003; Shadows of her Broken Heart// Part V
V
- Discovering the truth, or otherwise known as closure
~
It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it.
Jodi Picoult
~
Emmy smiles slightly, knowing how hard it will be for her to find everything out… he knows that whilst she may appear like a strong little girl, with a defense mechanism like no other, she is far from what she makes out to be. This will ultimately be the weapon, which may really destroy any remains of Elena Gilbert, and Em. His head argues with his heart on this one, because if she doesn’t find out then she’ll die for a lost cause, and he didn’t really want that, he didn’t want her to die in the first place, but if this was the prophecy, then it was by royal law that he was bound to tell her the whole story. They sit in her living room, her busy fidgeting in a un-lady like manner, him trying to find the words to begin, as he knows he does have a pretty big chunk of her trust.
She fidgets on the sofa and raises her hips up a few times before finding the right position, flipping the channels on the TV she finally settles for How I Met Your Mother and watches the episode intently, Em watches her in turn and his unsettling thoughts are beginning to calm in his head,
“If you don’t stop trying to burn a hole in my head I may literally scream,” she states, and after laughs at Marshall.
“Sorry, not trying to burn anything” He seems apologetic enough; she decides and proceeds to ignore his anguished glances towards her. She sighs- a long and a lazy sigh and stretches further, moving her feet from under her bum and stretches like a cat.
“Do you know what, Elena, let’s go for a drive?” He half-asks half-tells her. They need somewhere where she might not want to stake him to his death… and he may know just the place.
She nods mutely, sensing his urgent tone and the creases on his young-looking face, maybe now she’ll find out why over the last few days he has been in deep thought. They listen to strange folk music in his Porsche, her hands drum against the gray leather of the seats; he pretends not to get annoyed at the noise, she had been patient with him after all.
When they arrive at the docking area she seems excited to get out of the tension-filled car and instantly runs down to the water of the lake. Though there is a difficult, slippery hill before the water starts, she does eventually make it down without slipping or tripping, and as she comes face to face with the clear blue water, the tension leaves her body and she waits for her vampire companion to calm and make his way to her, it doesn’t really take him more than 20 seconds, and somehow she knows that whatever is revealed in the next few minutes will be life-altering.
He stands next to her and gulps the clean forest air down, “Did you know that vampires aren’t actually meant to walk among the humans?” His serious face makes her laugh, “Well I though at least that much was obvious, you’re bloodthirsty beasts,” She smiles at him brightly, calming him down in an instant... he ponders upon how safe Elena can make him feel in a few seconds, how she had the necessary people skills to make his kind, or generally anything supernatural to quieten, she had the nurturing skills to lead his nation far. “Men may have discovered power, but women learned how to play with it” Katherine’s favourite quote which she had religiously repeated in her court, he thinks in this instant this applies to Elena, she knew not of how much power she has, and how much more she could gain, but it was all ahead, and he hoped she would want the coming responsibilities.
“Before I begin to tell you of the origin of vampires, I need you to promise to listen carefully. You’ll have the missing pieces in your head but just bear with all that I have to say.” She nods in response and he gestures towards the dry grass as if to nudge her to sit down; both of them face the other and he begins when he thinks she’s comfortable enough.
“The vampires first came onto this side, I suppose the mortal side of “reality” to build forces up for the coming civil war, see Katherine had claimed the thrown after her father died a vicious death, and I’ll tell you about that one later, but for now nobody knew about the prophecy or what role the Salvatores would play... as the civil war was between Katherine’s central state (which included the top half of the kingdom),” He wasn’t speaking quickly, it was only the key points which she could really make out, her mind read prophecy, dead, different reality, he notices her confused face and adds in-between his upper kingdom explanation… “Sorry this must be confusing, I wish I had a map to explain but I guess if you just try and follow, okay?” She nods in response, unsure of what else to say. He follows on, “But yes, it is Katherine’s main command- which isn’t the army it’s actually her Royal Guard, called the KPs, you can imagine why.” She noticed this about him a long time ago; he wasn’t in the slightest bit fond of Katherine or her very prominent arrogance and her devotion to herself.
