Who was the Beast?
The woman or the man?

"Oh dear. I do wish I hadn't cried so much." — excerpt from Alice in Wonderland

"This will be your first magic lesson," Ayana said as she stood in the had been one week since Caroline had been sent to live with Ayana and so far all it was was chores and more chores, but now Ayana paused her busy bodying and took her here. The clearing was beautiful. All around them there were flowers and the wind whispered through the trees making the leaves rustle. For a moment Caroline closed her eyes and felt was something special about this place. The world hummed and buzzed around her. She could feel something underneath her feet waiting and wanting. It was grazing her with ghostly hands and fingers. She wanted to reach out and call upon it, but she did not know how. When she opened her eyes Ayana was looking at her with a smile.

"You can feel it. That energy," Ayana said. She turned and raised her hands, the sunlight that escaped through the trees touched her skin making her almost glow. She sighed and then lowered her arms. The energy had surged around Ayana when she raised her arms. It touched her and Caroline wanted desperately to feel that touch. Something inside of her ached for it. Ayana smiled at Caroline with her arms lowered. "That energy is magic."

"Magic?" The words finally escaped her lips.

It was the first time that Caroline acknowledged it. Everything that had happened to her, the strange place that she was in the clothing that everyone was wearing. All of it could be explained with magic. But Caroline was a big girl and big girls did not believe in magic. Magic was fake just like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. Things that babies believed. But what else could explain everything that she had experienced and gone through since the moment that she stepped foot into that house with that woman? Since she arrived here?

Magic had to be real in order for anything that was happening to her to make sense.

Ayana nodded her head. "There are many things in the world that cannot be explained and magic explains them."

"Then do I have magic?" Caroline asked.

Ayana walked over and leaned down and looked at her. She cupped Caroline's face in her soft hands and Caroline wanted to be magical. She wanted to be something. Her whole life she had only been Caroline and that was not enough. Maybe with this she could be something, someone. And maybe then they would look at her with not fear or apathy but something closer to admiration. Or maybe, just maybe, they would look and only see Caroline.

"You have very strong magic. You have all the necessary tellings that magic is within you. You my dear Caroline are a magical being just like me and Esther and Kol. You are special," Ayana said.

Her hands were a little rough, but they were warm and soft in other places. Her tone was everything that Caroline had hoped to hear. What child did not enjoy being told they were special. Especially one as small as Caroline who just needed to be seen.

Tears welled in her eyes and she smiled at Ayana. She would not let the tears fall now, but this was everything that she had ever wanted to hear. She was special and she was worthy of magic. There was a niggling somewhere deep inside of her, something was outraged that Caroline would have ever thought differently, but that was something that could be easily ignored.

"Now girl," Ayana pulled her hands away from her face. "I shall teach you how to master your magic. This is something that you must master lest you hurt someone unintentionally. First I will teach you how to channel and then we will work on spells."

Ayana went and sat by a tree and Caroline followed sitting down in front of the woman. Ayana crossed her legs and Caroline mimicked her making the old witch smile.
"Close your eyes." Caroline eyes immediately fell shut. "Now imagine yourself as a tree with roots that burrow deep down into the earth. I want you to imagine the roots going down into the earth and reaching for that power, that energy."

Caroline closed her eyes and imagined. She was a tree and her roots were going down, down, down into the ground. She could feel that power. She could see it for the first time. It was a shimmering gold light. It was reaching for her the same way that she was reaching for it. She sighed and allowed herself to reach out for it.

The root and the light touched and Caroline could feel the warmth of that energy surging through her. Everything was bright and beautiful and Caroline could not help but gasp. It swam through her and Caroline was swept in its beauty. It was the flow of a calm stream; it was the wing whistling through the trees; it was a volcano erupting; it was a boulder rolling down a hill.

Caroline opened her eyes and looked at the world around her. Everything shimmered with a bright golden aura and Caroline could feel something inside of her. It was screaming with joy and happiness. She was once again at home. She was no longer just Caroline, but she was something more. She was something that could reach out and do things. She was no longer a passive child but someone who could enact change in the world.

Lifting her hands to her face, Caroline stared at the golden aura that wrapped around her hands. It was nothing more than two hands. Hands that she had always had, but this was something more. These hands could change. These hands could fight back. These were the hands of someone who could change the world.

