Augustus Crumhorn's life had always been rather dark. He was raised by a conniving businessman who taught him how to lurk and wait and watch, hiding patiently in the shadows before striking down any poor soul he laid eyes upon. Life was good, but it was very quiet and secretive, and it was very dark. He was raised to be calm, cool, cold and collected. He was raised to be in control, not just over material things, but over his own emotions. He let nothing slip. He was perfectly trained and disciplined. It would be easier to discern the truth of a pathological liar than it would be to read Augusts' mind. He knew how to hide in plain sight and to be perfectly deceptive.
But as fun as such a life had been, it was still so refreshing to him once he finally had a child of his own, a daughter named Dawn. It hit him harder than he would've ever expected, and he found something undeniably appealing about her open-faced honesty (because it was something very unusual for someone like him). He became enchanted with all the emotion, truth, power and passion that came with being a naive little kid. She had not been taught how to lie or hide (not yet at least) and Augustus almost wanted to keep it that way. Though he considered lying and deception to be the two most valuable skills he'd ever learned and though he did want to pass them all down to Dawn one day, he wanted to continue to revel in her unintentional honesty for as long as he could.
For the first time in forever, he was seeing the light. Perhaps it sounded cheesy and cliché to say it, but for him, it really was darkest just before Dawn. Before she came around, it was silence and coldness, waiting and watching, patience and cunning. Then she came into her life, loud and boisterous and unhindered. No sense of propriety or reason or deception. She didn't just not keep her cards close to her chest, she talked openly about them, bragging about the good ones and complaining about the bad ones.
Although it made him cringe on some levels, it fascinated and interested him on others. After all, he'd spent his whole life surrounded by fellow liars and manipulators. To see someone like Dawn was so different that it actually almost became refreshing, and for the first time ever, he could see what life would've been like if he had not been raised in shadows. Seeing how Dawn lived unintentionally taught him what it looked like to live in the light of day (but make no mistake, he really did have every intention in teaching all of his tricks to Dawn eventually. But not yet...)
ooo
Mr. Snuggles was nothing but a lump of fluff encased in a pink cloth shaped like a bear. At least until he touched Dawn's hand for the very first time. The moment he first laid pink fluffy paw on her, it was as if her heartbeat transferred over into him, and he came alive after that very first moment they were together. They were now bound as friends for life, their lives and souls intertwined. For him, the phrase "darkest just before Dawn" had been quite literal, but now that she was finally here, he was ready to start a new day. Dawn had given him his first breath of life, and of fresh air. She had unwittingly been his first glimpse into the sun. It was something he would never forget. Now he was alive, and the darkness was gone, turned into a beautiful sunrise to a beautiful life.
ooo
Dawn was a very bright and bubbly young soul, to say the least. She did have a bit of a temper, and a very serious mean streak, but around the precious few who managed to catch her eye or win her heart, she could be an absolute delight, a ball of sunshine! She could be the light, bright and warm. She liked to laugh and play, to sing and dance. Her room was bedecked in every sparkly and pink thing the world had to offer. It was almost blinding because of how bright it all was, but it still was never enough. She would never hesitate to add more pink into her possession whenever it was possible, even though pretty much every square inch of her dominion was already literally glittering with shiny trinkets.
"Pretty, pretty, pretty!" she giggled and clapped as she admired the new dress her father bought her. It was a poofy little ballgown, bright pink and covered with silver and gold glitter. It looked just like the rest of everything she owned.
ooo
Darkness, blackness and shadow. More literal than Crumhorn had ever intended and more unpleasant than Mr. Snuggles had ever seen before. When Dawn began to finally grow up (against her father and teddy's wishes) her entire world began to change. Black replaced pink. Silver replaced gold. Leather replaced lace. Punk replaced pop. Shadow replaced sunshine. And most importantly, queen replaced princess.
"Gah! Soooo embarrassing!" Dawn covered her eyes and ears as her father and teddy both tried to show her old photos of the days when she practically bathed in pink. Now, it was all black. Black dresses, black hair, black makeup, black jewelry, black accessories, black possessions, black soul. Her eyes were purple instead of pink or brown, one of them covered up by a strand of her redone hair. She covered the one visible eye and shook her head as her father and teddy continued to try and remind her of who she used to be.
"That's not me!" she cried out. "That's not me! That's not me at all!"
"Sure it is, sweetheart! It's who you used to be!" Augustus tried gently.
