow.

The laeknir had tried every potion, every elixir, plant and flower. Even the priest had come to give Ester her last rights. Death hovered outside their door like a thief, waiting to slip through the cracks to steal another soul and still Rebekah had the audacity to hope. She prayed to Odin, the Gods of her childhood and even attempted to barter with the Christian God, all with no answer.

Ester was going to die. Her life was slipping away with each moment that passed and the only recourse Rebekah had was the one thing she had never been desperate enough to do. She could change Ester. She could sire the woman that she'd stolen, the mother that she'd adopted. She could keep her forever; live this life with her forever. Rebekah could live an existence where happiness was a reality instead of a passing thought.

She could have it all in that moment: all the things that her limited scope of life, called out for her to take as her own. Rebekah could have silenced the chattering of death through the cracks of their home as it whispered to her, "Alone, alone, alone."

But in this place that was once before her home she found herself unable to act. Years ago she had experienced similar grief, as Henrik lay dying in her mother's arms. She understood loss and the things it drove people to do; the atrocities it called on people to commit. But Rebekah had not forgotten that the solution to Henrik's death was the answer to all of their suffering and misery.

If she could go back, if Rebekah had known what was to come, she would have never drank the wine laced with Tatia's blood. She would have stayed human, and lived and died the life she was meant to have.

But someone had taken both that life and death from her and even a moment of grief she found herself unsure whether she was willing to do the same. Could she be as selfish as her own mother had been? Could Rebekah take from this woman her own death, because Rebekah wished to spare herself another loss?

This heavy question weighed on her for days, like rocks tied to her feet, sandpaper scraping across her mind. In the end Rebekah did the first unselfish thing she could remember since she was turned.

"Ester?" she touched the older woman's cheek as she laid stiff as a board, gargling on the fluids that slowly filled her lungs.

Her eyes shut, the mother Rebekah had known for three years had all but disappeared leaving a partial corpse in her wake.

"Ester?" she tried again, her cold fingers trying to rub life back into sunken cheeks. Tears splashed from Rebekah's eyes, mixing with snot as they ran down her face before falling wet and warm in Ester's hair.

As Ester last breaths crackled from her mouth, Rebekah leaned in close knowing that the end was here and she had missed her chance. Whispering words that only death would hear as it slipped through the cracks in the walls, beneath the cloth that covered the windows, she demanded, "I want you to remember Alma. Remember who you were."

With her head buried in soiled clothing, pressing against boney flesh, Rebekah cried her throat raw and missed the blood stained eyes that opened one last time to the world, gazing out as a farewell in peace.

She knew and finally felt relief as those lingering questions that had been left submerged in her subconscious were answered.

Alma recalled that she had been a wife once, a daughter and mother.

As her soul was lifted from her body and guided by death to the door, Alma left this world remembering that she once had two children in another life, a boy and girl- both of whom were now orphans.

Slipping through the fissures in the wooden door, following death where it would take her, Alma understood also that she had, had a third. A last child she would be forced to leave behind.

A daughter named Rebekah.

~x~

1495

Ireland

Rain pounded down in needling sheets from the dark sky. Fighting against the bitter northern cold, Kol made his way through the entrance of the cave, Daniel drunk and passed out in the bed of the rickety old cart drawn by its single horse.

With each yard their moved further into the darken tunnels, the chill of evening spring rains melted into a dry bristling heat. Following the shadows of their figures on the walls, Kol let the light of their fire guide him in until he found where the witches awaited him.

They were a small group of four, their ages ranging from barely four and ten to brittle and old. Women of the same clan, they were only a few of the last surviving mystic clans of the Celtic lands that had been scoured and hunted by the catholic church that ruled the land.

Pulling the horse to a complete stop, Kol jumped from the front bench of the wagon and approached the group, "I have brought what you asked for," he called out eagerly as the women slowly rose to standing.

Stepping to the front of the group, the eldest one reached out a boney hand, "I think you do not, súmaire, for I do not see it."

Reaching into the inner pocket of his cloak, Kol pulled out a brass wristlet that belonged to Rebekah, "He is in the bed of the wagon."

Nodding to the young girl the old woman waited until after the girl had looked and confirmed before she answered, "Does he meet all of the requests?"

"Of course, I would not bring him to you if he was anything less than perfect," Kol replied as he stepped forward, holding out the brass trinket for the old woman to take.

In all of his travels over the past few centuries, Kol had seen beasts and creatures that would boggle any human's mind. But all the other supernatural species Kol had encountered, witches were the only mortal creatures that fascinated him in even the slightest. Their power was unmatched by even immortal creatures as himself. It burned as the brightest of flames, growing more dangerous with age.

To cross a witch, meant certain pain. Misleading a coven, a creature would befall a fate much worse than death. Of what little forces and persons, other than himself that Kol respected, witches were held in the greatest esteem and always approached with the most extreme of caution.

