The last time I died I had been a witch. Before that, a werewolf. And before that, a siren.
The Ancient Curse made me eternal, not immortal, so every time death came for me I resurrected hours later a different creature. Although I could channel some power from a specific line thanks to my ring, the agonizing pain that came after doing so was not worth it. Especially if I was human.
Which is why I simply couldn't just shift into one, and had to go through the whole process instead.
I sucked in a breath, gasped as I shot up awake on the sofa of Marcel's loft.
The vampire came rushing to my side and tried to calm me down, "Hey, hey, it's okay, you're in-"
"Transition, I know," I nodded once my head was clear and I stabilized. Marcel looked at me with surprise, probably wondering how I knew, and I smirked, "You didn't seriously think I wouldn't do my own research before becoming a vampire, did you?"
"Of course not," he let out a small chuckle and stood up to retrieve a blood bag from the other room. When he came back, he sat down across from me in his recliner chair and placed the blood bag in the coffee table between us. "I guess you know you have to drink human blood to complete the process?"
Growing hungrier by the second, my eyes widened at the sight of the deep red liquid as my growing fangs ached for a taste and the vampiric veins on my face appeared.
I didn't do Transition; my ring allowed me to skip that part of vampirism. But, even if I hated feeling on edge and out of control, without the ring I didn't have an option.
"During the first twenty-four hours or else I'm dead," I answered as I fought to gain control, opening the bag to pour some blood into the glass on the table. "Like I said, I did my research." I put down the bag and picked up the glass.
"I have to apologize, Itzel. Before, I didn't believe you had what it in you but it looks like you were born for this," he smiled admittedly, watching me drink from the glass as if it were filled with something else and not my source of life.
I put the glass down on the coffee table and looked at him as the protruding veins under my eyes faded.
Not born. Made.
Shortly after I completed the transition, Marcel took me to a witch to get a batch of daylight rings for the other recruits. Although I didn't need one, I didn't tell him that when he gave one to me.
It also turned out he wasn't going to be teaching me like everyone else. He had appointed Elijah Mikaelson as my own mentor, which worked out in my favor. The more interaction I had with the Originals, even if I started with this one, the quicker I was to get what I needed and save Bianca.
"I wondered when you'd show up," Marcel said and I turned from where I shelved a pile of books on a corner of the loft to see Elijah walk in. "Your pupil's waiting. It's not like you to shirk your responsibilities," he smirked.
Elijah sighed, a bit of his frustration evident as he said, "As you well know, she is not my... burden to bear. You turned her, you teach her."
I couldn't believe it. A burden? If anything, he could learn a thing or two from me, the only six-thousand year old supernatural being in the room.
I shut the book I was flipping through closed and the noise caught his attention. Ready to chuck the book at him, I said instead, "I'll have you know, I'm a fucking delight," and went back to my work.
Marcel grinned, trying hard not to laugh while the Original raised his eyebrows at my audacity. "Why'd you come?" he deviated.
Elijah looked at Marcel and cleared his throat, "I'm looking for a cooperative witch."
Marcel walked up to him and shrugged, "I don't know where Davina is, and given the fact that she's got your father on a leash, I wouldn't put her in the, uh, 'cooperative' category."
"Not Davina," Elijah snapped, his patience running thin. "Perhaps another witch? On another leash?"
Marcel crossed his arms across his chest, "What makes you think I got another witch?"
"Perhaps the daylight ring on your new librarian?" He pointed to me and the ring on my right hand.
I rolled my eyes and walked across the loft to him, saying, "Okay, you may not want to be my teacher or have anything to do with me, but let's get this straight: I'm no one's burden and no one's librarian." I stopped when I reached him, surprising him and Marcel by holding out my hand in a proper introduction, "My name is Itzel Franco."
"My apologies, Itzel," he took my hand and gave it a firm shake, "it's a pleasure to meet you." Although he smiled, it didn't reach his eyes as he dropped the handshake and turned to Marcel, "However, I am pressed for time here."
Marcel made a face as he feigned to remember the witch from last night, "My memory's a little shaky. Lucky for you, though, I know someone who can help!" He patted my shoulder softly and didn't ask as much as ordered, "Why don't you take Elijah to meet our friend Lenore?"
Elijah glanced at me and then at Marcel, "If this is your idea of a joke, I can assure you I am not amused." For once, I agreed with him.
"Well, there's nothing funny about what's going on. Mikael's back, witches are causing chaos. It just seems like you could use all the friends that you can get," he smirked and the older vampire rolled his eyes as he turned and walked to the door.
I looked at Marcel and I muttered under my breath when he insisted that I followed him, "You have to be kidding me."