Ayana reach forward then and placed her hands in Caroline's. It was then that Caroline could feel the age of this woman. She could feel the density of her bones and the see the ages that lined her face and it was then that Caroline got the distinct impression that this was not something that would touch her. At least not in the way that Caroline expected it to.

"Do you see it?" Ayana asked looked around at the world around them. "Do you see the magic?"

"It's everywhere," Caroline said in amazement. She looked around more. The crows that flew in formation overheard were lined with the same golden aura as the woodland creatures and the grass and the trees, but one thing was certain. Everything around them was connected. Everything was connected together in a large web and Caroline felt the rightness inside of her.

This was the world of magic, of nature. Everything was in balance and together. Everything was perfect as it was.

"It is so beautiful," Caroline breathed.

"And it is ours to protect," Ayana said. She leaned back on her haunches, but did not let go of Caroline's hands. "This power comes from Nature and we have to protect it no matter what. We are the guardians of this world."

"Guardians…"

There was a show that Caroline would sometimes watch on Saturday mornings. It was called Sailor Moon and those girls were the guardians of the world and the planets that they represented. Caroline did not pay too much attention to the show (she mainly just liked the outfits, but there was something there. The importance of what they were doing and the power that they had was something that Caroline wished she had.

And now she did. Caroline smiled at Ayana.

"I'll protect this with my life," she said with all the conviction that a child could muster.

"I know that you will," Ayana said with a smile of her own. "Now, to teach you how to disconnect from the magic."

Caroline frowned at that, but then closed her eyes following the instructions of Ayana, but in reverse. When she opened her eyes again everything in the world had returned to how it was. Caroline already missed the thrum of power that sang as it raced through her blood, but it was enough now that she knew she could access it. This was something that was her's and her's alone. She smiled and looked to Ayana who was rising from the ground.

"Come, Caroline. There is work to be done," Ayana said as she began the walk back to their cottage. Caroline rose from the ground and trotted after her caretaker.

She was special. And no one could take that away from her.

"Are you learning my little witchling?" Emmie's voice wafted through the space.

Caroline was inside that abandoned house again, but without the fire and flames. Emmie lounged on a dusty old couch and looked at Caroline with that Cheshire Cat smile that she had seen on her face so often.

"I am not a witch," Caroline said with her arms crossed. "You're a witch."

Emmie had sent her to the past and had hurt Kol. She was a witch in every sense of the word. But Caroline was not a witch and Ayana was not a witch. Witches were bad people who hurt others, and Caroline would never hurt someone in her life.

Emmie sighed from her chair and righted herself so that she was sitting properly. Emmie looked at Caroline with those acid green eyes that seemed to glow out of her face.
"You are not a witch, but you are something of nature. You are something that has the ability to tap into Nature which is rare," Emmie said with a tilt of her head.

Caroline shook her head and then fisted her hands. There was nothing that scared her more than Emmie. Emmie came to her night after night, to learn more about how Caroline was doing in her magic training, but something about the witch frightened Caroline. She wanted nothing to do with Emmie, but the woman insisted that she was her guardian. But Caroline already had parents. Parents who were not here in the past with her.

"What do you want?" Caroline asked, trying and failing to hide the shaking of her voice. Emmie tilted her head again and smiled at her.

"I want you to reach your full potential," Emmie said with a grin. "I want you to do what it is that you were destined to do in this world. I want change."

"I don't understand," Caroline said stepping back from the woman.

Emmie sighed and scrubbed a hand down her face. "No, you wouldn't would you."

Caroline took another step back and Emmie sighed once more. "Time for you to wake up sweetie."

The birds were chirping when she opened her eyes.

Niklaus knew that he was not allowed to move his leg, but it was so boring just sitting in bed all day. He wanted to be outside with everyone else. Rebekah was attending to him as best as she could, but a child like Rebekah was not who he wanted to be with.

His mother was singing song somewhere in the cottage as she made their lunch and Niklaus sighed as he shifted on his cot. The mattress was stiff and unyielding under his bed and he wanted nothing more than to be put on Finn's bed that was much more comfortable. He sighed again and sunk into his bed.

HIs mother said that it would take a couple weeks for his leg to become right. Father had looked like he was going to give Niklaus a good thrashing if he was not already in pain. Niklaus shuddered at the thought.

