Chapter 1: Where My Yearnings Were Born

The dimness of the candlelight danced the shapes of the objects in the room across its walls. Their constant growings and shrinkings provided just enough of a continued illumination for the huddled up figure on the bed on the left side of the divided room to peer across the lines of the pages it held. Their musty fragrance perpetually filtered through the nostrils in front of them, the aroma easing the hardships of life and existence while the eyes took in the knowledge from the slightly crusted paper it dwelt on. The quality of what knowledge they viewed might have looked petty or even insignificant to some, but to the one that read it within that abode it was the world. A flood of experience and indulgence into what normality did not allow. A Gateway to what the reader desired. And what they could not have.

An unseen smile adorning her lips, the darkened girl turned the page. But with the flip came another form of a turn. The light that flashed into the room, if ever so briefly, dashed the curve of her mouth from her lips. She didn't need to look up to know someone was there. Even if they hadn't opened the door and closed it she would have noticed the presence. It was loud, uncontrolled. Though they tried to take care in their movement they were sloppy. Their feet just flaying every which way. The emptiness of the vacant room allowed her to notice it more prominently than normal. Even the air changed with their intrusion.

"Lynn, I appreciate the effort to keep from trying to disturb me, but it is sadly a waste," Lucy stated, her gaze still fixed on the book in her hand.

"Actually it's me..." an, only slightly, deeper tone replied causing her to jump within her body. She'd been ready for the response, just not the voice. Pursing her lips she lowered the book just enough so that she could peak over the top of the pages. Flickering in the darkness was her brother smiling nervously down at her, his hands on his hips. "Hey."

"Good day to you Lincoln. How are you on this fairly cloudy hour of our living expanse?" Lucy responded, her book raising back up to overtake her field of vision.

"Oh I'm alright," he said scratching the back of his head, "Um...how...are you?"

"Until a moment ago I was overwhelmed with emotions of distance and ecstasy. Now I am adequate."

"Oh...sorry..."

"It is alright Lincoln. This travesty will mend," Lucy assured him earning a somewhat glowering look from the boy. Even if she swam in the over-dramatizations of her bleakness there were times where he could pick up on sarcasm from her, at least quicker than their other siblings. "Is there something you wished to speak with me about?"

"Well, yes. I was just gonna see if you wanted to come to Gus' Games n' Grub!" Lincoln announced more eagerly than she had been ready for when he plopped down onto her bed. Within her mouth Lucy's teeth clenched at the impact and her grip tightened on her book. After taking a half second to recover from the action she spared a glance at the boy, his hands and knees propping him up next to her like a dog on all fours. For a few more seconds afterwards there was silence while he waited in anticipation for the answer.

"...I assume that this is for us to go play arcade games..." Lucy murmured.

"Well duh!" Lincoln laughed. For some reason the girl found it hard for a smile to keep from forming in the face of his positivity. Even if he didn't notice it, Lucy turned her face slightly more towards the side that he wasn't on. Though short, it was a noticeable amount of time before she started talking again.

"I...I'm reading. It's a very...good book," Lucy told him, "Thank you for the offer Lincoln, but I believe I am content in this endeavor."

"Oh..." he said. Even though she didn't want to, Lucy couldn't help but take another glance at him knowing that she'd see the smile dropping from his face. It wasn't one of anguish or pain or even much in the way of disappointment. Just...normality. "Well, if you feel like the whole book thing isn't workin' out for ya the offer stands," he assured her shooting finger-guns at her as he got up off the bed and started backing towards the door.

"It'll work out fine," Lucy gave her own assurance. For reasons she couldn't quite grasp a twinge of regret swum about her head and as she heard the door creaking closed she added two more words, "But...thanks..." It was hard to tell with the speed at which the door was shutting, but Lucy could have sworn she heard it stop for a fraction of a second before it latched closed. Looking back down into her reading material she fell silent again, but her mind was not so tame. She wasn't quite sure why but she felt a bit bothered by the interaction. Had it been Lynn it'd have been simple to just brush away the conversation, but with Lincoln it was different. He wasn't her annoying roommate. But he was still another Loud. And the difference between the various siblings for some reason singled him out as somebody that was more...more...

Lucy shook her head. The concentration on the interaction had broken the focus of her reading. What was it? Why did it bug her? Had it been literally anybody else in the family that sinking in her chest wouldn't have been there when she saw the smile dip. But with him it was different. How it was and why it was wasn't entirely clear, but it was different. Of course she valued him and his insight. After all, he was the only one that seemed to remember she existed half the time. But he was just another person. And she talked to them all as plainly as possible. Yet...she found herself perplexed. '

Letting out a sigh she forced her attention back to her book. The answer to all of life's problems. The venture through worlds unparalleled by reality and manufacturing. Across lonesome mountains and emptied leaf-littered forests she would travel, the paths carved by the wordings of the scriptures akin to those time had forgotten in distant untraveled woods and valleys. Settings of lonesome purity and solace where she could absorb all the surroundings for the tales that would unfold from those that the creators of such worlds would place.

