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## Qetsiyah

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**Qetsiyah** (***Ancient Greek:** Θετσιψαη, **Hebrew:** קעצייאַה, **Arabic:** كاتسيا, **Syriac:** ܩeܬܣiܝܐܗ; translates as "cassia"*), known in modern-times as **Tessa**, was the most powerful witch of the Traveler subculture, as well as "one of the most powerful witches of all time". Qetsiyah is best known for creating the first Immortality Spell, and subsequently the first immortals, the Cure for immortality, and the supernatural purgatory known as the Other Side.

Qetsiyah was engaged to another witch named Silas, with whom she was madly in love. At his request, Qetsiyah concocted an immortality elixir that she had planned to share with him as a part of their wedding ceremony. However, after Silas betrayed Qetsiyah by taking the potion with her handmaiden, Amara, and his soulmate, Qetsiyah retaliated by kidnapping Amara, and using her immortal and indestructible body to bind the spell that created the Other Side. Deceived into believing that Amara was dead, she imprisoned Silas deep within a remote cave with the cure to his immortality. She believed that Silas would eventually take the cure and die as a mortal, thus joining her on the Other Side. In spite of this, Qetsiyah spent the next two millennia in her own purgatory as he refused and laid desiccated.

The Travelers eventually killed Qetsiyah, likely due to her and Silas' role in the creation of the immortality spell. The Travelers were not fans of immortality and were resentful for its creation. It's creation caused a schism in the magical community which brought about The Travelers' Curse by the witches. After her death, the Travelers took Amara's body and made sure to move it constantly so that no one would ever find it.

Centuries later, one of her descendants created the Brotherhood of the Five, tasked to find Silas and force the cure down his throat, and kill him. When her hunter's failed in their task, Qetsiyah took the opportunity to resurrect herself from the Other Side to kill Silas. Though she was ultimately not the one to end Silas' life, she eventually got her wish when her alliance with the Mystic Falls Gang which led to Stefan killing him in *Death and the Maiden*. Once Silas and Amara were dead, Qetsiyah declared herself having won and her revenge against Silas obtained. Having completed her centuries-old vendetta, she killed herself by slitting her wrists. With her vengeance fulfilled, it is believed that she finally found peace after passing through the Anchor.

Qetsiyah was a distant ancestor of the **Bennett Family**.

## Early History

File:Tragic-Characters.png
Qetsiyah was born sometime during 1st century B.C. Over 2,000 years ago, in Ancient Greece, Qetsiyah was a beautiful young lady who was the most powerful witch in a group of very "gifted" people called the Travelers. Also, a part of the Travelers was a handsome and powerful young witch named Silas with whom she fell madly in love. The two eventually became engaged to be married, and when Silas told her he wanted to be with her forever, Qetsiyah created a spell that would make them both immortal. Qetsiyah successfully made an immortality elixir, which they would consume on their wedding night. Qetsiyah created a whole garden for their wedding and prepared for Silas to join her so that they could commence their eternity together. As she waited for him at the altar, however, everything around her started to die and Qetsiyah realized that Silas was drinking the elixir from another location.

Knowing that Silas was up to no good, she tracked Silas down to a tent in the woods, where she had discovered that Silas' betrayal was even worse than what she had believed. Not only had Silas given the immortality elixir to another woman, but that woman was her handmaiden, Amara. Enraged, Qetsiyah found a way to reverse the spell, creating a cure for immortality before going to get her revenge. She waited until Silas had left before confronting Amara. She desiccated Amara, then faked her death to make Silas believe she was dead. Silas attempt to attack her for killing his love, however, Qetsiyah used her magic to neutralize Silas, and entombed him in a cave on a remote island. She buried him with the cure and with a choice: take the cure, become mortal and die, or rot as an immortal being for eternity. Silas chose to rot as an immortal being in darkness for eternity just to spite Qetsiyah.

