Back in Mystic Falls

17. Church Picnic

No pairing

Sunday, July 8, 1855

*Note Katherine is posing as a younger girl of 15/16. Emily is also older, but posing as a teen.

Chapter Text

Fell's Church

"Katherine" could not take her eyes off the handsome, blue-eyed boy with dark curly hair. Emily elbowed her. They were sitting at a picnic table outside at the church picnic waiting for some teenage boys that Katherine compelled to fetch them lemonade. It was hot and the sun was shining brightly, but Katherine was in an restless mood.

"You are staring again, Miss Katherine!" Emily chided as she fanned herself.

"Forgive me, Miss Emily, but I am in love," Katherine gushed holding an umbrella over them. Ladies did have to protect themselves from the sun.

"Did you not see the painting in the old man's bedroom? That's the son," Emily confided. "The older boy...the one he thinks is dead. The old groom told me all about it. His name is Damon."

Katherine had overheard Giuseppe Salvatore ranting about blood drinking demons at a saloon in Richmond a week ago. He was falling down drunk. She did some digging and discovered the extent of his wealth.

The next day, she and Emily played poor orphans in need of a guardian. Katherine had been planning to kill him when they got to his estate, but decided to go for the long game. It was clear that someone had muddled with the man's mind and he was not right in the head. Katherine didn't just want mere jewels and gold anymore from the men she used. She wanted a place to call home and revenge on the Original family of vampires. It was pure coincidence that the family she hunted happened to be here at the same time...that was the story Katherine Pierce, or Katerina Petrova, told Emily. In truth, she followed them here from New Orleans. The Salvatore man was just a stroke of luck. It had in truth taken her a few weeks to find the right mark. But Katerina was good at using people.

"No! Giuseppe's son? Are you jesting?" Katherine pressed in shock. "He's so handsome."

"Nay, I do not jest, as you well know. Yet the drunken fool of a father seems like he does not even know the boy," Emily observed. Emily scanned the crowd of locals with a barely hidden disdain. Her family once haled here, too. Yet they migrated to Salem centuries before. Now they, too, were displaced, looking for a home. Emily wished to find them one, a safe one. It was a shame to her that she had to help abominations of nature to do it, but Katerine drove a hard bargain.

"He's been compelled. Can you undo it?" Katherine asked in an even, almost flat tone that Emily had grown used to.

"I do not know. If it worked, it could drive Giuseppe more insane. Plus, it could undo your compulsion," Emily stated, as she smiled back sweetly at a leering old man. "What a pig," she muttered under her breath.

Emily and Katerina were more business partners than friends. They played their games to get what they wanted. Katherine needed the daylight bracelet that Emily had made her using that spell. She also needed Emily to make daylight rings as leverage over vampires who worked for Katerina. This was the spell she had stolen long ago from the Mikaelsons, before fleeing from them in England.

Katherine had convinced Emily to broker a deal with the New Orleans witches to wipe the Mikaelsons memory of her clean. It was a group effort, taking cooperation of the nine covens. A huge feat. A large spell was performed to wipe the Originals memories of the Bulgarian traveller doppelgänger turned vampire, whom Klaus wanted to capture for revenge. No one wanted him to break his hybrid curse, especially the witches. The Originals knew something happened as they were rendered unconscious by vervain, but they did not know the nature of the spell. They left the city shortly after.