1872 — Annecy, France
Thirty-five kilometres from Geneva in the Upper Savoy region of Eastern France was the picturesque town of Annecy. Its eleven thousand residents called it The Pearl of France, describing its location between lake and mountains. There were big, rickety wooden houses and shops painted in every colour in the world. It reminded Eleanor Fraser of the town she was born and raised in, it reminded her of Hastings. The lake was much like a beach, with the numerous people that took a stroll underneath the warm summer sun. The city was old, filled with bright and overflowing flowers that made Eleanor want to paint just because of the colours. Yes, the colours. A beautiful spectrum of every shade and hue that she had imagine and more: reds, blues, yellows, greens. They all lined the canals.
The streets were made of a red stone that shined whenever the sun was above it. It made the streets look as if they were covered in rubies; Eleanor thought it looked more like blood. Well, it was what she thought about the most. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she wanted nothing more but to stand from bed and sink her teeth into someone's neck and drink them dry. There were other times where she did so. The bellboy had several bites around his body, and they were all from her being hungry. She had compelled him to not be afraid of her, to think that he was in love with her. It was the only reason why he took great care of himself, never weak.
The Originals, as well as Eleanor, stayed in a château in the Haute-Savoie general council. The Château d'Annecy was a castle that served as residence to the Counts of Geneva until the 17th Century. It was abandoned then, or so they thought, of course. The castle was taken over by a vampire named Armand who enjoyed making money out of other vampires and compelled victims. Inside the walls, it was lively and dark at the same time. Outside, it appeared as if it were crumbling.
Armand gave them the biggest room in the castle, The Queen's Tower. No, he gave that room to Eleanor and Klaus. Elijah insisted in getting another room, a much smaller one and further away from the pair. He was tired of hearing the pair have their nightly charades, tired of hearing Eleanor want nothing more but blood. He had taught her that blood wasn't everything, but the girl was more interested in what Klaus taught her than anything else.
On one of their days in Annecy, Eleanor had pulled the two vampires to join her out onto the fields, right beneath the mountains. She wore a simple white dress, one that allowed her to move freely and without care. And that was exactly what she did. She ran at human pace, her arms spread as she danced in the gentle fields of overflowing colourful flowers. It came to the point where she stopped and laughed, turning to look at Elijah and Klaus.
"Come on, then!" she yelled at them. "Hurry up!"
"You told us to come at human pace," Elijah said, gently smiling.
"I don't remember being so slow," she teased. "Come on, I don't believe that you two could have been so slow when you were humans! You were warriors, for God's sake!"
They had told her their story, about how they came to be. It was Elijah that revealed the most. He told her about their family, about how their father and mother were the ones that turned them into what they are. They said nothing more, except that they found it easier to keep a low profile in the places they went to.
"Were," Elijah repeated. "In the past, Eleanor. It has been around 800 years since we have fought with swords."
"Swords!" she breathed, almost in exasperation. "I'd love to see a good sword fight."
"Those don't exist anymore, love," Klaus chuckled, shaking his head. "In the world of today, rifles and guns are more useful."
"What happened to knights?" Eleanor asked, holding on to her skirt as she dipped her feet in the water of a creek. She glanced back at the brothers. "Daring sword fights, a prince in disguise, life with a little danger."
"Love," Klaus chuckled, "your life is dangerous enough."
"I am a vampire," she told him, dropping her shoulders with cockiness. "I drink blood to survive and kill at least one person daily. What do I need to fear?"
"The sun, wooden stakes," Klaus mused. "Me."
"You?" She arched her brows and let out a laugh. "I should fear you?"
Klaus took a step closer to her and smirked, almost threateningly. "I'm what you should fear most, Eleanor."
"Yes, of course." She nodded and looked up at him, almost as if she were studying his face. His eyes were a darker blue than she had ever seen, almost imitating the sky in the middle of the day.
"I am not kidding."
"Neither am I," she said. "Do you want to know why, Klaus? You were the one that turned me against my will, the one who made me feed not even an hour after I turned. I am afraid of you, Klaus, but unlike the rest of the world I don't show it."
Klaus stared down at her, the smirk faltering for several seconds. He glanced away and poked the corner of his lips with his tongue.
