Disclaimer: I do not own 'The Loud House' or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.
Ten reasons
Chapter thirteen: Gothic Shadows part one- Dark is not evil
"The last brownie is totally mine, brah!"
"No way! The last brownie is, like, totes mine!"
Down in the kitchen of the Loud family's residence, two of the Loud sisters, Luna and Leni, were arguing over the last individually wrapped brownie from a box of snack cakes; it was one of those brownies that had little rainbow-colored bits of candy on top in a very thin layer of chocolate icing. The fashionista and the musician were arguing back and forth as they tried to explain to their counterpart that the last brownie should go to them.
As the two teenage Loud girls argued, they were suddenly cut off by a screeching noise. Suddenly, to the shock of Leni and Luna, a bat came flying into the kitchen, fluttering above Luna and Leni as it screeched madly. "Holy crud!" Luna exclaimed as she and Leni ducked and covered their respective heads out of alarm by the bat's sudden arrival, "Lucy! Come down here and call your bat off!"
As the bat flew over the two teenage Loud sisters, screeching as it did, Luna and Leni heard their little sister Lucy call out, "Alright, Fangs, leave them alone." The bat suddenly stopped messing with Luna and Leni as it changed course for where Lucy's voice came from. Looking over, Luna and Leni saw Lucy standing in the doorway of the kitchen, her pet bat Fangs landing gently on the gothic Loud sister's head.
"Dude, you need to keep a leash on that thing!" Luna remarked to Lucy, "It scared the bejesus out of me and Leni."
"Fangs only wanted to say good morning to you two," Lucy said to her older sisters, "Bats just have a different way of showing that compared to other animals is all."
"Well I would have liked a little bit of a warning next time, alright?" Luna replied.
"Very well," Lucy said with an understanding nod. Turning around, Lucy said, "Now if you two will excuse me, I've got some writing to do in the vents."
"Yeah, sure, go ahead," Luna answered as she made a shooing gesture with her right hand. A few seconds after Lucy left, Luna said to Leni, "Like I was saying, Leni, the last brownie is totally mine."
"I didn't get any from the last box because Lynn ate the one that was being saved for me," Leni pointed out, "So I should totes get the last brownie this time!"
"Ever heard of-" Luna began, but stopped short when, as her gaze fell upon the box of individually wrapped brownies that was sitting on the table, the last brownie, which should have been sitting out in front of the box, was missing. "Dude!" Luna exclaimed in shocked annoyance, "The last brownie is missing!"
"How could you take it, Luna?" Leni asked, "I still didn't get one yet!"
"Dude, I totally didn't take the last brownie," Luna swore, "I was too busy arguing with you about why I should have it!"
"Well I, like, didn't take it," Leni retorted, "I was arguing with you that I should have the last brownie!"
"Huh," Luna began in a pondering tone, "If you didn't take the last brownie, and I certainly didn't take it, then who did?"
…
Somewhere in the vents of the Loud family's residence, approximately a foot away from the cover that led into Lori and Leni's room, Lucy was writing in one of her poetry books, expressing herself through her talent with the written word about how the last several weeks in her family's house has gone and how it is making her feel. As she wrote, her pet bat Fangs sat next to her, eating a bug that he caught. As for Lucy herself, she was eating the last individually wrapped brownie, which the gothic Loud sibling snagged while Fangs was distracting Luna and Leni on her orders.
"…Hmm," Lucy remarked to herself, "I wonder if there are any good rhymes for 'bruise'."
The following morning, Lucy was sitting at the dining room table, eating breakfast. Sitting at the dining room table along with their gothic little sister were Luan and Lincoln. "So, when is Lori getting back today?" Luan asked.
"She said that she'd be back sometime before noon," Lincoln answered, "Then again, she usually gets back before that time whenever she and some of her friends on the varsity golf team get together for one of their overnight things."
"Whose house did they hold it at this time?" Luan asked.
"I think they held it at Sarah's place," Lincoln replied with a mildly unsure look, "At least I think Lori said something about her friend Sarah." As the sole Loud boy and the comedic Loud sibling talked, the twins Lola and Lana came walking into the dining room. The look on Lana's face showed that her rest was not entirely undisturbed. "Umm, Lana," Lincoln began when he saw the tired look on his little sister's face, "Are you okay?"
"I had another nightmare last night," Lana replied in a mildly upset tone, "And Lori's not here for me to talk to, so-"
"I understand," Lincoln replied in a kind, gentle tone as he gestured for Lana to come over. As the tomboyish Loud twin walked over to where her older brother was sitting, he pulled out the empty chair next to him and invited Lana to sit there. "Why don't you tell me all about it," Lincoln said, "I may not be Lori, but you can trust me, can't you?"
