{1.07 | Death Keeps Knocking on My Door | part 1}
In the Stefan Salvatore Memorial Library, Elara sat across from Hope, a pen in one hand and a blank piece of paper in the other. The words sat dormant in her mind, unable to reach the page.
Remembrance Day was coming up, and Emma had asked Elara to participate. Throughout the past few days, Elara had met with Emma twice, and both times the counsellor had mentioned the upcoming holiday.
She had options of who to write to. Her parents, who she barely remembered yet loved with her entire heart, or her foster brother, who became her whole world and was taken from her too soon. Death was not a stranger.
But the idea of writing to the dead wasn't going to bring her closure. Not when she still had so many questions.
Elara shook her head, clicking her pen and shoving it into her pocket. She turned her head towards Hope, who was doodling an image of the newest monster.
"I'm heading up," Elara said, rising from her chair, "you coming?"
Hope nodded, gently closing her journal. "Yeah, give me a second."
The past few days had been kind to them. They spent a lot of time together, and they discovered they worked well together. A friendship was blooming between the tri-brid and the werewolf despite their own issues.
The two walked out of the library, bumping into Rafael. He shot them a small, polite smile and continued with them down the hallway. The conflict between Rafael and Elara had been solved the day after the Saltzman Twins' birthday party. The two saw each other in the gym; Elara had been attempting to resolve her tense emotions from a nightmare, and Rafael figured she would be in there. The conversation was short, and a little tense, but by the end of it, the two had rekindled their own bond.
They turned down the hallway as the front door creaked open, and a gentle ringing entered Elara's ears, the same ringing that always led to trouble. Rafael and Hope didn't seem to notice.
Continuing, they walked in contempt silence, until a teenage girl stepped in front of them. She was a shorter girl with curly hair and brown skin. Terror and confusion were plastered across her face.
"Cassie?" Rafael softly called.
Cassie?
Elara's eyes darted between Rafael and "Cassie." Cassie was dead.
"Raf?" The girl responded, her eyes widening.
"Cassie?" Hope asked, her eyes flickering towards the newcomer. At her side, she felt Elara tense. She wore an expression of confusion. "Isn't that your-"
"My girlfriend," Rafael interrupted. He advanced towards her quickly, dropping his backpack on the ground, and enveloped her in a hug.
Cassie was dead, Elara thought, again. The same thing that happened to Jo must have been happening to Cassie, but it was insane. People didn't just come back from the dead without any consequences. It was impossible for her to be there--
She froze as another figure stepped into the hallway. He was tall, burly, and his face was clean shaven, exposing a scar across his jaw. His black hair fell just past his ears, curling at the edges, and blood soaked into his dress shirt from a hidden wound.
"Elara?" Hope whispered, trying to get Elara's attention, but the werewolf didn't budge.
"This is the Salvatore School, right?" the man asked. It was familiar, too familiar. The timbre of his voice, the vague British accent. "The poor girl seemed lost, so I thought I would help her out." His eyes fell upon Elara, and a smile spread across his face.
Elara felt Hope nudge her side, again, but she didn't budge. It was impossible. Eleven years had passed, and she finally remembered what he looked like.
Her breath hitched as she felt her eyes begin to water. He was here.
"Hey, kiddo," he greeted gently.
Her father was at the school, and he was alive.
~-~-~
Henry Cavill as Cedric Laurent
Elara sat next to her father, twirling the ring on her middle finger. Rafael and Cassie sat on a sofa a few feet away from them, lost in their own conversation.
Elara had a million questions, but her biggest one was where to even start.
Her father sent her a gentle smile, comfortingly placing a hand on her knee. "I know you've got a thousand questions, and I have some answers, but I need to ask a few of my own first."
"Yeah, yeah sure," Elara said. "Ask away."
"When was the last time you saw me?"
She inhaled deeply. "It was about eleven years ago in..." she trailed off, brows furrowing together. Where did she live before they died? "In..."
"New Orleans," he finished for her, his smile faltering. She didn't remember ever being in Louisiana. "We lived in New Orleans. You, me, and your mother. In a small house just outside of the bayou."
"Wait, so did you know-" she started to ask, but he cut her off with a nod and an answer.
