Qetsiyah

**Notice:** This **article** uses content directly taken from the Qetsiyah **article** at the Vampire Diaries Wiki, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

## Biographical Information

### Born

* 1st Century B.C. (Presumably Greece, Aged Unknown/2000+)

### Occupation

* Member of the Travelers (Formerly)
* Member of the Spirits (Formerly)

### Titles

* Tessa (Present day alias)
* Miss Crazy, Qetsi-whatever (by Damon)
* Crazy Bitch (by Elena)
* Qetsooyay (by Katherine)

### Species

* Witch
* Ghost (Formerly)
* Spirit (Currently)

## Family Information

### Family Members

* Silas † (Ex-Fiancé)
* Unnamed Child/ren †
* Ayana † (Descendant)
* Ayana's Child/ren † (Descendant)
* The Witch of The Five † (Descendant)
* The Witch of The Five's Child/ren † (Descendant)
* Beatrice's Mother † (Descendant)
* Beatrice Bennett † (Descendant)
* Emily Bennett † (Descendant)
* Emily's Unnamed Brother † (Descendant)
* Emily's Unnamed Children † (Descendant)
* Marie Bennett † (Descendant)
* Rose Bennett † (Descendant)
* Ernestine Bennett † (Descendant)
* Amelia Bennett † (Descendant)
* Sheila Bennett † (Descendant)
* Sheila's Unnamed Sibling † (Descendant)
* Pauline Bennett † (Descendant)
* Pauline's Unnamed Sibling † (Descendant)
* Joanna's Mother † (Descendant)
* Joanna Bennett † (Descendant)
* Abby Bennett Wilson (Descendant)
* Lucy Bennett † (Descendant)
* Bonnie Bennett (Descendant)
* Lia Bennett (Descendant)
* Parker Bennett (Descendant)

## Supernatural Information

### Significant Spells

* Talisman Creation Spell (her own talisman)
* Solar Boundary Spell (Creation, presumably)
* The Immortality Spell
* Nature Spell
* Creation of The Other Side (Bound to the Anchor)
* Creation of the Cure (as an Elixir)
* Tomb Sealing Spell (on Silas)
* Resurrection Spell (on herself)
* Daylight Protection Spell
* Dream Manipulation Spell (on Elena and Katherine)
* Advanced Pyrokinesis
* Pain Infliction (various)
* Imprisonment Spell (on Stefan)
* Mind-Linking Spell (on Stefan)
* Telekinesis
* Memory Restoration Spell (on Stefan)
* Talisman Locator Spell
* Locator Spell (for the Anchor)
* Desiccation Spell (on Amara and Silas)
* Anchor Transference Ritual (using Elena, Amara, and Bonnie)

### Significant Sires

* Silas (through the Immortality Spell)
* Amara (through the Immortality Spell)

### Cause of Death

* Unknown (1st Time)
* Loss of Blood (2nd Time)

### Killed By

* The Travelers (1st time)
* Herself (2nd time)

## Physical Appearance

### Height

* 5'7" (Feet)
* 1.70 (Meters)

## Appearance

### Last Seen

* *Death and the Maiden*

**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

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.

## Personality

"*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.

