Let's celebrate life!

[delightable]

Who| Everyone who wants to mourn Orc, or wants free food
What| A mingle log, where Holly is holding a memorial party on the roof to celebrate Orc's life
Where| The roof
When| A couple of days before the arena
Warnings/Notes| N/A unless you count people being sad about death

Orc's death really shook Holly up. There's nothing she can do about it, nor does she have the courage to speak out about it. But she doesn't have it in her to just pretend it never happened. She was quite fond of Orc, he deserves to be remembered and people deserve to have a place they can do so, regardless of whether or not he was a rebel.

So, a couple of days prior, she starts posting fliers and handing them out to anyone who will take one. They're sparkly, colorful and visually loud just like the Capitol. But their intent is clear; on the roof, she's holding a memorial party for Orc for anyone and everyone to come and celebrate his life.

The memorial is held in the evening, and when the time comes, there is a buffet table with various foods, snacks and drinks, all supplied by Holly herself, and Jolie who helped a little as well. The area is cleared around Eponine's secret place, where a little shrine is set up with a picture of Orc surrounded by candles and other mementos relating to the boy. There's also a podium, where anyone is free to say a few words for him if they so choose.

It's the closest to a funeral that she can get, because she knows she'll never have permission to hold a real one.

Comments

[currupted]

Cyrus startles, just a little. With his concentration divided between the shrine and the people immediately surrounding him, he hadn't thought to look for the girl on the floor.

It's difficult not to startle again, when he gets half a look at her face. Here's a girl who looks like she got on the Capitol's wrong side and decided to buy property there. She's familiar, in a way that makes Cyrus think he must have seen her recently; but was it on some glittery evening talk show, or in surveillance footage?

But Cyrus isn't here to judge. He's not out to police anyone's involvement here. And so he gives Eponine a kind half-smile, tinged at the edges with sympathy and regret. As though he understands her anger, and so is choosing not to mirror it.

"No, I'm not a Tribute," he says. "And I'm afraid I didn't know Charles, either - at least, not personally." He puts out a hand to her to shake, a little hesitantly. "My name is Cyrus Reagan. I work for President Snow. And believe me-- if I could have prevented this, I would have. I'm here to mourn Charles, just as you are."

[gardienne]

"President Snow?" Eponine repeats. She folds her arms - the anger is growing inside her, but she can't let herself explode, not if it's going to land her in prison with more brands and torture and goodness knows what else, especially when Eva has worked so hard to get them both released.

But rage comes - this man who works for the man who had Orc executed, who has damaged both her own face, and Eva's beyond repair, who has slapped the heavy metal cuffs on both of her wrists - he comes here and says he is to mourn Orc?

"I think you ought to get out of here now, Sir." It's not really a request.

[currupted]

Damn. That had been the wrong thing to say. To his credit, Cyrus took half a step back - not conceding, not quite, but trying to mollify.

"Look," he said, putting up a hand in a way he hoped was placating. "I'm not here for President Snow. He didn't send me. He doesn't even know I'm here." Wouldn't care overmuch, either, but that was irrelevant. "I'm here for Orc. ...for Charles. I'm here because I wish this hadn't happened."

He spoke slowly, quietly, meeting her eyes (and managing, for the most part, not to meet her brand instead). If she was insistent, he'd simply have to leave before he intended to; but he rather hoped he could avoid that.

[gardienne]

Hatred burned in Eponine's eyes.

"I don't believe you. That he don't know you're here. What, is he laughing at us, now that my Charles is dead? Is that why he wants you here, so you can use that magic thing to watch us and laugh at us?" She meant a camera, but in her rage, which she was still trying to keep cool, she had forgotten the word.

She advanced on Cyrus, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"I bet he laughed when he saw us going to the jail. I bet he laughed when they made me watch my Charles die. I bet he laughed when they held the irons to my face to leave their mark. Though perhaps it is that it were you who sat forward and watched then?' Eponine snorted an unhappy laugh, and pulled her hood down. "I see you looking. You can look properly if you want. Though if you work for President Snow, then you should know well what it is."

[currupted]

If you think President Snow would waste time to laugh at you, then you know very little about President Snow.

Cyrus didn't say this, of course. Instead, he stood his ground, and looked at Eponine's face-- at the bandage over the brand that he could picture, easily. He'd have cautioned against such an obvious punishment, had someone thought to ask his opinion, but. That was hardly his area of jurisdiction.

