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In Einmánuður[1] of 979 AD, a baby boy with light hair is born. He’s born the son of a Viking—even if his true parentage says otherwise—as the third son in the family, fourth child overall if you include the poor little girl that passed in the Old World.
He’s born into a big family, raised in fear and anger, but with much love to pass around.
In Haustmánuður[2] of 979 AD, a baby girl with bright blue eyes is born. She’s born the daughter of a powerful merchant, and is their first, and overall only, child. Her parents dote on her, but they’re busy people and don’t have much time for her.
She’s very loved, but ultimately lonely.
There is a lot that ails the little boy and the little girl, but none of it matters the moment they lay eyes upon each other.
It almost feels like fate.
Niklaus’s mother is the læknir[3] of the village.
Everyone runs to her because she has a special touch, a way with remedies and ritualistic practices that nobody else in the village has. Of course, nobody else in the village has it because his mother’s ‘special touch’ is magic, the power of nature thrumming in her veins and running like water from her fingers.
The people in the village seek her out in times of need, so it’s not uncommon for people to go into his hut and ask his mother for some kind of medical help.
He has no reason to think this visit on this day will be any different. But he is wrong.
A merchant from the village shows up at their home with his wife and daughter to ask for help with his recently injured knee.
Niklaus is beyond bored, with both Finn and Elijah out with his father doing things he’s still ‘too young’ for in the eyes of his father, and both Kol and Rebekah sleeping away in their cots, though they’re both too little to be any fun anyway.
So he starts watching the merchant’s daughter.
She looks to be around his age, with long blonde hair and eyes that remind him of the bluest of skies. She’s playing with two wooden horses, moving them around and talking to herself as she plays. He follows her movements, fascinated by how animated she is.
She looks up and catches him looking at her, a frown forming between her brows.
He looks away quickly, staring straight ahead into the fire roaring in the hearth; he blames the heat in his cheeks on the heat of the fire.
He feels as she sits next to him, but he doesn’t turn around to look, his gaze staying fixed straight ahead onto the blazing orange flames.
“Hello, are you the læknir’s son?” she asks.
He turns around then, and she’s looking at him curiously, with a wooden horse clutched in each fist. He nods but doesn’t say anything, just watches the way the flames light her up, making her hair look as bright as the sun itself.
“I knew so,” she nods back, quirking an eyebrow. “We’re here because my faðir[4] fell and injured his leg, and I know your móðir[5] can help him be well again!”
He just nods again.
She is not discouraged by this in the slightest; if anything, she takes his brief acknowledgements as a sign to keep talking. “I thought I’d be bored and lonely here, but I see you’re here and we can play!”
She holds out one of her wooden horses with a smile. “Do you like horses?”
Niklaus hesitates for a second, but he grabs the wooden horse and says, “Yes, I like horses.”
Her smile is so wide it could split her face in half, and from that moment on, there was no going back for him.
He barely remembers a world without Caroline in it.
Every memory he has after that fateful moment sitting in front of the hearth of his hut inevitably has Caroline in it.
Even the memories that are nothing more than hazy blurs that feel like a dreamscape have her starring in them. If anything, he remembers them because of her. Everything else is a blur, she’s the clearest thing in his mind’s eye and the central focus; how could she not be, when she’s always shining like the sun, brighter than anyone else?
She’s burned into his memory. He sees her, as a tiny little girl with baby-teeth smiles and stuttering over his name, affectionately calling him Nik instead. He sees her, with wild, untamed blonde hair fanning out behind her and lanky limbs. He sees her, rolling her blue eyes at him as she fights the smile on her lips.
She’s there, in every moment of his life.
It’s as if he came into the world with the sole purpose of finding her, like he didn’t exist before her.
The first person to ever call him Nik is Caroline.
She struggles with his name; her mouth can’t form the syllables, and they get stuck in the back of her throat. She gets frustrated every time she stutters over it.
Until one day, when she stops trying, and greets him with a cheery “Nik!” and a brilliant smile that takes over her chubby baby cheeks.
He doesn’t say anything about it, just smiles so wide it almost splits his face in half, and lets her take his hand and drag him away.
Letting her call him whatever she wants, letting her drag him around, letting her make the rules for all their play pretends and dictate their games—even as a young boy, he knows he’d do just about anything for her, even if as children it means nothing more than letting her choose all their games.
Besides, it makes him feel special that she’s given him a nickname, special for the two of them.
It makes him feel special that she thinks he’s important enough to deserve a nickname.
Niklaus has always felt like he couldn’t do anything right with his family; they’re always so angry at him, and he doesn’t know why.
But with Caroline, he feels special, and the rest of the world fades away with her.
Niklaus has known from a very early age that he’s not good at many things—or at least that is what his father tells him, that he can rarely do things right, and he messes everything up.
He has always felt like there must be something wrong with him, something that deems him incapable of normality
Despite that, there is one thing that never fails him: his art
At his worst, it was the only cure to the roaring thoughts inside his head. Putting his knife to wood and transforming it into something that wasn’t there before; it’s the only thing he can get truly lost in—forgetting himself and the rest of the world, his father’s cruel words and his mother’s cold eyes—and the only thing he finds true purpose in.
Yet, he’s never shown anyone his carvings. He’s not sure if anyone even knows he carves; it’s something he keeps to himself and does only when he’s completely alone. It’s not that he’s ashamed of it, if anything, it’s the opposite.
He’s proud of his carvings, of his power to completely transform one thing into another entirely—it feels akin to his mother’s magic—but he could not bear it if he were to show his carvings to someone and have them not like them; it would crush him entirely.
It feels like baring the deepest parts of his soul, and he can’t do it.
Or at least he thought he couldn’t, but here he is now, waiting anxiously for Caroline as he clutches his newest carving in his hands.
The carving is of a brave knight riding a horse and holding a sword and shield. He spent hours on end for days carving his knife into the wood until he was satisfied with it. It was one of his favorites he’d made and one of his best, though admittedly, this was by design. He’d been trying his hardest to make this the best carving he’s ever made, not just because this is the first one he’ll ever show anyone, but because he’s planning to give it away as a gift.
Despite the fact that he’s waiting for Caroline in a clearing with his heart stuck in his throat, he’s not giving it to her. He asked her to come because he knows if he must bare his heart to anyone, it will always be to her. He knows she’ll be honest, because she can never help herself, but he also knows his heart is safe in her hands.
In reality, he’s giving this wooden carving to his father.
He knows—well, at least thinks—that he’s good at it, so if he gives his father a carving, maybe he’ll finally see that he’s good at something. Maybe, his father will stop regarding him with contempt and love him.
He sees Caroline from a distance, with her blonde hair shining like a halo under the afternoon’s brilliant sun. He can’t help the smile that forms at the sight of her.
She looks up and when she sees him, she starts running with a smile taking over her chubby cheeks. “Hi Nik,” she greets cheerily, as she always does. “What was it that you wanted to show me?”
His smile falters, and he swallows the lump in his throat. “I made something for my faðir, and I need your opinion to know if it’s good, and tell me the truth, I can take it.”
He can take his father’s cruel truths, of course, he can take Caroline’s honesty. (At least he hopes he can, hopes he’s stronger than his father thinks he is.)
Her eyes widen, and she nods, looking determined. “Of course, I can do it. I’m ready.”
He would laugh at how seriously she’s taking her task (how serious she takes everything she does, how she never does things halfway) if he weren’t so nervous. He appreciates her seriousness now.
He hands her the wooden carving, hesitating for the briefest second to let go of it.
She takes it, eyes widening impossibly so to the point they look like they’re going to bulge out of her head. Her fingers caress the wood, holding it in her hands like it’s a treasure. “Nik, you made this?” she asks in disbelief.
He averts his gaze. “Yes, for my faðir, I’ve made some before but in secret.”
“It’s so beautiful,” she says, voice full of wonder. “I love it! Your faðir would be crazy not to!”
He looks up at her, feeling hope beating wildly in his chest. “You really think so?”
She nods furiously. “I know so, and I’m always right.”
He doesn’t think that is true—he’s known Caroline long enough—but he also knows it’s no use arguing with her. Besides, he trusts her judgment; if Caroline says something is good, then it must be.
He smiles at her, all baby teeth and full cheeks. “Thank you, Caroline.”
She kisses his cheek and hands him the carving. “Of course, Nik.”
He feels his cheeks growing hot, turning pink, but he can’t even force himself to care.
He never ends up giving the carving to his father; instead, it goes to Rebekah.
It’s a stormy night, and she’s fearful, quilt pulled all the way to her face and shaking like a leaf. She asks him to stay with her, to protect her from the havoc Thor was causing down on the ground.
So he stays with her, because she’s his little sister whom he vowed to protect the minute he laid eyes on her. And he also gives her the wooden carving, because he wants to give her something to hold onto, something that could take her mind from the storm, and play with.