If they asked for a young, virgin male, Kol would make sure he provided. What they did with Daniel- their purpose and uses for his sacrifice were of little to no consequence to Kol.

Waiting as her granddaughter examined the boy, the old woman only spoke after the girl had given her nod of approval that Daniel would suffice. Taking the wristlet from Kol's hand, the old woman latched on to Kol's wrist with her gnarled arthritic hand, holding him for a moment before she turned and hobbled back to the fire. Followed by the other women, the four gathered around the flames, waiting to begin.

"Leave now, back to the mouth. My granddaughter will come for you when we know," her voice rattled out, echoing throughout the chambers in curt dismissal.

Complying Kol left the witches to do what they must, leaving them with Rebekah's trinket in hopes that when they were through they would have the answer he sought. Passing by Daniel, still asleep in the back of the wagon, Kol made his way to the mouth of the cave where Cara waited.

Hood pulled down over her eyes, she stood with her back to the wind patiently waiting for Kol's arrival. Popping out of the darkness in a blur, she welcomed him with a question, "What did they say?"

Pulling his hood up as well, Kol shrugged, "We will know soon enough."

"What exactly is it that you wish me to say to your sister when I find her?"

Reaching again, into the inside pocket of his cloak, Kol procured a sealed letter, "Nothing, you will give her this and return her trinket as well."

"Seems a strange thing to do, taking a sister's wristlet without reason," Cara probed, none too subtly.

Kol smiled, "One can never be too safe."

"What do you mean?"

"Rebekah's loyalties can waver depending on her mood."

"And is she loyal to you?"

"That would depend…."

"On what?"

"Whether one of my brothers has tried to bend her ear. You see Cara, my dear sister can be loyal to a fault until there is a conflict in her interests."

"And is there a conflict?" Not anymore. Ines had been dead for three years and her daughter, if everything went according to plan, likely followed the same fate. Whether Rebekah had followed her word and not handed the girl over to Klaus, Kol could not be sure.

Not that any of it mattered now. But if she had stayed loyal to their promise to one another, she may be in greater danger than if she had forsaken the pact altogether.

"Klaus is nothing if not epitome of antagonistic. He is possessive of things that he considers his and unfortunately for my dear sister, my brother feels as though he is her keeper."

"They sound more like old lovers than siblings."

Kol smirked, "No- my brother kills his pets. If he daggered Rebekah who would there be left to clamor for his affections?"

Before Cara could answer the pair was interrupted by the girl motioning for Kol to follow her back inside, "We are ready for you."

Moving back into the shelter of the cave, Kol followed the girl back to the fire where the witches waited.

"And what news do you have for me?" he questioned, rubbing his hands together.

Stepping out once more from the pack, the old woman made her way slowly but surely towards Kol, stopped close enough that he could smell the rot of decay on her breath. Leaning in, steadying herself with a hand on his shoulder the witch began, "She is safe for the time being, living in the village of your childhood."

"Bukara?" Kol questioned confused and taken aback that Rebekah would choose there, of everywhere to go, "How long?"

"Three harvests."

"Is she alone?"

"No, she has taken a human- a female as a companion," pausing the old woman studied Kol's confused expression and replied, "She is content."

Reaching for his hand, she placed the brass wristlet back into his palm, "She will wed within a year to a man she has not yet met."

Returning to Bukara after so much time made little to no sense. Why had Rebekah not attempted to find him or even his brothers? It was nothing if not out of character for Rebekah to not seek Elijah or even Klaus in his absence.

"Wed? Rebekah?" Rebekah seeking male attention however was nothing if not predictable. "Another human?"

Instead of replying and clarifying her answer, the old woman again gripped Kol's wrist, showing him instead.

Images of Lilly flickered before Kol's eyes. Knee deep in the surf he saw her struggle against the waves as a male approached. He was young, a few years younger than Lilly herself and quite comely.

Kol saw it all, brief flashes of things that were to come as the old woman showed him everything from their meeting, to their tentative friendship, courtship, wedding, children and beyond. Their life together played out for Kol like some slightly idyllic story writing the plot of his nightmares.

He hadn't realized it but Kol had wrapped his fingers around that knotted ancient hand, prying it from his wrist in horror. As soon as their skin broke contact, the vision disappeared, leaving Kol stiff in shock.

His ears and eyes swam, struggling to catch balance as those images replayed in his mind, over stimulating him to the point of being catatonic. He may have stayed there and let himself drown, had the old woman not cleared her throat.

"It is time for you to leave," she flatly replied.

"Yes, I thank you for your assistance," Kol answered weakly. In the time that it took Kol to make his way back to the mouth of the cave with the wagon for the final time, he'd formulated a hasty plan.

Greeted by Cara's worried questions as to his clearly disturbed state, Kol waved them off answering, "She is in a small village called Bukara, which sits at the crown of Norway."

Handing Cara the brass wristlet, he finished, "Take both of these items to her and let he know that I have not forgotten her. Urge her that my warning is true. Our father has likely left London and is now attempting to follow my brother's tracks but still she should exercise the upmost caution. Have her send whatever response she may give back through you."

