The end came quietly for Elias Norwood.
It wasn't the blazing finale he might have imagined in his darker hours — no monstrous demon tearing through his chest, no final stand against an apocalypse. No, it was just the hiss of tires on a rain-slick road, the shudder of metal, and the sudden, bone-jarring cold of glass and asphalt.
He didn't even feel the pain. Just the rain on his face as he lay there, staring up at a sky too dark for stars. In that instant — that single heartbeat between life and the nothing that comes after — Elias realized how insignificant a human death could feel.
Then the darkness swallowed him whole.
When his eyes opened again, the world was neither rain-slick asphalt nor sterile hospital lights. It was an expanse of white — endless, depthless, humming like a whisper at the back of his skull. Elias stood, or thought he stood. There was no ground beneath his feet, no horizon, but he felt anchored all the same.
He wasn't alone.
Something — someone — was waiting for him. It was not a figure so much as a presence. Like a voice heard in a dream, it spoke without words.
"Elias Norwood. Your end is not yet your end."
He might have laughed if his throat still worked. Of course, he thought. He'd always believed the universe wasn't quite done with him. Some people clung to faith, others to superstition; Elias had clung to stories — tales of rebirth, of magic, of power that defied mortality.
The presence offered him no judgment, only choice.
"One wish. One power to carry with you, should you wish to live again. Choose wisely — and you shall be reborn."
His mind spun. One wish. It should have been easy — immortality? Strength beyond all things? But the years he'd spent hunched over ancient tomes and dusty forums came flooding back. He remembered a single, gleaming eye in a story he'd once read — the Alpha Stigma. Tiir Rumibul's terrible, beautiful gift. An eye that devoured magic itself.
"I wish for the Alpha Stigma."
Silence. Then a sound like the shifting of mountains, the creak of an ancient door. The presence rumbled, approving.
"So be it."
The whiteness fractured. The world cracked open like an egg, and Elias Norwood fell through the shell.
The first thing he felt was warmth. The scratch of straw under his cheek. The weight of a blanket — coarse fur and rough linen. The second thing was the cold — crisp, northern, tinged with the salt of the fjord. The third was the beat of a heart far stronger than any human's.
He inhaled — the scent of pine, hearth-smoke, and something older, coppery. Blood.
Where am I? His thoughts felt tangled, sluggish. Then the memories hit him like a wave. Not his memories — not Elias Norwood's. But memories of hunting with crude iron spears, of listening to a father's booming laugh echo through a timber hall, of a mother's voice whispering old witch tales in the dark.
Aleksandr. The name rose up from the depths. Aleksandr Mikaelson. Eldest son of Mikael the Hunter and Esther the Witch.
Elias might have wept if he'd still been the boy who'd died on that rain-slick road. But now he only breathed out, his new body stronger than any he'd known before. He could feel it in his bones — the dormant magic, the slow simmer of something monstrous in his blood. The ritual hadn't happened yet, but it would soon. He remembered enough of The Vampire Diaries to know the tragedy that loomed.
And yet — he was here now. With the Alpha Stigma. The thought made him smile.
He sat up. A flickering fire crackled in the hearth at the center of the longhouse. His siblings lay scattered around him, still children — Finn, restless even in sleep; Elijah, already noble in how he clutched a toy spear; Kol, curled like a cat; and Rebekah, smallest of all, a pale bundle nestled against his side.
He looked at her. Little Rebekah. His new sister. He felt something twist deep inside him — a protective ache that pulsed like a heartbeat. I will not let you suffer. Not like before.
His eyes prickled. He blinked. The world shifted.
And then he saw it.
Threads. Currents. The world was stitched together by rivers of light — magic, raw and tangled, dancing through the walls, seeping from the earth below. And there, sleeping by the fire, his mother Esther shimmered like a living nexus of power.
The Alpha Stigma. It hadn't been a lie, then. He could see magic itself. And more than that — he could feel it, the taste of it on his tongue, the shape of its weave. He closed his eyes, reaching out. The threads quivered at his touch. With a simple flick of thought, he untangled a knot in the weave above Rebekah's head — a ward his mother had set to protect her from nightmares.
