thecapitol | Living inside the shell

Entry tags:

Living inside the shell

Who| Mindy, open
What| The victor returns to the Capitol.
Where| Various Places
When| After being patched up
Warnings/Notes| Mindy, so foul language and descriptions of violence.

After the last few weeks, it was a breath of fresh air to be back in the Capitol. It was not something she would have easily admitted to herself, but at least here there was a sense of ease, knowing that she didn't have to be watching her back for death.

Mostly.

It was strange too. She almost felt alien, coming back here with the win. Death had at least made her an equal: now she was an object, to be striven for or hated or stared at or asked questions to. The crowing would come soon enough, she knew that, and what a pain that would be. Words to say,things to plan, and really, all she wanted was to make sure all her friends were all right. certain ones would hare her now, of course, but that was expected. She had, after all, let the games' nature affect her.

She was more than happy to be restored though: all the bleeding and the aching had taken a toll on her, and she was ready for aching she at least only inflicted on herself. There were several ways of going through with this.

1. The Training room. It was always Mindy's "go to" place, and even now there was no reason not to go. She was aware of the stares and the whispers, but she ignored these: after all, she'd come here last time after her defeat, why should her victory be any different? Mindy is hard at work on the treadmill, looking to see if she can increase her speed. There was a lot to think about, and this was the perfect way to NOT have to do that right now. Cut everyone out, hear some mindless music, run like the wind. Easy.

2. Eventually though, there's a place she needed to go: over to District 12, at the top tower to see Sandy. She hated, more than anything, to apologize or even explain herself unnecessarily but in this case it was needed. Sandy wasn't just some girl to her: she was one of the first friends she made, and after what she'd done, she needed to at least talk to her about it. The girl might not listen or care, but Mindy still needed to explain herself. She might run into anyone in District 12 though.

3. In her own tower, she made the unwise choice of attempting to sleep. After that, she thought a mushroom trip might have been more peaceful. Now she just had visions of the worse things in the Arena: beheading, throat slitting, bombs going off, and all of the dead looking at her as if she were the cause. It was pretty gory, and Mindy had awoken wide eyed and breathing hard. So anyone in the Tribute tower, especially in her District, can see the girl sitting in the room now, oversized shirt on, watching a replay of the games, almost glassy eyed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah, I figured. You'd think they'd have better reasons to arrest someone."

The question, yeah.

"Well, my mentor was a cop. Framed because of crooked cops, and doing ti-uh, prison. He got out. Adopted me since my parents died because he knew he couldn't work within the law to do it. He trained me so we could slowly take his men and destroy their little syndicate. I finally succeeded, but my mentor didn't make it."

An abridged version.

"Well, they chased me all through Paris. God only knows why - I weren't proper on the game anyway, and they still did. I was on all sorts of charges but they had to let me go when I swore up and down that I was only thirteen."

Eponine raised her eyebrows when Mindy said that her mentor had been with the police. And she looked surprised when Mindy said that he bad been in jail.

"I am sorry, Mademoiselle. For your mentor." She wasn't sure what a mentor was, but it sounded more like a father to her. And she could understand the sorrow of losing someone so close and so important.

"What do you mean, proper on the game?"

She could guess, but then she might be assuming something fucked up about Eponine that wasn't true, and today she was trying to avoid fights.

"Well. He died doing what was right. I can barely talk about him to fucking adults though. They keep harping on about my 'spoiled childhood,' like doing what I do makes me something tainted."

"I were never stood on the corners, never waitin' in the park for a man." Eponine hugged her arms to herself. "I just did what I were told. Better to close your eyes and end with a full belly than go back to a cold room with no money and a beating waiting for me." She didn't look at Mindy.

She shrugged though, at the girl's annoyance and laughed a hollow laugh. "Who am I to judge you, Mademoiselle, when I am so myself? You have lived a strange life - but it is yours. And now perhaps your life will be better now. They are jealous, I think."

