A Fresh Start (Damon, OC, Klaus)

32. One step forward, 2 steps back

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I sat there, listening in awe as Elijah told me the story of the Original Vampires. Roughly a thousand years ago the Mikaelson family had lived in these very parts, amongst the humans and werewolves. They were a normal, happy family... well for the most part. Apparently their father was very cruel to Niklaus.

Niklaus... at least now I know where he got 'Nik' from.

Elijah told me how one night, during a full moon, as the humans of the village hid in caves, his brothers Henrik and Niklaus had snuck out to see the men change into wolves. He explained that that was the night when everything changed for them. The youngest, Henrik, was struck down by one of the wolves, and died. His father, out of fear of losing yet another child, convinced their mother, who was a very powerful witch, to cast a spell of immortality.

No one could have foreseen the consequences of such a spell. How sunlight burned their skin, how the local flower became like acid to them. Day light rings fixed the first problem, there was no cure for the second.

Elijah grew quiet for a moment, but I didn't speak. I was too absorbed in his story. "Then we discovered the bloodlust." He continued.

He told me about how they discovered their constant need for blood, and how they couldn't control these urges in the beginning. He explained how the first time Niklaus took a life, he became the very thing their father hated... a wolf, exposing their mother's infidelity several years earlier. Enraged by this their father hunted down and killed Niklaus' biological father, and once again forced his wife to use her magic. This time locking Niklaus' werewolf side away.

"The sun and moon curse? It's not what we think it is, is it?" I said without thinking.

Elijah looked at me, pulled from his memories and back to the present. He wore a small smile. "Very astute Jessica. No, it is not. I started that particular rumour five centuries ago, when the last doppelganger, Katherine, escaped my brother. It was the blood of a doppelganger that created the curse that bound Niklaus, and only the blood of a doppelganger can break it."

"You had both species looking for the moonstone and a doppelganger to help Klaus?" I heard the disbelief in my own voice. "Why? Why try and help him break this curse, only to try and kill him now?" I couldn't help asking the question, the curiosity was killing me... figuratively of course.

Elijah looked down at the glass in his hand before answering me. "I told you of my siblings, Finn, Kol and my sister Rebekah?"

I nodded in response.

"Well Niklaus has more of the daggers your friends used on me. Over the centuries, when one of us... displeased our brother in some imaginable slight, he would use those daggers on us, leave us daggered in a coffin until he thought we deserved to be let out." Elijah paused now to look at me. I know he saw horror etched on my face but I couldn't help it. He smiled at me, but it was a grim, sad smile. "Well the last time I angered my brother, he dropped our siblings, still daggered, into the ocean. I will never see them again." As Elijah finished speaking he raised the glass to his lips and lowered his drink.

"And I thought my family situation was fucked up." I blurted out, before clasping my hand over my mouth. Elijah looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "I'm so sorry." I apologised.

Elijah stood, "That's quite alright Jessica, I actually know most of your past. From your father's abuse and attempt to kill you as a child, to his death at the hands of Damon. Also I believe there was an uncle you killed too."