| Donny Krinov | |
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| Luke Shoefield as Donny Krinov | |
| Statistics | |
| Fullname | Donald "Donny" Arke Krinov |
| Birthday | April 4, 1915 |
| Species | Vampire |
| Age | 93. Looks 20. |
| Height | 6'4" |
| Weight | 210 lbs. |
| Eyes | Red |
| Hair | Brown |
| Power | Can hear people's auras in the form of music. Every person has a unique song that reflects facets of his or her personality. |
| Parents | Peter and Louisa Arke (both deceased) |
| Siblings | N/A |
| Occupation | Guitarist of Crimson Delirium. |
Biography
Oshawa, Ontario. 1915. Industry was booming; factories were springing up left, right, and center. Peter and Louisa Arke met on their first day of work at the opening of a new automobile production line. They fell in love and married in the usual way, and set up a tiny and thoroughly blue-collar household. Their first child, a girl christened Marianne, died not long after she was born of a congential heart defect. The couple was heartbroken over their loss, but both being of Catholic descent, a short year later a second child was brought into the world. Then a third. And a fourth.
By 1920, the Arke family had swelled to 10 — the two parents and their eight children. Three girls and five boys. Donald, or "Donny" as he preferred to be called, was number six, and was born in 1915. He was an energetic and highly entertaining boy and was ultimately responsible for many of the hijinks that befell the neighborhood. His pranks were rarely anything sinister, although as one of the youngest of such a large brood, Donny's misbehavior was usually done in the hope of attracting more attention. Though their clothes were worn and food wasn't always easy to come by, the Arke family was very close-knit and always found reasons to be happy.
When Donny turned 15, the Great Depression was slinking its way into Canada. His parents lost their jobs within the first six months of the recession, and though they did their best to earn money whatever way they could, eventually the burden became too great. The family had to break up. The children were divided up and sent to live with relatives, family friends, anyone who could afford to take them. Fully into his turbulent adolescent years, this separation proved very traumatic for Donny. He and his younger brother Walt were sent to Toronto to live with his mother's brother's family, the Spencers.
tUncle Thomas Spencer was an underling at a bank and somehow managed to hang onto his position in spite of the tough times. He was a gruff man, prone to drinking, and he quickly found that he lacked the patience to deal with his nephews. For Thomas, these two represented only extra mouths to feed during a bad economy, and the older boy especially proved hard to handle. Donny was beligerent and unruly, and deeply depressed after the dissolution of his family.
Thomas' wife, Elizabeth, was a much gentler soul. In an effort to soothe Donny's tempestuous demeanor, Beth Spencer successfully convinced her husband to give the boy a gift: music lessons. When Donny was first handed the violin, he felt nothing, no different. However, once he began to play it was as though he'd opened a secret door. He was a different person while he played. The music provided such a curious solace from the bitter cruelty of his young life that Donny came to depend on it. Thomas didn't ultimately mind the small expense of the lessons as they got Donny out of his way for longer and longer periods of time as the boy delved deeper and deeper into his powerful newfound talent. Sadly, in spite of the magic of the music, arguments between Donny and his uncle became common occurences, and more than once after a night at the local bar Mr. Spencer took his anger out on his nephew.
Donny lived with his uncle for a full two years before tensions finally broke. A particularly bad fight was overheard by the neighbors who telephoned the police. Walt and Donny were removed to a foster home, but before long Donny was out on his own — a runaway at 17 with little more than his violin in its battered case, roaming the streets of recession-plagued Toronto.
Then followed an interim period of instability. Donny drifted uncertainly between jobs, always performing some kind of manual labor and realizing slowly that he was really qualified to do nothing. He tried his hand at waiting tables, painting walls, laying bricks, and repairing appliances. He even worked for a short week as a butcher's apprentice, but quickly found that his stomach was too weak to manage in that career path. He was 18 and about two pennies away from destitution when he took a job cleaning the stage after performances at a local theater. The place featured mostly foreign plays and the occasional concert, and Donny became quickly engrossed in the concept of the orchestra pit. After a while, he started to the theatre hours and hours before he was needed just to listen to the music.
