(n.) a conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening
Crescendo. Feel the music. Throw your weight into the keys, hear the swell into forte. Legato, soft and sweet, fingers flying. C#, F#, G#, A! Progress back down. Easy on the staccato, don't lift your fingers too far, or you'll - Damn!
Vienna growled to herself, slamming her fists on the keys and emitting a harsh, clanging clash from the piano. Always the thirteenth line. Always! She apologized silently to her instrument, wiping her hand over the top to clean off the minute layer of dust that had begun to gather.
"Sounded great, honey!" her mother called from the kitchen, currently humming another song altogether (from the sound of it, a classic from the Little Mermaid) while she helped Emelia bake cookies.
She hadn't listened to a single note, Vienna realized.
Doesn't matter. At least she didn't critique me for the seventy third time on the exact same part of the song.
"Thanks, Mom."
She checked the clock, noticing the time: 4:25. Better get going to the manhole at Delancey now. With her tendencies, she'd be stopping at ten different eclectic boutiques before she got to her destination.
"Okay, I'm heading out." Vienna pushed back from the piano as two pattering pairs of footsteps hurried right up behind her.
"But you didn't get to try my cookies!" Emelia objected, stomping her foot.
"Send some along, then!" she encouraged, crouching to ruffle the fur on Artemis's back. "Did anyone feed her?"
"Mama did!"
"Good."
"Who did you say you were meeting with?" Ms. Bardi strolled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish rag while Emelia struggled toward a tin-foiled plate of cookies high up on the counter.
"I'm taking a walk down DeLancey with some friends. Going to gelato and then a movie. Conquerors of the Cosmos, Volume 2," Vienna answered, straightfaced. Thank God for Google and two years of theater experience. Otherwise this hoax would've been blown faster than she could say 'Fortune cookies were created by the Japanese, not the Chinese'.
...Seriously, how did Western Civilization confuse the two cultures so drastically?
"What are their names?" her mother inquired.
"My good friend's name is Faline."
"Right, but the others. You said you had more friends coming along?"
Crap. She knew she shouldn't have used 'friends' in the plural form while explaining this lie to her mother earlier this morning. Vienna had been hoping she'd have forgotten that little tidbit.
Careful, now. She's still opposed to males like they're the plague. List one name wrong and you'll get a night alone and a lecture on how all boys want at your age is a bed buddy.
"...Michelle. Rrrrachel. Mmhm, Rachel. And Leonna. And... Don... Don- um..."
"Don?" Ms. Bardi pounced. "You're going somewhere with a boy?"
"No!" Vienna scrambled, "Er... Dawn! As in the morning sky. As in a girl's name."
"Oh." Her mom didn't pick up on Vienna's obvious strain to hide the truth.
After going through the usual exchange of phone numbers (that, Vienna had managed to prep for - a quick call to an old friend from Oregon set up a phony voicemail with Faline's name, which would satisfy her mom that the number wasn't completely phony) and one tray of cookies later, the be-spectacled young woman was heading out the door.
The unsuspecting Ms. Bardi grinned, praising her daughter for 'finally coming out of her shell (pun not intended by her, but Vienna couldn't help a small snicker), connecting with people, forming healthy bonds of friendship with her peers'.
Vienna knelt, grabbing her little sis close in a hug. "Take care of Missy, 'kay?"
Emelia nodded, pulling the older girl's head close to whisper in her ear, "I won't tell Mama."
The brunette smiled, adjusting her glasses which the toddler had knocked askew. "Good girl."
She stood to leave, grabbing her purse, keys, and small can of mace (better safe than sorry).
"I love you both!" she called as she closed the door.
"Donnie! Pull your head out of your shell for five minutes and get to work on those surveillance cameras!"
"Do you wanna try figuring out the bug in an entire security system, Leo?"
"Leo, baby, lighten up on him a little—"
"He's been cooped up in his lab all night, Fae. And all this time he's been doing something other than helping us find Karai."
She'd been listening to these snippets of small-talk for half an hour. Upon her arrival, Vienna had been ushered quickly down the manhole and through the sewage tunnels by Leo, mumbling to himself about a new lead on Karai's predicament, before being shoved into the chaos of the lair.
