Chapter 6 - "Welcome to Mystic Falls"

Elena's POV

A cool wind had picked up by the time Tatiana and I left Katherine's house. It was now strong enough to play with our hair and cool my face slightly – even though I was a vampire all this drama had got me hot and bothered. Three doppelgängers? Seriously?! Three different women with exactly the same face as me? I still couldn't process it. I mean, when I found out about Katherine I freaked out - the dent in the roof of my old car is proof of that. But Tatiana? The thousands of years old human Tatiana who supposedly died? It was too much. Air. I was outside but needed more air. All too much - My trusty Converses slipped on the marble steps outside the door, causing me to cripple under the pressure of Tatia's grip on my upper arm.

"Come, child. You do know how to walk, do you not?" She snarled at me, whirling around with a grace neither Damon or Stefan had ever accomplished. Her expression of impatience was terrifying, like she would eat me at any moment, which was weird to say the least. Eyebrows risen, eye squinted, blood vessels swimming across , fangs out: a typical vampire face. Stefan had made it without meaning to so many times. And yet to see such a anger on my face... it was easier to think of Katherine as some kind of monster who was absolutely nothing remotely to do with me, but with Tatiana? She seemed like a mix between the two of us - both gentle and vicious. Unpredictable. Tatiana snarled, and I glared at her. It seemed that every time an old ancient took me somewhere they always pushed me around – like Damon did last summer. Straight into the lake...

"Where are you taking me?" I asked to the back of her head whilst I jogged to keep up. Silence. The elder vampire was in a rush, not even pausing by either of the cars outside Katherine's mansion. Walk it is, then. Great. Under our feet the gravel crunched, but this time it was familiar but not at all comforting; it sounded like I never thought I would think this but, I didn't want to leave Katherine. She was going to mess with the Salvatore's heads and as much as they were being overbearingly 'caring' and 'helpful' for me recently, they didn't deserve that. Hopefully, like last time, Stefan will realise it's not me immediately. Unlike Damon. He never did notice.

Tatiana broke through the ghost of a guilty-looking Damon telling me that we needed to 'talk about what happened tonight' in the hospital, by pulling on my arm to bring me next to her. She took longer strides and I looked at her legs in awe. For the first time I noticed what she was wearing – a long, floaty eyelet lace black skirt that reached her ankles. A black blouse and a dark blue denim jacket. Her wavy brunette hair was identically coloured to mine and Katherine's but it was up in a very loose bun at the base of her head. Straggly bits framing her face delicately. I almost giggled, still feeling nervous from this whole thing, at her appearance. Tatiana obviously preferred the latest fashions as opposed to the old styles of the ancient Viking time. That wasn't what made me bite my lip though, no. It was the colours. Was it part of a secret uniform for all vampires to wear dark colours? I prefer darker colours because they are practical for Virginia, which is always windy, and can keep in heat. And they look good. Where was the sign-up sheet?

Tatiana interrupted my inner joke, again, by stopping in the middle of the road. She swung around to face me, identical face-to-face, her loose hair flying away from her. The skirt creating ripples in its material dramatically. It's her version of a cape, I told myself. My teeth bit harder into my lower lip again as I watched her look solemnly at the sky.

"We have merely hours before the rise of darkness. Now tell me, Elena," The wind dragged her voice towards me. "Where is the local gathering place?"

"Oh, um. The Grille?" I looked around to see where we were. In matter of minutes, we had walked to the edge of town. Tatiana walked at a human pace to the right side of the road to put a hand on the Welcome sign. She looked at it, smirking. "What's so funny?"

Her eyes fluttered around at invisible spots on the ground before looking directly into my own eyes. I shivered. Her expression betraying her once again as her hard demise slipped for a fraction of a second. If I hadn't been watching her so intently, I probably wouldn't have noticed. She wasn't smirking, she was grimacing in a pain that was hard to fully understand, although from what I did see, I knew. My ancestor was broken inside. Trapped. She looked even worse than my reflection in the mirror on the day of Aunt Jenna's funeral.; all gaunt and alone. Black dress, black shoes, black everything..

"I-I thought I could never return to my home," She continued, breaking through memories of my past for yet another time. "To do so was insidious. If only I had known that the Mikaelson's no longer took residence here.. maybe then I would have come back sooner." I stepped forward, my hair flying behind me into twists and tangles, but I didn't care. Was this was I was going to turn out like? Katherine was already becoming this haunted, but would this fate run down the bloodline? Her gaze never left mine.

"What happened, Tatiana? There's more to the story I can tell."

"Well- No. No," She shook her head and audibly swallowed back whatever she was going to say, "Let's being your lessons, shall we?" Tatiana pushed off the sign in such a human way, it looked wrong on her body. She signalled for me to walk the road into Mystic Falls ahead of her. My legs were stiff but soon began to move me along the uneven tarmac towards my home town. Our home town. Katherine was different, she was from Bulgaria and had moved – Tatiana and I – were natives here. We had lived here for the same amount of time, and for both of us, the Mikaelson's had tainted that. Klaus had ruined her life somehow at this very point in her life.

And look at her now, I nearly turned to look back at her but stopped before I did, she was an empty shell. Alone. Scared. Trying to pretend that I couldn't hear her faint sobs from behind my back, I kept walking at a steady pace. For a thousand-year old to break at the sight of a mundane metal sign, something terrible must have happened to her in Mystic Falls all those years ago.

It was that moment that I vowed to myself that I would be different, this bloodline feud against the Mikaelsons would end with me. No one else was going to get hurt.

How wrong I was...

Author's Note: Hey guys! It's been a long while since my last update. Recently had some massive exams to revise for, so unfortunately that took up [wasted] way too much of my time. Sigh. Anyway, now that I am free I can make sure my stories are not abandoned again. (yay!)

-FoulkseyDarkRose