Chapter 2: Past. Knightmare
If there was but one thing that described Lola's identical twin that the pageant aficionado was begrudgingly forced to share a bedroom with, it was that they were virtually polar opposites in everything save their genes. And even then one could easily take them to be completely unrelated strangers at a first glance just from their appearances alone.
Aside from the bright blonde hair and almost glimmering crystal cyan eyes owned by both six year old preschoolers, it was difficult to find anything the two shared that would even remotely link them as even friends, let alone family.
Their clothes, the way each styled their admittedly very similarly toned hair in very different ways and even in the way they walked and talked it took a very open minded observer to accept that these were indeed two siblings as closely related to one another in blood as was possible in the known world and that they did indeed share one room under one roof under one last name.
As much a unwashed and rustic beggar one seemed in comparison to her much more expensively and primly clad sibling.
It was a known fact that the family of two very thinly stretched parents with ten girls but just one boy were not just called the Loud family for no reason other than to sound fancy.
The name was on just about everyone's lips throughout the entirety of the simple little cluster of civilisation known as Royal woods, Michigan.
A few praised them in a loud and booming cheer.
And in the upstairs corridor at that very moment stood the group of eleven shouting and arguing about who was to use the one bathroom they were forced to contend with sharing right now first. The argument was increasingly violent and soon there was pushing and shoving all across the room as each sibling fought with all their will to make themselves heard.
Among those that fought and fought so that it was clear for a long time there would be no clear winner, one sibling with hair as pale as first light and an orange shirt as plain as a blank sheet silently slunk away, clutching his leg as he went in a final attempt to give himself a few more seconds before the inevitable finally came.
The boy whose name was Lincoln ran and ran for his room where he had long since prepared a bucket just for this kind of emergency. This was preferable by far to having a long and heated argument with his sisters, which would no doubt end with a long and drawn out fight and he could not stand that.
A slight frown graced the expression of one sister as she watched her brother go. Then she stepped back to let her younger twin use the bathroom first realizing she could indeed keep herself under control a bit longer if needed, as well as knowing what her twin was capable of doing when angered.
They had been in enough scuffles for one day.
And they still had to decide what it was they would spend their playtime later that afternoon doing.
That was never a discussion that went smoothly between the two six-year-old twins of this household. Arguments were a common thing to see in a household so big, but it wasn't difficult to agree that even at that the twins were just unreasonably hostile to each other.
The day passed uneventfully enough. As uneventfully as a day in this barely functional family could pass anyway. At least no arguments and no activation of the much dread "Sister fight protocol" that just about never worked said Lincoln cathartically to himself as he settled himself as comfortably as he could to savour the momentary brief peace blessed upon this house this day.
With bated breath and shaking hands he cautiously edged himself onto his bed and with an even greater effort in which his teeth clattered all the while, he managed to pull out a comic which he slowly brought to his vision. One eye on the door leading to the cluttered closet he had to himself as his meagre share of space, he slowly began to silently read expecting the serenity that seemed a miracle all too good to be shattered at any moment. Being a large household never gave one much alone time as he often put it to his friends when they discussed their lives.
One of his eyes were still glued to his bedroom door half an hour later when none of his sisters had come anywhere close to his room and he was about two thirds the way finished with his special edition comic which came twice as thick as the ones he usually read.
So unused was the incredibly confused white-haired boy to this uninterrupted reading session which he'd been hoping to get for a long time that he wasn't even sure whether to call this was a blessing or a curse.
The sheer normality of such a day meant that dinnertime, brushing of teeth and lights out descended upon the household as if time itself was set to some sort of fast forward mode Soon enough the one time of the day when the loud house managed not to live up to its namesake arrived with not even the slightest peep coming from any room.
You could have even dropped a pin on the carpeted floor and heard it hitting the ground clear as a bell.
Even Lincoln who usually twitched and turned uneasily was resting soundly and still.
"Wake up" a quiet but incredibly desperate and frightened whisper from far away called, causing the white-haired comic book aficionado to jolt as his eyes snapped open so quickly his eyelids burned with agony. Years of being in a big family had deprived his sleeps of most of its former gravity
and though the voice was so small that the slightest breath of wind would have covered it up, there was no denying the urgency in whoever was now calling to him.
