Slinking back

[gardienne]

Who: Eponine and OPEN
What: Eponine slinks back to the Tribute Towers
Where: The Common Room of the Tribute Towers
When: Perhaps a week or so after her humiliating march through the Capitol
Warnings: I don't know. I'll update if necessary


She had vowed that she was never going to come back. She had vowed that never again would she take a single thing from the Capitol.

And yet, here she was, begging at their door.

She was still wearing the odd combination of dress and leggings and trainers she had grabbed however long ago when Harley had let her go, though they were coated in two week's worth of mud now, from where she had slept rough. Little bits of the orange wig were still stuck in her hair: bits of her own were missing from where she had yanked the wig free and pulled it out. But Eponine didn't care. She was hungry. She was cold and she was damp. And she was fed up of the peculiar looks, and the stares and the chortles and the whispers.

Aunamee will help me. Aunamee will show me how to fix it. Aunamee - the only man she was not too ashamed to go and see. Aunamee, who was every bit as rotten as she was - he'd tell her what to do. Surely he'd be dead by now?

She slipped into the Towers shortly after midnight had struck, hoping against hope that nobody would be about. First, a brandy. And then Aunamee.

Comments

[gardienne]

Eponine looked up. She had no idea who this man was, and quite frankly, she didn't really care. He was obviously taking the mick out of her. She replied coldly.

"I cannot believe, Monsieur, that you have not seen the newspapers. So many of them show me being led through the streets by Mademoiselle Harley, or carried over her shoulder, with my fake bottom on display. Do you truly expect me to believe that you do not know why I look so terrible?"

She tried to push her straggly hair back to hide the bald patches. "Is that enough for you, Sir?"

[akingalways]

"...I don't read the newspapers." For that matter, why was this girl so angry at him? "The only gossip I'm interested in at this point, is gossip that can help my District in the Games."

Particularly since the last time he'd paid attention to that kind of stuff, he got bitten. At the patches, though, he started a bit. He'd seen Harley before - pretty much she was one of the most annoying people in the Capitol, just nosy and interrupting conversations and weirdly violent in the Arenas and all that. It hadn't occurred to him, however, that Harley was violent outside of the Arena as well.

Maybe he should pay a little more attention, but...not too much. Or something. Jack didn't know.

"She...why haven't you reported her?!"

[gardienne]

"Who would listen?" She propped her left elbow on the table. Fastened tight about her wrist was a thick Capitol cuff, marking her out as a bother. Besides which... she was a thief. She'd get herself into trouble. Again.

"Monsieur," She turned back to her drink. "Leave me be."

[akingalways]

"But..." Well, yes, the cuff. It made him think of Calico. He quickly shook his head. "So what? She shouldn't be doing those things to you, anyhow!"

[gardienne]

Eponine shrugged. "I dare say it won't be the last time." She downed her brandy, ice clinking in the glass. "And there is nothing to be done. Perhaps I deserved it. Perhaps it doesn't matter anyway."

[akingalways]

At this, Jack's face darkened slightly.

"If she keeps doing those things to you, you should report it. Just because you have a cuff, doesn't mean someone won't listen to you."

[gardienne]

"Doesn't matter, Sir." She laughed hollowly, bitterly. "It ain't the worst thing that has happened to me yet, and I dare say more will go worse. I am not reporting her. I do not like the police. I shall have my revenge."

She swirled the melting ice in her glass moodily. "Have you seen Monsieur Aunamee?"

[akingalways]

"...Really? Do you think revenge is a good idea, against that nutjob?" And here, people thought he was crazy. Then again, he was also sober at the moment (and he usually was, but that was besides the point, in his mind), unlike Eponine. "Anyhow, I haven't. At least not at any parties or engagements where Tributes would be."

[gardienne]

"But where is he? He died, didn't he? He cannot still be alive..."

She sighed deeply. "Monsieur, I am sorry. You do not wish to listen to me, of course."

[akingalways]

"At this point? Anything is possible."

Jack truthfully didn't know, and it was clear Eponine was upset. And, as much as he didn't seem the type to particularly care when a girl was upset, it tugged at him a little. It reminded him a bit of his childhood. He almost imagined Martha was behind him, and he was ten again, and she was prodding him to not be a jerk and to keep an open ear. Just like in the books she'd read to him, correct? A King treated people with respect.

