"Wait, what?" Lincoln asked. Lincoln kept looking at the white haired girl. Sure, she and Luna share the purple tone on their clothes, but that was literally the only things that the two had in common apparently, apart from age, height, skin tone, which were all similar, but then again, Lincoln has already seen girls with those same traits
"I don't know if you remember this, but Luna wasn't always a fan of rock." Luan said. "In my reality, you were just 3 when the change happened. Don't know if the same thing happened in your reality, but that has to be her, I'm sure of that."
"Now that you say it, I do remember my Luan saying something about it." Lincoln rubbed his chin. "But I really don't remember her dressing like that, unless in an old photo or something." He began approaching.
"Hey, don't go to them yet." Luan held him back by the neck of his shirt. "Lori is with her. Let's wait until she's alone, so we can talk to her."
"Yeah, you're right. We don't need more trouble than you already caused back at my reality."
Luan groaned in annoyance. "Let's just follow them, maybe we can find a good moment to approach."
Lincoln and Luan begin following them, hiding behinds threes, bushes, or just walk a bit far away so that they wouldn't call too much attention, even if their white hair earned a few awkward looks from some people around. But it's not like they were not used to that sort of attention back in their reality anyways, so they didn't bothered that much as long as nobody slowed down their plans
Eventually, they saw Luna sitting in a bench, probably the only one which wasn't occupied on the whole park, as Lori begin heading towards a line of people waiting in a food stand. Lincoln and Luan took the opportunity to approach her from the front. She seemed a bit distracted, and didn't notice them coming close. Soon, they where a few feet away from her.
"Hey Luna." Lincoln called, but Luna was still facing the kids playing a bit further away from them, to her right.
"Luna!" Luan called, closer to her, and a bit louder. But still, there was no reaction. That's when Luan touched her shoulder, and finally got the attention of the white haired version of what they assumed was their older sister.
"Wait, maybe we did made a mistake, she's not who we're looking for?" Lincoln said, facing the girl. "Excuse me, is your name Luna Loud?"
Luna was confused for a few seconds, before doing a series of signals with her hands, like she was some sort of crazy person. After she was done, both reality travelers were looking at her with a confused expression similar to her. Lincoln bend a bit closer to Luan, and began whispering. "Did you understand something?"
"I have no idea." Was the quiet answer
Luna repeated the symbols, like that would make things clearer to them, but that didn't helped them at all. They continued to stare at her in confusion, trying to understand why she was acting like a mimic in the first place. That is, until something sparked in Lincoln's mind.
"Wait a second." Lincoln said. "Isn't that sign language?"
Luan realised that made some sort of sense. "Hey, you may be right. So that means this Luna's not able to speak?"
"I don't know, it's just a theory. Maybe she can't hear, remember we called her, and she didn't faced us? Maybe that's why she uses sign language, or even, she can be both deaf and mute." Lincoln said. "Or she's just messing with us and laughing in the inside." He said, sarcastically.
"I find the last one unlikely. Wait, let me try something." Luan said, as she made her way behind Luna, while the latter still had her confused expression focused on Lincoln, repeating the sequences of symbols once more. Luan approached her hands to Luna's ear, and then made a loud clapping noise, bothering even Lincoln, who was a bit farther away, but the girl didn't seem to notice it at all. "Yeah, if she's not deaf, she has some serious hearing problems."
"But then how do we communicate? I don't know sign language."
"Me neither." Luan said, looking behind Lincoln. "Oh no, it's Lori's turn already. We gotta go."
Lincoln turned around and saw Luan's statement was true, so he pointed and looked surprised at his right side, or Luna's left side, which made the girl face the direction he was showing, to see nothing out of the ordinary. When she looked back, however, Lincoln and Luan were nowhere to be found.
"Okay, what's the plan?" Lincoln asked. "Because not only we're from another reality, which is hard enough to explain already, but we don't even 'speak' Luna's language." He took a glance at Luna, and Lori was making her way towards her with a couple drinks.
"I'm thinking, okay?" Luan said, annoyed. "Alright, she might not be able to listen, but she's able of seeing. If we can't understand sign language, maybe she understands written english? Like, if we write what we want to say, she may be able to read it? Who knows, maybe she even knows how to read lips?"
"Maybe that will work." Lincoln saw both Luna and Lori, each one on their turn, doing those signals. "Though I believe writing may work better. Definitely quicker than trying to learn sign language, that's for sure."
"We just gotta be careful." Luan said. "If she really has this sort of disability, there's probably more attention focused on her. She might be like us, but being deaf, or whatever disability it is, does require more attention."
