Alyssa looks at the pictures spread across Alaric's desk to Alaric. "Am I supposed to know what I'm looking at or what any of this means?" Alaric had called them to his apartment to show them what they found in the caves that Mason led them to. So far all she saw were pictures of cave drawings but she didn't know what they were supposed to mean or what they had to do with a weapon that could kill Klaus.
"Well, as far as I can tell, it's a story. In simple, archaeological terms, it's a really, really old story." Alaric says and points to a picture of three half moons one underneath the other, the first and last one shaded and facing the same direction. "That right there is the moon cycle." He points to another drawing of a wolf, "A man, a wolf."
"A werewolf."
"I don't understand." Elena says, "I thought the Lockwoods came here with the Original Founders in the 1860s."
"I don't know." Rick answers. "Maybe the Lockwoods did, but according to this wall, these werewolves have been here longer than that."
Alyssa looks over her shoulder at Rick, "and the Lockwoods had no idea these tunnels ran underneath their property?"
Rick shrugged and Alyssa turned back to the drawings, "how old are these drawings?" She looks back at Rick.
"Old," Damon answers, moving from his position in the corner. "It gets better. Show them, Rick."
He moves some pictures around and aligns them side by side, "Names. They're not native. They're written in Runic, a Viking script."
"Vikings?"
Rick moves one of the names from the pile to show them but she couldn't make out what it said. It just looked like a bunch of lines to her. Reading Viking script must have been one of Rick's specialties. "This name here, I translated it and it reads Niklaus."
Alyssa took a closer look at the picture. "Klaus."
He brings two more photos down and again it just looked like a bunch of lines connected but didn't form a coherent word, "And Elijah...and Rebekah."
Alyssa was beginning to understand, "These are the names of the Original Family."
"Carved into a cave that's been here since way before the founding of Mystic Falls. Or even the entire New World, for that matter."
"Okay," Elena says looking at the group, "this has gotta be one of Klaus's fakes."
Like the sun and the moon curse, they discovered Klaus wrote so that both werewolves and vampires would look for the moonstone needed to break his curse.
Damon agrees, "That's what I said."
"That could be true," Alyssa turns to Alaric as he pulls down a fourth name, "except the last name up here made us think otherwise."
Elena asks, "What does it say?"
"Mikael."
"Mikael?" Alyssa stood from her leaning position over the desk. "As in, the vampire hunter who knows how to kill Klaus?"
"Also known as "Papa Original," Damon says.
Alyssa looks at the dozens of pictures spread across the desk and then looks at Rick, "So all these images tell a story. To learn the full story, all we'd have to do is decipher the images." She looks back at the pictures.
"What about Mikeal?" Stefan asks, pointing at the picture with Mikeal's name. "We already know he has the weapon."
"Yes Stefan we do but what we don't know is where Mikeal is." Damon looks at the photo agreeing with Alyssa's plan. "I bet the wall could lead us to him."
"All we have to do is find out what they mean," Elena says.
"Not to state the obvious," Alyssa says, turning to everyone, "but if the story is about the Original Family living here, why not just ask the original living here."
"Rebekah."
"And it so happens, I know where to find her. Only she thinks I'm team Klaus so I can't ask her."
"I'll do it." Elena volunteers.
"She'll be at school with the rest of the squad practicing for homecoming. Where she's expecting me and I'm late." She left Alaric's apartment. She stops to change and grab her bag before going to school.
"You're late," Rebekah says as she jogs toward her.
She tightens the scrunchie in her hair. "Sorry I had to catch breakfast." She starts to stretch. "Haven't seen you around much lately." She drops her leg. "Please tell me you're not chasing after Tyler."
"Now that he's become one of my brother's playthings I'm no longer interested. I have my sights on other things, like homecoming."
"Speaking of, I still haven't found a dress. Would it be lame if I asked you to come with me? It's the last homecoming of my high school career and it has to be perfect and I know you'd be brutally honest with me," She sees Elena before she gets her answer and crosses her arms across her chest putting a sour look on her face, "Incoming."
Rebekah turns to Elena just as she stops in front of them. "You! Goody."
"I was hoping we could talk."
"About what? Stefan? Don't worry, I'm off him until he starts treating me better."
"Yeah, I'm going to go. I hear enough of this with Damon and Stefan." She walks over to the rest of the squad but turns to watch Rebekah and Elena.
"I'd rather talk about this." She holds up a photo of Rebekah's name written in Runic on the cave wall. "I'm curious why you and Klaus have spent a thousand years running from your father."
"I should get back to the girls. Homecoming's right around the corner," She turns to leave.
"Well then, maybe I'll ask Mikael when we wake him."
Rebekah stops and turns around, "You're bluffing! You don't know where he is. No one does."
"So, then who's rotting in that old cemetery in Charlotte?"
"If you wake Mikael, we are all doomed!"
"So then, tell me."
"Why do you want to know?"
"Why don't you want me to wake him?"
"I need to get back to the girls," Rebekah turns and walks back towards the squad, shaken by what she's heard.
"You okay?" Alyssa asks her as she comes over.