Emmy talks for a while longer about the guard and Katherine’s court, mentioning different names and key political figures, she doesn’t really listen all that much, not because she was being rude but because of the over-whelmed she feels. It’s like: what does a human being do when she or he finds out magic is real? But moreover, what does someone do when they realise there are different worlds, never mind simply dead people walking and talking. Different species, different galaxies, different everything… she was pondering this but then tunes back into Em’s lengthy explanation, he has changed from Dark to Light. “The other side call themselves the light side,” He talks about how poor the nation is and how they’re suffering because people like Stefan are forced to feed on usual blood, “As human blood is actually the biggest luxury on the ‘market’ if you like, we have our own artificial stuff made of human components,” Her face turns amused and he has some indication that she is actually paying attention, that she hasn’t yet had a heart attack! “What like true blood?” her face is full of amusement. “We plan to sue the show, that idea was a complete and utter rip off!” his frustrated voice makes her laugh ring deep and around the lake, she notices how the birds rise up and fly all around the lake, the afternoon sky a clear blue, with patchy, threatening clouds creeping in. She smiles at him and shakes her head, muttering an affectionate “idiot” under her breath. He rolls his eyes and smiles, showing his teeth. Continuing his story he talks about Katherine’s family and begins the fatal part which concerns her: “In the king’s court there was a little boy, his name was Matthew, and this little boy who was the king’s favourite servant, well he wasn’t really a servant but the king’s half son, at least that is what is believed by everyone around, otherwise Matthew wouldn’t have received the luxuries of learning how to fight vampires, kind of like fencing in the Hamlet days, or like boxing but on a professional level. As you can probably imagine Katherine detested this boy, she wanted to rip him from bits to bits because she needed to be the favourite and the best at everything. She really resents him,” Emmy’s thoughtful voice takes her a bit aback, as if he was only realising it now, he snaps out of his thoughts and adds as an afterthought, “well it doesn’t really matter, she’s a horrible bitch who couldn’t govern a kingdom even if it bit her in the ass” This truly makes Elena smile, she respects him a little more for the hate he feels towards her, she’s missed this view from everyone around her… Damon, Stefan, Caroline… everyone seemed on the other side of the boat at the moment, maybe it was because she’d put a massive distance between herself and these people but she couldn’t really be sure, maybe it was her fault that she wasn’t fighting enough to let them see who Katherine really was. Elena smiles at him, “Our little queen doesn’t like to share, then?” Her snide comment is snippy, and he adds in “after Matthew lived as long as his dad’s will said he could in the palace he was forced out by her majesty, and no I suppose not, no, we can see that from her obsession with the Salvatores,” he rolls his eyes and continues his first story, “Nevertheless, the boy truly was close to his majesty and claims that on his deathbed he proclaimed a prophecy, this infamous prophecy stated ‘one who looks like a Pierce, who is of that descend and carries the Gilbert name, shall become the ruler of this kingdom,’ There were only five people who knew of this prophecy, Katherine, Stefan, Damon, Matthew, and Miss Pearl, of course, Katherine’s mother.” Her eyes fly open and her eyebrows are lost in her hairline, “Pearl is what?!”
“Katherine’s mother, wait how do you know who she is?” He looks miffed, as if she had somehow stolen his thunder in the telling of the story.
“My brother,” her voice chokes, “dated Anna, in fact he took her blood before he decided to commit suicide, it didn’t work though, he still died.”
“Miss Pearl is alive and well with Annabelle then?” she’s disappointed to give him the wrong answer, he seems angry at the new discovery of the downfall of these two key figures in the story. Elena thinks for a minute, Katherine betrayed her own mother! She had left her to rot in a tomb of servants.