Looking up at Lincoln, Lana smiled, appreciative of how much her older brother cared about how she felt. "Thanks, Lincoln," Lana replied as she took the offered seat while Lola took the chair on the side of the table opposite of her older twin sister. "Umm, promise you won't make fun of me because of the nightmare I had?" Lana asked Lincoln, her tone sounding apprehensive.
"Lana, I would never put you or any of our sisters in an awkward position by revealing something embarrassing about whatever sister is in question," Lincoln replied in a reassuring tone, "There's no need to worry." After Lincoln gave this explanation to Lana, Lucy's attention was piqued a bit; after all, Lincoln had gone through such length for her back when she clogged the toilet with that Princess Pony book. Even when Lincoln was later forced to confess that it wasn't really him who caused that incident, he refused to tell anyone who it really did it, thus still saving Lucy loads of embarrassment and all but certain teasing from her sisters.
"…Well, okay," Lana replied to Lincoln at length, "But you're still going to think it's weird."
"At this point, someone would have to actively try to be weird in order to make me think they're weird," Lincoln remarked, "You are aware of some of the things that goes on in this house from time to time, right?"
Smiling a bit, Lana said, "Alright, here I go." Taking a breath first, Lana said, "My bad dream from last night was about frogs being declared illegal!" A worried look on her face, Lana added, "It was worse than the bad dream I had where mud no longer existed!"
"How…how can you consider those nightmares?" Lola asked her twin with a confused look on her face, "Losing a pageant, however? Now that's a nightmare, unless it's the pageant from the weird dream that I had a while ago."
"Not everyone's idea of what makes a dream good or bad is the same, Lola," Lincoln pointed out to the pageant princess. Turning his attention back to Lana, Lincoln said, "Do you want to know the good thing about those bad dreams you just described to me?"
"W-what?" Lana asked, sounding mildly unsure about how those bad dreams she had could have any good qualities.
"Those dreams are just that, Lana," Lincoln replied in a gentle, reassuring tone, "Dreams. There is no possible way that what happened in those bad dreams you had can happen in real life. Frogs being declared illegal? No way that can happen with regular, non-poisonous frogs such as Hops. Mud no longer existing? So long as there is dirt and water, mud will always be around. Do you understand, Lana?"
With a bit of a giggle, Lana said, "Yeah, Lincoln. Thanks." Lana hopped off of the chair she sat on, jumped onto Lincoln's lap, and hugged him
Smiling gently, Lincoln returned the hug while patting his little sister's back. "No problem, Lana," the sole Loud boy said, "Feel free to come talk to me about any bad dreams you have if Lori's not around."
"Sounds like a plan," Lana remarked as she hopped off of Lincoln's lap. Looking to her twin, Lana said, "Come on, Lola! We've got some mud to make in the backyard!"
"No," Lola declared flatly, "No more mud may be bad dream for you, but it's a dream come true for me."
"Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," Lana replied in an annoyed, mocking tone before heading out into the backyard by herself. This banter between the twins made Lincoln and Luan chuckle in mild amusement; with Lana's worries absolved, the two older Loud siblings were glad to see that things had gone back to how they were. Lucy also felt happy about how things were going, although she did not show it by laughing. The gothic Loud sibling rarely, if ever, showed any emotions. But still, Lincoln's offer to Lana sounded appealing to Lucy.
After all, Lucy had a reason for wanting to take up the offer herself.
Later that day, Lincoln was taking a bag of trash out to the curb in front of his family's house. As soon as he brought the trash bag to the cans, he heard Lucy's voice from behind him say, "Hey Lincoln, can I talk to you?" As per usual whenever she suddenly appears behind someone, the person she appeared behind jumps up and cries out in alarm.
"Oh," Lincoln said as he breathed a sigh of relief, "Hey there, Lucy. What can I help you with?"
"It concerns what you told Lana during breakfast earlier this morning," Lucy explained, "About how she can come to you about any nightmares she has if Lori's absent."
"Yeah, what about it?" Lincoln asked, a curious look on his face.
"I was wondering," Lucy replied, "If it was possible, that you would be open to the idea of me coming to you if I had any nightmares myself."
"Oh," Lincoln replied, mildly surprised that his gothic little sister was asking this of all things, "Umm, sure, I have no problem with that. Why do you ask? Have you been having any nightmares as well, Lucy?"
"Sigh," Lucy said in her emotionless monotone, "I did have one a few nights ago. It was a particularly troubling one, too."
"Well what was it about?" Lincoln asked.
"You," the gothic Loud sibling replied as she pointed to her older brother.
