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Henrik was only the first to die.
Finn, Kol, and Rebekah followed in short order: Finn, by curse, and the other two by unknown illnesses. Then Elijah vanished under mysterious circumstances, leaving only Niklaus and Stiles behind.
Mikael and Esther were buried in grief, but while Mikael turned toward his remaining sons, Esther turned away, so focused on regaining her lost children that she neglected the ones she still had.
Niklaus, Stiles, and Mikael grew closer, but the youngest Mikaelson knew that it was only a matter of time before he and Nik died as well, and he wanted his father to be prepared for what was to follow. He waited until his mother had gone to visit Ayana yet again before sitting down with his father and brother to tell them what little he knew.
“I'm going to die soon,” he told them seriously, and watched his father's face pale. “Nik will die after me, and then mother will cast her spell.”
“Son--”
Stiles shook his head. “When we come back, we won't be the same; you have to remind us of who we were. You have to save us, Papa.”
“Come back?” Nik asked sharply, but Stiles only gave them a grim smile. “Ask Ayana; she knows.”
Stiles drowned two days later. Niklaus died three weeks after him.
With the prerequisites complete, Esther went back to Ayana for final preparations for her spell, only to be turned away. If Esther wanted to condemn her poor children, the witch said, she would have to do it on her own.
So she did.
At the same time Ayana was telling Esther why casting the resurrection spell on her children would be a bad idea, another witch was recording a prophecy about two brothers--a witch and a wolf--who would one day defeat Esther and change the vampires forever.
Eventually, Ayana would help Mikael rescue his children from their mother. It took a long time for them to feel comfortable in the world, and even longer for them to reconnect with each other. Their father tried to keep them together, but their mother's plotting and the heightened emotions that came with the change left the siblings almost constantly fighting each other.
Niklaus and Rebekah were the first to leave, together, followed by Henrik and Kol. Elijah left to check on Nik and Bekah when he heard that they were causing trouble, and when word came that Kol was running rampant through the countryside, Mikael went to check on him, leaving Stiles alone with his eldest brother who was still struggling to accept his vampirism.
Stiles did everything he could for a reluctant Finn, but eventually the two parted ways and the youngest Mikaelson chose to set out on his own.
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Over the years, the Mikaelson family came together and broke apart many times, but it would be Katarina Petrova that caused the rift between Stiles and Niklaus that would last for hundreds of years.
According to Klaus, anyway.
Unlike his siblings, Stiles had sired few vampires in his life. He chose his companions carefully, kept his greatest friend always by his side, and made more allies than enemies in the world. He and Katarina became fast friends, much to the irritation of his older brother, who wanted the girl for his own. Stiles protected her as best he could, but was unable to prevent the slaughter of Katarina’s family.
That was the last time any of the Mikaelsons saw their youngest brother.
Two hundred years later, Katarina drove a cursed blade into Klaus's chest and hissed at him about how Stiles and Scott had sacrificed themselves in order to save a dear friend.
Niklaus could admit--if only to himself--that the news hurt far more than the blade.
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The news that the youngest Original had sacrificed himself to save another reverberated throughout the supernatural world, though no one knew the exact details of his death. It was remarkably easy to identify the handful of vampires that he had sired, though, for their sudden absences were felt keenly among the community.
For the Mikaelsons, the loss was devastating, and led to a reign of terror against the witches that had taken their brother's friend that only ended when their mother surfaced claiming that she wished to reunite with her family and bring peace to their world.
The reconciliation took decades, but despite their initial distrust, Esther eventually gained her family's acceptance, and then the respect of the rest of the supernatural world.
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Centuries later, while the Mikaelsons were were creating an empire in New Orleans, a handful of very important children were born in Beacon Hills, California. These children lived normal lives until one day, two teenage boys went searching for a dead body and one of them became a werewolf.
Scott and Stiles battled alpha werewolves and hunters, and made friends and enemies. The pack grew, and Stiles began dreaming of a strangely familiar woman with blonde hair and soft eyes.
Erica and Boyd were rescued. Cora was found. Jackson came home. Peter stayed mostly sane.
Eventually, everyone remembered what had come before.
When Stiles, Scott, and Allison sacrificed themselves to save their parents, instead of finding the nemeton, Stiles found Freya.
Forty-eight hours later, the Original witch met her youngest brother in person for the second time in a thousand years and began teaching him everything she knew.
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Things remained busy enough in Beacon Hills over the next year that the pack, despite Freya’s presence, mostly managed to forget the trouble brewing in New Orleans. They knew that Scott and Stiles would eventually fight Esther there, but the fact that they would stay behind rankled them all.
Still, no one was prepared when Stiles woke up one dreary morning in January and announced that it was time to visit Louisiana. Lydia and Erica complained, Derek cursed, and Jackson quietly pulled Scott aside and asked him to find out if the blonde still had relatives in the area. Boyd hugged them both tightly and told them to watch out for Niklaus, and Peter just smirked fondly at them.
They arrived in New Orleans all too quickly for Stiles, and almost immediately found themselves in the midst of the largest gathering of vampires in the world. Scott and Stiles moved undetected through the crowd, thanks to magic, but halted near the edge of the group where they would remain unnoticed by the family at the front of the room. Stiles took in the sight of his family for the first time in hundreds of years and let out a shaky exhale. They looked good.
Stiles had been waiting for this moment for a long time, but he found himself overwhelmed until Scott reached out to grip his shoulder. Grateful for the support, he took a deep breath and focused on what his mother was saying.