As much as he’d wanted to give it to his father, to show him that he is actually good at something, he felt like Rebekah deserved it; she can get to play with it too, so really, it makes more sense that she’d have it, since she’d get more use from it. Besides, maybe if his father sees that he gave it to Rebekah, he’ll like it and think he’s not only good at carving but also good at being a brother.
Still, he never would’ve given it to Rebekah at all if it weren’t for Caroline’s encouragement, so he wants to thank her for it.
He makes her a wooden carving of a hummingbird. Birds have always reminded him of her, free and elegant as they move through the skies, but hummingbirds especially; little things with more strength than one would think and also, funnily enough, big mouths (and Caroline, famously, talks a lot ). She said she’d liked his other carving, so maybe she’d like one for herself too.
He presents her with the bird, heart rattling against his ribcage, and cheeks pink. “I made this for you, as a thank you.”
She takes it in the palm of her hand, and her eyes are wide and full of disbelief as she takes it in. “Nik, this is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.”
He smiles at her bashfully. “I’m glad you liked it.”
“I love it!” she exclaims, clutching it to her chest. “This is my most prized possession.” She launches herself at him, arms wrapping tightly around him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
He hugs her back, though not nearly as bone-crushingly tight as her, and smiles against her head. “Anything for you.”
In Skerpla[6] of 988 AD, Niklaus’s mother gives birth to a dark-haired, chubby baby boy named Henrik.
His mother places baby Henrik in his arms, and since he’d been too young to remember Kol or Rebekah as babies, he’s amazed by how tiny he is, feels an immediate surge of protectiveness over the little baby. As long as he lives, he will protect Henrik.
“I’ve seen a lot of ugly babies,” Caroline whispers from behind him, peeking over his shoulder to look at the bundle in his arms. “But Henrik certainly is not one of them, he might be the cutest baby I’ve seen!”
He turns his head and quirks an eyebrow. “How have you seen many babies if you don’t have siblings?”
“The babies in the village, Nik,” she emphasizes his name with exasperation and an eye roll. “And Henrik is the cutest, I wish I had a baby brother as cute as him.”
He gives her a little grin, with dimples and all. “Well, if we got married, my family could be your family, and Henrik would be your little brother.”
“We are too young, Nik,” she reminds him with an eye roll. “Besides, I could never, I don’t want all your bothersome siblings.”
Before he can come up with a reply, Rebekah runs up to Caroline with a soft smile on her face. “Care, can you braid my hair?”
Her face softens. “Of course!” and she immediately sits behind her and gets to work on her long, golden hair.
She looks up to find Nik staring at her in amusement.
She sighs. “What?”
“I thought you said you didn’t like all my ‘bothersome’ siblings,” he remarks, pointedly staring at her hands in Rebekah’s hair.
She rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s not all of them, just not Kol,” she claims, not bothering to look up from the complicated braid she’s weaving. “And not Finn either, he’s too serious and that scares me.”
This time, he rolls her eyes at her. “Well, it’s better this way, you’re always convinced you’re right.”
She immediately looks up at him, a frown on her face. “No, I am not .”
He gives her a look. “Yes, you are.”
Her frown deepens. “No, I am not.”
He just shakes his head and looks back down at the baby in his arms. Maybe the reason Caroline always thinks she’s right is because he lets her, but he likes her just the way she is.
He won’t tell her this, because she’d probably roll her eyes at him and laugh in his face, but if he were to ever marry someone, he hopes it’s Caroline. He hopes that in the future, when it’s his turn to hold a baby in his arms that’s his, that it’s Caroline’s too.
But Caroline’s right, they’re too young and there are many years for that to come.
Caroline sits on a tree branch, lanky limbs dangling and long hair fanning out with the wind. Niklaus wishes he could capture this moment forever, mesmerized by everything about her (but that’s not new; that’s been the case ever since they met in his home years ago).
They’re thirteen now, and he thinks she’s only gotten more beautiful every day, but he won’t tell her that. He doesn’t want her to ever reject him; she’s the only person in his life who never has, and he cannot bear to see that happen.
But he can’t help but stare at her—she’s the sun, brilliant and vibrant and so full of warmth, and he can’t help but look directly at her even if it burns him.
Caroline catches him staring and quirks an eyebrow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
She’s caught him staring at him so many times throughout the years that he doesn’t even feel embarrassed anymore. “Because it annoys you,” he lies, flashing her a dimpled grin.
She rolls her eyes. “Quit it or I’ll push you off this tree.”
His grin widens. “I thought your moðir taught you better than to resort to violence.”
“We’ve known each other our entire lives, you know that’s not true,” she says, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, obviously. “Besides, you wouldn’t like me if I was any different.”
He can’t pretend that isn’t completely true.
He’s not blind, he knows Caroline is not perfect—she’s bossy, too talkative, too honest to the point that it borders on mean—but the thought of her being any different than who she is leaves an ache in his chest. He loves her, all of her, down to every tiny bit.
Instead, he remarks, “No, I think I would. Maybe I do need a new best friend.”
She rolls her eyes at him in reply.
There’s three things in his life that have stayed constant for most of his life: Caroline’s presence, which he treasures, he can’t imagine where he’d find joy in his life without her; his large brood of bothersome siblings, which he does love, and finds solace with in their home; and, the fact that his father doesn’t like him, maybe even hates him.
His father has never been particularly kind to any of them, always meeting them all with contempt and quick to anger at the smallest things, but he’s known since he was a child that he’s his father’s least favorite child.
He doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what he could’ve possibly done as nothing more than a tiny baby to make his father hate him for the entirety of his life. He wonders what it is that his father sees in him that he detests so much.
And while he may not understand why his father hates him, he certainly feels it.
He feels it in the cruel insults he spews at him, telling him how he’s useless and soft and won’t amount to anything. He feels it in the way he looks at him, with anger or with coldness, but never with anything else. He feels it with a shove against the wall or a fist to his skin.
His father is not shy with physical punishments with them, but compared to his siblings, he bears the brunt of his anger more. If he’s not shy to punish his siblings, then he’s more than eager to punish him.
He’s spent his whole life littered with injuries by the hands of his father, unable to do anything about it, and with nobody willing to protect him from his father’s fits of anger.
Though there is one person who never made their hatred for him a secret: Caroline.
She has never been outwardly hateful to his father—after all, one has to always be respectful to elders and she also did not want to test him and have him stop them from seeing each other—but she has always been very vocal to him, and anyone who will listen which includes his siblings, about how much she detests the man.
“He’s not kind,” she’s always said, even when she was a little girl who barely knew what the word meant; even with the most minuscule grasp of the word, she knew Mikael didn’t fit it.
Of course, he knows that—he more than knows it, he lives it—but there’s not anything he can do about it, and worst of all, a part of him still aches for his approval.
He wishes that he could hate him fully, that he could write him off as the worst man in the entire world and want nothing to do with him, but a part of him will always want him to care for him. He tries to do things right—the way he wants—and tries to impress him, but it never works and a part of him breaks every time.
A part of him will always be that little boy who spent hours on a wooden carving that would impress his father and maybe, just maybe, make him see him differently; make him see him as something other than a failure, someone worthy of his love.
But even though a part of him will never fully hate him and always seek his approval, it didn’t erase the fact that his father took out his anger on him, and it didn’t soften the blows in the slightest.
Which is how he finds himself now, with a cut on his face. What he did is inconsequential enough that he can barely remember it now, yet there he is paying for it with a throbbing cheek.
Caroline’s sitting next to him, face pulled in a frown as she presses crushed yarrow leaves to the cut to stop its bleeding.
She’s nowhere near being a healer, nor does she enjoy it, but it’s a simple enough remedy that she’s seen his own mother apply on the people in the village more than once. And while she’s nowhere near being a healer, she’s something of an expert when dealing with injuries such as this because of him.
Ever since they were young, Caroline has always been there after he’s suffered at the hands of his father. It didn’t always start this way—he used to be too ashamed to, but one day she spotted a bruise on him and since he’s never been able to keep things from her, it wasn’t long before he told her the truth. And the rest is history.
She didn’t always know what to do—still, at times, depending on the gravity or the type of injury, doesn’t know—because she was a child and no child should have to be responsible for things like this, but she’s always found a way to be there.
Whether it’s pressing leaves to the injuries in his body or holding his hand and holding him in her arms, Caroline has always been there.
She looks up at him now, brushing his hair away from his forehead. “I’m so sorry, Nik, your faðir is horrible.”
Right now, he can’t help but agree with the sentiment, but he just shrugs. “It is nothing that he has not done to me before.”
“Still, you shouldn’t have to deal with it,” she insists, her frown deepening.
She stops pressing the remedy to his face and wraps her arms around him instead, firm and warm and steady. He hugs her back, letting his face fall into the crook of her neck. His mother may be a healer, but the only hands to ever soothe him are Caroline’s.
“I’m sorry, Nik, but you will always have me.”
And he knows without a doubt that it is true.
Time goes on as it does, and they grow up along with it.
