Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on May 21, 2011 16:32:22 GMT -5
Good afternoon/evening, everyone.
I wrote this for Tiago for his birthday this year, and wanted to share it with you all as well. For those who are currently reading his amazing fanfic series, Yet Another Series of Unfortunate Events, this fanfiction is set between The Awful Asylum and The Ominous Orphanage. It can also be interpreted as a sequel to All Tomorrow's Parties, another of my fics that connects to Tiago's ficverse.
Author’s Disclaimer: I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events or any of its characters or places. They belong to Lemony Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler. All other characters and places not associated with the canon belong to Tiago Squalor.
Rating: T (for language and references to death).
Genre: Angst/Friendship
Story-Type: One-Shot
Summary: Compassion comes in many forms… Even those of a disguised nature…
There[/i] were few people whom Esmé Squalor had encountered in her thirty-six years that had shown her compassion. It was these individuals who had earned a special place in her heart—as villainous a heart as it was.
The first of these people were Holden Salinger and Francesca Finch, Esmé’s parents. While Esmé held dearly to memories of her mother, she had done her best to forget her father, who she blamed for Francesca’s tragic death. Esmé had mourned the loss of her father as genuinely as she had that of her mother. Years had passed before she saw Holden’s actions for what they were, or so she thought. Were it not for his decision to marry Estelle, Beatrice’s mother, then Francesca would not have taken such a desperate road.
The second person was Agnes Finch, Esmé’s aunt and the wife of Augustus Finch, Francesca’s older brother. Agnes had tried her hardest to be a mother figure to Esmé, after Francesca had been committed to Addams Asylum. Agnes, who had been as pretty as Francesca, was blessed with the gift of comforting those in distress. Such was a significant part of the reason why her death had affected Esmé as strongly as her mother’s had.
The third person was Beatrice, Esmé’s sister who was younger by two years. Yet, just as she had discarded memories of her father, Esmé did her best not to think about her late sister. Not because Beatrice had joined their parents in death, but because of the way she had betrayed the one person who had loved her best in all the world.
The fourth person was Bertrand Baudelaire, the first person Esmé had ever loved from a romantic standpoint. And, just as her sister was, Bertrand, too, was guilty of betraying Esmé. Such betrayal had been a combined accident of both Beatrice and Bertrand. Such was an accident that had played a major role in Esmé’s decision to abandon everything she’d been taught, and join the villainous side of the schism.
The fifth person was Jerome Squalor, Esmé’s husband and the pawn in one of her primary schemes. But, just as aqueous martinis are said not to be in again for the next six months, it is a belief amongst my cousin and myself that it is highly unlikely that Esmé Squalor will ever have an interest in restoring ties with Jerome or any member of our family.
The sixth person was Carlo Casanova, a man who had—for a brief period, at least—been Esmé’s fiancée. Despite having nothing against him per say, Esmé couldn’t say she hoped to see Carlo again for quite some time. Carlo, despite being devilishly handsome and exceptionally charming, had that same neediness as Jerome. Esmé couldn’t help but expect Carlo to reenact the attempts Jerome had made at the Hotel Denouement in the hopes of winning her back, if she and Carlo were ever reunited.
The seventh person was Caterina Casanova, Carlo’s younger sister. Caterina was a girl who was as unafraid of expressing herself as anyone could be, a quality shown in her desire to dress people up in costume. Esmé had felt an immediate connection to Caterina and, as a result, taken Caterina on as one of her collaborators in one of her previous ploys.
The eighth person was Felicia Casanova, the mother of Carlo and Caterina. Felicia had first appeared in Esmé’s life many years earlier, in the form of a personal savior. At the time Esmé had been a mere seven years old, standing powerless against the admonishment of her stepmother. Were it not for Felicia’s interference, then the life of the future villainess might not have turned out quite the same.
It was Felix Casanova, the youngest of the Casanova siblings, who was the ninth and final person in Esmé’s handful of supporters. Not only did she consider him her partner in crime, but her dearest friend. For, out of the previous eight, it was Felix who had stuck by Esmé the longest. Although they did not acknowledge it, Esmé and Felix had each been corrupted by the tribulations of V.F.D. While they insisted that their villainous actions were for the greater good, an outsider could not deny that these two collegues were both guilty of doing harm against those whose interest in them was that of romance. It was in hushed undertones, in the dead of night, behind doors bolted shut from both the inside and the outside, that such conversations were held. Conversations that were so circumspectly carried out that not even the diminutive microphones that I, disguised as a maid, had secretly planted inside the breath mints that I placed on each pillow of every bed in every room at a hotel in Venice, Italy, ever managed to confirm what was said.