"I know what it is," he said, calmly. "It was cruel, to punish you that way. I imagine Charles' death was punishment enough already."

[gardienne]

"They made me watch him die." She said, blankly in return. "I don't care what they do to my face, truly, Sir. I do not care how many of your stupid shackles you put on me. I do not care how much you hurt me. But to make me watch the man who loved me die - you are cruel indeed."

She spat at the ground then, through her poor, blackened and blistered lips. The pain even talking was unbelievable, but Eponine didn't care. This man needed to know that the Capitol was out of order killing Orc - killing a boy, who in the scheme of things, was as innocent as a new born baby.

"You are wrong, you know? You are wrong, and I shan't let you hurt him now he has died. You will give me his body so his friends might say goodbye, and you shan't hurt him again. Yes?"

[currupted]

Cyrus knew that it was, in many ways, his job to represent the Capitol. He was growing resigned to the fact that, for many Tributes, his face would be the one they superimposed over every cruelty done them by anyone associated with him, however vaguely. He could insist that he'd had nothing to do with Orc's death as much as he wanted to-- he could say as many times as he wanted that he wasn't a judge, wasn't a Peacekeeper, that he couldn't have prevented it if he'd tried-- it wasn't going to stop anyone finding a way to blame him for it.

Knowing that didn't make it easier to bear, when Eponine spat at his feet. Point your anger somewhere it matters, he wanted to snap. Stop taking it out on me.

"...Would that help?" he asked instead. "Would it help you, to have his body?" He didn't know the protocol for that, didn't know what the Peacekeepers did with the corpses of dissidents, but-- it wouldn't be difficult to find out.

"I can't promise it to you," he added, quietly-- this wasn't something he particularly wanted overheard. "But if it would help you, I can try."

[gardienne]

"You'd get it for me?" The anger in Eponine's expression ebbed away immediately, only to be replaced by pure hope.

"I have asked that horrid Mrs. Blackwood, you know? And she says the bodies are burned so there are just ashes, and even I cannot have them because she doesn't want me to have such a thing. But you can't burn rock, can you? They were putting him into a bin bag... Oh, Sir."

She curtseyed deeply. "Sir, I will do anything you wish for if you find his body for me. I... Anything. I don't care. Please, please Sir, do this for me."

[currupted]

Already, Cyrus' mind was at work, trying to decide how to approach this. He'd have to make an inquiry, at least. And ask Jennifer about their discussion. Perhaps there was some small favor he could call in-- some cursory gesture he could make in exchange for this. Maybe.

"They may have managed to burn his body," he cautioned Eponine. "And they may be keeping it for investigation. If that's the case, then there is nothing I can do." He emphasized that-- he didn't want her hearing a promise where none was being made.

But he looked her in the eyes as he added, "--But I will try."

[gardienne]

Eponine seized hold of his hand, and shook it vigerously.

"Oh, Sir, that you even try to help me is more than most of your people have done for me? Oh, will you truly? Even his ashes, Sir, that I might just give him a proper grave and a place for Diana and Howard and I to put flowers. That is all I wish for, I swear."

Eponine didn't want to make Orc into a figurehead for the rebellion. Indeed, she has no thoughts of rebellion at all. She just wanted to hold Orc one last time, whatever state he was in, and say how sorry she was to him. That was all.

[currupted]

Cyrus allowed her to take his hand, and even waited until she was done speaking to tug it away.

"I'll do what I can," he said, with sympathy that made it all the way into his expression. "Look-- tell me your name. And one way or another, I'll be in contact with you soon."

This was complicated, he reflected-- a greater complication than he'd anticipated leaving here tonight saddled with-- but, well. It was a sight better than being spat at.

[gardienne]

"You don't know me?" Eponine sounded positively delighted. "Jennifer said everyone knew me, I am such big trouble. Or perhaps it is my cheek that you do not recognise me - for it is I, Eponine. You have heard my name, yes? Eponine Thenardier."

She curtseyed deeply - it probably looked a bit odd coming from a girl in a hoodie and skinny jeans - and smiled again. Oh, it was nice to know that not every high up Capitol men knew of her. Perhaps it would be that she could sneak through their buildings unnoticed after all?

[currupted]

I don't watch the Games, Cyrus was quickly learning, was not a good response to give in Tribute Tower. He'd known her face, distantly, and the name struck a chord that made him think he must have heard her mentioned before, but only now did the two properly connect in his mind. (His lack of a briefing was becoming a greater source of bitterness with every passing day.)