The intricacies of this secret refuge dazzled her, but only for a short time. The small sight of a few arcade games and a moth-eaten couch in front of a hackneyed television set turned her short attention span away, toward the various hallways and doors leading to other places in the lair, just beckoning to be explored...
Leo sat her on the couch, giving her a stern look and requesting she stay put, before hurrying off to consult with Fae.
She'd caught glimpses of everyone as they rushed by, though no one seemed to notice her presence. First it was a problem with finding the blueprints to headquarters she no idea about, then why Donnie hadn't fixed the ice-maker in the fridge, then not knowing why Faline's good pair of jeans had mysteriously turned bright orange in the washing machine.
On and on, without a second thought thrown Vienna's way. Meaningless conversations to the girl with the glasses.
"Mikey, I swear to God if you have Chompy again-"
"Chill, bruh! I saw him in the kitchen, he was with Leo."
"Leo? Why does Leo have him! Leo!"
"Raph, calm down, Fae has him."
"Tell your girlfriend to get her hands off Chompy. He's mine!"
"Territoriality is not very becoming of you, Raphael..."
Vienna put on her headphones, the carefully teased crown of her head matting as the plastic strap settled on her head, a few dark wisps falling onto her forehead. She took out her notebook, fumbling with her phone to turn on her Billie Holiday playlist.
She pulled her pen from the binding on her book, flipping to a page and beginning to doodle. Raph with his angry scowl and steam blowing out his ears. A sweet-faced Faline in a leopard print top, staring back at Vienna with an uncharacteristically pouty lip. Mikey with a clown nose, juggling a game controller, pizza box, and skateboard. She liked that one particularly.
Leo in a traditional ninja outfit, trying to fit the tight black fabric over his carapace. Donnie, with a basket of fallen Copic markers on his head, peering out from under the mess he'd made with sad russet eyes. She frowned at that, quickly drawing on a little . Now at least he looked marginally cheerful.
Commotion outside her world of sketches and songs called for her attention. She lifted one side of her headphones.
"Mikey! Where'd you put my nagamaki?"
"Why is everyone blaming lost things on me today?"
"Because you've got sticky fingers."
"Raaaaaph, you're ruining my argument here. Should be in the dojo, Fae!"
"Thank you!"
"See? At least she thanks me for helping- ow! That hurt!"
"Next time I'll throw both my sai. Shut up, will ya?"
"Aww, is Dada Raph worried his wittle awien turtle son won't sweep well? Sing him a wuwwaby, Dada -GAH!"
A good forty seconds passed before she lost the last bit of her patience wore thin. Vienna's headphones were tossed onto the cushion beside her, and she was on her feet in an instant, quiet passiveness forgotten.
"Excuse me!" she screamed at top volume, causing the two wrestling turtles not far off to jolt in panic.
"We're right here!" Raph shouted back, a snarl twisting his mouth while he released Michelangelo from his headlock.
"Apparently," Vienna snapped back, with enough edge to make the terrapin take a step back, "I can't get anyone's attention by sitting for 45 minutes without saying a word. So I have something to say! Family meeting! Please gather in the foyer, Miss Bardi has an important message for everyone in this abode!"
"Leo's talking with Fae!" Mikey shook his head, stepping forward and waving his hands in a no-go plead. "And Donnie's in the middle of something important-"
"If everything in your household is so urgent, I suppose I can just schedule to get caught up on your plans at a later time." She pounded her chest twice and held out a peace sign. "I'm out like last year's meme trends, homies!"
She made a grab for her bag. Raph's red and green blur greeted her vision for a split second, and then her possessions were in his hands, a good ten feet away.
"Leo brought you here because like it or not, you need to help us with this war." His eyes were piercing, challenging. "If he says you stay, you stay."
"You don't seem like the type to follow orders, Raph." Vienna returned his glare full force. "And you also don't seem like the patient type, either. So I'll level with you - until someone decides to give a damn about what I have to say, I will not be stepping foot back in here!"
She stomped up and snatched her bag, about to complete her theatrical exit with a flip-of-the-hair flourish when she bustled into Donatello. His toolbox and stacks of papers were promptly scattered onto the floor.
