He felt her the moment she entered the forest.
A mortal, moving through the trees with purpose. He'd felt thousands of mortals over the centuries, wandering close to his resting place and then away again. Most never found the cave. The forest itself turned them around, sent them back the way they'd come.
But this one was different.
This one was being called.
Inside the stone coffin, in the darkness that had been his companion for longer than most civilizations had existed, he stirred. Not physically—his body remained perfectly still, preserved by magic and will. But his consciousness rose from the depths of meditation, turned its attention outward.
The woman was close now. He could feel her exhaustion, her desperation. It hung around her like a shroud, bitter and sharp. She was afraid, but not of the forest. She was afraid of failing. Of losing something precious.
Interesting.
He felt her pause at the cave entrance. Felt her fear spike, then settle. Felt her step inside.
The torch she carried was barely necessary. He could see her perfectly well without it—a thin woman, older than she looked, with power running through her veins like a second heartbeat. A witch. Not particularly strong, but competent. Desperate.
She approached his coffin slowly, and he examined her with the same detached curiosity he'd turned on countless mortals before her. What drove this one? What need was so great she'd follow whispers into a dark cave?
Her eyes widened when she saw the coffin. He felt her recognition, her awe. She didn't know what he was, but she knew this was old. Older than her, older than her grandmother's grandmother.
She was right about that.
He'd stopped counting the years somewhere around the third millennium. Time meant little when you existed outside its normal flow, when you could choose to wake or sleep as you pleased, when you'd seen empires rise from dust and return to it again.
The coffin had been built for him by people whose names were forgotten now, whose language had died with them. The symbols carved into the stone were from a dozen different cultures, a hundred different magical traditions, all layered on top of each other as generations had come and gone, each one adding their own protections, their own wards.
All of them trying to keep him safe.
Or perhaps to keep the world safe from him.
The distinction had never been entirely clear.
The woman—Esther, he plucked the name from her surface thoughts—was examining the symbols now. He felt her confusion, her frustration at not being able to read them. Good. They weren't meant to be read by someone of her limited experience.
She tried to open the coffin.
He almost smiled. Almost. The stone wouldn't budge for her any more than it would for anyone else. It would only open when he willed it, and he had no intention of willing it. Not yet.
But then she saw the blood.
Ah. Yes. That.
He'd placed it there himself, weeks ago. Months? Time was slippery when you spent most of it in meditation. He'd had a feeling—one of those deep, ancient knowings that came from existing as long as he had—that something was coming. That someone would need what only he could provide.
So he'd left an offering. A gift. A test.
One drop of his blood, preserved by magic, waiting.
And here she was.
Esther reached out with a trembling hand and touched the blood. The moment her skin made contact, he felt it—felt the connection between them snap into place like a thread pulled taut. Felt her power, her desperation, her grief.
Children, he understood. She's trying to save her children.
The thought interested him more than it should have. He'd never had children. Never wanted them, in all the long millennia of his existence. But he understood the concept, understood the desperate love that drove mortals to impossible acts.
And he was curious.
What would she do with his blood? What could a moderately talented witch accomplish with something that contained the essence of a being like him?
Inside the coffin, he made a choice.
He let her take it.
Let her wipe it onto the strip of cloth torn from her dress. Let her fold it carefully, reverently, and tuck it away. She was treating it like something sacred, something precious.
She had no idea what it really was.
His blood was old. Older than magic as mortals understood it. Older than the division between life and death, between mortal and immortal. His blood contained potential—the raw, unformed possibility of becoming something other, something more.
In the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic.
In the right hands... well. That was what interested him.
Esther tried once more to open the coffin, and he felt a flicker of approval at her persistence. But the stone remained sealed, and after a moment, she gave up.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He didn't respond—couldn't, in this form—but he noted her gratitude. Noted that she had the presence of mind to show respect, even in her desperation. Perhaps she would use his gift wisely. Perhaps not.
Either way, it would be entertaining to watch.
She left the cave, her footsteps fading into the forest. The torch light dimmed and disappeared. Silence returned to his chamber, deep and complete.
But he didn't return to meditation.
Instead, he kept his awareness focused on that single drop of blood, now carried away in a witch's pouch. The connection remained—thin but unbreakable. He would feel whatever she did with it. Would know what she created.
Days passed. He felt her working, experimenting. Felt her mix his blood with other components—herbs, minerals, words of power. She was building a spell, something complex and ambitious.
Something about immortality.
He waited.
And then, on a night when the moon was dark, he felt it happen.
