Just watching the night sky...

[gardienne]

Who: Eponine and OPEN
What: Eponine's pondering on a rooftop. Do come and join her.
Where: Rooftop of the training centre
When: Soon after the date auction
Warnings: Eponine - so generally quite dark thoughts... and I guess any warnings anyone else cares to bring with them.



At home, when Eponine had to think, when she had a lot on her mind, she walked. She walked and she walked sometimes, wandering the dirty streets of St. Michel until she reached the wider roads where the houses didn't bear down on her, and she could see the stars. She had a particular ditch she used to make for, a deep one, sheltered from the wind, and without too much mud in the bottom, cushioned as it was with grass. Sometimes, her nights in the ditch were the happiest she had had in a long time. She liked it at night better than the day; the streets were empty. There were no jeers or stares or catcalls, and she could talk out loud without people pointing her out as 'mad'.

She likes to walk in the Capitol too. Usually. She knows the place well by now, a year on. She knows the shortcuts and the places to avoid. But the stares - the stares she hates. She needs to walk now - there is so much on her mind after the date auction. Why she was strapped down for a start, but Howard and Marius too... and had that rock man really called her beautiful? She needs to walk... but at night, she is not allowed out of the Tribute tower - and she does not want to be shot again, so sneaking out is impossible. So she does the next best thing. She goes up to the garden on the top of the Tribute tower. Helping herself to an ever-blossoming lily, Eponine settles in the grass. Bringing the lily to her nose, she breathes deep, and just watches the stars. So beautiful... Slowly, in her croak, she begins to sing softly to herself.

"Mon ami me délaisse, Ô gai, vive la rose, Je ne sais pas pourquoi,Vive la rose et le lilas. On dit qu'elle est plus belle,Ô gai, vive la rose, Je n'en disconviens pas, Vive la rose et le lilas."

[Translates as My boyfriend dumped me, oh joy, long live the rose. I do not know why. Long live the rose and the lily. They say she is beautiful, oh joy, long live the rose. I do not disagree, long live the rose and the lily.]

Comments

[gardienne]

"And from where, Mademoiselle? We cannot leave the tower, unless you know how to fly? Or perhaps you know how to get past all of these magic boxes that show us everywhere... what is the word? Cameras! Yes - they seem always to be everywhere."

She doesn't like those, though she's getting more used to them after a year. But perhaps Pruna, from her strange world, knew how to get past them

[knifewithnoname]

She wrinkled her nose, "I do no be knowing how to be getting past them. Me and Sandy did be trying to be smashing them, but we could no even be finding them."

She thought for a moment, "We do be eating here though, so there might be food in the kitchen, I bet there do be being ice cream there and we do no even be having to be leaving the tower."

[gardienne]

"Do you suppose we might help ourselves though?"

Eponine grinned an impish smile, and held her hand out to Pruna.

"I do not care about trouble, if you are willing to risk it, Mademoiselle. Shall we?"

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna's grin was just as impish and she scrambled to her feet. "I do no be caring either, let's be going!"

She grinned at the older girl. "You can just be calling me Pruna, or Ash."

[gardienne]

"I am sorry. I forget, Pruna. It is hard, after so long - ten years - of calling everyone 'Monsieur' and 'Madame' that I forget."

Still, she lifted the heavy latch on the rooftop door, and held it open for Pruna to slip inside, before she followed.

[knifewithnoname]

"It do be being okay 'Ponine" She grinned and slipped in before waiting for Eponine and putting a finger to her lips before whispering. "Do you be knowing where the kitchens do be being?"

[gardienne]

"It's in the basement, I think. Near the training centre. Do you not smell the food when you are in there sometimes? They will have ice cream!"
She whispers back, before edging past Pruna, and, keeping as close to the wall as possible, she begins to edge quickly down the stairs. Down and down and down and down and down and down and down.

Eventually, they reach the basement. Quite out of breath, Eponine hisses, "You are okay, Pruna? You still would like ice cream?"

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna didn't seem out of breath at all and she grinned and nodded. "Yes I would still be liking it." They had come this far after all. She crept onwards, looking for the door to the kitchens.

[gardienne]

Eponine crept forward, keeping tight to the wall. It took a few tries before she found the kitchen - but find it she did. She beckoned to Pruna to come, before sliding into the room.

And then she stared.

Eponine had never seen a kitchen before. Not a modern one, anyway, and the appliances that stood around looked completely foreign to her.

"Pruna? Do you know where the ice cream will be?"

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna stared as well. She had spent a lot of time in the kitchen of the Poison Apple, but that was a world away from here, she stared at all the metal and back at Eponine.

"It do be needing to be being cold. So we do be needing to be finding the coldest place." She said after a moment thinking the problem through. "You do be looking on that side, and I will be looking on this side." Surely if they opened every thing they would find it eventually.

[gardienne]

"Yes, we will look."

