It Lies Within You

Prologue

Pennsylvania 1013
With eyes set upon the picture of a grassy plain and lit fire embers that swarmed like fireflies, the dark sky was overwhelmed by the glowing lights. Set around the logs that were burning pyres, a humbly dressed woman - a witch no doubt, her hands circled flames, making them inflame more, her face was painted with long lines of red, her hair as black as the night sky tied up tight behind her back before it was cut from her and fed to the fire, then she began chanting an array of words that made no sense to him, but his mother was once like the woman who lay in plain sight before him. This must mean something, he imagined.
Elijah stood still before the pure as the woman surrounded by red lines turned her eyes to face him. Suddenly, her changing had stopped and she and the rest of her people formed an armada around him. Their fire made him remember the times that he and his family slept by the warm flames on cold nights and danced around the embers to worship the gods and offer them what little they could. Though he was no longer like the people who swarmed round him like clansmen with their wooden spears and wooden birches - hoping it might keep him away. Human fear takes its toll when something beyond understanding rests in the presence of those with a soul given by the gods.
He was pardoned and granted the salutations of the witch who now stood before him; she was not particularly tall, barely within width of his chest, her hair that had just been thrown to the flames now her crowned head bore a picture of baldness, her skin was pale and her bones were visible it was as though her life was fleeting fast.
"You are him?"She asked, her voice was deep.
"My name ... is Elijah Mikaelson." he spoke, looking all around him.
"We've been expecting you." another young girl appeared through the crowd.
Elijah looked at her, his face was like ice that had melted from the look of Tatia. Very much alive.

Her beauty was a sight to behold, but a wound was reopened and it was like she were salt feeling the cut and making it fester pain deeply incised. She never moved another step, yet Elijah irresistibly came to gesture at her with his hand almost within touch of the skin on her cheeks that were cold in spite of the warmth of fire that was touching everyone standing close. She showed him no emotion, but the look of death. Elijah had not found it in himself to forgive what he had done to his one love. It was his wish to maybe rewrite the wrongs of the last, but something else told him that tonight had a much deeper purpose for him.
"Elijah." the young witch spoke to him. "You were brought here tonight, so that I could tell you something."
Elijah forgot about Tatia, and watched in bewilderment at the girl. Witches had shunned him and his family for years, but now tonight, a witch had actually spoke to him and insisted to help him. If tonight might alter his fate, it would bring him the peace he yearned for.
"Show me." he showed her his trust.
"Follow me." she led him to the centre of the pyre.
Tatia stood behind the two of them, her expression hadn't changed, but her hand had taken a hold over his before he was lead to the eruptions of flames. His gaze turned towards her, she nested her head on his chest in comfort, Elijah felt consoled as she let him lay a kiss on the tip of her forehead.
"Do what's right." she whispered to him.
Elijah followed the young which as she called him to stand beside her. The fires embers began to swarm and touch his skin, roasting him like an offering or a meal for the people surrounding him. The young girl touched the side of his face and bent her neck to the side revealing a line of blood, it was quite clear; she wanted to die, she wanted Elijah to drink her blood. If it was her wish, how could he refuse her? He drank, suddenly everyone's throats became torn out as the blood seeped from their veins, Elijah stopped as the girl tripped and cast herself into the fire, her body incinerated as everyone else's went up in flames consecutively. Only one body did not, in the back from every other one, Elijah noticed his neck bloody and his life dying, his willpower brought him to the corpse in a matter of seconds, his eyes were still blinking open, but he had nothing to do to save his life.
  "You can save him." Tatia spoke from behind.
   She was still alive. Kneeling beside Elijah, she brought him his wrist, gesturing with her teeth to bite, his fangs gushed blood from his arm, draping the blood of his skin to the mans mouth, he drank from him as the wound on his neck healed. Slowly, he started to breathe again, Elijah rejoiced at the good he'd done, but it was short lived as his body incinerated, like all the others, Elijah watched in horror. When the flames had all burnt, the body of the last man lay as a pile of black cinders. Elijah closed his eyes in vain. Coughing woke him up, the man's body regained life as the cinders fell from his face, Elijah observed with relief at the miraculous revival of the man who's life he'd saved with just a sip of his own vampire blood. It puzzled him that his blood could bring back life into any human who drank from and then died with the blood still running through their system. His eyes turned back to face Tatia, but she was gone. Had she just been a ghost, he imagined. 
    Elijah watched as the man's eyes opened and his skin was covered with black soot. Whoever he was, Elijah suddenly realised that the bite on his wrist had healed again just as his wounds were healing. He was no human anymore, Elijah realised.
   "You did what was right." Tatia was standing behind him again.
    Elijah wondered where she'd disappeared to, but was too distracted by her joy. Her hair was drawn back to reveal another line of blood stretching from her neck.
   "No." Elijah begged.
   "Don't fear, this is what's meant to be, I'm supposed to be dead, remember, but my life, this time will pay for the survival of another." Tatia bent and offered the man her blood.
   He fed without remorse, Tatia didn't scream like how Elijah remembered when her life was taken by his hand. She fell not so soon after, Elijah caught her as she breathed, her eyes grew tired and were closing slowly.