It was probably why he suddenly found himself sitting down across from her.

"Well, you've started talking. You may as well continue."

[gardienne]

Eponine just stared as Jack sat down opposite. Did he really think that she was going to just tell him everything? Jack was a perfect stranger to him. She didn't even know his name. She wasn't going to tell him everything. She could barely admit it to Ian, or to Eva, let alone to a stranger.

So she stared at her empty glass. "There is nothing more to it, Sir. Do not trouble yourself for me."

[akingalways]

"So that woman just did these things for the hell of it?"

That was disturbing if it were true, at least to Jack. And who knows? It was possibly true.

"Well, in any case, even if you're not going to tell me, now that I've spotted you, I can't just leave you like this. You need a shower and clothing." Did anyone else even offer those to her, he wondered? "And my Stylist...she can probably do something for your hair in the morning. Its no trouble to me, those things!"

His voice threatened to get louder as he continued.

"Because unless it somehow becomes a fashion statement or you're old, people shouldn't be forced to go around with bald spots!"

[gardienne]

Eponine didn't reply to Jack's question. She wasn't about to tell him that she was a thief!

"I don't want nothing from these people, Sir. Not a thing. I only came back for..." Well, food. Drink. Some clothes. And the little mirror that Sigma had bought her, with the porcelain roses stuck on the back of it. She still didn't look up.

[akingalways]

"Well, fine, then." Jack sighed. "Then just assume I'm not with 'those people'."

[gardienne]

Eponine raised an eyebrow at him, and raised a hand for an avox to bring her a glass of brandy. She didn't get brandy. She was handed water instead. She said nothing, but glared at the Avox as she took it.

"No? Then who are you, Monsieur?"

[akingalways]

Jack was glad it was water. She wasn't fully sober, and the bartender - or whoever was in control of the drinks - seemed to figure that.

"My name is Jack Atlas! King of--" He started to point towards the ceiling, but thought better of it, as it meant he'd start raising his voice. So, he quietly bringing his finger back down. "...Hn. I mean to say, I'm from District 8. Winner of the 72nd Hunger Games."

[gardienne]

"So you ARE one of them?" Eponine sipped her water, staring back at Jack.

[akingalways]

One of them. It was something Jack had once genuinely wanted, even prided himself for. But after his meeting with Penny, he began to realize that, no matter what he did, he really wasn't. Never could be, because of who he was, who he knew. Where he came from.

"Who knows, at this point?" He admitted. "I'm not a Capitol citizen. That's all I know."

[gardienne]

"But you are not a Tribute. You have won already. This is your world."

Eponine knocked back her water as if it were brandy.

"Well, tell me then, Monsieur Jaques, why it is that they want us all to be murderers. Because I have had enough. Why do they keep me here? I would rather die."

[akingalways]

What an excellent question.

"For peace," Jack replied, hoping that his answer sounded convincing. Maybe not to himself, or Eponine, but to others, who would be watching. "If the Games didn't exist...all of Panem would plunge into war, destruction."

At least that last part was true.

[gardienne]

Eponine wrinkled her nose. "I cannot believe that. And if I am to believe it, then, Sir, I wish that it would happen. Perhaps I could die for real and all would be well."

[akingalways]

That started him, a bit. Maybe it was because he didn't like the idea of death, or him dying, deep down. But this rather blunt desire caused him to look take aback.

"But...why would you want to die? Wouldn't you want to survive?"

[gardienne]

"Why should I? To die again in another arena? Or to be executed? Or to starve to death or freeze or be beaten to death by the only people I have left to me?" Eponine's voice got steadily louder.
"Me, I am a gat, a grizette, a gamine. Me, I am destined to die on a street somewhere, and left in a ditch till my body rots. My body rots whilst I live. Is there any point wanting to keep on? At least in death, there is quiet."

[akingalways]

"That's not--" Jack shook his head. "Death...its not...that's not the way to solve things."

Seeing someone express their desire to leave the Games was one thing. Expressing their wish to die...didn't she know, the Capitol didn't have to kill her to have her die?

[gardienne]

"No." She leaned her elbow on the table, and rested her head on her hands. "No, Sir. Death solves nothing. But it is an end. It makes it over. And Sir, in truth, I think I am spent. Had I been left at home, I would not have lasted this long, I know. Perhaps a few months, but that is it. By now, it'd be over. I do not know how much more I can take."