Vanya wasn't sure when she had been abandoned at the dinner table, but between one blink and the next, she was the only one left with her plate still full of brains and her father standing over her. All around her, the lights flickered dangerously and the room rocked like a ship on the high seas; but still she refused to take another bite of that disgusting organ. Where everybody else had gone, she didn't know, but she hated the burning disappointment that seemed to flow from her father in waves.
"Eat up, Seeve, it's getting cold" Father ordered as Vanya came back to herself. The jiggling monstrosity remained on her plate in front of her, cutlery poised just so and napkin still splayed across her lap. Something tickled in the back of her mind about the familiarity of the situation; of her refusing to eat, despite her father's instructions to do so.
"I don't want it" Vanya refused, "I'm not hungry"
"I KNOW you don't want it" Father replied as he stalked around the table, coming closer to her end. "But you can't pretend that it doesn't exist"
"I'm NOT pretending!" Vanya protested, chin titled upwards in defiance.
"Of COURSE you are" Father retorted as he pushed the plate closer to her. "You CHOOSE to live in a fantasy; a land of make-believe where you don't have to face up to WHAT you have REALLY done. Rather than face the complexities of your own existence, you choose to hide behind weak lies. Weak lies for a weak girl"
"I—I'm not weak—!"
"Are you still not listening to me, Seeve?" Father quirked a disapproving brow as he turned to face a now illuminated portrait above the mantel piece; the one displaying a gaggle of people in all ages & sizes, one she new to be her family portrait.
Gathered together, there stood stern Father at the head of the group as if he were both corralling and protecting the younger generations. Next came eager to please, Luther, eager to fight, Diego and eager to be accepted, Harold. There was sister, Allison with sour-faced (ex)husband, Patrick. There was her mother, Katerina who stood hand-in-hand with her other mother, Grace. There was gentle & caring Pogo, who stood hunched over his cane between the two brothers, Five and Klaus. The two cousins—Theodore & Claire—stood together in the front, smiling widely at the viewer as if unencumbered by life's problems. And finally there was Ben; long dead Ben who looked no different from the day he had left. The final nail in the coffin? There was no such sign of Vanya ANYWHERE in that painting. It pulled at her heartstrings to see her family so happy without her. Again.
"THAT is not meant for you" Father pressed, motioning to the painting with his unlit pipe. There were no inflections placed on the last words and yet they were the ones that hurt her the most. Why wasn't that meant for her? Why couldn't she have that? Throughout it all, not once did the thought of her own son or the family she had built, creep into her mind as she was far too occupied with her father ripping away the fantastical dream from her white-knuckled grasp. It was like he had told her that Santa Claus wasn't real; like he'd just sucked all of the magic and specialness out of her. "You CAN'T deny your truth any longer. Even if you are afraid"
"I'm NOT afraid!" Vanya lied, terrified of the man standing over her and yet, still childishly defiant.
"Then EAT!"
"But—!"
"—One more bite and then you can go"
Quickly slicing through the spinal cord, Vanya speared a rather generous chunk with her fork and under her father's watchful stare, shoved into deep into her mouth. She hoped that getting it over with quickly, would mean that she could leave the table—leave this situation—as soon as possible, and possibly go and drown her tastebuds in something more palatable. Unfortunately, as soon as she closed her lips around the head of the fork, an unexplainable pain erupted in her own brain which brought forth a series of flashes of images that zipped in front of her eyes like a deck of cards all out of order.
Birth, a tuning fork against crystalline glasses, the clinking of pills in orange bottles, a singing violin, roaring crowds of smartly dressed people, a kind lying smile, an explosion of sound muffling all else, falling trees that thunder in the woods, blood red anger flooding her vision, blaring headlines, wailing babes, a soothing & ancient voice, the comforting eery blue, an explosion of wood, men thrown far across the room, an eye plucked clear from the skull, her boy lying ashen and motionless in the hospital, faceless men in blue that stalk the streets, elvish creatures that try to bring the world asunder, swirling energy that combines with sound to create a symphony of destruction, blinding white, fire, destruction, pain, a loud heartbeat, challenging roars, painful wails and a beloved violin that had been stained white. On and on, and on, and on the images went; playing in front of her eyes like the world's worst home movie.
"Sorry…I'm sorry…I'm…I'm…sorry…"
White. It was white, SO much white: ivory marble, bone pillars, pearl panels; white, white, white. Vanya knew this place, and yet at the same time, it was too different to be the one she was thinking of. The Icarus Theatre had been bleached in white to the point that she felt like she was standing in a winter wonderland, only without the snow and the cold. It was strange to see the usually rich theatre painted in such a bland colour; gone were the reds of the velvet and the golds of the gilding, all washed white.
Vanya was stood on stage, just as she always was. The once red velvet seats stretched out towards the horizon, never fading and never retreating. Each seat was occupied by a faceless person, each dressed in black & white with masquerades covering their eyes. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the composer amongst the sea of roaring people, with his skull-painted face and lecherous grin as he declared her: THE WHITE VIOLIN. She didn't know WHY he chose that moniker for her until her eyes moved downwards. Glancing down at herself, Vanya found that she had been painted in pure white with a strange pattern of lines & twin forte holes that had been painted down her front, making her look like walking violin.