One night during a rehearsal, as Donny lurked in the back of the theatre, he was startled when an unfamiliar older woman interrupted his reverie. She introduced herself as Natalia, one of the owners of the theatre, and she was unquestionably the most beautiful woman Donny had ever seen. He was instantly captivated, and responded eagerly when probed for information about himself, his job, his life. When his ability with the violin was mentioned, Natalia flashed a heartbreakingly lovely smile. There was an open spot in the orchestra, she explained, for an up-and-coming violinist. Donny balked at this, simultaneously thrilling to the opportunity and embarrassed of his lowly upbringing. Who was he to aspire to such things? A musician? He wasn't even fit to wait tables. Hesitantly, though, he agreed to try out for the spot.
Natalia said she saw something special in him and offered to tutor him privately and to hone his skill before the audition. Bewildered by her generosity as much as by her beauty, Donny accepted the offer. He was soon meeting with her in the empty loft above the theatre three nights a week. She would listen to him play for hours, so patiently. Here and there she would make a suggestion for improvement, but all the while she listened, she watched him.. a slight smile on her lips. Donny watched her in return, out of the corner of his eye as he played on, and it seemed to him as though she was biding her time, waiting for something. She proved to be the more patient one. His anticipation was building. He did not have the capacity to withstand the tension of being so many dark nights alone with this gorgeous, mysterious woman. Finally one night, in the middle of Shostakovich's Fifteenth, Donny stopped playing.
After that, Donny and Natalia began meeting nearly every night. Locked away in the dark, secluded and candlelit loft, they shared a passionate whirlwind affair. Their intimacy was a powerful, overwhelming thing, and more than once Donny had the strange sensation that he was drowning in it. When they were together, she consumed his thoughts and made living seem more like a dream. When she was gone, he was left dazed and reeling and it gradually became harder and harder to get back into the swing of normality. He found himself the bewildered recipient of that position in the orchestra, and that night before their customary activities Natalia presented him with a breath-taking new violin.
Their affair went on for months and their mutual passion never seemed to dwindle, but eventually Donny found that his mind was able to withstand the onslaught of Natalia's beauty. He could keep his head clearer during their encounters, and he then began to realize that apart from the physical attraction, there was nothing that drew him to this woman. Moreover, he'd heard rumors that she was married to the other owner of the theatre, someone named Nikolev. Donny had never met the man, but he valued his new job in the pit too much to continue to jeopardize it. On one of the odd nights that he and Natalia did not meet, Donny went walking through the streets of Toronto, thinking hard of ways to break it off.
He had just turned a corner when he became conscious that he was being followed. The city was full of shadows, but Donny had never been one to be paranoid. He was sure this threat was real. He sped up his pace and ducked into an alleyway. Seeing a broken piece of piping on the ground, he seized it and spun around, ready to face whoever it was. Except that there was no one there. Not in front of him, anyway. Donny suddenly found himself flying through the air. He struck the wall of the alley, and the stinging pain of fractured bone pulsed through his back. He couldn't move, his face was mashed against the foul-smelling concrete and hot blood welled in his throat. Donny saw his attacker approaching him in the dark, and though he struggled vainly to defend himself he could barely suck in a breath before a new pain was on him.
It was a searing, ripping, shredding burn that instantly eclipsed the pain of his broken spine. He screamed and screamed, but it only got worse, spreading from his throat to his chest to his toes, filling every fiber of his body with unbearable agony that he nevertheless bore - because he had no choice. It lasted for hours, days, weeks, years. He wasn't sure. All he knew when the pain finally dulled was an impossible thirst, which he satisfied over and over again that night in the filthy, teeming streets.
