✓ | 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂, Stefan and Damon

Chapter 21

"Daughter," Mikael states, more of a fact than a greeting to his youngest daughter, the one he used to call his light and his spirit.

"Ah yes, I see that we're going by that now. Now that I am here and you're trying to kill me, I become your daughter. I find that funny, since when you would drag a dagger across my arm as a young child you said that such an abomination could not be your daughter," I muse, covering up the true hurt in the memories of what my father used to do to the child he once claimed to love.

"I am sorry, my light," I snarl at his words. How dare you. How dare you call me your light after everything you did to me. You call me a monster, yet you are the one that dragged a knife across your own daughter's skin. You are the one that hurt me. You hurt the girl that you claimed to love before she learned she was different.

"I do not forgive you, Mikael. You have come to destroy the family that I love. You wish to destroy what I have tried so hard to create. I hope that you know that you will never be the one to kill me, Mikael. You are an amateur hunter at best, shitty opponent at worst," I sneer. Mikael's eyes harden, the smokey grey in those stormy eyes coming out. "You have done what I believe to be abhorrent. You hate your own child."

"I hate what you have become, my daughter, but do not think that I do not love you. You stand with your brother not because you believe in him but because he is family. You are blind! I am sorry that I have to kill you. I am sorry that I couldn't save you from your siphoning. You were the last thing that I loved. You are always on my mind. I wish that you could have been normal and not an abomination. Maybe then things would have been different," Mikael says.

"If you loved me, you wouldn't have hurt me so willingly, you would have fought my whore of a mother-" Mikael growls.

"How dare you speak about your mother like that! She did what she had to do to please the ancestors! Without her, you would have likely died before you even reached the age to marry," Mikael defends.

"I would be fine with that. If she were not here, she would have never cursed Nik. She would have never cursed all of us. I may have been an outcast, an abomination, but I still had some happiness in me. As long as my family was happy, I could find that light and cling on with all of my might. You did not break me. You will never break me, Mikael. I am no longer afraid of you like I was when I was human. No, I feel sorry for you. You're a delusional madman who believed ghosts over his own daughter. Love is not a thing that you have felt for a long time. You are mad," I state, my face forming a frown. I could hear Henrik shuffle about behind a building.

"Who have you brought with you, daughter?" Mikael asks. I smirk.

"You see, Mikael, I have living proof that what I am is not evil, is not dark in any way. My siphoning can be used for good. Whether it is an abomination or not remains a mystery. Personally, I think the ancestors are bitchy and have been given too much power. Since I am free of them, I was able to do something that no other has done," I monologue.

"What have you done this time, Astrid?" Mikael snaps at me. I give him an innocent smile.

"You can come out now," I call out to Henrik. I could hear him coming closer and closer. After a few seconds of waiting, Henrik came into Mikael and I's view. "I see that you couldn't even keep quiet back there, little brother."

"Come on, Striddy, I tried, I failed. You know, I'm kind of glad that I took up this job. Really fun having this kind of a family reunion. Although, we'll have to make sure we're quick, Stefan's helping me with my history homework," Henrik muses, clicking his tongue inside his mouth.

"Henrik," Mikael just states, frozen in place. He drops the weapon that he was holding, trying to come closer. Oh, good lord father, you really are an idiot. Carefully, I grab the white oak stake that Mikael had dropped. Mikael made his way in front of Henrik. "I- My son, you're really here. You're alive."

"Yeah, I seem to be. Anyways, I would like to go home, Mikael, so could you refrain from killing my older siblings tonight?" Henrik asks with his puppy eyes.

"You- You're with HER?" Mikael begins to raise his voice, "YOU, A SERVANT OF NATURE, A WITCH? HOW DARE YOU STAND AGAINST YOUR OWN FATHER! HOW DARE YOU STAND WITH A SISTER THAT YOU BARELY KNEW. SHE NEVER WANTED TO BE NEAR YOU, HENRIK! SHE WILL NEVER LOVE YOU!"

There it was, the real Mikael. The abusive, power hungry Mikael. The prideful monster of our youth. The man who made so many cuts on my arms over the years you would mistake me for a tiger handler.

"No, how dare you, the father of us all, biologically or not, try to kill your own offspring? You, Mikael, are the abomination, not Astrid. Nik isn't an abomination! If he was not supposed to exist, he would not. Crazy things happen with nature!" Henrik makes sure to keep his voice calm and composed. Mikael is clearly fuming.

"I MOURNED FOR YOU, HENRIK! DO YOU NOT REMEMBER WHO IT WAS THAT CAUSED YOUR DEMISE? NIKLAUS FOOLISHLY BROUGHT YOU TO WATCH THE WOLVES TURN 1000 YEARS AGO! HE ALLOWED YOU TO BE THERE! HE ALLOWED YOU TO BE MAULED TO DEATH BY THOSE MONSTERS! ALL THE WHILE HE WAS ONE OF THEM, ONE OF THE MONSTERS THAT KILLED YOU!" Mikael's words hit Henrik like a truck, finally causing the young man to crack and lose his composure.

"IT WAS NOBODY'S FAULT BUT MY OWN, MIKAEL. I WANTED TO GO AND SEE THE WOLVES! NIK TOLD ME NO FOR MONTHS! HE FINALLY CRACKED AND WE WERE CAUGHT! GUESS WHAT, THE ONLY PERSON THAT IS TO BLAME HERE IS ME! IF YOU WANT TO FIND SOMEONE ELSE TO BLAME, LOOK AT YOUR WHORE OF A WIFE WHO CHEATED ON YOU WITH A WEREWOLF AFTER FREYA DIED. GUESS WHAT, SHE LIED ABOUT FREYA AS WELL! FREYA IS ALIVE! FREYA NEVER DIED AT ALL! SHE LIED TO ALL OF US! FINN WAS YOUNG, BUT HE MAY REMEMBER! HE WAS TOO DAMN TRAUMATIZED BY THE FACT THAT HIS OLDER SISTER GOT TAKEN AWAY BY HIS AUNT TO BE ABLE TO VERBALIZE IT!?" Mikael and I both stare at the boy in shock.

No. No. No. Even Esther wouldn't lie about something of that magnitude. Freya had to have died. She died of the plague. That's the whole reason why they moved to the Americas, to get away from the plague. Wait, what if the plague was not a plague, but a person?

Mikael charges at Henrik, running and snapping his neck. I scream as Henrik's body drops to the floor. Mikael looks down and realizes what he has done. "Astrid, I didn't mean to-"

I cut him off, the white oak stake in my hand, "No, you did mean to. Guess it's good that he had my blood in my system. You're a cruel, vindictive monster." Mikael looks at me, still in shock over the body on the ground. He killed his youngest. He killed his youngest son because he stood with me. Henrik lost his magic because he stood with me. I sped over and whispered, "I hope you have fun on the other side. No resurrections for you, Mikael," before sticking the white oak stake through his heart. "I hate you," I say to his dying body.

For years I had never known what true hatred felt like. Nik and Elijah have hated many people throughout the millennia, but I was always the one to not hold hatred. As Mikael had snapped my baby brother's neck, a snap had occurred somewhere inside of my body, releasing all of the pent up hatred. While I wanted to get rid of it, I knew who it was directed towards.

I let all of my pain release and die with Mikael.