Too scared and weary to think clearly yet, Lincoln silently managed to sit himself up as his mind gave word to the rest of his senses to be on high alert. He very nearly felt his heart leap from his chest.
"Lincoln. Please wake up" came the voice again no louder than before. Whichever one of his sisters was speaking to him if even it was one of them, was getting more and more terrified and hurt every second he sat here like a simpleton doing nothing.
Shaking off any vestiges of fear which had manifested over the last tense seconds and steadying his breaths, Lincoln threw his duvet from himself and quickly stood to his feet.
Wiping cold sweat from his brow with his sleeve, he quietly but bravely marched for the door.
He almost slapped himself with deep regret at how great a coward he was for taking so long to react when he saw standing at the entrance of his tiny bedroom the bedraggled and gently shaking form of his younger sister Lana.
Almost another Lola in terms of age but completely the opposite in all things else down to a gentleness Lana had in her that rivalled that of even the resident sweetheart Leni.
That was something to be said since Leni's sixteen years of age more than doubled the twins six and that the twins spent most of their days in an endless quarrel seldom able to agree on anything without something of a fight which big brother Lincoln would then need to intervene once more.
"What's wrong" Lincoln managed to ask eventually breaking the silence that had returned since the girl's pleas of help had stopped at finally seeing her prayers answered by the big brother she knew she could always count on unconditionally.
But though the kindness in his soul shone vibrantly in the concerned and beautiful eyes he now saw his sister through, the deep seated terror in Lana's mind made her throat weak and for the next seconds she could but stare blankly back at Lincoln with about as much emotion as a statue.
She tried and tried to force words from her mouth but to no avail. The terrible dream that had brought her leaping from her bed and running to her poor brother's room while rudely waking him up from the comfortable sleep someone as nice as him deserved had made her numb with fear.
Her brother was no Lisa Loud, child prodigy of four ready to give lectures to great minds in those big universities they had in the fancier part of town.
But he was no fool.
Taking one last look at Lana so as to take in everything before he jumped to conclusions, he could see the sweat that had formed on the blonde girl's brow. He could hear the strained and shallow gasps emphasizing the difficulty his sister was having in breathing properly at this moment.
But most of all even in the dim light of the night only illuminated by a slight glow of moon, Lincoln's careful eyes could not fail to deduce the dried tearstains that had left their nasty mark on Lana's pretty face.
"Did you have a nightmare again?" he asked in a quiet voice so as not to rouse the remaining sleepers of the house.
Still unable to speak through her tightly sealed lips, Lana sadly nodded.
"I'm sorry about that. I'm really sorry. Let me help you." Said Lincoln as his younger sister gratefully walked into his room still silent with a mask of horror on her face. He didn't care that it was usually his older sister Lori who was better suited to dealing with nightmares or that Lana would usually turn to Lori for a problem like this.
All that was on his mind was to bring back the happy and playful girl that he knew and loved despite her little flaws of liking to play in the mud and filth a little too much.
Leading his little sister into his room and beckoning her to sit down on his bed, he quickly rummaged through his shelves tossing aside several of his favourite Ace Savvy comics in the process.
But eventually he found it. The one storybook from when he was very little which he had not yet opted to throw out. The entrancing tale that had lulled the much younger him to bed each night when he kicked, screamed or otherwise refused to go to bed like a good little infant ought to before he discovered Ace Savvy even existed.
A story that even now he liked to give a good read to every now and again when Ace Savvy wasn't on any new adventures.
A tale whose main character and him just happened to share names. A great coincidence that he never wrapped his head around.
The one thing he was sure could dull the pain of Lana's terrible nightmare even slightly.
"How about I read you a story? A good story always helps me get back to sleep when I'm down." He suggested as he gently put his hand on his little sister's shoulder to calm her down.
His sister was silent as she turned to face him in reply but the rolling of her eyes said everything.
She wasn't that kind of girl.
She wasn't into all that fluffy junk about fairies and Princesses or those silly magical kingdoms that didn't really exist and were just there for make believe,
That was her twin sister Lola's saccharine shtick and not hers.
He was not helping in the slightest and instead condescending her trying to treat her like a stereotype.
