Inocencia "Innocence" Lunanova Tales And Life ☾
The little misadventures of a girl born from sea foam and moonbeams.
This is just a timeline of all your Lore, I decided to take my night break to do this.
Keiko Tsukihime just arrived from Japan not long ago, fleeing her country for unknown reasons she ended up on the shores of a country called "Mexico" more specifically a place called "Veracruz". There she would resume her profession, although she could no longer work as a fully-fledged oiran. She still stood out among the other sex workers in the port for knowing how to make tea, sing, and offer graces to her clients... Obviously he charged a little more. Therefore, thanks to her different beauty and abilities, she became somewhat famous. She learned to play the harp and dance traditional dances, making her dresses trying to portray the dresses of the native jarochas.
Shortly after, his fame reached the ears of an albino Spanish captain; Antonio Lunanova.
He had extra money and nothing to do, a potential bachelor. Things happened and although Keiko initially refused to offer her services to Antonio because he resembled her father (who was also albino), she ended up agreeing because of Lunanova's charm.
They were dating for a while until Antonio simply returned to Spain. Keiko was heartbroken, she had really started to love him, she could no longer use her body to earn money since she began to be very devoted to him. Leaving her in apparent ruin, as the months passed, her unplanned pregnancy began to become more noticeable. She nicknamed the little baby 'moon bunny' because she always felt him jumping in her belly.
It was not until one cold night on December 28th, when Keiko appeared at the doors of a Catholic temple asking for mercy and help as the pains were getting stronger each time, that the nuns accepted. Only on the condition that both she and the baby had to be baptized, work in the service of the church and abandon that dirty job. Keiko accepted and that night "Inocencia María Guadalupe Lunanova" was born. An albino baby, the nuns were scared by the baby, After all, she was a very strange baby.
Rumors spread, gossip spread about whether it was cursed or a good or bad omen, Whether the prostitute's daughter was a message from God or from the devil himself incarnate.
But Inocencia didn't care in the slightest.
Childhood between revolution.
The war of revolution had begun. The whole country against everyone, rich against poor, peasants against peasants and armies against armies.
Innocence grew from place to place, fleeing and hiding with the few nuns who had the ability to move and take care of the few surviving children since the guerrillas had taken the convent. The only difference from the other orphans is that she had a mother who followed her, who hid her under her custody and covered her eyes from the horrors of the revolution. Wearing boring and ugly white dresses with watery socks, she lived locked up in a small shed in the convent which the revolutionaries had not taken. There she, her mother and four surviving children slept at night and she remained hidden. Although she almost never went out, the sun hurt her and at night it was better not to look out.
It was not until 1913 that her mother Keiko died. She was only five and a half years old at the time, completely isolated, starving in a locked shed, and at night her slightly older friends would sneak her small snacks so they wouldn’t have to watch her waste away. Though in general, that’s what was expected given her fragile condition. They had suggested selling the dresses, necklaces, and accessories her mother had designed and made, but she refused outright. She insisted that she was going to learn to play the harp and to dance, and as soon as peace returned to the city, she would go out and fulfill her promise. With perseverance and over the years, locked away in her shed, she taught herself to play the harp using an old book, learned to dance by trying to imitate her mother, and picked up other ladylike graces. The U.S. occupation ended in 1914, and that’s when she began going out every night with her friends to dance in small bars and restaurants to raise money — now they were just a bunch of kids trying to get by.
In 1920, Already at the age of thirteen she continued to dedicate herself to dancing and singing, offering small shows to feed and care for her "brothers from the old orphanage" and other abandoned children on the streets. At a very early age, she became the "mom" of the group. In return, they taught her to have a little fun, to go swimming at the beach, and to fish for beautiful shells. Spending their nights on the night shore, doing little songs and dances to forget that they were nobody's children.
It wasn't until 1923, when she turned sixteen, that an old sailor gave her an American magazine with photos of beautiful artists and teaching her songs on a new record player. It was from there that she thought, "How nice it would be to be as famous and beautiful as them." They told her that her city was too small for her and that she should flee to a place like America, even though the trip would be risky. So with the help of her friends, she was locked in a wooden box and infiltrated on a train straight to "The American Dream" in order to become a famous star.
