Alright, I'm gonna mess with the timeline a little bit. Let's just pretend that, when the series started, Violet was around sixteen, Klaus and Sunny can just be the same age as they were in the series. Keep in mind, I read this series back in either seventh or eighth grade, and I'm about to go into the eleventh, so please forgive anything I might say that isn't quite correct to the books.
Hmm... Thinking about it, I suppose if the Baudelaires actually are related to count Olaf and Dragon is too, that technically makes them distant cousins, kind of, maybe? Meh, it's by marriage, I'm wierd, totally ignore it, whatever it takes to make it not wierd for you, because I really don't care all that much.
ThisWritingStyleIs...Interesting...
Once upon a time, there was a sweet little girl named Dragon. She lived in a big, beautiful mansion and had more clothes and dolls than she could ever need. She had a wonderful, doting mother, and a big, handsome father who loved her just as much, in his somewhat more distant, hands-off way. The little girl loved to cook, and she even, for some reason liked to clean! She was the sweetest and most polite little girl in the neighborhood, and everyone knew and loved her. She was, by no means, the perfect child, but her parents loved her anyway, and felt blessed to have a child half as sweet as her. The little girls' life was... perfect. That is, until one day, when she was fourteen, something terribly unfortunate happened.
On that terrible, saddening day, she went over to her best friend's house, a few safe blocks away from her's. The two talked about boys, and traded makeup secrets and talked and talked and talked, just like young, still innocent teenage girls so often do. The two were so caught up in their heartfelt discussions, that when the doorbell rang, they barely even knew that it had... Until her friend's mother came and knocked hesitantly on the door, asking the girls to quickly come downstairs, because someone was here to talk to Dragon.
When the two went downstairs, they saw a man there. Dragon knew the man right away, as her father had owned a bank, and the man was the head banker who worked there. She knew him by the name of Mr. Poe.
"Mr. Poe," Dragon asked innocently, "What can I do for you?" As I said, she was a terribly polite child.
"Dragon, It is... With utmost regret that I must inform you of this. There has been... a terrible accident." Mr. Poe stopped, hastily pulling out a well used handkerchief as he began to strongly cough. The girl's face paled, but she said nothing, knowing that she couldn't ask anything until the sickly banker had recovered from his fit. She could do nothing but grip her best friend's hand like a lifeline and wait. After several tense moments, the banker's cough began to subside.
"Mr. Poe, sir... Are my parents alright? Were they hurt in this accident?" The little girl asked hesitantly. Mr. Poe glanced at the mother of the girl, who was also waiting anxiously, for an answer other than the one he knew he had to give. She had no way to help him.
"I regret to inform you that... You house has burned almost completely to the ground in a fire that, for now, they have deemed in accident. It has also been assumed that Julia and Richard Angelius... That is, your parents, have both perished."
That was the exact moment that the little girl's world fell apart. She knew, deep down, that it was all downhill from here. She knew, deep down, that it would be a long time before anything would ever be okay again.
ThisWritingStyleIs...Interesting for me...
"As was written in your parent's will, you will be staying with your closest living relative. We have deemed that relative to be your uncle Olaf." Mr. Poe explained the next morning. The little girl had stayed the night at her best friend's house, had fallen asleep on her friend's bed, in her friend's arm, crying. The day before Mr. Poe had left with the unhelpful statement of "Things always look brighter in the daytime" Though it had actually been mid afternoon when he had left, therefore if things look brighter in the daytime, she had been seeing them exactly as they were. Sleep, or lacktherof, hadn't really helped the girl any. She could barely grasp the concept of never seeing her beloved parents again. It was taking her longer than usual to understand what anyone was saying.
"Wait... Olaf?" She asked after a moment of silence. "I don't have an uncle named Olaf."
"Of course you do, he's either your fourth cousin, three times removed or your third cousin, four times removed. He lives in this very city, making him your closest living relative." Privately, Dragon thought that that probably wasn't what her parents meant by closest living relative, but she was still too shocked and sad to care. "He's a count, and the leader of an acting troupe. I'm sure you'll be in very capable hands..."