It was on a crisp autumn morning in early September, just as the leaves had begun to change color and fall from the trees, that Esmé Squalor and Felix Casanova found themselves in a location that neither had ever expected to stand together. This location was a necropolis, a word which here means ‘graveyard’, a term used to refer to a place where those who have died are laid to rest. The area occupied by the villainous compatriots was home to a private tomb made of solid stone. Raising her slim, gloved hand, Esmé placed her palm on the cold surface. The tenderness expressed by the tapered fingers as they slowly traced the letters carved into the stone would have seemed greatly out of character to those only familiar with her iniquitous exterior. But for Felix Casanova, such conduct delivered no surprises. It was this side of Esmé that only Felix was acquainted with, for he had known her longer than most and better than all.
“You were named for her,” Esmé commented, the tip of one finger pressing into the fissure of the ‘a’ in ‘Felicia’. “Though I suppose you of all people must know that.” She spoke with a mildness that harmonized the activity of her fingers.
“It was the first thing I ever remember being told.” Felix’s gaze shifted from Esmé’s face to his mother’s tomb. “Other than how I was to blame for her death, so my father insists.”
“Your father was a damned idiot.” There was rarely a limit to Esmé’s hostility, especially when it came to those she loved. She placed her other hand on her comrade’s shoulder, and the pair retreated to a bench placed near the tomb. They huddled closely together, for the temperature appeared to have dropped abruptly. She shivered in her layer of stylish but lightweight clothing. Her outfit consisted of a chic, black skirt suit, with frilled gray cuffs. She wore a pair of black silk gloves, black stockings, and black pumps. The veil of her black felt hat plunged to shield all but her blood-red lips. The brightness of her lips, combined with the darkness of her clothing, made her alabaster complexion appear even paler. A tress of dark hair curled outwards against the side of her slender, swan-like neck.
Just as Esmé was, Felix, too, was garbed all in black. Everything, from the felt derby on his head to the polished brogans on his feet, was worn in respect for the woman who had sacrificed her life for his. The master of disguise felt a rare tear slip from his eye, just as his brother’s ex-fiancée unleashed a delicate sneeze. So strange and vulnerable was this sound, whose creator was someone who held over others such a strong sense of fear and authority. Yet Felix was unable to keep the small smile of glee from his lips. “Bless you.” Shrugging out of his wool frock coat, he moved to slip it around Esmé’s shoulders.
“You are such a gentleman, Felix.” Esmé sniffed, and pulled the coat tighter around herself. “Why is it that so many straight men lack your assets?”
Drawing an arm around her, Felix answered with the confidence of someone whose disguises succeed in hiding all but what is in their heart: “I may exemplify a man’s physicality, my dear, but my mind and my soul echo the sentiment of a woman.”
Esmé’s smile, although razor-sharp, was softened slightly by a cordiality just evident enough for Felix to detect. “Thank God. Because I don’t think I could stand another year schlepping from one location to the next with a male chauvinist for a cohort.”
Esmé had a tendency to speak more than a little ill of Olaf at times; Felix suspected it was done to numb the pain of having been abandoned by her ex-boyfriend in a burning hotel more than a year ago. He knew this was true because he often used his insensitivity to mask the sting that Lars Gabriel’s absence had left in what had once been a noble heart. As if to ward off the memories of his own maudlin past, Felix chuckled lightly. “Forgive me, Esmé. But for a moment you reminded me of none other than Elizabeth Anwhistle.”
A bitter scowl was Felix’s only answer. It was a well known fact that Esmé and Elizabeth were the definition of what Felicia Casanova had often used to refer to Carlo and Carlotta. (Carlotta was Carlo’s other sister and the same age as Esmé.) “‘It is those you would expect to be the closest of friends,’” Felicia had said, “‘who sometimes end up being the best of enemies.’” While Carlo’s and Carlotta’s tiffs had been discarded upon the conclusion of childhood, they were still far from being what one would refer to as friends. Being the youngest, Felix’s earliest memories of his brother and sister were of sitting in his playpen, looking from one to the other in awe while they argued mercilessly over whose turn it was to hold him. It was this behavior that had led Felix to prefer Caterina, whose tranquility and gentleness was that of a mother for her child. As he grew older, he learned that it was Caterina who embodied the same features as Felicia—both physical and mental respectively. In an attempt to feel closer to the mother he had never known, Felix had opened the door and his heart to the first of what would prove to be the three most cherished relationships of his young life.
