AN: This is a present for my wonderful friend Antonia, it's her birthday and she's super awesome. Happy Birthday Antonia! Thank you for crying over Elena with me and sorry for all the times I made your feels hurt, ily! This fic is largely inspired by the awesome song Landscape by Florence + the Machine, specifically the line "it's burning through the bloodline", and if you know Antonia (who is bisexualelena on tumblr) than you know her love for that song, and Petrova women;)

The Petrova Curse

"Where's my will,

Can I find a way?

The earth is wild,

And I can't sit still…"

-"I Don't Know if I Should Stay"

Alexz Johnson

"He'll never be enough, you know," Katherine tells Elena, staring at her from inside the tomb. Elena bites her lip, confused.

"Excuse me?" she questions, not understanding the vampire at all. She refills the plastic cup with blood, and slowly pushes it within the older woman's reach with a branch. Katherine smirks at her pityingly.

"Stefan, he'll never be enough for you, you'll always want more," she explains, sipping the blood delicately, relishing in the taste. She lazily turns her head to look at her doppelganger, giving her a consolatory smile. "It's the Petrova curse, nothing is ever enough, love, family, money, sex, nothing in the world will satisfy that itch deep down in your bones that begs for more."

Elena swallows, her heart thudding because maybe it's too close to what she feels; maybe it's too close to the truth. "I don't know what you're talking about," she lies.

Katherine smiles at her condescendingly, "don't you?" she asks. "It's not just us—the doppelgangers—who are cursed with this ravenous hunger for more, every Petrova woman who has ever lived has been cursed with it, right back to the original Petrova that we both resemble so eerily," she tells her. "My daughter, her daughter, Isobel's mother, Isobel herself, all of them, they all wanted more than they had, and when they had more they just wanted even more."

"I don't believe you," Elena lies unconvincingly, her defense weak. Katherine just smiles patronizingly at her.

"Should we review? There was me, who couldn't help herself and just had to have the handsome boy in my village, even if I knew it was wrong, and then there was the Salvatore brothers; beautiful boys who worshipped me, for any other woman one would be almost too much, but I had to have both," Katherine bites, her voice bitterly amused.

"And then there's Isobel, your dear, dear, mother, who has John wrapped around her finger to this very day, who married a good man that she loved and even he wasn't enough. Your mother, who became a vampire, a virtual goddess among men, and still isn't satisfied, still searching for more," Katherine taunts, delighting in tearing her doppelganger to pieces, if only because she's bitter and hateful of this curse that has ruined her for five hundred years and jealous of the girl who sits in front of her, barely at the beginning of its torture and practically unscathed by its wrath (for now). But even Katherine feels some semblance of pity and sorrow for the years of suffering that await Elena.

"Do I need to continue? I'm sure I can think of some other Petrovas and their horrible choices because of our loving curse," Katherine purrs in contempt. Elena shakes her head numbly.

"Who says Isobel is unhappy with being a vampire?" Elena questions, holding onto the tiny shred of hope that maybe, just maybe, Katherine is wrong. Katherine laughs throatily, because everything she does is by design, seductive—even when her only audience is a Petrova girl on the brink of their curse.

"Anyone who feels the need to turn off their humanity can't possibly be happy," she tells Elena, her tone condescending. "Oh, poor Elena, you know I'm telling you the true, it's all over your face. You could have everything and it still wouldn't be enough."

Elena's heart is thudding and she's scared because sure, Klaus might kill her in an ancient blood sacrifice where he bleeds her dry and kills Tyler and Caroline, but this curse? This wanting curse that bled you dry from the inside out? This is far, far worse, especially because it's unavoidable.

It's easy, to pretend it's not true, to ignore it, when you're seventeen and your life hasn't even begun yet, but soon Elena will have to face it; to face the unholy lust that lies in the very fabric of her DNA and will drive her mad or make her cruel and relentless like this woman sitting in front of her who shares her face and her blood and this curse that makes them monsters, even if they are only ever human. So perhaps Klaus and his sacrifice is a gift. Maybe Elena can die before the curse tears her into tiny pieces and makes her into a shell of herself.

"So you've figured it out then?" Katherine enquires amused. "How Klaus's sacrifice is really a gift? I'm impressed; it took me a hundred years of running to figure it out," she drawls, her mouth set in a bitter pout.

"If-" Elena stops and licks her lips, her mouth dry. "If I don't die, will it make me like you? The Petrova curse?" she asks. Katherine smiles.

"You?" Katherine queries. "You'll be so much worse." Elena shudders.

"How do you know?" Elena's voice cracks and her vision blurs with tears. Katherine smiles a satisfied smile.

"You're seventeen and you already want the world. You're seventeen and if you thought you could live with it, you'd love them both, have them both, Damon and Stefan," she accuses, her words arrows that hit all the vulnerable spots between Elena's mismatched armor. Never go into battle with a cursed woman, she'll tear you apart.

"And there's no escape?" Elena asks, leaning her head back to watch the clouds drift by.

"Death," Katherine answers instantly, like she was waiting for Elena to ask that question (she was). "A true death."

"Then I guess I should thank Klaus when the time comes," Elena quips. Katherine laughs in genuine amusement.

After a moment's pause, Katherine speaks again. "It's wanting deep down into your bones and discovering that no matter how much you receive, you still want more. More, more, more," she tells Elena. "Die while you can, Elena Petrova, because otherwise it will ruin you."

Elena doesn't respond. She doesn't have anything to say. Katherine is right—and Elena knows that.

Later, there is Stefan, telling Elena that everything Katherine says is a lie, Elena looks into her eyes (their eyes), and knows that it's not true. Katherine told her the truth this time, Katherine passed on the truth of the Petrova curse. Katherine would kill her herself if it weren't for Klaus, if only to save her from their heritage, their birthright. Their curse.

"She knows the truth," Katherine coos at Stefan, her eyes locked on Elena's face (their face), and Elena does.

She doesn't tell him.

Later still, there is Damon, his desperation, his words of love (but he doesn't know what love is), his misguided determination, and then his blood in her mouth. Her hope flies out the window and all she can see is an eternity of wanting spread out before her like a map of blood and treachery.

He was supposed to be her friend.

She hates him.

And even later still, there is Klaus, his triumph, his demon eyes promising an end (that proceeds an eternity of hunger), his thankless appreciation, and then her blood in his mouth. Her life is pulled from her veins and all she sees is an infinity of lust smeared across the landscape like a burning masterpiece.

He was supposed to be her salvation.

She hates him.

She wakes up human and terrified of what's to come.

Petrova women, their curse is to burn for more and never be satisfied—to hunger for more.

She is so hungry.

She is a Petrova, after all. It is her curse (their curse).

She's ravenous.

"I want to eat the world," she whispers. No one hears.

AN: Thoughts?

xoxo

-Pixie