"You have a point." Lincoln reply, seeing the two girls standing up, and beginning to walk away. "Look, they seem to be leaving the park. Let's head back home."
Luan nodded, as the two of them made their way out of their hideout, and made the way they knew towards their house, choosing a different path than this version of Lori and what they assumed to be Luna. Yes, it was a bit longer, but still better than having one more version of their family possibly confused and angered towards them.
"Something is not right." Lincoln said.
"What do you mean by that?" Luan asked.
"Look at our house. It's much less stuff scattered around, and there's not a lot of noise coming from it."
Lincoln and Luan were hidden behind a tree, observing a much more peaceful version of their house. Everything seemed exactly the same, apart from the lack of random objects all over it. They didn't even saw the ones they were following arrive, they probably made it inside before they could begin spying.
"That's not important." Luan said. "What matter right now it's how me get in, and get Luna. All we need is a plan."
"Okay, time to honor my title." Lincoln said to himself. "We can try to sneak our way towards her. Starting at the back door, we have lots of hiding spots in case someone shows up."
"You really think that's gonna work?" Luan asked, doubtful.
"Would you rather climb up through the window?" Lincoln asked, ironically.
"Well…"
"There's no way we will be able to reach the second floor unless we have a ladder." Lincoln explain. "But maybe there's one at the garage."
"Then let's give it a go." Luan said.
They both made their way to the backyard of the house and into the garage. It took a while of searching through the junk inside it to finally find what they were looking for. They set it up on the window of Luna and Luan's room, climbing up, and sneaking into the bedroom.
The bedroom was nothing like they expected. Everything inside it just screamed 'goth', from the dark walls, to the creepy ceremonial equipment, to the bookshelf filled with books which titles were unreadable, to skulls used as decoration.
"This place is creepy." Luan said, and Lincoln agreed. "Pretty sure this is Lucy's dream bedroom."
"Yeah, but it looks like she doesn't share it with anyone." Lincoln said. "And we're in the wrong bedroom, apparently."
"Then we should go." Luan said, but as they approached the door, they heard steps going on their direction.
"Quick, hide." Lincoln whispered, and they both made way to the best hiding spot he and Luan could find, which was inside the closet and under the bed, respectively.
They managed to hide as soon as someone entered the room. They could see Lucy was the one peeking through their hiding spots. She gathered some stuff scattered across the room after closing the door and shutting of the lights. She had candles lit up, a book open on the middle of them, and she was wearing her turbant. Both hiders would be lying if they said they never saw her like that before.
"Oh, spirits, I summon your presence. Send me a signal"
Both of them knew that, whenever or not the spirits actually send a signal, it would take a long time for them to be able to get out of there.
"Who summons our presence?" Lincoln heard a deep voice coming from under the bed. And he noticed even Lucy sounded surprised. But soon, she went back to the ritual.
"Oh, spirits, it is I, Lucy Loud, that summons your presence. I require guidance from your incomparable awareness of both life and death realms-"
"You shall make you way towards the deepest pits of the house, and provide a proper ceremony for our presence!" The voice said louder.
"As you desire." Lucy said, picking up her things, and heading outside of the room. Then, both white haired made their way outside.
"What was that?" Lincoln asked, surprised.
"Well, I thought she'd hear the spirits if they told her to go somewhere else. I assume she must have gone to the basement." Luan said.
"I'm honestly surprised that work, but that was some good thinking there." Lincoln said. "Now, let's try to find Luna."
Both of them made their way to the hallway, making sure nobody was around. Most of the bedroom doors were open, and they noticed something quite interesting. Every single one of them seemed to be an individual room, unlike what they were used to, which was shared bedrooms. Lincoln even managed to find one of his own, and couldn't hold the urge to come inside.
"Wow." He said to himself. When it comes to interior design, it wasn't much different from his original bedroom. But the amount of extra space was definitely something to be recognized. He could do anything inside that room. It would be a nice change of settings, that's for sure.
"Hey Luan, did you see this?" Lincoln called her, and she made her way back from the hallway.
"I've noticed. Apparently everyone has their own bedroom." Luan commented. "Look, I found this."
Lincoln noticed Luan had a piece of paper in her hands. Lincoln picked it up, and it was a picture of their family. Well, part of his family. The only ones present were Lori, the girl they assumed to be Luna, Lincoln, Lucy and Lola.
"It was on one of the bedrooms, which I assume it is Lori's. Maybe these are the only versions of us that exist here." Luan theorized.
"A reality where only five of us actually exist? Interesting. Much more peaceful, that's for sure. And a smaller risk of us getting caught."
"One of the doors is closed, and judging by the other rooms, that's probably Luna's. Let's try to grab her before someone actually catches us out here."
