Breathe Today
Hm. Not so angsty this time. More...pensive, I guess. I'm giving you a reprieve. Post-TPP, way past the end of ASOUE. Violet's over sixty, and she's got white hair, so she's old. I'll leave her age up to you.
Damp sand made a soft sort of thump every time Violet stepped on it. It left the shallowest of footprints.
No one would ever know she had come here. Here, where her tragedies began. Here, where her tragedies ended.
The wind blew her long white hair around. I'm getting too old for this. Violet really wondered what she was doing walking around barefoot on Briny Beach at three in the morning. She should get back home if she wanted to get the house warmed up before the sun rose. Her husband had passed away some years ago. Violet took care of herself.
Her old bones creaked as she knelt down, her knees making soft indents in the sand. Violet simply stared out at the crashing waves. Waves that had drowned Justice Strauss and Esme Squalor. Waves that had brought an end to the treachery of the bad side of the schism.
It was more than fifty years later, and sometimes, when she was lying awake at night, she wondered what was good or bad, right or wrong, what made it that way. If she had done the right thing all those years ago. It seemed silly to worry about it. What happened had happened, she couldn't change it. Her life now was happy and peaceful. Time was passing, and she was content with that. She had grandchildren, Klaus had grandchildren, Sunny did not marry at all. The Quagmires had moved far away to conduct their researches in peace. Violet wasn't sure where they were.
Maybe before she died she would try to get in contact with them. That would be nice. It would be pleasant to hear their voices again, catch up, make up over a half of a century's lost time. Perhaps she could visit them.
Violet lost track of time as she knelt there, listening to the waves and lost in her thoughts. Klaus had moved to another country to get new experiences. Sunny worked as a traveling chef, seeing lots of the world. Violet received frequent postcards and letters from both of them.
They had both left. The city - this city - was not where they wanted to be.
It was where Violet wanted to be, she knew that. Sometimes she would walk by her old home. It had been rebuilt. A nice family lived there. Violet did not really know them. They had three children - two girls and a boy. The eldest girl, who must have been about fourteen the last time Violet had stopped by, liked to invent. The boy was a researcher. She wished she could introduce him to Klaus. The youngest girl, who was only a baby, was interested in biting things.
The importances - if any - of these passed over Violet like a breeze in the desert. People deserve to be happy.
A light rain started now, catching in her hair and she knew it was time to stand up, to go. There was no use resisting it. There was nothing more to think about. She stood, and for awhile forgot about everything as she looked out at the waves. They had watched her as a young girl trying to hold herself and her siblings together. They had seen her grow, had seen her life change. They had absorbed the rocks she had thrown into them the way a parent absorbs their child's insults. And later, they would watch her as she passed on from this life into her next one.
Violet turned around and walked back to her home. Old memories had resurfaced during her time here, and she had a lot to think about.
This thing was sitting on my computer for a good six months almost finished. I just opened it up and finished it so here we are.
- Emily