Vienna cringed, shoulders hunched apologetically as she peered up at the quiet turtle with an awkward smile.
"What was it you were needing to tell us so badly?" Donatello's eyes were on his scattered knick knacks. Not angry, or his lips would've been pursed and his gaze would've been more focused. Submissive, like he wished he hadn't bumped into her for the sole purpose of blending back into the shadows.
She straightened her spine and held her head high, attempting to regain righteousness. "I thank you for being the first one to seem to care about my presence. Thank you, Donatello, for your acknowledgment of my presence."
His eyes flicked to Mikey who, from Vienna's periphery, could be seen shaking his head and shrugging in a surrender of 'I have no idea'.
"You didn't answer him," a voice from behind the shoji screens called, and it wasn't until one of them were pulled aside that she could see the source.
"What was it that was so important that you tell us?" Faline asked from Leo's side, shifting a laundry basket of white clothes turned orange on her hip and twirling a blade in her other hand lazily.
Vienna struggled for a moment, bending to gather Donnie's things with him while she compiled her thoughts, struggling to fill in the ever-expanding gaps in the conversation. "On the way here I found a tree. You know how the on fancy residential streets it's a crime to touch vegetation, so they cage up all the trunks with a little cage?"
"Gee, I sure am glad we were around to here that important piece of news," Raph grumbled.
"I was walking down one of those streets," Vienna paused, an unintentional smile making its way on her face as she looked up at the perplexed people around her. "With big broadleaf aspens conformed to these tiny little prisons. And the trees were all perfectly centered, right? Perfectly pristine, in perfect little rows on a perfect little street, in their oblivious perfect little world. Because how could these trees know there was freedom beyond those cages? They're trees."
Silence. Mikey could be heard vaguely snickering. Donatello subtly leaned forward and whispered, "You're losin' 'em fast. Better make your point quick."
Was... that a joke? She decided she quite liked the side of Donnie that wasn't timid.
"But anyways!" Vienna shot to her feet, grabbing up and shuffling about papers and tools. "I saw this one tree, slightly off-centered, and the trunk was bending the flimsy little cage bars with its weight. And it was beautiful!"
"The...tree with a faulty cage was... beautiful?" Fae raised a brow.
"Yes! It wasn't breaking out with a big bang or anything. It was just doing what it could to be unique and it still looked amazing and grand and bold." Her eyes clouded with an absentminded reminiscent smile. "You go, tree. You go."
"I'm sorry, why are we listening to the nutcase ramble?" Raph let out an aggravated chuckle.
"Vienna, what is your point?" Leo ran a hand down his face.
"I don't have one." Vienna handed Donnie the recovered items. "I called you all in to break up the monotony. My artistic inspiration for the day had run out, as had all my sister's cookies, and Donatello's chivalry made it seem like, momentarily, someone might care about what I had to say."
She smiled over at him, and watched his entire body tensed at the shift of attention and possible compliment-ation.
"What was all that commotion about earlier?" she asked before he had any chance to stumble over his words.
Fae blinked in surprise at the sudden turn of conversation. "Donnie's security system finally managed to pick up movement outside Foot headquarters. The first we've seen in months, since..."
A deadly silence fell over the group, making everyone's lips purse and eyes flick uncomfortably.
"Since the incident," Leo finished quietly.
Vienna remained voiceless while the group mulled over the depressive onslaught.
"And why is this bit of information so shocking?" she eventually implored.
"They were carting something out," the leader continued to explain, throwing a pointed look toward the purple-banded turtle. "We couldn't tell what, only that it was too small to be a hostage, and wasn't being handled carefully enough to be weapon-related. Our thought is that it would be supplies for survival, like meager food rations. Someone forgot to repair the lens on the camera—"
"I was busy, Leo," Donnie shot back, showing his hostile side for the first time to the brunette. "You try being the inventor, mechanic, and doctor of the family."
"Busy doing what?" Raph said, "We've all been sitting gone our asses doing nothing these past few weeks."
"Taking care of Fae!" Donnie defended, "A burst appendix isn't something as simple to care for as a common cold."
"Your appendix burst?" V asked Fae in a whisper.