Tucking both the letter and wristlet into the pocket of her cloak, Cara nodded in agreement before turning to retrieve her horse. Mounting it, she called out through the rain, "And were shall I find you, my friend?"

"Look for me in London," he replied hastily, as he readied himself for the journey ahead.

"And what name shall I use?" Cara called after him.

"At the docks of London, ask for Lord Besierwan and you shall find me."

~x~

1495

Republic of Venice, Italy

The cotton shift under her dress clung hot and sticky to Rebekah's skin. Even though the sun had dipped down below the horizon close to an hour before, the heat was still sweltering. It had been almost two full months since Ester's death; since Rebekah had been adrift. She'd stayed in Bukara for less than a week past Ester's passing and then she was gone. Much the same as she had come, Rebekah left in the night by carriage only this time she was alone.

The journey that led her back to Italy and this necropolis began almost three years previous or perhaps even before. Part of her always knew that all roads would lead back to this graveyard. That at some point in time she would find herself here, with shovel in hand. Wasn't she after all just that predictable? It would only be so long, there could only be so many distractions to keep her occupied until eventually it would come back to this- that something taken from her, without her control or permission.

Maybe Rebekah waited close to four hundred years because the thought of unburying Alexander in the process was too much. But in truth, if she could find what was in that box any other way, she would have. Rebekah would have searched every street in Venice, every home in Italy, anywhere across the continent. She would have even scaled the eastern mountains if it meant she could avoid this part.

Standing at his grave just outside the Santa Thecla Church, Rebekah hesitated for just a moment, her shovel sinking deeper into the soft dirt and grass with each mere ounce of body weight she placed on it as she leaned forward, lost in her thoughts, memories of a life and dream that had long come to pass.

"Are you ready, My Lady?"

The boy couldn't have been much more than seven and ten, his friend perhaps a little older. They were much too young to be grave diggers, to live such morbid lives, surrounded by death. Wasn't this the profession of old men? Only those who had known joy but seen the cruelties of the world, the things that had changed them, leading them back to this place where all humans eventually came to rest, could work here.

The two compelled boys looked at her as though there was a pot of gold waiting for them somewhere below that dirt. Perhaps she'd eased their consciences a little too greatly when she took their hands and twisted their minds. Ordering them to dig up the body, so that she may retrieve the needed contents and then return Alexander to his final resting place, with no one any the wiser that Rebekah had even been there.

"Yes please, go ahead," she ordered.

As the boys started their work, Rebekah paced the cemetery, reading the names of those that had come before her and Alex and so many that had come after with the plague. When close to thirty minutes had passed, she found herself outside the stone hedge of the cemetery walls, walking up the steps of the chapel where she was once meant to be wed.

In the silence of the evening with nothing but the faint sounds of dirt hitting the ground, Rebekah stood outside the Santa Thecla and imagined all as it was meant to be. She pictured her dress, the flowers she would have held, the things that priest would have said. All the things she could have had if she had just been human.

If Rebekah's time with Ester had done nothing else for her, it had furthered Rebekah's lingering need, her longing for the mortality that she'd long since tried to forget. Had she not taken Ester and returned back to Bukara, perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps she could have waited another century or two before she returned but the death of Ester's life and death with her, left little option. She couldn't do it anymore. Rebekah couldn't pretend to be happy. She couldn't pretend to be pleased with this life.

She may have stood there, indulging herself with foolish girlish fantasies had she not heard them calling for her in the distance. The boys retrieving the box from the ground were like rats ready to feed, their grimy hands trying to pry at the lid.

Speeding over to where they stood, the three of them looked down at the plain wooden box in anticipation: the boys imaging gold and jewels beyond their wildest imaginations. As though this man's burial in a pauper's box was an act of intended deception, to ward off incidences such as this.

What the gravediggers or rather robbers, didn't know was that inside Alexander's coffin there was a treasure, one of immeasurable value to Rebekah. Buried with him was the hunter's sword that held the key to the map that was scrolled in black on his shoulders and arm- the map that lead to the cure for Rebekah's immortality.

Rebekah should have done this so much sooner. She should have come when Alexander's skin was still viable. Rebekah may not have been an apothecary, mid wife or physician. In fact most of her knowledge of the human body extended little beyond the quality of its blood but if there was one thing- one area Rebekah was well versed in, it was death. She knew the smell a body would make when it had been left in the heat for days. The way skin would grow heavy with fluids, if left un-drained, before the collection of saturation would burst the skin. Rebekah had seen the way skin would eventually dry to paper thin, shriveling from the frame before it turned to dust.

Whatever map Alexander's body had once contained was now long gone. The other hunters, even if found, and Rebekah had no clue where her brother's had disposed the bodies, would have lost their maps to decay as well.

