Chapter 14: A Life Outside of Time
After Meifeng and I got our much-needed rest. I got up, paused time, and got to work. After my use of the medallion to rob the Federal Reserve, Qetsiyah nagged on the Freighter ride back home. She explained that it cost more sand stopping and restarting time than it did just to stop time and complete my tasks.
So, that's what I did. I stopped time and completed everything in one fell swoop. I started with the simple stuff. I read the entire Reliquary along with the Grimoires purchased from the auction.
I practiced, refined, reread, and practiced some more. I then retrieved the grimoires hidden by Ayana in Mystic Falls and England. A year of nonstop magic passed slowly. In between books and practice sessions, I replanted the herbs from the auction and warded the property lines, laying arrays centered around the Witch House. Another year passed in a blink of an eye. The arrays were finished composing a plethora of barriers and wards. The garden had expanded considerably, and I intensified my training with the Spirits on the other side.
I learned that time was irrelevant on the other side. Whether time was going or not, the spirits would always be there. However, if I rewound time, spirits would be absent depending on their time of death. If I advanced time, new spirits would appear on the other side as more death would have happened during the time skip.
Anyways, besides my training with the spirits, I create a subterranean level on the property to hide the vault. It took quite some time, but I reshaped the gold and minted it into coins specific to my future school. I cleared trees and pulled stumps for 20 acres of land. I stole all of the building material from surrounding construction sites and the five nearest Home Depots and Lowe's.
With some of my Architect ancestors' help, I built the Bennett Castle on top of the subterranean vault. It took me ten years to complete, and besides good fat, I had nothing but muscle on my body.
The castle had taken up nine and a half acres, the original Bennett Lodge, or Witch House, sat on an acre and a half only 100 yards away from Garden. The Garden, however, now took up three and a half acres of land. With the help of my ancestor, Esyete, the Queen of Sheba, I placed an array on the garden, recreating a small-scale version of Babylon's Hanging Gardens.
If you're wondering how the garden grew without time, the answer is simple, magic. Instead of daily watering and pulling weeds, I did daily spells. Everything accomplished in the last twelve years was a combination of hard work and magic.
I take great pride in my work as I stand atop the highest tower of the grand castle. I stretch out more arms and perform a series of gestures and the remaining material constructed walls along the property lines, a front gate, a road leading to the school, and training groups.
"It's beautiful, Solomon." said Qetsiyah, " Everything is beautiful."
"Theirs a place for you too whenever you decide that you want to live again. The Heart Connecting Lily will be there waiting for you." I told her.
I knew it was a topic that she always tried to avoid, so I never pushed too hard.
"So what name will you give the school for official records?" she asked.
"Qetsiyah's Academy of the Arts and Sciences," I replied.
I had given it a lot of thought and decided to Memorialize the beautiful Queen whose existence was lost to time.
"Sol..." she smiled softly. This woman, I swear.
"Stop with your silliness." I tell her, "Did you really expect anything less of me?! This! All of it has our names marked on it! Qetsiyah and Solomon, it's just a fact of what is. You're too emotional sometimes."
"Still...It's sweet." she sang.
Qetsiyah's a young and gorgeous woman in her 20s. She has long dark, dark brown eyes and curly hair similar in color to Bonnie's. Her skin is like rich caramel, and her lips appear soft as pillows with the color of a pink pineapple. As she did during her life in ancient times, she was wearing a long, flowing blue dress and sandals. A gold band wrapped around her body just beneath her breast. Her hair was also held by a gold band, and a gold bracelet was around her left wrist.
"Solomon? Why are you staring at me?" she asked with a shining smile.
"Just admiring my beautiful Tess," I reply.
She giggles. "Anway! Your sand has been reduced to grains... When time resumes, you must remember that we have things to do. This school can't open anytime soon. The full moon is coming. You must tend to the Lockwoods without being noticed. You also have Gyda Anseldoittir, the immortal werewolf to tend to. And don't forget about Slater's daylight ring when you go see him."
I chuckled. This woman really thinks my memory Is do bad. It's actually kind of insulting...only if I could spank her to show her the error of her ways.
"Bring Ayana to me. I want to hear the rest of that story about this Gyda." I tell her.
It didn't take long as many Bennett ancestors had begun to congregate on my land. It's not like we had many Bennett's around. There was one other Bennett in the world besides my mother. Qetsiyah said this Bennett would find me when the time is right.
But besides we six, the Bennetts were no more, officially extant.
When Ayana appeared, she quickly got to the point.
Origin Story:
Everything starts with Mikaelson Family. The first members of this family were a man named Mikael and his wife, Esther. Esther and Mikael heard from Ayana, Esther's then best friend and mentor, that there was a land where everyone was healthy and strong, a land that ended up being the New World, specifically what is now modern-day Mystic Falls. Mikael and Esther, with their son, Finn, and their recently born son Elijah traveled to this paradise with Ayana, where they settled in a village full of the healthy people they had learned about, who were revealed to be werewolves, and lived peacefully for years.
