I, the Original

Interlude: Elijah

Elijah POV:

After my brother Niklaus was freed from the Hunter's curse, my siblings and I continued our lives as normal.

Or as normal as our immortal family can manage.

Finn remained daggered as per the agreement between the rest of us. His suicidal tendencies were growing more and more concerning and Klaus feared Finn would draw our father on purpose to us, disregarding the danger to us all. Or perhaps even wishing it as he was want to say that we our mere existence was a sin against Nature. Even Cyrus, who was want to argue with the rest of us about our conduct agreed that Finn was better off daggered. "Let us put him to sleep." He had said. "Should life offend him so."

And thus Finn would remain locked in a box for the foreseeable future.

Our sister Rebekah was was wracked with guilt and grief in equal measure upon learning of Alexander's betrayal. The guilt would eat at her throughout the entirety of Klaus's suffering.

Kol would continue with his antics, amusing himself with the suffering of his victims, becoming more heartless by the year and paying little mind to our brother's torment.

My brother Cyrus on the other hand did not look particularly grieved. If anything, I would sometimes catch him being positively gleeful. He still faulted us for our flight from Venice, I knew. He thought us cowards and he was right. We had fled to save our skins from Mikael's wrath. Perhaps in the end the mightiest beings on this Earth were indeed cowards.

We had locked Niklaus inside a dungeon. I personally looked after him and ensured he would not escape. This affliction caused hallucinations and even desire for suicide. So Cyrus had said in the beginning and soon after we learned for it to be true. According to him, he had managed to get the information out of Alexander's journal and yet our sister does not remember the man ever keeping one. As strange as it was, Cyrus was proven right when the hallucinations became prevalent enough for even Niklaus to fear them. He claimed to see visions of our parents haunting him day and night. I myself was assaulted due to Niklaus thinking me our father.

And yet live went on. When Niklaus' suffering ended suddenly one day, we all felt a breath of fresh air. By some divine intervention perhaps, our father had failed to find us again. Cyrus had once joked that he should get himself lost in the Sahara Desert and bother us no more. I doubted we would be so lucky.

Over the following years our lives did not cease being interesting. Our father would occasionally get close to us and force us to flee but we would often find safe haven throughout Europe with ease. Infiltrating nobility was remarkably easy considering the lack of communication between people and the lack of clarity upon people's true appearance. It made it easy to replace our victims or even forge identities of our own. Mind compulsion was truly a gift in that regard.

I stuck to my siblings' side, forever trying to keep them in line and off each other's throats.

Rebekah was forever looking for true love. A most noble quest, in which unfortunately our sister found herself mostly unsuccessful. Most men looked for wealth and power in a marriage not the kind soul of our sister. And those who did often found themselves undeserving of our sister's attention. Be it her judgement or that of Niklaus. Our brother far too often saw any man pursuing our sister as unworthy and unfortunately he was right way too often for myself to easily disagree with him.

Kol was forever the troublemaker and would often do something horrific just to amuse himself or undermine whatever scheme Klaus and Cyrus would hatch.