"I see," Mindy said quietly. "Actually, in that way, maybe you're braver than me. I always had a fear of what would happen to me if I ever got taken alive. You know how some really, really vicious men are. When they want to beat you, they want to do it full, complete. And I hurt enough of their guys for them to want that. That's why I learned how to fight, with my dying breath."

But she did feel bad for Eponine. She'd heard people who hated her, who called her selfish. Well no wonder. Eponine, like her, was a product of her environment. It didn't forgive everything, it just explained it.

"I'm not used to comfort. If anything, that'll be new. I just want to make things better for other people. Like, my District."

"You can't think on it. You just... let them. It's easier than fighting." Eponine swallowed hard.

"If I see my Pa again, or Montparnasse, or the rest of the gang, they'll kill me. They'll beat me to death. Perhaps Montparnasse will have mercy and stab me, but perhaps not. He is fond of his fists. But that will be my end, and my body left in a ditch till the winter thaws and then I'll be tossed in a big pit outside Paris. But it is not so bad. It'll be longer if I fight it. I ain't gonna. I will just... let them do as they wish. My Pa will make it slow - I have lost him a lot."

She shrugged, and a sad smile stretched her lips and she sniffed.

"There is comfort here - but I do not know if you can help the Districts. I do not think they like us to interfere. The Peacekeeper said that the girls who hid me were whipped. You must be careful."

"I don't submit to anything easily," Mindy said, trying to keep her voice. Eponine had been nice enough not to do the whole shock a her words part, so she wasn't going be horrified by all the fucked up shit she was hearing about what had happened to this girl.

"You shouldn't either. Why let any fucker touch you or beat you like that? It hurts. It causes pain. Worst, they do it to make you feel like nothing. That's a fucking horrible thing to do to someone. People you're describing, they're the ones I make have a slow, painful death. And you make me feel less and less bad for it."

Actually, that was a lie. She never felt bad about that.

"I'm always careful. Careful enough anyway. But you're not, so that's why you're telling me to be, right?"

"Then that is what there is for you then, Mademoiselle. You must learn to give in. In Paris, Madame, I am nothing. The people who do it to me - us - I am a lucky girl, Madame - all of us, we are all nothing. We are dirt, scum. We don't matter. So you give in, for there is no fight to be had. "

Eponine shrugged flatly. "Madame, I should pray that you do not have to learn this - it is a hard lesson for a child - I learned it and I did not like it. But it is good if you can practise a little, before you have to. I just do not want you to be hurt."

"That's retarded." Mindy said it, plainly. "The only people who are dirt and scum are those people that make a living out of harming other people. You live and you breathe and you reason, so you're already a little smarter than animals. Only dumb ass human beings can be on top of the food chain and think, and still put themselves lower than someone else."

She made a face. "Practice having sex?! No thanks! I'm not one for that kind of shit. Bad enough what I hear about these auctions or whatever."

"What? NO!" Eponine was positively alarmed that Mindy had interpreted her words in that way. "No, not give in to that. Mindy, I tell you now, you must fight that. You are too young - well, no. Perhaps not in Paris - they like 'em - I know kids - oh, but it's wicked. I shan't stand to see it happen - no. Listen, if they try, you come to me, and I shall go in your place. I have done so for my sister before, and I will do it for you as well. But you must perhaps think to give in in other ways - in all other respects, to do as they say, because it will be easier for you."

There it was again. That meaning well bullshit coupled with her youth. It was like the arena had done nothing. Did they think she got lucky, that she panicked and killed people by accident because she didn't know what she was doing? FIVE people?

"Let's be clear on something, Eponine. I'm a kid. Yeah. Do you know how many limbs I've cut to pieces, how many people I kill? A LOT. I'm merciless when I do what I do, and I don't apologize for it. I'm not naive to the power men have when they can do whatever they want. I'm telling you this because there will never, EVER be a fucking time I let something like what you said happen in my stead. Not because I think I'm the biggest bad ass (and I AM) but because I fight for people like you. So you can live a life where you don't feel like shit. Where you find worth. I don't puss out on my lumps."