## Powers and Abilities

Qetsiyah was arguably the most powerful witch of all time. Recounting her life in ancient times, she describes herself and Silas as two most powerful members of a gifted people called Travelers. Silas also eludes to her superior abilities, admiting that she was one of the most powerful witches of all time. Bonnie also states that she's one of the strongest witches in the world. Her people practiced magic that was described by Markos as "pure magic". As a witch in modern times, she continued to use pure magic, using Nature, such as the Full Moon, and/or her Talisman to aid her in empowering her spells.
In her previous life, she pioneered incredible and noteworthy feats including the creation of the Immortality Spell, the Cure to immortality, and the creation of the Other Side and the Anchor.
The Other Side covered the entire span of the Earth and existed as a spirit realm bound to the physical world through the Anchor, which was Amara's immortal body. The intention for its creation was for the plane to become a supernatural limbo to trap Silas' spirit after taking the cure and dying, separating him and Amara for their betrayal. However, it's creation housed the ghosts of all supernaturals beings and persisted over the next two thousand years. With each supernatural being's death, their spirits would automatically be pulled into the Other Side, first passing through the Anchor. The Other Side was separated from the living world through the division of the Veil. Due to this, resurrection spells were made possible, as the Other Side prevented spirits (though with *some* exception) from crossing-over to find peace. Intentional or not, witches that resided on the Other Side gave rise to the use of Spirit Magic.
Notably, she was very skilled at creating complex spells, such as with the creation of the Cure. Whether the full effects of the Cure upon creation was known or not, it had additional applications beyond it's use against the immortal Silas. Not only could it undo all conventional forms of immortality, such as that of immortals and vampires, but it could also technically return an undead vampire back into a living, breathing human again. Additionally, those who took the cure were free from all the weaknesses Nature placed upon them when they "turned," while permanently preventing the recipient from becoming immortal again, at least through vampirism, nor from benefiting from the healing properties of vampire blood.
Her calcified blood alone was a massive source of power; Katherine even equated it to that of a celestial event, such as a full moon or a comet. Katherine believed that Bonnie could lower the Veil to the Other Side with her blood alone, unaided by a full moon. Bonnie later confirmed her theory, to a degree, as she channeled both Expression Triangle and Qetsiyah's blood.
With the Veil lowered, she saw an opportunity to make herself a living, breathing mortal. After two thousand years on the Other Side and her hunter's having failed their task to kill Silas, she figured it was time to handle things in person - testament to her immense power. After her self resurrection she demonstrated her impressive control over magic on various occasions.
She was also one of the few witches to excel at nature-related spells. In a flashback, she described how she "created an entire garden" for her wedding ceremony, which when shown seemed to be a large space. During her relatively brief time in the present, she continued to display her impressive skills and magical knowledge, utilizing the magical properties of multiple herbs to aid in her spell to suppress Silas' mental powers.
She showed great skill with mind-based spells when she quite proficiently used Nature's balance to the immortals, the doppelgänger, to successfully suppress Silas' mental powers and greatly weaken him. Through this link between Silas and his doppelgänger, Stefan, she completely disabled Silas' psychic abilities, though Stefan suffered substantial memory loss. Despite this, she was able to restore his memories, albeit forcefully, with limited divination as she acquired visions of Stefan's memories in the process.
Another testament to her power was her skills over basic powers such as pyrokinesis. She is the only witch to produce blue flames through her pyrokinesis, the hottest form of flames, which trailed behind as she drug her finger across stone to ignite her fireplace. In doing so, she did not need any accelerant to ignite the flames. She was also well versed with pain infliction spells and telekinesis. She enacted such spells during times of extreme duress or in threatening situations, not succumbing to fear or other emotional state that would typicall be a weakness to witches. She also had an impressive force of will that allowed her to fight against a vampire, like Damon when he attempted to rip out her throat, and against an immortal, like Silas.
She also showed an impressive skill with dream manipulation as she was able to plant dreams of Stefan's activities into the minds of both Elena and Katherine, which made them believe it was due to a connection shared with Stefan. Using this, they attempted to locate and save him, however, this was a trap to lure them to her cabin so she could complete her plan to kill Silas.
She was able to create her own talisman; though unique about hers, it was made from human bone. She used her talisman to enhance her magic to break through the traveler's cloaking spell that had kept the Anchor, Amara, hidden for two thousand years as well as desiccating Silas, the first Immortal, for a second time.
Despite being one of the two most powerful of a gifted group of witches, it is interesting to note that she was locked within her own cabin by a sunlight-based boundary spell. The very spell she taught Silas two thousand years prior. The spell prevented hers and Stefan's escape from the cabin until sundown. It remains to be seen if there was a way for her to break the spell, considering she first taught it to Silas, or decided to not attempt to break it, opting to wait until sundown.
The most notable feat after her resurrection was the transferring the Anchor status from Amara, cured and now human, to Bonnie a ghost trapped on the Other Side. Due to the increased complexity of the spell, making a ghost a human toll booth between the mortal plan and the Other Side, she required a massive amount of power to perform such a feat. Despite the already massive amount of power her blood held, she needed to draw on something. She couldn't draw from the moon as it was not full nor did she believe there was a worthy comet for "a couple billion years". However, she found such a source in the blood of the doppelgängers (inclusive of Amara, albeit human) as well as her talisman. With the completion of the spell, Bonnie was given a foothold on the physical, living plane and was made the Anchor. She was essentially resurrected in the physical sense, a "toll booth" that allowed her to interact within both the mortal world while being able to interact with ghosts still on the Other Side.
Before her second death, Qetsiyah implied that she could reverse the effects of the removal of the Cure as Katherine was rapidly aging and dying. She explains that "altering someone's lifespan is what started this whole mess in the first place. I've learned my lesson. I'm not saving your life." Whether or not she could have actually saved Katherine remains to be seen, though given her feats seems likely.

## Weaknesses

Qetsiyah had the typical weaknesses of a witch.

## Appearances

* *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)

* *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)

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

**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**.