But he smiled, as if in sudden recognition. "Of course," he said. "Who else, but Miss Thenardier? It's a pleasure." He inclined his head slightly in a bow, because it felt like the right response to the curtsey, somehow.

[gardienne]

"You don't need to pretend, Sir. I like it well that you don't know me." She grinned and winced as her skin pulled tight.

"I thought I should like it, not being invisible, but I find I do not like it. At home, I could outsmart the police. I were caught once in all my years - and then my lies free me, Sir, after only a check and to make me carry a license. It is not so bad." She shifted uncomfortably: the checks had been awful, and degrading and all the rest of it and she was supposed to go back every other week. But Eponine hadn't. She tried to keep her tone light.

"But here, everyone knows me and always they watch. And always, always I am caught doing something stupid. I hate it."

[currupted]

Cyrus decided not to tell her that You aren't supposed to outsmart the police.

"Well," he said instead, with regret-- "You must understand that we have to be careful. We don't want things like this to happen." This being, of course, Orc's death. The occasion of his memorial. "Perhaps, if we'd been watching better, we'd have been able to keep all of you safe. To help you before this happened."

There-- that was safe, right? Turning the blame not on the Capitol, but on a failing of the Capitol.

[gardienne]

"You arrested my Mama. THAT was stupid." Eponine folded her arms again, smile gone. She wasn't budging on this one.

"And that horrid Miss. Blackhorn, she says that perhaps my Mama is already executed, or that they will, and that she is a criminal and it ain't true at all. I was not going to sit whilst you arrest my Mama, and I tell you again, you stupid man, that I should do it again, over and over, and worse, if you take my Mama away. I don't care how many brands I have, you understand. Eva is everything to me, more than Orc, and I will keep her. You understand."

[currupted]

"--Your Mama?" Cyrus racked his brain, trying to think of any mention of a mother-daughter Tribute pair he'd heard of among the otherworlders. It might not be unheard of, were Eponine from the Districts, but to bring in a parent and a child--?

Then he heard Eva, and it fell into place. One of the few Victors whose name he recognized. A friendship. He nodded, slow, in understanding.

"...I understand," he said, and propped his smile back up. "I'm not such a stupid man, you see? Besides-- there's nothing to worry about. No one is going to take your Mama away."

[gardienne]

"They did before. That's why Orc was murdered. We were trying to save Eva from those madmen." Eponine folded her arms. "I won't let you take her away from me, I promise you that. You understand?"

[currupted]

Oh. Cyrus' smile slipped again. He'd never much liked the taste of foot.

"...I understand." She wouldn't let him. Even Cyrus didn't have any power over where Eva was kept, or what was done to her. He was being made a stand-in for every out-of-touch fool working in the Capitol again. Believe me, he wanted to say, You don't want the Capitol wearing my face. Pick another.

"Believe me," is what he said. "I would not dare take her from you, even had I the power. Which, incidentally, I don't."

Both a pointed reminder that he was not necessarily who she seemed to be mistaking him for, and a kind of twisted reassurance-- In this, at least, you are safe from me.

[gardienne]

"I'm..." Eponine rubs her hand over her face. She gets what Cyrus is telling her. She gets that it isn't him... but he is a public figure. It's he that is within Eponine's reach, and it is he that she can, and will, lash out

"I'm sorry, Sir. I am. I suppose I am just... tired. I am frustrated. I cannot do right. I am... I am like you!"

[currupted]

"Like--?"

Cyrus stares at her for a moment-- and then he grins, and then he laughs. It's more surprised than mocking; it's incredulous, and startled at her audacity.

He stifles it quickly - they are still at a funeral, after all - but it's harder to kill his smile. He regards Eponine from over the rim of his glass as he takes a long, calming sip.

"How perceptive," he says. "I guess we have some common ground, after all."

Having been forced to take that look into his own psyche, he reaches out to rest his hand very briefly on her shoulder. A parting gesture. He's made a solid bargain, but he's also been spit at and laughed at, and that's more than sufficient for one conversation. "Look-- I should go and speak with the others. But it's been a pleasure, making your acquaintance. Will you wait for a message from me?"

[gardienne]

She doesn't much like being laughed at, and she sulks. But she nods. "I'll do what you like, whatever you like, if you give him back to me."

And with that, she turns away, going back to Neal's drawing of Orc, and her secret hiding place.