Three centuries passed since then. Two hundred and fifty years before the Mikaelsons would ever draw breath.
Michael watched children grow into elders, and elders fade into names spoken softly during evening fires. Those names became stories. Stories became fragments. Fragments shifted with every retelling, bending slightly with time.
Through all of it, Michael remained.
He did not lead them, did not command them. He kept his promise to Maelis, even long after she herself had been laid beneath the earth.
He watched over them.
He stood at the edges during migrations, when families packed what little they owned and moved beneath unfamiliar skies. He lingered near disputes, present but silent, a reminder that violence was never the only answer. He stayed awake during nights when the air felt wrong, when something old and hungry moved beyond the firelight.
When men came with steel and certainty, convinced that confidence alone made them powerful, Michael stepped forward first.
When creatures crawled out of places that should have stayed sealed twisting, snarling things drawn by blood and fear he drove them back into the dark. Creatures shown in the legacy verse.
And when the first werewolves appeared, wild and newly cursed, Michael couldn't help the dry thought that crossed his mind:
'Well' took y'all long enough.'
Later, after watching them tear themselves apart beneath their first moons, he added privately:
'So Inadu's mess finally finished unraveling. Good to know.'
He became part of the coven's rhythm, the way a mountain became part of the horizon never questioned, never worshipped he was just simply there.
They told stories about him by firelight.
They told stories about him, about a being of fire and flesh who did not age. Who did not hunger. Who did not ask for devotion. One who stayed behind when death swept through villages, burning bodies so spirits would not linger twisted or wrong.
Children asked if he was a god and Michael laughed every time.
"Gods don't apologize this much," he told them.
The names they called him accumulated over time.
Ash-Walker.
Fire-Watcher.
The One Who Stays.
Once—regrettably—Grandfather Flame.
He pretended not to hear that one.
'I'm only seven hundred and sixty years old not even eight hundred yet,' he thought irritably. 'How rude of them.'
The last generation of the coven chose the sea.
They spoke of lands half-believed in, half-imagined of a sky untouched by old wars. They packed their lives into wooden hulls and prayers and stood on the shore with salt on their lips and fear they refused to name.
Michael stood on the cliffs above them, arms folded with his coat snapping in the wind.
"You could come you know," Maelis's great-granddaughter had said softly to him a day before. She was older than Maelis had been when they first met him, lines earned honestly. "You've watched over us this long."
Michael shook his head.
"Some fires don't travel well."
She nodded, because she understood, the coven always had.
So he stayed long enough to let the story end properly. Long enough to be sure no one followed them.
Then the ships shrank into the horizon.
And Michael wandered once more.
⸻
He watched empires rise like arrogant children loud, certain and convinced they would last forever.
He watched them collapse like disappointed ones.
Rome burned, and Michael stood on a distant hill, smoke turning the sky the color of old bruises. "You'd think they'd planned better," he muttered.
He watched banners change hands overnight, borders redraw themselves with blood instead of ink. Kings died screaming. Generals begged and died. Victors rewrote history while the bodies were still warm.
History, he learned, had a talent for lying politely.
"Oh no," he said once, standing ankle-deep in blood after a battlefield later described as brief and decisive. "That took all day."
So he learned restraint.
How to exist without leaving footprints large enough to be remembered.
The hellhound stayed hidden, mostly.
Thete were always rumors though, of fires that burned mountains of bodies long after battles ended. A presence that lingered where death gathered thickest. Soldiers spoke of glowing eyes seen through smoke as the retreated from the battlefield. Of heat without flame. Of something watching to make sure the dead stayed dead.
Michael stayed behind sometimes, long after armies marched away and not because anyone asked. But because someone should.
⸻
992 AD
By the beginning of the eleventh century, Michael was over a thousand years old. Only witches knew about his existence. A handful of spirits. The rest were content with half-stories and superstition. He let them be.
He found himself in North America again, walking a forest path beneath unfamiliar stars, the air thick with pine and damp earth.
Then sound of laughter reached him, then the drums. Voices raised not in panic or prayer, but celebration.
Michael stopped in his tracks.
He turned off the path without quite realizing it, letting instinct guide him through the trees to where the sound was coming from. The forest opened slowly, reluctantly, until warm light flickered between branches.
"Huh," he murmured. "That's… new."
A village came into view, fires burning low and steady, people gathered close, old Viking music woven through the night air as people danced and rejoiced.
Life.
He stepped closer and walked into the village while looking around until something solid collided with his side.
"Oof—! I'm sorry!" a boy blurted out, stumbling back hard. He couldn't have been more than ten years old and looked up at him with wide-eyes, mortified, cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. "I wasn't looking!"
Michael smiled without thinking.
"You're alright," he said easily. "No harm done little one."
Another voice cut in immediately.
"My apologies," a second boy ran up to them, already pulling the first back protectively. Thirteen years old from what Michael could see. Straight-backed, shoulders squared, posture trained rather than natural.
Michael noted it automatically.
'Oddly polite for his age.'
"My brother Niklaus wasn't watching where he was going."
The name hit him like ice water and Michael froze.
'Oh.'
The younger boy scowled. "I already said I'm sorry, Elijah."
'Klaus and Elijah.'
Michael's mind sprinted.
'You have got to be kidding me.'
Centuries of instinct snapped into place. Timelines aligned themselves with uncomfortable precision. He forced himself to breathe, smoothing his expression into something calm and almost amused.
"It's alright," he said lightly. "No damage done but if you don't mind me asking little one what is happening here?"
Elijah nodded, visibly relieved. "We're celebrating," he explained. "The end of the year. The harvest was good."
"Lucky you," Michael replied. "Those don't happen often enough."
Before Elijah could respond, a woman's voice cut across the village.
"Elijah. Niklaus."
Michael looked up and saw the woman who had called out to the children and he recognized her immediately.
'Esther.'
The boys turned immediately and ran back toward her, Klaus glancing once over his shoulder with undisguised curiosity before going to his mother.
Michael stayed where he was watching them go.
He smiled to himself.
"Well," he thought, as the drums continued and fate quietly shifted its weight "this is going to be complicated."
And for the first time in centuries, he didn't outright walk away.
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