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At five, Niklaus knows he is different. It’s the first thing in his life that he knows is true, cowering from Mikael behind a barrel at the far end of the village. Elijah is ten, Finn thirteen, and Niklaus had hoped that one day Father would treat him the way he treated his brothers, his mistreatment due to his age, nothing more. But Kol, now three, had spilled the last of their milk roughhousing with Niklaus, and it was not Kol who walked away with a beating.
Mother finds him there. Mother can always find him, no matter how far he wanders. She doesn’t say a word to him, and he is still small enough to be scooped up and carried home on her hip. She sings to him the whole rest of the day, getting his little hands to help weave baskets with her. She needed the help, since she had Rebekah in one arm at all times, and she told Niklaus he was a natural and cleaned the cut under his eye, and for a while, he forgets all about Father, until he comes home, Elijah and Finn in tow.
“I’ll never make a warrior out of that one,” he scoffs.
“Well,” Mother huffs. “Good thing there are plenty of other things in the world besides warriors.”
“Not for any son of mine.” He is gone like he arrives, in a bluster, taking all of Niklaus’ brothers with him.
In that moment, Niklaus wishes her were not Mikael’s son. In the next, it is forgotten, Mother tussling his hair. “Well sons of mine can be great artists as well as great warriors,” she says, and because it is Mother, because she says it like she says everything — sure and true — Niklaus believes her, though the truth he learned that afternoon never leaves him. He is not like his brothers, and Mikael will never stand for it.
It’s the art, Niklaus learns, that drives Father mad. They’re lives here are easier than they were in the Old World, and Finn thinks Father resents them all for it. He doesn’t speak much of the Old World, but he’s the only one among them who has any memories of it. He remembers it being cold and beset by enemies. He remembers Father who would come home and sweep little Freya off her feet, teach Finn all the things a young man might want to know, including how to carve little shapes out of wood. That was before Freya died, and when Father returned from the war he went mad with grief, desperate to save his family. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat. He never resumed his lessons with Finn, and would strike him across the face for the smallest thing. Finn recalls those days sometimes for Niklaus alone, like it might help for him to know the kind of man Father once was and the change that overtook him before they came here. Niklaus is six now and Finn is teaching him to write his name, to carve their family crest.
“I think he worries,” Finn says. “This world is safer than the Old World, but it is still dangerous. He needs us to be able to protect ourselves.”
Niklaus resents this but he doesn’t say anything, sticking his tongue between his teeth for concentration to get the details of the crest perfect. He presents it to Finn without a word.
Finn humphs approvingly. “At any rate, I think Mother is right,” he says.
At seven, Niklaus falls in love with painting. He sneaks out to mix paints in the early morning light and skips chores to paint in the afternoon. It was bad enough when Niklaus would cry gutting a fish and drag his feet behind his brothers and father checking the traps because he was tired from picking berries not for food but for art, but Mikael had allowed it with a light box to his ears just to recenter his focus, no harder than he would to the others. But slowly, his focus on making art rather than food consumed him, and that Mikael could not stand. He dragged Niklaus from his bed after finding that the fireplace had not been cleaned and the pigs had went unfed. He woke the whole house, startling everyone, rubbing Niklaus’ face in the ashes, still hot enough to scald, and taking him outside by the collar, Mother calling after him to stop.
“Take off your shirt,” Mikael commands coldly, holding the lash. In tears, Niklaus does as he is told, stripping and shivering as Mikael turns him around. To be hit like this is worse than with his father’s hands. He can hear the crack before it makes contact with his skin, and it drowns out the sound of Mikael berating him. He can hear Father tell him that he’s worth less than the pigs he abandoned, or that if he cannot be bothered to gather food then he will be forced to eat his own paints. When the lash touches his back, it stings for a moment, and then screams at him. Before he can recover, it cracks again. Again. He imagines himself spinning around, grabbing the lash with his hands and pulling Mikael into the mud with him, whipping him until he is nothing more than a pile of guts and blood, but he doesn’t. He cannot. He no longer has the strength to even stand, to even cry. When Mikael is finished he spits on Niklaus and goes back inside. It feels like hours and hours before anyone comes for him. He wishes Mikael was not his father, he wishes so hard that he can almost see the face of a different man in his place, one who would lay in the mud and blood with him, shield him from the cold, who is not frustrated with his feeble heart or paintings. He could be real, out there, no idea that Niklaus exists, or watching until the time is right to return him to his real family. He would want to take his family with him, Rebekah, Elijah, Kol. Even Finn. Mother could come if she wanted, and Niklaus’ real father would treat them all far better than Mikael ever treated any of them. He wishes so hard he can almost see his face, his eyes, feel his hands on his back.
No, those are Mother’s hands. Niklaus would know them anywhere. He hurts, more when he is moved, and he is so tired and cold, but Mother is strong and gentle and she sings to him as she carries him away to someplace quiet and warm, someplace that Father is not. She doesn’t say anything to him, just sings in a language he doesn’t know, and puts something cold and wet on the wounds on his back. “No matter what your father says,” she whispers. “You are strong, Niklaus. You are kind and thoughtful and you will grow into a good man.” She says it like it’s a secret, like one she wants to keep even from Niklaus himself.