April 14, 1914
When he first awoke, the familiar feeling of scratchy wool and animal hair tickled at his nose, making Theodore sneeze relentlessly into the loudly-patterned woollen throw blanket which had been pulled up to his chin. The world around him felt muffled by the stuffy feeling in his head and the blanket of jet lag which had settled deep within his bones, tried to pull him back under. And that wasn't even counting the bone-deep ache that rocked him like a hurricane and pulled a low pitiful groan from his lips.
There was the scent of wet dog on the air too and despite—or perhaps in spite—of the full body ache, his body had taken on this jelly-like quality that was almost—almost—bearable as he stretched out languidly before falling bonelessly back against the stiff mattress beneath him. Although the cascading sunlight punctured through the curtains and the scratchy wool brushing up against his chin, made him pause. My window's not on that side…did…did I fall asleep on the couch again? Theodore puzzled as he noted that the sun patch raining down on him was on the wrong side. Or did I have another nightmare and slept in Vera's bed again?
As consciousness fully settled over him, Theodore found himself trying to recall what had happened to land him there…wherever there was. The last thing he could properly remember was crash-landing in some backyard in the dead of night, whilst a storm raged around him. How the gardens seemed to pretty like those botanical ones in old folks' homes and how the pain of his vera's death had encompassed nigh on all of his senses. Theodore suddenly jolted upright as everything seemed to come rushing back into swampy focus; all of his foggy thoughts mushing together in a single stream that didn't seem real.
Honestly, he still felt like he was dreaming…at least, he hoped so. This had to be a dream…right? A really, really bad dream. One that involved finding Vera in the old warehouse just as Doro said she would be, the subsequent tears & grief that had encompassed him when she would not wake to his touch or his cries; the same grief that still lingered however many days later and brought tears to his eyes when he thought of it. There was the utter betrayal he had felt when, not only his dons & his ven had tried to end them, but Helga & the Echo Initiatives too. How, between one breath & the next, Don Luther was hoisting Theodore off of his feet, sweeping him up into his arms as they left Vera behind. Then Don Fën tore open a hole in time & space and then they were tumbling through the temporal plane without direction.
There was the lonesome crash-landing in that moist backyard of this place (presumably), the horrid-full body itch that rankled every inch of Theodore's body, the shocked grief that encompassed him when he realised he was the reason that the apocalypse had befallen the Earth at his own hand (however accidental). There was the stuffy-head feeling that ached inside his brain, the bone-deep exhaustion which had dark dots dancing around the corners of his vision and the panic which had pinched at him when he discovered himself to be in a place so unknown to him.
And then there was the Lien du Lorne. He knew it was the Lien du Lorne because it hurt to breathe, let alone move and he could see the pronounced blue ridges of his loralite veins from the corner of his eye. It wasn't like the time he had gotten his face painted for some school sports event or when lumen would flood his vision to help him see in the dark. No, it was more like he had something stuck on his face that he couldn't get rid of and could only just see out of his peripherals and it was driving him mad.
Well, it would've of, had the pain not been so quite intense; though he was sure that if he had the energy to check, he'd find a blue-tinted boy staring back at himself in the full-length mirror over there. Instead, he found himself collapsing backwards onto the bed with another low groan as a cocktail of feelings roiled around inside him. Confusion, pain, grief, guilt and oh so many other emotions tumbled about inside him as Theodore lay there, trying to sort through it all. Suffice to say, that had been an eventful birthday and one that he would likely never forget. Though, he wished he could forget this pain.
With pastel sleeves of a nightgown he didn't remember getting dressed into, rolled up to his elbows, his bandaged hands slowly & painfully roved over his body. They dipped beneath the blankets to check to make sure that everything was still there & intact, startling slightly whenever they brushed up against the pronounced veins that pulsated slightly like they had a heartbeat of their own. It reminded him of when his hands would brush up against the algae in the lake of Jackpine Road, whenever he used to play at the water's edge.
Head? Check. Arms? Check. Legs? Check. Heart? Check…sort of. But it was the bandages bound tightly around his hands and arms that gave him pause, once more. Tucked in beneath tightly-bound sheets and a couple of thickly-packed pillows, Theodore did his best to prop himself upright again. It was slow-going, doing it this way, but eventually he was able to sit himself up against the pillows & the iron-wrought headboard, behind. With hesitantly quaking fingers dancing around the gauze that wrapped both of his arms, Theodore found himself unsure as to how to proceed.
