If there is one thing that Natanail will never be more grateful for in the 21st century is the hot water and plumbing. Back in the early days of Bulgaria he can still remember having to rinse in cold rivers or even go days without bathing before he was taken by Cilo.

Tilting his head under the shower he lets the hot water run down his head while dining his hands through the scented soap, a lavender infused shampoo and conditioner. Elena was sweet enough to show him which was conditioner and which was shampoo and even further went on to give him a light lesson on personal hygiene.

The pretty Bennett girl who was shifting in disarray in Elena's lap had caught him off guard, but his instincts kicked in and he was spelling her in a dreamless sleep before he could stop himself. He feels guilty for his unwilling part with the elder Bennett witch's death, for he knows that her passing was the key that freed him from his slumber. He can make it up to her by tutoring the lamb in magic, for he knows how vulnerable a person is when they don't have proper guidance.

Turning off the water natanail steps out of the shower absently spelling the moisture off of his body before grabbing the towel and wrapping his hair up, he doesn't like using magic on his hair especially after that mishap he had. Slipping on a pair of boxers provided by Stefan as he was more his size and even then that was a stretch. Stepping up to his reflection he still marvels at how crisp the image is.

Though with the creation of photographs he shouldn't be surprised.

He grimaces as he uses the toothbrush and toothpaste still hating the chemical taste but trusts Elena's input that it's common to use, the spare toothbrush being a hot pink.

"You almost done there Princess?" Damon yells from the other side of the door. Natanail may have comendered the man's quarters after seeing how marvelous the bathroom was.

In his defense the tub is very pretty.

"Sorry, sorry," he says with an impish grin reflecting in the mirror.

Giving a dramatic sigh he tugs off the towel huffing a lick of hair out of his face before taking the brush and coming it through his hair. He decides to forgo his feathers as he doesn't feel like tempting Damon's ire at this early in the morning.

"Alright all done" he says, opening the door not caring for modesty, living with a bunch of hormonal Vikings has washed any sense of prudence out of his body.

He ignores Damon's gaze on his back though he does send the vampire a sincere smile which makes the poor guy blink in shock.

"Thank you for lending me your bathroom." He throws through the closing door only getting a grunt in response.

His eyes catch the pile of clothing on the man's bed catching his necklace laying on it. The brute must have brought it for him. Must have been too shy to be up front about it. He's not unfamiliar with displays of affection.

His best friend Ivar was his stern protector Cilo had tasked as his bodyguard.

The man was one you would expect to skin you alive for looking at him the wrong way but he was always the first one to carry him to his cot when he over extended his magic and passed out. The one to make sure he broke his fast before starting his training.

The one who held him down as Cilo spelled him into slumber.

After tugging on the shirt he slips on the athletic pants before threading his fingers through his hair. Making his way down the stairs he is hit with the fresh scent of coffee and the sight of Stefan and Elena talking while Bonnie nurses a cup in her hands. He can see the dark circles around the little witch's eyes and feels the need to soothe it.

He blames his fondness for her bloodline.

"Good morrow, Miss Gilbert and Miss Bennett." Getting shy smiles in return.

"Thank you Stefan." He ads towards the man as he hands him a cup while sliding creamers towards him.

"I told you to call me Elena." His 'twin' says, pointing a spoon at him as she eats a bowl of cereal.

"I know, it's just old habits die hard." He shrugs before pouring a little creamer into the coffee hovering his index finger he swirls it causing the contents to mix.

Bonnie watches the casual display of magic feeling awed.

She has been feeling so alone being the only witch that they call upon, to be used and taken advantage of like her autonomy isn't a right. When she woke up to the Salvatore brothers discussing their plans, the only reason she was even willing to step into this place was because Elena has been insistent.

Meeting her best friend's male doppelgänger who was a witch but not at the same time was jarring.

She doesn't know if it's her desperation for a mentor in this whole thing, but the feeling that still runs through her body when those old eyes looked at her and saw something that he deemed worthy of polishing.

She can still feel the residual warmth of his sleeping spell, she's never felt a spell ask for permission to be used but when she had been in a nightmare of her grams death a soothing voice asked her if she'd want a reprieve from the hurt even just for a moment.

