The Vampire Diaries: Concrete Decisions

The Past

It all began the day I was Turned. Everything happened so fast, I didn't know what was going on, but one person helped me through it. One person who has been there every step of the way. One vampire who I know I can always count on. Her name is Lexi and she's my best friend. My name is Cecily Lauderdale and this is my past. The night I was Turned, I was 19. The year was 1687; I was living in what was to become Portland, Maine. I was out picking berries for my mother when I was attacked. I couldn't see my attacker, but I knew it was a woman. She forced me to drink the blood from her wrist and the next thing I knew, I was in darkness. I woke up the next morning, back in my room, safe from the sun. My attacker was standing next to my cot, looking down at me. She had long brown hair, brown eyes, her face slightly elongated, and she was tall. Or at least the heels she wore made her appear tall. She told me that I had been Turned into a vampire for her purposes.

She said, "Keep out of sight, stay alive, and when I come back to find you, and I will, be ready for the work I have for you." Then, she was gone. She left me nothing, but a ring to protect me from the sun. I knew I couldn't stay around my family, so I fled. But fleeing wasn't my problem, it was my emotions. So, I did what any reasonable vampire would do. I turned my humanity off. That was when I met Lexi. I had been parading down the eastern seaboard, leaving bodies in my wake. Now, I know that was reckless, but I needed to occupy myself. Lexi found me when I was in Savannah. The year was 1690; I had been leaving bodies now for three years. Lexi spent the next two decades trying to get me to turn my emotions back on. It finally worked in 1711. She told me to focus on one thing, one feeling, and I did. She never asked me what it was and I never told her. We had grown close over the years, but we each had our own path to take and so we separated. By then, I had learned to feed discreetly on humans and manage to keep them alive. I went unnoticed for 153 years. I was living in Mystic Falls, of all places, when I saw Lexi again. And I knew why she was there. 1864 had been a bad year for the town of Mystic Falls. The town's council had started to suspect that there were vampires living among them. And that's when Jonathan Gilbert started making devices that could track vampires. It was night when the first attack came at the Salvatore Boarding House. Giuseppe Salvatore's two sons had started to fall for the one vampire I had focused all my emotions on for the past 153 years. They said her name was Katherine Pierce, but I knew better. Her real name was Katerina Petrova and she is my maker.

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Surprisingly, Lexi found me before I could find her. She had heard that there was a vampire excursion happening here. I told her that it was true and that she should leave, but she insisted that the Founding Families had already sealed all the vampires under Fell's Church, Katherine included. I told her that my maker was under that church and she told me to let her rot to nothing in there. So, I did. We were walking the streets back to my house when we were attacked. A boy who couldn't have been more than 17 was attacking us, the way a vampire would attack a human. Eventually, we restrained the boy against the back wall of the bank and that was when I could finally see his face. I had met Giuseppe Salvatore's sons before, in fact we had tea together often, but the boy standing in front of me wasn't that same boy.

"This is Stefan Salvatore," I told Lexi.

"He's a ripper," Lexi said. Stefan, finally settling down, looked at me for the first time that night and saw me for who I really was.

"Cecily," he asked me.

"Hello Stefan," I answered, managing a small smile. A small smile, but big enough that he could see the tips of my fangs.

"You're a vampire," he asked me.

"We both are," I answered, gesturing to Lexi.

"How do you do," Lexi said.

"Stefan Salvatore," Stefan introduced himself.

"Lexi Branson," Lexi replied.

"Who did this to you," I asked Stefan.

"Katherine Pierce," Stefan answered. I looked to Lexi, who met my eyes.

She turned her eyes back to Stefan, "What are you feeling right now, Stefan?"

"That I'm hungry," Stefan answered.

"Not, that's physical, I mean what are you feeling," Lexi clarified. Stefan didn't answer and I knew. I knew because I had gone through the same exact thing myself.

"He turned it off, didn't he," I asked Lexi.

She nodded, "How long has it been since you felt something?"

"I turned it off when Katherine was left under Fell's Church," Stefan said.

"What about your brother," I asked.

"He left me after I forced him to turn," Stefan answered. I looked at Lexi again and we both knew what we had to do. We spent the next decade trying to get Stefan to turn his emotions on and teaching him how to feed correctly. It never worked. Eventually, Lexi and I backed off the human blood and started to feed Stefan animal blood. Not only did it give him a new way to feed, but it also gave him back his emotions. With Stefan's emotions back, he not only learned how to control himself with the animal blood, but he also learned how to evolve, something me and Lexi could never accomplish. The three of us became a trio, but I had things to attend to, so I left Lexi with Stefan, but not before Lexi warned me. I was leaving Mystic Falls with the intent on going to New Orleans when Lexi said that New Orleans was no longer safe.

"The Originals have taken up residence there, it would not be wise," she told me. The Originals are the first vampires. They were, are, a family, the Mikaelsons. I ignored her warning. I knew the Mikaelsons were there. Actually, I was on good terms with them, simply because I knew that Niklaus had Katherine on the run for 360 years until she got locked up under the church. But when I think about it now, 'good terms' is a horrible phrase for it. I was what they considered 'family'. Only three of the Mikaelsons were actually living in New Orleans at the time I was, but it was enough for me to consider power. Niklaus, Elijah, and Rebekah Mikaelson had let me move into their home with the promise of keeping me safe. They were the closest thing I had had to family in 163 years. Over time, I met all the Mikaelson's, one by one as they came and went through New Orleans. The only two I never met were Mikael and Esther, neither of which I wanted to meet. I stayed in the Mikaelson mansion for 140 years, even though the Mikaelsons had left. They told me to stay as long as I like and I did, for I had nowhere else to go, until I had heard that the Salvatore brothers had returned to Mystic Falls. And that's where my story begins.