The roar of the crowd was immense, their applause brandished her ears with a sort of static buzz that reminded Vanya of the beat of her own heart or the white noise that Theodore emitted when he used his own Legacies. Hesitant footsteps brought her closer to the only violin stand in the centre of the stage and curious fingers grazed over the instrument with loving fingers. Illuminated beneath a single spotlight, the violin stand held aloft a single white violin (the real one) that she knew to be hers. Around the neck of the instrument sat a small tag which simply read: PLAY ME.
Caring fingers plucked the instrument from the stand and tucked it beneath her chin and then Vanya began to pluck at taut strings. As she closed her eyes, losing herself to the haunting tune of Bach's 'PARTITA NO. 2 IN D MINOR', her son, Theodore, appeared from somewhere in the dark and danced along to her song just as he had always done. Sound-powered telekinesis kept the boy in the air, tossing him this way & that, making him appear like a fairy who was dressed in the loralite blue; the kind which swept through his veins and ignited him in a soft blue. If this was just a dream as Father claimed it to be, then Vanya never wanted it to end.
Following the worrisome search for her sister, Vanya, who had gone mysteriously missing after the family meeting only a couple of days ago and the resulting search/snoop around her suspicious baby daddy's house earlier that day, Allison felt that she was quite deserving of the cigarette that now sat snugly between her lips. Ever since her nephew, Theodore, had returned to the Umbrella Academy on that fateful night without any sign of Vanya, Allison's nerves had shot through the roof and she'd been on high alert.
Whilst her brothers had spent the days doing who-knows-what, Allison had tried to track down her wayward sister. Going from Vanya's alumni school where she tutored in violin (the same one that Theodore, now subsequently attended), to the library (after she had managed to weasel out a name out of Pogo) to search the archives for any sign of the man in question, and then onto the home in Queens which seemed to hold just as much history as the academy, itself. Inside the house (which she'd broken into thanks to an open window in the laundry), she hadn't been able to find any current signs of life that indicated Vanya might still be there. But what she did find were little trinkets & mementos which helped to create a story of a young family that had once lived there, and gave her some insight into what Vanya's life away from the academy might have been like.
From the framed family photos on the wall, to the marks on the doorframe which listed heights and the accompanying ages. There was the old toy chest shoved into one corner which had been filled with brightly coloured plastic cups and rounded Lego blocks to play with. She'd been shifting through a drawer full of old movie stubs (some of them hers, some of them not), Umbrella Academy magazine cut-outs and pre-school drawings when the owner of the home had returned. Cutting her investigation frustratingly short, Allison had been miraculously lucky that she hadn't been caught as she slipped out of the cracked front door (although she probably could have just Rumoured him into forgetting if she had been caught) as he moved to the kitchen, completely unawares that he wasn't alone in his own home.
Still worried about her sister, Allison had retreated to the academy with a heavy heart and an enormous sense of failure. She hated this feeling, the feeling of job not done (Dad would've had a fit). Which is why she had retreated to this corner of the house, away from watchful eyes, to indulge in this guilty pleasure as she wedged herself onto the small ledge of the windowsil. It was also where Klaus had later joined her at some point, sitting tucked up at her feet and looking for the world like a kicked puppy. He had returned to the academy at some point earlier in the evening sporting a new tattoo, a pair of worn military dog tags that she assumed he must've stolen off of someone and a new physique which had him now skinner than ever before.
Of course, these quick observations were quickly thrown out of the window when he had hobbled into the academy as he held the door open for Luther, who had in turn, carried Diego inside and calling for help. Five had been nowhere in sight and Theodore had sported a rather impressive head of bed head, plus a rather bright pink cast around his arm which gave her some clues as to what had happened to the boys over the past few days. When she'd inquired about what had happened, Klaus had given her some sort of rambled explanation involving the masked intruders (who turned out to be time travelling assassins, Five's old colleagues and consequently, Klaus' kidnappers), a time travelling briefcase, an exploded medical building, a beatdown in a military pub, a donut stakeout, a fractured arm, a mandatory suspension and a hijacked ice cream van.
"…Those are pretty bad for you, y'know" Klaus murmured, though his eyes remained transfixed by the swirling clouds of smoke that wafted out of her lips in uneven rings every now and then.
"Well, you would know" Allison retorted not unkindly, blowing a ring of smoke towards her junkie of a brother. The little alcove that the two sat in was a different one than the one she had used as a child, owing to the fact that even in this gigantic house, Pogo had still been able to track her down. So instead, they were tucked away in one of the back windows that overlooked the city's limits and it danced beneath the twinkling lights of the city that never slept.
"Hey!" Klaus protested, looking affronted at the insinuation. "I've been sober!"
"For what? Like an hour?" She raised a brow at him, unconvinced that the pale parlour and shaking hands were due to him really going sober.
"I'll have you know, that I've been sober for an entire day, thank you very much!" He replied indignantly, arms crossed like a pouting child before he continued to paint their toe nails in horrendously clashing colours.