They continue as they always have.
Niklaus carves trinkets for her—a flower, a cow, a wolf, a butterfly, among some things—and Caroline keeps them all, regarding them as her most prized possessions and treasuring them. He has also started to draw as well, sitting on the meadow and sketching the world around him. He sketches his siblings and Caroline often, though he’s hesitant to show her the ones of her, he’s sure the sketches of her reveal just how much he feels for her, he can’t keep his feelings from spilling over on the page and he doesn’t want her to know.
She’s there for him, waiting with yarrows crushed in her palms and a gentle smile after yet another instance of violence from his father.
They don’t really climb trees anymore; they’ve outgrown it.
But they always find themselves in the meadow, lying on top of green grass, basking underneath the golden glow of the sun.
Sometimes, she lays her head on his lap and looks up into the sky, watching the birds fly by and wondering what the rest of the world could look like. Other times, he lays his head on her lap and closes his eyes and feels the rest of the world melt away with her.
Sometimes, his siblings join them. If it’s Henrik, they tell him stories or chase him through the meadow. If it’s Rebekah, she and Caroline braid each other’s hair and talk circles around Niklaus. If it’s Kol, either he and Caroline get up to no good or she gets exasperated and leaves them in the meadow. If it’s Elijah, they usually sit in the sun and eat together.
Other times it’s like this:
With Caroline’s golden tresses in his hands as he braids them into the exact type of complicated braid she wants.
She’s looking up at the sky above and letting him concentrate, mostly anyway, on the task at hand (only because it’s her hair and she wants it to come out well).
He’s eighteen and she’s seventeen now, well into adulthood and nowhere near those tiny little kids that played with wooden horses in front of his hearth—sometimes when he looks at the hearth in his hut, he can almost see the shadows of the younger versions of them in front of it; forever frozen in time there.
They’re not the same kids they were there, but it doesn’t matter because they’ve still got each other.
“There is no need for anyone to have a braid this difficult on their head,” he mutters under his breath, but he’s sitting so closely behind Caroline that she hears it anyway.
She looks at him from over her shoulder and rolls her eyes. “You’re the one who agreed. I asked you if you wanted to do a simpler one, and you said this one was fine.”
He gives her a look. “Yes, because you implied I couldn’t do it.”
She shrugs. “That you fell for the bait is no fault of mine, in fact, it makes you—”
“No need for that,” he cuts her off, and drops her hair. “I’m done with it anyhow.”
She grabs her braid and examines it, like it’s something of the utmost importance and not just hair. She nods slowly in approval. “Well, it is well done. I like it.”
He rolls his eyes at her, a habit they both know is entirely from her influence. A reply is at the tip of his tongue, something about her being difficult as she tends to be, when his eyes land on a purple flower next to her.
All he can think about at the sight of it is how it’d look on her, tucked by her hair and matching her eyes. He sees the flower and decides it belongs among someone of equal beauty.
He plucks it from the ground and leans forward, brushing her hair away so he can tuck the flower behind her ear. She looks up, eyes locking with his as blue and intense as they’ve ever been.
He sets the flower and smooths out her hair, hands gentle and so full of care, he thinks she must be able to feel exactly how deeply he feels for her just through his touch.
Her eyes follow him, never leaving his face for a second. He looks up and locks eyes with her, feeling like he might fall into the oceans within her eyes. Their gazes don’t stray; he swallows, she licks her lips. His gaze flickers down to her lips, but suddenly, Caroline shakes her head as if she’s shaking her thoughts away.
“How do I look?” she asks distractedly with an absentminded smile, fingers grazing the flower.
He smiles softly at her. “You look beautiful.”
Rarely does he allow himself to express how he feels about her so freely. They’ve been friends their entire lives, and the fear of her rejection is settled deeply inside him—why would she want him? If the sun could come down to the Earth, it’d be envious of Caroline’s radiance, of her warmth and brightness; how could someone so magnificent ever even look the way of a cowardly, useless boy?
So, as much as he usually keeps his mouth shut about his feelings, there are times he can’t help himself. Such as now, and especially when Caroline asks him about how she looks—it can be innocent enough, right? Besides, he would loathe to think she believes she’s any less beautiful than she really is.
Her face lights up, eyes bright, and her smile so wide it could split her face in half. “Thank you, Nik.”
He feels the love he has for her echoing inside of him. He wonders if anyone has ever loved someone else this much. “Always,” he says in reply, and he means it.
He knows for a fact that it’s not just a simple word with no meaning; he knows himself well enough to know that for as long as he lives, he will be there for Caroline in whatever way possible. He’s going to love her until his very last breath, even if she never does.
She leans her head against his shoulder and he decides that no matter what happens, having her with him will always be more than enough.
Caroline is staring at him like she wants to drive a sword through him, and he cannot for the life of him figure out why.
It’s the celebration for Midsummerblót, a day dedicated to commemorating the longest day of the year and the god Baldr[7] for all the productivity and blessings the sun brought upon them.
It is a time for joyous celebration with feasts and bonfires and dancing—yet Niklaus is feeling absolutely miserable.
He’d arrived before Caroline and had been waiting for her to show up with her parents when Tatia approached him. They’ve been talking a lot recently, due to the fact she wanted to commission a wooden carving for her daughter from him. She’s between his and Elijah’s ages, and friendly even through the recent death of her husband and the isolation that came with being a widow and mother. He quite likes her, it’s enjoyable to talk to her, and he can see himself becoming friends with Tatia, but nothing else.
Tatia is beautiful, sure, but he notices it in a detached way. He already knows that his heart cannot be captured by her, or by anyone else, really, as it was captured years and years ago by a girl with hair like the sun and bright smiles. And even if his heart wasn’t so set on Caroline, he knows Elijah has feelings for Tatia, if he’ll do anything with those feelings, he doesn’t know, but he sees how Elijah looks at Tatia—the same way he probably looks at Caroline.
So he’s talking to Tatia about how the wood carving for her daughter’s going, along with small comments about the people in their village, when Caroline arrives.
Beautiful doesn’t even begin to cover the way she looks. She’s wearing a long-sleeved green dress that fits her perfectly and brightens her features, and her hair's down in long, intricate braids. Instead of smiling when she sees him, however, she frowns and walks straight to where Elijah is.
He keeps talking to Tatia for a bit longer, but his gaze drifts to Caroline, who’s looking at him like she wants to drive a sword through him. When he excuses himself and walks towards Caroline, she immediately drags Elijah, of all people, to the cluster of people swaying along to the music to dance with her.
Before he can do anything about it, Kol gets in his way—in the literal sense, he steps in front of him and blocks his path. “Nik,” he grins, and Niklaus has never wanted to throttle him more. “I noticed you’ve been talking to the fair Tatia recently. I never thought you’d trade your favorite blonde for brunettes.”
He scowls at him, of all the ridiculous things he could say. “What I do is no concern of yours, and leave Caroline out of this,” he warns roughly, anger rushing through his veins as he attempts to shove Kol out of the way.
Kol raises his hand in surrender, with a grin as wide as his face, of course, and lets him pass. He rolls his eyes in a very Caroline way in reply and rushes to where Caroline is.
She’s smiling as she dances with Elijah, and she looks so beautiful that his chest aches with it. However, it drops to a glare when he approaches.
“May I cut in?”
Elijah looks between him and Caroline with something like amusement, but nods. “Of course.”
Niklaus takes his place, one of his hands’s at Caroline waist and the other clutching her hand, as they sway to the music. “Hello, sweetheart, haven’t seen much of you tonight,” he says teasingly, even though she looks like she wants to maim him.
She glares at him. “Yes, I was having a good time until now.”
If anyone else had said this to him, he’d be crushed. He often thinks himself too weak, unable to control his own roaring feelings no matter what they be. But it’s Caroline who says it, so all he does is grin at her.
After a beat, his smile softens and he says, “You look beautiful, Caroline.”
She looks away. “I’m surprised you noticed, seeing as you were so preoccupied with Tatia.” The way she says Tatia’s name feels like a curse, like poison on her tongue she’s spitting out.
He frowns at her. “Tatia? Is that why you’ve been upset with me all night? Because of Tatia?” he asks incredulously, face full of disbelief.
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t make fun of me. You know, if you want to be with Tatia, it’s alright, but at least—”
“That is the most absurd thing I’ve heard,” he declares, cutting her off.
“No, it isn’t, you talk with her often and you seem to like her, it’s alright if you want to be with Tatia, she is quite beautiful, but I thought you’d at least have the decency to not forget about your dearest and oldest friend,” she says, looking away once more.
“Caroline, listen to me,” he tells her firmly, squeezing the hand that’s in his to call her attention, and she does turn and meets his gaze, deep and blue. “I could never forget you, as you make it practically impossible to,” she rolls her eyes at him, though the corner of her lip quirks up as she tries to fight a smile. “But I don’t want to be with Tatia, I want to be with you. Caroline, I love you, I’ve been in love with you our whole lives.”
