❝ 🪦‧˚꒰ ೯﹙ 𝗦𝗜𝗫 𝗙𝗘𝗘𝗧 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥 ﹚- ୭౿ ❞
ꗃ ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ﹙ FOLKLORE & MYTHS ﹚˖ ࣪. ࿐
𝗦𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗡𝗘 ━━━ 𝖤𝖯𝖨𝖲𝖮𝖣𝖤 𝖤𝖫𝖤𝖵𝖤𝖭
𝘉𝘓𝘖𝘖𝘋𝘓𝘐𝘕𝘌𝘚 ╱ ╱ ⋆⭒˚.⋆

ANASTASIA SAT ON the counter as she watched Jeremy make, attempt to make, breakfast for the two of them, dressing in a pair of jeans she had gotten from Elena's closet and one of Jeremy's t-shirts.

"Stop laughing at me." Jeremy tells her as she lets a giggle slip past her lips as he failed to flip the pancake over in the skillet.

"You go get ready for school, and I'll do this." She tells him, jumping off the counter and pushing him out of the way with her hip.

"Fine, fine." Jeremy handed her the spatula in his hand, leaning down to kiss her, "Hmm, I could get used to that."

The green eyed girl laughed, pushing him away from her as Jenna walked into the kitchen, Jeremy going around his aunt to get to the stairs.

Jenna smirked as she looked over at Anastasia, "I saw that kiss."

"What kiss?" She grinned, turning around to finish cooking the pancakes. "What some?"

"Uh, who made the mix?" Jenna questioned.

"Jeremy."

"Yeah, no, I think I'll pass." Jenna tells her, "Kid can't cook for anything."

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THE TWO teens walked hand-in hand towards the front of the school, fighting over which Winchester brother they liked the most.

"Hey, Mr. Saltzman." Jeremy speaks as he notices the man looking around the inside of his car.

"Hey, Jeremy. Hi, Anastasia." Alaric greeted the two, "I, uh, can't find my ring. I took it off for the gym and thought I put it -- there it is." He picks the ring up and placed it back into his finger, "How's his extra credit coming? He pick a topic yet?"

"I'm standing right here!" Jeremy exclaimed, "And I have. Mystic Falls, The Civil War Era."

"What's the angle?" He asked.

"My family - I found a journal of an ancestor who lived in the 1800's." Jeremy tells him, "And the Gilbert's were one of the original families of Mystic Falls. Sooo..."

"That sounds good."

"I gotta meet my uncle and Bonnie." Anastasia tells Jeremy, standing on her tiptops to peck his lips before she fell back on the floor, "I'll see you later."

"Okay." Jeremy grinned as she walked away. He looked back at his history teacher, finding him with a smug look on his face. "What?"

"I didn't say anything."

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"BONNIE." STEFAN calls out to the Bennett witch as him and Anastasia caught up to her.

"Stefan. Ellie."

"Hey."

"Hi." Bonnie greeted.

"I haven't seen you lately. How are you doing with everything?" Stefan asked her.

"I'm fine. It's all fine."

"Good."

"Yeah."

"Are you back in school?" Bonnie asked him.

"No. Actually, I came here to find you." Stefan tells her, "I was hoping you could help me with something. A spell."

Bonnie stopped walking, "Stefan, look, I know Elena's okay with all of this, and I appreciate what you did to help me. But I'm not really ready to drive into it with you just yet. Besides, can't Anastasia do the spell?"

"I understand. But I need your help." Stefan tells her, "It's Elena. She's with Damon."

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"I HAVE Elena's necklace."

The three now sat at one of the picnic tables, Stefan holding the necklace that Elena had taken off the night before once she found the photo Stefan kept of Katherine.

"I was just hoping you could use this to make some sort of connection. I just need to know that she's okay." Stefan tells her.

"How do you know I can do this?" Bonnie asked.

"Because I've known a few witches of the years, Anastasia included." Stefan says, "I've seen what they can do."

"I'm still new at it."

"It's okay. Give it a shot."

"Okay. Alright." Bonnie takes the necklace from the male Salvatore's hand, closing her hand over the top of it, and closing her eyes as she tries to get something from the necklace, "There's nothing. Nothings happening. Usually, there's an image or...tell me if anyone's looking."

"Okay." Stefan says as Bonnie leans over to pick up a leaf next to Anastasia's foot.