After that she was in her kitchen having a talk with her grams drinking herbal tea and talking about mundane things, but that moment even a dreamt one meant more to her than she could ever express.

Catching Natanail's gaze, Bonnie fidgets with her fingers feeling nervous as she opens her mouth, "what magic can you do?" She blurts out wishing the ground would swallow her up at the snort Damon makes as he pours bourbon in his coffee.

She flushes at his kind gaze as he leans back setting his cup down his voice willowy as he speaks " I know a variety of magicks, I was trained by one of the most knowledgeable witches, she and her caravan had taken me in after my family disowned me for being a witch, or at least a variant of one."

"A variant?" She asks having been asleep during the discussion of siphoning.

He gives a slight nod "I wasn't born with the ability to connect to the magicks of the universe like you and your ancestors, but nature was merciful enough to give those like me a gift, and that of siphoning," here he holds his hand out to her across the table her gaze catching a jewel on his middle finger, a black stone that seems to eat the light in the room, but her attention is taken away as his hand glows a soft red and the room seems to lose some of its residual energy.

"As a siphoner I have the unique ability to absorb magic, what you saw was me absorbing the residual energy left by a supernatural death, or in this case deaths." He ends with a glance at the two sheepish brothers who suddenly won't meet the boy's gaze.

Bonnie stifles her giggle at the sight of Damon shifting at the knowing gaze of Natanail, fortunately for Damon he turns his attention back to Bonnie, sad cause Bonnie wanted to see Damon get put in his place.

"Though as my body is, or I guess was. I'm not sure to be him, anyway I digress. As a mortal my body can only store so much magic before the stress of containing such amounts can lead to death. In light of this my mentor handcrafted a ring," here he shows the same ring that caught her attention, "It stores the rest of the magic I can't handle giving me immediate access to more magic should I deplete the magic inside my person."

"When you say you can absorb magic? Does that mean you can absorb spells?" She asks, feeling a strange emotion at the prospects of that.

What if he had been here could he have…

He gives her a gentle look of understanding, "yes, I can. I can absorb any type of magic, just like I did now. Anything involving the supernatural invokes magic, and in that sense anything involving magic is just fuel for me."

"Anything?" She breathes feeling sorta envious, imagining the possibilities of being able to simply unravel a spell by touch.

"Anything," he repeats, "as long as it has magic I can take it, be it a magical object or the blood of a person who is supernatural."

"Even mine." Elena asks, Bonnie still is reeling over the fact that these two are related, maybe even more than regular blood relatives with their identical features, though she can see slight differences in Natanail, his jawline is more pronounced and his lips are actually plumber, their eyes are the same making him look like a pretty boy doll.

"Elena you my dear have very powerful blood, we'll we do but I'm not sure mine has the same potency since," here he shimmies his hand like he can't figure out what to call his situation.

"I won't get too into it as it's not relevant, but we come from a line of powerful witches who had dabbled in dark magic and had been cursed into being limited to their access to magic." Natanail pauses letting that sink in.

"Essentially our ancestor, or the originator of our face was a part of a ritual that gave her immortality, but at the price of her connection to nature and the magic in her veins."

"And that's where we come in." Elena surmises with a look of realization.

"Doppelgängers," Bonnie breathes. "Nature always makes a balance and doppelgängers are the balance to their immortality."

"Wait Immortals? Like bunny boy and I?" Damon asks, waving his hand between him and Stefan ignoring his brother's glare.

Natanail simply waved his hand, not wanting to spark anything, he honestly doesn't know what Tessi would do if they tried to free the infamous Silas. "Yeah, it's not important, there are only two of them and they have been put in an eternal slumber somewhere by witches in retaliation for going against nature and causing their fellow witch brothers and sisters to curse them into never feeling a true connection to Mother Nature."

"Wow." Elena breathes slumping into Stefan's arms as he tucks her into him no one notices that he never answered the significance of what their existence is but with all the information they can be forgiven for forgetting.

"Anyway, Bonnie, would you like to learn true magic?" Bonnie looks at him with wide eyes as he purrs the last two words in his native tongue causing him to tilt his head back and laugh.

———-

Manicured pearl painted nails reach, turning off the scalding hot water. The steam in the hotel bathroom caused the mirror to fog up. Equally manicured toes step out of the shower onto the fluffy shower rug. One hand reaching for the towel hanging in the hook the other wiping the droplets of water in her eyes.