“Sometimes I wonder,” he mused, and again cast his eyes upon the tomb, “what my mother would have thought if she had lived to see me a man.”
There was no need for Esmé to ask Felix what he meant by this. The memory of Don Abramo’s brutal death had been permanently etched in her mind like the scars of treachery left by Beatrice and Bertrand across her heart. Felix had done what Esmé would never have had the guts to do, let alone contemplate—the ultimate crime that had made even her own villainous blood run colder than the winter waters of Ophelia’s River.
Esmé set her black handbag in her lap so that she could rest her hand on top of Felix’s. “The most useful advice I ever received at that god-awful boarding school,” she began, “is how some possibilities are better left unexplored. I believe it was that foolishly noble instructor, who forced me to read that tedious book that ended up a pile of ashes in the fireplace. But she did say something I found to be particularly clever. She said that, in being endlessly careless, you will forever be gambling with the contents of Pandora’s Box.”
Felix raised a probing blond eyebrow. “Is that why you are always so meticulous when it comes to your schemes, Esmé?”
“Darling Felix…” Lifting her veil away from her face, Esmé imparted to him the rarest of rare warm smiles. “Don’t you mean our schemes?”
Were it not for his preference, Felix would have sworn there was something more to that smile Esmé was giving him. Even so, they had never regarded their feelings for one another as anything beyond that of one sibling for another. One could always count on the other to keep secrets and to offer comfort—preferably when no one else was watching. They were, above all else, each other’s greatest supporter and closest confidant. Felix’s recollection of a girl no older than eight peering at him through the bars of his crib was no illusion. The longing in those sad, brown eyes was still noticeably defined in the face of the woman sitting beside him now. If he listened closely enough, he could still hear the voice of that same little girl as clearly as he had that first day. The day Holden Salinger had brought his two daughters to visit Don Abramo Casanova and his four children at their summer retreat in San Francisco…
“I don’t have a brother, but if I did, I’d want him to be like you.”
The memory of the small hand reaching in between the bars to grasp Felix’s filled his thoughts as he looked down at where his fingers lay coiled through Esmé’s. The fact that his own hand had once been less than twice the size of hers was almost unfeasible. Nearly thirty years had passed between then and now. Yet here they were: two lifelong compatriots whose friendship had first arisen from the secure precincts of a mother’s womb.
I wrote this for Tiago for his birthday this year, and wanted to share it with you all as well. For those who are currently reading his amazing fanfic series, Yet Another Series of Unfortunate Events, this fanfiction is set between The Awful Asylum and The Ominous Orphanage. It can also be interpreted as a sequel to All Tomorrow's Parties, another of my fics that connects to Tiago's ficverse.
Reflections of Friendship
[/b][/size]Author’s Disclaimer: I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events or any of its characters or places. They belong to Lemony Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler. All other characters and places not associated with the canon belong to Tiago Squalor.
Rating: T (for language and references to death).
Genre: Angst/Friendship
Story-Type: One-Shot
Summary: Compassion comes in many forms… Even those of a disguised nature…
~
There[/i] were few people whom Esmé Squalor had encountered in her thirty-six years that had shown her compassion. It was these individuals who had earned a special place in her heart—as villainous a heart as it was.
The first of these people were Holden Salinger and Francesca Finch, Esmé’s parents. While Esmé held dearly to memories of her mother, she had done her best to forget her father, who she blamed for Francesca’s tragic death. Esmé had mourned the loss of her father as genuinely as she had that of her mother. Years had passed before she saw Holden’s actions for what they were, or so she thought. Were it not for his decision to marry Estelle, Beatrice’s mother, then Francesca would not have taken such a desperate road.
The second person was Agnes Finch, Esmé’s aunt and the wife of Augustus Finch, Francesca’s older brother. Agnes had tried her hardest to be a mother figure to Esmé, after Francesca had been committed to Addams Asylum. Agnes, who had been as pretty as Francesca, was blessed with the gift of comforting those in distress. Such was a significant part of the reason why her death had affected Esmé as strongly as her mother’s had.
The third person was Beatrice, Esmé’s sister who was younger by two years. Yet, just as she had discarded memories of her father, Esmé did her best not to think about her late sister. Not because Beatrice had joined their parents in death, but because of the way she had betrayed the one person who had loved her best in all the world.
The fourth person was Bertrand Baudelaire, the first person Esmé had ever loved from a romantic standpoint. And, just as her sister was, Bertrand, too, was guilty of betraying Esmé. Such betrayal had been a combined accident of both Beatrice and Bertrand. Such was an accident that had played a major role in Esmé’s decision to abandon everything she’d been taught, and join the villainous side of the schism.