"Good plan.' Lincoln said, as they made their way to the hallway. They headed towards the only closed door. They slowly turned the knob and glanced inside. There was the white haired girl they've been following since they arrived. She was seated down at a chair, there was a small television in front of her.
"Hey, not fair, I don't have one of those." Lincoln whispered.
Luan gave him a soft smack on his head. "She has problems, if you didn't noticed yet. Of course she'll have a bit more attention, and more stuff to compensate for it." She said in the same volume. They tip toed their way inside like it was necessary to do so, even if the girl was potencially deaf. The bedroom was much different from what you'd expect from Luan's bedroom. It was...just a bedroom. It had a bed, a wardrobe, a table with some random stuff on it, and that television.
Just then they noticed Luna had a violin by her side, and that the television was playing some sort of concert, or that's what they assumed with all of those people in suits and dresses with instruments on their hands, because the tv was either set in no volume, or they went deaf as well. Probably the former.
Luna picked up the instrument, and began playing. Luan and Lincoln tapped their ears the moment she began, of how bad that sounded to their ears. Lincoln then noticed that the door was open, and it would probably call the attention of someone, so he quickly grabbed Luan and pulled her inside the wardrobe with him, and closed the door, leaving just a peak to see Luna's performance with their ears still covered.
Soon enough, they saw a girl very similar to Lola entering the room, and touching the back of the girl, earning her attention. Apparently, the younger one wasn't happy.
"What exactly you think you're doing?" Lola asked, and they saw Luna giving a series of gestures as a response.
"Looks like she can read lips." Luan whispered.
"Next time you better remember to close your door or play quieter. We don't have to be deaf just like you because you wanna play!" She stormed out the room, closing the door, which made a loud noise. Luna just turned back to face the television.
"Wow, even my Lola isn't that harsh." Lincoln whispered.
"Neither mine." Luan agreed. "Now, let's do it. And you do the talk."
"Why me?" Lincoln asked.
"You're good at words. Besides, you're her brother with white hair. There's apparently no version of me here. Or at the very least I'm not related to her. She knows a version of you, but maybe not of me."
Lincoln sighed. "Fine, I'll try." He slowly made his way outside of the closet, and gently touched Luna's shoulder. And judging by her reactions, she got surprised by seeing him, specially with white hair. She began another series of symbols, but Lincoln raised his hand to sign her to stop.
"Can you understand what I say? Can you read my lips?" Lincoln asked, earning a nod from the white haired girl. "Good, now pay attention. I'm not your brother, I'm a version of your brother."
Luna made a confused expression, followed by more gestures. "Do you know how to write? I don't know sign language." He told her.
Luna then went to the side and got a small notebook with a pencil, and wrote something on it. Lincoln then took it. Lincoln was in relief when he saw Luna's calligraphy was somewhat close to perfection, and totally readable. "What you mean by a version of my brother? And why your hair is white? And earlier at the park, who was the other girl with white hair?"
"Okay, let's start by the beginning." Lincoln said, as Luna paid attention towards his mouth, to not miss one bit. "I found out there are multiple versions of our family, with different characteristics. In my version, I'm the sibling with white hair, not you. There are other differences, but what you need to understand, is that I, and that girl you saw." He turned around and called Luan, who made her way out of the weardrobe, making Luna wide her eyes. "She's a version of one of the Loud siblings, one you don't seem to have. We realized the two of us, maybe the other white haired version of us as well, have something else in common. We don't have special talents, and we're always taken for granted. Does that sound familiar to you."
Luna took a few moments to process the information, before she began writing again. "So she's my sister? And that sounds a bit like me. I always wanted to play, but I was never able to improve. I can't afford special practice, so I just try on my own. Nobody likes it though."
"I guess we found our Luna." Luan said to Lincoln. "Maybe Lisa will be able to do something about it?"
"If she managed to do something that brought us here, I'm sure she can." Lincoln faced Luna. "We may be able to help you with that. We're trying to reunite and help all of us."
"All you have to do is come with us." Luan interrupted.
Luna sounded confused, as Luan was already using her device, and the portal appeared. Luan grabbed Luna's arm, but Lincoln held her back.
"Shouldn't we at least have her approval before doing this?
"We cannot lose time here, Linc, someone might show up. Quick, let's just go." Luan exclaimed.
Lincoln noticed Luna seem to object at it, as she tried to release from Luan's grip, but she wasn't able to. She then grabbed the violin, and apparently was ready to use it as a weapon. Luan saw it, so she quickly grabbed Lincoln's arm and went through the portal, which quickly disappeared after something entered it.