A catch all. Partially open

[gardienne]

Who: Eponine and Sigma: Eponine and Felicity: Eponine and Howard: Eponine and anyone else who wants to jump in!
What: A catch all post for catch-ups with various people she's in a bad mood with.
Where: Out and about in the Capitol: locations include the park and a local French style patisserie shop.
When: Some time after Jessica has worked her magic and helped Eponine on her way to a makeover.
Warnings: Eponine should just come with a warning sign, methinks. I'm gonna go on a limb and say 'talk of homosexuality, possibly in a negative light', 'talk of social class', 'talk of Harley's march of shame through the Capitol'.


Eponine and Sigma

Perhaps he knew where to find her? Perhaps he knew that she'd be sat on the bench overlooking the pond where they'd fed the ducks on that gloriously happy day when she came back to the Capitol. She was sat on the bench now, with her feet drawn up, staring at the pond. For once, she was wearing a couple of warm looking cardigans, and a shawl on top of that. She had a thick wooly hat as well, to disguise her newly bald head. What was she thinking? Not much. She was just sort of... staring. Meditating on how she had ended up in such a position, and how she could possibly get out of her mess. She turned her head when she heard footsteps, though, and scowled when she saw it was Sigma. She'd been avoiding Sigma since Harley had caught her, and she didn't want to see him now.

"Go away, Monsieur." Eponine said.


Eponine and Felicity

As the morning stretched into afternoon, Eponine ended up at a new favourite little cafe of hers. She liked it in the patisserie: the owners tried their best to speak French, and they loved having Eponine chatter it at top speed. For her part, she thought it was hilarious. Their French was dire, and it was nice to feel superior to people for a change.

So having had a looong conversation, half in French and half in English, Eponine was sat in the window of the cafe. On the table in front of her were several croissants and a little pot of strawberry jam, and another of marmalade, and a glass of orange juice, and a recorder that Eponine was fiddling with. The owners had asked her to record herself speaking so that they could play it in the cafe and inject a bit of authentic Paris into their business, and she was diligently trying to do as she had been asked. But it was frustrating, and Eponine swore under her breath, before trudging back to the counter. But so cross, so frustrated was she with the recorder that she didn't even look where she was going and bumped into someone awfully familiar.

Immediately, Eponine scowled and her free hand went to the turban style hat covering her baldness.

"Excuse me, Madame." She muttered, keeping her eyes averted.

Eponine and Howard

It had been a long day, and Eponine was quite drained by the time she had dragged herself back to the Tribute Towers. She went straight for the lift, but once inside, decided to just ... just not go to District Three. She didn't think she could cope with Jessica and Maximus and Marius - oh God, Marius. But where could she go?

She ended up on the rooftop. She could be alone up there, at least. Eponine settled herself down amongst the flowers, and lay back, looking straight up at the evening sky. After all of ten minutes, she began to wish that she'd brought food with her, but she was too comfortable, too absorbed in her thoughts about Sigma and Felicity to be bothered to move.

Eponine didn't hear the door open, nor did she hear Howard's footsteps until he was almost on top of her. But , with him barely five feet away, Eponine heard, and turned and groaned. No more. Please.

She closed her eyes, and flopped back over onto her back. "What do you want, Monsieur?"

OPEN

She stayed on the roof all night. It was a little chilly up there, and definitely damp, but she didn't really care. For a while, she simply wandered, pacing the garden backwards and forwards, looking quite the ghost in her pale dress and light pink turban. The singing gave her away, though. Her hoarse voice travelled in the still air as she sang ditty after raucous ditty about love and men and death and murder. But, for a change, her mind was quite at peace. Perhaps things could be different after all?

Her song stuttered into silence, though, as she heard a footstep somewhere behind her.

"Be careful, Monsieur. Or is it Madame? This is not the arena and I do not want to die."

Comments

[iphigeneia]

Felicity's jaw set. She didn't have a ready answer for that. "I wish to be independent. I wish to be free. I cannot have that if I am shackled to a man." She wasn't about to admit that she wanted to live with a woman. That was too much for her to admit aloud to anyone, especially Eponine.

[gardienne]

"Ah, but it is that you have money to do that comfortably." Eponine shrugged. "I do not know. For me, it is to dream of being married to a man - a good man, not a man like me. A good man who loves me, and will look after me, you know? That is my escape. My shackles, they are from my Papa and the man I am with, and yes, the police as well have given me their iron."

[iphigeneia]

"You don't think you could be free without a man?" Felicity was mildly disappointed, to say the least. "You don't think you could survive and thrive based on your own hard work? Your own superior qualities?"

[gardienne]

"Would you employ me, Madame?" Eponine asked sadly. "No, not in France you would not. And when I have to give you papers saying I was in jail, then no. For me, if I go by myself, there is one job I can do, and even that, you must do as the man says. And truly, I would rather rob people than go on the game."

Felicity didn't really understand Eponine's predicament at all - and why should she, growing up in comfort? Eponine wished she couldn't understand it either.

"I don't have qualities. Even here... nothing. I thought my learning, but everyone here is so much the more intelligent. I do not know. I was to go by myself in Paris, had I not come here, but it is a hard life for a woman alone. Sleeping out I do not mind, but it is better with a man you know, so you do not wake to a stranger looking at you or - well, Madame... not for you. But you know, yes? That is what I fear more than being murdered you know?"

[iphigeneia]

Eponine was right. Felicity didn't know what it was like. She could never understand why some people were content to accept the lot they'd been dealt, why they were reluctant to do something different and bold. "Do you even hear yourself? You haven't any qualities? That's utter madness. I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life. You must believe you have some qualities about you, otherwise what point is there to being alive?"

[gardienne]

None. There was no point to life. None at all. In Paris, Eponine had longed for death, had courted it, tried to reach it even, on occasion. She had known that she would not reach twenty, and she had made her peace with that. She welcomed the escape from the drudgery and the imprisonment that her life offered.

But she couldn't say that to Felicity.

She shrugged, the most eloquent way she could express her doubt. "I can thieve. Rob, lie, beg. I can speak in tongues nobody can understand, save the men who haunt the jails. I have qualities, but here has taught me that they are not nice. I do not know. I fear I am rotten all the way through. God, I could wish, though... I wish that I could be beautiful and laugh and flirt and be like you and look down on the grotty scum and give them my time because I pity them. I don't mean offence, Madame. Just... I wish, same as everybody else, you know?"

[iphigeneia]

"You are the same as everybody else." Felicity may have been frustrated with Eponine, but she sure as hell wasn't going to budge on this point. "You said so yourself. You are equal to everybody here. Do you believe that or don't you?"

[gardienne]

"No." Eponine sighed. " I was told yes, but so many people say no to me. Even the people from my home, Monsieur Marius, and Enjolras, and that Cosette, they look at me down their noses, as if I am scum on their shoe. It is a look I am used to: I don't mind it. But it shows that so many will never see me as equal. It is just the way, no? Someone must be bottom, and perhaps there are worse than me . I do not know. I do not wish to hope for it to be taken again."

[iphigeneia]

She let out an equally dramatic sigh. "Then this is a hopeless case. If you can't even see your own qualities, then how can you expect to be treated well? You have to demand respect from them. They will not give it willingly. And why should they? They've fought and clawed to get it, they needn't share it with anyone unless that individual is willing to fight and claw too."

She gestured to herself, in her own strange apparel. "You've got to take what is yours. Respect. That is yours for the taking, Eponine. You can overcome anything if you can command their respect."