It was this air of harmony that Lucy found comfort in. The dancing to and fro between the scenarios that played out in her observation of another's dreamscape. Losing one's self to the venture of a new journey. Things that the reader themselves could not be a part of. Could not have. That lust for something unavailable. Forbidden. It drove them. Satiated them. A feeling that no one else in her family could even begin to understand. All of them devoted their time and energy to their various means of entertainment, but for she herself, she found no better way than the experience of a good book. Even if it was from dawn until dusk she lived to dwell within the darkened pages of her novels.

Dusk. DUSK!

"Shit!" Lucy hissed practically tossing the book away. Ripping away the curtains of the window she could see the sun setting in the distance. Not even bothering to extinguish the candles she'd placed around the room she pulled a few sheets of paper from out under her bed, threw open the door, and blazed silently past one of her sisters.

"Woah! Where's the fire!" Lynn exclaimed as Lucy darted out the front door. In confusion she peered into their room noticing all the candles that were set up. "...oh."

"Guess you hot-stepped into that one!" Luan laughed as she popped in from the right with her dummy causing Lynn's expression to flatten.

Drops of sweat lightly dotted the dark skin of the boy as he danced across the mechanical contraption at his feet. Desperately Clyde's eyes darted around the screen in front of him trying to follow the fast-moving arrows with the motions of his feet. He could feel himself begin to slip out of the rhythm. It wouldn't be long now. But while he could he continued, his tongue running across his upper lip in anticipation.

"It's been a long time coming, but Clyde McBride is finally going to join the rankings of the arcade legends tonight," he insisted. The quickly disappearing arrows lit up less and less as his pace dampened. "Come on..." He could feel the liquid running down from his forehead now, the salt of the drops stinging into his eyes. "Just a little more..." Row after row of the arrows started faltering under the taps of his feet until finally it ended, Clyde's go at the machine reached its conclusion.

"YES! And thus I have now joined the ranks of!... ...no one on the hall of fame..." Clyde murmured glaring at the list of initials that popped up on the default screen for the Dance Dance Revolution machine, "Can you believe this Lincoln? The darn thing must be busted. I gave it...Lincoln?" Clyde had to admit he was surprised that his friend hadn't been commentating at all. After turning around once he stepped off the machine and went wandering about the floor of arcade machines until he eventually came across the snow-headed boy lazily slouched in a seat. Carelessly he shot the light-gun in his hand at the enemies that approached on the screen in front of him.

"Yo Lincoln, you there buddy?" Clyde asked snapping his fingers in front of him. Lincoln blinked twice and tilted his head towards him.

"Huh?"

"I said have you turned into a zombie? Do I need to decapitate you or anything?" he joked. Rolling his eyes, Lincoln gave a half-hearted smile and holstered the light-gun allowing the enemies to overwhelm the screen and kill his character.

"Sorry just...lost in thought is all," he told him.

"What could have you so distracted from watching your best bud become the new DDR champion?" Clyde asked.

"Oh it's nothing. Just...nothin'."

"Come on..."

"Alright fine," Lincoln grumbled folding his arms over his chest, "you're gonna think it's silly but I was just thinking about Lucy. I offered to take her here to hang out and, well, obviously she wasn't having that."

"Wow, you're right. That IS silly. Why would you try to get HER to come?" he laughed. Lincoln's eyelids lowered a bit. Curiously Clyde took a step towards the arcade seat his friend sat in. "Dude, you...alright?"

"I just...want her to hang out and have fun is all..." Lincoln sighed rubbing his arm, "I know she prefers to be alone and everything but...sometimes I just think about how much happier she might be if she were...eh...meh..." Clyde's own expression bent in concern.

"Hey man, I get it, but...that girl just isn't built for that. Heck, out of all of them I'm astounded you'd even try with her. She's so distant and...creepy. She enjoys being alone."

"Does she?" Lincoln muttered. For about half a minute the two just stayed where they were in silence with the beeps and boops of the machines around them blanketing their ears. Eventually Lincoln sighed and hopped to his feet.

"Come on buddy, let's go see if the Space machine's available," Clyde offered as they made their way past a brown haired Bluebell girl with a pizza-box that looked to have Lincoln's face drawn on it.

"And in these times of chaos and death.

Of much do I suffer and regret.

For in the woods so hallowed known

Do I wind and yearn for my home."