Eponine crossed to her side immediately, and began to open cupboards. In a whisper, she hissed,

"At home, we had a cold room when I was a child; it was called the larder. It was a big room, and cold, but not so cold for ice cream. If there are any room size doors, Pruna, look in those. Perhaps they have the magic to make them as cold as snow here."

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna nodded, looking for big doors. She knew what a larder was. They had those in Gaig. "There must be being so much food in here." She was in awe, even though she had seen how much food people ate, seeing a kitchen this big had made her realise just how much.

"And it do no be being magic. It do be being technologies" She told her, Cinna and Peeta had told her about them.

[gardienne]

"I feel we should take it." Eponine had opened a cupboard crammed full of boxes of biscuits - all kinds of biscuits, and she was just staring in awe. Food, even still, managed to delight her so easily. She reached out, running a finger around a tin lid.

"But it is silly, no?" She looked over at Pruna. "We get as much as we want here... but it would be good if we could take it into the arena with us... I think technologies is magic. I cannot understand it, but I do not mind. It is a good thing anyway - but always I forget there are those cameras watching me."

[knifewithnoname]

"They would no be letting us." She wrinkled her nose. "They would be checking." Which was stupid, she continued looking for big cupboards that were cold and full of ice cream.

"It do be being like magic but people do be getting all grumbly if you do be calling it that because there do no be any magic in the Capitol. It do be being banned."

She frowned at the last, she hated the cameras.

[gardienne]

"Is there magic in your world?" Eponine was half way in a cupboard, rummaging (and surreptitiously stuffing her pockets with as many biscuits as she could - just in case."

"There is no magic where I am from. I don't care what these people think though. I am not afraid of them. And to me their technology is magic - it is impossible to think how it all works. It is too brilliant, sometimes."

[knifewithnoname]

"Of course there do be being." Pruna told her, sighing and opening another cupboard. She found it strange that this place had no magic, and stranger still that there were more worlds with no magic, or gods.

"I do no be being scared of them either." The cuff around her arm probably was proof of that. "They do be being stupid even if their technologies do be being clever."

[gardienne]

"I think they are stupid too... but Madame Eva - you know her, yes? She said I am not to say such a thing aloud here."

How Eponine had avoided a cuff... perhaps they thought her execution in the woods would scare her into behaving instead?

She opened cupboard after cupboard, until at last, the one on the end with the heavy door, yielded a result. Tubs and tubs of ice cream, of all different flavours, stood stacked in the fridge. Eponine grinned, conversations about magic and technology forgotten.

"Mademoiselle? Come - I have found it! Which tub will you have?"

[knifewithnoname]

"I do be, she do be being nice." She wrinkled her nose, not really caring if they knew that Pruna thought them stupid. She had never made a secret of the fact.

Her grin widened as she saw the ice cream. "You do be being amazing 'Ponine!" She ran to her side, drawing back instinctively because of the cold. Pruna had grown up in a very warm climate, cold was not something she was used to.

"Um..." She read the lables. "Chocolate!" She reached out to grab the tub and gave a startled yelp as the cold hurt her hands. She glared at it.

[gardienne]

"Are you okay, Pruna?" Eponine looked at her companion in surprise.

Finding no problem at all with the cold, as used to it as she was, Eponine grabbed for her own tub - plain old vanilla for her - and tugged the top off. Without further ado, and in front of the freezer, she dug her fingers into the ice cream and began to munch.

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna just stared at her in disbelief before gritting her teeth and reaching forwards again. If Eponine could do such a thing Pruna would not let this cold defeat her.

She reached in again, using her sleeves to protect her hands and pulled the tub of ice cream down from the shelf. "I do be being fine." Her voice was a little grumpy.

[gardienne]

Eponine carried on munching, completely unbothered by the chill.

"You do not sound fine, Pruna. You sound as if you are cross with the ice cream, but no, that cannot be. Why should you be cross with it?"

[knifewithnoname]

"I do no be being cross with it." She told her wrinkling her nose. She glared at the tub trying to work out how to open it. Food in containers was something else she was not used to.

"It do be being stupid."

[gardienne]

"You cannot open it?"

Desperation has taught Eponine to makeshort work of obstacles like food wrapping. That, and Howard - Howard was used to such things, so he was a help. But she put down her own carton, and held her hand out for Pruna's.

"I will open it for you. I will not take it if you give it to me. You have my word, Pruna."

[knifewithnoname]

"You better no be taking it." She handed it over with the most suspicious look. "You will be being sorry if you do be."

She watched her carefully, in case she went back on her word.

[gardienne]

"I have said I will not. I am not a liar."

She glared at Pruna, before opening the plastic seal as Howard had shown her, and pulling off the lid. She thrust it back at Pruna and picked up her own ice cream.

"I do not think your threats are scary. I think you remind me of my brother, you know? More than ever."