The only consolation Rebekah had was the sword, the decoder to the map and the promise that if one such map had been made, another could be as well. Alexander had once told her he had been spelled by a witch in his childhood village. Perhaps if Rebekah found that village, if it still existed, not decimated from the plagues, she could find the line of witches that spelled the first coven of hunters.

If one map could be made, another could be as well.

Bending down so that her knees dug into the freshly unearthed soil, Rebekah wrapped her fingers around the edge of the nailed wooden lid, held her breath and pulled. There was a horrid screeching as rusted nails scrapped against weathered wood in release.

As the wood lid fell to ground, Rebekah let out her breath with a whisper beneath it, bearing her apologies before she opened her eyes to claim her prize.

"There is nothing in it!" one of the boys whined, in disappointment.

Looking down into an empty box, Rebekah didn't know whether she wanted to scream in anger or complete joy. Her hand touched the bottom of the coffin ripping out the woolen blanket that had been meant as a liner.

Tipping the coffin so that the moon shone inside, Rebekah looked for staining at the bottom, evidence of the draining and drying of human fluids. Had the body remained in the coffin long, there would have been stains that tarnished the wood's grain. But there was no sign that inside of the coffin had ever seen large quantities of liquid- human or otherwise.

The boys chattered amongst themselves in the background spewing theories of a body thief haunting the cemetery and halfcocked assumptions about faked deaths. Rebekah heard none of it. She didn't need a theory to answer where Alexander's body and sword had gone. She knew without question, which was why she felt both elated and disgusted all at once.

"Klaus…." She muttered.

Her brother had likely unearthed the body the day after it was buried, perhaps even before he'd daggered Finn. She should have known that Klaus wouldn't let this loose end be left to dangle. She should have known that he would come back for the map and the sword. Alexander's body was incidental.

He'd likely pealed the skin from the tissue, like scales from a fish and dumped Alexander's remains in the nearest field or body of water. He was already prepared because he knew that eventually she would return. Klaus knew just as Rebekah did, that it would only be a matter of time before her, one of their brothers or perhaps even an enemy would seek out the cure.

Wasn't that after all why he'd staked Finn and threatened the rest of them within an inch of their lives?

Klaus knew exactly what he was doing. He had no interest in the cure- no desire to ever return to his human life. His only interest in either the map or its key had solely to do with controlling everyone else's fate.

Climbing up from the dirt, Rebekah nodded to the empty coffin, "Put the lid back in its place and rebury it. I am done here."

The boys would do as they were told, be given three shillings of gold apiece and be sent on their way with their memories wiped clean. Normally Rebekah would have fed from them first, derived some sort of pleasure from such a disappointing evening but she didn't have the time.

No Rebekah needed a plan. One that was much more sophisticated than simply showing up at her brother's doorstep and begging for what should have been hers by right or any of her siblings if they so chose.

Rebekah was going to get that map and sword. She was going to finish the search for the cure that had begun three hundred years past. No matter what it took, she was going to be human again. Rebekah was going to live and die the human life that had been taken from her. Even if it meant she had to kill Klaus in the process.

He had to learn, the whole world wasn't his oyster. Mankind was not his beast of burden and Rebekah would not be a slave to Klaus's will.

It was always and forever but only until an immortal death did them apart.

~x~

1496

Isle of Man

The water was cold and bitter against her shins. Lilly's teeth chattered as her hand dug into the mud and muck of the ocean floor. Her eyes stung, fighting to stay open against the harsh wind that chapped her skin.

How far she had come in only a matter of years; she was no longer Lady Lockwood. Lilly had fallen far from her life of privilege at the Lockwood Manor nestled among the moors. Mornings when she would wake with her muscles in agony, hands calloused and chapped, shivering under the thin wool blankets on her pallet, Lilly would wonder if it was all a dream.

Had she always been Rachael? Had this always been her life? Maybe she was just delusional when she thought of home, Elspeth, Nathaniel and Lyanna. Perhaps she'd always lived this isolated existence in squalor and everything that had come before was nothing but a lovely dream lost in daylight.

It would have been a kindness had her mind been so adventurous. Lilly could have risen every day in pleasant naivety and lied to herself- perhaps eventually even believing.

She could have, had it not been for Kol. He was the shadow that lurked just beyond her peripheral vision, whispering to her with his presence that it was real- all of it. And now it was gone. She would chase him maniacal and frantic for death every full moon. Across the shore, into the caves and sometimes even the water she would hunt him: yellow eyes, black gums and ravenous teeth. The chase began at sun down and lasted until sunrise. She'd wake naked and cold on the beach, everything sore and the taste of fetid blood that was not human on her lips.

It was real- all of it.

She was Persephone, foolish enough to taste the pomegranate and now Kol would make sure, she'd choke on the seeds.

"You will not find them this time of year Lady Rachael," a voice called out to her.

Glancing up Lilly caught sight of the fisherman docking by the pier, unloading his catch from the night. Struggling with a barrel of bait, Aland smirked at her as he balanced the barrel against his leg.