"What is it?" Anastasia asked when Bonnie could get the leaf to levitate.

"Something's wrong." She says.

"With Elena?" Stefan questioned.

"With me. There's something wrong with me." Bonnie says standing up, "I have to go. I'm sorry, Stefan. I can't help you."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

JEREMY AND Anastasia walked up the stairs of the library, the boy in search of stuff to help him with his paper for Alaric.

Just as they turn, a couple books fall on him as a girl rushes around the bookshelves.

"Oh, my god. I am so sorry. There was this one book wedged between the other. And I pulled then kaplunk, kaboom." She says, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Anastasia turned, eyes going wide as a gasp leaves her lips, "Anna!"

"Stacie!"

The two girls quickly pull each other into a tight hug, talking over each other.

Jeremy clears his throat after picking the books up from the floor and putting them in the correct spaces.

"Oh, right! Jeremy, this is Anna. Anna, this is Jeremy, my... uh-,"

"Boyfriend." Jeremy cuts the girl off, holding his hand out for Anna to shake.

Anna looked over at the Salvatore with a smirk, "Boyfriend, huh?"

"Shut up." Anastasia mumbled, blush rising on her cheeks as she looked down at her feet shyly.

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"THIS AISLE is local and state history. And the Civil War is one over." Anna says, Jeremy and Anastasia following her down the line of shelves with thousands of books on them, "What do you need?"

"Local." Anastasia tells her, "1860's."

"Do you work here?" Jeremy asked Anna.

"Nope." Anna shook her head, glancing at Anastasia, "You want reference. This way. Uh, homeschooled. I study here for a mock school environment." She stops as a shelf, "Ah, here we go. Original settlers, town archives, founders stuff. It's all here. So, what's your topic?"

"The town's fear and hysteria surrounding the war, and how it influenced certain writers of the time." Jeremy tells her, arm around Anastasia's waist.

"You might want to focus that." Anna tells him.

"The origin of local folklore and myths." He says.

Anna shared a look with Anastasia, "You mean the vampires."

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"LET'S JUST say that I'm descended from Katherine." Elena says to Damon as they sit on Bree's bar in Georgia, "Does that make me part vampire?"

"Vampires can't procreate. But we love to try." Damon smirked before getting serious again, "I was human when Anastasia was born, her mother was a witch. If you and Katherine are related, it would mean Katherine had a child before she was turned.

"Did Stefan think that he could use me to replace her?" Asked Elena.

"Kinda creepy if you ask me. Come on, what? You don't like pickles? What's wrong with you?"

"How can you even eat? If technically you're supposed to be--,"

"Dead?" Damon asked in a whisper before talking normally. "It's not such a bad word. As long as I keep a healthy diet of blood in my system, my body functions pretty normally."

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"YOU'RE BOTH kidding me, right?" Jeremy looked between the two girls as they sat at a table in the library, "There's not such this as vampires."

"Well, there's not a lot of documentation but the stories have been told since the Civil War." Anastasia tells him.

Anna nods in agreement, "My granddad used to tell me all these creepy stories when I was little and he said that his granddad told them to him."

"Yeah. That would be Folklore." Jeremy tells the two, "Vampires are a metaphor for the demons of the day."

"Which are?" The two girls asked.

"The Union Soldiers." Jeremy says, "I've read the stories myself. They talk about the enemy, the demons that attack at night.

"That sounds like vampires to me." Anna says before turning to look at Anastasia, "What about you, Stace?"

Anastasia smirked, "Vampires."

"Allegorical vampires. Which is what it is." Jeremy said, creative expressing during a very volatile time. I mean, a country at war doesn't want realism. They want fantasy. Thus, vampire fiction."

Man, you're smart." Anna tells him, "I gotta give it to you. When I first saw you, I missed it."

"Yeah. I've had a rough go of it lately. But I'm just now getting back to my old self." Jeremy said, "With the help of Anastasia, of course."

"Well, good luck on your paper." Anna stands up, "I gotta get home. You know, my great grandfather actually showed me a journal once from an ancestor and he had written all of this creepy stuff about vampires. It was actually really believable."

"Wait. A journal?"

"Yeah. Why?" Anna glanced at Anastasia.

"Are you sure you have to go?"

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"SO, YOU have no idea where the journal is?" Jeremy asked, arm around the back of Anastasia's chair in the Grill.

