Ada Vessalius is 19 when Vincent Nightray is cast down into the abyss.
No one knows of their relationship, not really, so for a while, he just disappears. This is not uncharacteristic for Vincent. He is a secretive man, and likes to make her wait. It's one of his whimsies, and Ada is always far to content with the time they spend together to concern herself with the time they spend apart. But this time Vincent simply vanishes, and with the Nightray family in ruins, there is no official word on the matter.
On Vincent's birthday, she buys him a gift. A most striking pair of earrings she knows he will adore. They are red, like the beautiful red of his eyes, and she just knows they will look stunning on him, far more stunning than they would on her - she is more suited to yellows and greens anyway.
It is when she gives the present to Gilbert, in hopes that he can give it to Vincent, with her well wishes, that she learns that Vincent Nightray is gone.
She smiles and cries, and apologizes, and Gilbert doesn't know what to do, seems genuinely surprised that she even had a passing interest in his younger brother.
The world didn't suddenly turn dark, unloving, uncaring and devoid of anything that mattered when Vincent Nightray was cast down into the abyss. Ada feels betrayed. The world should have turned on its head and spun out of control the minute he was no longer part of it.
-\|/-
It was never about wanting anything from Vincent, that had never been what Ada had yearned for. Ada would have happily filled any role Vincent needed, played any minor bit part to be around him. Vincent was untamable, and she'd never wanted to tie him down, only wanted to be around him, to soak in the person he was, like a plant with the sun.
Her sun is gone, and she is still alive. There's something disgusting about that. It doesn't make her bitter though, she still smiles, laughs, and casually lies that she is well when people ask. For them, the world still turns just as it always has. It's always been her that's strange; untouched by onlookers.
-\|/-
She thinks of Elliot and Leo sometimes, and wonders if she would feel better or worse with a body and blood to mourn. Anything would be better than the emptiness that is a world where Vincent Nightray has simply been erased.
Corpses aren't much fun, but blood isn't so bad. Maybe a vial of it to keep around her neck as a memento would have made her feel better. She doesn't know.
-\|/-
Ada joins Pandora at age 22, a full three years after Vincent had been cast down into the abyss, and she is healthy, and adjusted. Just like Elliot, Vincent is a name that doesn't come up anymore. They don't talk about Leo either, she's making a far better show of it than he is.
She opens the Vessalius door, and two chains greet her. She picks Dormouse, for obvious reasons, and drips blood into the mirror she received as a member of Pandora. But she smiles at the second chain, and comes back two weeks later, after all the well wishers have forgotten her, and how odd it was that she had such a familiar, albeit, useless chain.
Behind her back, those same well wishers say Dormouse suites her far more than its previous contractor. But, as with everything else, they are mistaken. Dormouse suited Vincent well, and the chain is a comfort, but Dormouse doesn't suit her.
Demios is a better fit in the end. The bones and skull is adorable.
-\|/-
She surprises herself how squeamish she is at first, but Demios is hungry, and in a way, so is she. She feels like a hungry ghost, unable to eat. Demios reassures her that this is the only way, and Ada knows that the Queen of Hurts has the right of it.
Dormouse never speaks to her.
Ada doesn't stay squeamish for long.
-\|/-
Sometimes, when it is very late out, Ada stows away into her brothers room. Dormouse assures that he won't wake, and she fingers the golden pocket watch he always has on him, winds it up, and listens. She asked Leo once what the song was called: Lacie.
Who loved Lacie enough to write a forlorn song for her? A sibling? A parent? A lover? Some obsessed fool? She wants to write poems, love songs, build buildings with his name, discover countries to name after him, but Ada will do none of these things.
Elliot used to play that song, the piano keys twinkling like stars. Even with Elliot's fast pace, and candor, Lacie was a song for mourning. She wonders how Leo never noticed that before.
-\|/-
Ada doesn't look at her incursor, she gets dreadfully impatient when she does, so it's just something she's stopped doing.
-\|/-
She consents to her arranged marriage, but the poor fellow disappears shortly after the wedding date. Ada Vessalius is officially a widower. Now isn't that something for irony.
-\|/-
She's always been a good liar, she thinks it comes with the blood, Uncle Oscar was exceptionally good at it as well. Ada wouldn't be surprised if Vessalius clout was entirely based on lies. Oz could probably notice, if he didn't have Alice and Gilbert, Break and Sharon, keeping his attention.
Ada is glad he has been blessed with such wonderful friends.
-\|/-
She doesn't make it to 23, which is a blessing. Ada faces her decent without fear. If she wasn't afraid of stepping on bodies, she isn't afraid of this.
She hopes Vincent will appreciate her company. She would hate for him to be lonely.