Already in the United States, and after having been thrown out like a thief from her hiding place by the railway workers, she will end up taking up with a singular boy with the heart of a poet, the soul of an actor and the life of a vagabond. A young man named Rocky Rickaby, who would be his guide through the different sites on their way to the city of St. Louis. At first their verbal communication was zero, she didn't know English and he... He suspected that she spoke Spanish or something in Latin so they decided to unintentionally create a complex system of signs and movements. It wasn't the best, but it worked for two homeless people who made a living playing instruments... He a violin and she a lyre.
Both would create a very strong bond of affection, Rocky missed Calvin a lot and "Innocence" as he named her was quite similar to his little cousin
They lived several adventures on the street, she made sure that he, although older than her, did not get into trouble and he tried to teach her English and improve her technique with the lyre, it was not the same as the violin but he tried.
Once they arrived in St. Louis, Rocky's talent would later be discovered by a mysterious lady named "Miss M." He was very happy to give her the news, he knew that he was going to have a decent job in months but she was going to be left alone... So with some influence they managed make it possible for her to stay with Mrs. Bapka in exchange for helping her with things like cleaning the house and keeping her from throwing food down the drain. Being so and sealing the promise "that he would come back for her" with a cheaper ring from the most common booze Rocky Rickaby left her "safe" and without further context with a Slovakian lady who poisoned her with ugly sandwiches.
But it had also left her with a hole in her chest.
But he also had the company of his "great and deeply friendly neighbor Viktor," the "pipe-fixing guy Calvin "Freckle" McMurray," and "the incredibly beautiful Ivy Pepper.". And obviously the iconic Mrs. Bapka.
An idealized prince and a dream yet to be fulfilled.
Innocence had become something of a "young lady all-rounder in the employ of young Rickaby when Aunt Nina wouldn't do his laundry". She was not aware that her best friend was involved in illegal things, for her he was just an eccentric violinist with a sharp tongue who always convinced her that his multiple accidents, wounds and torn clothing that needed repair had a coherent reason. She loved him very much so she preferred not to say anything.
When she turned eighteen in the 28th december of 1926, she began to see him with eyes of sweetness, love and admiration. She liked to spend her time looking at his features, his smile, his eyebrows, and his hands trembled every time she had to take care of a scratch.
But he had his mind on someone else, in a world where she didn't fit.
"I can't stay tonight to drink tea, little lamb... Miss M. needs me."
"You never can, Miss M always needs you."
"Why doesn't Miss M care to see you get hurt?"
When she wasn't busy washing Rocky's clothes or babysitting Rocky and being payed with kisses, she would be selling flowers in the shade of trees in her hometown dresses and offering small graces and songs to her customers. It wasn't until one cloudy day in May that an imposing silhouette approached her, a cigar scent that would follow her to the end.
"Excuse me, young lady, how much is the Marigold?" The kind gentleman asked, still smiling at him with the cigar in his mouth.
And that was the beginning of the end.
"The mermaid who lost herself"
She had seen before that she did not fit completely into the beauty standards. She didn't have short hair or the confidence of girls her age. Everything was still very foreign to her.
Asa Sweet found her a charming little girl and because of her exotic appearance he thought he would have nothing to lose by taking her as an attraction to the Marigold Room as a performer. He sold her the promise of making her great and exploiting her talent, and Innocence, fascinated, accepted without hesitation. And so, every night, a manager from the Maribel Hotel would take her there and back, they would take her shopping and even to one or another pompous party at the hotel to charm the guests with his "charming muse".
Innocence felt like a princess, learning dances and choreography, singing and receiving applause, compliments and beautiful dresses. His shows were from ten at night to three and he could rest and rehearse the rest of the weeks. Only then could she ignore the love hole that Rocky caused in her, she wanted to go on a date with him and show him her new trinkets but... What if he didn't like her job? But the tiredness of work made her fall exhausted.
It wasn't until one night that Ivy and Rocky showed up at her apartment door.
"We had a little mishap with... a piece of furniture in the cafeteria and the poor thing ended up like this. I thought you could keep it." Ivy said.
Something in Rocky had broken and she didn't know how to fix it, not like before.
She spent the night awake by his side, she didn't try to get information out of him, she didn't try to interrogate him. She knew he wouldn't like it.
"Rocky... Oh Rocky" she said taking his hand in hers "Why do you hide so many things from me?"
"Why would you want to know? Little lamb, that's just your greed for wanting to know things that are better left unsaid."
Innocence stroked his hair gently, she knew they were nothing but she felt they were also everything.When he could, he would bring her some nice gifts like melted chocolates or little flowers from Aunt Nina's garden, he would play the violin for her under her balcony and make jokes about "That she was going to be Mrs. Innocence Rickaby" . His soft touch between her hands, how he could manipulate her to receive a kiss and in the process wash her clothes, steal her access to a shower and a hug.
