A/N: This was written as part of a challenge in which only VFDFandoms and I participated. As usual, this is Ellington's PoV.
Dedicated to VFDFandoms.
•
L
•
E
•
Will I Be Able To Do It?
You'll be able to do it Feint, I told myself repeatedly and splashed some cold water on my face. Today was a big day— I had to keep Snicket away from the Library using any means. Hangfire had promised me my father in return for executing this operation neatly, but in my heart I knew I could never ever be successful. In the inner recesses of my mind I knew that Lemony Snicket had already configured out the jig when he had asked me to a hayride.
I was almost thirteen and for once, I had been right. And I was scared. Very, very scared.
I had been thinking all this when I had been standing in front of the mirror in my roon at Wade Academy with a dress in either hand. Which one?, I wondered as I held them both in front of my body and tried to decide my look for the evening. Usually I wore black and white but for once I wanted to wear some other colour because my life had gotten too black and white— too grey lately. I didn't know where I stood. What was I, a villain or just a lost girl looking for her father? I didn't know any longer. I didn't know where I fit in the scheme of things in this dying town.
But I was certain that I had a job to do.
It was all this grey that had led me to believe that I could do with some bright pinks and yellows and besides, wasn't I going on a hayride? Colourful dresses and frivolous talks were meant for hayrides, even if the said hayride had a sinister purpose behind it. In the end I decided that would put on the sunset yellow one because Snicket had once told me that yellow was one of his favourite colours when we had spent a morning sipping coffee at Black Cat Coffee, watching the sunrise with half-closed eyes. I also decided to tie up my hair in pigtails.
After making all these decisions I lied in the bed and surrounded myself with the warmth of the covers, remembering that not long ago Snicket had slept here too, just beside me. The covers were still filled with his essence— the aroma of books, the heat of fires and an air of looming mystery, and being surrounded by it was making me feel utterly uncomfortable about what I was going to do that evening. What will he do?, I wondered. Don't think too much, I told myself. Maybe you could shut him up and kiss him and then he would forget all about the Library and Diceys and then you would get your father back.
I blushed at that thought, but my mind continued to whisper these stories.
Maybe, my treacherous mind said, maybe he would kiss you. Oh shut up, I replied right back and buried myself deeper in the covers but my thoughts didn't run into a brick wall, a phrase which here means, "my stupid thoughts didn't leave me alone so that I could rest in peace." Instead they continued to pour in like rain leaking in from a hole in a roof. I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to sleep. "Ugh, this is asinine." I murmured and removed myself from the covers. Asinine is fancy way of saying 'stupid'. It was pretty evident that I wasn't going to sleep because of all the unrealistic drivel my mind was feeding me.
I stood up and put on the dress. After doing that, I dragged the chair that stood beside the desk in the corner to in front of the mirror above the basin and glared at my reflection. A girl with dull green eyes and long black hair glared right back at me. I looked alright, I supposed. Maybe a little smile wouldn't hurt and I tried it— smiling. The girl in the mirror smiled back and for the first time I could see why Snicket used to frown and raise his eyebrows slightly when I smiled; it was because I looked a total femme fatale while wearing it. That was the biggest compliment that I had ever given to myself.
I glanced at my wrist watch. It was half past five. I was supposed to meet him at six. Yes, you will do it, I told myself one last time.
"Get up Feint," I whispered aloud to the emptiness of the laudanum loaded air, a half smirk dancing on my face. "You have a boy to distract and a hayride to show up for. You've got nothing to lose. Get up."
I was almost thirteen and I knew what I was doing was wrong. So completely, abominably wrong. I knew I was completely an ingénue and not the femme fatale I pretended myself to be but I had no choice, did I?
Yes, you're unsupervised, Feint, I thought as I combed my hair. You are unsupervised because your father is in Hangfire's clutches and no one is here to look after you. So get up and do what you've promised to do for these criminals. Don't let Lemony Snicket's haunting eyes and bruised face get in your way. Don't let his soft looking lips deviate you from your goal. So get up and help yourself. You've got a job to do.
And that is how I ended up doing the biggest mistake of my life.
-end-