The Boy King's Journey in TVD/TO As A Mikaelson

As I drive my car through the rain-soaked streets of New Orleans, I can't help but feel both excitement and trepidition war within me.

I - Roderick Valison - am finally allowed to return home despite my self imposed exile.

I long ago promised myself, that I will not return, not walk the ground where my father's steps left their imprints so long as I remain too weak to prove my worth before him.

Prove that despite my scarred potential that his blood still coarses through my veins - that I am still one that can one day teach him how it feels to not be alone.

I was born in the 1600s - a child of destiny forged from a deal struck in the halls of power. My father, Vali Mikaelson, spread his seed across the world in search of a worthy opponent, a being capable of rising to challenge him, the King of Vampires.

In a land far away, a princess named Arianne, ruler of her conquered nation, agreed to his terms in exchange for autonomy over her people. Yet fate, or perhaps Nature herself, conspired to mark me from birth.

While my dear mother Tatia - the only one who remains who truly loves me unconditionally, even more so than my now dead blood mother - willingly swapped bodies with the princess so that the child born would carry not only the princess's essence but also a spark of her own indomitable soul, as well.

Nature, believed by those present that day, refused to let such an aberration proceed unscathed. It nearly ended my life, leaving behind a wound - a scar on my potential that has haunted me ever since.

I have striven relentlessly over the centuries - dabbling in forbidden magic, performing desperate rituals, seeking ancient knowledge - in order to transcend the limitations Nature carved into me at birth.

My father, whose ambitions demanded a perfect adversary, remains bitterly disappointed by what I have become.

I can still remember the day, where I forced from the Heavens down to the Earth, the Guardian Ariel, the angel titled, the Lionness of God.

I summoned her to challenge and defeat her, prove to my father that I was more than a failure. That one day, I will reach him - yet all it ended was in another stunning failure. 

I remember that day vividly.

It was a storm-wracked twilight, the sky churning with oily clouds and fierce flashes of lightning. I was barely a young man then, scarred from the near-fatal event at birth and burning with a mix of ambition and rebellious defiance.

That day, I had decided that only by defeating Ariel would I prove I was strong enough to stand before my father - to teach him that even the blood coursing through my veins, could defy the very forces that sought to chain me.

I stood in the ruins of an ancient cathedral, its once-hallowed arches shattered by time and storm. The rain was relentless as I engraved a circle of arcane sigils upon the sodden stone floor.

With every word of the forbidden incantation I whispered, the very air trembled with my need for validation.

I had summoned Ariel from the celestial realms by binding her essence with my own desperate ambition. And then, as if the heavens themselves had roused in reluctant acknowledgment of my challenge, she appeared.

Her arrival was nothing short of awe-inspiring: luminous wings that seemed constructed from shards of pure, white light unfurled behind her, and her eyes burned with the sacred fire of divine purpose.

She hovered above the ruins, her countenance one of both sympathy and disappointment - as though she recognized in me not a champion, but a lost soul desperate for a semblance of worth.

"Roderick Valison," Ariel intoned, her voice resonant as a choir of angels, "why do you dare challenge that which is above your mortal reckoning?" Her tone carried an ethereal authority that shook the very ground beneath me.

I squared my shoulders, feeling every scar on my skin as an emblem of the hardships I had endured. "I challenge you because I must prove that I am more than the sum of my failures - more than a child left broken by the cruelty of Nature.

I will not remain in weak. I will break these chains, and in doing so, I will show my father that I can stand on the same ground as him!."

The duel that followed was a ballet of blood and light. Ariel descended slowly, her movements graceful yet inexorable, as if every step was weighed down by divine purpose.

We clashed amid the tempest, my hastily learned sorcery and raw, instinctive fury against her radiant, practiced majesty.

Her silver blade - wrought from heavenly fire - slew through the darkness of my summoned magic, each strike a reminder of the strength I was yet to attain.

I fought with every desperate ounce of power that had been forced upon me since that day of my birth, seeking to channel centuries of yearning into a single moment of defiant conquest.

For long minutes that stretched like eternities, the clash between mortal ambition and celestial grace contrasted in brilliant, crashing light.

I felt the force of her blows shatter my defenses and our energies collide in thunderous echoes that seemed to rattle the stones of the cathedral itself.

