✓ | 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂, Stefan and Damon

Chapter 33

Ah, here we go. The wicked witch of the west is here. On another note, I already have homework.

Hell, I had thought that things had gotten the most complicated they could ever be. Boy was I wrong. An appearance of my mother. She was supposed to be dead. I liked her better when she was dead. Maybe I can be the one to kill her this time. We all know that she's the freaking worst. Nik got the first time, I can have the second. The rest of my family are going to have to hold me back against that woman. She ruins my life and decides that she hasn't done enough? Why can't she just leave us all alone?

Nik looks angry as he runs to another room, Caroline sighing and following him. Matt looks super confused about what was going on. After all, he didn't know that Esther was the name of my mother, only that the Original Witch was my mother, our mother. After all these years, I guess resurrections were in order for her. This won't be hard. I doubt that she's that powerful anymore. If anything, I can just drain her and take all of her magical prowess.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you know exactly who Esther is and that you hate her," Matt says, getting right to the hard point. "Are you going to stop her? Is she like Mikael?"

"Esther is the Original Witch, Matt," I explain to the blonde man, "She's our mother. Husband of Mikael, the Original Hunter. We all hate her. Okay, maybe I don't hate her, but I don't like her. I don't get how she could come back. I mean, I was only able to bring back Henrik when the other side wasn't functioning correctly. Not only that, but the way that he came back could only be done by the work of a siphoner. I'm guessing that Elena brought her back by other means, siphoners hate witches and doppelgangers at this point."

"That's why Elena wouldn't let me in the house," Matt realizes, "She must have Esther in there. You won't be able to get in since you're a vampire."

"Not necessarily," Mary Lou pops up, having come from the kitchen, "We can bypass the rules. There are reasons that the heretics were feared as much as they were, as we are. We can siphon the magic away from the barrier for short amounts of time. We do not have to follow the rules of vampires and Originals and even Hybrids. In a way, we were always more powerful than all of the species. It is why they locked us away."

"Mar, that would be dangerous. What happens if she gets a stake? You heretics aren't as powerful as our mother. The only people who could go against her are Nik and Striddy," Kol tries to explain the dangers of the potential mission. Nora, having heard all of this, frowns from the door.

"My mate is perfectly capable of doing amazing things, Kol Mikaelson," Nora almost hisses at my brother.

"I was not suggesting otherwise, Nor," Kol puts his hands up as a sign of peace, "I don't want any of the heretics getting killed while going up against the Original Bitch. She's a 1000 year old witch. You guys are centuries old, but she has about 800 years on you," Kol looks to me, "Striddy, you and Nik need to do this. Finn no longer has any loyalty towards mother. I think that he was pretty much faking that loyalty. He has always loved you the most out of all of us."

"I don't want to hurt Finn. He may not have the loyalty towards her, but he still loves her. She is his mother after all," I point out.

"She is our mother as well. We hate her. Just because you are the only one in this family who has never truly hated someone for longer than three weeks doesn't mean that you need to defend Esther. She started your torture. She basically handed you over to Mikael every time he wanted to hurt you," Kol counters. I sigh, knowing that he was right. In the end, Finn would have to grieve for his mother some other time. Now, she had to be gone, dead and six feet under. She had done too much to tear us apart.

In fact, she had been trying to tear us apart forever, constantly calling it love. Esther claims to love her children, but in fact they are just pawns for her to place blame upon and try to mold to be a replica of her and what she wishes them to be. That is not love, it is cruel manipulation. Children are never to be used as a pawn against someone. People are not their parents. A child will grow up to be their own person, to be another being in the world. At that point, a parent should not try and force relationships or force them away from others.

After all, family was power.

In fact, that very fact would have been the reason that she did it in the first place. She wanted us to only have a relationship with her and not any of our siblings. It would make us easier to control. Esther constantly pinned us against each other, even trying to pin Nik against me at once. He had never bought her bogus story and was kind to me. Never very close but never very far. That was until immortality.

In the end, it would be her own spell of immortality that brought us together as a family, turning us into a joined force.

We could have been deadly, even in human and werewolf form. Nik would have likely triggered the curse at some point, most likely when he was a bit older. Then he would have likely killed Mikael and Esther. I doubt that he would have been able to lie about both of their deaths. Our siblings would understand, they always did. We knew that we were a family and that everything that Nik ever did was for us, to protect and to love us. It was what nobody else seemed to understand about our hybrid half-brother, he just wanted to love us.

Although not biologically a Mikaelson, he was a great part of our kin.

"Always and Forever is tough to keep when everyone is trying to kill you and everyone you love, isn't it," Kol mused.

"Always and Forever, what a promise you have made to your family," Nora didn't sound harsh, just not knowing the full extent of the phrase. The origins were dark and filled with travesty. I had done everything in my power to protect the pact.

"Esther will not seperate us again. I made a promise to Henrik and to the rest of this family. Mary Louise, Nora, you are a part of that family right now. With this threat, you are a part of Always and Forever. I will protect you at all costs, even if I have to kill everyone in Mystic Falls to do so. Nobody, and I truly mean nobody, will come between this family that we have created. Although most of us now are not related by blood or by birth, we are all, deep within whatever spirit we have, siblings, lovers, and friends. That means more than any biological bond. A family will always be there for one another. We would kill to save it. Always and Forever means family. It means that you have someone who loves you no matter what. Always forever is eternal, no Original Witch can take it from us, as it is not based on life and death, but the very fragment of what people can be, of what all of us were supposed to be. All abominations will stand tall, together. Together we stand, never may we fall."