Attempting to be courteous, Lilly nodded to appease him and continued her work. She had to dig out at least a half dozen before noon if she was to make her way to Rushen Abbey by sunset. Returning to her labors, the shell she was popping from the muck, slipped from her fingers as sediment washed over the pads.

"Damn!" Lilly cursed and grumbled under her breath as she dropped further into the water, hands frantically searching for the oyster.

"I'm sorry, I did not mean to disturb you."

Covered in mud and sand, Lilly glanced up to find Aland staring down at her.

"It's no matter now. It is gone."

"You should not be out here with the current so high and such a chill in the air. The cough will be soon to set in."

"I appreciate your concern, Sir-"

"Aland, Rachael… my name is Aland. I see you each Sunday, surely you know my name."

Flashing an impatient smile, Lilly curtly replied, "Yes of course, Aland. As I was saying, I appreciate your concern but as you can see," she opened the satchel that hung from her shoulder, exposing over a dozen of her catch inside, "I have already made half sell today."

Aland nodded awkwardly, lingering even as Lilly continued her work, "Rachael…"

Lilly stiffened, for five years she'd used her new name and still it felt foreign.

"Yes," she rasped.

"I was sorry to hear of your mother…." He paused again, amateurish as though he were waiting for her to fill in some imaginary blank. He wasn't the first to try, clumsily stumbling over their words, or even worse some came with the most ridiculous bravado, promising things she didn't care to hear.

Lilly would rather work herself to death and sleep with a knife by her bed to deter intruders for the rest of her life, if it meant she could be spared these tedious conversations.

She nodded her head, pretending that she was listening but Lilly was somewhere else completely.

"Would you permit me to take you there?" Aland asked, calling her back from joyless thoughts.

"Excuse me?" she questioned peering back at him lost as to why they were still even speaking.

"Rushen Abbey, would you permit me to take you?" He was precocious without excuse. It was both greatly annoying and weirdly almost charming.

Lilly stared at the curious man flummoxed. His copper hair was slicked back from the humidity, thin lips chapped and tea colored eyes staring straight back.

"I hope not to be rude, I just noticed you travel there and back quite often to sell your stock to the monks. It's a great distance to go on a day like this," he looked out over the water at the dark clouds hovering in the south east.

"No thank you," Lilly answered quickly, forgetting the last few oysters. Whatever game he was planning at, she wasn't interested. Picking up her skirts, Lilly waded closer to the shore with numb toes making her clumsy prints in the mud as she trudged back to her shoes.

"If you do not say yes, I will ask you again next week and the week after," he offered hesitantly, trying to look confident but failing at it miserably. It wasn't in his nature you see, to be so direct. It all made for a strange juxtaposition, such forthright intent with such trepidation.

"And I will continue to say no," Lilly replied over her shoulder.

Following behind her, he tried once more, "Then perhaps this once you will say yes and allow me to assist you. One Christian to another…. I promise it will be just this once. You see my mother would never forgive me if she knew I let you walk so far in the rain."

Lilly slipped her first foot back into her boot, and flatly replied, "Your mother is blind, if I do recall and is hard of hearing."

Aland stopped in the water, his smile dropping from his face. He looked almost like a child that had been denied. It was then that Lilly realized how young he truly was in comparison. She'd seen him a half dozen times on Sunday, once or twice in the village in passing but she'd never taken the time to really look at him. At eight and ten he was four years her junior.

"Yes," he continued, "few years past. She was lucky to have lived," his hand smoothed through his hair damp as though he could shake out some kind answer.

"Now you see why she will know…"

"Do I?" Lilly grunted, slipping her frozen foot into the other boot.

"Yes, the woman has a second sight, given to her by God. She can sense whenever I am not a good Christian."

"Then you should tell her that I am pagan and set her mind at ease."

"Then she would only wish for me to try harder," he yelled after her as she went.

Lilly paused, blushing as dozens of eyes found them both from the dock. This was exactly the kind of attention she didn't want. Wasn't it enough for her just to live out her miserable life without being disturbed?

His hand slipped through the strap of her bag, taking it from her shoulder, "Let me take you and then you can be rid of me," he replied, timidly again.

"Just to the abbey?" she questioned.

"Wherever it is that you need to go, Rachael," he replied.

Where ever it was that she needed to go. He was a little too young and far too human to understand.

~x~

1496

Dauphiny, France

She never saw him coming. Elpitia had lived her life in tense caution ready for Rebekah or Kol to return at any moment. She'd wake at night in sweat thinking that she could hear her mother calling to her. But reaching out with clammy hands and desperation in the dark, she'd find nothing but air- remembering that it was gone now. Her father, brother and mother slaughtered by the blood demons that came in the night.

She was six and ten now, and living in Embrun just inside the city. Working as a midwife's apprentice, she lived a quiet life on the cold floors of that woman's home. Other than visits from Farideh, she was relatively unknown.