“See Katherine sulked for weeks at the thought of not having the ultimate power of the whole kingdom under her thumb. Her dad had the knowledgeable ability to pretell the future, that’s how his family secured the Kingdom in the first place, it wasn’t decisions made at the time, it was his useful gift to see the future, and if he said that this would likely happen, it probably was. And while she was in ‘mourning’ she had her suitors within the kingdom’s ‘government’, I think ‘government’ is the human word, no?” she nods, interested in the rest of the story, “had decided to give her the power after all, they weren’t aware of the prophecy and the other people could obviously see how sad and distraught Katherine was, she had somehow managed all of them to swear to her, (as their queen she really demanded,) that they would never reveal the prophecy to anyone, all but one swore with killing curses forced upon them. Matthew, after she had decided to get rid of her daddy’s precious boy, went around the country telling all of the people who knew that he was not lying, (he was too a very influential Pierce, even if the other half came from a poor servant mother, Matthew had inherited all of the good things his parents possessed- he had possessed his father’s power of speech, his strength and loyalty to what he believed was right, he had possessed his mother’s ability to speak and be noticed.)” he pauses to take a deep breath, let her process everything. “What the king had said had not only killed Katherine and her self esteem but, this vicious rumour spread through the whole kingdom, right down to the south, end of the kingdom. As her rule grew more tyrannical, people were less and less impressed with the way the kingdom was run. You have to understand Katherine adopted the policy that fear was the best way of control, and it probably is the best way to get your way but in a world of angry eternal souls, they don’t want to be governed by a bitch that only has her own interest at heart,” she nods in understanding, the facts, the basis of the story laid out in front of her eyes.
“And the Salvatores come into this how?”
“Well the brothers were from a human family but only human for years and years before they let anyone believe. The Salvatore name has been around for millions of years; they’re the old money of the vamps. Damon Salvatore had fallen in love with Katherine on a visit to his godfather, the King, or her father. He serenaded her with gifts and took her out, and basically those two were the perfect match,” Emmy’s eyes roll back, and somehow Elena feels a pang in her chest, she didn’t think that Damon and Katherine were the perfect match at all, in fact she wished she could let Em get to know the real Damon, her Damon.
“In my opinion anyway,” He begins, sensing the tension at his slip of the tongue, “he’d give her enough freedom to play her games whilst he was away on service and she’d have a steady husband who’d inherit what was rightfully hers anyway and she doubted that Damon wouldn’t be kept out of control.” She had to agree, one of Damon’s best qualities was the immense loyalty he and to the ones he held dear (or loved, depending which way you looked at it).
“But Stefan comes to the Kingdom, mysterious circumstance, if you ask me, but quickly the pair were engaged, just like that!” He seems annoyed at this, because it does seem like everybody believed Katherine was in love with Damon, and she knew from personal experience that so was he.
“Everybody was miffed and Damon especially was very much heartbroken and angry. What the brothers didn’t know is that Katherine was in love with another prince from one of the neighbouring kingdoms, he died suddenly after some savages attacked him in the palace, so at this point her family had ultimate control over what and who she did, if you catch my drift.” She did understand, again at the state she was in at the moment she probably argues that Em, with his best intentions at heart, did manipulate her into trusting him, because in normal circumstances she would’ve left by the point the word ‘prophecy’ was mentioned.
“At this point the king dies and Katherine realises she’s been played. I think within her first few months of rule, she does fall in love with Stefan in her own little way. She sends the boys to the mortal side, this side and traps them in this reality. Basically she betrays them because she doesn’t want to marry Stefan and she knows that because she’d already betrayed Damon (who had by this point completely sucked into her web of lurrrrve,) she needed him to go sulk in some place where he wouldn’t cause any nuisance to her or her plans.
The brothers began to play a game, “who finds the Gilbert look-alike” wins. Well because you are the Gilbert look-alike, you should know the rest of the story.” He finishes neatly, she saw where this story was heading anyway, she wasn’t surprised was just annoyed that she was once more merely a game to the boys, merely a game to anyone. Elena, or the Gilbert look-alike, sits silently for 5 minutes exactly; Em counts the seconds precisely, just as she breathes in and out, in a manner of trying to calm herself.
“Emmy, I’d like you to drop me off at the boarding house, I need to tell certain two assholes that their little game is over.”
Mostly that’s the reason she needs a strong drink, preferably something disgusting like whisky, and why she finds Emmy speeding down the narrow rode towards the Salvatore Abode. Elena finds that she’ll begin conversing with Damon first, she’s had more control over her urges to stake him, and so she’ll subtly hint at their demise. Then she’d see Stefan, she imagines his face looking shocked and innocent, his deep eyes full of sorrow and regret, and she imagines Damon’s panicked face when he hears about it, she could even bet her right arm that if she really tried with a little bit of banter, she could possibly make Damon speechless, because she knew of their infidelities, and they were not going to like not being in control.
