Thea Hargreeves had already experienced loss in her short life, but her family was something she was determined to keep together and close to her heart. No matter what.
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"It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do."
A young woman walked the academy halls, reminiscing on the many times she had done the exact same thing as a child. Sensitive in constitution, the young Vanya had searched often for someone to quell her loneliness. It sat upon her shoulders like a constant, unwanted cloak and Vanya yearned to shrug it off.
But that was not possible. The haze had finally receded and she now saw things for what they were. The academy had once been a place she thought of as home, but she recognised it now for her prison.
Pushing open the door in the present, she saw only memories of the past.
Diego, younger and yet no less harsh in the way that children so often are, regarded her with annoyance. "Vanya. What do you want?"
She stared, silent. Knowing there was no use in words when he could not hear her. Not then and not now. As she closed the door and walked away, the room erupted into chaos, an explosion rocking the foundations and destroying everything inside.
Including the memories encapsulated within.
At the sight of her sisters room, she peeked inside, already knowing the sight that would greet her. Allison and Luther, faces inches apart, sprang back at her entrance, faces alight in abashment and yet twisted in something darker, crueller. Hostility. "Get out!" her sister screamed, storming forward to slam the door in her face.
She barely flinched as the room exploded beyond, debris flying all around her. Vanya blinked once as the memory fled her mind, dying alongside the remnants of the childhood bedroom. Turning once more, she continued.
Footsteps moved her forward. One by one, they took her to the next memory, to the next step in her forgetting.
But when she reached the door, glancing inside to see not only Klaus and Ben, but Thea, she paused.
"To go on a mission, you have to have a power," Ben said, the hurt of his words causing his voice to adopt a pitch of derision. The something inside of her sought to destroy it – this memory, as cruel and unjust as the others...
"That's not what he means, Vanya."
A voice. Halting the destruction. The forgetting. Vanya stared at the cherub face which regarded her with neither annoyance or hostility or derision... blue eyes were as clear as the sky, filled with no clouds of hatred. Only bright affection.
"The reason you don't come on missions is because we want you safe. I want to return to see my sister in one piece so that she can continue my violin lessons!" Her smile lit up Vanya's world and she was loathe to let the something destroy this. To destroy the one, pure memory she had of a seemingly constant childhood misery...
