For RageRunsStill monthly prompt: January - New.
I know it's horrible, so CC please?
~•~
She is twelve when her mother dies.
Her mother.
Her last remaining parent.
She's gone.
And all she can think isn't relief that she has a stepfather like Fernald does. It's that wasn't an accident.
That is the beginning of her hidden paranoia, and her obsession with mushrooms (they're most versatile edible plants readily available).
~•~
She is thirteen when she buys her first pair of glasses.
They don't serve any purpose other than to convince anyone looking at her that she has an obvious weakness.
(The lenses in the triangular frames are glass).
~•~
She is fifteen when her brother leaves.
He tells her not to worry and to stay with their stepfather.
He also says to not go looking for him.
After a year, he's declares legally dead.
She's officially alone.
But unofficially, she knows that Fernald wouldn't go out without a bang.
(And if that bang happened, she surely would've heard about it).
~•~
She is sixteen when she hears the letters VFD spoken together.
Later that month she goes with her stepfather to live in Queequeg.
On his desk she finds a paper with the words suspendisse quis typed on it.
There are copies of Latin-to-French and French-to-German and German-to-Swahili and Swahili-to-English dictionaries on the desk.
It takes several days, but eventually she finds enough time to use all of the translation dictionaries to figure out what it meant.
It's a bit disappointing, when she finally figures it out.
(Although she's a bit curious what a sugar bowl has to do with anything).
~•~
She is seventeen when she meets Klaus.
It's not every day you see three kids in a breaking down toboggan floating in the middle of the ocean.
But Klaus is cute and charming and mature.
(And four years younger than she is).
~•~
She is still seventeen when she sees her brother again.
Fernald has a hook for a hand.
And because she likes Klaus, and the feeling is so foreign, she leaves with him, just so she can have something familiar in her life.
She'll regret it later. (But she's a teenager, and teenagers aren't supposed to think ahead).
~•~
She is eighteen when she's trying to make it back to Klaus.
Fernald has come with her and she has hope that Klaus will forgive her.
She has met the Quagmires and for the first time since Violet left, she has another girl around her age to act girly with (not that her and Violet really had time to paint their nails). And she finds that she likes the new feeling.
By then her paranoia had mostly disappeared, except for the mushrooms. Her mushrooms stayed.
~•~
She is only eighteen when she sees the question mark on the radar.
And as much as she'd love to go find Klaus again, she has Fernald, and she convinces herself that's enough (it's not).
So Fiona decides to stay and fight the question mark.