ThisWritingStyleIs...Interesting...
The house was old, rickety and worn down. And disgusting. Dragon quickly realised that Count Olaf was, by no means, the good man that he halfheartedly pretending to be around the oblivious Mr. Poe. Every day, she was given a list of gruelling, impossible and many times disgusting tasks. She was very glad that she already knew how to cook and clean. She quickly became used to the horrid feeling of being ogled in a less than innocent way by Olaf and many of the men in his "Theatre Troupe" and she quickly got into the habit of getting up very early so that she could accomplish as many of the chores as she could while the men were asleep or occupied so that when she finished dinner every night at six, she could quickly serve it and get back to her room, to spend the night in boring but thankfully undisturbed solitude, away from the filthy gazes. For a whole year, she lived like this, with no change. None of her friends ever got in contact with her, not even her best friend, and what hurt the most was that she didn't think it was Olaf who wouldn't let them.
The sweet, innocent little girl, soon lost her sweetness, and quickly lost her previous innocence... Or, as some would call it, Naivety.
And...POV Change!
I was sitting alone on the floor of my room, hating the dirty, peeling yellow wallpaper in it just like I had every single day since I had been abandoned in this god-forsaked place, when, for the first time since the fire, something finally happened that wasn't a turn for the worse.
My door flew open, and I nearly knocked over the wheel-less tricycle that Olaf had insisted on keeping in my room to "entertain me" as I jumped up from my spot on the floor.
"And this, orphans is where you will be staying." I froze when he, somewhat violently, shoved three people that I had never seen before into the room. "As you can see, I have an assortment of knick-knacks and paddy-whacks for you enjoyment. Go along, socialize with the other orphan that you'll be rooming with for the rest of your miserable lives. Sleep, replenish your energy, and tomorrow she can tell you all about your chores. Maybe between the four of you, you can actually get things done properly. Ta-Ta for now, orphans!" After his more than slightly dramatic monologue, Count Olaf violently slammed the door shut, leaving me along with the three strangers.
I knew that it was probably rude to just stare at them and not say anything, the tiny voice in the back of my head that sounded a lot like my mother insisted that I was the hostess in this, and, thus, should take charge and be polite, but... It had just been so long since I had seen another living human being, obviously Count Olaf and his horrible troupe of animals didn't count as such, I simply couldn't kick my brain into gear quickly enough. Finally one of the other three broke the silence, the girl, who seemed to be the oldest out of the three.
"Hello, it's... Nice to meet you. I'm Violet Baudelaire, and these are my siblings, Klaus and Sunny." She offered me a halfhearted smile with her introduction as she and her sibling slowly made their way to the center of the room, where I was, taking in the disgusting, peeling yellow wallpaper, broken-down, pathetic toys, and the ragged, thin blanket, which was folded up on a box, rather than the filthy mattress.
"Likewise. I'm Dragon Angelius." I replied softly as I slowly sat back down on the floor. Klaus glanced at the bed, clearly wondering why I chose the floor, rather than that, but he followed Violet's lead when she copied my actions.
"So, is it as bad here as it seems?" Klaus asked, bluntly. I nodded.
"Worse, in some cases." I could see their faces fall.
"How long have you been here?" Violet asked. Good question.
"I'm not sure. What day is today?"
"March 8th." I winced.
"Then I've been here a year and four days. And I guess that means I'm already fifteen. God, it feels like it's been much longer than that." I chuckled bitterly. "Here's a word of advice, before I tomorrow. I get up early and work as quickly as I can so that I can get back to this little paradise with as little contact as I can manage with Olaf and his troupe, barring dinner, which is an unavoidable occurance. I would suggest you do the same. But oh well, we still have a few more hours left of the day, and I can tell you of your grim tasks tomorrow."
"Sure, I guess. But... There are four of us, and only one bed. How will the sleeping arrangements work?" Klaus asked before I interupted.
"The bed?" I scoffed. "If you want it, it's all your's, but I wouldn't recommend it. I haven't slept on it a day since I got here."
"Why? Surely it must be more comfortable than the floor-" Violet started.