Still, after entombing Silas, Qetsiyah wasn't satisfied. She knew that should Silas die a mortal death after ingesting the cure, his spirit would be reunited with Amara in peace for eternity as he had always planned. Determined to not allow that to happen, she created a supernatural purgatory, which eventually came to be known as the "Other Side," where all supernatural creatures would go when they died. She bound the Other Side to Amara, as she needed something eternal and indestructible to bind it to so that it would never fall. This ensured that, if Silas was ever freed and succeeded in his plan to die, he would never be reunited with Amara, even if the Other Side did happen to fall because he would be unwilling to kill his beloved soulmate.

At some point, Qetsiyah was killed by the Travelers. From the Other Side, she was forced to watch as Silas refused to take the cure. To add insult to injury, when Silas and Amara became immortals, they violated the natural law that all things must die, so Nature found a balance by creating what they call "shadow-selves," or doppelgängers, who could die in their place. While on the Other Side, she was forced to watch Silas and Amara's shadow-selves find each other and fall in love for two thousand years, believing it to be the universe's way of demonstrating that their souls were forever bound. However, in reality, they were only drawn together because of a spell a Traveler named Markos cast in the 5th century.

Roughly a thousand years later, an altered version of Qetsiyah's immortality spell was used by the witch, Esther Mikaelson, to turn her husband and children into immortals, which involved the use of blood from one of the doppelgängers (a woman named Tatia) that came to exist as the result of Qetsiyah's original immortality elixir. However, though both species possessed an insatiable craving for human blood, the alterations Esther made to Qetsiyah's spell begat a supernatural being who possessed different abilities than those Silas and Amara gained upon their transformations, and they were not nearly as invulnerable to death as the true immortals. In time, this new species eventually became known as the first vampires.

A hundred years after the creation of vampires in 1001 AD, Qetsiyah's descendant, an elderly witch who was dying from ill health, created the Brotherhood of the Five hunters, with one mission: find Silas' tomb, force-feed him the cure, and kill him. However, the first five hunters were killed by Niklaus Mikaelson, one of the Original vampires whose werewolf heritage had been bound with a curse. Due to this circumstance, their mission found itself sidetracked, and the spell that bound the five hunters were forced to adapt to new hunters who neither had the benefit of the full map to the cure nor were they aware of the exact nature of their supernatural mission.

## Throughout The Vampire Diaries Series

* Season Four
* Season Five

In *We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes*, Professor Shane tells his students the story of the first immortal and his tragic fate: Qetsiyah had helped Silas to create a spell for immortality. However, upon discovering that Silas had planned to live forever with another woman, she killed Silas' lover and used her powers to imprison Silas.

In *O Come, All Ye Faithful*, Shane mentions the story again, referencing that Qetsiyah had been the best friend of Silas.

In *After School Special*, Shane gives Bonnie Qetsiyah's talisman for use in her magical affairs.

In *Into the Wild*, Shane elaborates on the story behind the creation of the cure: Qetsiyah, as part of her punishment, created the cure and buried it with Silas. Qetsiyah hoped that Silas would take the cure, die, and be on the Other Side with her for all eternity, but he refused. Centuries later, her descendants created the Brotherhood of the Five to find, cure, and kill Silas. Later, Shane also reveals that Bonnie and the Bennett Line are descended from Qetsiyah.

In *Down the Rabbit Hole*, Shane reveals that the core of Silas' Headstone contains Qetsiyah's calcified blood. According to him, it is more valuable than the Template:W in some witch circles. It was never a requirement for the ritual to free Silas, but merely payment to enlist the help of Massak, an island local. After Massak is killed by Katherine, the headstone is presumably in her possession. Back at the Gilbert House, where Caroline and Tyler are trying to decode the Hunter's Mark, as well as the cryptex in the Hunter's Sword, Klaus reveals that the text is written in Aramaic, which he supposes could be Qetsiyah's native tongue.

In *Stand By Me*, it is revealed that Qetsiyah created the Other Side for the sole purpose of trapping Silas there for all eternity if he took the cure and died.

In *Because the Night*, Silas himself tells Bonnie that Qetsiyah was "one of the most powerful witches of all time", a testament to her incredible power. It also suggests that Qetsiyah was either as or more powerful than Silas as a witch.