Why did Father hate him so much? Niklaus tried to do everything in order to gain his approval. It was the one thing that he desired most in the world and yet, no matter what he did he could not find even a kernel of affection in the man that was his father.

What did he have to do?

A loud laugh sounded from somewhere outside the hut and Niklaus wanted nothing more than to rise to his knees and see what the commotion was about. He twisted in the bed to see who was at the door, but all he could catch sight of was the wall of the hall. Loud footsteps thumped against ground and the front door of their cottage creaked open.

"Darling," his mother said as she rose from the cauldron. "No, not her," his mother's voice was cold as ice. Who was at the door? And was her…?

"The girl is our ward," his father said with a tone that brokered no arguments. "And she will eat with us and know us."

"Mikael—" His mother started, but his father had a way of quieting his mother with just a look and the woman went silent. "Fine."

"Caroline!" Rebekah's voice shouted from the main room. There was footsteps rushing forward and then giggling as Rebekah met with the other girl. "Come and play with me!"

There was the sound of shuffling as the two of them made their way down the hall and into his room. Rebekah had left the dolls in his room and he froze when he saw Caroline. She was wearing a rich blue dress that brought out the blue of her eyes. Her blonde hair was left alone to curtain her face and she smiled at him with a cautious smile.

"Hello," was all that Caroline said to him before she went to Rebekah's side of the room where she had brought out the dolls.

Niklaus stared at the girl for a moment. She was very cute if he was being honest with himself. And maybe they had not started out on the best foot. Maybe she would be more entertaining than Rebekah at the very least.

"Caroline? Where are you from?" Niklaus found himself asking. Caroline looked up from where she was playing with Rebekah and peered at him. Her gaze was questioning as though she was deciding whether or not it was worth the effort of answering him.

"I'm from Mystic Falls," Caroline said.

"Mystic Falls?" Rebekah asked. "Is that a village near by?"

"It's in Virginia," Caroline said.

"Virginia? I have never heard of such a place," Niklaus said.

"It is in the United States of America," Caroline said.

"And where is that?" Niklaus asked.

Caroline paused in that moment and then tilted her head. "I don't know."

And then she turned back to the dolls.

Virginia? Why did they name the place are virgins? Was it a place that placed a lot of value on chastity? He wondered. Niklaus had never been outside of the village that he had been born and raised in. He had never seen the world outside his village and he wanted nothing more than to see it. He sighed and leaned his head against the pillow once more.

It was going to be a long day.

Caroline sat at the table with Kol and Rebekah at her sides. She liked sitting in between them and they made the stares of Esther more bearable. Caroline sighed and looked up at the hallway where Niklaus was eating alone in his room.

Whenever she looked at Niklaus she felt nothing, but guilt. She knew that she was the cause of his broken leg and she wanted nothing more than to heal him with her magic, but she did not know how. She knew that her magic was something that could fix things if she just learned how to use it.

Caroline looked down at the stew in her bowl and then began to eat. She would need the strength if she was ever going to right the wrongs that she had committed against this family.

Walking home from the lunch with the Mikaelsons, Caroline heard a voice whispering to her. It was hissing and insistent.

"Over here! Over here!" the voice said. Caroline tilted her head and followed the voice. Sitting coiled on itself was a snake and it was looking at her with its slitted eyes. It seemed to smile at her when she came to it.

"Do you want to hear something interesting?" The snake said as it slithered towards her.

"I can hear you," Caroline breathed.

"There is nothing more interesting than gossip. Do you want to hear what I have to say?" the snake said as it coiled up her arm around her shoulder.

"What?"

"I saw the baker and the butcher in the forest together. Without their wives!" the snake hissed in her ears. Caroline giggled and rose from the ground with the snake still coiled around her. Another voice hissed from the darkness of the forest and Caroline laughed as she went to find more snakes and more friends.

Author's Note: Man, has it been a while since I updated this story. 7 years in fact. But I'm back and better than ever. When I first started this story I was a child in middle school and now I'm a working woman and getting my Master's in Creative Writing. Isn't the world a funny place? Anyways, any guesses as to what Caroline is? There will be a 12 year time skip in the next chapter so be on the look out for that. Whenever it drops.