"But you'll like this one. I'm sure you will." He only said as he flipped to the first page of the gigantic thick book and began to read.
Lincoln spent the next half hour wistfully and excitedly narrating the story of how a young forester saved a beautiful and vibrant kingdom despite being a homeless mute who never spoke a word.
The young boy known only as "Link" was the first and only soul in the kingdom brave enough to take on the task of single-handedly beating back the evil armies regrouping under the banner of the terrible warlord of the east.
The kingdom's completely incompetent guards who had grown fat and lazy over the years of peace the kingdom enjoyed before the mysterious general "Ganon" (more commonly known by the terrified people as simply "Death guy") returned to marshal his single-minded minions once more towards inflicting as much pain and suffering upon the populace of the peaceful Hyrule Kingdom.
A kingdom whose people had grown so unused to war over time that its army was too weak to do anything but look pretty in their glittery suits of armour.
So it was then that our hero Link was chosen to go and stop "Death guy" and to bring back the princess he decided he'd take with him just to show he was top dog around here now and that absolutely no one could stop him since the only person who could do anything against him was now locked in the tallest tower of his black marble palace all set to decay to bones and rags guaranteeing not just death, but a slow and painful death. He was called "Death guy" for a reason after all,
As Lincoln continued to read and read, his excited voice as loud as it could be without waking anyone else at this late hour up, great joy warmed in his chest as he saw the lifelessness in Lana's icy eyes begin to fade and her usual goofy and adorable smile begin to return.
She still stayed silent but now it was so as not to interrupt the experience of a lifetime that her big brother was giving her. This was not one of Lola's boring princess stories which literally bored her to death to no end and made her look even deader than the resident mortician Lucy.
This was what she called a good and proper story and it would make one heck of a good time when she told it to Hops and her other animal friends.
The last worries she had about the nightmare which she really preferred not to talk about left her as her brother continued to read and read about how the so called "Link" hacked through the entirety of Ganon "Death guy's" gigantic army which had been optimally placed all over the country in preparation for just the occasion that some stupid little boy like him think to challenge their godlike master who saw Link coming long before the mute and filthy forest dweller even set out of the capital with no more to his name than a notched bastard sword whose iron was almost paper thin from years of use and disrepair to.
"Bastard sword" snickered Lana quietly to herself. "Funny name"
"Nothing could stop our hero as he made his way through the most dangerous places that we could only dream about only in our wildest nightmares." Narrated Lincoln, tired but determined to finish at least up to the next page seeing how his little sister loved the story and wasn't afraid anymore.
Curdled cave, soggy swamp and then Phantom's paradise. These were just names of a few of those horrible places each somehow more terrifying than the last.
It was when Lincoln finished the page and looked upon his now soundly sleeping sister who was smiling heartily once more that he himself felt that the man happier than himself at this moment and at this time, did not live on earth.
His sisters might have all had their eccentricities and unusual quirks which sometimes he did or did not always agree with but he wouldn't have had them any other way.
And if it meant never having a full night's rest or a day of quiet because he'd be spending his time helping them in any way he could as the bland and boring middle child of his home then so be it.
Better to see the sweet and grateful smiles on his siblings faces by contributing what he could than to be labelled a complete pariah left all to himself.
Surviving in a big household was not impossible, said Lincoln to himself as he gave his sister a gentle pat before trying to make himself comfortable on the little space still left to himself on his tiny bed.
Difficult yes, but not impossible.
It may well have been an odd combination of one boy and ten girls. But he really wouldn't have traded what he had for the world. Or so he thought as he lay quietly sleeping beside Lana, knowing that he didn't have long before the chaos of another day in the Loud house was on the rise.
"What a great hero that Link guy is." Murmured Lana almost silently as much better dreams took the place of terrible nightmares. "
So yeah. Here you go. Chapter 2, actually a prequel to chapter 1 if you look at the title.
It took me forever to think of how exacly I was going to write this up being that this is the Loud house and that Lincoln doesn't exactly have It easy.
But here it is.
So nothing seems quite wrong just yet and everything still seems normal and happy for the time being.
But for how long can such a family last?
Find out next time.
For now, thanks for reading and I wish you great people a pleasant day.