REBEKAH Mikaelson was cunning, vindictive but most of all, a jealous person.
She was jealous of the girls in her village, even before she turned into a vampire, but after her transformation, that jealousy was magnified tenfold.
She watched them grow up, some of them had families before she had to leave.
She was jealous of the little girls who had loving fathers, of the people who didn't have to run all over the world just to survive.
Then she met Morrigan.
She loved Morrigan like a sister but she couldn't help the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that Morrigan was just like everyone else, but in the front of her mind, she was sure that Morrigan, on even just a surface level, understood her troubles.
Then Rebekah found out Morrigan's secret. She was pregnant.
Rebekah wasn't proud of it, but in the few weeks following the revelation, she distanced herself from the witch. Eventually, of course, they became as close as they were before, if not closer, but at that time, Rebekah cursed herself.
Why couldn't she just be happy for her best friend?
Morrigan Brooks
"I COULD look at these all day," I say to the original next to me. Elijah smiles at the flowers, and then at me.
"You say that every time we pass this florist," he says, picking up a peony from the bouquet displayed.
We had been walking through the French Quarter daily now, and while Elijah had supposedly become a 'leader of the city' or as Klaus liked to say it 'a king of the quarter', he still made time to walk with me.
"When are you leaving?" He asks and I shrug.
"Midday," I say lowly, not really wanting to go, but at the same time, I was bursting with excitement.
I was going to France for around two weeks to design my dream wedding dress and while Elijah hypothetically could have come, both myself and Rebekah insisted he stay here so as to not see me in my dress before the day.
"I'm going to really miss you," I say, threading my arms around his shoulders.
"You have Rebekah, and you will be back in France. You are going to be fine," he says with a small laugh as he presses a featherlight kiss to my lips.
It probably wasn't proper behaviour, seeing as we were in public, though I didn't care.
"My relationship with Rebekah is slightly different to the one I have with you," I murmured, keeping my lips a hair's breadth from his while he laughed.
"You and I both know that's not what I meant and like you said. We can see each other every night through your projection."
"It's not the same," I complain.
Elijah doesn't answer, but instead, he pulls me in by my waist and buries his head into my shoulder, pressing another kiss to my sensitive skin.
"I will miss you my love, but when you get back, it will be less than three months before you and I are married."
"Three months is so long," I whine, making him laugh.
"Now, before you go," he starts, leading me to the door. "Are you certain that there is no one you want to walk you down the aisle?"
My eyebrows crease at this question.
"I thought we talked about this?" I say, extremely confused. He knows exactly what I think of my father and there's no one else who I can think of who would be able to fill the role.
"Well, I'm just saying that your father had a major role in your life."
"Yeah, things like teaching me to walk, talk, do magic, and oh what was the last one? Oh yeah, kill me," I say, pulling away from Elijah, wondering what was going through his head.
"It was just a thought," he says, following me as I turned my head and went to storm in the direction of home.
In the back of my mind, I knew I shouldn't go to France angry, but in the forefront of my mind, I wanted to see the beautiful landscape of Paris.
"I'm going Elijah. Talk to me when you want to take our wedding seriously," I say, a million thoughts running through my head.
"I just thought you might like the suggestion," he says, except it wasn't him.
His voice was different. More gravelly. Guttural.
I didn't want to turn around because, in my mind, I knew that voice. I knew it from years and years before. So long that I had almost forgotten about that part of my life.
Reluctantly, I did turn. I turned to see the one person I was sure was dead.
"Father-" I say in a choked voice.
I SHOT up into a sitting position, my breathing heavy and unsettled. My dream startled me awake, and as a result of that, Elijah stirred awake too.
"Are you alright, love?" He mumbles taking my hand in his and stroking the back of it with his thumb.
"Yeah, um, just a bad dream, go back to sleep, darling," I say but his eyes open fully.
"Come here," he says, attempting to get me to lie next to him but I brush him off.
"I have to get rid of him," I mutter.