The bright pink cast which had once been strapped around his right arm was long gone, instead replaced by another series of gauze bandages that matched the ones on his left. He wasn't totally worried about the missing cast to be honest, mostly because he knew that Garde—human & Loric alike—healed faster with the aid of loralite in their system and because he already had so much of the stuff in his own system thanks to his genetic heritage & his current predicament. He swore that he could feel the loralite pumping through his veins as it both healed and hindered him. Okay, yes, loralite could heal you at a much faster rate than if you left it alone, but too much of the stuff could also hurt you terribly, just like it was doing right now. It was a double-edged sword like that.
In any case, his once cast-bound wrist was already starting to feel like it was back to normal, that is, if it were for the Lien du Lorne currently wracking his entire body with minute spasms. To be honest, he was more upset about losing the cast because of the simple fact that many of his friends & family had decorated it with messages from them and there, neatly printed by the pulse of his wrist, were the last words of his vera. But now? Now that it was gone—that everyone he had ever known was gone—he wondered if he would even be able to remember them? He hoped so, he already couldn't rightly picture Milton's face, just how he felt about his one & only friend.
Scared of what he might find, Theodore was still intent on seeing for himself the full damage that lay beneath those tightly-bound bandages. Part of him absently wondered, as he unwound the gauze, if he would be able to see the lichtenberg scars left behind from his various mishaps & ventures throughout the week of A'Doro's funeral, or if they would be too hard to distinguish amongst the pronounced cobalt veins that had seemingly sprung up overnight.
When he had first been scarred by his own lumen, the boy had been more concerned with getting out of the ruins of Saint Gregory's Royal Academy without being caught by the LANE Keepers, which meant that he didn't have the time or the means to take care of himself. Later, when he was captured by the very same LANE Keepers who he had tried to outrun in the living room of the Umbrella Academy, Theodore had once again been more concerned with his own safety than the vain cosmetics of his own appearance. Now though, as he unwrapped the gauze and looked upon the salmon branches that decorated his skin, dancing in between the blue branches like the swirling aurora borealis. He could almost call them pretty, in that sort of hypnotising way.
With a quiet sigh, Theodore rebound his bandages, although not as tight as before (it was rather hard to manoeuvre the things with his hands still shaky from the Lien du Lorne). Soon enough however, Theodore was brought of his silent musings and time-consuming task by a rather moist nose prodding at arms and a sad whine that sounded in the back of the canine's throat. His gaze was yanked down towards a googly-eyed pug who sat expectantly in between his legs, eagerly waiting to be noticed. Theodore had no clue as to how he hadn't even noticed the dog in the first place.
Despite its rather raisin-wrinkled face, the current expression it wore made it look rather sad & sorry for itself as it sat square in his lap, head tilted to the side in question. Theodore's bandage hands were equally as shaky as before as he reached out to pet the pudgy-faced dog before him. The dog brightened at his touch, his orange chimaera eyes gleaming as he moved closer with his curled tail wagging furiously behind him. But it was only as the canine clambered up onto Theodore's stomach had excitedly pawed at the rumpled blankets surrounding him, in an effort to get closer, that he fount out that this dog's name was Mr Pennycrumb (as told by the dog tag that flashed in the sunlight. The dog tags were shiny and new, just like the pup climbing up towards his chest, which told him that this chimaera was just as young & fresh as the boy out of time).
When Mr Pennycrumb shuffled closer still, intent on nosying around under Theodore's chin with his ticklish nose, the Garde finally noted the strange tint of orange which encompassed those big googly eyes of his. It was strange only in the notion that pugs did not have eyes coloured like that, chimaeras however, did. Chimaeras were beasts once native to Lorien; ones that were called out of hiding by the Phoenix Stones (the stones which were also used to help boost the plant's ecosystem) by the Elders at the time. It was the same creatures who—thanks to their shapeshifting abilities—quickly became the dominant fauna on the planet.
According to A'Vera Katerina, almost all of the chimaera were wiped out during the Mogadorians invasion of their sister planet, Lorien and those few handfuls of Garde & Cêpan who were able to survive & escape on the Earthbound shuttles, were then later captured & killed by the aforementioned Mogadorians. Very few of them remained, but A'Vera Katerina had often spoken fondly of her own; stating that Liwa—who often preferred the shape of a ferret—could easily be discerned from the Earthen animals of that nature, by the golden eyes that they wore. No one knew for certain why their eyes were that colour, but many suspected that it was thanks to their relationship with the Phoenix Stones.