"Long story. Stab wound, resuscitation, all that."
"That's beside the point," Leo growled, "You and I both know it's not because you were too preoccupied." He crossed his arms in a huff, groveling under his breath, "Probably spent hours sniveling ov—"
"Leonardo," Fae growled, her teeth sharpening as she bared them as a silent threat for her boyfriend to stop talking.
"You've got some gall to be bringing this shit up in front of a guest," Donnie hissed.
Vienna cut in, "No need to stop your passive-aggressive school yard taunting on my account, boys. I haven't seen arguing of this quality since the fifth grade."
The comment was beyond sarcastic, and perhaps a bit extreme, but it stopped Leo from furthering what she knew could've been a heated debate. He took the hint, albeit reluctantly, and continued on, "Right. The point is, we think that, wherever it's going, those rations are leading to where Karai is being held captive."
Vienna sat up straighter at that notion. "Did you track the direction of the vehicle that left the headquarters?"
"No. We weren't able to see clear enough to see the direction it was driving in," Leo grumbled, "The stupid, broken camera lenses made sure of that—"
"Enough, Leonardo." Fae's voice was a bit icy with her injuries being so easily dismissed by her boyfriend.
"If what you hypothesize turns out to be correct, the only way to determine its plausibility would be to further survey for repeated occurrences. Making reparations to the equipment is crucial, so that needs to be done ASAP. Once we can prove for a fact that these deliveries are leading to a singular site, we'll also need to prepare infiltration strategies, and most likely examine the intricacies of the building for any traps. So, the whole endeavor will take an extreme amount of time, not only to prove your theory feasible, Leo, but also to take the measures to rescue Karai." Vienna tossed her things back into her bag. "Correct?"
"Um...yeah," Leo responded after a moment of deciphering.
"What is she, a Donnie 2.0?" Mikey asked not-so-discreetly.
"If that implies that I'm equally as intellectual as your brother, I will take take that an immense compliment." Vienna stood, her glasses slipping down her nose at the suddenness of the motion. "I also feel obliged to say, I have a feeling I could never amount to Donatello's level of intelligence, from what I've been able to witness of his brains."
She plucked the blueprints from the genius's arms before he could stutter. "We're gonna have to act quickly. We don't have much time, if Karai is only being provided with meager rations. She might be a trained ninja, but ninjas can only go so far when malnourished." She turned abruptly to face Donnie. "What's your plan?"
Taken aback and slightly confused why he was being asked to present a strategy, D hesitantly pointed over to his brother. "Uh, Leo usually—"
"I'm not asking Leo, I'm asking you. I know you have one."
The entire lair was silent, trying to decipher Vienna's reasoning. Donnie remained silent, his eyes constantly flicking over to the leader, who seemed as much at a loss for words as he was.
"Er... fix the cameras?" he offered up hopelessly.
"Perfect!" she exclaimed, "That way we can ensure our assumptions aren't false by witnessing repeated events of the Foot transporting rations. Give me the gear and the location and I'll set it up!"
"You don't know how—"
"The lens has either been cracked, scratched, or the autofocus has been knocked out of whack," she cut him off with authority, "All of which I can repair, with a replacement lens, a screwdriver, and possibly some tweezers. It's still daylight, the sun won't be down for another hour. Summer solstice, y'know? So I'm the only one who'll be able to fix it efficiently, and we don't need to waste time waiting for darkness to fall."
Again, silence. Fae was the one to break it this time, butting in, "I think Donnie's expertise is preferred over your Internet education of—"
"Honey, I took photography classes for two years in high school. I think I can handle a simple lens malfunction," Vienna said, hands on her hips challengingly, stunning Faline into retreating.
"I'll... get the things you'll need," Donnie mumbled quietly, slinking off to the lab and leaving the rest of group to figure out Vienna's antics.
V fiddled with her glasses, a strand of hair snaring in the right hinge and making her cringe when she was forced to pull it free.
"...He's taking too long," Vienna announced out of the blue, "I'll go help him."
"D doesn't like people in his...," Mikey tried to warn, before realizing the girl had already vanished into the laboratory, "...space. Okay, why does she do that? She's more all-over-the-place than...well, me."
