Written 2013 by VeGirl

After the border Klaus kept the car rolling until we reached a town in the heating sun. My head ached from strain and sleep depravation. He stopped by a hotel and motioned for us to come along. Heat hit us like a wall as soon as we stepped out of the car, further straining my head. I could see Anna's eyes narrowing like mine.

I was really impressed by Klaus' linguistic knowledge, but was still a bit weary; he might as well be selling us for a neat stash of cash. Damon's words returned to me; never trust a vampire!

Luckily the guy slid Klaus a key and once again it was time to drag our heavy suitcases out of the car.

"Come here." Klaus lifted our heavy bags out with ease and I thought about the practical side of having a vampire for boyfriend. Not that I had any desire for Klaus. I shuddered.

We entered a suite and with horror I noted the huge double bed. I swallowed and looked at Anna.

"Dibs for sleeping in the middle," Klaus said and I turned to look at him with huge eyes. He sighed. "I was only joking; my God, lighten up!"

I longed for a shower, but as soon as my body made contact with the bed I fell asleep, completely unaware if Klaus slept beside me or not. We slept all day and checked out when the sun was just about to set, fed and showered. Driving through an unknown country, where I couldn't read the road-signs was not something I dreamed of, and definitely not in pitch black night. I totally forgot about vampire night vision; how convenient!

We got ourselves a new car again, and silently I wondered why he went through all that trouble when his brother was daggered and probably boxed up in a warehouse somewhere. This car had a nicer stereo though and music lightened our mood.

"When can we go home to Sweden?" Anna asked quietly.

"I want to go back to Mystic Falls!" I objected, outraged by her suggestion.

"Either way, we have to get you under ground for a while first."

"Why? It can't be for Kol's sake."

Klaus chuckled a bit. "No it's because of Anna."

"Me; why?"

"We have to find out your connection to Annora, are you related?" he said. "From what I can tell you're doppelgangers."

"What? Like Katherine and Elena?"

"Yes, and if we're really lucky, you have the same... skills."

We went through another border and was now in Hungary if I could read the signs right. I tried to read what the town we rolled in through was called, but it felt impossible.

"What is this town?"

"It's Magyarorszag."

"Excuse me?" It sounded like a sneeze in my ears.

Klaus chuckled and said a few sentences in Hungarian, of which I understood absolutely nothing. I assumed it was something dirty, so I didn't ask for him to translate it.

* * * * *

When the sun got up, we had already passed yet another border and I didn't even ask where we were anymore. I figured that he would tell me when he decided I needed to know. All I did was watch the changing nature outside our windows.

We were going through amazing scenery, on winding small roads up over mountains and down the other side and finally we ended up in a town. It looked like an old town with old houses, or at least they were built in an old style.

Finally I couldn't stop myself from asking yet another time. "Where are we?"

"In Transylvania."

"What; did you say Transylvania? Freaking Transylvania?" I was practical yelling at the end of that intelligent statement, making Anna jerk upright from her sleep.

Klaus gave me a calm look. "Yes." He had almost a questioning tone as if asking me what was wrong with this place.

"Transylvania isn't real, that's just a myth."

"Unlike Mystic Falls then?" he asked calm in a questioning voice, effectively shutting me up.

Touché, I thought, but stayed quiet for a while.

"Are you telling me we're in Dracula's back yard?" Anna said in a low voice.

I snapped my head around to look at her. Perhaps in his backseat, I thought, but chose not to comment; instead I turned to look at Klaus. "Why can't you just take us back to Mystic Falls?"

"A lot of stuff has been going on since you left, luv."

I glared at him. "What do you mean; it's only been a couple of days."

He sighed. "No, it hasn't." I looked confused at him while he apparently didn't know where to start. "You know that there is something different with that small town; you can't find it on any maps, there are no flights heading there; you need some kind of intervention to get there."

By now he had my full attention; I knew exactly what he was talking about. "My thoughts are that mother was the one opening the portal for you and Anna to get to Mystic Falls."

"Your mother?" Anna asked.