She’s staring at him wide-eyed with her lips parted, and to be honest, it’s the quietest he’s ever seen her (it scares him a bit, actually). She doesn’t say anything for a beat, just stares at him in absolute shock and then suddenly she starts turning away. Oh and of course, why would Caroline want him? He should’ve known he was going to be rejected—he realizes belatedly that she’s holding his hand, she’s not turning away, she’s dragging him away.
He frowns, completely confused, but still lets her drag him out away from the dance floor. They stop at a hidden corner and she smiles at him, soft and beautiful, for a second before she grasps his face in her hands and crashes her lips down on his.
Niklaus can truly, without a doubt, say this is the most shocked he’s been in his entire life. It takes him a beat to kiss her back, too in shock to, but he doesn’t hesitate to do so, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer.
It’s not the first time he’s kissed someone before—though he is far from experienced—but this is the first time that it feels like it matters.
When she pulls away, her eyes are bright and her smile takes over her whole face. “I love you too, Nik, though if you’ve loved me our entire lives you should’ve said something much sooner.”
He rolls his eyes, though he has a face-splitting, dimpled grin on his face. Instead of telling her that he didn’t see her saying anything either, he just leans in and kisses her again, because it is something he can do now.
He knows that he could die now and be utterly happy, because this is everything he’s ever wanted.
Things are not all that different now than they were before they started courting.
They still spend every waking moment together, as they always have. He still carves her pretty wooden trinkets that she treasures. They still lay down on the tall grass, with his head on her lap. He still carefully braids her long hair. They still spend time with their siblings, laughing and eating together and chasing each other around. He still annoys her greatly, though she doubts that could ever change. But there are noticeable differences now too.
Niklaus shows her his drawings of her, often of her smiling or laughing, though a lot of them also have her glaring or rolling her eyes, but always looking radiant and full of warmth as ever. He’s not afraid to show them to her anymore, now that she knows what lays in his heart.
Caroline laces their fingers together, walking hand-in-hand wherever they go, letting it be known that they’re courting and belong to each other (though, they’ve always belonged to each other and everyone has known it; there has not been anyone else for either of them since they were children sitting in front of his hearth playing with wooden horses).
They kiss now too, because that’s something they can do as much as he still can’t believe it.
And now, when he stares at Caroline for too long and she asks him why he’s staring at her like that, a scene that has played over and over since they were children, Niklaus can tell her the truth.
He says, “Because I love you.” And she rolls her eyes fondly, and kisses him.
(And after, she always says, “I love you too.”)
Marriage is something that is held to the utmost value in their culture. They’ve known their entire lives that it would be unlikely that either of them wouldn’t marry due to how important it is in the world they were raised.
Still, both of them have remained unmarried for longer than customary, and not just Niklaus and Caroline, but Niklaus’s entire brood of siblings.
Finn is twenty-five and he is yet to be wed, far too old to still be unmarried seeing as he came of age nine years prior. There are five Mikaelson children of marriageable age—Henrik still being far too young, of course—and none of them have been wed off. Naturally, this is all Mikael’s fault.
Mikael’s treatment of his children had not gone unnoticed by the people in their village. He had never beat his children bloody in front of others, but he didn’t have to, his hatred, anger, and aggression were conveyed simply enough: a shove; his hand grasping one of their arms hard and leaving finger-shaped bruises; insults shouted at them in front of everyone else, demeaning and belittling, like he didn’t care who heard of it and what was most important was to shame them.
It is safe to say, that while no one in the village ever let their contempt for Mikael’s treatment of his family show, many men were reluctant to let their daughters marry into the family, especially the families of higher status who could afford to be picky—exactly who Mikael wanted for his sons, and the families who were desperate enough to want to marry their daughters to the Mikaelson family, Mikael would’ve never approved of.
It isn’t enough that many families don’t want to marry their daughters into their family in fear of how Mikael—or even their sons, due to Mikael’s influence—could treat their daughters, but Mikael is too choosy and controlling to arrange marriages of his children with ‘lesser families.’ So, even though most of the Mikaelson children are well into adulthood, they’ve all remained unmarried for so long.
Until now.
It has been known to everyone since Niklaus and Caroline started courting that they would marry soon after—it’s been clear to everyone since before they courted that the two of them would marry, even as they remained oblivious everybody else knew— but Niklaus hadn’t been sure that he actually could.
Nearing nineteen years of age, Caroline isn’t too old to not be married, but she’s certainly approaching that quickly. As an only child, Caroline has always been rather spoiled (with everything other than attention, if you were to ask her), so her father, William, made sure that her opinion highly influenced the decision of her future husband, which is exactly how she remained unmarried and unbetrothed for so long. Other than the fact that Caroline wanted to marry Niklaus and nobody else, everybody knew Caroline wouldn’t exactly make a good wife, loud and opinionated as she is, and the average man would not make her happy, which is all that William wanted for her at the end of the day.
And Niklaus makes her happy; it is clear to everyone that to him, she is perfect and everything he’d always wanted, so Caroline has always been resolutely sure that her father would say yes when Niklaus would inevitably ask her father to let him marry her. It is Mikael that he’d been worried about.
Caroline’s family is wealthy enough that Mikael would approve the match between their families to be made, of that there is no doubt, the problem lay in the fact that Mikael absolutely despises him. Niklaus genuinely feared that Mikael wouldn’t allow him to marry Caroline due to the lengths he often went through to make Niklaus miserable, ruining everything in his life just because. Caroline, as optimistic as she is, couldn’t even pretend that it isn’t something Mikael wouldn’t have done.
So, Niklaus was absolutely petrified and, as he’d asked him, he kept thinking of Caroline’s outlandish plans to work their way around it—the most memorable one, in his opinion, was her plan to knock Mikael out and get married as he stayed unconscious. But to his absolute and utter surprise, he said yes with little fanfare. He even told him that he didn’t much care if Caroline’s dowry wasn’t high because ‘it’s not like anyone would pay much to marry him anyway’; he’d been far too surprised and elated to care about his insult.
The only kind thing Mikael has ever done for him is let him marry Caroline, and he won’t let that go to waste.
The negotiations with Caroline’s father for the dowry and bride price were quick—he knows most marriages are done for business, it’s just the way things go, but he doesn’t much care about land, cattle, or jewels when he can have Caroline, so it’s safe to say that negotiations came easy.
So, it did not take long after for them to be wed.
The day of the wedding, neither could even catch a glimpse of each other due to all the wedding preparations. Niklaus finds one of his ancestors’ swords, as he is required to, while Caroline visits the bath-house with her mother and the few other friends she has that are already married to purify her for the ceremony. Niklaus later goes to the bath-house as well, to purify himself as well, though by then Caroline’s long gone from there and getting ready for the ceremony. She chooses one of her prettier dresses to wear—deep blue and long, with long sleeves too—and her long hair cascading freely down her back. He chooses to wear his nicest white tunic and black trousers.
They decide to do the ceremony out on the fields they’ve spent so much time on throughout the years, with their tall grass and the phantoms of past them dangling from trees and lying on the ground with flowers in their hair. There is no better place to commemorate their love than a place that’s already full of it. Ayana, a long-time family friend and his mother’s mentor, but also the village’s Gyðya,[8] is officiating their wedding.
Their family and friends all gather around as they wait for them to walk in together. Mikael, despite it all, seems happy—or as happy as he can manage—and Esther looks quite emotional, not surprising as this is her first child to be married. Finn is stoic as always, though if you look at him close enough, you’d be able to see the slightest quirk of his lips. Elijah is smiling widely, happy as ever for his younger brother; he knows better than anyone how long he’s wanted this. Kol is grinning, it’s hard to tell if he’s just happy for his brother and Caroline or if he’s plotting something. Rebekah is close to crying tears of joy, and the ceremony hasn’t even started. Henrik is jumping up and down excitedly. Caroline’s mother, Elizabeth, is already dabbing at her eyes and her father is very clearly trying to hold back tears.
They meet so they can walk into the meadow together, and when he sees her, Niklaus’s heart feels so full he feels like it might explode inside his chest. “Hi aástin mín.”[9]
“Hi,” she smiles so wide it takes over her entire face.
“I cannot believe this is happening,” he tells her, because it’s true; he still expects to wake up and for it to be a dream.
“It’s real, and it will be more so than ever, once we walk to the meadow,” she says, eyes bright and smile soft as she extends her hand out. He takes it.
They walk hand-in-hand to the clearing, and everything else becomes a blur. Niklaus only remembers bits of the ceremony: Ayana calling to the gods in their name; the exchange of swords and then of rings; and finally, when the ceremony was over and Niklaus pulled Caroline in to kiss her—his wife.
In the end, there isn’t anything else he really needs to remember. Caroline became his wife, and that’s all that really matters anyway.
In his entire life, Niklaus cannot remember being this happy—or seeing Caroline this happy, which fills him with so much pride and makes him even happier, if that’s even possible.