It was the canine's name though, that truly struck a chord with the disorientated boy. "Mr Pennycrumb" had been the name of his imaginary friend when he was younger, named for the dog from the old cognac commercial which occasionally played on late-time TV. It would seem—as that advertisement that was no longer "vintage"—that whomever owned this dog had had the same idea in regards to naming the canine. It was a good enough name anyhow, and it rolled off of his tongue easily enough. "…Hi, Mr Pennycrumb" Theodore whispered, his voice hushed in slight awe as he gently rubbed the canine's ears, silently marvelling at just how velvety soft they were.
It may have of seemed like a rather odd name for the dog in retrospect; afterall, what kind of pompous name was "Mr Pennycrumb?" That sounded like something you'd name an heir, not a dog. In any case, Mr Pennycrumb (who was likely named after the one from the old cognac commercials) was neither penny-coloured nor crumb-sized; but he was rather penny-sized and crumb-coloured with two toxically orange eyes that stared up at him like he put the stars in the sky.
As Theodore tried to blink back the tears that had gathered in his eyes when his hands met the dog's soft fur. He wasn't sure why he was so tearful about that fact, only that the pug's eagerness to be petted reminded him of Mrs Kowalski's numerous cats that used to crawl all over him like he had catnip in his pockets. He couldn't say that he wasn't a dog person or not, but he couldn't find it in himself to care as Mr Pennycrumb begged for more attention which Theodore was more than happy to give.
"Hello, salu [hello], hello" Theodore gushed, smushing the pug's cheeks and just generally enjoying the feeling of the puppy's fur beneath his fingers. "Whose a good boy? Whose a good boy?"
And then the unexpected slapped him in the face. "Moi!" Mr Pennycrumb barked, his voice young but thick with the Loric accent.
"Good Lore!" Theodore jumped in fright, shooting up almost six feet in the air at the reply. Dogs weren't supposed to talk, let alone talk back and understand. "You…you can talk?!"
"Of course!" Mr Pennycrumb sat back on his haunches, chest puffed up with pride. "I am a big boy! Of course I can talk!"
"R-right…" Theodore swallowed, settling back against his pillows as his heart continued to race.
"What are you doing? Keep going!" In his shock, Theodore had rightly paused in his ministrations for a moment, something which Mr Pennycrumb was not pleased about and made sure to make that fact known.
Okay, so dogs—chimaeras—can talk, alright. Nothing strange going on here, nope, no siree! Theodore rambled inside his brain, mind seemingly as numb as the rest of him.
And then, as his body sort of fell limp against the bed like a limp noodle—save for the hand that mechanically stroked the pug—another thing occurred to him: the sound of his own voice. It was just as dumbfounding to hear it when it reached his own ears and his brows furrowed at the noise that had previously escaped his chapped lips. It was odd to hear something to hear something so raspy coming from him, although it did make sense considering how much he had yelled, wailed and wept before coming here.
Not to mention all that usage of his Legacies which had left his vocal cords far more spent than they had ever been (save for when he was a babe and had presumably cried himself hoarse). Despite the rather reasonable explanation to explain away the harshness of his tone, Theodore was still rather embarrassed by it and found himself sinking back beneath the safety of the covers. Mr Pennycrumb whined pitifully at that and prodded at the boy again, this time doing his best to scramble underneath the covers and reclaim his spot upon his chest; nose right in his face.
Theodore let out a quiet squeak of surprise at the action, arms flailing about at the pug's less than graceful movements (honestly, he was about as subtle as a brick through a glass window) and the nose that, soon after, tickled at his cheek. Mr Pennycrumb seemed unbothered bu the protruding buttons of the nightgown that dug into his soft belly and, instead, lay expectantly waiting for further pets from the boy. Without a single word, the chimaera had made it clear that he was not moving and no amount of sulking could change that.
"…Guess I'm not moving now, huh?" Theodore huffed as he stared back at the pug snuggled in close. The supposed resignation probably would have of been more effective if the Garde had reached out to pet the pug again, this time scratching the top of his head, much to Mr Pennycrumb's glee. It was by complete miracle of happenstance that whomever had taken him in, also happened to (unknowingly) have a chimaera as a pet, but he was happy it was nonetheless. There were worse ways to have come across a beast like this.