Brave (Damon Salvatore x OC)

Carnival *

A/N: I write SLOW BURN, there is some light spice/smut at the end of this chapter. It will be marked with a * before it starts so if that isn't your thing you can skip. Twenty chapters in is actually not even my longest wait till the good stuff! Enjoy.

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Everyone is preparing for the Mystic Falls High School Carnival. Ember, Bonnie and Elena are taking care of everything since Caroline is still in the hospital. Ember is directing workers, clipboard in hand and channeling her best Caroline while Bonnie and Elena stock booths with prizes.

"Katherine looked just like you, just like Em, except for the eyes. it was freakish." Bonnie exclaims.

Elena shrugs. "She is our ancestor. Hey, Em moved the student booth into the cafeteria."

"Your vampire ancestor, and she didn't just resemble you, like a family member would. She was you." Bonnie is still super freaked out by her Katherine experience and it shows.

"I don't know, I can't explain it. It's creepy, that's all I got." Elena agrees.

"How do you know she's not still out there pretending to be you?" Bonnie wonders.

"I don't, but I could sit here and be tortured by the not-knowing or I could get these prizes to the ring toss." She points out.

Bonnie looks at where Ember is yelling at the football team for sitting up the dunk tank wrong. "Has she talked to Damon since he tried to killed Jeremy."

"No Bonnie, she is avoiding all topics Damon related. She won't even tell me what they were fighting about. So, I'm respecting that. I haven't and I won't and I don't want to talk about Damon or his and Embers weird connection or anything else that's vampire related okay?" She gives a bag full of plushies to Bonnie. "We need to do normal stuff, all of us. Otherwise, we're going to go crazy."

Bonnie nods. "Okay, I'm sorry, I'll focus. We have to make Caroline proud or she will kill us. I don't know how she does all of this."

"Well because she's not human, obviously." They both giggle. "I'm just glad we have Ember's super organized brain to fall back on or this would be impossible."

Jeremy and Stefan are in the hallway at Jeremy's locker. "It's the same as the bracelets you and Ember wear." He hands Jeremy a small vial of vervain extract.

"It protects me from compulsion." Jeremy clarifies.

Stefan nods. "Vervain is toxic to vampires."

"Like poison?" He asks.

"Yeah, it's very poisonous. It keeps them out of your head." Stefan confirms.

"But why vervain?" Jeremy wonders.

"Don't know, certain natural herbs and roots and other elements are just harmful to vampires. You should ask Ember, she learned a lot about herb lord from your mom." Stefan tells him.

"That's even stranger." Jeremy admits. "I can almost wrap my head around the vampire and witch stuff, clearly something supernatural runs in Em and El's biological mother's family... But my mom knew somehow about Em's powers, knew she was a witch... and helped prepare her." He looks at Stefan. "What all else is true? Like the stake to the heart thing?"

Stefan nods. "Yeah, but it has to be wood."

"You're pretty confident in yourself telling me all the different ways I could kill you." Jeremy points out.

Stefan smirks. "Jeremy, if I thought you wanted to kill me we would be having a much different conversation. I know all you want it to help protect your sisters."