They live in a small hut at the back of the Mikaelsons’ home. Caroline’s parents’ house isn’t big enough to house them, but his family home is, and Mikael is—in one of his very few moments of kindness—letting them live there until another of his siblings gets married.
He has the privilege of waking up every day and Caroline being the first thing he sees every morning. They fight often, because it’s still them and nothing can change it, but even that is idyllic to Niklaus; fights that end in eye rolls or kisses instead of a punch to the stomach and tears. Since she’s kept every single carving and sketch he’s ever made for her, she displays them proudly in their home, and every time he catches a glimpse of it, he gets weirdly emotional.
The thing is, other than having their own space and spending quite literally every moment of every day together, not much has changed. Caroline is his family and love of his life, but she has always been this, except that now he has a chance to experience it openly, to build a world with just him and Caroline.
She looks at him from across the room, where she’s talking to Rebekah, who is loudly and dramatically talking about some boy in the village she likes.
His eyes meet hers, it’s just the two of them, always and forever.
Niklaus knows that no matter what, he’s lucky enough to be in a world that’s just for the two of them, and as much as he’s not an optimist, with her at his side, he’s optimistic enough to believe everything will be full of happiness for the two of them—how could it not?
He’ll always be happy when it’s just the two of them.
Caroline may not be the most traditional of women or wives, but one thing she’s always wanted is to have a child.
When Henrik was a baby, a fat little thing with eyes that took over his whole face, she would hold him and her whole face would light up, cradling him in her arms and whispering to tiny baby Henrik about how much she loved spending time with him.
As he got older, Caroline would always play with him, doing everything to make him smile and steadily holding his hand as he toddled through the tall grassy fields. Even now that he’s eleven and all lanky long limbs and quickly growing into a man, rather than a little boy, Caroline smooths out his clothes, wipes his face, and kisses him on the forehead tenderly, as if she loves him with all her heart.
And while she and Rebekah are much closer in age and she’s always seen her as a sister more than anything else, he does remember all the times Caroline has brushed and braided Rebekah’s long hair. All the times she listened to her attentively with her furrowed brows and gave her the best advice she could. All the times she let Rebekah—tender-hearted, always sensitive, Rebekah—cry with her head on her lap as she ran her fingers through her hair.
Caroline had always had the gentleness and love of a mother, and she’d always wanted to be one. He remembers her, with legs swinging from tree branches and hair mussed by the wind, talking about her hopes of having a big family like his, a gaggle of children who would love each other and be there for each other in ways only siblings could be.
Niklaus hadn’t given much thought to having children or being a father growing up, but the few times he had, he had only ever been able to picture himself that way with Caroline by his side. And since by the grace of Odin himself, he is married to her, he wants nothing more than to have children with her.
However, they can’t.
They have been married for two years now, and not once has Caroline been with child.
It is not that their marital duties were not performed enough—if anything, they had the opposite problem. Unlike most women with their inattentive husbands, Caroline loved it and did not see it as a duty but something quite fun; she hadn’t realized before that pleasure like that could exist.
Yet Caroline’s menses have not stopped once.
Ever since the month they’d married, his mother has been giving Caroline a special tea that helps with fertility once a month. Both of them have seen his mother help other women in the village in this way, and they’ve known it to have worked more than once, so of course, Caroline trusts the tea fully and drinks it dutifully each month.
And still, no child has graced her womb.
She’s started to blame herself for it. He’s the one with the whole lot of siblings, while she’s an only child; there must have been some defect in her bloodline, one her mother had that she’s carried on, but only worse.
He tells her all the time that it is nonsense, that nothing about her could be defective. He insists that he does not need a child to be happy, that a life with her by his side will be more than enough—and he isn’t lying, he knows in his soul that he will live a happy life with or without children as long as he has her.
But as he looks into her teary, sullen eyes, he knows the same cannot be said for her. He wishes there was something he could do, a way to give her everything she wanted.
But there isn’t.
All he can do now is pray to Frey and Freyja[10] to give them a child and squeeze her hand as she downed every last drop from the tea his mother gave her and hope that maybe one day they’d have a child.
Life goes on as it does.
His father’s temper never strays. His mother heals people in their village. Finn keeps to himself, rarely speaking to his family or those in the village. Elijah dances around Tatia, whom he’s clearly in love with, yet never takes a step forward. Kol grins wickedly at all the ladies in the village and attentively watches Ayana practice her magic. Rebekah finds new ways to braid her hair or sew new dresses, and peruses the village’s market for fine jewelry and fabrics. Henrik spars with them and learns how to use a sword as he grows lankier and taller by day.
He and Caroline fail to have a child, and he holds her against him as she cries. They complete their duties, such as household chores and the wooden carvings he sells.
They all eat dinner together, careful not to speak unless Mikael tells them to. He gives Elijah advice about Tatia. Caroline walks arm-in-arm with Rebekah through the market. Kol plays tricks on them with his magic, and Caroline chases him off. He plays-fights with Henrik and always lets him win, which he knows Henrik is aware of.
It is nowhere near perfect, but life is normal and good.
It all changes on a full moon.
It is the fourth Frjádagr of Tvímánuður[11] in 1001, and everyone in the village finds themselves inside the caves to protect themselves from the wolves roaming free during that full moon.
It is something they’ve all had to do throughout their lives; they’ve been at the mercy of those half-man, half-wolf creatures since the very beginning of their village. It is nothing new, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Almost everyone in the village fears the wolves—Caroline, Rebekah, and Kol, as much as he may loathe to admit it, all do.
But Niklaus doesn’t.
He’s always been fascinated by them; a part of him has always felt a pull there, a certain hunger in him to run wildly below the face of a full moon shining down on him. But he is also well aware that if he found himself between a wolf’s teeth, there wouldn’t be much chance of survival.
Apparently, Henrik did not have those same fears.
He’s jostled awake by Henrik, eyes wide and urgent. “Nik, I want to go see the wolves, you must come with me.”
He looks at him in utter disbelief, because what other than that would be the appropriate response. “Henrik, you know it is too dangerous, the wolves could maul you before you’ve even noticed they’re there.”
Henrik rolls his eyes, identical to how Caroline does, and something aches in his chest. “Come on, the sun’s almost up and we will be quick and we’ll be up in a tree so they won’t be able to hurt us,” he insisted, eyes pleading and wide and his hands clasped together. “You’ve always wanted to see the wolves, too, Nik.”
Niklaus shakes his head. “It is too dangerous, we could get mauled on the way to the tree or even on the way down. It isn’t worth it.”
Henrik crosses his arms over his chest, and something in his gaze hardens. “Alright, you can go with me now or I’ll just go by myself another day, but I’m going.”
He feels ice-cold fear rush through him, settling like lead in his chest. If he wakes their father or mother up, he risks having Henrik beat and he doesn’t deserve that, nobody does (except maybe him), but much less someone with as pure a soul as Henrik. If he wakes one of their siblings or Caroline up, he could stop Henrik, but he will find a way to go eventually, and alone at that.
Henrik is a skinny, scrawny thirteen-year-old boy. He has absolutely no chance of fighting off a wolf if something happens. Niklaus might not be a warrior like his father, but he is a man; he could at the very least put up a fight.
He knows that the only choice is to go with Henrik now, he’ll quench his curiosity once and for all, and let it be, and Niklaus will be there to protect him.
Niklaus bends down to press a kiss to a sleeping Caroline’s temple, and quickly stands up. They quietly walk between people’s limbs and through the long halls of the cave until they find themselves outside.
He feels the full moon shining down on him and feels himself calming down, almost wishing he could close his eyes and drink it in like the rays of the sun on a bright day.
Instead, Henrik grabs his hand and tugs him deeper into the forest. He stops him before they can get too far and ushers Henrik into the nearest tree, quickly, and makes him climb it. They sit on top of a branch, and he wraps his hand around Henrik’s arm to make sure he doesn’t fall. There are no wolves in sight, but he can hear them howling in the distance.
Henrik meets his eye and flashes him an excited smile. “It’s going to be amazing, Nik, you’ll see.”
He gives him a small smile in return. He can’t help but believe in his words; everything’s going to be fine.
They wait sitting atop that tree for what feels like hours, until finally, a wolf comes running by. It’s gray and large, larger than the rest of the wolves trailing behind it, and it’s at the front, as if leading them.
“Wow,” he hears Henrik whisper next to him, watching the wolves running wild below.
He darts his eyes to him, smiling at him. He’s about to comment about how maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all, when Henrik inches forward on the branch, and it snaps under their weight.
He’s still holding onto Henrik as they fall down. They land on the forest floor with a thump, disoriented and aching, and two wolves passing just below the tree startle at the noise, whipping around and looking their way.
In the blink of an eye, the wolves pounce at them. No, it’s worse than that; they don’t pounce on him; both of the wolves are attacking Henrik.