"Yeah, let's just get to work."
Rebekah took Alyssa up on her offer to go shopping for a homecoming dress after hours of looking. Each girl decided on three different dresses but they still couldn't decide so Rebekah suggested that they find help. They found six girls at random to take back to the Salvatore house giving each a dress to try on. Alyssa put on some music while Rebekah poured champagne.
"Now that's better," She hands Alyssa a glass.
Elena walks in. Alyssa talks to her, "You invited her."
Rebekah shrugs with a smile, "Alright girls, have at it!" The six girls in various jewel-toned colored homecoming dresses walk into the room. "Okay, now twirl please."
They twirl and show off their dresses.
"You compelled your private runway show?"
"I need a Homecoming dress," Rebekah answers and Alyssa sits down in a chair, sipping on her champagne. "So, what do you think? Pick one."
"I'm not here to help you shop. I'm here to talk about why you don't want me to wake up Mikael." Rebekah rushes to one of the girls, grabs her neck, and vamps out. "I said "pick one", Elena."
"The...red one."
Alyssa looks at Rebekah, "told you."
Rebekah turns to the girls, "Go away. Remember nothing." The girls leave and she picks up her champagne glass and walks to Elena. "You do not threaten me. You'll learn what I allow you to learn. Is that clear?" Elena nods. Rebekah walks past her and Elena turns and watches her.
"I think she wants you to follow her," Alyssa says from her chair and Elena follows her upstairs.
Rebekah opens the door to Stefan's room and enters. Elena stays in the doorway.
"How fun is this...?" She starts opening drawers.
"We shouldn't be here…"
"'Course we should! Come on, like you've never wanted to snoop." Rebekah holds up Stefan's underwear. "Boxer briefs. A lot has changed since the twenties."
"Are you gonna root through his stuff all night or are you gonna start to tell me your story?"
Alyssa walks into the room.
"Ah...you really are no fun. What do you want to know?"
Elena didn't know where to start.
"Well since you have nothing to ask," she says, walking past Elena. "I do. If only to help move this along. Let's start with how you guys ended here. Elijah said that your father was a landowner in Europe."
Rebekah's still going through Stefan's stuff when she answered, "My parents had just started a family when a plague struck their homeland. They lost a child to it. They wanted to escape and protect their future family from the same fate."
"Still begs the question how you ended up here? This part of the world hadn't even been discovered yet."
Rebekah laughs, "Not by anyone in your history books. But my mother knew the witch Ayana, who heard from the spirits of a mystical land where everyone was healthy...blessed by the gifts of speed and strength. That led my family here, where we lived amongst those people."
"The werewolves?" Elena guessed.
"To us, they were just our neighbors. My family lived in peace with them for over 20 years, during which time my family had more children, including me."
"You make it sound so normal," Elena says.
"They were." Rebekah looks at Alyssa. "Elijah told me that you were once human. He was cagey about how you ended up as vampires."
"Once a month our family retreated into the caves beneath our village. The wolves would howl through the night and by morning we'd return home. One full moon, Klaus and my youngest brother Henrik snuck out to watch the men turn into beasts. That was forbidden. Henrik paid the price with his life. And that was the beginning of the end of peace with our neighbors. And one of the last moments of my family was together as humans."
"So becoming a vampire was a form of protection?"
"What else would it be?"
"A curse?"
"My parents only saw a way of keeping their children alive."
"Yeah, but why stay," Elena asks, "if they were so afraid of the werewolves? Why not...leave?"
"Pride...My father didn't want to run anymore. He wanted to fight and be superior to the wolves. Where they could bite, we had to bite harder. Where they had speed, we had to be faster. Agility, strength, senses. My father enlisted the help of Ayana, a witch my mother knew but she wouldn't help. She'd thought of it as a plague that would only spread so my father went to my mother for help."
Elena asks, "How could she do anything?"
"Because my mother was also a witch."
"What?" That surprised both Elena and Alyssa.
"The witch of the Original Family. The Original Witch?"
"Your mother was the one who put the hybrid curse on Klaus?" If that were true that also meant that his mother was the one who tried to get Vicki to kill Elena.
"If your mother was a witch," Elena said, "then…"
"Am I? No, a witch is nature's servant; a vampire is an abomination of nature. You can either be one or the other, never both. My mother did this for us. She did not turn."
"How did you turn?"
Instead of answering, Rebekah says, "I need a drink." She left Stefan's room and went into the library searching the cabinet for the good stuff. When she found it, she continued her story. "She called upon the sun for life, and the ancient white oak tree, one of nature's eternal objects, for immortality. That night, my father offered us wine laced with blood. And then he drove his sword through our hearts."
Elena was stunned, whispering, "He killed you?"
"And he wasn't delicate about it either." She takes a bottle of wine, breaks its neck off with one hand motion, and throws it into the fireplace.
"Why did Mikael start hunting Klaus?" Elena asks.
"When Nik made his first human kill, it triggered his werewolf gene. With that, he became my father's greatest shame."
"Elijah told me this part of the story," Alyssa says. "Your mother had had an affair with one of the werewolf villagers. Klaus wasn't his son."