"I think she's gonna have to work a little harder to be better than you at ticking people off," Raph mumbled with a taunting smirk.
"And the way you've turned thrown away things into works of machinery... it's amazing!"
"Thanks," Donnie muttered for the umpteenth time, stacking a few lens cloths onto the pile of equipment in Vienna's arms. The amount of attention he was receiving from the brunette was making him a bit miffed. How many times could one say 'thank you' before the compliment-giver got the hint that these comments were getting superfluous?
"Don't mention it." Vienna smiled. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I go up Houston, right, two blocks and then a left, straight until I reach Harvey's Diner, and then another left after two blocks to reach this camera?"
He nodded, his eyes trying to see through her complex navigational directions, through her eyes, to grasp any wisp of a hint as to how her mind could go on three different tangents so damn accurately and so damn fast...
His own brain was becoming jumbled just trying to comprehend her thought process.
"Camera is on the second floor of the building directly across the abandoned church," she relayed to herself, already starting to head toward the door, "Make sure it points due east... my phone has a compass, doesn't it? Yeah, I'll use that to figure out the angle..."
With her ramblings no longer aimed at him, Donnie sighed in relief, turning back to his task of checking all the other cameras in his system across the city. One more time acting remiss would end up with him on Leo's bad side.
"Donatello!"
Vienna's call made the turtle jump from his previously-distracted state. "Donnie. Just Donnie is fine," he requested.
"No, I like Donatello. Says more about you. Chic, smooth, classy." she made an A-OK sign with her free hand, leaning against the doors of the lab casually.
"I'm almost 100% positive that none of those words describe me," he shot back, though he felt his heart swell at being called classy. Perhaps chivalry really did pay off.
"'Almost' is a wonderful word, Donatello," she quipped, her technicolor eyes roaming the vast room. "Nice place you have. Although it needs some color. Might try something less monochromatic."
"I'll take it into consideration," Donnie said idly, already returning to his own realm of scientific and worrisome thoughts.
"I've made some goals," she explained to him, like an overly excited child telling what she'd done at preschool that morning.
"Have you?" Donnie's mind was already adrift in computer coding, figuring out how he could repair a glitch in the camera on 3rd Street.
"Yes," Vienna said, her eyes twinkling, "I'm gonna help you with your girl troubles."
Donnie nearly choked on his own saliva in shock (which he found rather off-putting — how idiotic did he have to be to gag on his own spit?). "Come again?"
"I will help you be irresistible!" she cried, all but brimming with pride at her own idea. "April will be seething that she couldn't pin you down. We'll have the girls crawling all the way from Tokyo for you!"
His eyes narrowed. "I'm a mutant, I can't be seen, how would that even—"
"Ssh, you're ruining my master plan," she hushed, the gears turning in her head almost visible through her bifocals, "Yes, I will help you be awesomely enticing. Not that you're not already, you just don't know it yet."
Donnie rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks tinging pink from being referred to as 'awesomely enticing'. "I'm not sure I follow."
"You don't have to understand," she assured him, "Just know that Vienna's rooting for you, and that she's gonna make sure April ever regretted breaking your heart."
He blinked, baffled at why she'd help him with such a random (and, let's be honest, personal) problem.
She threw him a smile, her lips stretching widely as her need to remain somewhat reserved fell away and revealed just how big her grin could be. Vienna turned on her heel, striding out while singing a slightly altered pop tune in her angelic voice.
"Well looky here, looky here, ah what do we have? Another pretty thing waiting for Don to grab! But little does she know that he's a wolf in sheep's clothing, 'cause at the end of the night, it is her he'll be holdin'!"
Beyond horrified her lyrics were being projected throughout the lair (the acoustics were awful, and provided an echo that made sure her words were heard by everyone), he scrambled after her.
"Will you shut...," he screeched to a halt outside the lab when he realized she'd already gone. "...up."
"Wolf in sheep's clothing, huh, Donnie?"
The genius whirled to scowl at Raph and the other four snickering team members.
"Stick it in your shell, meathead," Don snarled, though his beet red face was seen by all as he trudged back to his haven of machines and computers.