A week later he returned to the theatre. His affair with Natalia was dead. They no longer interested one another, not even in the physical sense. It was Natalia's husband who took an interest, to Donny's surprise and initial irritation. Nikolev explained everything to him, that it was he who attacked Donny and was thus responsible for his agony that night in the alley. Donny reacted to this information with ferocity, but his mind was easily distracted and between that and his inexperience in this new body, he was easy for Natalia and Lev to subdue. There was more he had to know about what he was now, what the three of them were.
Donny didn't take the news or the transition to living as a vampire well. He remained at the theatre for another five years, playing in the orchestra but without the vivacity that he had when he was "alive." In fact, it wasn't his new diet that affected Donny and spawned the depression so much as it was the changes to his sensory perception. Suddenly the sounds of his instrument were grating, almost unbearable. He could hear so much better, so much more deeply into the timbre of the music that every microscopic imperfection in string or bow became a discordant screech. Playing was no longer enjoyable, no longer an esoteric experience. Now it was just something to do, just something to pass the hours of the never-ending night. It was as though the love of his life had died.
Five years of insufferable boredom. Month by month, Donny sank deeper into sullen depression until, at last, the sun rose again. Donny was hunting on the outskirts of the city when something extremely strange happened. In the stillness and silence of the night, he suddenly heard music. Unlike the shrill discord that music had become to him, this was the most beautiful and entrancing sound he'd ever heard. His heart ached with love for it, and the hunt was immediately forgotten. He would follow this song to the ends of the earth and beyond. Donny let it lead him on for miles and miles, with no thought spared for where he would end up or when he would return to his Russian proteges.
Some time later, he found himself in an unfamiliar city. He was getting so, so close to the source of the music. The anticipation by now was all-consuming, and when he came upon her he did not pause. He meant only to embrace her, to be as close as he could to that glorious sound, but instinct overcame him and he was powerless to restrain it. He bit the girl fiercely, frenzied by his thirst and his passion, but he hesitated when she spoke to him. "Please," she murmured, and for the first time he saw her face. In that moment, the music exploded into a radiant symphony and for days Donny crouched over her in horror, shaking with remorse, whispering to her that it would be alright. He knew he'd killed her, and somehow he knew that when her heart stopped beating, the angelic music would die too and his world would be silent again.
Meanwhile, Nikolev was furious at Donny's defection. He and Natalia tracked the younger vampire's journey south into the United States, having no idea what had possessed Donny to go but Lev at least was determined either to bring Donny back or destroy him. They came upon him still holding the girl he'd bitten, and it was clear to Lev and Natalia that she was in the final moments of the transformation. Lev's rage peaked and he lunged at Donny. The two struggled violently for a few seconds until Donny was pinned to the ground. In that instant, the girl leapt to her feet and hurled Lev away. Her name was Virginia, she bellowed, and she loved Donny more than her own life. She would see no harm come to him.
From that point, Donny's existence had meaning again. He soon found that it was not only Virginia's music he could hear. Suddenly he heard melodies pouring from every source of life he came across. Some were quiet, sweet and timid like harp-song, while others were more like fiery peals of trumpet calls. Still more were stable rumbles of drum-like rhythm. Donny now lived in a world of sound. He could read a person's song like their emotions, hear the slightest variation as their mood changed while the overall song remained the same.
A unique song belonged to every being. Nikolev and Natalia had their own music, and together they built a wild and impetuous harmony that Donny found brought him a much deeper understanding of them both. The decades that followed, during which the coven migrated from town to town, were some of the happiest Donny had ever known. Though times may have been hard, he had finally found his niche and the songs that spoke to his heart.
Nikolev and Natalia continued to run the show, and this suited Donny and Virginia just fine. Eventually the four ended up in another theatre hall, this one in New York City (the year was now 1968). There they lived a relatively flamboyant lifestyle, and it was during that time that Nikolev found Ramona, a young human girl with an interest in music. Donny was drawn to the peculiar rush of her music. The energy of it was eccentric and exhilirating to hear. He was not opposed when Lev decided to transform her. Donny had become fiercely, almost savagely protective of his family, with whose music he was intrinsically joined, and Ramona's song fit into the symphony well, as though it was always meant to be there.