Someday they would have come for her. Perhaps a few more years and Elpitia would have found hers face to face with a foot soldier from the Watch, a recruiter letting her know that her time had come to join. And she would have, just as her mother had and Ines's mother and grandmother before. Elpitia would have been someday been just another foot soldier in Silas's vast invisible army had she lived just a while longer.

Elpitia was cautious by nature, never willing to speak more than she was required to say. A lingering thought always in the back of her mind that with enough information she could be found by Rebekah or Kol once more.

She was careful. She lived a quiet life but it was only a matter of time before she would be found, before Klaus would come back looking for the answers in which her mother had failed.

He found her in the market, innocent, for just a moment with her guard down. Klaus trapped her much the same way he had Hannah. All it took was one smile and a few kind words and her fate had been sealed.

Elpitia woke with her head throbbing and her feet cold as ice. The desire to sleep was so oppressive that her eye lids felt as though they had been tied shut and weighted.

"I see you are awake…." A voice called out to her.

Elpitia had been stripped naked, her hands and feet bound as she was hung upside down. How long she had been like this, Elpitia didn't know. But each passing moment felt like an eternity as the blood continued to pool in her head, struggling to pump against gravity to profuse the screaming dehydrated tissues of her lower half.

"What have you done with me?" she gasped, her hands and body struggling sluggishly against the binding.

"Talking to strange men?" Klaus walked past her, looking down condemningly, "I would have thought your mother would have taught you better," he condescended, his ice cold hands settling on her calves, caressing them as her body swayed.

Nausea welled in Elpitia as she dangled back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. "You knew my mother? Who are you?" she asked feebly her breaths becoming short and labored.

Grabbing her by the claves to stabilize her, Klaus looked up the rope to where it was strung across the bearing beam in the room, "Ironic, is it not? Your mother died almost the exact same way. Only the rope was strung around her neck." He snickered to himself.

"Who are you?!" she attempted to yell.

Becoming serious once more, Klaus began, "I believe you knew my sister, Rebekah…. I'd like to know where she is now but I assume she left you without word…. She tends to do that."

"I don't know," Elpitia gasped desperately, her vision blurring between half formed images and darkness.

Sighing, Klaus reached down and slapped her cheek to bring her back, "Please do try to pay attention." His fingers were like ice against her cheeks. If he didn't let her down in a few more minutes, there would be no conversation.

"Your mother had some information that was of interest to me," he began again.

"How did you find me?" she whispered.

Ignoring her question, Klaus continued, "She knew a witch, one that had told her of a particular curse. I want to know the name of that witch."

There was no need to explain to Elpitia further. She knew exactly what he was talking about. There was only one curse that would warrant a vampire arriving at Ines's door some three years past.

Elpitia's eyes were shut completely now as she began to drift into unconsciousness.

"This is where you answer," Klaus led irritated, digging his nails into the numb flesh of her calves until it drew what little blood was left in the tissues.

But Elpitia couldn't answer. Even if she wasn't floating somewhere between reality and a pressure induced dream world, her throat had begun to swell from the pressure, cutting off her oxygen supply.

Rolling his eyes, Klaus reached up, pulling off the knot that formed the circled loop that held the rope to the beam. Crashing to the floor, Elpitia landed on her shoulder, crushing her collarbone in the process.

Shocked into consciousness with blinding pain, Elpitia's eyes sprang open as she gasped for air whimpering in pain, unable to clutch her injured side.

Crouching so he was at her level, Klaus wasted little time allowing her to recover before he continued, "The witch that told your mother about the moonstone curse…." Elpitia's head lulled to the side, desperate whisperings of pain spilling from her mouth.

Wrapping his fingers around her jaw, Klaus snapped her head back and forth yelling, "Tell me who she was!"

"I do not know," Elpitia lied, knowing that it may be the last she would tell in her life.

Releasing his grasp Klaus smiled, "Oh… you know who she was," as though he was unsure himself whether she would know the name he sought but her weak denial was enough to confirm that the last year he'd spent tracking Elpitia down wasn't in vain. "Perhaps another hanging will jog your memory?"

When Elpitia refused to respond, Klaus eagerly obliged. His little game of torture lasted just over two hours, where he continually strung and released Elpitia's body, letting her hover at the edge death more than a handful of times before quickly yanking her back. He tried compulsion but it didn't work. Her blood had been laced with vervain since she was child. His threatening was useless as Elpitia had no one and little more in this world to bargain with than a room full of jars stocked with powder, offering a remedy to everything but the kind of illness Klaus had.

Klaus may have given up, let her dangle to her death or quickly decapitated her if he hadn't wisely held out hope that she may break and tell him what he needed to know. Over the centuries, with the hundreds, even thousands of victims he'd tortured and toyed with, Klaus had become an expert executioner. No human could match his complete and total lack of conscience and sadistic patience.

If anyone in this world was to get that name out of her, it would be him. He was sure of it and in the end, he was right.

