These Are Dark Times (The Originals: Season 4 Fanfiction)
It's been five years since the fall of the Mikaelsons according to the prophecy that Lucien Castle brought to New Orleans. The Strix are disbanded, Tristan is dead, as is Lucien. Aurora remains missing. The Mikaelson family is fractured, with the majority of the siblings stored in coffins under the careful guard of Hayley Marshall and Lilliana Moore, and the Original hybrid, Klaus Mikaelson, under the imprisonment of Marcel Gerard, who rules the city of New Orleans once again.
Lilliana and Hayley have spent five years on the run with Hayley and Klaus' daughter Hope, who is now a young child, and quickly picking up on the art of her magic. As Hayley learns to be a mother, Lilliana holds onto the optimism that Elijah will come back to her. She's got a big secret to tell to her fiance, and she wants him to be awake and present for the big reveal.
But when the Mikaelson siblings eventually wake, and when things finally look like they're falling into place, a new, but ancient enemy arrives, even older than Dahlia or Esther or even Mikael. And this enemy is dead set on taking the young Hope's power for her own, for the youngest Mikaelson holds the key to this enemy's undoing.
The Mikaelson family must bind together for the longest, most challenging enemy they've ever faced, and how this war ends will determine the fate of each of the Mikaelson siblings, including Hope, Hayley and Lilliana.