Each impact burned as if the very spark of my life were being tested against a force far greater than I dared to comprehend.

In the midst of our battle, a searing realization pierced through the fury - I was not even close to defeating her. Every spell I cast, every sword-like thrust, met with counterblows precise and devastating.

Ariel's eyes, soft yet unyielding, held a sorrowful pity as she deflected my wild attacks.

When a final surge of her radiant might knocked me to the ground, I lay drenched in rain and stinging pain, my young heart pounding with both the agony of defeat and the bitter taste of failure.

I heard her speak then, more quietly, as if addressing the trembling remnants of my spirit: "Your blood burns with potential, Roderick, but potential untempered is naught but a spark.

You must learn that greatness is forged in the crucible of defeat, that even wounds are lessons - but you have much to learn before you can even hope to stand as my equal."

And then, something no one but my mother ever did - she showed me warmth. She bent down before my broken form, her delicate face softened by sorrow and love, and kissed my brow.

In that single, tender moment, the raw sting of failure and the caustic burn of my scars were eclipsed by a surprising comfort - a fleeting, almost miraculous reassurance that I was not entirely forsaken.

I remember the rain mingling with my tears on that shattered stone floor, each droplet a tiny herald of hope and despair intertwined.

Her kiss was not the cold, detached act of a distant deity; it was the gentle, iridescent caress of the one who had known me when I was a wretched child, when every bruise and burn was met with a softness in her gaze.

Somehow, in that sudden intimacy, I almost believed for a heartbeat that I could mend what Nature had tried so desperately to break.

For a long, suspended moment, I lay there—my heart pounding in rhythms that spoke of untold years of isolation and defiance - while her warmth seeped through the layers of grief and ambition that had defined me since birth.

I felt, as if for the first time, that perhaps compassion was no enemy to strength; maybe, just maybe, I could harness both the fierce edge of my father's blood and the tenderness of her love.

Then as if to prove me wrong, my father's form loomed over me.

I can still remember the cold detached fury he wore upon his face.

"You've brought shame once more upon my name you failure. Strength is not only physical might you fool, it is also the intelligent wisdom to pick your battles. I can not fathom how one who bears my blood could ever end up so weak. 

It must be that wench's blood. I thought her mighty when I first laid eyes upon her defiant soul, yet it seems she was no different than the common foolish lass, who sold her purity for protection." 

As he said these words, he gave me one more scornfilled glance before he grit his teeth and turned to walk away.

Yet then, something happened that I still can not explain. Maybe it was what people in these times call adrenaline, or perhaps it was the fury at my him insulting my mother, I grit my teeth, and pushed by broken body to rise, despite the blood bursting from my every wound.

I held my ground as I then roared "Don't you turn your back on me!" and charged towards him, my teeth fanged, enhanced by my magic, the only remaining part of my body not broken.

It was as if the world then froze, I could see everything so clearly then, the way his body turned with such grace and precision, not a movement wasted, he looked down on my charging form, "Fool," he muttered as he then with the mightiest punch I have ever faced - even now centuries later, crushed my face into the earth.

I was then unable to see the look on his face, as my mouth ate the dirt, yet I could hear his scoff as he spit on the ground next to my head, and roared: "What kind of idiot loses twice in one day?!" 

"Pitiful," continued as he I heard him shift and turn once more, his steps echoing against the dirt, "I will have to start once more from scratch..."

After that day, throughout the centuries, I heard many tales of different sons and daughters sired by my father. Many of them born with great strength - though the one I am most curious about meeting today is the famed Alexander, the one born in an even more convoluted manner than myself - wondering if he can make reality what we all failed to do.

As I finally arrived in the Quarter, I could not help but scoff upon my own thoughts.

As I got out I could only think one thing,

That It matters not how much power he inherited as father's literal shadow self, in the end I will be the one who will shatter the King's throne and drag him down from his mountain.

I will be the first one to teach him the taste of defeat, and no one will beat me to that glorious fate.

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(Author note: Hello everyone! Do tell me, how you all found the chapter?

What do you think of Roderick and his backstory?

I found it fitting to show him - the oldest first among all his siblings - we don't count Alexander since as stated, his birth is very convoluted.

There are many more and I can't wait to write all of them.

So yeah, do tell me how you found it, I hope to see you all later,

Bye!)