The fifth person was Jerome Squalor, Esmé’s husband and the pawn in one of her primary schemes. But, just as aqueous martinis are said not to be in again for the next six months, it is a belief amongst my cousin and myself that it is highly unlikely that Esmé Squalor will ever have an interest in restoring ties with Jerome or any member of our family.
The sixth person was Carlo Casanova, a man who had—for a brief period, at least—been Esmé’s fiancée. Despite having nothing against him per say, Esmé couldn’t say she hoped to see Carlo again for quite some time. Carlo, despite being devilishly handsome and exceptionally charming, had that same neediness as Jerome. Esmé couldn’t help but expect Carlo to reenact the attempts Jerome had made at the Hotel Denouement in the hopes of winning her back, if she and Carlo were ever reunited.
The seventh person was Caterina Casanova, Carlo’s younger sister. Caterina was a girl who was as unafraid of expressing herself as anyone could be, a quality shown in her desire to dress people up in costume. Esmé had felt an immediate connection to Caterina and, as a result, taken Caterina on as one of her collaborators in one of her previous ploys.
The eighth person was Felicia Casanova, the mother of Carlo and Caterina. Felicia had first appeared in Esmé’s life many years earlier, in the form of a personal savior. At the time Esmé had been a mere seven years old, standing powerless against the admonishment of her stepmother. Were it not for Felicia’s interference, then the life of the future villainess might not have turned out quite the same.
It was Felix Casanova, the youngest of the Casanova siblings, who was the ninth and final person in Esmé’s handful of supporters. Not only did she consider him her partner in crime, but her dearest friend. For, out of the previous eight, it was Felix who had stuck by Esmé the longest. Although they did not acknowledge it, Esmé and Felix had each been corrupted by the tribulations of V.F.D. While they insisted that their villainous actions were for the greater good, an outsider could not deny that these two collegues were both guilty of doing harm against those whose interest in them was that of romance. It was in hushed undertones, in the dead of night, behind doors bolted shut from both the inside and the outside, that such conversations were held. Conversations that were so circumspectly carried out that not even the diminutive microphones that I, disguised as a maid, had secretly planted inside the breath mints that I placed on each pillow of every bed in every room at a hotel in Venice, Italy, ever managed to confirm what was said.
It was on a crisp autumn morning in early September, just as the leaves had begun to change color and fall from the trees, that Esmé Squalor and Felix Casanova found themselves in a location that neither had ever expected to stand together. This location was a necropolis, a word which here means ‘graveyard’, a term used to refer to a place where those who have died are laid to rest. The area occupied by the villainous compatriots was home to a private tomb made of solid stone. Raising her slim, gloved hand, Esmé placed her palm on the cold surface. The tenderness expressed by the tapered fingers as they slowly traced the letters carved into the stone would have seemed greatly out of character to those only familiar with her iniquitous exterior. But for Felix Casanova, such conduct delivered no surprises. It was this side of Esmé that only Felix was acquainted with, for he had known her longer than most and better than all.
“You were named for her,” Esmé commented, the tip of one finger pressing into the fissure of the ‘a’ in ‘Felicia’. “Though I suppose you of all people must know that.” She spoke with a mildness that harmonized the activity of her fingers.
“It was the first thing I ever remember being told.” Felix’s gaze shifted from Esmé’s face to his mother’s tomb. “Other than how I was to blame for her death, so my father insists.”
“Your father was a damned idiot.” There was rarely a limit to Esmé’s hostility, especially when it came to those she loved. She placed her other hand on her comrade’s shoulder, and the pair retreated to a bench placed near the tomb. They huddled closely together, for the temperature appeared to have dropped abruptly. She shivered in her layer of stylish but lightweight clothing. Her outfit consisted of a chic, black skirt suit, with frilled gray cuffs. She wore a pair of black silk gloves, black stockings, and black pumps. The veil of her black felt hat plunged to shield all but her blood-red lips. The brightness of her lips, combined with the darkness of her clothing, made her alabaster complexion appear even paler. A tress of dark hair curled outwards against the side of her slender, swan-like neck.
Just as Esmé was, Felix, too, was garbed all in black. Everything, from the felt derby on his head to the polished brogans on his feet, was worn in respect for the woman who had sacrificed her life for his. The master of disguise felt a rare tear slip from his eye, just as his brother’s ex-fiancée unleashed a delicate sneeze. So strange and vulnerable was this sound, whose creator was someone who held over others such a strong sense of fear and authority. Yet Felix was unable to keep the small smile of glee from his lips. “Bless you.” Shrugging out of his wool frock coat, he moved to slip it around Esmé’s shoulders.