Esther spoke the spell. Used his blood as the catalyst, the binding agent. And in that moment, he felt five sparks of life transform into something new. Not human anymore. Not quite immortal in the way he was, but... changed. Enhanced. Made other.
Undead, he understood, pulling the concept from the magical resonance. She's created Undead.
Fascinating.
He traced the threads of connection—his blood now flowing through five different bodies, transformed but still fundamentally his. He could feel them: the strength, the speed, the hunger. They were crude compared to what they could have been, rushed and imperfect. But they were alive. They were new.
They were interesting.
For the first time in centuries, he felt something other than mild curiosity.
He felt anticipation.
What would these new creatures do? How would they change the world? Would they thrive or destroy themselves? Would they multiply or remain unique?
So many possibilities.
He settled back into his meditation, but not as deeply as before. Part of his awareness remained tethered to those five sparks of transformed life, watching. Waiting. Learning.
Time passed differently for him than for mortals. What felt like moments to him were years to them. Decades. Centuries. He watched the undead spread across the world, watched them create others of their kind. Watched them build and destroy, love and hate, live endless lives in endless variation.
It was the most entertained he'd been in millennia.
The original five—the Mikaelsons, they called themselves—were particularly interesting. Complicated. Damaged in ways that made them unpredictable. The youngest brother, the one named Niklaus, was a hybrid of two species, something Esther had never intended. An accident that had produced something extraordinary.
He approved.
But as the centuries wore on, he felt something else beginning to stir. A wrongness. A corruption of what had been created.
Esther was working magic again.
He turned his full attention to it, reading the intention behind her spell. She was trying to undo what she'd done. Trying to destroy the undead she'd created, starting with her own children.
The audacity of it was almost impressive.
She would use his blood again—the connection still existed, woven into the very fabric of what the Originals were. She would pervert it, twist it, turn his gift into a weapon.
He considered letting her try. Considered watching to see if she could actually succeed.
But no.
He'd given his blood freely, out of curiosity, to see what would come of it. And what had come of it was magnificent—flawed and violent and beautiful in the way that mortal creations always were. These vampires were his in a way nothing else had been in his long existence.
He wouldn't let her destroy them.
Not without at least making an appearance.
For the first time in a thousand years, he chose to wake fully. Chose to return his consciousness completely to his physical form. The transition was smooth, easy. He'd done it countless times before.
He opened his eyes in the darkness of the coffin.
The stone lid had been sealed for a millennium, but at his will, it cracked. Split. Fell away in pieces that turned to dust before they hit the ground.
He sat up slowly, breathing air that hadn't touched his lungs in a thousand years. His body was exactly as he'd left it—unchanged, unmarked by time. That was the nature of what he was. What he'd always been.
Immortal. Unchanging. Eternal.
He stood, and with a thought, his clothes shifted. The ancient robes he'd worn to sleep were gone, replaced by something more appropriate for the era. A suit, perfectly tailored, dark and elegant. He'd watched enough through his connection to the vampires to know what was fashionable now.
The cave around him looked the same as it had a millennium ago. Unchanged. Waiting.
But outside, the world had moved on. Esther had moved on, into a new body, with new plans.
And tonight, she was hosting a ball.
How delightfully theatrical.
He stepped out of the cave and into the night. The forest had changed—the ancient oaks were gone, replaced by newer growth. But the bones of the land were the same. He oriented himself easily, feeling the pull of his blood toward Mystic Falls, toward the Mikaelson mansion where Esther was weaving her spell.
He could stop her from here. Could sever the connection she was trying to use, unravel her magic with a thought.
But where was the fun in that?
No, he wanted to see her face. Wanted to see the recognition, the horror, the understanding of what she'd taken from all those years ago.
Wanted to meet the vampires he'd inadvertently helped create.
They interested him greatly.
He smiled—the first real expression of emotion he'd allowed himself in centuries—and began to walk. The modern world awaited, full of cars and lights and technology he'd watched develop from a distance.
It was time to see it up close.
Time to meet his creations face to face.
Time to see what Esther's expression would be when she realized that the being whose blood she'd stolen a thousand years ago had finally decided to wake up.
He was very much looking forward to it.
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I said this in the synopsis but in case anyone missed it i'll say it here too. I just wanted to clarify here that this story is made using ai. This was originally going to be a story just for me to see how it would turn out and I just decided to post it. I try my best to edit it down so it's actually humanlike cause I actually like the plot but sometimes there's a lot of random stuff that you can tell is ai