However, when the threat of the Volturi finally reached them, the Krinov coven had to flee New York and abandon their newborn. They retreated to Montreal and through a stroke of fortune Ramona was able to track them there. Migration years later brough them south once again to 1990s Houstan where they were drawn unexpectedly into the endless wars of the covens that resided there. In 1994, after a particularly vicious confrontation, Donny suddenly found that Natalia's strain was missing from the family's symphony. She was gone. There was no way of knowing for sure whether she was dead, as Donny could not hear anyone's music if they strayed outside his range, but rumors of the Volturi's involvement abounded. The Krinovs returned to New York soon after that, rocked by the loss of one of their own.
The family struggled for a while, each coping with the loss in his or her own way. Donny, grown possessive and irrationally attached to his remaining coven-mates, prodded them incessantly to keep them linked to each other, paranoid that if they losed interest they would go their separate ways and the family would be destroyed for good. Finally he pushed his own love of the music onto them. He gave them each an instrument, whichever he felt most closely matched the individual's inner sound, and taught them to play. They were surprisingly talented, perhaps due to Donny's teaching or perhaps because each vampire's instrument was so perfectly chosen, but somehow or another Crimson Delirium was born out of the ashes of Natalia's demise.
The band now travels the United States, their popularity among humans ever a stab of defiance toward the Volturi. Vampires in the spotlight. Vampires who can /play like heck/.
Personality
Coming soon.
Relationships
| Name | Relationship | Description |
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| Lev Krinov | Coven-leader | Donny has a lot of respect for Lev as the leader of the Krinov coven, and sees him as the cornerstone of the family. Donny regards him as sort of a big brother, and can be indulgent of Lev for that reason. |
| Virginia Krinov | Mate | The acknowledged love of Donny's life. Hers was the first song he ever heard as a vampire and it's ingrained in his memory as the most beautiful melody in the world. He's very passionately attached to her. |
| Ramona Krinov | Coven-mate | A sister-figure to Donny. As with the other members of his coven, Donny tends to be indulgent of Ramona and endures her short temper like a champ. Will always come to her defense. |
| Lilly Carrere | Neutral | In an effort to smooth over Lilly's addition to the family - which has upset Virginia and Ramona considerably - Donny has taken Lilly under his wing and looks after her to some extent. He doesn't feel too warm toward her yet, though. She's still the reason behind current Krinov family discord. |
| Stasia Dietzen | Neutral | Something about Stasia fascinates Donny to no end. It's unclear how far this fascination will take him, but until he finds out more about her Donny will not leave her alone. |
| Darcy Bowen | Hostile | Donny's only met Darcy once and it wasn't the friendliest encounter. While most people's inner music is tolerable, Darcy's tends to run a little too loud for Donny's sensitive hearing. He's a little intrigued by her, but won't actively pursue another meeting like he would with Stasia. |
| Ellie Dawson | Food | Donny's mildly interested in eating Ellie, though finds her inner music a little too SWEET to be entirely appealing to his thirst. |
| Rosalie Hale | Neutral | Rose's inner music is grating in Donny's ears - high-pitched and annoying, in fact. He finds her a little off-putting, but is not yet hostile toward the Cullens. |
| Emmett Cullen | Neutral | Donny's a little intimidated by Emmett. His inner music is all bass and drums and the strength of it makes him somewhat nervous. Donny has no qualms with any of the Cullens .. yet. |
| Theresa Yamamoto | Neutral | Donny has only really seen Theresa from a distance and doesn't know much about her except that the quality of her inner music is soft and refined, like a piano solo. |
Additional Photos
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Playlist
Coming soon.
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