Dangling for her ninth and final time, Elpitia knew that death was near, hovering at her door, whispering for her to come and play. She knew somewhere vaguely that she should feel fear, anger, or even basic sadness that this was how she was going to meet her end.

Klaus's curses and questions, his yelling, was nothing but a soft hum to her now in the background. A parting song as she toed the barrier to the valley of death. With cold paralyzed limbs and a burning face, Elpitia took one step forward, out of the light, following the voice that called to her at the door.

It was one step and then another, Klaus drifting further and further from her consciousness. Elpitia should have been afraid, desperate to cling to life but she was neither. In truth she was relieved. Soon she would see her mother again- if she could just escape the light and crawl into that darkness, cloaking herself in death.

Elpitia could feel herself almost there. One or two steps more and then she could run, sprinting into that cool emptiness and never return. But she hesitated with her next step, not from her own volition but as a necessary reflex to something that was pulling her back with equal force.

It was him, Klaus's claws digging into her, taking grasp to rip her back into the world of the living. The harder Elpitia tried to take that next step the more viciously Klaus pulled her back until she knew that she could lose.

She was so close, she was almost there….

As light flicked past her closed eye lids, welcoming her back to life, Elpitia took this last opportunity struggling against Klaus's efforts and spoke the name her mother bid her to never say, "Sapphira."

It was a betrayal of her mother, one that in life Elpitia would grieve but she had no time for that now. The witch's name spilling from her lips was the final price to pay before she was set free. Releasing the rope from the beam, Elpitia was running through that cool quiet darkness. She was sprinting towards the light of the other side, flickering in the distance.

When her body hit the ground this time it was her head that made contact first. Instantly snapping her neck, there would be more questions Elpitia would never hear. Her race was finally won as she ran into the light of the afterlife leaving no regrets behind.

Examining the body on the floor, Klaus knew she was dead. There were at least another half dozen questions that he had planned to ask but now he'd never have the opportunity. It didn't matter now anyhow. He had his name: the witch that knew of the original moonstone curse.

She would have to have the answers to the questions he sought. This Sapphira would know if there was another way.

~x~

1496

Scrathclyde, England

Coming over the moors, Rebekah lifted the cloth that covered the window examining the ruins of Greyshaw Manor as the carriage pulled by.

"Dreadfully depressing…" she murmured to herself. She couldn't imagine what had possibly inspired her brothers to keep their lands here. The doppelganger was gone, or so Rebekah had imagined. Something had not went as planned for if it had, would Kol not have returned to her?

Watching the ruins fade in the distance, she couldn't help but feel a little chilled at the thought. That something might have happened to any of them and still she was none the wiser. Perhaps it was naivety that called Rebkeah, to tell herself that if something were wrong, if they were missing, if one of her brothers was truly in need she would have known.

She would be able to feel a part of herself go- the separation of an understanding, a contentious love that had formed her existence. Tapping on the side of the carriage, Rebekah popped her head out and called to the driver, "What happened here?"

"A fire, My Lady…" he yelled back, slowing the carriage so that she may hear him better as he continued, "That behind us was once Greyshaw Manor, home to the Lockwood heirs. It caught fire four years past and killed almost everyone within the house, including Lady Lockwood herself."

Looking back at the dreary property, the soot spilled out even over the outer stone, like wine that had been spilled from its goblet. Grey crumbling walls, painted in black sat lonely and eerie against the grey, wheat white backdrop of the moors.

Rebekah's mind went to her brothers, "Were any of the tenants from up the hill injured?"

"A few of help, My Lady…" the driver called back.

"Any of the Lords?" the driver paused before he answered, causing a lump of anxiety to swell and seat itself in the back of Rebekah's throat.

"I thought you knew Lord Mikaelson?" The driver called back, confused.

"I knew the second oldest, Niklaus…."

"Then you should know that none of the Lords were harmed; only the eighty nine souls of Greyshaw Manor, Lady Lockwood and her sister as well."

Swallowing the lump in relief, Rebekah called out a few words of thanks before she dropped the curtain to the window once more. Shutting out the ugliness her brothers had left behind.

When they arrived at the house, the carriage pulling away, the caretakers were quick to inform Rebekah that none of the brothers were currently taking residence in the great house. Smiling and playing the game of formal necessities, Rebekah informed the small staff that she was in fact Lady Mikaelson. A truth she would have to compel each and everyone to forget again before she left.

She couldn't leave a trail after all, although it would only be a matter of time until they knew it was her. After treating herself to a warm slippery lunch, Rebekah drained herself a goblet a blood from the kitchen maid before she began her descent into the cellars of the great house.

To be fair, her brothers could have put it anywhere. For all Rebekah knew Finn could be stashed in some random locked room, hidden on the grounds or be left in some random location that only her paranoid brother would know.

Instinct called for her to check the cellars first. Hiding Finn's coffin would have been the prudent thing to do. Her brothers however, Klaus especially, were not known for their prudency in action. Caution would lead for them to consider a better place, one that was safe but ego and a general lack of caring would call for Finn to be deposited somewhere simple and easy, with the quick compelling of any staff acting as a hasty band aid to remedy any complications with the situation.