Horrified, he watches as the wolves mangle his little brother. He crawls forward, yelling at the wolves and gripping some of their furs so they get away from him, so they get him instead. But they don’t, even though he’s giving himself away as free bait, they’re completely ignoring him.
In his desperation, he does the only thing that’s coming to mind: he flings himself at them, landing on top of Henrik. He expects them not to notice or really care, just to dig their teeth into him and give Henrik some chance of survival while they tear him apart.
Instead, the wolves stop.
They retract their sharp teeth, snouts bloody, and simply run off, as if they hadn’t been viciously and relentlessly attacking his little brother mere moments ago.
He stands up and gets a look of Henrik for the first time since they fell off the tree. His clothes are torn up and bloody, and the skin on his chest is mangled from the sharp teeth of the wolves. He’s still alive, but barely so; his eyes are cloudy, and he’s gasping for breath.
Niklaus wants to throw up, to start wailing at the sight of his baby brother’s broken body, but he needs to get him back to his mother; maybe she and Ayanna could save him; there may still be hope.
The sun is starting to rise, and he knows the wolves will be gone soon, so it’s much less of a risk now. Besides, he doesn’t much care if they kill him now, at least he’d die by his little brother’s side.
He scoops Henrik up into his arms and starts running through the forest, regretting just how far he let himself be dragged, especially now that everyone is probably making their way back into the village, which is further out than the caves.
He feels Henrik grow heavy in his arms, feels the way his breaths are coming out in sputters and gasps for air; feels his blood seeping into his own clothes and staining his hands. “It’s okay, Henrik, you’re going to be okay.”
He’s blinking up at him, but he’s not really looking at him, he’s not there at all, really—his baby brother he’d vowed to protect all those years ago when he was nothing more than a tiny little thing looking up at him through huge, inquisitive brown eyes.
He thinks of the day Henrik was born, of the chubby baby boy he got to hold in his arms, just like he’s holding him now. He got to hold him in his arms in his first moments, and now in his last.
He’s crying before Ayana even says there’s nothing that can be done. He felt him die in his arms; he already knew.
Rebekah is kneeling on his left side, hand steady on his shoulder as she cries, and Caroline’s kneeling next to him on the right, one arm wrapped around him and the other one clutching his hand, her sobs echoing in his ears.
He will never be able to get his mother’s wails out of his head.
After the passage of another full moon, Mikael and Esther required that they all have dinner together.
It is not rare for this to happen—dinners together while tense affairs often filled with uncomfortable silence (thanks to Mikael) used to be of regular occurrence. And then Henrik died, and the thought of pretending to be a put-together family wasn’t so appealing anymore.
Henrik’s death shattered the already precarious balance found in their family, and there was nothing to do to salvage it.
Yet here are Mikael and Esther, trying to pretend everything’s going to be okay again by having one of these family dinners. Niklaus doesn’t think he can stomach it—doesn’t think he can sit at the table and try to swallow down his food while staring helplessly at the empty spot on the table—but it’s the least he can do, after all, it’s all his fault; if it wasn’t for him, if he’d just told Henrik no, if he’d just forced the wolves’s attention on him then he wouldn’t have—
(Caroline has tried to tell him for the past month that it wasn’t his fault, and, while she has never been a liar or one to mince words, she’s always seen the best in him, much more than he deserves, so he doesn’t quite believe her with this.)
So that night he, along with what’s remaining of his family, sits down for dinner as they have many a time before (it’s not the same, a voice in his head taunts, you took him away from them). Apart from Henrik’s presence, the dinner progresses much like others have before—though his parents both insist they need to drink every last drop of their wines, which does strike him as rather strange, but he chalks it up to them not wanting to be wasteful.
As soon as all their cups are empty and the wine’s running inside them, Mikael unsheathes his sword and drives it through Finn’s heart, who’d been sitting right next to him.
There’s collective gasps from everyone—except his mother, who looks strangely calm—as Finn collapses onto the floor with a bloody red spot blooming on his chest.
They all leap from their seats to stop him or run, he’s sure nobody really knows, but before he can say a thing, he drives his sword through Elijah’s chest. He collapses beside Finn on the floor.
“Móðir, do something!” Rebekah screams, her voice shaking in terror as she watches her brothers dying on the floor.
“There, there, Rebekah,” she says, not bothering to stand up or even move. “Everything will be alright.”
As soon as she says that, their father drives his sword through Rebekah’s chest.
Niklaus feels panic—that same ice-cold panic he felt the night of Henrik’s death—wash all over him, and he can only watch frozen in horror as his siblings lay bleeding out on the ground. He wants to go to their sides, but he knows if he tries, he’ll be the one with a sword through his chest next.
Instead, he grasps Caroline’s trembling hand and shields her with his body. He slowly inches away to the door as he watches his father drive the sword through Kol’s chest, but he knows it’s no use.
His father drives his sword through Caroline’s chest, he sees it go to her heart—her beautiful heart, the one she loved him so much from even though she shouldn’t have; the one where she found compassion and kindness for everyone, even through her eye-rolls and quips. Her eyes meet his as the sword’s going through her, and he knows that there’s no use trying to escape now.
He’d rather die than live in a world without her.
Mikael pulls the sword away from her, and she collapses in on herself, falling down almost immediately. He leaps to catch her in his arms as she falls, to feel her last moments in this world the same way he’d felt Henrik’s, when he feels his father drive his sword through his heart.
He and Caroline both fall to the ground, deep red spots blooming on their clothes. They’re on the ground, both knowing death is nearing, and they turn their heads to look at each other—to be the last thing either of them sees.
Even now, bloody and gasping for a breath she won’t ever get again, he’s still utterly enchanted by her. His life, for all its misery, was worth it because he’d had her in it.
Despite it all, he is dying a lucky man.
He’d promised to love her until the day he died, and he can die knowing he’d kept his promise.
As the world blurs around him, as he succumbs to whatever comes next, he vows to find her in death too.
He wakes up with a gasp. He sees his siblings and Caroline, all waking up disoriented and with bloody clothes. His parents, however, are nowhere in sight.
Caroline looks at him, eyes wide and glassy, and immediately wraps his arm around him. He doesn’t hesitate for a second, holding her with all the strength in his body and squeezing his eyes shut.
“Nik, what’s going on? Are we dead? ” she asks, bewilderment in her tone.
“I doubt death would be this shoddy hut, sister,” Kol replies, though his voice is shakier than usual.
Caroline leaves his embrace but grabs his hand, neither refusing to let go after seeing each other die. They stand closer to the rest of his siblings, every single one of them staring at each other in disbelief and running their hands through themselves and the world to make sure it’s all real.
Finn’s sitting completely still, staring blankly ahead. Elijah’s placed a comforting hand on Rebekah’s shoulder, though he’s never looked so spooked. Rebekah is going mad, touching her bloody gown and repeating the word blood to herself. Kol’s pacing in circles, trying to distract himself.
They don’t have to sit with their questions for long, however, because Mikael barges in with a young woman beside him.
They all freeze in terror, seeing as the last thing they all remember is their father driving a sword through them and ending their lives.
Instead of hurting them again, he grabs the woman by her arm and shoves it in front of Rebekah’s face. “You need to finish what was started, drink from her wrist.”
They all seem to notice then that the woman’s arm is bleeding and give each other matching looks of disbelief. Rebekah is completely confused, but Mikael grabs her by the back of her head and forces her to drink the blood.
And Niklaus cannot believe it, but she does. She’s drinking her blood and acting as if it’s the most delectable thing in the world.
When she pulls away, he can smell it, and he’s had plenty of experience with blood before, but he doesn’t recall it smelling this good ever before. It’s making his throat itch.
When it’s his turn and Mikael’s shoved the bleeding wrist on his face, the first taste of that woman’s blood is unlike anything he’s experienced before.
He’s never felt so alive before. There’s no possibility that this could be the afterlife when he feels more alive than ever.
He watches Caroline drink from the woman’s wrist, and it may be the strange turn the night’s taken, or he might be drunk on blood, but he doesn’t think Caroline’s ever looked quite so magnificent.
He’d vowed to love her until he died, but he died already, and he still loves her. He vows to love her until the end of time instead, but it’s not really a vow if it’s something he will do anyway.
Niklaus had known two things to be certain in his entire life: that he would love Caroline for his entire life, and that one day he would die, same as everybody else in his life, and it’d be his permanent end.
And now, after living for almost twenty-two winters, one of these absolute truths was proven wrong.
He’d died, and, miraculously, he’s still alive. It hadn’t been his permanent end.
However, sometimes he feels like maybe it should’ve been.
His mother had violated the sanctity of death he’d grown up believing in. His own parents had taught him about the absolution of it and how important it was to one’s journey, how death was the end of life in the mortal world and the halls of the gods[12] awaited. Of course, one can’t blame others for what they’re driven to in desperation and grief.