"What are you talking about?" He asks, not leaving our bed.
"He's going to keep tormenting me and tormenting me until he gets bored and then kill me in some poetic way,"
"Who?" He asks, obviously still waking up.
"My father. He's tormenting me."
"Right, of course," he says rubbing his eye. "My love, is the danger imminent, because if it's not, I think we can wait before at least four am."
"You go back to sleep, get some rest, you need it," I say sincerely, patting his shoulder reassuringly but as I get out of bed, I hear shuffling and see that he is getting up with me.
"What do you want me to do?" He asks. I was shrugging on his white button-up as I thought.
"Could you grab me some black salts?"
AT half past six, my nerves finally started to calm from panicking mental patient to just panicking for my life, but I guess any progress is still progress.
"I'll be back in like ten minutes," I say, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
"You're being very... what's the word? Codependant."
"I'm just happy to be here with you, even though we were on our way out of this town," I say with a small smile. Yeah, and glad you haven't been de-vamped and killed by either of our dads, I thought.
"It's temporary," he says with a smile that tells me that he is laughing at me.
"I know. I'll be back. I love you."
I got out of the door and into my car before driving just over the hill to the Salvatore house.
I walked in without knocking to see that no one was awake. Go figure, since it wasn't even seven in the morning.
The shower upstairs was running, though I doubted that was Elena because I could only assume she wasn't the most pleasant company currently, so the most likely candidates were the Salvatore brothers.
They won't mind that I'm here.
I go into the kitchen and have to get on my tiptoes while I look
"Good morning, sunshine," I heard from behind me and I gave Damon an offhanded wave from behind me while I looked for my herbs. "Looking for something?"
"Mhm," I mumble before finally, I found the packet of thyme. "I left some stuff here, sorry," I say, not at all sorry.
"What are you concocting now?" He asks, leaning on the doorway with his eyebrow raised.
"Patricide," I say lowly. "What are you concocting?"
"Humanity," he says in the same tone and I laugh.
"Let me know when you need help once I'm done with this," I say and he raises a brow.
"Don't you mean if I need help?" He asks incredulously.
"No," I mutter. "But seriously, D, if you need help let me know."
He gave me a small smile paired with a nod and with that, I sped out of his house and drove away.
I WAS finished 'concocting', as Elijah and Damon both so generously put it and I let it sit for a few hours as I figured out what I would do.
How was I going to get rid of him? Was I in over my head? He was powerful beyond belief, and the thing was, I was never as powerful as him. Not when I was a child, not when I was with Elijah the first time and not after.
I stole his powers briefly to get rid of him the first time, but the magic was too much for one person, or at least it was too much for me. I didn't know how he coped with that amount of power.
"Are you alright, my love?" Elijah asks, coming into the room.
I was sitting on the couch, nursing a glass of blood. He leans over the back of the couch to kiss my cheek before coming around to sit with me, putting an arm around my shoulders.
"Yeah, fine," I say shallowly but he just raises a brow.
"He won't be a problem soon," he murmurs into my ear while pulling me closer.
"Yeah, he's probably saying that about me right about now," I groan. "Either way, I won't have to deal with him soon."
This makes Elijah's face turn stony.
"You will come out on top, like a phoenix from the ashes," he whispers, holding my face in both his hands.
Leaning forward, I give him a feather-light kiss, though I don't respond, mostly because I didn't believe him, but also partly because my mouth was dry from anticipation.
I used to think that I would never find any kind of all-consuming love. I thought that I would party and travel and basically frolic through life with no one to spend it with romantically, and I was mostly fine with that, but when I met Elijah, he completely changed my worldview.
He managed to fill the gaping hole in my heart and, well... others, but...
Since I had last encountered Theodore, I wondered what was the point of him tormenting me. What was the point of dragging this whole thing out for over two hundred years?
"You have a plan, my love. You have a plan and what does he have?" He asks, rhetorically, of course, but I answer before he can finish.