~
I | II | III | IV | V| VI | VII | VIII
- Discovering the truth, or otherwise known as closure
~
It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it.
Jodi Picoult
~
Emmy smiles slightly, knowing how hard it will be for her to find everything out… he knows that whilst she may appear like a strong little girl, with a defense mechanism like no other, she is far from what she makes out to be. This will ultimately be the weapon, which may really destroy any remains of Elena Gilbert, and Em. His head argues with his heart on this one, because if she doesn’t find out then she’ll die for a lost cause, and he didn’t really want that, he didn’t want her to die in the first place, but if this was the prophecy, then it was by royal law that he was bound to tell her the whole story. They sit in her living room, her busy fidgeting in a un-lady like manner, him trying to find the words to begin, as he knows he does have a pretty big chunk of her trust.
She fidgets on the sofa and raises her hips up a few times before finding the right position, flipping the channels on the TV she finally settles for How I Met Your Mother and watches the episode intently, Em watches her in turn and his unsettling thoughts are beginning to calm in his head,
“If you don’t stop trying to burn a hole in my head I may literally scream,” she states, and after laughs at Marshall.
“Sorry, not trying to burn anything” He seems apologetic enough; she decides and proceeds to ignore his anguished glances towards her. She sighs- a long and a lazy sigh and stretches further, moving her feet from under her bum and stretches like a cat.
“Do you know what, Elena, let’s go for a drive?” He half-asks half-tells her. They need somewhere where she might not want to stake him to his death… and he may know just the place.
She nods mutely, sensing his urgent tone and the creases on his young-looking face, maybe now she’ll find out why over the last few days he has been in deep thought. They listen to strange folk music in his Porsche, her hands drum against the gray leather of the seats; he pretends not to get annoyed at the noise, she had been patient with him after all.
When they arrive at the docking area she seems excited to get out of the tension-filled car and instantly runs down to the water of the lake. Though there is a difficult, slippery hill before the water starts, she does eventually make it down without slipping or tripping, and as she comes face to face with the clear blue water, the tension leaves her body and she waits for her vampire companion to calm and make his way to her, it doesn’t really take him more than 20 seconds, and somehow she knows that whatever is revealed in the next few minutes will be life-altering.
He stands next to her and gulps the clean forest air down, “Did you know that vampires aren’t actually meant to walk among the humans?” His serious face makes her laugh, “Well I though at least that much was obvious, you’re bloodthirsty beasts,” She smiles at him brightly, calming him down in an instant... he ponders upon how safe Elena can make him feel in a few seconds, how she had the necessary people skills to make his kind, or generally anything supernatural to quieten, she had the nurturing skills to lead his nation far. “Men may have discovered power, but women learned how to play with it” Katherine’s favourite quote which she had religiously repeated in her court, he thinks in this instant this applies to Elena, she knew not of how much power she has, and how much more she could gain, but it was all ahead, and he hoped she would want the coming responsibilities.
“Before I begin to tell you of the origin of vampires, I need you to promise to listen carefully. You’ll have the missing pieces in your head but just bear with all that I have to say.” She nods in response and he gestures towards the dry grass as if to nudge her to sit down; both of them face the other and he begins when he thinks she’s comfortable enough.
“The vampires first came onto this side, I suppose the mortal side of “reality” to build forces up for the coming civil war, see Katherine had claimed the thrown after her father died a vicious death, and I’ll tell you about that one later, but for now nobody knew about the prophecy or what role the Salvatores would play... as the civil war was between Katherine’s central state (which included the top half of the kingdom),” He wasn’t speaking quickly, it was only the key points which she could really make out, her mind read prophecy, dead, different reality, he notices her confused face and adds in-between his upper kingdom explanation… “Sorry this must be confusing, I wish I had a map to explain but I guess if you just try and follow, okay?” She nods in response, unsure of what else to say. He follows on, “But yes, it is Katherine’s main command- which isn’t the army it’s actually her Royal Guard, called the KPs, you can imagine why.” She noticed this about him a long time ago; he wasn’t in the slightest bit fond of Katherine or her very prominent arrogance and her devotion to herself.