“...we can usher in a new age of prosperity for all of our kind, and I am grateful every day that my family has given me another chance to make up for all of the wrongs I've committed.”
Well, then.
“Go get her,” Scott urged, with a nod toward his family.
“You mean like the slaughter of those witches in Nevada, or the ones in Ohio, or the way you burned those dryads’ forest to the ground?” Stiles called out, stepping into view. “There's plenty more,” he finished plainly. “I could go on, if you want.”
“Who are you? How did you get in here?” Esther asked, and Stiles fought back a smirk. His own mother didn't recognize him.
“You're not a vampire,” Elijah observed mildly.
Stiles did smirk this time. “No, Elijah, I'm not. Neither is my friend,” he said, gesturing Scott forward.
A small group of vampires also stepped forward, obviously intending to remove the pair, only to be thrust away with a dismissive wave of Stiles’s hand.
“What do you want, witch?” Klaus snarled.
“I only want everyone to understand what kind of person Esther Mikaelson truly is.”
“No one in this room is blameless,” Elijah pointed out, calmly trying to keep the peace. The two friends could appreciate the sentiment, but they couldn't possibly let Esther live.
“I'd rip your heart out if I could reach you right now,” the hybrid added.
Stiles tsked at him. “You shouldn't make threats without all of the information, Nik, it makes you look bad.”
“How is it that you know us?” Mikael asked suddenly, staring at Stiles.
Rather than answer, Stiles turned to Esther. “They think that you can be saved, that you were blinded by your despair,” he said, loudly enough for his voice to carry, and gestured to the group. “They think it was a mistake. The original spell. But it wasn't, was it?”
Stiles could hear the murmurs go through the crowd. “Did your plan start with Henrik? Or with Freya?” He paused. “Was it easy to give her away?”
“How dare you--” she took a step, only to freeze at the sound of Scott's growl.
“Scotty’s bite might not be fatal to you, but it will definitely make you wish you were dead, Nik’s blood notwithstanding.”
“How did you know about that?” Elijah asked, sounding intrigued this time. Henrik, Finn, and Rebekah had stayed silent, but they were watching the conversation unfold, and Rebekah was staring at Scott with a cautious kind of interest in her eyes that said she was beginning to remember him. If she recognized Scott, she would surely remember Stiles.
“It can't be,” Bekah suddenly whispered, drawing the attention of her siblings, but Stiles didn't want to look away from their mother for a moment.
“You can see it now, can't you? The prophecy that you’ve been running from for so long, and all of these poor, ignorant people trying to protect you. They think you were desperate to get your children back, but not even Ayana knew that their deaths were on your head.”
“I don't know what you are talking about.” Esther huffed, uncomfortable with the scrutiny of the crowd and her husband.
Scott nudged Stiles affectionately, and the witch shot his friend a grateful smile. “You killed your own children in order to power the immortality spell,” he took a deep breath, “though I'm pretty sure I'm the only one you killed with your own two hands.” He turned toward his brother with a sad smile. “You were right, Nik. The lake was blue all the way down to the bottom.”
As one, the Mikaelsons seemed to freeze as they made the connections, though only Rebekah had ever met Scott, so everyone else focused entirely on Stiles.
Mikael took a hesitant step toward his youngest son, then stopped, unsure of his welcome. “Stiles?” he breathed.
“Hello, Papa. It's been awhile.”
Nik let out a broken sound somewhere outside of Stiles's field of vision.
“You look so young.” He reached out slowly and cup his son’s cheek.
Stiles shrugged. “I'll be eighteen in a few weeks.”
“You should stay where you are,” Stiles heard Scott say, glancing up to see his mother held in his friend’s grip. At Esther’s complaints, Stiles told her, “he’s far more gentle than I would be.”
He turned back to his siblings who, at some point, had closed ranks around him. He wanted to wrap his arms around each of them and hold on forever, but he forced himself to step away and deal with the task at hand.
“How did you know about Freya?” Finn asked.
Esther, even restrained, scoffed. “Freya is--”
“Right behind you,” a voice said, and Esther startled so badly that Scott almost lost his hold on the vampire. Freya smirked in a way that spoke of too much time spent with her youngest brother. “Hello, Mother. I just wanted to be here when you finally got what you deserve.”
“How did you get free?”
“A sacrifice,” she stated, everyone following her gaze to Scott and Stiles.
“You're not the witch of the prophecy,” she said confidently, only to frown at her daughter's serene smile.
“No, I'm not. But I taught him well.”
Esther's eyes widened at the sight of the blade, giving Scott the chance to adjust his hold as his best friend approached. Stiles leaned forward at pressed a gentle kiss to his mother's cheek. “Goodbye, Mother. May you rest in peace.”
“You won't--” she began, only to be cut off as Scott sliced her throat with a claw and Stiles stabbed as far as he could into her heart, leaving the blade lodged in her chest as she fell. The boys nodded at each other, relieved that it was over.
“Stiles?”
Klaus's voice came from directly behind Stiles, and suddenly he realized that he was shaking. He turned toward Nik, blinking back the tears before his brother grabbed him so tightly that the witch worried he might run out of air. He managed a gulp before being handed off to Rebekah, followed by Elijah, Finn, and Henrik. He spared a thought for Scott having to deal with the body, only to be standing in front of Mikael once again.
“You’ve been well?” his father asked. “You have a loving family?”
Stiles glanced at Scott, who was busy ushering everyone else away, and smiled. “You can never have enough family.”
The smile on Mikael’s face was blinding as he pulled Stiles into his arms.