The Wavering Windmills

The tale of the Baudelaire orphans did not conclude with Count Olaf, though one could say it was the end of a chapter, or perhaps of the fourteenth chapter. Life is not like a story, where you can turn the final page and events will cease to happen, it continues on and on long after the volume is closed.

The series of unfortunate events that has pursued the Baudelaires throughout their lives continued some years later. They spent a year on the island, and a further year travelling, avoiding encounters with fierce female Finnish pirates, and other such unpleasant experiences. When they returned to land they spent much of the following years searching for further secrets.

Though they might have unearthed certain answers, there was much they did not yet know. Their travels and their searching took them to the Wavering Windmills, tall structures, frames of wood and metal that were interconnected and rickety, a word that here means very old and very unstable and very easy to break, a fact that Violet discovered for herself when climbing to the central windmill when her foot went through the wooden plank below her.

She quickly drew her foot back up, and hurried on.

VFD was supposed to have stored certain texts and data here, in a Safe Place, concealed high up in the centre of the windmills. It was hard to access, and not a place anyone who did not have reason to look there would go. Klaus was with Sunny and Beatrice, who was just a few years old, looking after them at the library while he researched the town's history and any further clues.

It was decided that Violet would go to the windmills. As old and unstable as they were, as complex as the maze of thin, rickety bridges joining them were, her inventive mind was a perfect match. She had volunteered to climb them, in search of any remaining text or books or tales concerning the secretive organisation.

It is at this point I must urge you to find some other story to fill your time. There are many tales which do not feature the level of embarrassment poor Violet is soon to find herself going through. You could be reading a story where there are no unpleasant grey areas, where only good things happen to good people, rather than this, a story of red faces and far too much exposed skin.

When Violet reached the tallest windmill, and sidestepped around the thin platform on the outside, before stepping into it. It was the only one of the Wavering Windmills to have any interior, the rest of the spindly towers being out in the open. Nervously she looked out, down towards the bare ground and then the city not far off where her brother and family were waiting for her.

There was a crack. Violet turned, her eyes widening to see that the bridge she'd crossed to reach the central windmill had broken entirely. Putting her foot through a plank had been enough to ruin whatever structural integrity it still had.

Violet swallowed, then drew back inside, out of the wind. Air whistled through the cracks in the wall, but it gave her space to think.

The thin wooden pathways connecting each of the windmills were complicated. Only that one led to the centre, and it came from a tower too distant to reach with what was left, half the bridge sticking out over a dizzying drop.

But there would be some way out... The map Klaus had found did not resemble the network she'd had to navigate to get here. Maybe that meant something?

She looked out the window again. This windmill was quite secure, without giving any appearance of being such. One could only climb up to the higher altitudes from other windmills, meaning she had no way down from this one; finding one's way through the maze was quite another challenge, and now with her one route broken...

Violet looked around. There were windmills that were closer, but the half-there bridge didn't get close enough to them. Although...

Looking around the chamber, there were exposed gears. That was to be expected in a windmill, but Violet couldn't help but notice they didn't all seem to join up, or at least didn't seem to have any obvious purpose. If that turned, then that would turn... There were loose belts on the floor, snapped and broken from age, giving some indication of what might have once been the case, but there was no more than that.

But...

She looked out the window again, and felt a moment of delight. In the usual, elaborate fashion of VFD there seemed to be an option; the head of the windmill wasn't fixed. It looked as though it could turn, and no doubt that was what some of those gears were for.

If she could just repair them, get enough friction joining one to the others... Inspired, Violet pulled her hair ribbon from her pocket and tied her hair back as she did whenever she had a mind to invent something.

She surveyed the gears, mentally mapping out what would have to change for the rotation of the windmill to apply enough **** to get the gears to turn. Experimentally she pushed one with her bare hands only to find it push itself back into its original position. So, it took a constant **** to move; whatever she got to start it turning would need to stay there.

It was then Violet made her discovery.

Discovery is an odd word. The prefix 'Dis' most often refers to negative occurences. For example, windmills in a state of disrepair have not been repaired or fixed recently, leading to events such as a girl snapping a walkway when she walked along it and trapping herself at the top of one.

Discovery meanwhile, is something that can often be joyful. One might discover an old friend, or discover a new favourite meal, or one might discover that a complicated system of gears and pulleys had only three key points necessary to achieve a desired result.

