The Artist || Mikealson Family

03

Is that a grimoire? But before I can greet them or say anything, something weird happens. "Hey, guys..." Bonnie says, getting Elena's and Caroline's attention as the necklace starts to lift itself up off the pages of the book and levitates.

"Oh, my-" I start, but Caroline interrupts me. "What are you doing?" "I'm not doing anything," Bonnie answers as we all stare at the piece of jewelry, "it has its own magic." All three of them look at each other, but I still focus on the necklace, thinking that if I look away it didn't actually happen, and I just imagined it.

"What is happening?" I finally ask them. "Oh, my god. Anna," Elena starts, "what are you doing here?" "I haven't heard from both of you in days, so I thought this Founding Families picnic would be a good place to walk into you. But I didn't expect this happening," I motion to the grimoire and necklace that has now sunken down again.

"What was that?" I ask Bonnie in a clueless tone. "Are we going to tell her," she asks the other two, "I feel like she'll find out soon anyway." "I could just compel her," Caroline suggests.

"Excuse me, what?" I ask, slightly offended by the fact that she would even propose that, and Elena shakes her head, "no, we should tell her. I don't want her to find out the way Jenna did." "Okay, but let's go somewhere else," Bonnie recommends, and they drag me along behind them.

That's how I found out about everything.

They told me everything that happened to them since Stefan and Damon got to town.

That Stefan, Damon, and Caroline are vampires.

That Bonnie is a witch.

That Elena is a doppelgänger and has an evil twin-like ancestor called Katherine.

That Tyler is a werewolf.

About the Founders Council.

About John and Isobel.

About their knowledge of the Originals.

About Klaus and what happened shortly before I met them a few months ago.

They told me everything, and the bits of conversations I had heard over the last weeks made more sense to me, although I couldn't say it was all new information.

• • •

After my friends told me everything about the reality of their crazy lives, I asked them for some space to process everything. But the truth was, that I needed to sort through and organize all the knowledge I had gained and logically add on to the knowledge I already had beforehand.

The time had gone by quickly since then, and I was now looking for Elena, so she could give me a ride home. I'm walking around a corner outside the house when I finally see Elena walking out of the main door with Alaric, and Damon following shortly after. As I approach them, their voices reach to my ears.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa wait, Houston, we have a problem!" Damon says, heading after them.

"Where have you been?" Elena asks, continuing to walk down the stairs of the main entrance.

"Managing Bill Forbes. Apparently, he's impervious to compulsion," Damon replies.

"How!?" Alaric exclaims.

"I have no idea. But he threatened to out me. Don't get me started on the irony of that." Damon scoffs.

"What did you do to him? How do you know the compulsion doesn't work?" Elena questions him.

"That's not the most important piece of information I mentioned, Elena," Damon argues.

"What's he want?" Alaric asks.

"Well, he wants to control the council. Says it's been compromised." Damon tells him.

"It has!" Alaric shoots back.

"He wants to put vervain in the town's water supply!" Damon rolls his eyes.

"Maybe it's not a bad idea. I mean, it'll help you keep yourself in control now that Stefan's not here to-" Elena starts but gets interrupted by Damon.

"To what? To keep me in check! Make me behave? I should've killed him this morning." Damon seethes.

"He's Caroline's dad, Damon," Elena tells him argumentatively.

"Yeah, and when I kill him, she'll have one more parent than we do," Damon responds, trying to walk past her but getting stopped by Alaric.

"Oh, come on, Damon!" Alaric says.

"You repeatedly kill my buzz today, Ric. Step aside." Damon says, trying to walk past him. As he looks up, we lock eyes, and he just stares at me.

"Yeah, it's not gonna happen!" Alaric stops him again, putting his right arm against Damon's chest.

"Your temporary funeral." Damon breaks Alaric's neck and watches him fall to the ground as Elena yells "DAMON, NO!!!" I stop walking, standing about two meters away from them, with my hand raised in front of my mouth in shock.

"What is wrong with you!" Elena asks him, but he just walks past her. As he comes up to me, he asks: "Miss your normal life yet?" Damon then continues walking back to the house.

"Elena," I stutter out lowly, and she turns around. "Anna," she walks over to me, seeing the shock on my face, "are you okay?" I look away from Alaric's body to Elena's face. "He just killed him," I say, "I thought you said they were friends? Why would he do that?!" "It's okay," she assures me, "Ric is gonna be fine." I stare at her perplexed, "but he's dead, Elena! You don't just come back from being dead!"

"Remember the ring I told you about, the one John gave me?" "Yeah," I say. "I gave it to Ric a few days ago," she explains, and I look back down at his body. "So he'll come back," I ask her. "Yes. But we have to get him out of here, and I don't think we can lift him." I nod at her argument and think about a solution.

"Why don't we call Caroline," I suggest, "she has super strength, right? We should probably also tell her about Damon trying to kill her Dad." "Yeah, good idea." "Okay, I'll call her," I tell Elena and get out my phone to dial her number. "I'm only answering in case it's a friend emergency," Caroline answers happily.

"It's an emergency!"

I tell her about what Damon just did, and she says she'll take care of it. After hanging up, Elena and I wait. "Maybe you should go see what's happening," I tell her, and she looks at Alaric. "I'll stay with Ric 'till you get back." "Okay," she nods at me and leaves for the main house.

Word count: 1784