"Yes, mother is a powerful witch."

"And why can't we just go back now; am I not allowed back?"

He smiled an actual honest smile. "Yes, I'm sure you are, but during these few days, time has travelled faster over there."

I had no idea what he was talking about.

"It's been almost four months over there, and I'm not sure you can return until autumnal equinox."

Huh?

"What is an autom...? What did you call it?"

He smiled again and explained, and I knew exactly what he meant, I wasn't familiar with the English word for it, that's all. "Allegedly that's a time where the barriers between realms are weaker, so you can travel from one to the other."

It took some time to devour this latest information, and I got quiet to process it while I resumed looking out the windows at a town we went through. Klaus looked around a lot; it looked like he was searching for old buildings.

"Was it long since you were here last time?"

He turned to look at me, first questioning, but then he smiled. "Yes."

"Roman Empire long?" I couldn't help but mumble and he glared at me.

"Why don't you be a little helpful and help me find the Biserica Neagra is."

"The what?"

"The chutch, tell me where the church is at instead and point southwest from that?" He sighed tiredly.

A little puzzled I did as he said and was able to help him. He seemed to be searching until he found a small winding road behind the houses, through a hidden gate that led straight into the forest. Anna and I exchanged puzzled looks, both of us wondering where he was taking us.

The small winding road took us upwards between the trees; suddenly the trees opened up to reveal a stunning view out over the valley and town below. The road followed the steepling hill a bit and we found a really old estate, where Klaus drove the car into a passage way. It felt like a freaking Ivanhoe setting and I had to hold myself from commenting about the era which the house was built.

Anna had apparently not been focused on the same thing. "What's this; Dracula's castle?"

Klaus sighed. "This is my house, and I'm glad to see that it's still standing," he explained. "I wasn't even sure the town was here," he revealed while chivalrously carrying our suitcases inside.

When we had put them in the assigned rooms we went downstairs to what I wanted to call the parlour. Two familiar faces met us in Klaus' company.

"Yonah," I said and walked up to him.

"Miss Emma," he replied smiling and took my hand just when I was about to hug him, he bent forward and kissed it. "It is a pleasure to meet you again."

"And you too," I said polite, glad I hadn't flung myself around his neck. "This is my friend Anna," I introduced.

"Annora..." he breathed.

"No, this is Anna; Anna, this is Klaus brother; Yonah."

I thought I noted Yonah get a little pale, but he did his best to snap out of it. "I beg your pardon, Miss Anna." He kissed her hand as well and she looked a bit smitten by the gesture. "I have been down and out for the last nine hundred years, so it feels like yesterday I spoke to Annora."

Anna blinked in surprise, but I remembered someone telling me about the sleeping beauty. By Yonah's side his sister stood.

"Amariya," I just said, unaware of how much English she understood.

"Emma, it is nice to meet you again," she surprised me by saying in perfect English.

"Wow; you have been studying since we last saw each other."

"I was a bit rusty when we met last time," she said with an endearing smile.

"But now you're up to date," I commented with a glance over the jeans and tee she was wearing.

She laughed a carefree laughter. "I was a little shocked over your outfit, I'm sorry."

"No worries; it must have been a rough awakening. This is my friend Anna by the way."

"Anna," Amariya said in a worthy tone of voice. "It is nice to meet you, I'm glad I saw you on the photo, or else I would have sworn you were Annora."

"Are we really that alike? And you've met my ancestor?" Anna was amazed.

"Yes, we were friends."

Anna had a hard time to process this piece of information, she had been really into genealogy and dove right into a discussion about what she had found out and what Amariya knew; I tuned them out.

* * * * *

Amariya, Anna and I were sitting in the cool shade outside a few days later. I was getting restless and even if this European vacation was fantastic, I wanted to go home.

"If I can't get to Mystic Falls anyway, I'd rather just head back to Sweden," I said with a sigh. "I don't get what we're waiting for?"

The original sister was twisting a little in her seat. "Let's talk about your return then... When did you arrive at Mystic Falls?"