This isn’t really the problem for him, while he’d been raised with all the stories and beliefs about the gods, he’d never quite devoted himself to the altar of them like Finn—who since they’ve turned, believes them all to be abominations, betraying the natural path the gods set out for them.
For Niklaus, the problem with it lies in how isolating it is.
They started out not being able to go outside when the sun was out—confined to their own home during waking hours, and rendered creatures of the night because it was impossible to do anything else.
Then his mother found a loophole through rings with blue lapis lazuli stones—if she found a way to cheat impenetrable death itself, it isn’t surprising she was able to find a way to make them able to be under the sun again. (It isn’t the same, though; he can’t feel it, just live in it; he could never bask under the sun and feel it warming up his skin ever again.)
But regaining the ability to walk under the sun did nothing to cure them of their isolation.
People in the village—their neighbors, their friends, people he’s known his entire life—have turned away from them. These people who had opened their homes to them, or even just smiled at them in the streets, now scatter away, shielding their children from them and refusing to meet their eyes.
Everybody sees them as monsters, and the isolation almost hurts too much to bear. But at least he has the consolation that he’s not alone in it, that he has his family to bear the brunt of it with him. His family, who will never turn away from him.
The same cannot be said for Caroline.
Her parents have not received the news of her change into a blood-sucking creature of the night well—which he could understand, but it’s Caroline, she who the sun itself imitates; becoming a creature of the night could not change her, she’s got enough light within her that she doesn’t need the sun.
Still, her parents are refusing to budge on the matter which is how he finds himself standing in front of their home, Caroline’s childhood home, and unable to get in—a side effect from their new condition—while they spew things at her that no parent should say to their child, much less to her.
Caroline had complained enough about her parents’ absence growing up—and she’d spent so much time with him and his family because of it—that he’d always known that William and Elizabeth were far from the perfect parents. But he also knew that both of them truly loved Caroline, that she was what each loved most in the world.
He did not recognize the people standing in front of him.
William is standing by the doorway, firmly inside so that they couldn’t reach him, as he shields Elizabeth, who has her shoulders steady but her gaze hardened while she looks at them in a way that made it almost impossible to reconcile her with Caroline’s mother.
William points at them, waving it around emphatically. “You, you stay away from us!”
“Faðir,” she calls, hands to her chest as she moves the slightest bit closer, though that makes them retreat further into the hut. “It’s me, it’s your daughter.”
He shakes his head so hard it might just snap off. “No,” he declares firmly. “My daughter is dead. Nothing natural can come back from the dead. Whatever you are, you aren’t my daughter.”
“Faðir,” she says again, though this time she’s pleading and shaky; Niklaus can hear the tears in her voice, and he inches closer, wanting to give her space while also supporting her through this. “Please, I’m still Caroline, I haven’t changed.”
William shakes his head once more, only this time, there is something sad about it, something broken in his expression. “No, you’re an abomination,” he tells her sadly, like it pains him to, and Elizabeth just nods slowly behind him.
Caroline stills, frozen in place as she processes it.
Her father, who’d loved her beyond all measures, who’d always made sure to buy her wooden figurines to play with, and who’d always held her hand. Her mother, who’d braided her hair, who’d brushed her tears away, who’d always protected her. Her parents, who’d she’d loved so very much, now hate her, now see her as an abomination.
He can hear her crying, her tiny gasps and small sniffles that are only detectable due to his supernatural hearing. He interlaces his fingers with hers and drags her away. “Come now, ástin mín,” he says softly, his other arm encircling her and caressing her hair.
She let him drag her into a secluded area and sit down on a log, but she’s still crying, sobbing in a way he’s never seen from her before.
“Caroline, don’t listen to them, you could never be an abomination. You’re perfect,” he insists, with a fervor and conviction so strong she’ll be forced to believe it. He grasps her chin with his hand and locks eyes with her, her teary, oceans-deep eyes staring into his. “For as long as you’ll live, you will have my family as your family, you’ll never be alone. And you’ll always have me, for all eternity.” His thumb swipes her tears away from her cheeks.
She nods slowly and gives him a watery smile, having calmed down somewhat. “I know, Nik, I know I do.”
He doesn’t say anything else, just holds her against him and presses a kiss to her temple.
He doesn’t let himself linger on what Caroline’s parents said, just on her in his arms and all the ways he could take this pain away from her. But maybe he should’ve lingered on what they’d said, because, soon enough, he and everyone will learn the hard way that they were right to stay away from them.
Right to assume they are monsters.
It doesn’t take long for them all to discover all the unforeseen consequences—good and bad—that come with their immortality.
There’s the enhanced senses—hearing, speed, and strength—making it so they’ll never have to fear anyone or anything else ever again. There’s the weakness to the sun, though they’d been able to work around it and bend nature to their will. There’s the weakness to the purple flower that grows underneath white oak trees, vervain, as his mother calls it. There’s the weakness to white oak itself, the only thing that could kill them, though they made sure to eradicate those trees so nobody ever could use this against them.
And there’s also their need to drink blood. While this was the first thing they learned after waking up from the dead, they could’ve never expected how they would crave for it, how they could feel the urge to bleed someone dry, thrumming through their veins and driving them mad. All-consuming hunger that made it impossible to think of anything else.
It’s not long before the hunger takes over, and they live up to the title of monsters. It’s not long before they’ve drained dry most of their village and left nothing but piles of bloody, mangled corpses in their wake.
Let it be known that Niklaus is not among the first to fall for temptation and let the lust for blood take over.
The first is Rebekah, young and carefree Rebekah, who sinks her sharp teeth into an innocent man’s neck and takes until there is nothing more to take. While innocent and bright, she’s always been indulgent, and she’s always found it hard to say no to temptation.
Kol, similarly indulgent, is the next one to kill someone in a bloodlust haze. He loses himself in it, in the sensation of it, in how good everything felt as blood ran down his throat.
Caroline’s the next to do so. Her control is nearly excellent, but she’s as new to this as they are, so, she slips up and drains an old man dry. She cries after and succeeds in avoiding killing anyone else—in the immediate future anyway.
Then it’s Elijah, who tried to hold onto his nobility through it all, but ended up maiming all the same. Once he starts, he can’t stop, much like Kol and Rebekah, but unlike them, after every kill, he stares, unmoving, at the corpses he left, eyes fixated on the bloody, gory mess he’d left them in.
He and Finn both make their first kills at the same time. They’d both been near starving, both of them barely drinking any blood, or none at all, but for different reasons.
Finn still holds his belief that they are unnatural creatures that do not deserve to roam the land of the living, and he avoids indulging in his status of undead as much as he can, which includes avoiding drinking blood for as long as possible. Niklaus is doing something similar, but not out of disgust in what they are, but hatred for himself. Henrik died because of him; he doesn’t want another death on his hands, he can’t have another death in his hands. So he avoids drinking from people as much as possible in fear that he will kill someone else.
But he and Finn aren’t perfect; they’re both new to this new life and nearly starving, so they were bound to mess up.
Finn is predictably horrified as the woman he’d been drinking from falls dead in his arms. He drops her body like he’s been burned and doubles over, throwing up all over the grass.
Niklaus didn’t know how he’d react after finally killing someone. He thought maybe he’d cry, or obsess over his victims like Elijah, or just get lost in it like Kol. What he could’ve never expected, however, is to fall down on all fours as he felt all his bones breaking, pain like no other overtaking his body as he became something else entirely.
He can hear himself screaming for help more than he can feel it, but all his father does is hold the rest of his family back, tell them to stay away.
“He’s an abomination,” he spits, and despite the pain wracking his entire being, he feels his words like a knife slicing through his insides.
His vision’s blurry, but he can see how Caroline’s face—his lovely, beautiful Caroline, who just by setting sights upon her face can turn the pain splitting him in two into a dull ache—hardens at his words. He knows she’s thinking of how her own father said those same words to her; what a pair the two of them make, two monsters roaming the world of men, but they will always have each other. She pushes Mikael’s arm away and rushes to him, kneeling by his side and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, the other running her fingers through his hair.
“Enough, you foolish child, he’s a monster,” he scolds, voice angrier and colder than he’s ever heard it, which is a great feat considering his father is nowhere near being a kind man.
Caroline doesn’t say anything in reply, but her grip on him tightens. “I’m here, Nik, I love you,” she whispers in his ear, and even through the pain, he feels like he will be utterly and completely fine.
He finds out soon after why his body had reacted in such way—why his father had reacted in such way, treating him like some uncontrollable, horrid monster.
He finds out that he isn’t just a blood-sucking creature of the night. No, he’s also a werewolf, the same type of creature he’s seen as a monster his entire life. The same type of creature that mangled his little brother to shreds. He finds out that the reason he is a werewolf and none of his siblings are is because his mother had an affair, and he’s not Mikael’s child after all.
But before he has time to deal with any of this, it’s all taken away from him.
Soon after his true nature and parentage are revealed, he’s in the woods when he hears screams and cries from their neighboring village—the village he knows the wolves and his birth father are from. When he gets there, with Elijah in tow, he instantly knows what happened.
