SIDE CHARACTER [ 1 ]| THE ORIGINALS & LEGACIES

S I X T E E N

He and I went into my room, sitting on my bed as I finally let the truth out.

My mother, Lorelle, lived in the village that the Mikaelson family was growing up in. She was a sweet girl with olive skin and long dark hair. She was the descendent of a family of witches, but with her parents had died when she was young, she didn't practice witchcraft. 

She met Elijah at one of the village parties. She was talking with her friend Tatia when he had approached, and they talked and danced the night away by the bonfire. She soon became well acquainted with his family. Mikael approved of her, Esther thought she was just lovely.

Rebekah liked the idea of a sister, and Kol liked that she never snitched on his pranks. She and Klaus were close, and she often times would bring him things from the forest for him to make paints out of.

She and Elijah fell in love, and soon, she fell pregnant. She had no mother of her own to turn to, so she went to Esther with the news first. Esther was joyed and saddened at the same time, because she knew of the deal with Dahlia. So, she told Lorelle the truth: that her baby would be taken from her, it was Esther's fault, and that she was very sorry.

My mom did not have the heart to tell Elijah that he was about to have a child he would never know. She didn't have it in her to watch him get his child ripped away from him, so she begged Esther to help her leave, but it also be the one to deliver the child. 

So, Esther did. She cloaked Lorelle and hid her away, but not too far. She would go see her, and was the one to deliver me. My mom died during labor.

"How do you know this?" Roman asked me.

"I read most of it in my mom's journals that Esther made Dahlia give me when she took me," I explained. "I read them over and over again as a child. Dahlia told me of my mother's death when I was old enough to understand."

"Wasn't your Aunt Freya also with Dahlia?"

"She was," I nodded. "I remember seeing her a lot as a kid, but we weren't raised together. Dahlia kept us separate at all times because she thought if Freya knew her brother's daughter was also being held the way she was, she would've fought even harder for freedom. But, since I was always nearby, sometimes I would bump into Freya in the marketplace, and we'd talk for a little. She was the only family I had, but she didn't know me. I was a little girl back then."

"How did you become a vampire if Dahlia wanted you to be one of her witches?"

"I'm not really sure," I shook my head. "One day, she just said she had no use for me, it was on the day of my sixteenth birthday. She said she would spare me since I was her sister's first granddaughter. So, she put the same spell on me that Esther used on Elijah and the others, but modifying it so that nothing could kill me, not even a white oak stake. I found out today that not even Marcel's venom can hurt me."

"Woah," he said, shocked with my revelation.

"It gets crazy," I chuckled. "The freedom didn't come without a price. She said that for the eternity I got to live, I'd spend the first 500 years desiccated. Then, I get to live my life."

"500 years?" he asked, his voice showing the surprise. "Fuck."

"Right?" I laughed bitterly. "And then when I got out, which until this day, I still don't know how I did, I didn't go looking for the Mikaelsons. I wanted nothing to do with them at first, but Dahlia left me my mother's journals. After reading about Elijah a few more times for the next hundred years after waking, I decided that it wasn't the Mikaelson's fault. Elijah didn't even know about me. So I got curious, and I started to look for leads on them. It was dangerous, looking for the Mikaelsons. They made enemies out of a lot of people, and people were skeptical of me for a while. Why was this little vampire girl searching for the Original vampire family? So, I kept myself hidden from them. I guess, after seeing Elijah for the first time, how his life was already full of heartache and drama, why tell him the love of his life kept his daughter from him, and here she was, 616 years later, more powerful than he, all grown up, and have had a lifetime of torture without him?"

"So, you watched from afar..."

"I eventually defriended a girl named Katerina. She was the doppleganger and descendent of my mother's best friend, Tatia. She had a thing with both my uncle Klaus and my father. But things got complicated with her, and she and I went out separate ways. Eventually, in the 1900s, I ended up in Chicago. I was looking for Elijah and found Klaus. I knew wherever my devious uncle was, my father was to follow. I didn't expect to fall in love there, especially not with Katerina's ex," I told him, and his eyes perked up at the word love. I pointed at the picture. "Stefan Salvatore."

"Ms. Forbes' dead husband?!" he exclaimed, even more mindblown with how entangled these lives were with mine.

I laughed, looking at the picture endearingly. "Stefan. He was the Ripper of Monterey back then, but I fell in love with him. He and Klaus were close, so I made sure to never come in contact with him. When things got too risky for me to stay, I bolted without telling him goodbye. Then, over the years, I'd go check in on him, also looking from a far. It has to be maybe a decade ago when I went to Mystic Falls for the first time when the Mikaelsons arrived back there."

I continued, "That's where I learned that Katerina also had a doppleganger, Elena, who Stefan had fallen in love with. It was funny, how everyone was connected somehow. Then, when they came back to New Orleans, I followed. I never meant to get too close, I meant to just be from afar like always. But then, I ran into Hope one day, and once I got to know her, and this family, I couldn't leave. But I also couldn't watch my existence change so much for this family that was already going through hell and back, so I just told them nothing of my past."

"They deserve to know," Roman told me. "You deserve to have them as your family for real."

We heard footsteps indicating that they were home now. 

"I think I'm going to have a talk with Hope," Roman told me, standing up. "Just check on her, after everything I've done."

I nodded, and he leaned down to kiss my head.

"Thank you," he said. "For letting me in."

--

and everything is revealed... now we just wait for the mikaelsons to finally find out.