He had the arrogance of the sun and changed like the moon, he was a friend but also a very strange lover, he loved the stars, dreams, his head floated next to hers.
And now he was there, broken in her bed.
She didn't know he didn't have a home of his own, he wasn't going to tell her.I didn't think I would tell her that I loved her too, but not as much as he wanted Miss M's approval.
The love for Lackadaisy seemed to be stronger.
And although she didn't know what was Lackadaisy, she knew deep down that her position as "Rickaby's love" wasn't even secure. When she woke up he was no longer there, she had fallen asleep.
The next day at the Marigold Room, Asa came up to him and said;
"Wouldn't you like to cut your hair? You know... So you can show a little more courage and rebellion like those girls do these days."
A pair of scissors rested threateningly on the bureau in her dressing room. He sighed, took the scissors and started cutting based on the pictures in the magazines.
She gathered the white hair and kept only a lock of it, which she kept in a locket.
"Did I do something wrong?"
People still loved her but Rocky still hadn't appeared.
In a simple show, chaos was present, screams and people running away.The Marigold Room was on fire and no one knew how it started, screams filled the room which glowed red and yellow. Innocence didn't really know what to do, nobody seemed to notice her, she ran down the stairs and looked for exits but they were all congested with people. One of the nearby windows shattered from the heat, leaving Innocence's left eye completely damaged and useless. She fell to her knees and could almost feel people just walking over her without noticing who she was, the one they had been applauding so much less than a few minutes ago.Before closing her eyes, she felt someone pick her up and carry her out in a hurry. She managed to see a little, the silhouette of a woman and a man who, although they were not close, she knew by sight. The man was very tall and carried her without any problem.
As he regained some consciousness, he managed to hear something like people arguing. Someone with a sharp, sarcastic, and poetic tongue versus two types of Cajun accents.
"Rocky?" She murmured shyly.
She managed to see him a little, but there didn't seem to be anything soft or tender in his face. The Savoy brothers handed her over and left, promising not to cause trouble just because she was there.
Taking her to a soft blonde woman With a resigned look and having seen horrors, Innocence had to feel most of her "fixing" process even without context and without understanding why when she woke up Rocky didn't look at her.
With one eye removed, broken hair, first degree burns on some areas of her skin and only covered by a miserable borrowed blue dress and a veil that Calvin stole from his mother. Innocence left in awkward silence, wheeled in by Calvin and Roark.
"What were you doing there?"
"At the Hotel Maribel! You shouldn't have been there."
"Roark... Please, don't talk to her like that."
"She should never have left Mrs. Bapka's apartment... I tried so hard to keep her away from all this, and now I find her in this situation?"
Rocky sighed and frowned.
"My world is not your world, Innocence. You don't belong there."
"And then she dissolved into the sea foam"
It was three days, three days of Innocence lying in her bed still feeling the burning in her skin. The kisses of the flames that still rose in his dreams. Rocky was at his side, with the violin on his lap. They no longer had long conversations or afternoons of music.
Rocky was afraid to leave her, she had always been there for him. But one day... Just one day of leaving her alone the next day he only found her completely cold.
She had become one with the moonlight, with the cold air, with the rain and the drops that soaked St. Louis.
Roark, it's me, I'm Innocence
I've come home, I'm so cold
Innocence's ashes were simply thrown into the Mississippi River, though her very presence sometimes haunts Rocky. Her voice mixes with the wind, as if she were demanding that he never should have accepted that dirty job, that he should have stayed by his side and lived their lives simply. That there were better times and who knows... That they could have been lovers, just another one of the bunch.
They will try but I will only fail.
His heart already belonged to another person anyway.
And just as that woman had her own dead lover stunning her, he had his own.
This story is heavily based on The Little Mermaid and a bit on Wuthering Heights (mostly Kate Bush's song, I read the book but it gives me more vibes to give my interpretation to the song too) . Most of the illustrations are of an illustrated version of the Little Mermaid. The last illustration belongs to Auguste Leroux.
I don't know if the ending is canon for Innocence yet, but it will be until the comic is updated or something like that.
I hope you liked my yapping ^^ (Sorry for the lack of drawings, I'm not a good drawer and I've always been more of a writer.)
PS. Forget the spelling mistakes ;; I'm very tired.
