THE MUSE | n. mikaelson

iii - the tale of a woman

Damon looked at his little sister with pure sorrow. He never thought of seeing her again and he didn't know what to say. It would be foolish to ask how it all happened as he learned to just not ask this question anymore. He didn't know how he was a vampire until this day, none of them will know how his sister woke up from her slumber.

"I can't believe this," Damon whispered before he rushed to his sister and wrapped her in his arms. Slightly squeezing her, he made sure that she was there. Alive. Breathing. She was shivering from fear and cold, so he just hugged her tighter, his lips curling into a smile as ocean eyes filled with transparent tears. His little sister was alive.

Ophelia froze for a second, but she closed her eyes and let herself drown in the warmth of her brother. They were her family and ever since she was sentenced to death, her last vision was of them and their mother. The hug felt nostalgic as it reminded her of times when her brothers, well, weren't involved in courting the same lady.

Damon pulled away, hesitantly, "I'll get you something to eat and to drink, yeah?" Then he looked at his brother and slightly nudged up with his head and Stefan nodded.

Stefan extended his hand to Ophelia, "Let's get you cleaned up and dressed."

Ophelia looked at them both and slowly placed her icy hand in her brother's and followed him through the house. This house oddly reminded her of their house, but this one was far more furnished with books. Father didn't really see the need to have books in every corner and he never let her in his private library that wasn't very big. She'd get her books from her maid and from her brothers.

As Damon watched his siblings disappear from the view, he rushed to the basement where he has instructed Elena and Jenna to be as soon as he found out that the ritual failed. None of them could risk having Ophelia near a vampire in transition and Elena has kindly agreed to stay in the basement.

Entering the basement, he found Jenna on the cold floor, devouring a third blood bag already. Rushing to her, he took it away from her and slightly shook his head: "Not all of them at the same time. We don't want to become greedy now, do we?"

Jenna only furrowed her eyebrows, but she was too overwhelmed with pulsing senses that she didn't have time to express her anger. She almost got sacrificed and now she was a vampire. From what she understood, she didn't die by pure accident and now she will have to deal with a whole new world.

"How is she?" Elena asked, crossing her hands, meaning the woman upstairs.

"Shaken. It's not every day you get woken up from the dead." Damon explained, putting the used blood bag into the freezer and taking the empty ones off the ground. His mind was buzzing with so many thoughts and he was feeling overwhelmed: his sister was back from the dead, he'll have to deal with a new vampire, Klaus will be raging about this ritual and...

"I didn't know Stefan had a twin sister."

And Elena didn't know about Ophelia.

No one knew about Ophelia after her death. Throughout their vampire years, there had been many conflicts between Stefan and him, but on one thing they agreed – they didn't tell anyone about their sister as they wanted to honour her death and let her rest in peace as they roamed the world. It was easier this way, it was easier to live this way. Especially for Stefan. Because Damon had a theory that the whole ripper thing had to do something with him losing his twin. But it was just a theory.

"We never talked about it." Damon simply answered and slightly shook his head: "What exactly happened there?"

Elena slightly shook her head: "After killing Jules, suddenly something changed. The witch lost her magic and everything changed when your sister appeared. The moonstone broke. The fire died out. And Klaus got mad—I don't know." She slurred out.