"Who knows, maybe. Personally, I prefer to sleep on a surface that doesn't move and doesn't bite." To illustrate my point, I grabbed the broken tricycle and swung it lazily back to the mattress. It hit solidly, and the "Mattress" errupted with bulging seemingly a thousand little squeaks. "Rats." I stated obviously. The Baudelaire's faces paled significantly and the baby, Sunny, repeated, "Dats."
"So, the floor it is then... But isn't it cold?" Klaus asked.
"Yup, at night. It's a lot warmer now, but during the winter I was almost certain I was going to get pneumonia. Luckily, I obviously didn't."
"Seriously? How can you even survive in a place like this? This isn't legal, to treat children like this-" Klaus raged.
"It isn't." I agreed. "But we can't really do anything about it. We can't go outside, and the only phone in the house is in Count Olaf's bedroom, and that's a place I don't want to be caught dead in." I shivered, remembering the few times he had made me clean the room for him. He stayed in the room the entire time and just watched me from the bed as I cleaned it, staring at me in a way that I never wanted any man to look at me, least of all him. He immediately kicked me out and locked it up tight when I was finished, and I was so glad to be out of there and away from him that, the first time it happened, I broke down when I got back to the safety of my room.
This place isn't safe, and there is more than one reason for that.
AndNowIt'sInDragon'sPOV
There must have been another cold front. That had to be it. There was no other way that this floor was this cold in March, when it had been bareably warm last night. It didn't help that I had given the Baudelaires the thin blanket to share, since it was barely big enough for the three of them close together, as well as let them have the spot where the floor was warmest. I figured they would need it, and judging by how the older two shivered faintly, they defnitely did. I was more used to it than they were, and I had figured that it would be alright, with how warm it had gotten, since I would still be close to the warm spot. I was lying about and arms length away from Violet, who was on the outside next to Sunny, who was cocooned in all the extra clothes they had between her and Klaus. Still, the wooden floor was bitterly cold and directly underneath me now, with no buffer or extra covering, and I hoped despereately that I wouldn't wake up sick in the morning. There was nothing I could do but just lie there, shivering and waiting for the night to just be over.
"Dragon." The whisper made me jump a little, and I turned over on my other side and saw that Violet was, indeed, awake, eyes glinting slightly in the dark as she looked at me, and I knew that, in the light of the full moon, which was right now shining directly through our small window, my shivering was fairly obvious.
"Y-yes?" I asked, forcibly making my teeth not chatter from the cold as I spoke. She didn't say anything, just waved for me to come close. I hesitate for a moment in thought- Well, it would be nice to be closer to the warm spot on the floor, and a little contact wouldn't hurt me any. Plus, she was probably cold too, so it would just be the nice thing to do. I crawled closer to the Baudelaire girl, closing the distance to just a few centimeters, marginally warmer than before. Apparently, however, my version of close and hers aren't quite the same, because the moment I laid back down, she rolled over onto her side to face me, her back pressing into Sunny, and she reached out and pulled me even closer, onto the thin blanket so that I was pressed against her chest. Then she wrapped her arms comfortabled around me, I assume so that I wouldn't end up back on the floor, and for warmth. After a minute, I let my arms relax from their position in front of my chest and slowly wrapped them around her, reveling in the feelin of being truly warm, which I hadn't felt since... Maybe since that last night at my once best friends house, where she let me cry myslf to sleep in her arms.
It... was a nice feeling.
StillInDragon'sPOV
That became pretty typical of the way that we slept. If Klaus or Sunny thought anything of it, they didn't say anything. As it got warmer, we started spacing out. Sunny needed less of her siblings clothes, so they had more to wear even if they were cold, but still... The three mostly stayed together and even if I tried to sleep farther away, Violet wouldn't let me. If I wouldn't come to her, she came to me. So, I just resigned myself to cuddling being a regular thing for me. Not like that was a particularly bad thing anyway.
