Mrs Mikaelson One Shots

Once Upon A Time

(A/N: A lot of you have said that you love Nik and Isa's human chapters so I hope you enjoy another. I hope you enjoy the very beginning of their story. XxD)

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Once upon a time, is the way all fairytales start. Usually, it is about a timid princess that yearns for a life that is more than what she knows, overcoming evil foes and saving the kingdom or the princess, or about breaking a curse with the kiss of a stranger and calling it True Love's Kiss. This story, however, was no fairytale, and its beginning was definitely not magical.

This story begins a thousand years ago in the 10th century. This story begins with hatred between a father and a son. This story begins with blood.

One should think that a father would be the one to support you. To teach you the ways of life, to console you when you're hurt, to love and protect you. Once again, though, this story is no fairytale.

The father in this story was a hardened, battle-tested Viking warrior. And ensuring his many sons were prepared for the Viking way of life, to protect the families they would one day have, involved absolving them of all weakness. And yes, fathers preach strength in all things, but this father believed that the only way to make his sons strong was to beat the weakness out of them.

And for his second youngest son, for the young Niklaus, no matter what he did, it was never strong enough for his father.

His arrow could never fly straight enough, he could never chop through wood fast enough, never light a fire well enough, and he could never fight with a sword well enough.

Niklaus tried. He endured every beating, every test, every trial, every quest that his father put in front of him, wanting nothing more than to please the man, but alas, nothing was ever good enough. And it ate away at him. What was so wrong with him that nothing was good enough? What more could he do to win his father's praise and approval? To win his love?

In all his years on earth, it was his swordplay that his father, Mikael, hated the most. Despite the fact that Niklaus could best his older brothers, Mikael still saw him as the weakest, as the one who never took anything seriously. Even more so when he came across Niklaus and his older brother landing blows upon one another, all over the claim on a woman in their village.

So he sought to rectify that.

And that involved taking Niklaus deep into the forest that surrounded the village, away from where people would hear his screams, and improving his swordplay.

Niklaus would never remember anything but his father's blinding rage and his foul words. He would never remember anything other than his own terrifying fear coupled with the fact that he knew that there was no one to save him from Mikael.

And like every other story, there was a climax, the height of the action, the biggest problem the characters would encounter.

And in this story, that particular event involved Mikael's sword going through Niklaus' shoulder as it pinned him to a tree.

And the young man howled in pain, in agony, in misery.

His father had simply stared at him in disgust as he wiped the sweat from his brow, not even bothering to withdraw his sword.

"Let us see how weak you truly are if you cannot free yourself. For if you cannot even do that, you will never be able to care for that wench you squabble over. Perhaps this will teach you a lesson of the true wars you will have to face if you are ever strong enough to fight them," his father snarled before he began stalking back towards their village, ignoring the wails of the son he left behind.