In *Pictures of You*, Silas reveals to Bonnie that Qetsiyah had also cast a spell to disfigure him so that no woman could love him.

In *She's Come Undone*, Bonnie makes a deal with Katherine. If Katherine gives over Silas' Headstone which contained Qetsiyah's blood, she will convince Qetsiyah to tell her how to make Katherine truly immortal like Silas once the veil to the Other Side is dropped.

In *The Walking Dead*, Bonnie reveals to Katherine that the reason she wants to drop the veil is to ask Qetsiyah how to stop Silas. After Bonnie drops the veil she attempts to summon Qetsiyah only to be stopped by Silas. Silas reveals that Qetsiyah did not disfigure him and that he made Bonnie believe she had driven him out of her mind, creating a false sense of security. He also discouraged Bonnie, telling her Qetsiyah would not come anyway as she wants him to die and be with her.

In *Graduation*, Vaughn reveals that he starved to death in the cave and passed on to the Other Side, but was found by Qetsiyah. She reminded him of his destiny of curing and killing Silas. So when the veil was dropped she sent him, Connor, and Alexander to complete their supernatural destiny. Silas also reveals that it was him and not Qetsiyah who created the Immortality Spell, which later is revealed to be another lie told by Silas.
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## Personality

 File:Tessa.jpg

> I have trust issues, I'm controlling, paranoid and a little crazy, and that's working out just fine.
>
> Qetsiyah

At first, all that could be known about Qetsiyah's personality is through inferences based on Shane/Silas' version of the legend. If she was willing to help Silas cast the spell of immortality, she must have been a very loyal friend as well as an extremely powerful witch. However, her decision to imprison Silas and Amara in darkness for all eternity indicated the height of jealousy and vindictiveness in a personality as well. Furthermore, her decision to create the Other Side as a way to torment Silas and keep him from his soulmate for all eternity suggested a highly unstable or vengeful personality, since creating the Other Side resulted in the entrapment of thousands of supernatural beings in a dimension where they were being tormented for all eternity. She also had no qualms in lying to Silas about having killed Amara (to torment him and possibly drive him to take the cure and commit suicide so he'd be with his true love in death), and then later telling that same lies to his doppelgänger, Stefan. Qetsiyah also openly lied about preparing a new Daylight ring for Stefan, when in fact, she was readying a spell to link both Stefan and Silas. Her actions have elicited different reactions. Elena expressed shock after hearing what Qetsiyah did from Professor Shane while Damon went as far as to refer to her as a "crazy-ass witch". Bonnie, her descendant, seemed to find her actions very cool, telling Shane "Qetsiyah sounds like a badass", however, this was said out of ignorance, as Bonnie did not know that her ancestor was not as good a person as she thought. Since her first appearance, Qetsiyah had proven to be quite unstable, and possessive. She even admitted her issues including paranoia and vindictiveness, but all of this is blamed mostly due to the evil Silas did her.

## Physical Appearance

Qetsiyah appears to be a young and extremely beautiful woman in her 20s. She had long dark, curly hair similar in color to that of her descendant Bonnie. She appears to be of Mediterranean descent. During her life in ancient times, she was fond of wearing long, flowing dresses and sandals, a habit she brought with her to her time in the 21st century. In modern times, she was almost always seen wearing long dresses in different shades of dark violet. She also, upon locating her talisman, wore it constantly around her neck.

## Weaknesses

Qetsiyah had the typical weaknesses of a witch.