"Me?" Lincoln asked, his tone sounding surprised, "How does this nightmare involve me?"
"As we all know, you have been involved in a number of incidents as of late," Lucy began to explain, "Some for rather…notable…reasons." As Lucy explained her dream, she began to shudder a bit. It was mild shuddering at best, but it did not escape Lincoln's attention. "My…my nightmare was where you involved in another incident," Lucy said as a bit of emotion began seeping into her otherwise emotionless monotone, "But you…you…"
Stopping short, Lucy threw her arms around her older brother's shoulders, buried her face into Lincoln's chest, and began to cry, up to the point that she was unable to talk coherently. From his little sister's display right here, Lincoln was able to fill in the rest of the dots on his own. The sole Loud boy gently patted Lucy on the back in a reassuring, comforting gesture.
"Well I haven't gotten hurt yet since the last time, have I?" Lincoln asked.
Sniffling a little bit, Lucy replied, "No…"
"Yeah, I guess I should apologize," Lincoln remarked gently, "I mean, I not only caused you to have nightmares, but I most likely caused nightmares for the rest of our family as well. Some brother I turned out to be."
"You…you didn't do anything," Lucy said as she started to regain some of her usual composure, "It's not your fault any of what happened to you even occurred in the first place."
"I guess you're right," Lincoln replied. After Lucy straightened herself up, Lincoln said, "Come on, Lucy, let's get you inside so we can clean you up. Your nose is running a bit."
"O-oh," Lucy remarked, suddenly embarrassed because she just realized that she allowed herself to show emotion so openly. Meekly, the gothic Loud sibling proceeded to follow her older brother into their family's house.
Later, Lucy was up in the bedroom she shared with her older sister Lynn. Lucy was writing in one of her poetry books. "The visions that one sees in the realm of sleep are but illusions," Lucy wrote in her poem book, "Unable to hinder or harm those who see them. What one sees and knows in the waking world can be taken as true, and can-"
"Hey Lucy, what's shaking?" Lynn greeted as she walked into the bedroom, interrupting the gothic Loud sibling's writing. Stopping short, Lucy looked up and saw that her sporty older sibling was carrying a soccer ball. She also noticed that the side of Lynn's jersey was heavily stained with dirt and green smears of grass, as if she slammed into the ground. The gothic Loud sibling gave Lynn an unamused stare, not that Lynn was able to tell due to Lucy's bangs.
"I'm assuming that you and your friends had fun playing soccer?" Lucy asked in her usual emotionless monotone.
"I kept having to correct Mitzie whenever she called it football, but yeah," Lynn replied as she tossed her soccer ball onto her bed, "And hoo boy, Ulfric's got one heck of a kick! Maybe I should have put him out into the field first thing instead of having him be a goalie."
"You do realize that you're going to have to change your jersey," Lucy pointed out, "If dad doesn't tell you to, then one of our siblings surely will."
"Well it's a good thing I have multiples of this jersey," Lynn remarked as she walked to the closet in her and Lucy's room. As Lynn did that, Lucy returned her attention to her writing.
"-be held close to you," Lucy wrote, picking up from where she left off, "It is imperative that one never forgets to let those close to them know that-"
"Speaking of soccer," Lynn said, once again interrupting Lucy's writing and making her look up. At least now Lynn was wearing a clean jersey. "My team and I have a game this weekend," Lynn continued, "It's going to be awesome!"
"I'm surprised that you haven't gotten back into baseball yet," Lucy remarked conversationally, "It's been a while since the last game you-"
"Please," Lynn said, interrupting her little sister, "Please don't remind me of my last baseball game." Sighing in a mildly resigned tone, Lynn continued, "I don't need to be reminded of what happened that day."
"I see," Lucy remarked, "I apologize. I didn't know it was still something of a sore spot for you."
"Also, I don't have any baseball bats anymore," Lynn continued, her tone shifting from sounding mildly resigned to sounding mildly embarrassed.
"Given what I heard dad say about Lori getting rid of them all, I can see why," the gothic Loud sibling said, "It shouldn't matter to you, though. You can always borrow a bat from Ulfric or Mitzie, can't you?"
"Neither of them owns a baseball bat, and in fact always had to borrow one of mine prior to Lori tossing them all away," Lynn explained, an embarrassed blushing appearing on the sporty Loud sibling's face.
"If you ever get a new one, make sure you hide it from Lori," Lucy suggested.
"Actually, I don't think that I'll have to worry about that," Lynn said, "Lori tossed out all of my baseball bats in the heat of the moment. She's calmed down from that since then. …Well, at least I think she's calmed down from that since then."
"Better check with her to see if it's okay to get a new one," Lucy remarked, "Just to be safe."
