ꜱᴀᴠɪᴏʀ//ᴛᴠᴅᴜ

I.VIII

Location: Unknown

Date: Unknown

Ryden's head fucking hurt.

She opened her eyes, hoping that everything that she went through was a nightmare. A horrible, realistically feeling, nightmare.

It wasn't.

Her eyes immediately locked onto the familiar figure from before, and the darkness surrounding them both. Ryden almost broke down in tears. She took a deep breath, trying not to let the tears out.

The figure twitched and Ryden broke down sobbing. Her sobs, however, did not deter her from speaking her mind. "I thought it was all a dream! Why didn't you give me a warning? Why did you take my memories? You're a fuc-"

Death cut her off before she could finish her very Ryden-like temper tantrum. "You haven't the slightest idea why I did what I did, therefore you have no ground to speak to me like that."

Ryden's head dropped and her eyes found the ground(?) very interesting, black was an interesting color. Death watched her for a moment, taking note of how she reacted to his scolding, before speaking again.

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I will explain myself. When you were reborn into this world, you were a small, delicate creature. Just like you were in your last one. That means, small bodies can only handle so many things at once. Especially a small mind.

"If I were to have sent you into this world with your memories intact, your small mind would have done one of two things. It would have plagued you with nightmares that would have kept you awake all of the time, something not even magic could have prevented, and it would have caused your father a great deal of pain seeing you fade away. The nightmares would have caused you to go insane, Ryden. You would have simply been a shell of a person by the age of three."

Ryden listened with wide eyes, mortified by what she was hearing. She was about to speak when death continued.

"The second thing that could have happened, was that you would have had an aneurysm within the first hours of your birth. You would have died either way, Ryden. Even if one was only mentally. Keeping your memories, not only saved your life, it allowed you to have a childhood. Something that you never got to have before."

When Death finished speaking, their tone was somewhat soft. Well as soft as their voice could sound being so raspy. Ryden simply stared at them, tears running down her face. Before she realized what she was doing, she had thrown herself into Death's arms, hugging them with all of her strength.

Death hugged her back.

They were very fond of the young soul. They knew that she was destined for great things, and they wanted to make sure she had the best chance to achieve any goal she set. Death simply held her for a while, relishing the contact. When they knew their time with Ryden was coming to an end, they pulled away, keeping Ryden in their arms.

Death and Ryden stared at each other, before Death leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Athens, Greece

June 22, 2005

Ryden woke up with a gasp.

Her father snapped his head up, letting her see the tears rolling down his face. His eyes were bloodshot, and she noticed that he was really pale.

Then she remembered her mother.

How she died.

Ryden felt like shit.

"I'm so sorry daddy. I never meant for this to happen. I just wanted your birthday to be perfect." Tears fell from both Ryden and her father's eyes as she spoke. Her father didn't say anything though.

He grabbed her and hugged her.

"Thank the gods you're okay." Nik's voice was raspy and hushed. Ryden could tell he had been yelling and crying. Ryden felt her throat tighten even more after hearing her father speak. She heard a sniffle causing her heart to break and a sob to finally escape her throat. Ryden's sobs caused her to slur all of her words, making them unintelligible. Her father simply held her tighter against his chest, not wanting her to somehow disappear.

After a while, Ryden's sobs started to stop. She took a few deep breaths before pulling away from her father. She stared at her father, taking in every detail of his face, building up courage before finally speaking.

"I know you're mad at me, daddy. You have every right to be, but I have to tell you about what I saw when I was unconscious."

Nik looked at his daughter with a sad frown on his face. He wasn't mad at his daughter. He was worried, upset, angry, and scared, but the anger he had was most certainly not because of Ryden.

The anger was for the scum of the earth humans that attacked her in an alley. He wanted nothing more than to go back in time and make their lives a living hell.

Before he could say anything, however, Ryden began speaking again.

"I want to tell you what happened, but I'm so scared that you're going to hate me. I'm scared that I'm going to end up alone like I was before and I am scared because I can't tell you right now because you're going to want to ask questions and I'm not going to be able to answer them because it is a full moon and I triggered my curse. I killed two people, daddy.

"I don't know what to do. I don't want to transform. I'll lose control and I could hurt you, or père, or uncles, or I could kill père. Or other humans. Not to mention the pain that comes with it. What if my body can't handle it? What if-"

Ryden began hyperventilating, sending her father into a panic along with her.

Their family was most definitely dysfunctional.

Lucien came into the room to see his, now awake, daughter and his fiancé hyperventilating together. Before he could say anything, he took notice of an unknown figure in the corner of the room looking at the two panicked figures with a mixture of concern and longing. Seeing the figure sent him into protective dad mode, causing him to speed at the figure.

Only to speed into the bookcase behind the man, knocking books on top of himself when he fell.

The commotion gained the attention of the entire house. Kol and Finn speeding into the room, Ryden and Nik finally noticing the unknown man, Ryden gaining a shocked look, the hyperventilating ceasing.

Ryden knew this man.

Her grandfather.