In the years to follow, Esther bore four more children: Niklaus, Kol, Rebekah, and Henrik. Mikael often clashed with his middle son, Niklaus, with whom he had an antagonistic and abusive relationship which only became worse when Klaus and Henrik snuck out to watch the werewolves transform one night, where Henrik was accidentally mauled and killed.
Grief-stricken, Mikael decided to search for a way to protect his family from the werewolves. Though Ayana refused to help him in fear of upsetting the balance of nature, Mikael soon found another witch who would help him – his wife, Esther.
Somehow, they were able to learn of the immortality spell created by Qetsiyah a thousand years previously by stealing it from Ayana's Main Coven Grimoire. Esther then adapted the spell in order to give their children abilities of superhuman strength, speed, agility, and healing that would be even stronger than those of the werewolves.
Esther drew on mystic symbols in order to fuel her spell; she called upon the Sun for life, and the white oak tree, long known for being one of the earth's eternal objects, for immortality, so that she and Mikael would never again have to suffer the grief of losing a child. In order to complete the ritual, Mikael had his children drink wine laced with the blood of Tatia, a Petrova doppelgänger and distant descendant of the world's first immortal woman, Amara, the handmaiden who betrayed Qetsiyah. Mikael then thrust his sword through their chests. They awoke in transition, and on their father's orders, drank Human blood from a village girl in order to complete their transformation into the Original vampires. Unfortunately for them, there were consequences for this transformation, and Nature sought to try to restore the balance they upset by giving them a weakness for every new strength they had gained.
The sun that gave them life burned them, their thirst for human blood was insatiable, and they could no longer enter the homes of their neighbors without a proper invitation. Vervain flowers, which grew at the base of the white oak tree, burned them and protected against compulsion. Finally, the White Oak Tree, which gave them immortality, was also the one substance on earth that could actually destroy them for good. In the end, they burned the tree down to ensure their survival.
Gyda Anselsdottir's story begins here.
When Klaus made his first kill after being turned into a vampire, it triggered his werewolf gene, which ultimately revealed the truth of his parentage to his family - Klaus was not Mikael's son. Instead, he was the son of the chief of their village's werewolf clan, with whom Esther had an affair. His name was Ansel. Once Mikael learned of Esther's infidelity and realized that her lover's pack were the werewolves who had killed Henrik, Mikael hunted down and killed Ansel and his entire family, igniting a war between Vampires and werewolves that still exists to this day.
Soon after the Mikaelsons were turned into vampires and learned of Klaus's werewolf heritage, Esther was obligated to curse Klaus to make his werewolf nature dormant so that he would not upset nature further by possessing so much power. However, Klaus felt betrayed by this punishment, and in retaliation, Klaus murdered his mother.
Ayana then took matters into her own hands. Years after the remaining Mikaelsons left and Ayana was prepared to atone for her crimes of allowing Qetsiyah's spell to be stolen. She spirited away the body of Gyda Anseldottir and resurrected her. She then made Gyda Immortal. The only thing that changed about Gyda is that she remains a wolf for three days and three nights. During that time, she must feed, unlike vampires who constantly fed and battled their hunger.
Gyda's original purpose was to find Esther's Grimoire and retrieve a spell that would make werewolves the equal of vampires. And with a white oak staff created by Ayana before the Mikaelsons became vampire, Gyda was supposed to face her brother and kill him before he becomes a hybrid.
However, after years of searching for the Orginal Vampires, Her pack was in disarray, and enemy clans sought to take them over. Gyda returned home and became the Alpha to rebuild and maintain the clan her father left to her.
Time passed, and eventually, Gyda's way of running the clan became frowned upon as the vampire population grew. They were no match for the bloodsuckers, and her people only wanted to survive and not make war. Five years ago, her clan rebelled and cast her. Leading to her lone wolf status and her slavery.
End of Origin Story.
"So, where is the staff now?" I asked.
"The stupid girl lost it. It was taken from her five years ago. The state was then taken from her clan, exchanged hands, then found its way to the smoke pit of a man named Billy Ray after he lost some music award later year." said Ayana.
"Billy Ray Cyrus used the last white oak wood to smoke his meat?" I couldn't help but chuckle. "Alright, it doesn't matter anyway. What do you want me to do about this Gyda girl?"
"Keep her." said Ayana, "The stone around her neck has the properties needed to make moonlight ring. Rings that allow werewolves to harness all of the power without the full moon. It can be of use to you. I just don't want to see the girl suffer. I watched her grow up. She used to gather herbs with me and wanted to be a healer."
"I guess, that good payment." I spoke, " I just don't be saving bitches. That's not my flex. But Immortal werewolves are rare. She can stay... Qetsiyah no more favors without proper payment."
"I understand," said Tess.
I saw a brief furrow of Ayana's brow as she glanced at the Witch Queen.
"You're dismissed," I tell Ayana to interrupt whatever thought she was having. When Tess and I were alone. I frowned at her, "Next time, come up with a better response than 'I understand'. It made you sound weak."
Sometime later, I returned to Witch House and restarted time. The next time I stopped time, it would probably on hold for a handful of hours. Oh, well.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone