Life has been relatively ordinary for Cassandra Gilbert, up until the car crash that killed her parents, and almost claimed her life.
But being the older twin sister of Elena Gilbert is about to get difficult. Vampires. Werewolves. Hybrids. Witches...
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Name: Alina Petrova
Main Alias: Ally Frank
Other Alias: Lina Lehnsherr
Alina Petrova was born into a noble and wealthy Bulgarian family on June 5, 1473, alongside her younger twin sister, Katerina. In 1490, when she was about 16 or 17 years of age, Katerina became pregnant by an unknown man, a Traveler, and her family disowned her for the shameful birth of an illegitimate daughter. She carried the child to term, but seconds after her daughter's birth, Katerina's father took the child away and gave the child to another family, claiming it would be better for both of them to never see one another. Katerina was devastated by this and was banished to England, where she admitted to "quickly becoming English."
Not long after, Alina left home, hoping to go off in search of Katerina.
Instead of finding her sister, Alina met a vampire called Kol, who was instantly taken with Alina because of her resemblance to a young woman he had been infatuated with as a human, Astrid.
Kol originally intended on giving Alina to his brother Klaus who was looking for the doppelgängers to complete the ritual to break the curse, but Kol found himself unable to do so.
In 1492, Katerina met Trevor, who introduced her to Lord Elijah, who in turn introduced her to his younger brother, Lord Niklaus. Katerina was attracted to Klaus, until she found out what he was, and that he was planning on using her as a sacrifice to break the Hybrid Curse placed on him.
- Klaus also needed the heart of the psychic doppelgänger, which would have been Alina.
Katerina escaped with the help of Trevor, who had fallen in love with her. He led her pursuers astray and told her to go east to a cottage in the woods where she would be safe. When she arrived at the cottage, Katerina met a vampire named Rose.
When Rose found out that Katerina had escaped from Klaus with the moonstone, she locked her in a room and told her that she would take her back to Klaus as soon as the opportunity arose, not wanting to suffer Klaus' wrath. Katerina tried to commit suicide by stabbing herself with a knife, saying she would rather die than go back to Klaus, but Rose force-fed her some of her blood to heal her. When Rose turned her back to confront Trevor, Katerina hung herself with a length of rope. Later, when Katerina woke up in transition, Trevor asked why she did it and claimed he would have helped her live. Katerina responds by saying that he would have been able to help her run and that running was never going to be enough.
At around the same time, across the world with Kol, Alina started having heart problems as it attempted to give in. Worried for a woman he had come to deeply care for, Kol turned her into a vampire, attempting to save her.
Kol managed to find a witch to enchant a daylight ring for Alina.
In 1702, now in Cadiz, Spain with Kol and going by the name Lina Lehnsherr, Alina meets Rebekah, Elijah, and Klaus Mikaelson. Kol and Alina had been spending the last 210 years enjoying one another's company and travelling, looking for witches and magic.
Unfortunately, Kol's violence in Spain drew too much attention. This brought his father, Mikael, straight to the family, burning the country in his wake. While the flames drew closer and Mikael beheaded Klaus' horse, Elijah and Klaus searched for Kol and Alina while Rebekah brought the daggered Finn on board a ship to flee from Europe.
They found Kol in a tavern where he drank and feasted on humans carelessly. Despite their warnings of Mikael's impending arrival, Kol refused to flee, believing Mikael was only after Klaus and that they could just leave him and he'd be fine.
When Klaus and Elijah insisted, Kol attempted to resist them but was subdued by Elijah, as Klaus pulled out a White Oak Ash Dagger. Kol struggled, panicked by the betrayal, and promised Klaus that a day would come when he would not be so easily subdued. He was then daggered and neutralized.
Watching from the shadows was Alina, whose heart broke. Fearing that they would just kill her, she fled.
By the 1860s, Alina, now going by Ally Frank, was living a rather solitary life in Mystic Falls. She had struck up a friendship with Stefan and Damon Salvatore, with her being closer to Damon. The possibility that there was something more romantic between Damon and Alina.
In 1864, Alina was surprised and shocked when Katerina arrived in Mystic Falls, and Katerina was surprised to see her sister, still alive, sort of. Reunited, the sisters became close again, for a short period of time anyway.
At some point, Katerina had become friends with Pearl and her daughter, Anna; another friend she made prior to this point was the witch Emily Bennett, whose life Katherine had saved, putting Emily in her debt. Emily forged Katherine a daylight necklace, which allowed her to walk in the sun without being burned and helped her keep her vampire identity a secret.
Katerina was taken in by one of the town's founders, Giuseppe Salvatore, having spun a story about being orphaned by a fire that killed her family in Atlanta to win her sympathy. Katherine met and fell in love with his younger son Stefan Salvatore.
Though after witnessing Alina and Damon's close and almost romantic relationship, Katherine compelled Damon into beginning a physical relationship with her.
Whilst in town, Katherine created quite a few vampires while living in Mystic Falls, which inevitably alerted the Founding Families to their existence.
Pearl warned Katherine that the town knew about the vampires after discovering an elixir that Honoria Fell had asked to be sold at the local apothecary which contained vervain. Pearl tried to convince her to leave, but Katherine refused, claiming she had a plan in motion. Her plan, it turned out, was to eventually turn Stefan and Damon into vampires, having seduced them both during her stay at the Salvatore household.
Realizing how quickly the Founder's Council would take action against the vampires, Katherine struck a deal with George Lockwood: she would give him the moonstone if he would help her fake her death in the inevitable vampire round-up.
Alina, having discovered Katherine and Damon's relationship, and finally seeing how far her sister had fallen, decided that she has to become equally manipulative and devious. Alina went to Giuseppe and told him about Katherine being a vampire.
Eventually, Stefan unwittingly suggested to his father that he knew a vampire, and Giuseppe, knowing from Alina just who it was, spiked Stefan's drink with vervain, and later that same night, Katherine bit him. She was incapacitated by the vervain in his bloodstream, and, hearing the commotion, Giuseppe burst in to take her away. Damon later went to rescue her, and Stefan, upset that he had hurt his brother and jeopardized Katherine's life, helped him in the effort. They were both killed by their own father, who was so ashamed that his sons had been seduced by a "demon" that he preferred to keep the story that they had died honourably in the war against the vampires.
George Lockwood managed to subdue Alina, whilst Katherine and the other vampires were taken to Fell's Church to be destroyed, but George helped Katherine escape, replacing her with Alina, as per their previous arrangement. She gave George the moonstone, but instead of leaving right away, she turned to see Stefan's body one last time while it was still lying in the road. She ran to Stefan, kissed him, and promised they would be together again someday.
After transitioning into a vampire, Damon was finally released from his compulsion and realised the mistake he had made regarding Alina. Deciding that he would give her immortality as Katherine had for him and Stefan, he went to where Alina had been living at the time but found it in a state of array, and Alina missing.
Emily arrives after him and told him that Alina and Katherine were sisters, twins and that Alina had betrayed Katherine, telling the council what she was and that Katherine was trapped in the tomb beneath the church because of Alina. Damon became conflicted over his feelings for Alina and Katherine. He searched for Alina, whilst also searching for a way to open the tomb to save Katherine.
In reality, Katherine was still lying low to evade Klaus, after having locked Alina in the tomb in her place.