"Nope. Gramps died." Anna said, "And all the kids split his stuff. I can ask."

"I just find it weird that our ancestors kept the same kind of journal, all three of us. It's crazy."

"Maybe it's based in some partial reality." Anna says.

"No. It's gonna be a metaphorical." Jeremy told her, "My ancestors wrote short stories."

"So, that's why you're hung up on the fiction of it all." Anastasia pointed out.

"No, I'm hung on up on the fiction of it all because I've seen "The Lost Boys" and "Near Dark" like, fifty times." Jeremy said.

"Are those movies?" Anna asked, "Hey, I've never seen them. Maybe we can all have a fright night and rent a whole bunch of vampire movies."

"Uh, yeah, sure."

"Why does that sound like a no way in hell?" Asked Anna, "Sorry, I'm blunt."

"No, it's - I don't want yo to get the wrong idea." Jeremy tells her, "I just recently got out of something. Plus, I got Anastasia."

"Oh, please, sure." Anna shook her head, "I meant as friends. I would never take you away from Anastasia. I really gotta go. Nice meeting you, Jeremy. Stace, don't be a stranger and call me."

"I might." She crossed her arms over her chest with a smile as Anna walks away, "There's no way in hell I'm calling her."

Jeremy laughed, "Come on, pouty. Let me buy you dinner."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

DAMON PICKS up Elena's phone from the ground as he walked out the door of Bree's bar, going around to see if he could find her.

"Damon, no."

The eldest Salvatore cries out in pain as he's suddenly hit with a metal baseball bat on the back of his knee cap, the vampire continuing to hit him with it, "What the hell?"

The vampire drops it and grabs a canister and starts to pour the gasoline all over Damon's body.

"No!" Elena cried, running towards the, but stopping at the vampire growls at her.

"Who are you?" Damon asked him.

"That's perfect." He says, "You have no idea."

"What are you talking about?" Elena asked, "What did he do?"

"He killed my girlfriend." The vampire tells her and he starts to pour the gas over Damon once again, "What did she do to you, huh? What did she do to you?!"

"Nothing." Damon grunts in pain.

"I don't understand." Elena says.

"My girlfriend went to visit Stefan and Stasisa, and Damon killed her, got it?"

"Ugh!"

"Lexi? Lexi was your girlfriend?" Elena asked him. "She told me about you. She said you were human."

He nodded, "I was."

Elena watched as he turns back towards Damon, pulling a lighter from the front pocket of his jeans, "Lexi turned you?!"

"If you want to be with someone forever, you have to live forever." He spins around and uses his foot to kick Damon in the head.

"She loved you." Elena said, trying to do anything that she could from letting the vampire kill Damon, "She said that "when it's real, you can't walk away"."

"Well, that's a choice you're not going to have to make." He tells her.

"Don't. Don't, please, don't hurt him-,"

"I'm doing you a favor." He lights a match.

"Lexi loved you. And she was good. That means you're good, too." Elena tells him, "Be better than him. Don't do this. I'm begging you! Please."

The vampire stares at Elena for a few seconds, his face going back to normal as he grabs Damon by the shirt and lifts him up before throwing him.

"Thank you." Elena says.

"It wasn't for you." He says, "Tell Anastasia that Lee says 'hi'."

❱ 🌿⋆｡˚

"SO, I googled." Anastasia walked down the aisle in the Library where Jeremy sat, "Because I have the need to always be right, ask Uncle Stefan."

Jeremy chuckled as she sat on the floor next to him, "What is it?"

"Proof. Sort of." Anastasia handed him the printouts.

"What does that mean?"

"Well, I only went as far back as 1942, and found that there's been a string of animal attacks periodically in and around this town for the past seventy-five years." She tells him, "It's consistent. In '62, five bodies found. In '53, four people killed. In '74, three people dead. And there's been five this year. All attacked. All suffered major blood loss, as in drained of blood."

Jeremy looks down in thought.

Anastasia licks her lips, deciding that she couldn't lie to Jeremy any more for Elena's sake. She had to tell him the truth, "There's some stuff that I need to tell you about. And I need you to listen to me carefully and do not interrupt me until I'm finished, do you understand? Because it's a lot of information to take in."

Jeremy searched her eyes that were full of seriousness before he nods his head, "I understand."