Emmy talks for a while longer about the guard and Katherine’s court, mentioning different names and key political figures, she doesn’t really listen all that much, not because she was being rude but because of the over-whelmed she feels. It’s like: what does a human being do when she or he finds out magic is real? But moreover, what does someone do when they realise there are different worlds, never mind simply dead people walking and talking. Different species, different galaxies, different everything… she was pondering this but then tunes back into Em’s lengthy explanation, he has changed from Dark to Light. “The other side call themselves the light side,” He talks about how poor the nation is and how they’re suffering because people like Stefan are forced to feed on usual blood, “As human blood is actually the biggest luxury on the ‘market’ if you like, we have our own artificial stuff made of human components,” Her face turns amused and he has some indication that she is actually paying attention, that she hasn’t yet had a heart attack! “What like true blood?” her face is full of amusement. “We plan to sue the show, that idea was a complete and utter rip off!” his frustrated voice makes her laugh ring deep and around the lake, she notices how the birds rise up and fly all around the lake, the afternoon sky a clear blue, with patchy, threatening clouds creeping in. She smiles at him and shakes her head, muttering an affectionate “idiot” under her breath. He rolls his eyes and smiles, showing his teeth. Continuing his story he talks about Katherine’s family and begins the fatal part which concerns her: “In the king’s court there was a little boy, his name was Matthew, and this little boy who was the king’s favourite servant, well he wasn’t really a servant but the king’s half son, at least that is what is believed by everyone around, otherwise Matthew wouldn’t have received the luxuries of learning how to fight vampires, kind of like fencing in the Hamlet days, or like boxing but on a professional level. As you can probably imagine Katherine detested this boy, she wanted to rip him from bits to bits because she needed to be the favourite and the best at everything. She really resents him,” Emmy’s thoughtful voice takes her a bit aback, as if he was only realising it now, he snaps out of his thoughts and adds as an afterthought, “well it doesn’t really matter, she’s a horrible bitch who couldn’t govern a kingdom even if it bit her in the ass” This truly makes Elena smile, she respects him a little more for the hate he feels towards her, she’s missed this view from everyone around her… Damon, Stefan, Caroline… everyone seemed on the other side of the boat at the moment, maybe it was because she’d put a massive distance between herself and these people but she couldn’t really be sure, maybe it was her fault that she wasn’t fighting enough to let them see who Katherine really was. Elena smiles at him, “Our little queen doesn’t like to share, then?” Her snide comment is snippy, and he adds in “after Matthew lived as long as his dad’s will said he could in the palace he was forced out by her majesty, and no I suppose not, no, we can see that from her obsession with the Salvatores,” he rolls his eyes and continues his first story, “Nevertheless, the boy truly was close to his majesty and claims that on his deathbed he proclaimed a prophecy, this infamous prophecy stated ‘one who looks like a Pierce, who is of that descend and carries the Gilbert name, shall become the ruler of this kingdom,’ There were only five people who knew of this prophecy, Katherine, Stefan, Damon, Matthew, and Miss Pearl, of course, Katherine’s mother.” Her eyes fly open and her eyebrows are lost in her hairline, “Pearl is what?!”
“Katherine’s mother, wait how do you know who she is?” He looks miffed, as if she had somehow stolen his thunder in the telling of the story.
“My brother,” her voice chokes, “dated Anna, in fact he took her blood before he decided to commit suicide, it didn’t work though, he still died.”
“Miss Pearl is alive and well with Annabelle then?” she’s disappointed to give him the wrong answer, he seems angry at the new discovery of the downfall of these two key figures in the story. Elena thinks for a minute, Katherine betrayed her own mother! She had left her to rot in a tomb of servants.