"Used to be!" Dawn echoed angrily. "Not who I am anymore! That's an old me, a past me, a dead me!"
"But is the new you much better?" Mr. Snuggles pouted and Dawn shot him a death glare.
"It is who I prefer to be!" she harrumphed as she turned up her little nose at her old photos. "This is the real me!" she continued to insist. "It is, it is, it IS!" and nothing would convince her otherwise. But she wasn't entirely wrong...
Although Dawn's past as the glittery pink princess was irreversible, she was not wrong in saying that she was a changed woman now. She had indeed grown up and grown away from old things. This new her was just as real as the old her used to be. It was all a matter of timing. What she was yesterday was not what she was today, and vice versa, and both were equally valid because, as time continued to progress onward, every yesterday would become a today would become a tomorrow. Life was but a series of shifting phases and Dawn had just entered her next one.
"This is who I am!" she cried angrily to herself as she surveyed her blackened room. "This is me!" and nothing would change her mind. It wasn't just darkest before Dawn anymore, it was also darkest during and after Dawn as well...
ooo
But the old phrase "darkest just before dawn" always implied that something better and brighter would come eventually, and the same applied to Ms. Crumhorn herself. There finally came a day when she began to see the error in her ways. It was not her desire to grow up that was the issue, it was how she proceeded. She equated growing up with growing rude and that was her problem. She mistook maturity for meanness and that was what had made everything so difficult for everyone, including herself and the people she loved most in the world. But after she finally had that all figured out, it was like a lightbulb had turned on in her head and all the pieces came together. She could grow old without growing up, so to speak, and she didn't have to sacrifice her childish pleasures in order to be adult. The two could coexist.
With this new message in mind, then, an illuminated Dawn managed to go back and move forward at the same time. She no longer wore all pink and she no longer wore all black. She wore a rainbow of colors and mixed and matched. Adulthood and childhood collided in the best possible way as Dawn finally reached the place she had so longed to be at. It was always darkest just before Dawn, but the day that would follow would always be bright and sunny, as the world came to see from its youngest Crumhorn.
And that was when Dawn realized another way the metaphor about darkness before dawn was apt for her. The phrase always said "before Dawn", as if the true Dawn would only come after all the darkness passed away.
"And it's startlingly true, if I do say so myself," the young poodle mused as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Today she wore a pink shirt and black pants. Yesterday it had been a purplish dress. Who knew what it might be tomorrow? But the specifics didn't really matter anymore now that Dawn finally felt as though she had found her identity.
She found who she was and who she wanted to be. She was more certain now than she had ever been before, and with that newfound security came a newfound happiness. She was the real Dawn now. Whoever she used to be before was not the be-all/end-all. It was this Dawn, standing before the mirror today, and that was because this Dawn knew something that her other two "versions" had not: that life was always changing. She didn't expect this new look on her to last forever, but she didn't mind, and that was what made her feel more real now than ever before. Even if this phase would pass as well, Dawn's simple awareness of it was what made it feel right to her. And that awareness would never end, so to some extent, this was indeed her final transformation, so to speak. This was the real and final her, the self-aware and wise Dawn. Even if her personality went though another change, a part of it was timeless now and that was why she felt as though she had finally reached that be-all/end-all version of herself.
She looked wildly different from either of her two old styles, but that was because the day always looked much different than the dawn. The night was black and the dawn was pink, but the day was always golden as the sun reached its highest and fullest point in the sky.
"It's darkest just before Dawn," she told her reflection. "But we aren't dealing with "before" anymore. We're dealing with now! The dawn has come and it's time for the day to begin!" she declared and outside, the sun was shining high in the sky. She strutted out towards it with a confident but relaxed smile on her face, feeling far more different than she'd ever felt before.
AN: It's obvious why I chose to write this fic, but in all seriousness, I really do feel like the phrase is more apt than we realize. It really was darkest just before the true dawn emerged, and then after it did, the dawn changed into the full and real and complete day, which looks far different than any time that came before it. Dawn is a changed woman now, having past her own sunrise, her own genesis, to finally step into the light of her own day.
Also, I threw in her dad and Snuggles because I feel like they, too, are affected by her transition from darkness to sunrise to sunhigh.
Forgive me if any of this sounds too poetic or pretentious, I was just musing upon Dark Dawn (not Pink Dawn, Dark Dawn) again because I honestly ADORE her character, as if that wasn't obvious enough already, LOL