The Original Faery
Prologue
I make my way reluctantly downstairs to where the party has already started. I hate dressing up for parties, but it’s worse now, I am expected to smile and dance and act like my brothers - Stefan and Damon Salvatore - are not dead and my best friend was not burned to ashes for being a vampire.
I disagree with my father often, but when he said that Katherine Pierce was an evil blood sucker, I was ready to kill him. She was kind and understood me in a way no one else did. And for her to be punished for what she is, is wrong. And to kill Damon and Stefan, his own children, for becoming vampires to be with Katherine was so horrendous. I haven’t spoken to Giuseppe Salvatore since the incident.
My anger at my father is not helped by the itchy, monstrous dress a maid forced me into. And the fabric cages that were the shoes that were already chaffing my feet. And when I see him standing at the foot of the stairs, with his cold glare piercing through me, all the anger at my father resurfaces.
“I’m pleased to see you can do one thing right.” He hisses at my as I come to a stop in front of him. He grabs my arm harshly and pulls me close so he can whisper in my ear: “ Embarrass me this evening and I will make sure it is the last thing you do.”
And with that we enter the ballroom as if nothing was wrong.
I sit down on a chair in a dark corner of the room as I let my feet take a break. I had been dancing with young boys my age and my feet were screaming at me to sit down.
I heave a sigh as I sit and think.
“Rough night?”
I whirl at the voice and see a gentleman sitting in a chair close by. He chuckles lightly.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
He had a faint European accent, dark brown hair and eyes of a soft hazel green. He looks expectant and I realise dumbly that I have been silent for a good two minutes.
“Sorry. Yes, it’s been what you call a rough night.” I say the last few words bitterly, glaring over at my father. I see him gaze at me curiously out of the corner of my eye. Then he chuckles again.
“Something funny?” I snap, furious that this man finds humour in my discomfort.
“I just thought that you American women were supposed to be well mannered mouth breathing idiots. In no way do you fit this description.”
I can’t help but laugh at this. “ Well I’m not a woman yet, so just you wait.” I reply with a grin. He returns it with a smile of his own, though it’s shaky, as if he hadn’t smiled in a long while.
“I’m Finn Mikaelson by the way.” He says, extending his hand.
“Cassiopeia Salvatore.” I reply as I shake his hand.
I spent the rest of the night sitting and talking with Finn, until my father pulled me away, claiming that I should get to bed, but he was not subtle in the way he looked at me.
He dragged me upstairs to his study and locked the door behind him.
“What did I say about embarrassing me tonight?”
I knew he didn’t want an answer, he was already cemented in his belief that I had somehow tarnished the name Salvatore, but I answered anyway.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Father.” I state.
“You were supposed to be mingling with the boys your age so that I could fix the public image of our family, that your brothers destroyed!” He all but yelled the last words, coming closer with each declaration. “You were supposed to fulfil your only purpose, which is to marry into a rich family and produce heirs. That is all you are good for.” He was right in front of me now and I tried desperately to hold back the tears threatening to fall at his words. “You are however also good at destroying everything you touch!” He shouts at me.
“I’m ten years old!” I shout back. “I shouldn’t be expected to marry, or even fix what you broke. Not Damon or Stefan. But you! You broke this family!”
Then, he slaps me. I cry out in pain.
In a whirlwind he is ripped off me and thrown into the wall. I gape in shock as he falls to the ground, along with the now shattered remains of a few pictures.
Standing before me was Finn Mikaelson, with veins beneath his eyes and the elongated canine teeth. Vampire. But I couldn’t care less about what he was I ran at him and hugged him, burying my face in his chest.
“Thank you” I whisper into his shirt.
“You are not afraid?” Finn asks. He seems scared of what my answer could be.
“There are worse monsters in this world.” I mumble. He holds me close as I cry.
Finn compelled my father not to remember this altercation. To only remember me dancing with all the young boys, then retiring to bed for the night.
While my father didn’t remember our argument that night, it didn’t stop him from finding other reasons to punish me.
It only got worse, midnight visits in my room after getting drunk at the bar and claiming that I had embarrassed him or somehow deserved to be punished. So he would take off his belt, and whip my back with it, until my skin hung in ribbons, and the maids had to bandage me up.
Finn and I still saw each other often. Going for lunch or just sitting in the town square and talking. I never mentioned my father’s wrath, or the reason he believed I deserved it.
