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]

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.