"The Mikaelsons? Yes, but not fondly. We, uh, didn't quite get along." He tilted his head in the same way Elara did when she had a realization. "Then again, I was friendly from time to time with Elijah." He shook his head. "Anyways, how did you end up here?"
"I..." She swallowed nervously. It was her father. She had to answer him. "I triggered my curse. I killed someone several weeks ago, ran away, and ended up in Mystic Falls. Hope Mikaelson and Alaric Saltzman brought me here."
Her father's eyes widened ever so slightly. He leaned back against the cushion. "Your curse," he muttered to himself. A beat of silence passed as if he was solving a mental puzzle. Then, he spoke again. "Werewolf curse. Your werewolf curse."
Elara looked at him skeptically. "Yeah, the curse that either you or mom had. That's how it works, isn't it?"
She didn't get an answer as Alaric finally arrived. Her head turned towards him, and just past his shoulder he noticed Hope, lingering in the archway. Despite the distance, Elara could still read the worry across her face.
Alaric sat in the armchair across from the father-daughter duo.
"Good to see you, Alaric," her father greeted, nodding towards the headmaster.
Alaric shot him a polite smile. "You too, Cedric, although I do wish it wasn't under these circumstances."
Elara looked between her father and headmaster. Of course, they knew each other. How did she not think of that before? Alaric had a file with the answers to what she was, and the best way for him to have those answers was to get them from the source.
"You know each other?" Elara questioned aloud.
Alaric nodded, a long breath leaving him. "Yes, we did, and I'm sure he can explain that to you later. However, I do have concerns of my own. Cedric, do you know how you're here?"
Cedric shrugged. "I have a theory, but I'd prefer if you explained the answer to me."
"A necromancer calling himself The Necromancer brought you back from the dead. He did the same with that boy's girlfriend and Jo."
"Ah," Cedric sighed. He sent a sympathetic look towards Alaric. It seemed that they had been close enough for Cedric to have known Jo Laughlin. "That would make sense, I suppose."
"I'm sorry, Ced," Alaric said, the nickname coming out easily, "but I don't think you'll be able to stay."
Cedric merely nodded. "That's alright. It's better that way."
Elara blinked. Her father wanted to stay dead. Had he found peace and been ripped from it?
"Anyhow, I have things to attend to. Elara, please stay with your father," Alaric instructed.
Elara nodded. She didn't need to be told twice.
At that, Alaric left the room, disappearing into the school.
She quickly turned her attention back to Cedric. She had a million questions, and her first one fell out of her lips before she could think about it. "Our last name is Laurent?"
Cedric stiffened for a moment, glancing around the room. He rose to his feet, holding a hand out to her. "Yes, and I'd rather have that conversation somewhere without an audience."
The idea made sense. Her parents' death had been a mystery, and seeing as he knew Alaric Saltzman and the Original family, the truth could cause problems. She used his hand to rise to her feet.
"I know a place."
~-~-~
"You'd probably be more comfortable if you weren't covered in blood," Elara offered as she sat across from her father.
Like most nights, the Olde Mill was abandoned, left alone in the darkness. They sat on the roof, looking up at the stars.
"I'll handle it later. Your answers are more important than my comfort," Cedric responded. "Won't Alaric-- sorry, Dr. Saltzman-- come looking for us?"
Elara shrugged. "Maybe, but we're not hard to find."
He nodded at that.
It was strange. Elara had spent eleven years accepting the mysterious death of her parents. She had spent eleven years moving on and forgetting them, and now, right in front of her, the man who raised her for six years, who looked at her with pure, unconditional love, sat right across from her. Alive.
And all she wanted to know was what the hell she was.
A moment passed before he began his explanation. "My last name is Laurent, and your mother wanted to take on my name when we got married. She was human and didn't quite understand how our world worked, but she loved me-- loved you-- and wanted to keep the name." He took a deep breath. "However, Laurent wasn't a popular name within my community-- well, within most communities-- and it was my idea for you to use a different last name. Davenport was a family friend's last name, and they had passed. I wanted to not only protect my family but let theirs live on."
"Wasn't popular?" Elara questioned. "What do you mean?"
"My family line, our family line, made their fair share of enemies. People were afraid of us, and they had good reason to be." He looked down at his hands, which were rough and calloused. "We're dangerous."
Elara leaned back as she processed the information, silence falling over her. She had always thought she was dangerous but hearing it from her father of all people rattled her.
