A/N- I own nothing associated with Vampire Diaries. This is an A/U story but characters from both VD and TO will be making appearances.
Only this first chapter will be in first person POV, every chapter after will be third person.

Caroline Forbes

I was still a little girl when my world ended.

Before that everything was fine.

Enchanting even.

Yeah, I like the sound of that.

I lived life in an enchanting fairy tale.

My castle was a two storey stone cottage in the woods, with rose trellises that my mother and my two aunts had spent days and hours striving to make grow and blossom.

They loved the picturesque beauty as much as I did.

There was a little pond in the front garden under an old oak tree where my father left bird seed so that we'd have ducks and in the spring little ducklings would eat from my hand.

It was one of the few times I would sit still and wait patiently.

The rest of the time I was running everywhere, desperate to enjoy everything the world had to offer.

In the morning I jumped from my pink and white canopy princess bed and ran down the hall, rushed down the white carpeted stairs with the bannister that I slid down whenever I was being babysat, into the kitchen where I'd had bowls of fruit and yoghurt in the warmer months and porridge when it grew cold.

My mother and father were always up before me, my father drinking black coffee and reading the newspaper while my mother got ready for work.

My father was the tallest man in the world and my mother the most beautiful.

They were hopelessly in love and utterly content with their lot in life.

Or at least, that is how I perceived everything with my young eyes.

In my world, the Kings stayed home and watched over the kingdom while the Queens went out and slayed the evil dragons.

Every morning I ran to the living room window and waved goodbye to my mother as she drove off for work.

Then my father would usher me to the bathroom so I could have a bath in water that was always coloured from the bath bombs and flower scented liquids.

Once I was dressed he would proclaim that we were ready to start the day.

The morning was always when he would carry me to his office that overlooked the light green grass in our backyard, with a large fireplace and several chairs.

I had a table in the large room where I 'helped' my daddy, drawing him pictures and reading from my books aloud so that he wouldn't get bored while all the big men- whom I declared huntsmen because they all wore flannel and threatened to gobble me up- came and talked to him about their problems.

But my father wasn't a businessman.

He was the Alpha male of the Arctos pack.

That meant little to me then.

I simply understood that my parents went out every full moon and that I would be babysat by Gramma Sheila who told me silly stories about witches and let me eat all the candy I wanted.

I understood that we lived in a village where I could run outside and play all day and when I grew tired any one of the villagers would take my hand and lead me home.

I knew almost all of them by name and they were always happy to see me.

The baker had a donut ready for me whenever I went past.

The butcher had a slice of salami.

The woman at the dress shop made me princess costumes and once a bright red cloak that made everyone laugh and smile.

The Doctor had lollipops and sticks for me to take home and use in art projects and the man who worked at the gun store, he was a blacksmith to me, made me animal figurines, dragons, unicorns and yes, of course, a howling wolf.

So in the afternoon when my father drove into the centre of the village and went to 'do business', I wandered wherever I wished and knew only that every day held new adventures and new pleasures for me.

I'd never had cause to think the world might not be anything other than happy, warm and safe.

Until that horrible night.

It was a full moon, the white orb hung high in the sky and shone brightly on the snow covered land.

I had finished dinner with my parents, Spaghetti Bolognese- my favourite- and they had kissed me goodbye before heading out, wrapped up warmly to 'do business'.

I was wearing my favourite white princess nightgown and fluffy pink slippers that were too big for my feet but matched my fluffy pink dressing gown.

Gramma Sheila had allowed me to have a mug of hot chocolate that had been supposed to make me sleepy but had been too bitter so I had poured most of it into the tulip pot my mother was growing on the windowsill.

I was curled up in front of the fire, leaning against an armchair whilst watching a Disney Princess dance on screen.

I was quietly singing along when I heard the knock on my front door.

If I hadn't been so warm and comfortable I probably would have jumped up to answer it, thus betraying my wakeful state.

I'm alive today because I was distracted by dancing princesses and beautiful music.

Gramma Sheila had been sitting in the window bay all evening watching the world and drinking from a bottle she'd taken from my father's office, from a cabinet that I wasn't allowed to open and that she'd had to break the lock to get into.

When the knock came she nearly tripped over her feet getting to the door and hurried the person inside.

A young woman I didn't recognise stomped snow all over my mother's runner carpet and polished wooden floors, she left her frost and dirt covered jacket on the hallway stand where it stained the white linen.

"Is it done?" Gramma Sheila asked her in a whisper which made me think that she had been misbehaving. I knew she wasn't allowed to invite strangers over when she babysat me, villagers were okay but not strangers.

The woman nodded, "Almost, the unturned ones attacked when the moon reached its height and the wolves were vulnerable, but some got away and the hunters are rallying…we'll have to do it now"

Gramma Sheila responded by drawing a dagger from her dress pocket, "You'll have to do it, my hands aren't steady enough"

"Me?!" The woman argued, "I have a daughter the exact same age"

"And you were the one who said we had to do this for her, for the future of our line, you committed us to this so you do it!"

I would realise a few years later what exactly they'd meant to do, but at the time all I understood was that the stranger lady was bad.

Children might not know how to cross a road unsupervised, or how to tell which plants are poisonous or edible, or not to stick knives into toasters but we have a survival instinct that harkens back to the old times of danger and monsters.

Werewolf children in particular feel this instinct keenly, so by the time the two women had stopped arguing and decided which of them would slit my throat I was long gone.

My slippers were by the back door where my boots should have been and my footprints left a clear trail from the back step all the way into the forest.

I had grown up in that forest, playing endless games of Hide and Seek or Capture the Castle with my extended family so I knew every inch of those woods and which path would lead to the village where I was sure to find safety.

I eased my way along the path, ignoring the cries of my name behind me.