She stopped talking. "And you aren't shit. I don't care what they told you home. You're not there anymore."

"I know." Eponine replied lightly. "But for me, it truly doesn't matter. It has not happened to me always, but it has happened enough that I do not care. It doesn't matter. And I do not want you to be hurt. Mademoiselle, you are perhaps the most - what's your word? Bad ass? You are the most bad ass, but I do not want you to get hurt either. The Capitol has executed me for running away. They will do worse to you for that. And there is no need, truly, because I don't care. It is not that I think I am shit. I truly do not care any more."

Mindy put a hand to her head, shaking.

"Is this what its like when people try to understand why I'm a fighter and a killer. Look, I'll be the first to say that you don't choose where you grow: it comes to you. But this kind of stuff, just, I don't know. Shouldn't it be special for you, not just something you don't care about anymore. It's your body. It belongs to you and its the only thing we really have for ourselves here."

Sort of.

"Don't know.' Eponine had never really thought about it. She had buried her resentment a long time ago, and she didn't want to explore it now, on top of everything else.

"I do not even know if my body is mine. Everybody changes it how they like. That Madame Valeria - she were my stylist - she changed it without asking me or nothing. I just woke up and - I had yellow eyes and sharp teeth and long nails and a new chest. It is stupid, and I did not like it, but there was little I could do. It's just a thing, Mademoiselle. It is more important to stay alive another day than fuss about it. It is the same for you - you just do it, no? And then after a while, you forget to notice any more. It is the same."

"They can augment it, sure. In the end, that's their aim, really. They change what doesn't work, mess with what does until they think they have the perfect way to get people looking. In reality, a lot of it is about control. But you can at least make sure you own what's yours.

She blinked. "No. It's not something I just do. That's the point. I mean, if the people I killed were awful, I wouldn't care. But everyone that died by my hand, even thought they didn't stay dead? I have to live with it. And it sucks, and its awful, but the minute I tell myself it doesn't matter anyway, I'm just like them."

Eponine smiled sadly. "Then maybe I am just like them, Mademoiselle?"

There was little else to say, really.

"You're not though. You haven't killed. And you don't want to either, do you?"

"Yes I have. I killed Homura. She was going to kill Monsieur Marius. I - I couldn't let her do that." She ducked her head, wincing even as she admitted the murder.

"So that's what that was about. I heard on that. But she wanted you to, didn't she? That was what I heard."

Eponine shrugged uncomfortably. "Don't know. People tell me different things. I hate her for it though. That was about the only bad thing I have not done, murder. And now, even that is gone from me."

"I heard a lot about you. You' be surprised what gets around. I know you hate her: you apparently took something from her later that had her all hysterical and then one of my District members got involved and it got ugly."

"Her cat." Eponine rubbed her forehead ruefully. Harley's glue was still stuck to her skin and her hair, and remnants of the orange wig were quite clearly visible tangled in Eponine's mop.

"Madame Harley..." She shook her head. "It ain't fair. But it is life, no?"

"That's something you can count on in this place. When someone has a friend whose....Harley, its best not mess with her. But I already got my ear chewed on about this from her. I can see why you took the thing. It's sort of weird though: you and that girl are enemies even though you're both kind of similar."

"I didn't know..." Not that it would have made the slightest bit of difference to her actuons, had she known what Harley was capable of.

" you have spoken of me to her?" Eponine was definitely surprised!

"Oh nah, I mean I talked to Harley! I ran into Homura while I was in the Arena once, and she was setting up bombs or whatever. What I mean, though, is the girl's pretty much her own problem: she's living in her world even though she's here. and she's never going to get out of that the longer she stays on that shit. See what I mean?"

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