"Uh huh" Allison hummed, tapping her joint against the window ledge at her side, before she closed her eyes against the cool breeze that wafted in through the cracked open window.
Comfortable silence fell between the two as they fell into their own little worlds with only the gentle ministrations of miniature paint brush against nail to ground them. It continued on like this for a while as Allison's mind turned blank and the sound of their nephew's haunted tunes floated in from somewhere up on the roof above them.
"Our hero, our hero claims a crystalline heart
I tell you, I tell you the Entity awakens
With a voice wielding power of ole Loric arts
Believe, believe, the Entity's woken"
"Is he still up there?" Klaus asked, dragging Allison's attention back to him as he shifted her bare foot closer to him.
"Mmhm" She hummed, quirking her lips upwards at the little rainbow flowers he appeared to be painting on her toes. "Pogo said he seemed to be pretty upset about something"
"Did he say why?"
"No, he just said that Theo looked like Vanya did when she was forced to eat oatmeal. If I had guess though, it's probably 'cause he's just missing his mother"
"I thought Vanny loved oatmeal?"
"No, she hated it"
"But Dad always made an example out of her, remember? Luther just about threw a fit that time Dad told him to be more like her"
"Oh yeah…!"
"It's an end to the evil of all Lore's foes
Beware, beware, the Entity awakens
For the darkness has passed & the legend yet grows
You'll know, you'll know, the Entity's woken"
"Well, moody or not, he's definitely Vanny's junge" Klaus replied as he inspected his handiwork with appreciation.
"Oh?" Allison quirked a brow in question.
"I don't know what he's going on about up there, but whatever it is makes me want to cry!"
"Yeah~! You could always tell when she was upset 'cause her music was the same. Remember when Five lost his teddy bear in a Blink and they had that funeral? She played that song from Schindler's List?"
"I thought it was the one from Phantom of the Opera?"
"Ah~ah~ah!
Ah~ah~ah!
Ah~ah~ah!
Ah~ah~ah!
Ah~ah~ah!
Ah~ah~hah~ah~ah~ah!
Ah~ah~ah!"
"It was sad, whatever it was" Allison waved off, dismissively.
"And funny" Klaus chuckled in reply as he dabbed the excess paint off of her toes. "Didn't they do, like, a viking funeral for it?"
"Yeah, Dad was more than pissed off that they'd wasted the old milk box, than the fact they had a viking funeral in the bathtub for a missing teddy bear"
"Yeah, that sounds like him. We've never really had a normal family, have we?"
"No, I s'pose not…"
"Entity, ma Entity et éier gellet,
Verdet gent bésen ze schüten l'zum steer-dag!
Hark! Sin breëll kraft seis fein ze schélle
Entity, seis si we ärdoe, dest b'may!
Vun Lore!"
[Entity, my Entity, with honour ordained,
Sworn to guard against evil 'til dying day!
Hark! His roaring power puts our enemies to shame
Entity, bless us with your gifts, this we pray!
By Lore!]
"So, what's going on with you, Ally?" Klaus mused as he moved on to his own toes.
"Hm?" Allison hummed in question as her eyes turned to trace the glistening stars in the sky.
"It's rare to see you so far from Luther's side"
"Ah…" Allison sighed heavily as she took a nice long drag of her cigarette. "It's been a long couple of days"
"Mm" Klaus hummed in agreement, "But that still doesn't explain why you look like someone's messed with your Ruxpin again"
"…I hated when you guys did that" She deadpanned, levelling her brother with a dry look.
"I know~!" Klaus sang, a mischievous grin stretching across his lips. "That's why we did it! So?"
"Heh…" She sighed heavily, "I'm just worried about Vanya…"
"Why? Where's Vanny gone?"
"We don't know. The last anyone saw her was at that family meeting"
"We sure she hasn't just gone an impromptu vacay?"
"Without Theodore?"
"Isn't that what parents do? Dad certainly did it enough"
"Yeah, but he's probably not the best measure of comparison"
"Then what about you? You've got a mädchen, right?"
"Yeah…" But I'm not exactly the best measure of comparison either.
"Entity, ma Entity et éier gellet,
Verdet gent bésen ze schüten l'zum steer-dag!
Hark! Sin breëll kraft seis fein ze schélle
Entity, seis si we ärdoe, dest b'may!"
[Entity, my Entity, with honour ordained,
Sworn to guard against evil 'til dying day!
Hark! His roaring power puts our enemies to shame
Entity, bless us with your gifts, this we pray!]
"Soooo…" Allison drawled, eyeing up her brother as if waiting or worried to see his reaction.
"Hm?" Klaus hummed, eyeing up her smoke with hungry eyes.
"What's this I hear about you meeting someone? Should we be expecting an extra seat around the table this year?"
"…His name was Dave"
"Was?"
"I don't wanna talk about it"
"Okay…"
And with that, their stilted conversation drifted off into far less comfortable—but still amicable—silence as the soothing sounds of their nephew's crooning song washed over them.
"Our hero, our hero claims a crystalline heart
I tell you, I tell you, the Entity awakens
You'll know, you'll know, the Entity's woken.
By Lore!"