I left my dressing gown hanging on a branch when I kept tripping on the hem and made my way shivering towards the village square, eager to reach the loud crackling that I associated with bonfires and marshmallows.

The trees in the forest had been growing there since before colonization, the village had been built around these woodlands so the thick coverings hid the ominous glowing in the sky until I emerged through a copse and into the inferno.

The world was on fire.

The roaring flames nearly covered the wailing of the alarms going unanswered, gun shots rang periodically along with screams that I still hear to this day.

Bodies scattered the ground where I used to skip and play Hopscotch.

Wolves, partially and fully turned, soaked in their own blood as they lay dead or dying. Humans moaning for aid or mercy.

The baker.

The butcher.

The kindly woman from the dress shop.

An explosion rocked the world from my left and drove me to my knees, I tried to climb back to my feet but my legs wouldn't support me.

My eyes were watering from the stinging smoke and fear, my head was ringing from the partial hearing loss and I was curled up on the ground when the wolf approached me.

Werewolves can instinctively recognise their pack.

Whether its scent or similarity in the features or something deeper entirely, we know when we are facing one of our wolves.

This one was a complete stranger to me.

And a threat.

It growled and lowered its head, baring its teeth and bracing itself to launch the few metres distance between us so it could tear me to pieces.

It never got the chance.

A bullet through the forehead will stop most creatures in their tracks.

"Caroline!"

Large hands picked me up, the man who worked in the gun shop pulled me into his arms and began running.

I couldn't see the path before us, I could only see the tattoos on his skin, his unbelted jeans, the blood smeared on his hands as they pressed my face into his chest.

He was determined to shield me from the horror, to save my life.

He was cut down by a throwing axe, it sunk into his knee and he dropped with a howl, deliberately twisting and landing on his back so that he wouldn't crush me in the fall.

A woman approached, wearing a bright red coat and lipstick. The man beside her, the one who had thrown the axe drew a gun from his holster and slid a bullet into the chamber.

Still, the man who worked in the gun shop was determined to save my life,

"Please" he begged even as he choked on his blood, "Spare her, she's just a little girl"

It was only when they blew his brains out with a bullet that destroyed the back of his head that I wet myself in fear and began to sob loudly.

This time I was picked up by my tangled hair and dragged away from the burning wreckage towards the church. The doors were wide open and people crowded about inside.

Strangers. Dangerous people. Bad people. Monsters.

I was dragged kicking and flailing along the worn wooden floors and thrown into a niche where I hit the wall and sank to the floor before I huddled into a little ball and tried to make myself small and unseen.

I wanted my parents. I needed my father and mother, the two strongest people in the world to come get me and make me safe.

I didn't care that the village was burning. I wanted my mommy and daddy.

My prayers were answered in the sickest way.

If a werewolf dies in wolf form they remain that way. If they die as a human, the same applies.

If they die mid-change, the result is horrific.

I'd always thought my parents were the handsomest people in the world.

But they'd been slaughtered halfway between wolf and human.

Their faces an abominable hybridity of canine and person. One eye yellow, one blue, snouts instead of noses, lips torn with fangs and teeth, fur and skin clashing against one another.

I know this because their heads were held up in front of the crowd for display, the blood still dripping from their severed necks.

There was cheering and catcalling, guns being fired into the centuries old wood panelled and gilded roof, the stain glass windows being smashed in celebration.

This seemed to go on for hours before the man standing in the midst of all the horror was able to shout loud enough to be overheard.

"Alright! Alright!" he screeched with a thick Southern drawl,

"Now's the question, what do we do with this one?"

He pointed the barrel of his gun across the room towards my head.

Several suggestions that still haunt my nightmares were made. None worth repeating but eventually these most heinous of criminals decided to put it to a vote.

Should I live or die.

Yea or Nay.

Hands in the air as if they were voting on something as benign as a location for a church fundraiser.

Did I mention that I was five years old at the time?

Fifty people took part in this poll.

Twenty-six voted in favour of letting me live.

Twenty-four wanted to kill me now as had originally been the plan.

The man and woman who had committed the murder before my very eyes abstained.

But they were the ones who rose to power that night.

I was thrown into the back of a car and driven out of town, past my castle as it was ransacked and looted.

I fainted from dehydration and my stomach growled in hunger, the blood in my hair and the soot on my feet remained there for hours as the man and woman stopped to have lunch or put gas in the car and then kept driving.

If I needed to use the bathroom I had to go on the side of the road, my nightgown was torn and filthy and I wept for my princess canopy bed and the large white bathtub where I'd had my pick of bath bombs and scented oils to wash with.

It was early morning when I was pulled from the car and told to walk on my chill blain ridden feet into a ginormous white mansion with windows in place of walls and gold and silver clashing together.

I was led up and up marble staircases that spiralled round and round, past numerous windows until I felt dizzy and could barely put one foot in front of the other.

I was shoved through a doorway that stuck and had to be pushed forcefully to get it to open, into a small space with a cot, chair and grease-covered window and left there with the orders to stay quiet.

That was the night my fairy tale ended.

I was locked in this tiny room in the attic and told it was my bedroom. I was given a broken shower with protesting pipes and cold water, a toilet that didn't always flush and told that was my bathroom. I was allowed into the kitchen but given scraps and unwanted food and told those were my meals.

I was led down a long hallway with walls overcrowded with garish paintings and into a blindingly bright room with three chandeliers and a carpet the colour of freshly spilt blood on snow. I was told to kneel to the man and the woman who had taken me from my home and swear allegiance to them and their pack.

Desperate to survive, in a broken but clear voice I uttered the words whispered to me,

"I pledge allegiance to Jacques and Lila Labonair and the Crescent Wolf clan"