Even after the time I had spent... Away from people, I knew a crush when I felt it, and I definitely had a huge crush on Violet. That was the reason why one of the times, when Violet whispered my name at night, I ignored it and pretended to be asleep. When I heard her sigh, after a few seconds, I thought that I had gotten away with it, which actually disappointed me more than anything, even though I should have been relieved. A crush, in these circumstances, was the last thing I needed.
So, I thought, for a few seconds, that I would be sleeping alone, until, seemingly out of nowhere, I felt her hand on my arm, causing me to gasp and start a little. She pulled on that arm to push me onto my back, and I stared, wide-eyed, as she hovered over me, looking every bit the part of some beautiful ghost with her pale, flawless skin, smooth dark brown hair and long, dark Victorion style dress flowing down around her, covering me like a soft, lacy blanket. The only thing to offset the idea of a beautiful ghost was the playful, teasing smile on her lips.
"You know even sleeping people need to breath, right?" She teased, and I almost smacked myself when I realised that, yup, I had been holding my breath for a while. I didn't have time to retort to that, however, when, suddenly, her face dropped closer to mine and I, just barely, felt a feather light touch on my lips. She pulled back, grinning like she had just won a ticket straight out of this place, before she abruptly laid down on her back and pulled me down so that my head was pillowed on her chest, which was a new position for us. I guess because we didn't really need to share warmth anymore, it was just for the... company? Cuddling? Who knows...
Surprisingly, there was no little part of me screaming "HOLY CRAP DID THAT SERIOUSLY JUST HAPPEN?!" I think the steady sound of her heartbeat drowned out all of the worries that I might have otherwise have, and soon, I feel into a deep, blissful sleep.
StillInDragon'sPOV
I was actually part of the reason as to why Violet agreed to Count Olaf's play-marriage scheme. The threat was basically, "I've got your baby sister in a cage, now marry me. If you don't, you know that other silly orphan girl is going agree to it to avoid the cage dropping. Either way, I get one of your fortunes, but you are the older and less fragile one, so I would prefer it would be you." Something to that effect. The thing was, the threat worked. Ironically, I was tasked with helping Violet prepare for the play. The female actors in Olaf's theatre troupe with the overly powdered faces were supposed to help her get ready, but apparently my inexpert hand proved sufficient for them, as they left the dressing area very quickly to let us finish her makeup in peace.
"You're not really going to go through with this, right?" I whispered after a moment when we were finally alone as I powdered her face, though not to the point that they two women who had recently departed were.
"Of course. What other choice do we have?" She replied, mechanically as I rummaged through some unsorted makeup to find some eyeliner or something, causing my head to snap up and my hand to still in it's purposeful search.
When I looked at her, she shook her head, mouthing something that I couldn't totally understand because I'm horrible at reading lips, but I was pretty sure had the phrase "listening in" in it. Oh. Ohhhh... Good.
Almost as if on cue, when I verbally deemed her makeup "stage ready" the two powder-faced women reappeared to help her put on the ornate dress, and I knew she was right not to say anything aloud.
Though I hated the purpose of the dress right now, I couldn't deny that the dress looked beautiful on her, costume or not. Before she went on stage, when they powder-faced women were occupied with reapplying their own makeup, unnecessarily, I might add, I quickly darted in and hugged her, careful not to catch on, dirty or otherwise harm the dress in any way as I knew the two women and Olaf himself would all throw an unpleasant and possibly violent fit it I messed it up.
"Don't come back a married woman." I whispered, for lack of anything better to say besides plain old "Good luck" as I leaned up and kissed her cheek. She wrapped her arms around me for a moment, assuring me that she wouldn't before she quickly let go and began her slow, dramatic walk out of the wings and into view of the audience.
StillInDragon'sPOV
Being stalked from relative to relative got pretty old after a while, but it stayed unnerving. For once, I was glad that Mr. Poe wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box when it came to practically everything besides numbers, because I just kind of got grouped with the Baudelaires in everything. I was sent to them with all of their relatives and I was glad of that, since I had been worried that I would have gotten shipped to other people, my own relatives, and been seperated from the Baudelaires after the attempted (and failed) arrest of Olaf. I was even more glad when Count Olaf started following us and Klaus had the idea that, had I been sent off alone, he would have followed me, since I would have been the easier target.