No one knew her brothers as Rebekah did. For just as she predicted, in the cellar is where she found Finn's resting place. Setting down the glass of quickly cooling blood, Rebekah hesitated for a moment before, clawing at the nails sealing the box together, before she ripped the lid from the casket.

Looking down at his ashen skin and face, Rebekah couldn't help but stand and stare. What had Klaus done to their eldest brother? Overwhelmed with guilt Rebekah couldn't stop herself from crying.

Finn, dear sweet, patient, kind, Finn, how could she have let him live like this for close to five centuries? How could Rebekah allow for any of this to happen?

She was no better than her brothers for her silence made her just as complicit as them in this crime.

Leaning over his coffin, gently brushing hair from his face, tears dribbled down her cheeks as Rebekah whispered, "I was always going to come for you, Finn- always." Wrapping both hands around the white oak stake pushed through his heart; Rebekah held her breath and ripped it from his chest.

Falling back on her heels, her efforts were met with a frenzied gasp for air. Dropping the stake on the group, Rebekah scrambled back to standing. Stepping back towards the coffin, she leaned over its edge finding Finn staring back in confusion.

Looking around wildly, he gripped the sides of the coffin, lifting stiff muscles to sitting, "Where am I?"

Handing him the goblet of lukewarm blood, Rebekah sat next to him on the floor, her hand covering his, "Safe… you're safe now."

Ravenous he accepted the offering without question, the maroon liquid dribbling down his ashen face as he devoured the blood.

Squeezing his hand, Rebekah's face twisted into every shade of contrition, "I'm sorry it took me so long."

~x~

1497

Scrathclyde, England

It had been almost a year and a half since Elijah had last returned to Harte Manor. He'd been on the road almost constantly, traveling everywhere from the northern reaches of Turkey to France searching for Katerina. It seemed each move he made she was always just one step ahead of him, just out of his reach.

Her ability to adapt and survive was remarkable. It was unparalleled to almost any other creature he'd ever seen. Had it not been so unnerving and irritating, Elijah would have been fascinated. His return to Scrathclyde was meant to be brief. There was some business he needed to attend to with their lands in Scrathclyde and in particular the English throne. He could have never imagined what he found.

The problem with having humans care for the house was that they were inherently weak. He could hardly encourage them to drink Vervain because it often defeated his own purposes. Truthfully Elijah thought there to be no need to guard the house against predators. What could possibly be there that Klaus and Kol were not already privy to and completely disinterested in? Rebekah, wherever she may be, would never travel this far north to stay at the manor by herself. It wasn't in her nature. Like many females she was a pack animal, always moving as a pair- linked forever to one of the brothers.

Elijah only naturally assumed that her companion would be Kol. With no word from him since that morning they departed Harte Manor, Elijah assumed that he had simply returned to Spain to retrieve Rebekah. Had he not, Elijah didn't care. Kol always seemed to return when it best suited his own interests and Elijah had not the time to worry about the chaos and carelessness that seemed to follow Kol.

At first nothing was out of the ordinary. Everything was in its place, the help for the house, baring no stories of any visitor besides himself to date. Elijah should have known that something was wrong. That something was amiss amongst the help. All of their answers were so trained and to the point. Perhaps he was just tired and unwilling to notice, being oh so willing to sink into what small peace this place had to offer.

But the calm that Elijah felt here wouldn't last for long.

Following his routine, Elijah dined as soon as he arrived. He caught up on the local news. Sifting through old letters from the King, messages from other members of the court took up most of his afternoon, into the evening. When the sun disappeared into the sky and a fog started to settle over the moors, Elijah took his glass of fresh blood from the kitchen maid and began his descent down into the cellar to check on Finn.

Every so often in the past few years, when Elijah would return, he'd always make sure to make the journey down to the lowest levels of the house, before retiring for the evening. There in muted light, with his goblet of fresh blood he'd examine Finn's coffin and perch himself nearby. Sometimes he would stay there for only a few minutes and other times a few hours, telling Finn everything that he had missed. Every update and thought that passed through Elijah's mind.

There was comfort in confiding to the dead. The deceased didn't judge. Their listening lacked all manner of commentary. They were the perfect audience for any speaker- the perfect priest to any sinner.

This evening however, Elijah would be forced to skip his favorite part of the evening. The entire plan ruined, for as he descended the final last few steps, rounded the corner allowing his candle to light the room, he encountered an unwelcomed surprise.

It was small, something that perhaps no one else would have noticed: a drop of blood, staining the panel of the bed. Staring at it, examining the spot, perhaps not fully aware of its possibility, Elijah pressed lightly against the lid, expecting find resistance only to find none.

As the top panel of the box slid to the floor, with little effort, Elijah peered down into his brother's coffin only to find the empty bed inside.