"She tried to make it right. She put the hybrid curse on Nik to suppress his werewolf side, and then she turned her back on him. But Mikael's greatest weakness as a human was his pride. As a vampire, that was magnified. He went on a rampage and killed half the village. Then he came home and killed her."
Elena is stunned, whispering, "Mikael killed your mother?"
"He said she broke his heart so he would break hers. He tore it from her chest as Nik watched. Afterward, my father took off in a rage, and the rest of my family scattered. Nik stayed, so he could help me bury her. He knew I had to say goodbye to my mother. In the moment Elijah and I made a vow to Klaus that we'd always stay together. Always and Forever."
Alyssa comes closer, "Always and forever? Even now? After he locked you in a coffin for ninety years?"
"You're a vampire. I don't need to tell you about heightened emotions. I'm stubborn, Elijah moral, and Nik...Nik has no tolerance for those who disappoint him. Over a thousand years as a family we've all made that mistake at least once. I've made it several times."
"But you still love him?"
"He's my brother. And I'm immortal. Should I spend eternity alone instead?" She turns to Elena. "You've heard the story, it's time to go. I said leave, Elena! I don't know what you're up to, but I'm no longer playing along."
"I'm just looking for one good reason why we shouldn't wake Mikael."
"And I've given you a thousand! But you will anyway. I know you want him to help you kill my brother, I'm not stupid."
"It's no secret that I want Klaus dead. He has a hold all over my life."
"Do what you need. Wake Mikael at your own peril. But make no mistake, if you come after my brother, I will rip you apart. And I get my temper from my father. Now leave!" She looks at Alyssa, "both of you."
After Alyssa and Elena left the boarding house Elena took Alyssa to the cave where the original story was written in drawings. Alaric was there with Bonnie.
"We, uh, filled in what we could." He sticks post-its to the different symbols. "A Vampire, werewolf, slaughter, mayhem, etc."
There was a symbol that resembled a tree which would have been the beginning of the original story. "That's the white oak tree," Alyssa found a spot where she was allowed to enter and could see most of the cave. "That was used in the spell to create the vampires...which means that was when they burned down the tree, destroying the only way that they could be killed."
"Okay. so a tree equals a weapon, sort of. We already knew that. What we are not sure about is this: we've got the witch symbol," which was the original witch necklace, "and what looks like a bleeding heart. Upside down figures usually signified death, of some kind."
Elena says, "Mikael killed the witch by ripping out her heart." That they had recently learned from Rebekah.
Alyssa points to the symbol that is next to the necklace. "But...why is that one connected to the witch's death?" It looked like a combination of the vampire and werewolf symbol.
Bonnie answers, "We don't know. We haven't gotten that far."
"It's the combination of a werewolf and vampire symbol. So it must mean that it's a symbol of a hybrid. If the necklace represents the original witch and that one means death then that means the hybrid killed the original witch, not Mikeal."
"Wait?" Bonnie turns to her. "So you're saying Klaus killed his own mother."
"She cursed him, made it so that he would be the only one of his kind, and then she rejected him. With the werewolf gene comes aggression and violence...when he turned, all of that was heightened."
"Rebekah doesn't know the real story," Elena says.
"Makes sense given Klaus was the one who told her. If I learned anything from my time with him it's that he's afraid to be alone. He knew if she knew the truth she would leave him. You have to show her this. If she knows the truth, if she knows Klaus is the one who killed their mother, we can get her on our side."
Ric took pictures so that Elena would be able to show them to Rebekah. Elena dropped Alyssa off at home before going back to the boarding house. She couldn't see having any part in what was discovered if she wanted to make it seem like she was still loyal to Klaus.
Stefan was waiting on the porch when she arrived.
"We got Mikael."
"What? How?"
"I guess Katherine came through. The plan's in motion. We just need someone to lure Klaus back into town."
"And I'm a patsy. Lucky me. You know you could have called and told me that. Unless that's not the only reason you showed up at my door," She unlocks the door.
"It was Damon's idea to use you to lure Klaus back into town. Given Klaus' reaction to being betrayed, I was surprised he even suggested it. I thought he'd want to keep you as far away from this as possible. It made me wonder what happened to cause the sudden change of heart."
She opens the door and lets them in. She finds Rick's stash of alcohol. "Something tells me you already know the answer to that." She turns to him when her glass is full.
"You compelled him."
"You were right. Damon did care about me. Apart from him, he may even have loved me. It's different from the way he loves Elena but he does. Did. So he was always gonna be conflicted. This way he doesn't have to be. When the time comes and he has to choose whose life to save it'll be her. The girl you're both in love with and he won't have to feel guilty about it and I can finally put this place behind me when it's done. But first, we need to take care of Klaus. Mikael is here and I think I found a way to even get Rebekah on our side." She takes a sip from her glass.
"What did you learn from Rebekah?"
"I learned that she's just a girl. That she lost her mom too young, and she loves blindly and recklessly, even if it consumes her. And when it's all said and done, there's nothing more important than the bond of family." She sat down with her glass. "It's too bad hers has to die. I think it's time we kill an original."