And so, two more years of life passed. I was finally two and a half years old and could walk around the house without anyone carrying me.
Bonnie, my cousin-sister, followed me everywhere, and I found it adorable.
We played together all day long, and finally the day came for us to go to daycare, where we met other children.
"Take care of each other," Sheila told us as if we were adults. "Nik, if anyone bullies Bonnie, hit him."
"Yes!" I shouted happily.
"Mom… don't encourage violence in children," Abby complained to Sheila, but it didn't help much.
--+++--
"Nik… there are too many people," Bonnie shrank back and held onto me, and I couldn't help but smile.
Honestly, I had been Bonnie's emotional control for as long as she could remember. Grandma and Abby were great, but… they didn't have a male role in Bonnie's life, and her father, Rudy, was an idiot who barely stayed home.
"Let's make friends," I declared, trying to cheer her up. "It'll be fun."
"Hey, I don't want to make friends. I already have you," Bonnie grumbled, and holy shit, how do I deal with that?
After some time, I finally managed to convince her to make friends, and soon we blended in.
Our small group was made up of the protagonist, Caroline, Tyler, and Jeremy, Elena's brother. There was also Tyler's friend… but he was kind of insignificant.
Over time, I got to know them better and became closer to Jeremy and Caroline. That little bastard is not going to date my sister.
Bonnie grew close to Elena, Tyler, and Caroline as well. She was the link between the two friendships.
Of course, there was Bonnie, but she was only close to me and not to Jeremy, and so time passed without any real problems.
---++++----
I had finally turned five, and that was when Bonnie's father took her on a trip to the capital, leaving me alone with Abby and Grandma.
I felt a chill run down my spine and went to the living room, where Grandma and Abby were talking.
"You can't…" Sheila said loudly. "That thing is ancestral. We just give it what it wants and leave."
"And let it take a child?" Abby replied angrily.
"They're not our children," Sheila shot back at Abby's words.
"Do you hear what you're saying?" Abby snarled angrily.
That was when I tried to interfere to calm things down, and a hand touched my shoulder.
"You know it's not good to interrupt adults," said a voice I recognized, and my heart tightened.
I turned around and saw her. "Mom?" I was in shock—how long had it been since I last saw her?
"Of course," she said with a smile and picked me up, and I didn't resist. "Shall we take a walk?"
Suddenly everything blurred, and we were in the same Greek palace where I had first met her. I was sitting on her lap, and she was seated on a throne.
"You know you shouldn't interfere," my mother said in a gentle tone. "I know you have some memories that aren't yours."
Damn, how does she know? Is she going to kill me, thinking I deceived her?
"Don't worry, my son…" she said, stroking my hair. "This is more normal than you think. Sometimes I allow some souls to reincarnate, and they retain a few memories as well."
"So… why won't you let me interfere?" I asked, confused.
"Because it's destiny… this world is not the same one you were born into," my mother continued, and I was shocked again. "In your universe, your birth was the acceptance of vampires by nature. Your sister was a weapon to kill a monster that only she could kill… In this universe… that monster was already killed by me."
Damn, does that mean Malivore has already been dealt with? She herself killed the monster? I mean… yes, she's super powerful… but that much?
"I understand," I said, discouraged. "So Hope won't be born in this world?"
"On the contrary, she will be born," my mother replied with a sweet smile. "In this universe, she will be the definitive convergence of nature's acceptance of vampires… In this universe… the one who would not be born is you."
"But I'm here," I said in shock. And if I'm here—
"Nature didn't erase you, which means you already took Hope's place as the acceptance of vampires by nature," my mother said, and my heart sank. "But don't fear… Hope will still be the symbol. You weren't born here; it was just convenient for nature to transport you to this universe, and nature used that to its advantage. But it needs a symbol born and raised here."
"And what will happen to me when she's born? Will I become disposable?" I asked, now afraid. Am I going to be erased?
"No, nature is not ungrateful. It made me a divinity for solving a problem for it, and you also solved a problem for it," my mother said with a radiant smile. "So you gained freedom… Remember, nature loves all its children and was distressed by having many children beyond its reach, and you brought them back to it. Congratulations, my son. You were freed from destiny."
"I understand. And why can't I interfere?" I asked, now irritated.
"Because Abby has a destiny to stop Mikael, even if only temporarily," my mother replied, stroking my head again. "You don't think a witch, even one descended from me, would be capable of defeating Mikael, do you? He's one of the few beings in the world capable of coming close to matching me in power."
"So… he was nerfed?" I asked, still confused.
"Hahaha, yes, exactly. He was nerfed by the script of destiny, and if Abby doesn't stop him now… that nerf will end, and he'll return to full strength," my mother replied, and I shuddered.
In the series, Mikael was capable of effortlessly defeating Hybrid Klaus and Elijah together.
Damn… sorry, Bonnie. Sorry, Grandma. Sorry, Abby.
Her laughter slowly faded, like a flame smothered by the wind. The palace, which until then had seemed merely ancient, became alert. Not hostile. Attentive.
"Now you understand," she said, with a dangerous serenity. "Destiny doesn't weaken monsters by accident. It does it because it still needs them… incomplete."
My stomach churned.
"So Abby…" I began, but the sentence died on its own.