Fifteen minutes of walking and I still hadn't gotten a peep from the Original.
It was hard getting any information with him being mute, so I tried annoying him and see if that got him talking, "Look, I'm seeing that you're not much of a talker but I'm not one for awkward silences so you're going to have to work with me here and fill out this deafening silence bet-"
"The task is to lead me to someone," he cut me off and turned to me with an exasperated sigh. "Let's just... do that, shall we?"
Damn, who woke him up on the wrong side of the bed? He stepped in front of me and kept walking, leaving me to wonder if this is how all Mikaelsons were like, I certainly had my work cut out.
"Okay, I respect that but how about you let me lead? You know, since you are going the wrong way and all." I couldn't help but let him walk past the turn to Lenore's establishment so I could rub it in his face that he needed me even if he didn't want me.
He stopped in his tracks, "Marcel believes I can instruct you." His dark eyes burned with annoyance as he turned to me with a stern voice, "First lesson: do your best not to waste my time."
"Well, only if you stop ignoring me," I shot back while I waited for the car on the street to drive by. Like expected, he glared daggers at me as the car passed and I smirked, stretching out a hand to make way for him, "This way, Mr. Mikaelson."
The rest of the path was silent, preferring not to get another rise out of him when it became clear to me that he had bigger problems to deal with.
"This is it," I pointed at the convenience store in front of us and Elijah opened the door without question, if not a bit surprised when he held it opened for me to walk in first.
"Go away, I'm busy," the dark-skinned witch snapped, not bothering to look up from where she crushed some ingredients in a molcajete.
"Yes," Elijah stepped inside, bells hanging from the entrance ringing behind us as the door closed and he walked up to the counter, "blatantly practicing magic, I see.
"Herbal remedies for a neighbor who lost her insurance," Lenore explained carelessly and finally looked up. "But, my guess is an Original ain't here to talk neighborhood gossip."
"I have a favor to ask you."
The woman shook her head no at whatever he wanted from her. "Quarter's crawling with witches, go ask one of them."
Elijah looked around the untidy store, admitting, "I don't typically ask favors of my enemies."
"So you come across the river to bother me?" She gave us a pointed look and stopped crumbling the dried lavender into the granite mortar.
"It's unfortunate, isn't it? " Elijah stalked towards her, inspecting the shop. "Bureaucracy has not been kind to your community. Those tax incentives on local businesses have been stalling for months. Of course, a persuasive person could potentially remove any red tape."
She met his gaze with sudden interest, "I'm listening."
"A certain someone- let's say a witch- has a troublesome tendency of jumping into other bodies. When she does so again, I would like to know into whom she jumps."
"Soul-branding," she gave him the solution.
I had figured it out, too, as soon as he said it. It was a sacrificial special that needed a python and a spelled item from whomever the witch they were trying to brand was.
Which is exactly what Lenore told him before he turned around, pleased as he said, "I shall retrieve the enchanted item. My partner will take care of the python."
"What the hell?" I held him back by his arm and stopped him from going out the door. "No, I'm not-"
He smiled and brushed me off, patronizing, "Second lesson of the day: acquisition through mind compulsion."
The bells rung as he left and I rolled my eyes, walking out the door the opposite way he went to get his damn snake.
Mind compulsion? I scoffed at the thought. Who was he to teach me about mind compulsion?
Back at the loft, Marcel asked me how the lessons with Elijah went.
"I can't believe he made me spent the whole day looking for a python!" I ranted, pacing back and forth in the room.
Marcel laughed before he realized, "Hold on. You compelled yourself a snake?"
"Well, yeah," I stammered, quickly covering up my experience with mind compulsion with a lie, "I would've stolen the poor thing, if I hadn't figured out how to mind control the guy selling it. Because Mr. Suit-and-Tie-with-a-Stick-Up-My-Ass didn't even have the decency to explain to me how compulsion works!"
He continued laughing, "He does seem a little stuck-up and rigid, doesn't he?"
"Why are you doing this?" I finally asked and he quieted down, looking confused. "Pushing Elijah to mentor me, when it could be you doing it, I mean. What is it that you're trying to get from him?"
Marcel straightened himself, hesitant, but he answered, "Actually, I want something for him and it's the same thing I want for you."
Now it was my turn to be confused, "I'm not understanding."
"This. Us," he motioned between him and me, "Our new community. Look, I learned my lesson the hard way. You can't make your way in this town unless you got an Original looking out for you. Klaus is so fixated on those wolves, and Elijah's so wrapped up in centuries of his family's old crap that he can't see it. But, we need him. We need him to see us as family, too."