"What date? It was June the nineteenth when I arrived in Atlanta and two days later, Damon grabbed my hand to keep me safe from your brother," I said with a glance towards Klaus, my tone was somewhat bitter, thinking about how I was completely in the hands of him now, but he just ignored that.

"Aha, the summer solstice... we must wait till September, until we can return." Klaus' voice startled me a little and he plopped down on the chair next to mine.

"September? I can't wait until September!" We were only in July; September was months from now.

"What about Lughnasadh?" Amariya asked in her clear British accent. I looked surprised and had no idea what she said. Was that even English? And I was most impressed by her linguistic abilities.

"It is a wiccan holiday." Klaus watched my puzzled face with a humoristic expression on his own.

"Wiccan? How do you know about wiccan?"

"You forget that I am born in a time when people lived in symbiosis with nature, in a way that has been lost on people nowadays," he said seriously. "Everyone except werewolves of course." He had sparkles in his eyes. His phone signaled a call and he had a serious face as he got up from the table, taking the call while he walked away.

"Back in... Sweden was it?" Amariya did her best to get us back to focus. "Did something unusual happen? Did you visit anything you normally don't; did you see or hear anything unusual?"

I watched her with a frowning forehead, doing my best to remember anything unusual.

"We went to that old school, remember?" Anna said; reminding me of a field trip we had with some old classmates to some old building where school had been out for over a hundred years.

Amariya was leaning forward over the table at once in an interested way.

"I almost forgot about that," I told Anna. "I got this horrible headache and had to get out of there."

"Yes, there was almost a buzzing sound that was eerie." Anna furrowed her eyebrows, but chuckled later. "We ended up sitting outside, making plans for our magical trip instead."

"You sat there, talking about Mystic Falls?" Amariya asked with renewed interest.

Anna and I giggled as we thought of how our classmates from the history teacher class had been amazed, but Anna and I just wanted out of there. "There was some rumor about kids' disappearing from school ending up days, weeks or months later, unable to say where they had been." Anna's giggling stopped as she told the story, realizing that this was significant.

"But that's not what happened to us," I objected.

The focused girl had frown lines on her forehead and sparkles in her eyes as she tried to find out more about this old school. "It was a stone building?"

I looked confused at her. "Yes... it's an area with lots of stones; a lot of houses are made of stones," I said in a hesitant way, but Anna got excited.

"There was this huge slab of stone on the other side of the building, they spoke of runes, but nobody had found any. I couldn't stay to search for any due to the buzzing, humming feeling."

By now Amariya had snapped her attention back to Anna with certainty. "Annora..." she said, smiling. "You have a fairy godmother to grant you wishes."

We looked at her like she had hit her head on something hard. Fairy godmothers? Puh leas...

She was fast on her feet and Anna and I watched her walk into the house, mumbling incoherently, still with a smile on her face.

* * * * *

I found myself standing outside the house at sunset that evening, looking out over the sparkling town and the fabulous nature surrounding it. Klaus came walking out to join me on the patio.

"Are you going to tell me what has happened?"

He looked a little suspicious, but then resigned. "In Mystic Falls? Sure." He shrugged. "I'll tell you; Stefan is still on the straight and narrow, Tyler is two-timing Caroline, Elena is a vampire and a millennium old vampire hunter clan is on our tale."

"Vampire hunter clan?" I gasped. "We all thought you were the big bad."

Klaus smiled tart. "Yeah, well..."

I tried to wrap my head around what he had said. If Tyler was cheating on Caroline, why did Klaus leave? "Why aren't you there to move in on her?"

He lost the hard facade for a millisecond, before the guard was up again, and he was just eyeing me in a blasé way.

That's when a lightning bolt hit me. "Wait a minute; did you say Elena is a vampire?" I almost yelled, but still managed to emphasize every syllable.

"Yes, and we're on a mission to get her human again."

I just stared at him.

His phone chimed again and I noted that he had been involved in several secret phone calls since we arrived here. He left me alone with a thousand questions.

.