He continued, staring into the night sky as if it held all the answers. "I have been hunted my entire life because I was different, because my existence threatened the witches and the werewolves and the vampires, but when you and Emilia came along, I knew I was going to do whatever it took to protect the both of you."
His blue eyes met hers with an unreadable look. "I'm not proud of the things I have done. I've hurt, I've killed, and I've destroyed, and I did it because I did not care for others. The name Laurent had been tarnished centuries ago, kiddo. I didn't care. What we are-- what I was and what you are now-- creates destruction. It is not something we can help."
"What are we?" Elara asked, her voice small.
"I'm not entirely sure, kiddo," he laughed bitterly, looking at the stars as if they held the answer. "My own father didn't tell me. I had to figure it out for myself, but the witches called me 'the Bright Wolf' or 'the Glowing One,' which sounds somewhat ridiculous in my opinion. The names are simply placeholders for whatever the hell it's truly called."
She looked down, the cogs in her head turning rapidly. Cedric had dumped a lot of information on her, and it took her a while for it to settle. Cedric had been hunted because of what he was. His bloodline--Â her bloodline-- was dangerous.
"How are you finding it at the Salvatore School?" Cedric suddenly asked, abruptly changing the subject.
It took a second for Elara to process the question. She wanted to laugh at how quickly her father had shifted the topic from something intense to something as simple as her school.
"It's alright," she answered. "At first, it was difficult to adjust, but it became easier. My friend Josie-- she's Dr. Saltzman's daughter, by the way-- helped me a lot."
"And Hope Mikaelson?" His tone was slightly sharp at the mention of the Mikaelson.
"Is my friend, too," Elara answered. "We weren't at first, but seeing as monsters are appearing and we still live together, we hashed things out."
"Good," Cedric muttered. "That's good. Friends can help you through a lot."
Elara nodded, the information still on the back of her mind. Hell, her mind was everywhere.
Her mother had been human, so Cedric had to be a werewolf for her to be one, yet, when she mentioned her curse, he seemed confused. There was still more for him to tell her, but he was holding back.
"Speaking of friends, you and Dr. Saltzman?"
Cedric chuckled at the question. "Are friends. Well, were friends. I knew him before he was Dr. Saltzman. I worked at Mystic Falls High School for a year, and we worked together. I also met the vampire who's memorial library we're in."
"Stefan Salvatore," Elara mumbled. She had read one of Stefan's journals before, having found it tucked away in a part of the library. A lot happened in Mystic Falls, and Stefan seemed to know a lot about it, but he hadn't mentioned her father in the journal she read.
Cedric nodded.
Another moment of silence passed. There was another question Elara wanted to ask, but she couldn't seem to get it off of her tongue. Cedric seemed to notice, taking a deep breath.
"Your mother and I were found in New Orleans, in the little house just outside of the bayou, by the witches hunting us. You, at the time, were staying with a friend of your mother. We hardly stood a chance against them. After your birth, I lost quite a lot of my power, my strength, and the witches overpowered us."
"If I was with Emilia's friend why did I end up in foster care?" she asked suddenly, the words coming out harsher than intended. The anger had been sudden, almost overwhelming. Living with a friend of her parents would've been so much better than the life she had to go through.
"It was the safest option. The witches connected that friend to us and found out you were alive, so they sent you away in order to protect you. The witches couldn't find you if you weren't in New Orleans. They couldn't find you if you became Elara Davenport."
"What about locator spells?"
"They don't work on us. I don't know why, but they don't," Cedric explained. "Elara, there are things that you are going to deal with that I do not have an answer for. I don't know how much longer I have here, but I am going to help you the best I can. You are my daughter, and I will not let what happened to me happen to you."
Elara took a deep breath as she looked at her father. She didn't know this man. She barely remembered him, but she still felt that connection only a father and daughter could have. The comfort his presence brought, the comfort only a parent could bring, pushed away her anxiousness.
All she could do was nod.
He stood up, a comforting smile reaching his face. "I need to find Dr. Saltzman and speak with him. Where will I be able to find you once I'm done?"
"The Olde Mill," she answered. "I'll be on the roof."
Cedric nodded. "I will find you when I'm done, then. I'll be back, kiddo."
And then he walked off, leaving Elara alone under the stars with even more questions than she started with.