What a lovely thought.
So, I stayed with the Baudelaires throughout their lengthy journey, watching as guardian after guardian fell from Count Olaf's deadly schemes. When we met two thirds of the Quagmire triplets... Things got a little rough. You see, I get jealous just like a normal person, but unlike most normal people... I'm not good at fighting for what I want. Whenever something I love is threatened, I have a tendency to just roll over and let it be taken from me, and then just cry about it alone later.
Isadora liked Klaus, and that was perfectly okay. Duncan liked Violet. And that was not perfectly okay, especially because I think, at least to a small degree, she liked him back. As much as it hurt, I just... didn't do anything. It's not like I really had any claim over her anyway. We had never said that we were dating or anything. We slept together (actual sleeping) and we had kissed a few times... As much as I wanted to, I didn't think I had any right to call her mine.
So, whenever they flirted, I just sucked it up, bottled my feelings up inside my chest and found something to do. A lot of the times, that involved a long walk over the school grounds, or a trip to the library.
Eventually, one of the others got tired of watching me do nothing. Surprisingly, it wasn't Klaus or Sunny or even Violet herself. It was Isadora who decided to give me the kick in the face that I needed.
"You know you're hurting her too, with what you're doing..." I looked up from the book that I hadn't really been reading anyway, to see the dark haired Quagmire girl sitting down in the chair across the wooden table from me.
"What do you mean?" I had a feeling I already knew.
"Oh don't give me that. You know exactly who I'm talking about your girlfriend."
"I don't have a girlfriend. We've never even mentioned the idea." I muttered, somewhat bitterly.
"Well, you should have! It's fairly obvious that you love her and she loves you back. But with the way that you're willing to give her up without even a hint of a fight, she's probably pretty certain that you couldn't care less." Isadora scolded.
"What do you expect me to do? Like I said, whatever we have, we've never actually talked about it. We're not dating, so if she likes your brother... I have to be fine with that." I finished in a whisper, resting my face in my hands.
"Yeah, there's that, or you could just stop being a coward and just talk to her." I couldn't deny the validity in her harsh assessment. "Listen, Klaus and I, we can tell that you two are made for eachother. But just think of it from Violet's perspective. Every time Duncan is around, you either just ignore it and let them flirt as much as they want or you find some reason to leave. To her, it probably seems like you don't even care at all. That's why she pretends to like my brother back. By her thinking, if you don't care, than neither should she. So, you need to talk to her soon, tonight if you can, and fix this." And, I realised, she was completely spot on.
"You're right. I'll... I'll talk to her." I finally replied.
"Good." She nodded, satisfied as she stood up. "Then I'll leave you to your thoughts."
"Hey, Isadora," I stopped her and I let my hands fall away from my face and looked up. "Why were you the one to tell me this?"
"Well, Klaus thought that it should be another girl who said it and Sunny can't talk well enough to do it. And... Duncan's a little oblivious sometimes. He'll back off once he knows that you two are a thing. Violet doesn't really like him back anyway, and she's probably not ever going to, so the sooner you two stop dancing arond eachother, the less likely it is that he'll get hurt too. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some homework that I need to do... And I need to report back to Klaus. See you later." She laughed as she walked away, leaving me to make a game plan of sorts and marvel at my own stupidity.
AndFinally,EndOfDragon'sPOV
The cruel, evil, spiteful fiend, otherwise known as Count Olaf, had been defeated. After a few years of respite alone on the island, the Baudelaire orphans and their constant companion throughout their journey finally decided to return to civilization to try their luck with society once more. And, surprisingly, everything seemed to work out perfectly for the previously unfortunate orphans the the just as unfortunate little girl. They were, almost miraculously, cleared of all the charges against them, thanks in no small part to the normally incompetent banker, Mr. Poe.