"Abby needs to partially fail," my mother completed. "Enough to delay him. Not to defeat him. Not yet."
I clenched my fists, too small to contain the anger that came along with guilt.
"If I interfere, I ruin this," I said. "If I help… Mikael returns to his peak."
"Yes," she replied, without softening it. "And in that state, hardly anyone besides me and a few other beings would be capable of stopping him."
Images appeared around us like shattered reflections:
Mikael standing in front of a dark alley.
Klaus bleeding, slumped against a wall, eyes filled with fear.
Elijah falling to his knees, defeated… surpassed and completely useless.
"That Mikael," she continued, "is not the one you know from the story. This is the prime version of Mikael."
"And Abby is the anchor of that limit," I murmured.
She nodded.
"If you act, Nik, you don't save Abby. You steal from her the role that keeps her alive in the flow of the world."
That hurt more than any threat of erasure.
"So I just… watch?" My voice came out low, almost truly childish for the first time.
She leaned forward and rested her forehead against mine.
"You learn," she said. "You observe how destiny weakens even gods. Because one day…"
The palace began to fall apart faster this time. Not by choice. By necessity.
"Remember this, my son," her voice echoed as the ground crumbled beneath my feet. "Freedom is not doing everything you want. It's knowing when not to act… even when you can."
"How do you know all this? This story? The other universe I have memories of?" I asked in panic and fear.
"Simple. Nature made me a divinity… I received knowledge and power beyond magic… and I was able to see your story: how you were born as Klaus's son, everything you went through until you were killed because of your sister's recklessness and reborn here," she said in a sad tone. "I honestly don't want you near your sister… Please stay away from her."
She had a sad, pained look, as if she had seen a vision of her children dying, and damn…
I'm not like that. To me, this was a TV series. What she saw was probably what the original Nik—without me having taken his body—would have lived, and destiny would have killed him.
Since I came here as a baby after reincarnating… and it was better that way.
---+++-----
The palace dissolved like ancient dust carried by the wind, and the last thing I felt was the warmth of her arm holding me—not as a goddess, not as the personification of nature, but as a mother far too tired of knowing too much.
When I woke up, I was lying on the living room couch. The fireplace crackled softly. Sheila murmured something in a language I didn't recognize, and Abby sat at the table, her face hard, her fingers trembling slightly around a cup of coffee that must have gone cold ages ago.
"He suddenly fell asleep," Sheila said without looking at me. "As if someone had pulled his spirit out for a moment."
Abby looked at me. Not with suspicion. With fear.
"Nik… are you okay?"
I nodded slowly. My body was small, but my head felt too full. Full of versions of the world that weren't this one. Full of futures that didn't want to be touched.
"I am," I replied. "Just… tired."
She stood up and ruffled my hair, forcing a smile that fooled no one in that room.
"Go play in your room. Grandma and I need to talk."
I obeyed. For the first time, obedience was easy.
In my room, I sat on the floor surrounded by toys that no longer seemed like toys. Dolls weren't just dolls when you had seen real monsters. Building blocks didn't teach anything when you had already seen destiny dismantle people.
That was when I understood the true weight of what my mother—that which was more than a mother—had said.
I was free from destiny.
Not protected.
Not invincible.
Free.
And freedom, in that world, was almost a sentence.
The following days passed strangely normal. Bonnie returned from the trip excited, talking nonstop about tall buildings, too many lights, and how her father had bought her a huge ice cream just for her. I smiled, listened, cracked jokes. I did what I always did: I was the solid ground she stood on without realizing it.
But something had changed.
I began to observe more.
Bonnie wasn't just a sweet child. There was something in her, quiet, latent, like a lake too deep for such a small body. Her magic didn't bubble. It waited. And that was far more frightening.
Sheila, on the other hand, started to look at me more closely. Not like someone suspicious. Like someone who recognized something.
"You've been very quiet lately, boy," she commented one night.
"I'm learning to listen," I replied.
She smiled sideways.
"That's usually the first symptom."
Time moved on the way it always does: ignoring cosmic revelations and metaphysical trauma. School. Small fights. Laughter. Caroline talked too much. Tyler broke things. Jeremy tried to look tougher than he was. Elena was still just the nice girl next door.
And me?
I began to feel.
Not active magic. Not spells. Something else… structural. As if the world had visible edges to me. As if I could sense where the story grew too thin, where the script stretched beyond what made sense.
Mikael was still out there.
Nerfed. Bound to the role destiny had written for him.
Abby walked toward her own moment of calculated failure, unaware that it was exactly what would keep her alive.
And me…
I was the variable no one had asked for, but no one managed to erase.
One night, while watching Bonnie sleep on the makeshift mattress in my room—she had had a nightmare and refused to go back to hers—I made a silent decision.
I wasn't going to interfere directly.
I wasn't going to face Mikael.
I wasn't going to "save the world" like some cheap script hero.
But I wasn't going to be passive either.
If destiny liked incomplete monsters…
I would learn to live between the gaps.
And when Hope Mikaelson was born—symbol or not, weapon or miracle—
she would find a slightly different world.
Not safer.
Not fairer.
But prepared.
Because destiny could write the story.
Nature could impose rules.
But no one said I couldn't learn to edit the margins.