White Blood | Klaus Mikaelson

Chapter Sixteen

1942 — Kraków, Poland

   As the years passed by, Eleanor slowly forgot about Klaus Mikaelson. No, she didn't forget about him, instead she pushed her feelings to the deepest crevices of her mind. That did not help as much as she wished, since she and Elijah exchanged letters frequently. It had earned a trunk filled with letters and photographs that the pair had exchanged, little memorabilia from the places they had each visited. While Elijah stayed over in North America, Eleanor had been all over Europe and had sent him a little box every month from each place she had been with Gianni and Thomas. 

   Her favourite so far was Russia in 1916, where she met Tsar Nicholas II at the Catherine Palace to celebrate the Romanov tricentennial. She became good friends with his wife, Alexandra, and his eldest daughter, Olga. The Dowager Empress, Maria Feodorovna, had taken a liking to the young vampire, and considered her part of the family. She had gifted the young vampire a small jewellery casket made out of silver and encrusted with gemstones. A birthday present, the Dowager Empress had told the young vampire. Eleanor was in Krasnoyarsk to celebrate Gianni's birthday when she heard that the Imperial family was taken, in Sevastopol when she heard that they were executed by the Bolsheviks.

   Gianni, on the other hand, had died at the ripe age of twenty in London. No, not died but turned. He had been living a gentle life filled with nothing but comfort. He lived at the Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk, an hour from London if taken by train. Somerlayton Hall was an estate surrounded by gardens, twelve acres of beautiful flowers. It featured a yew hedge maze created by Thomas' grandfather, and a ridge and furrow greenhouse designed by the architect of the Crystal Palace. There is also a walled garden, an aviary, a loggia, and a ninety metre long pergola covered with roses and wisteria. The more informal areas of the garden feature rhododendrons and azaleas and a fine collection of specimen trees. 

   In that estate, Gianni was given the best life one could possible get. He was raised with the most wonderful toys, the most splendour of things, and studied diligently until he graduated from the University of Cambridge at nineteen. Gianni D'Agourn, or Jaime Cummings as he'd like to be known, had lived a wonderful life until the age of twenty-one. He had gotten in a fight with a friend, Christopher Bernard, whom then shot Gianni; the bullet entered just above his hip and lodged in his right arm. A grief-stricken Eleanor did what any other with her power would do to save someone they love. She fed him her blood and killed him immediately, so he wouldn't suffer through the pain the infected bullet hole gave him. 

   Thomas stayed by her side for the hours while she waited for Gianni to wake up. When he did, he pushed Eleanor away and began to scream. He remembered everything, the compulsion she had done to him when he was eight, when she had killed all of his family in front of him without a care in the world. Eleanor screamed and cried, plead for him to forgive her. It took days, but Gianni eventually forgave her after he went through the same thing, after he killed a family of four while walking through the city. Afterwards, the trio had stayed together as a family once again.

   When the second World War began, the Cumming's family—as they have been known for some while—were living in Poland, exactly an hour away from Auschwitz, a labour camp for those that were non-Aryan. Thomas had decided to join the National Socialist German Workers' Party, becoming a Schutzstaffel, literally Protection Squadron. It wasn't because Thomas Cummings believed the words of the Führer, but because he wanted to save as many lives as he possibly could. He would sneak as many children as he could out of the camps, compelling those who saw him and the children. He would then bring them to the house, where Eleanor and Gianni would take care of them for a few days, until a friend of theirs would come in and take the children somewhere safe. 

   Thomas stood in front of the door, hair soaking wet and mouth slightly wide as he stared at Eleanor. "I was able to get three more," he said. "Where's Gianni?"