Life, for the unfortunate little girl, was a thousand times brighter than just a few long years ago. When they returned from the island, the unfortunate little girl and the love of her life, Violet, were nineteen and twenty repectively. Violet's brother Klaus was sixteen, their younger sister Sunny was about to turn six and little Beatrice, Kit's child, was almost two years old. Because Violet and Dragon were both of age, and because of the unique situation and children, the legal system deemed it unnecessary and unintelligent to seperate the group. Thus, Violet was made the legal guardian of both of her younger siblings, which neither minded. Dragon, for her part, was made mother of little Beatrice Kit Snicket-Angelius- That was the name they chose to put on her record, when one was made. They wanted to keep the memory of her birth mother alive, yet Beatrice had become attached to Dragon more than anyone, to the point that Beatrice considered Dragon her mother and called her as such, and Dragon considered Beatrice her child in every way.
The five remained together after things settled down. They all lived together, in a fairly spacious house, as they could afford nearly anything, since the oldest two were of an age that they now had access to the copious amounts of money left to them by their parents. The Angelius banking company had been bought out sometime after they had been stranded on the island, and now ceased to exist, but Dragon still had a large fortune left over to do with as she wished, as did the Baudelaires. The Quagmires quickly contacted the group once they were publicly pronounced as alive and the friends were reunited over dinner.
Years down the line, life could easily be called a paradise for the once unfortunate group. Klaus, unsurpisingly, eventually became a writer, as did Dragon. Their content differed, however, as Klaus tended to stick with nonfiction and factual writing, while Dragon was mostly fiction and fantasy, with a little romance thrown in every now and again, for good measure of course. All of the Baudelaires and Dragon did, at one point, pull together to write down their experiences with Count Olaf and all of their other unfortunate happenings. It was the only nonfiction book that Dragon ever took part it, as well as the only book that Sunny or Violet every wrote in any measure, barring a few technical manuals that Violet produced and the single grand cookbook that Sunny published at the end of her long and prosperous career as a chef.
Romantically, all of our protagonists did well. Klaus, unsurprisingly, married Isadora Quagmire. Sunny, when she was about twenty, met a boy in college that she married soon after graduation. Little Beatrice had a little more trouble than the rest of her family, as she had several failed relationships throughout high school and college with both men and women, but eventually she settled down as well. As for Violet and Dragon themselves, they were amoung the few who could actually say that they gave their first kiss to the person that they spent the rest of their lives with. They stayed in that same house that they bought together, even after the others had flown the nest. They all stayed fairly close anyway, Sunny was the farthest and she was only a thirty minute drive away, and they all visited frequently. The house became the place of many happy memories, many holidays with cherished family. The two women loved eachother completely for the entirety of their lives and near the end, when both were old and nearing death, the two looked back over their long lives together, all the way back to the awful, unfortunate, but now seemingly miniscule time of true misery, and they both agreed that, all things considered, they were more fortunate than they ever could have dreamed of, and they wouldn't change a single thing about it.
Well,That'sTheEnd,ItSeems
The ending was pretty fluffy/cheesy. I won't apoligize for it though, because I really liked it. Honestly, halfway through, I was like, "Gosh darnit, I should have just stopped at the kiss and maybe had an epilogue, that would have been better!" But I had already written the part about the play and the part from The Austere Academy, so I wasn't about to just delete those!
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this, I had a lot of fun with it! Would you guys like for me to make this into a chapter fic? It wouldn't be very hard, split the sections up and lengthen them some, and add a lot more content, cuz clearly I skipped a lot. The only qualms I have with that idea is that I already have TATT and AATD, and if I actually did that, I would have to go back and read through the series and write as I go through it, because as I said earlier, I read the series in like 7th grade and I just finished 10th, so it's been way too long for me. But, those actually really aren't big problems for me, and if enough of you want me to do it, then I will probably do so.
As always, reviews are appreciated but not required, and feel free to tell me via review or PM what you thought and if you have anyway requests or you want me to continue this, feel free to ask. See you next time, my lovelies!
P.S. Since I upload in bulk, I did some stuff in between writing and updating, and one of them was to play the game Rule of Rose (My sister had it, but I had never played it before, so when Cry started playing it, I was like Hell Yes!, especially since he took a week off before he completed the game and I couldn't wait that long) and now I realise that part of this sounds little like that. Just thought I would mention that.