Another word beginning with 'dis' is 'distress,' a word with which Violet was very familiar. It describes a sense of panic, of worry, such as realising that something large would be required to jam two gears in place, after two smaller things were used as improvised belts, and that there were no such tools available within the small chamber no matter how she looked around.

And then there is the word 'dismay,' which describes the feeling an eighteen year old girl might feel if she is somewhere high and alone and far from her room when she realises that she has the perfect tools for what she needs, but they were currently in use covering up her body.

Violet looked around the room again, but couldn't shake the impression that it did seem like it was the only way to turn the windmill and angle the bridge so that it pointed towards one of the closer windmills. At least, from there, she could make her way down. Then she could worry about other things.

Violet swallowed, and slowly started to undo the dress she had on. Once the top was unbuttoned she stepped out of it, letting it crumple on the floor. It was dark, fairly stiff, too tough to tear but just flexible enough that if she pushed it behind one specific gear she ought to be able to jam it in place, and stop it getting in the way of what else she had to do.

But as for what that else was... Violet looked around, despite knowing that at this altitude she had to be alone, rubbing her upper arms awkwardly while she wore only her underwear and her shoes.

Shoes and socks were useless for any task here, too small to change anything. On the other hand... Violet reached back, undoing her bra. She slipped it off her arms before, trying to focus on the task at hand, walked closer to the wall. She stood on her tiptoes, reaching up with both arms while topless, to wind one strap around one spindle, and loop the other around a cog.

At a gust of wind, the spindle started turning. Violet breathed a sigh of relief; she crossed her arms over her boobs, a little nervously. That was step one...

Violet crouched and pushed her panties down her legs, tugging her shoes through the holes, then straightened quickly, her cheeks flushing pink as she found herself as good as nude out in the open. True, she had her dress crumpled on the floor, but not for long.

She fiddled with her underwear for a moment, improvising knots to tighten each of the gaps that had once been for her legs, before looping them around two other gears. As one was pushed right, so too was the other, causing more gears to turn...

Last of all was pushing her dress into the crack behind a gear, jamming it in place so that its motions wouldn't interrupt the combination she'd just set up. If she'd imagined everything correctly...

Her success was tempered by one other problem. Her clothes had been the only materials available for use in that small room, leaving Violet to become well-acquainted with one more 'dis' word. Violet shuffled awkwardly, staring at the gears as she tried to forget how she must look, visibly fully disrobed.

There was a gust of wind, and a grinding. Gears turned, a bra pulled, panties tugged, her dress stuck; slowly the windmill started to move, reliant on each article of clothing else it would quickly revert back to its original position.

Violet inhaled, then began to moved outside-

Then quickly pulled herself back in, cheeks hot at the sudden feel of a breeze against her nude body. She hadn't thought about how it would feel, clambering over the bridges like that, but worse she'd almost forgotten why she was up her.

Quickly, she scurried around the chamber, peering at each corner. She'd looked over everything before, but that was to find anything that could be used as a tool. Not for information about VFD.

Information she found in a folded scrap of paper wedged into a gap between two bricks. She glanced at it just long enough to identify that it was some kind of a map, before slipping it into her shoe to ensure the wind wouldn't take it. It was a good lead.

It just didn't help her situation. Cheeks crimson, Violet Baudelaire walked tentatively to the door out of the small chamber again, more wind rushing in. She peered out, steeled herself, then walked out into the open.

At least the Wavering Windmills weren't too busy. She just hoped no one else turned up.

She sidestepped along the narrow pathway as she felt the windmill's head turn, her bare ass rubbing against the stones, her hands too busy clinging to the wall to cover up the sight that awaited anyone looking up. The air rushed past her face, skating over her tits, her bare pussy, as she kept moving. She bit her lip.

When she reached the bridge she crouched, crawling as quickly as she could over it, wincing as it wobbled. The broken end was getting closer to another of the windmills; she crawled, nude and hunched forwards, relying on the balance a lower centre of gravity got her. As she reached the end and as the bridge swayed she stood to jump, leaping over to a more stable windmill.

Only this one had no room to go inside, leaving her standing out in the open, relying on what she could remember about the maze she'd navigated to get this far in before she could get down. And then even when she was down, she'd be stuck wearing nothing but her shoes.

Violet flushed, trying to catch her breath, still hyperaware of the wind rushing past her exposed body. Panting, the very flustered damsel started to move along the walkways again.