Once the towel is snug over her upper body she walks to the mirror while tugging another towel off the rack flicking her head she wraps her damp hair into the towel before reaching towards the mirror and wiping the fog off revealing the devilish grin of Katerina Petrova.

"I do wonder if Stefan compares our sex faces?" Kathrine muses to herself quietly with a tilt to her lip, though a sliver of jealousy leaks into her tone.

"What?" The faint voice of Mason makes her scowl before her; she lets a sweet tone enter her voice, "nothing, just wondering which perfume wouldn't upset your nose."

'Gag'

"You know I don't care what you smell like as long as it's you."

'I hope Klaus kills you slowly', "you're too sweet." She says walking into the room pecking him on the lips as he takes his turn.

No way was she going to endure the wet dog smell the whole shower.

She opens her phone looking at the reports given to her by Jenna, she loves how ingenious she is using the aunt of her doppelgänger as a spy.

-Elena said she wasn't going to be home tonight but I could hear the low muttering of two people talking in Latin like you said to look out for. But the strange thing is, the male seemed to be speaking in a different dialect, almost Scandinavian or something-

Kathrine would never admit that her dead heart skipped as she read those words, she knows it's unlikely that this was connected to Klaus but anything that reminds her of him makes her pulse race.

-try and find out who the newbie is and be sure to be subtle-

Throwing the phone she acts her biological age and flops onto the bed with a groan, she doesn't want another factor she has to account for, she already knows she's gonna be at Klaus's mercy eventually but she wants it to be on her terms. She tenses as she hears the tellsign of magic flaming an object into the room, after traveling with Emily she has learned to know what certain spells sound like.

Turning onto her side she stares at the neatly folded notebook paper with her name scrawled on top of it, what catches her attention and makes her heart leap is the letter is written in Bulgarian. Her name is written with an elegance she hasn't seen since quills went out of style.

Carefully reaching for the letter she braces for something to happen only to close her eyes, resisting to let out a shutter as the feeling of familial love washes over her.

"малка сестра,

If I may call you my little sister, I know this is a lot and I understand if you don't touch this for a while, but I just want you to know that you have family. I'm not asking you to risk yourself or put yourself in danger. I have a feeling you are running from something bigger than the Salvatore brothers suspect.

My Name is Natanail Petrov, my father is most likely the scion of what became of yours if what the Salvatore's have told me is accurate, I'm not asking you to put your grudges away or stop your games, all I want is to meet my decedent no matter how foolish it may seem to you or others, family is sacred to me and I wish to know someone who is strong enough to survive running for her life for five hundred years.

I do not know what put you in the situation you have been put in but I can see you have bleed and sweated for the freedom you have, I want you to consider meeting me in a neutral setting of your choice and if you feel comfortable we might even find a way to free you from your demons.

Love…your big brother.

Kathrine didn't know she was shaking until she heard the shower turning off. Quicky folding the letter she tucks it into her boot just as Mason steps out. She lets her eyes travel across his body as the droplets of water trail his muscular frame. This is why she tolerates his shit, with a crook of her finger the wolf pounces on her like a starved man making her laugh something in her chest pulsing, something she hasn't felt in hundreds of years.

Hope.

a/n:

Surprise another one so soon, the wonders of inspiration.

So do y'all want a Kathrine redemption where she is more prominent, I do have a direction that could be fun to explore.

For a teaser I am thinking of fabricating a back story to where Elena and Natanail are long lost twins as she is adopted and those who could dispute it are either dead or in the know.

What if I made them triplets

I hope I did Kathrine justice.

Also Elijah/ Kathrine maybe or even Stefan and her.

I'll be honest I find her love for Stefan to be adorable as someone who doesn't know how to show positive emotions after years of running on survivor mode I would expect she became a tsundere.

I wanna give bon bon what she deserves and that is more screen time and a stable relationship, I like her with Enzo, but I want to kinda do a rare pairing of her and Marcel just because they would look so cute together. Especially if I had enhanced marcels as her protective guard dog, but that would be a hard one to spin(specially the enhanced vampire part)

Wow long a/n sorry.

Please fill free to offer insight or even suggest plot points if you consent to them being incorporated into the story.