Soft applause filled the floor signaling for the speaker to bow. These were the sounds that Lucy Loud was greeted with as she finally burst into the latest session of Goth Mic Night. Thankfully no one seemed to notice the girl slinking quietly through the crowd. She'd already missed a good portion of participants no doubt, but she had at least made it. In a way she might actually have to thank Lincoln for interrupting her reading. She might have missed the event entirely had her thoughts not wandered due to him. Huffing quietly, Lucy ran her fingers through her hair and eyed the person stepping off of the stage. Though they were similar in height, from her angle the lights darkened his face to a degree that she couldn't quite make out the features.

Seeing her opportunity however, Lucy shuffled her papers around in her hands, got on stage, and walked into the spotlight. With the bright beams dispersing a pale glow around the stage she could now see just what the boy looked like. All at once Lucy froze up. His rounded head seemed to cave inwards at the eyes with how much eyeliner layered the sockets around his eyes. Though young, he was still older than her. Taller at the least. Her chin had to come up to only his shoulders. His silvery hair swept across his forehead from a comb that had brushed it to the side. The clothes he wore seemed to be his gothic best. Black on black. And he was looking at her. Granted everyone was, but his eyes, they connected to her unseen pupils and she could feel her face heating up a bit.

A cough from the crowd nearly made her jump back into reality. Shaking her head she shuffled the papers in her hands. Lucy glanced up for a second to look at the boy again. His attention was now turned to another girl, one that had papers of her own with blond curly hair dangling over her shoulders. She assumed that she was someone that had already had her turn on the stage. But that look he gave her. One of longing and desire. She could feel it in his stare when he'd looked at she herself, but not nearly to the degree that she could sense it when he looked at the blond-haired girl. For the moment however, she forced her eyes back down to the pages in front of her.

"On bended knee

Ore root and soil"

She started just loudly enough for the crowd to listen. Her eyes glanced around, but seemed to always fall back on that boy that had been on the stage before her.

"The snake doth strike

Upon thy coils" the poem continued.

The boy, who had been looking with so much desire towards the blond-haired girl had now shifted his focus back to Lucy who could feel a lump forming in her throat.

"For in the venoms of life's dread naughts

The seams and ends from it doth wrought"

Lucy gazed transfixed at the boy. His lightish hair glistened in the dim lighting making it nigh impossible for her to not find him should her eyes stray. Not that they would. With how his hollow pupils had begun to suck her in that was a not going to happen without effort. There was something about him. A familiarness in form and shape, yet a mysteriousness in the differences from what her mind tried to place them as.

"The death and end this fang it rends

For all that ache it wakes again."

As Lucy's poem finished a silence ran through the crowd of people for a second before it gave its quiet melodious applause. After a bow, Lucy walked to the steps and exited the stage. As she did so she could see the boy watching her every step of the way. She nearly fell flat on her face from almost missing a step due to the nervousness that had overtaken her. Somehow or another she made it down though. Upon joining the rest of the crowd Lucy, trying to break her attention from the staring boy, looked back towards the stage and an older girl stepped onto it.

"Thank you all for this drearily enjoyable night," she said to the crowd. 'Damn it' Lucy thought. She knew she'd missed a good chunk of her planned get-together with one of her favorite communities, but she didn't think she'd been THAT late. "It has been a rather insightful and soulless gathering indeed. But nobody forget, in just two weeks those that can make it are welcome to attend the Royal Woods Ball of The Undead." Lucy's brows popped at the mention of the words. A Ball? Undead? Two weeks? She couldn't believe she hadn't heard of it sooner! Her body trembled at the thought. A dance for those wanting to display their love for the macabre and bizarre? THAT was something that she couldn't chance being as late on as she had been on her arrival this night.

But...a dance. That would mean she should probably try to get a partner. Sure she'd probably be allowed in regardless, but given whom she'd just found... Shakily she turned her head towards the boy that she'd spied in the audience. Apparently noticing her gaze, he looked off toward his own side where he fixated once more on the blond-haired girl he'd noticed originally. And then turned his head to a blue haired girl. Heat washing through her cheeks, Lucy turned her head back towards the stage. In the state she was in when she looked at him she doubted talking was an option. It might end up worse than her attempts at Rocky initially were, memories of the numerous failures darkening her cheeks further. No, what she needed was a plan.

"A plan..." she murmured to herself as she filed out of the building with the various other dark clothed individuals, "...a...plan..."

-end of chapter-

Welp, don't know if this is a good idea or not. I mean it's been years since I've even done a proper fanfic, and no telling if I'll stay interested enough to even keep this continued for very long. But we'll see how it goes. I do got the basic plot of the story thought out and everything, so...eh, we'll see. Hope it's alright so far.