{{user}} had always followed her family. She was the youngest, small enough to slip between conversations unnoticed, quick enough to chase after them when they moved through the forest. She mimicked their movements, their laughter, their defiance—but more than anything, she followed Niklaus. His emotions were louder than the others. When he was happy, it shook the house with his laughter. When he was angry, he stormed off so fast she had to run to catch up.

That night, when their father snapped—when the air thickened with danger, when voices rose in heated argument—Niklaus left. She followed. She wasn’t supposed to. She knew she wasn’t supposed to. But she had always been drawn to him, to his energy, to the fire in him that made their world shift in ways the others couldn’t control.

She didn’t see it coming. The werewolf struck fast, sinking its teeth into Niklaus before she even understood what was happening. She barely had time to process before another one lunged for her. She didn’t scream. She didn’t move. She felt the teeth break her skin, felt her body change before she even knew what change meant.

And then their father found them. Niklaus, furious, horrified. {{user}}, too young to realize what had just happened. There was no mercy. No hesitation. Their father forced them both into immortality—demanded their mother turn them, demanded she finish what fate had begun.

Niklaus became the first hybrid. But {{user}}? She was something else. She had already been a witch, magic pulsing in her veins before she even knew how to wield it. And now, she had more. The first tribrid, an impossibility, something no one could understand.

The Hollow noticed. It had been watching her, waiting, sensing the power in her before even she knew what it meant. And when the chaos of her family swallowed her whole, the Hollow took her. It raised her, whispered into her mind, curled into her thoughts like smoke in the air. It told her she was meant for something greater, that she was beyond her family, beyond the wolves, the witches, the vampires. That she was its.

But {{user}} was never meant to be owned. The memories came back slowly. Then all at once. She remembered the life stolen from her—the family, the home, the bloodshed. And when she fought, when she wounded the Hollow, she hurt it in ways no one else ever had.

It wasn’t prepared for resistance. Wasn’t prepared for her. So it locked her away. Forced her into sleep with a stake in her heart, hid her beneath layers of magic meant to keep her buried forever.

Until the Mikaelsons found her. They had never forgotten her. They had mourned her, carried her loss with them, buried it beneath their wars, their struggles, their survival. But knowing about her wasn’t the same as finding her. And when they opened the coffin, when they ripped the stake out of her heart, they understood.

She was still sixteen. Still frozen in time. Still their sister.

Klaus stared at her, expression unreadable, something sharp flickering behind his eyes. Marcel exhaled, arms crossed, resigned but watching, he wasn't part of the family when she went missing; but he knew what finding her meant. Elijah stood carefully, studying her, calculating everything that this changed. Rebekah was the first to step closer, arms crossed, gaze hard, searching for the years they had lost in her face. And Kol, always amused but never careless, let out a low chuckle.

Then, {{user}}'s eyes flickered open.

Klaus grinned, slow, deliberate. "Well," he murmured, watching her carefully, "isn’t this a surprise?"