When all the world is a hopeless jungle...

[gardienne]

Who: Eponine and Sigma (closed); Eponine and OPEN
What: Sigma's upset Eponine, D3 is gone, Jessica's a mess and her friends are dead. Eponine is slowly collapsing.
When Straight after Sigma's announcement. The open part is after Eponine's encounter with Sigma
Where: For the open part, on the kerb of the Tribute Tower
Warnings: EVERYWHERE - references to death, torture, sex, genocide, prostitution: actual attempted murder, blood, underage drinking and drugs: SPOILERS FOR ZERO ESCAPE



Eponine's mascara runs down her cheeks in ugly black stripes. She doesn't care, doesn't realise. Sigma's a Game Maker. Her adopted Pa, the man she had learned to love... She covers her face with her hands, splattered with red and white blood, and sobs.

She's tried to stay strong, all through the District Three mess. She's tried her best to be there for Jessica and not to mess up - again - and she's tried to do as she's told. But... but there's nobody left now. Nobody at all.

Eponine clutches a bottle of cheap brandy in one hand, and re-arranges her blood-stained skirt with the other. It hadn't taken long to find a man desperate enough to give her enough for a shot of morphling and a bottle of brandy.

She sits now, contemplating the drug. She's never taken anything like it before. The man said it would take her 'over the rainbow'. It's a nice wish.

She takes a swig from her brandy and bends to hide her face in her skirts, back heaving from the force of her sobs.

She just doesn't know what to do any more.

Comments

[iflipmyhair]

Over the rainbow, huh.

"That kind of drug...the kind from needles...it seems like it would destroy you anyhow no matter the dosage, putting it right in without being able to stem the flow." She flipped her hair. "I suppose from where I am standing, my thought is this. If you truly intend to do these things, at least with alcohol, you can control what you drink and how it affects you?"

In other words, maybe she just needed something more alcohol-y.

"Perhaps you just need to find something with a higher content of alcohol."

Maybe Homura would have no problem getting it for her.

[gardienne]

"Maybe I am fed up of words and of young girls telling me what to do." Eponine looked up, completely unimpressed. "Too many words. I am sick of everything. Perhaps, finally this will be the thing to kill me? I do not know? I should like to live in such a lovely place as the rainbow."

[iflipmyhair]

"I was merely making a suggestion. I'm not your enemy, after all. Drugs from intravenous needles aren't guaranteed to be pleasant upon coming down from the high, nor do they always kill very fast or painlessly." Homura shrugged. "I obviously can't change your mind on wishing to die. But I wouldn't wish a terrible death on you, either."

[gardienne]

Eponine considers injecting herself purely to block Homura's rambling out.

"Do not lecture me, Miss. GOD, I am sick of being told what to do, of people talking at me in big words that you KNOW I do not know. I am sick of it all. "

She brings the needle up to eye level, looking closely at it.

"I don't know what to do with it." She slaps her hand on the pavement in sheer frustration. "GAH! I am FED UP of it all."

[iflipmyhair]

Hey now, she could go much bigger with the words.

"You mean intravenous?"

[gardienne]

"ALL of it. I don't even care! I just want - EVERYTHING just needs to go away, NOW."
She leaned back until her back and her her head were flat on the pavement.

"I used to think this place was so beautiful, and that, you know, even with an arena, I were lucky to be here. I had a mama and a papa who loved me. I had men who wanted me. And I had friends. And now, all is gone. I wish I were back in Paris."

[iflipmyhair]

She was going to explain what it meant, since whoever Eponine got those drugs from hadn't thought to explain it themselves. But that didn't seem prudent anymore. Though she had to wonder how even someone like Eponine could see the Capitol as beautiful in any way more than superficially.

Never mind that.

"...Dr. Klim..." Her own breath shook a little. "He really...did something terrible. Didn't he."

[gardienne]

"He said he loved me." Eponine spoke to the stars. "How could he love me when he plots for us all to die? When he likes what these awful people do to us."

[iflipmyhair]

Oh.

Even with the inkling of understanding she had, it still hurt. Hurt that she didn't know just what Sigma had planned - what had to be his reasoning to reveal such a thing to the world.

She is silent at that question for a moment.

"I...." She hesitated, her shoulders sagging. "You wouldn't like my answer to that. I don't think."

[gardienne]

"He didn't love me at all, did he?"

Eponine, still flat on her back, turned her head to look at Homura.

"He just used me, like my real Pa did. That's all.... I thought... But no. It was a stupid thought. I deserve all this for even thinking it."

She was welling up again, her voice choking as she spoke. She couldn't convey the mess of emotions she found herself in. All she knew was that they were sad. She just wanted someone, anyone, to put their arms about her and tell her that they loved her.

[iflipmyhair]

"...I think..."

What could she say to that, that could even begin to soothe Eponine, but also, protect Sigma? It wouldn't come out right, even if she did. She was not a comforting person, not by nature. Not anymore, at least.

"...maybe he loved you. But he's an old man, and in his world...here, too, all he's known is these Games. And...that kind of loyalty..."

She trailed off.

"I...I don't know."

[gardienne]

"He chose them over me."

Eponine rubbed her eyes fiercely and sat up properly. "It's alright, you know. You can say it. He chose them over me. He'd rather the Capitol. He never did care for me. And I suppose everybody knew it more than I did. I suppose everybody has been laughing at me thinking I could have a real mama and papa." She sighed. "I don't even care any more."

[iflipmyhair]

"...Yes." It was hard to say it, even knowing she had to. "He did. But I'd at least hoped...I'd hoped that it wasn't the case."

[gardienne]

"It's always the case. You know, always people choose anything else over me. Well, you know, Miss? I have had enough."

She hitches her skirt a little so that she can slip her needle into her pocket.

"I shall just have nobody forever more. I don't want nobody."

[iflipmyhair]

A silence, before she responds.

"I would say that you still have yourself. That sometimes its all you need. But I don't know if you'd take any comfort from that."

[gardienne]

"Would you take comfort if you just had me? I am a horrible person." Eponine barked a laugh. "Oh God, it will be a poor day when there is only me to be friends with. I shouldn't like to be friends with me."

[iflipmyhair]

Pot and kettle, pot and kettle.

"I would take comfort in the fact I wasn't the only horrible person left, then."

If Eponine was a horrible person, then who knew what Homura was, at this point. Well, not a person. She hadn't been human for a long, long time, or considered herself such.