“You are such a gentleman, Felix.” Esmé sniffed, and pulled the coat tighter around herself. “Why is it that so many straight men lack your assets?”
Drawing an arm around her, Felix answered with the confidence of someone whose disguises succeed in hiding all but what is in their heart: “I may exemplify a man’s physicality, my dear, but my mind and my soul echo the sentiment of a woman.”
Esmé’s smile, although razor-sharp, was softened slightly by a cordiality just evident enough for Felix to detect. “Thank God. Because I don’t think I could stand another year schlepping from one location to the next with a male chauvinist for a cohort.”
Esmé had a tendency to speak more than a little ill of Olaf at times; Felix suspected it was done to numb the pain of having been abandoned by her ex-boyfriend in a burning hotel more than a year ago. He knew this was true because he often used his insensitivity to mask the sting that Lars Gabriel’s absence had left in what had once been a noble heart. As if to ward off the memories of his own maudlin past, Felix chuckled lightly. “Forgive me, Esmé. But for a moment you reminded me of none other than Elizabeth Anwhistle.”
A bitter scowl was Felix’s only answer. It was a well known fact that Esmé and Elizabeth were the definition of what Felicia Casanova had often used to refer to Carlo and Carlotta. (Carlotta was Carlo’s other sister and the same age as Esmé.) “‘It is those you would expect to be the closest of friends,’” Felicia had said, “‘who sometimes end up being the best of enemies.’” While Carlo’s and Carlotta’s tiffs had been discarded upon the conclusion of childhood, they were still far from being what one would refer to as friends. Being the youngest, Felix’s earliest memories of his brother and sister were of sitting in his playpen, looking from one to the other in awe while they argued mercilessly over whose turn it was to hold him. It was this behavior that had led Felix to prefer Caterina, whose tranquility and gentleness was that of a mother for her child. As he grew older, he learned that it was Caterina who embodied the same features as Felicia—both physical and mental respectively. In an attempt to feel closer to the mother he had never known, Felix had opened the door and his heart to the first of what would prove to be the three most cherished relationships of his young life.
“Sometimes I wonder,” he mused, and again cast his eyes upon the tomb, “what my mother would have thought if she had lived to see me a man.”
There was no need for Esmé to ask Felix what he meant by this. The memory of Don Abramo’s brutal death had been permanently etched in her mind like the scars of treachery left by Beatrice and Bertrand across her heart. Felix had done what Esmé would never have had the guts to do, let alone contemplate—the ultimate crime that had made even her own villainous blood run colder than the winter waters of Ophelia’s River.
Esmé set her black handbag in her lap so that she could rest her hand on top of Felix’s. “The most useful advice I ever received at that god-awful boarding school,” she began, “is how some possibilities are better left unexplored. I believe it was that foolishly noble instructor, who forced me to read that tedious book that ended up a pile of ashes in the fireplace. But she did say something I found to be particularly clever. She said that, in being endlessly careless, you will forever be gambling with the contents of Pandora’s Box.”
Felix raised a probing blond eyebrow. “Is that why you are always so meticulous when it comes to your schemes, Esmé?”
“Darling Felix…” Lifting her veil away from her face, Esmé imparted to him the rarest of rare warm smiles. “Don’t you mean our schemes?”
Were it not for his preference, Felix would have sworn there was something more to that smile Esmé was giving him. Even so, they had never regarded their feelings for one another as anything beyond that of one sibling for another. One could always count on the other to keep secrets and to offer comfort—preferably when no one else was watching. They were, above all else, each other’s greatest supporter and closest confidant. Felix’s recollection of a girl no older than eight peering at him through the bars of his crib was no illusion. The longing in those sad, brown eyes was still noticeably defined in the face of the woman sitting beside him now. If he listened closely enough, he could still hear the voice of that same little girl as clearly as he had that first day. The day Holden Salinger had brought his two daughters to visit Don Abramo Casanova and his four children at their summer retreat in San Francisco…
“I don’t have a brother, but if I did, I’d want him to be like you.”
The memory of the small hand reaching in between the bars to grasp Felix’s filled his thoughts as he looked down at where his fingers lay coiled through Esmé’s. The fact that his own hand had once been less than twice the size of hers was almost unfeasible. Nearly thirty years had passed between then and now. Yet here they were: two lifelong compatriots whose friendship had first arisen from the secure precincts of a mother’s womb.
~The End~
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