Mikael came to his birth father’s village and massacred everyone and anyone in his way. He left the bodies in a pile, bloody and mangled and lifeless, and his birth father’s at the very top, and unable to miss it.
He is horrified. He knows Mikael did it in a fit of rage, revenge for his mother’s affair, but it also feels like a threat, like Mikael’s telling him that people like him aren’t going to survive. He’s telling him that it’s wrong to be like him.
Elijah drags him back into the woods with him, and at first, he thinks it’s because he doesn’t want him to witness this sight, but he learns soon that he’s luring him there.
They’re deep into the woods when suddenly Elijah stops walking. Even with the darkness, he can see the somber look on his face.
Niklaus frowns. “Elijah?”
But before Elijah can even form his mouth into a reply, he feels hands around his neck, and the world goes black.
When he comes to, the first face he sees is Mikael’s, which in of itself would make fear surge through him, but right now it’s made worse by the fact that he’s holding him to a wooden cross, and attempting to tie his wrists on either side of his head. He sees his mother across from him, standing in front of a fire, swirling her hands, and chanting. He sees Elijah, standing off to the side with his head down.
It’s pretty clear to him that they intend to do something to his werewolf side, and he can’t let that happen. Maybe he’s not like the rest of them, but for the first time in his entire existence, he feels whole, and he can’t let them do this to him.
“Elijah! Elijah! Hold him down,” his father yells as he struggles against his grip.
“Elijah, don’t let them do this to me!” he pleads, turning to look at him.
Mikael holds him even tighter, using all his strength to push him against the wooden stake. “Come on, boy, now.”
Elijah takes that as his cue, and he goes to Mikael’s aid, taking Niklaus’s hand as Mikael holds him down and tying him to the post.
Niklaus meets his eye. “You hate me,” he says, heartbroken and defeated. He’s always known of his parents’ distaste for him, it isn’t something that has ever been hidden, but he could’ve never imagined that his own brother, whom he’d looked up to and admired and confided in growing up, that his own brother could—
Elijah looks up at him with anguish in his eyes and shakes his head, but turns away.
He holds onto the hatred and shame and pain as he feels his mother steal away a part of him that he barely had any time to know, and none at all to understand it.
When he wakes up once more, he’s back in their home, with Caroline and Rebekah hovering above him. They look at him with matching looks of concern, but neither say anything, just frown at him. He sits up and looks around, neither of his parents is in sight, but Elijah’s in the corner, looking down at his feet.
Caroline runs a tentative hand through his hair and swallows. “Are you alright?”
His birth father, whom he never got to meet, is dead because of Mikael, and he saw his mangled, bloody body atop a pile of other corpses. He was betrayed by his brother and lured to a ritual by his parents to take away a part of him that he’d barely just gotten. His wolf is gone, and he feels an emptiness inside of him where it should be.
There isn’t any way for him to be alright.
He feels his body shaking, wracking with sobs, before he even realizes he’s crying. Caroline doesn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around him, hold him as he cries. He feels Rebekah slip her hand into his, the same way he did when they were little and she was afraid.
Elijah walks up to them slowly, but his heavy steps resound across their hut, and kneels in front of him to be at his eye-level. “Niklaus, I am so sorry,” he cries, his voice shaky. Niklaus has barely seen him cry in his whole life; he is not one to show his emotions, unlike himself. He betrayed him, but he knows he regrets it and that he will carry that regret for as long as they shall live.
It doesn’t matter now, does it? There’s nothing that can be done now.
He’s half the creature he’d been, a broken, hollow shell, and he’ll be forced to live that way for eternity.
Esther has never been a particularly nurturing or kind mother, but there were moments of love in his childhood, moments when she softened around the edges and gave him a dazzling smile or gentle touch. Despite everything, Niklaus has always loved his mother, always held a fondness in his heart for her.
He can’t seem to muster any of it now.
She’s been avoiding him since she took his wolf away from him; he’s barely caught a glimpse of her in the past few days, and when he does, Mikael’s always at her side. He’s been meaning to talk to her—he’s not really sure to say what, really, maybe to beg her to undo her spell, maybe to ask her how she could do this to him, maybe to let his anger get the best of him and yell at her—but he can’t exactly do that if she refuses to be alone with him.
An opportunity arises; however, one day he finds himself alone at the hut, Mikael has just left for a day trip, and his mother is just out back, hanging clothes to dry.
She tenses as soon as he comes into view, jaw tight. “Niklaus,” she says curtly.
“Móðir,” he spits, he can’t help the anger that overtakes him, any love he’d once had for her crushed into dust and blown away. “I do not know how you can claim that title after your betrayal.”
Her gaze hardens, her hands turn into fists at her sides. “I could not let a creature like you roam amongst men, Niklaus. All of you are already too powerful, and nature is punishing me for it. I could not let you make it worse; besides, it was not natural.”
He scoffs angrily, stepping forward and getting up in her face. “If you didn’t want nature to punish you, then maybe you shouldn’t have turned us into unnatural creatures in the first place,” he yelled. He’s never once yelled at his parents, but right now, he doesn’t much care. “Besides, you knew I was part wolf due to your little indiscretion, you should’ve known that I would’ve turned into both.”
She shakes her head. “I thought nature wouldn’t allow it, that it’d take your wolf just like it took Kol’s magic, and it’d be the answer to all my prayers.”
He frowns. “Do you mean…were you planning on taking my wolf away, even when I was just human?”
She looks him in the eye. “Yes,” she admits, without any bit of shame. “I couldn’t let what I’d done be exposed. I’d been trying to find a spell to take it away throughout your entire life. I suppressed your anger as a child, and as an adult, I made it so that you and Caroline couldn’t have a child to pass that trait onto until I’d find a way to get rid of it.”
Rage, like he’s never felt before, fills his entire being, crawling inside of him and overtaking him. All this time they’d suffered—that Caroline suffered—all because his mother didn’t want to deal with what she’d done.
How much more can his mother take away from him?
Before he even really knows what he’s doing, his hand is around his mother’s throat. Her eyes widen, and for the first time in a long time, he sees an emotion cloud over her face— fear. She claws at his hand, digging her nails into his skin, but it’s no use. In the end, she’s a mere human, and he’s whatever creature he is now, and it’s not long before her eyes roll to the back of her head and she goes limp in his grip.
He drops her like he’s been burned, letting her fall to the ground. His eyes widen at the sight of his mother, cold and dead because of him. He can feel terror gripping at his insides, what has he done?
He looks up, only to find Caroline staring at him, half-hidden by the doorway.
“Caroline…” he trails off, voice shaking.
She rushes over to him and takes his hand in hers, forcing him to look at her. “Nik, listen to me, I heard what she said and I can’t blame you,” she says, voice colder than he’d ever thought possible from her. “It doesn’t matter if what you did was right or wrong, what’s done is done, and nobody but us knows that you killed her, and we can let it stay that way.”
He frowns at her, looks down at the hand that’d just been around his mother’s throat, and flexes it. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes lock with his. “We can say it was Mikael who did it, say he did it in a fit of rage because of her affair, and we didn’t get there in time to save her. Mikael is not coming back until tomorrow, we can bury her quickly with your siblings, and leave.”
While he’s never seen Caroline be so cold, he’s not entirely surprised she’d react this way. Caroline’s always been fiercely protective of everyone she loves, always willing to go to the ends of the world for them. He also knows that even though she’s so full of love and light and joy, there’s a part of her that’s always been full of spite and anger.
Caroline’s known to be difficult to many, because while bright and joyful, she likes to get her way. She’s always liked to be in control, and she had many ways of making it happen; when they were little, she used to like pulling on people’s hair and stomping on their shoes. She’s also always found glee in revenge; she isn’t exactly the vengeful type, but if someone who did her wrong got done wrong, well, she’s quick to celebrate.
Caroline, for all her good, is a person who’s terrifying to cross, because she knows exactly how to work anger in her favor. And she’s even more likely to use it to protect those she cares about.
“Everything she’s done was bound to catch up with her anyway; you don’t deserve to be punished for it,” she declares resolutely.
Somehow, he only loves her more.
They make up a story about Mikael killing Esther and running off, but that he’s going to come back and try to kill them next.
Finn and Kol quickly leave after that, without barely any goodbye, and part ways in completely opposite directions. Elijah and Rebekah stay with them to help bury their mother—though Niklaus suspects that Elijah only stayed because he feels he owes him after his betrayal.
Rebekah’s crying as they bury her, nails digging into her palms. The sight of her is enough to make him feel guilty, but he doesn’t say anything.
“We stick together as one,” she declares through her tears, repeating their family’s mantra, and holding out her hands to them. “Always and forever.”
They take each other’s hands and repeat after her. “Always and forever.”
Niklaus looks straight at Caroline as he says the words, knowing their bond will surpass decades and eventually centuries and maybe even the world itself.
Always and Forever.