"Got it," Lynn replied as she shot her little sister a salute before turning around to head out of their room. Lori has since returned from the overnight thing that her and her friends on the varsity golf team had together, so now was the perfect time for Lynn to ask her oldest sibling about if getting a new baseball bat was okay or not.
This left Lucy alone, once again, in peace, allowing her to go back to her writing. …Well, Lucy was not entirely alone; but then again, Fangs didn't annoy Lucy with talking about sports or how many meatball grinders he can eat in a single sitting. The gothic Loud sibling though that the bat made for excellent company.
Later that weekend, Lucy was at home, sitting on the sofa and watching TV. The gothic Loud sibling, along with Luna, Leni and Lana, didn't go to Lynn's soccer game for varying reasons. Although Lynn was not too entirely thrilled that some of her sibling would not be coming out to cheer her on, she respected their reasons or decisions to not come. The sporty Loud sibling learned a rather harsh lesson concerning the last time she tried to force one of her siblings to attend an event that they weren't really in the mood to attend.
Lucy and Lana were sitting on the sofa in the living room; Lana had a cartoon of some sort playing while Lucy, her attention focused on writing in her poetry book, wasn't paying all that much attention, and could not have cared less if Lana was watching some sort of raunchy comedy-type show or movie that was rated far too high for a six-year-old girl like Lana to be watching. Luna was in the garage playing music with a few friends, and Leni was up in her and Lori's room, working on her latest dress.
"A soul who is truly kind will put your well-being ahead of their own," Lucy wrote, "Even if their own well-being has a greater immediate need. Some would say that someone who puts the needs of other ahead of their own needs is a fool. To these nay-saying people, I would say that if there is someone who-"
Lucy was distracted from her writing when the front door was thrown open, which was followed by Lynn, Lincoln, and their sisters who attended the soccer game that day walking into the house, with Lynn Sr. walking in after them. To Lucy's concern, Lincoln was holding an ice bag over his left eye. "Now Junior," Lynn Sr. began, "I know that what that boy from the opposing team did was unacceptable, but there was no need to-"
"You would expect me to stand by and do nothing?!" Lynn shot back at her dad, "I'm surprised you didn't try to get into a fight with the kid's dad!"
"Although I literally agree with you Lynn, dad has a point," Lori remarked, "Besides which, Lincoln doesn't need to go to the hospital for this."
"What's going on?" Lucy asked, having suddenly appeared right next to her family members who just returned, making them all jump and cry out in alarm. When this happened, Lincoln accidentally lost the grip on the ice bag he was holding over his eye, revealing some rather nasty bruising over his eye. Seeing the injury on her brother made the gothic Loud sibling actually gasp in shock, rather than just say the word 'gasp'. "W-what happened to Lincoln?" Lucy asked in a shocked tone.
"A ruffian from the team that opposed Lynn's team at the soccer game today struck Lincoln in the eye after the game ended in favor of Lynn's team," Lisa explained, "In a very un-sportsman like manner, the ruffian in question blamed Lincoln cheering loudly a few seconds prior to the game's ending as the reason why his team lost to Lynn's team."
"After everyone left the bleachers, Lynn saw the kid in question punch Lincoln in the face," Luan said, "She looked ready to tear the boy a new one, but dad held her back. Then the kid's dad showed up, then the coaches from the respective teams showed up, and everything fell into a huge mess of arguing."
"I will be meeting with the kid's father and the coaches at some point to discuss this," Lynn Sr. said to his children as a whole, "In the meanwhile, why don't you all relax? We've had a rather exciting day as it is, so I think it's time to unwind."
The Loud siblings proceeded to mill about the house, with Lucy going back to where she sat on the sofa. Looking to her side, Lucy saw that Lana was so engrossed with what she was watching that she failed to hear the rest of the family return, much less the conversation that just went on. Picking her poetry book back up, Lucy proceeded to write.
"It is a great tragedy when one who is wronged is not allowed recompense, even if they are by all rights entitled to it," Lucy wrote, "To forbid this entitlement would be as if one was forbidding an infant from having its mother's milk." Lucy looked up from the page that she was writing on for a few seconds, pondering what to write next. Then, as if struck by inspiration, the gothic Loud sibling finished her latest writing.
"Luckily, there are those who would seek justice for them in their stead."
END, TEN REASONS CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Author's notes:
A few of the parts of this story as a whole are going to be kind of dark. This is especially true for some of the things that the Loud sisters have done (or are going to do). …Lucy has yet to have a go at dealing with an antagonist, and she has been referred to as, among other things, the duchess of darkness.
It's a title that Lucy's going to be living up to.