But I asked Finn to talk about his life. And he regaled me with the stories from when he was human. He told me all about his family and how they became vampires. He told me how his half brother, Niklaus, was the original hybrid, and how he used these mystical daggers on his siblings when he got mad at them. Finn also told me how he had been entrapped by this dagger for almost 700 years before Niklaus decided to free him.
I did tell Finn about what happened to the vampires in this town, and how my brothers were killed for being sympathisers. He was empathetic, revealing that he too has lost a brother and understood my pain.
I was happy. Finn was my escape from the harsh reality I faced when I was at home. And it continued like that for six years. Until Finn disappeared without a trace.
At first I was angry, Finn was my best friend and was always there for me, how could he disappear without at least saying goodbye? But I soon realised that Niklaus must have come for him.
After this revelation, I dedicated my time to tracking Niklaus down. Looking to the witches that lived in the town. But when they couldn’t help me, I turned to the power that ran in my veins, the reason my father hated me. But that too failed me.
As I sat in my room, staring dejectedly out the window, my father came in.
“While you are utterly useless and unlovable, the young Gilbert boy appears to think you a worthy wife.” I must have been going insane because I thought I heard a note of pride in his voice. “His family will be coming over for dinner to discuss.. Arrangements.” He sneers at me “You will finally serve your purpose.”
“No.” My voice was quiet but firm. I wouldn’t let him tell me what to do anymore. “I will not marry a Gilbert.”
“You will do as I say.”
“Why should I? You will never see me as anything more than a reminder of what you have lost. You will never love me, never be proud of me. So I am done. Find another mindless puppet to play with.” As I try and walk past him, he grabs my arm so hard I cry out.
“You will not disobey me.” The pure rage in his eyes scares me to my core. I pushed him too far this time. In my panic I didn’t notice my magic surface, but I could feel it now, like electricity crackling beneath my skin. I felt powerful.
As my father shoved me back to my seat at the window, I exploded. Pure energy escaped me, rushing at the cause of my fear. As my magic made contact with is body, it engulfed him in a storm of fire.
His screams echoed through the house alerting the servants. They rushed up the stairs and they assumed it was the house and not my father that was on fire, they ran at me and helped me out in front of the house.
As I watched my home burn down, with my monster of a father trapped inside, I thought I would feel peace or safety now that the root of my troubles was dead, but all I felt was emptiness. Nothing. I was alone in this world and I had only myself to blame.
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Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the story😁
I think I’ll be making a second part to the prologue….
So stay tuned😉
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Philippe Noiret and Salvatore Cascio in Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)
Cast: Philippe Noiret, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Agnese Nano, Antonella Atti, Enzo Cannavale, Isa Danieli, Leopoldo Trieste, Roberta Lena, Nino Terzo, Leo Gullotta, Tano Cimarosa, Nicola Di Pinto. Screenplay: Giuseppe Tornatore, Vanna Paoli. Cinematography: Blasco Giurato. Production design: Andrea Crisanti. Film editing: Mario Morra. Music: Ennio Morricone.
Will today's kids feel sentimental about the multiplexes in which they see movies, the way I feel about the small-town theaters where I grew up, the places where I learned to love movies? I have my own lost cinema paradises, so I should be the right audience for Cinema Paradiso, with its tribute to a bygone era of moviegoing. Tornatore's movie has some good things going on, including the performance of Philippe Noiret as Alfredo, and the wonderful rapport between Noiret and young Salvatore Cascio as Toto. Leopoldo Trieste's performance as the censorious Father Adelfio is also a delight, and ending the film with Alfredo's assemblage of the kissing scenes the priest made him excise is a masterly bit. But once Toto grows up to be the lovestruck teenager Salvatore (Marco Leonardi), I begin to lose interest, as Tornatore's screenplay lards on more and more sentimentality. I've seen the 155-minute version twice now, though I have yet to see the 173-minute "director's cut" of the film, in which, I am told, the grownup Salvatore (Jacques Perrin) is reunited with his teen love Elena (Agnese Nano), now grown up and played by Brigitte Fossey. Frankly, I don't much want to: The 155-minute version seems overlong as it is. Cinema Paradiso is beloved by many, and often makes lists of people's favorite foreign-language films, but I find it thin and conventional.
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