“See Katherine sulked for weeks at the thought of not having the ultimate power of the whole kingdom under her thumb. Her dad had the knowledgeable ability to pretell the future, that’s how his family secured the Kingdom in the first place, it wasn’t decisions made at the time, it was his useful gift to see the future, and if he said that this would likely happen, it probably was. And while she was in ‘mourning’ she had her suitors within the kingdom’s ‘government’, I think ‘government’ is the human word, no?” she nods, interested in the rest of the story, “had decided to give her the power after all, they weren’t aware of the prophecy and the other people could obviously see how sad and distraught Katherine was, she had somehow managed all of them to swear to her, (as their queen she really demanded,) that they would never reveal the prophecy to anyone, all but one swore with killing curses forced upon them. Matthew, after she had decided to get rid of her daddy’s precious boy, went around the country telling all of the people who knew that he was not lying, (he was too a very influential Pierce, even if the other half came from a poor servant mother, Matthew had inherited all of the good things his parents possessed- he had possessed his father’s power of speech, his strength and loyalty to what he believed was right, he had possessed his mother’s ability to speak and be noticed.)” he pauses to take a deep breath, let her process everything. “What the king had said had not only killed Katherine and her self esteem but, this vicious rumour spread through the whole kingdom, right down to the south, end of the kingdom. As her rule grew more tyrannical, people were less and less impressed with the way the kingdom was run. You have to understand Katherine adopted the policy that fear was the best way of control, and it probably is the best way to get your way but in a world of angry eternal souls, they don’t want to be governed by a bitch that only has her own interest at heart,” she nods in understanding, the facts, the basis of the story laid out in front of her eyes.
“And the Salvatores come into this how?”
“Well the brothers were from a human family but only human for years and years before they let anyone believe. The Salvatore name has been around for millions of years; they’re the old money of the vamps. Damon Salvatore had fallen in love with Katherine on a visit to his godfather, the King, or her father. He serenaded her with gifts and took her out, and basically those two were the perfect match,” Emmy’s eyes roll back, and somehow Elena feels a pang in her chest, she didn’t think that Damon and Katherine were the perfect match at all, in fact she wished she could let Em get to know the real Damon, her Damon.
“In my opinion anyway,” He begins, sensing the tension at his slip of the tongue, “he’d give her enough freedom to play her games whilst he was away on service and she’d have a steady husband who’d inherit what was rightfully hers anyway and she doubted that Damon wouldn’t be kept out of control.” She had to agree, one of Damon’s best qualities was the immense loyalty he and to the ones he held dear (or loved, depending which way you looked at it).
“But Stefan comes to the Kingdom, mysterious circumstance, if you ask me, but quickly the pair were engaged, just like that!” He seems annoyed at this, because it does seem like everybody believed Katherine was in love with Damon, and she knew from personal experience that so was he.
“Everybody was miffed and Damon especially was very much heartbroken and angry. What the brothers didn’t know is that Katherine was in love with another prince from one of the neighbouring kingdoms, he died suddenly after some savages attacked him in the palace, so at this point her family had ultimate control over what and who she did, if you catch my drift.” She did understand, again at the state she was in at the moment she probably argues that Em, with his best intentions at heart, did manipulate her into trusting him, because in normal circumstances she would’ve left by the point the word ‘prophecy’ was mentioned.
“At this point the king dies and Katherine realises she’s been played. I think within her first few months of rule, she does fall in love with Stefan in her own little way. She sends the boys to the mortal side, this side and traps them in this reality. Basically she betrays them because she doesn’t want to marry Stefan and she knows that because she’d already betrayed Damon (who had by this point completely sucked into her web of lurrrrve,) she needed him to go sulk in some place where he wouldn’t cause any nuisance to her or her plans.
The brothers began to play a game, “who finds the Gilbert look-alike” wins. Well because you are the Gilbert look-alike, you should know the rest of the story.” He finishes neatly, she saw where this story was heading anyway, she wasn’t surprised was just annoyed that she was once more merely a game to the boys, merely a game to anyone. Elena, or the Gilbert look-alike, sits silently for 5 minutes exactly; Em counts the seconds precisely, just as she breathes in and out, in a manner of trying to calm herself.
“Emmy, I’d like you to drop me off at the boarding house, I need to tell certain two assholes that their little game is over.”
Mostly that’s the reason she needs a strong drink, preferably something disgusting like whisky, and why she finds Emmy speeding down the narrow rode towards the Salvatore Abode. Elena finds that she’ll begin conversing with Damon first, she’s had more control over her urges to stake him, and so she’ll subtly hint at their demise. Then she’d see Stefan, she imagines his face looking shocked and innocent, his deep eyes full of sorrow and regret, and she imagines Damon’s panicked face when he hears about it, she could even bet her right arm that if she really tried with a little bit of banter, she could possibly make Damon speechless, because she knew of their infidelities, and they were not going to like not being in control.
~
I | II | III | IV | V| VI | VII | VIII