I crossed my arms over my chest. What the hell did I know about family? The realization hit me. My parents, along with my entire village, had been massacred more than six-thousand years ago. Derek, the only person I've ever loved, died in my arms before our child was born. Hell, I couldn't even call Marcel's vampire community my family because I wasn't one of them.
I was everything and nothing, all at once.
"I don't know a thing about family, Marcel." I ran a hand through my hair and shook my head, "How am I supposed to win him over?"
"I've known that man for two hundred years. He's cranky," he let out a small laugh and said, "he's fussy. And, he can ride your last nerve. But he has an Achilles heel, okay? He can't help but fix what's broken. You don't need to be anything other than what you already are: someone who needs his help."
That was the thing, though. I didn't need his help.
I needed his blood.
"Hi, mi vida, how are you?" I smiled, hearing Bianca's voice from the other end of the phone.
"I'm okay, Mommy. Tania has a dog, Fletcher, and he likes to sleep with me so I don't feel lonely," Bianca giggled through the phone, probably playing with the Golden Retriever on her bed.
"I'm happy to hear that, B!" My eyes caught a familiar face coming into the bar and I hurried to say goodbye. "Alright, I gotta leave now. I love you, mi vida, goodnight."
"I love you, too, Mommy. Goodnight," she said and I sent her a kiss before ending the call.
I paid no attention to Elijah and turned my head to the slide guitar player on stage, listening to the blues as I drank from my beer.
"Bourbon, neat," Elijah came up and asked the bartender.
I looked at him while he took a seat on the stool in front of me and put down my beer. "What?" I asked bitingly. "You need another snake?"
He thanked the bartender for the drink and turned back to me with a joking smile, "One can never have too many."
"Then you better ask some other snake-fetcher because this one's done for the night," I referred to me before picking up my bottle of beer and finishing it.
Elijah glanced at the musician on stage and asked, "Are you playing tonight?"
"No," I shook my head.
"It's a shame," his face fell in disappointment before he smiled, "you're rather good."
"God," I laughed, "you really need to learn how to give a real compliment. Rather good? I'm amazing with a capital A."
"I admire your confidence, Itzel," he nodded and I realized this was the time to win him over like Marcel wanted.
"Yeah, so much of it," I scoffed, letting myself be overcome by sadness as I continued. "I haven't even touched my violin ever since I turned. I don't know why, I just can't."
Elijah stared at his glass of bourbon, listening, until he looked up, "It's different for us. Cadence, rhythm, harmony... Our experience of the senses is altered. We move faster. We hear things with a greater acuity. Silences are at once longer and more profound. Sound is simply different to our ears," he touched one of his ears and I stared at him, if not a bit entranced with how he explained exactly what I was experiencing as a newly turned vampire. "And then, there is the emotion. For a vampire, it is extremely heightened... Sometimes, it's difficult to express."
I blinked and broke eye contact before it got too awkward, nodding, "Hit the nail right on the head."
"Your music, the joy you felt when playing- you can learn again." My eyes met his once again as he took a sip of bourbon and said, "I can help you."
"Why would you do that?" I almost laughed at his offer, confused. "Not a moment ago, you were dying to get rid of me."
Elijah took in a breath and sighed, "Because if someone had done the same thing for myself and my siblings, I'm quite certain history would have unfolded differently."
I went back to Marcel's loft and found him pouring himself a drink around the partying vampires.
"Where were you?" Marcel turned and offered me a glass of bourbon.
I shook my head no and smiled, "Thanks, but I'm a beer kind of gal." He pulled back the glass and shrugged, downing the alcohol in one go as I answered, "I was with Elijah. "
"Hmm," he walked over to take a seat where there weren't feeding vampires or couples making out in the way.
I followed him, nodding, "You were right. I gave him something to fix, and he's gonna help me."
Marcel smiled at the news, "He's gonna help us all."
A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and thank you for all the follows and favorites! (Special thanks to BrazilianGirl21 and Only Reviewer for leaving their comments and questions!)
So, I have good news and bad news. Good news is that I have decided to keep this story up and add it to my neverending list of works-in-progess! But the bad news is that I'm not entirely sure when the next chapter will be done- It might take days, weeks, or months. Though I will try to finish the third chapter as soon as I can! All I can really ask of you guys is to be patient with me, but as always I'm thankful for everyone that has read/reviewed/followed/and added this fic to their favorites!
I hope you lovelies have a good day/night! :)
P.S. In case you were wondering, Eiza Gonzalez is Itzel's(my oc) faceclaim; and also the young woman of the story cover.