The spell dissolved under his gaze, replaced by a more potent shield of his own making. Aleksandr smiled. My sweet sister. Sleep well.
That night, Aleksandr Mikaelson — once Elias Norwood — sat before the fire as the world outside howled with winter wind. He let the new memories settle: the Viking village perched by the fjord; the scent of snow and salt; the tales of werewolves that prowled the forests. He traced the timeline in his head.
Soon, their little brother Henrik would die at the claws of a beast. His mother would break the laws of nature, binding her children to immortality. And thus the curse of the Originals would begin.
But now, there was him. Aleksandr. The piece the universe never planned for.
He touched his temple. The Alpha Stigma pulsed behind his eyes, a cold, clear fire. He saw possibilities in every flicker of the hearth.
He wouldn't stop the ritual. No — he understood too well what it would mean to remain mortal in a world that chewed through the fragile and the weak. But he could guide it. Twist the story in ways even Esther's witchcraft couldn't predict.
I am the eldest. The first. And I will be the last.
He rose, moving through the longhouse with a grace that felt almost alien to him. He stopped by his mother's side. She stirred, her eyes fluttering open — deep green, threaded with the weariness of a witch who had seen too much.
"Aleksandr?" she murmured, her voice thick with sleep. "Is something wrong?"
He smiled. His new face felt unfamiliar — sharp bones, storm-grey eyes that shimmered with the hidden glow of the Stigma.
"No, Mor," he said, the old tongue falling easily from his lips. "Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to see you."
Esther reached up, brushing a strand of hair from his brow. She looked at him as if she could see the world in him — though she could never see all of it now. Not with the Stigma coiling like a dragon behind his eyes.
"You always watch over them," she said softly, glancing at her other children. "Especially Rebekah. You've always been her shield."
Aleksandr's smile didn't fade. "And I always will be."
Esther's gaze turned troubled, as if some shadow whispered to her from the depths. Her magic tugged at his — a flicker of suspicion. He let her probe, let her brush against the surface of his mind. She found nothing but the love of a son for his mother and siblings.
She relaxed, her fingers slipping away. "Good night, my son."
"Good night, Mother."
He watched her drift back to sleep. Then he turned, stepping into the night beyond the longhouse.
Outside, the world was vast and ancient — forests black with pine, mountains capped with moonlit snow. Somewhere in that darkness, werewolves prowled. His father Mikael hunted them with the single-minded rage of a man who could not stand the wildness of beasts — a rage that would soon turn inward, toward his own children.
Aleksandr breathed in the night. He felt the magic swirl around him — the world's heartbeat laid bare.
This is where it begins.
He closed his eyes, and the Stigma flared to life, bleeding out through his irises like liquid silver. Threads of power shimmered in the air — ancient ley lines that crossed this land, veins of magic that would one day fuel witches' spells and vampire curses alike.
He reached out — and planted the first seed.
A charm, a sigil etched in runes, buried in the roots of an ancient oak. It would wait there, a beacon to any who knew how to listen. A message, carried through the centuries: Swear fealty to the eldest Mikaelson, and you will never fall.
One day, when kings rose and empires fell, when witches hunted vampires and vampires hunted witches, they would find this mark. And they would come to him.
An organization that would outlast kingdoms. A family beneath his family — bound not by blood, but by an oath older than any crown.
Aleksandr looked up at the stars, so distant and cold. He thought of the stories he'd read in that other life — of monsters and heroes, of brothers turned to enemies, of sisters betrayed by those they loved.
Not this time.
The wind carried the faint laughter of children from the longhouse behind him. Rebekah's giggle — bright, innocent.
Aleksandr Mikaelson — once Elias Norwood — smiled, baring teeth too sharp for a human. The Alpha Stigma pulsed in his eyes, bright enough to burn away the dark.
Not this time. This time, I am the oldest. The strongest. The unseen king.
And so the story began.
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