"Power, connection, influence over me," I say flatly, lowering my head but Elijah lifts my chin with his index finger.
"You have all of those," he says. "Darling, you have the power. It has been growing stronger for almost six hundred years. You have the connections. All over the world, I have watched you make alliances for hundreds of years and you are still doing it! Remember Clarissa?"
"Yeah, 'course," I mumble, not understanding the point of Elijah's rant.
"Her whole pack has your back, and you told me about your brief time in Salem, you have friends there."
"Yeah, but I don't doubt that my father could immediately wipe all of them out. I'm not kidding. With a snap of his fingers, they're gone, dying some horrific death."
DANGER was a feeling I had become accustomed to. Father had gone mad looking for more power and I worried that he would cross more boundaries and borders to get more.
"Pearl, go get me some mugwort," Father says and I shrink into myself. He was crouching, making sure his spell would go without a hitch, though I didn't know why he still did that seeing as he had a catastrophic amount of power.
"Uh, father, there is no more mugwort," I whisper in an almost squeaky voice.
"Where did the last of it go?" He snaps, not getting up from where he was. "And why didn't you get me more?"
"Because you told me to put all of my energy into the curse," I say slowly.
He had asked, more like demanded, me to curse the coven. Every seven generations would die in some dreadful way except for one so that they could continue the family line.
It was extremely complicated and difficult, but I was so scared of his wrath that I did it without question.
What I did genuinely haunted me. Six families for the rest of time will have a curse put on them so that every seven generations will die except for one.
"Just... go get me mugwort," he says impatiently.
He told me that he would never hurt me, that he loved me more than anything in the world, and that we were going to be powerful together. I could tell that he was doing his best to be patient, but he definitely was becoming more self-involved and treating me more like a servant than a daughter.
It scared me more and more every day at the feats that he accomplished. He should not be able to do some of the things that he does, but he does, most times with ease.
"Pearl, what day is it now?" He asks absent-mindedly while he flicks through his grimoire.
"Monday, father," I say, setting the mugwort down in front of him.
"So when should your spell take place?"
"This Sunday. It's the seventh day of the seventh month for the seventh generation."
"You are incredible, my Pearl," he says, briefly taking my chin in his hand before dropping it and going back to what he was doing.
I never really knew what he was doing, it was usually extremely complicated but it wasn't like I particularly wanted to know what he was doing.
"Father, is it alright if I go on a walk through town?" I ask and he nods without looking up.
"Yes, of course, be back before sunset," he says flatly.
As I started on my walk, I thought about my mother.
In all honesty, my mother was spineless. I loved her and she loved me just as much, but as my life went on, she became more like a shell. Her usually deep olive skin became pale and what I would describe as translucent. She talked little and smiled even less, but I remember when I was just a little girl when she and my father actually acted happy. When they were actually in love.
I knew that love faded over time, but I didn't want what happened to my mother to happen to me.
I finally got to Rebekah's house and I knocked before opening the door.
I had become accustomed to the four of them bickering all the time so at this point, I just let myself in.
"Rebekah!" I yell from the foyer. She didn't come down, nor did any of the other Mikaelsons so I decided to investigate.
I walked down the many hallways until I heard the faint sound of pianoforte music in the solarium.
It was slow music, virtually eerie, but I continued to walk towards it. It almost felt magic, as if it were pulling me in, but then again, yet another thing this family was good at was music.
The door creaked open when I turned the handle and I immediately smelled blood.
I was acutely familiar with the scent, seeing as they were a family of vampires, but this was different. It was more... violent.
"Rebekah?" I say, looking around the room but when I do, all I see is carnage.
Closest to me, about three metres to my left, Kol lay, his head extremely bruised and battered but there was a gaping hole in his chest.
From the wound, some sort of black matter seemed to ooze from it. This stuff looked disgusting, but it seemed to seep like syrup or honey.
As I looked around, most of the Mikaelson's were lying in different parts of the room, black matter leaking from their own respective wound.