## Relationships

### Silas

 File:Silas Ancient Greece.PNG
File:Blue Glass Arrow.png *Main article: Silas and Qetsiyah*
Over 2,000 years ago, Silas and Qetsiyah were the most powerful witches in a group of very "gifted" people called The Travelers. The two eventually became engaged to be married and, telling her that he wanted to be with her forever, he used her for creating a spell which would make him and his one true love Amara the first immortals in the world. Qetsiyah successfully made the Immortality elixir, which they would consume on their wedding night. Qetsiyah created a whole garden for their wedding and prepared for Silas to join her so that they could commence their eternity together. At that moment, however, everything around her started dying. Qetsiyah realized that Silas was drinking the elixir from another location. Qetsiyah realized he did intend to be immortal but not with her when she learned that Silas gave the immortality elixir to another woman but that woman was her handmaiden, Amara. Enraged, Qetsiyah found a way to reverse the spell, creating a cure for Immortality, she forced Amara to drink the cure and killed her, first slitting her throat before ripping out her heart, which made Silas get angry, she later entombed him in a cave on a deserted island. She buried him with the cure and with a choice: take the cure and die a human, or rot as an Immortal forever. Qetsiyah created the Other Side, which is a supernatural purgatory for supernatural creatures after they die, so that when or if Silas dies, he would wind up there and be with her forever instead of with his human true love.

### Amara

 File:Amara.png
File:Blue Glass Arrow.png *Main article: Amara and Qetsiyah*
Amara was Qetsiyah's handmaiden as a human. Unbeknownst to her, Amara was actually in a secret relationship with Silas, Qetsiyah's fiancé. On the night of her supposed wedding, as the garden around her began to die, she knew Silas had already ingested the immortality elixir with another. Qetsiyah tracked him down and discovered he has given immortality to Amara. This began her hatred, and consequent mission to separate the two. Qetsiyah caught Amara alone in the woods one night turning her to stone and imprisoned her for 2,000 years, making her "the Anchor" to the Other Side. In the present, Qetsiyah and Amara meet again after Silas releases her. Qetsiyah taunts the former immortal, and Amara finally apologizes and pleads with Qetsiyah to kill her, to end her suffering. With Amara and Silas' death after transferring the Anchor onto Bonnie, Qetsiyah finally managed to exact her revenge on Amara by keeping her and Silas apart for eternity.

### Other Relationships

* Qetsiyah and Stefan (Enemies)
* Silas, Amara, and Qetsiyah (Former Love Triangle)

## Appearances

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**Season Four**

* *We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes* (Mentioned)
* *O Come, All Ye Faithful* (Mentioned)
* *After School Special*  (Mentioned)
* *Into the Wild* (Mentioned)
* *Down the Rabbit Hole* (Mentioned)
* *Stand By Me*  (Mentioned)
* *Because the Night* (Mentioned)
* *Pictures of You* (Mentioned)
* *She's Come Undone* (Mentioned)
* *The Walking Dead* (Mentioned)
* *Graduation* (Mentioned/Resurrected)

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**Season Five**

* *Original Sin*
* *Monster's Ball*
* *Handle with Care*
* *Death and the Maiden* (2nd Death)
* *Dead Man on Campus* (Mentioned)
* *While You Were Sleeping* (Mentioned)
* *Resident Evil* (Mentioned)
* *Home* (Mentioned)

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**Season Six**

* *The Day I Tried To Live* (Mentioned)
* *I'm Thinking Of You All The While* (Alluded)

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**Season Eight**

* *We're Planning a June Wedding* (Indirectly Mentioned)

## Name

* **Qetsiyah** (**קְצִיעָה**) is a feminine name of Hebrew origin. The name means "*cassia*," which is a bark similar to cinnamon. Qetsiyah is a variant of Keziah, the name of the second daughter of Job born after his trial.
* **Tessa** is a feminine name of Greek origin. The name means "*to reap*", "*reaper*" or "*to harvest*". It is a variation or short form of **Theresa**.

## Trivia

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1. ↑ 'Vampire Diaries' EPs On If Tonight's Finale Is Really The End; Bonnie's ancestors found peace, though not all of the actors, such as Bianca Lawason were able to be present in the finale scene. Likewise, there are a number of unnamed members present.
2. ↑ *Because the Night*
3. ↑ *The Walking Dead*
4. ↑ http://www.20000-names.com/female\_q\_names.htm#Qetsiyah
5. ↑ https://nameberry.com/babyname/Tessa