SIDE CHARACTER [ 1 ]| THE ORIGINALS & LEGACIES

S E V E N T E E N

When Hope finally came into my room, she looked traumatized. I stood up from my bed, putting Lorelle's journal that I kept hidden in my room on the bed. She walked over to me quickly, engulfing me in a huge hug. She started to sob, and I held her, trying to calm her down and find out what happened. Roman appeared at my door, pressing himself against the door frame with a sad look on his face, like he knew what was wrong. I was sure he did, which made me worry even more.

"What happened?"

"I triggered my curse," she said in a small voice, sounding scared and broken all the same. 

I let go of her to look at her face, and the fear was evident.

"My mom said there's nothing more freeing than running while you turn but... all of the bones in my body is going to break," she said in between hiccuping.

I tried to search my brain for something, anything, to say that would fix how she was feeling.

"What're you reading?" she asked, her eyes falling on the journal.

"It's nothing," I said, sitting down on it, trying to cover it.

"C'mon, Lilah," she said, sitting down next to me. "What is it?"

I looked at Roman, who gave me a 'you have to tell her' look before he nodded and left. I bit my lip, and I relived the past thousand years for the second time today, spilling to the girl who I watched grow from a child to a young adult.

--

"...So... we're actually cousins," she said, nodding as she wrapped her mind around what I just told her.

"You aren't shocked?" I asked.

"Oh, I am," she said, before adding, "But we're Mikaelsons, I don't think anything can phase me anymore."

I smiled at what she said. We're Mikaelsons. I guess she was right, I was a Mikaelson.

A look of realization flashed across her face, and she grabbed my arm. She started to pull me through the house towards her room.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"It makes sense now," is all she said.

She started to rummage through her drawer before she pulled out one of Esther's grimoires. She laid it flat on the floor, skimming the pages before she came to a specific page with a piece of paper, yellowed with age, in the middle. 

She took it out, and said, "I always wondered what this meant, but I chose to ignore it all these years. Freya and I found it a while ago."

She handed it to me, and I looked at the penmanship. I was from a handwriting I didn't recognize, so I looked at the bottom first to see the cursive was signed by Esther. I looked at Hope oddly before reading the note.

"I sure do hope Elijah will forgive me. The child will to be named what he and Lorelle once talked about, though he may never meet her, and her mortal life will be spent thanks to this deal I had made years ago. She will have Freya, so all will be fine. Lilah Mikaelson, gifted with the name her parents had drafted before she had even existed. Lilah Mikaelson, with an L name to have a piece of Lorelle, and the rest of her name sounding like a piece of Elijah, will have parts of them where she goes. May Freya take care of the child and watch over the little witch as she grows.

- Esther."

"Why didn't any of you guys show me this a long time ago?" I asked her.

"We thought the name had to be a coincidence, we found it when I was younger, before we even met you," Hope explained. "That maybe the baby Esther talked about had died since Freya never met a Lilah, or so she thought."

I remembered the look on Freya's face when we had first met in New Orleans. Despite knowing each other in the past, she knew what I looked like as a child, and had no clue what my name was. Though, upon hearing the name Lilah, her mouth opened in shock and she looked at me like she was examining me.

It made sense to me, now, why. Elijah had a similar reaction, which now Esther helped me piece together. Lilah was the name my parents wanted for their daughter, so when he heard that it was my name, old memories must of resurfaced.

"You need to tell them," Hope told me. "They deserve to know you're a Mikaelson."

"I know," I nodded. "Just give me time to figure out how."