"You really have changed," he lowly said, taking a step back. "I'm actually surprised."
"Can you blame me?" she asked, a tight lipped smile forming around her lips. "Like I said, you turned me against my will."
"Your mother begged."
"My mother was a stranger," she said. "That was why I was in the orphanage, Klaus. She even told you that, if you recall. I had never seen her, never knew she was even alive, until that night. And I am yet to be assured that she is my mother, for words are winds and mean nothing. My mother is a stranger, she is not me."
"I thought this was supposed to be a happy day," Elijah said, taking a step between them. "No more talking of this. Eleanor, why don't you pick some flowers? I'm sure they'd look lovely in your room at the château." He had compelled her, fast and gently.
Eleanor smiled and nodded. "Flowers, yes."
She jumped over the creek and went to the other side, the one covered in flowers. It was a kaleidoscope of every colour imaginable; blues, reds, yellows, greens. She brushed her hands against the petals as she walked, staring straight ahead, at the mountains. The mountain lay in the distance like a ridiculous green camel hump or perhaps the nose of a slumbering giant turned to rock. Eleanor held out her hands to make a frame. It fitted right in, a perfect painting; from here it even looked two dimensional. She wondered if the air was thin at the top, if it was the kind of peak you had to take extra breaths.
Eleanor took a seat on the ground, right around the colourful kaleidoscope. She let her hands brush against the petals in front of her, eyes scanning the gentle colours. While her hand and eyes were on the flowers, her mind was far away into the past. She thought of when she turned, when Klaus fed her his blood from his wrist and snapped her neck with a wide smirk on his lips. She remembered the taste of his blood, but only because she had savoured it only a few days ago, but it was different. The blood she had tasted when she was human was disgusting, like drinking the watery pudding Sister Maria made. But now, as a vampire, his blood tasted different. It tasted like a freshly cooked morsel, like a piece of chocolate after being deprived for so long. His blood was sweet to her tongue, to her senses, and she enjoyed it more than human blood. Sometimes, she thought, it meant something horrible.
"What are you doing?" Elijah asked her from behind.
She glanced back and forced a big smile. "Sitting," she said. "I'm sitting, can't you see?"
He chuckled. "I can clearly see that you're sitting, Eleanor," he said, taking a seat besides her. "But, I want to know what you're really doing."
"Sitting," she repeated.
"What are you thinking about?" he finally said.
Eleanor stared at him for several seconds, stared into his brown eyes. They reminded her of tree trunks in the spring, when the old pieces fell and the new could be seen underneath. Yes, Elijah reminded her a lot of the warmer months.
She sighed. "I'm not really thinking," she said. "I was just imagining what it would be like if I were still human."
"And how does it look?"
"I'd be dead," she smiled, letting out a small chuckle.
"Eleanor," he softly said, as if her name would cause a storm, "what do you imagine your human life to be like? Close your eyes and tell me."
She let out a sigh and allowed her mind to flow. "I... I see myself going down the same path my mother did," she divulged, opening her eyes. She stared down at the flowers, her fingers pulling the petals of the one right by her leg. "I see myself becoming a whore to survive. I see myself getting pregnant and having to either kill my child or having to let it live in a horrible orphanage like I did. I see myself paying for their upkeep on my back and knees. I see myself living a life of pain and misery far more worse than this one." She turned her head towards Elijah, lips trembling lightly. "It was more like having a nightmare than imagining a human life."
Elijah let out a sigh and scooted closer to her. He grabbed her hand, the one pulling the petals away from the flowers. "You wouldn't have gone down the same path your mother did," he quietly said. "Eleanor, I have knew you the last day of your human life and had taken care of you since the beginning of your vampire life. From what I have seen, you are far more brave than your mother. Do I need to remind you that that you faced a terrible witch all by yourself?"
"I was scared," she said, shaking her head.
"Of course you were," he smiled. "How can you not be scared, Eleanor? You were going to be sacrificed!" He pulled out a flower by his side and pushed it in her her hair. "But, you spat on her face and told her to go fuck herself. Eleanor, if you were human, you would have done anything to escape the orphanage, to escape the life your mother had."