I choke a sob, wondering what on earth could have possessed a person to do this when I realised Elijah wasn't lying with the others.
Through my tears, I scream.
"Elijah!" My voice started to wobble. "Where are you?"
"Morrig-" I hear Elijah's voice, though it was extremely choked like someone was asphyxiating him. I turned around and right behind where I was standing, was Elijah, blood coating his face and clothes and a dark figure I recognised all too well had his hand around Elijah's throat.
"What, no! Motus!" I scream but the person just flicks his hand and my spell is completely useless.
"Do you want this to happen?" He asks and my tears fall freely. Grief-stricken, I shake my head adamantly. He finally turns around and confirms that it was my father that did this to them."Then stop meddling. Stop making new spells and stop your boyfriend or his family from getting involved. This is for me to enjoy. I don't have any animosity with them and I don't need to."
EXACTLY like every other time, I sit up, as stiff as a board, awake and completely conscious of the fact that my father planted that dream. I knew that he was dead serious about what he said.
It had been over a week since my last dream and every last one haunted me but somehow, this one was different.
I looked at the clock and saw 3.04 am. I think my father could have a bit more regard for my sleep.
I didn't get out of my bed because my skin was crawling. The vision he showed me was just so horrible, but so couldn't get my mind off of it.
I couldn't remember where I had seen it from, but I recognised those wounds.
"You're pale, my love," I hear and Elijah's sudden speech makes me jump.
"What-? Oh yeah, um, bad dream."
"Was it your father again?" He asks but I avoid the question.
"I've been thinking, I don't want to drag you into this. I think he actually has the power to kill you and your siblings."
"Only a white oak stake can kill us," he says softly, cupping my cheeks but I shake my head staunchly.
"No. No. Remember I almost killed Klaus with magic? The only reason I didn't was because you snapped my neck," I say and he winces at the memory. "And I'm glad you did, but I'm just saying if I could do it, there is a hundred percent chance that he can."
"Is there even a small chance that he is hyping himself up so you get scared?"
"No, Elijah, I just-" I start, but he cuts me off.
"What was your dream about?" He asks but I shake my head. "What was your dream about?" He presses and I sign, giving in to him.
"It was a normal day, like... I'd say a year or so after I met you, and I went over to your place, let myself in, and heard this creepy music. I followed it and Rebekah, Klaus and Kol were all lying on the ground, with a wound in their chest and there was this... black matter that was leaking from it. I then turned around and my father had you by the throat and threatened that this is what would happen if you or your siblings got involved."
"Black matter? Was it sleek? Almost like... honey?" He asks slowly.
"Yeah, how did you know?" I ask and his shoulders sink.
"Love, how much do you remember about the day you died?" He asks and immediately, I remember where I had seen the black matter before.
"You don't think he would re-use that trick?" I say, scoffing. Theodore was sadly smarter than that and he knew that I knew how to defend myself against spells like that now.
"Well, it did kill you and your daughter. Maybe he's hoping it brings up any old or repressed feelings or even memories about it. Not ones that he stole but ones that you subconsciously repressed to cope with the loss."
"He's not that dumb to think that that is all it will take," I say. "Nevertheless, I can't have you helping me anymore. I really appreciate it and you and your love for me, but I can't risk you getting hurt just because I couldn't handle it."
"But it's alright if you can't handle it. You have support, Mor. Use it!" He pleads but I shake my head softly.
"I'm sorry my love," I say. "Let's just go back to sleep. It's three in the morning and we have to meet your siblings in a few hours."
I push him back onto his back and smooth the creases between his eyebrows with my thumb and he smiles, sitting up slightly to kiss my lips.
I knew that he wouldn't let it go, but I was glad that he did drop it, even if it was just for the night.
hope you guys liked this chapter - sorry it took so long but on a better note, I have started properly planning the chapters for the next book set in the originals!
so so close to this book being done and I'm not really sure how to feel