"You know, Elijah, I consider my mother to be brave," she said, smiling softly down at her hands. "She spent her whole life being treated horribly just for me to have a gentle life at the orphanage. I think she was—is—braver than me. Sometimes..." She paused and took a deep breath, letting out the smallest smile to the vampire in front of her. "Sometimes, I think I would have enjoyed to actually know her for more than just a single hour. Elijah, do you know what happened to her?"
Elijah stared at her for several seconds, his lips slightly open. He sighed and looked away, looked over her head and straight to the horizon of mountains. "She's dead," he said. "She died of cholera a few weeks after we returned to Louisiana."
"And you didn't bother to tell me?"
"I wasn't sure if you'd like to have information on the woman that turned you into this," he said, glancing down at her hand. "I thought it would be better for Niklaus and I to keep this information between ourselves."
Eleanor shook her head and let out a scoff. "Of course you did," she breathed, shaking her head. "Anything else you've been keeping from me, Elijah?"
He sucked in a breath between his teeth. "Well, Klaus has been painting you for the past fifty-one year. When we return to Louisiana, you should see his private room."
Eleanor's cheeks began to redden, almost as if she were surprised and embarrassed at the same time. She laid a hand on her cheek and shook her head. "Elijah, please!"
"Look behind you," he said, pointing back with his chin.
Eleanor turned her head back. Klaus stood far from them, behind a wooden easel and a big blank canvas. He held a pallet in one hand and a paint brush on the other. Besides him was a stool with a glass of water, several other paintbrushes, and a small wooden case which kept all the paintings inside. He wore a simple white blouse now stained with a few colours on the arms. His fingers, which were gently holding to the paintbrush, which he moved ever so gently against the canvas. He was so focused on the painting that he didn't bother to look up, not even once. The only thing he looked at was between the canvas and when he reached for another brush.
Klaus looked up from his canvas, his blue eyes finally catching hers. He stayed watching her, just for a few seconds, then looked back at his painting. In those few seconds, Eleanor's cheeks had reddened to the point where they appeared like two strawberries on a tart. She turned back to the front and let out a soft sigh.
"Do you know what is more beautiful than humans?" she quietly asked, staring up at the mountains. "Nature."
"What are you speaking about?" Elijah asked, almost chuckling. He leaned back on his hands, lifting up a knee as he watched the mountains with her.
"The mountains," she said, "these mountains, are far more beautiful than anything I had ever seen. The colours that spread from red at the base, then gentle blues and yellows, until it reaches green. The peak, though, it's dead. Maybe a few bushes, a few specks of green between the dead brown. And the deer, the birds, the little frogs hiding between the leaves, the goats, the wolves running between the trees. All of it, as strange and unusual, it's beautiful." She sighed and looked at him. "What I mean is that Klaus would never paint me. He would paint something beautiful, like those mountains."
Elijah let out a chuckle, breathy sigh through his nose. "You underestimate yourself too much, Eleanor."
"I have become too blunt," she chuckled. "I apologise."
"There is nothing you should apologise for," he said. "Learn that, El."
"El," she repeated, almost nodding. "Did you give me a nickname?"
"El," he repeated, nodding. "Eleanor is too formal, don't you think?"
She smiled and nodded. "We have known each other for fifty-one years. I think I'll permit you to call me El."
"Permit me?" he laughed. "Do I now need your permission?"
"Of course," she said, standing. "You'll always need my permission is you want something from me."
"It is not something," Elijah said, almost laughing. "It is a nickname, nothing more."
"But it is something from me." She walked over to the creek, dipped her feet, and looked over at Klaus. Just like before, he looked immersed in his painting.
Eleanor wondered whether Elijah was telling the truth, whether Klaus had really painter her. She remembered in 1922, when they were at the apple orchard and he was painting. She had always wondered what had he painted, and she did ask, but he never answered. She wanted to know whether it was her, or whether it was just the colours. Maybe, she thought, maybe it was both.
Since they arrived at Annecy, they had spent little time together. He had spent his days with Elijah, his nights with her. And even during the nights he said little. His words were brief, a simple goodnight and slept. She wanted to hear more from him, kiss him once again, so she planned. She would take him to town the next day, make him feel something, and then she would kiss him. Yes, she would just kiss him.