thecapitol | (no subject)

Ok, let's try this again.

Who: Eponine and open

What: Feeling hurt that Marius refuses to see her, upset at Howard's coolness to her (before THAT post), and fed up in general with Cosette's appearance in the city, Eponine has taken it upon herself to publish some of Marius' love letters to Cosette, which she has secretly 'borrowed'. Graffiti has been appearing for several days now.

Where: Around the streets in the immediacy of the Tribute Tower

When: The post takes place at midnight. The graffiti will last until whenever the Capitol officials clean it off - and perhaps the alien invasion will leave said officials a little distracted.

Warnings Slightly morbid love letters written by a slightly suicidal French man.

NOTE: All of this post is posted with Marius' mun's permission. Marius' note is also used with Marius' mun's permission. (Also mod permission). This is obviously a bit of a plot post, just something a little extra for you guys to perhaps notice as you're walking about the Capitol. Naturally, you're free to suspect Eponine and reply here - or just acknowledge it as yet more graffiti that is appearing.

Over the last few days, perhaps you have noticed the new graffiti appearing on the Capitol buildings close to the Tribute Tower. Or, perhaps in the uproar of the tunnel explosion, the scrawled words go unnoticed. Written in a bright red spray paint, though, they are difficult to miss.

As midnight passes, the big door to the Tribute Tower opens, and a thin figure emerges, clutching a shoulder bag to her chest. She slips from the doorway to the shadow of the building, and hugging the wall, she slips along first one street and then another. After a few minutes of quick walking, she stops at a piece of blank wall. Stepping back a little, she looks furtively around, before setting her bag down, and pulling out of it, a spray can of red paint.

Within ten minutes, she is done. Quickly bundling her paint back into her bag, she hurries back towards the Tower, her bare feet silent on the damp pavement.

Left behind, a fresh message glistens as the paint, sloppily controlled from the can, dries.

"You wishd for my deth and yet it is one I cannot give you. It appears now a greater posssibility, had you wishd for the bright and distant stars instead, I would have found a way to catch them all for you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She saw those faces looking down at the pair and remembered immediately that she could not shout, that remaining invisible was imperative unless she wished to be found out. Instinctively, she pushed her shoulder bag behind her, the spraycans clinking as they moved.

"You're wrong. You are wrong, Sir. I am nothing - I am not me here. I ama dollfor the Capitol people to dress and paint and make nice teeth for, and a killer to let thwm have fun, and for Madame Eva and Sigma as well, I am a charity case, to make them feel good inside. And now for you, I am food. I hate you for that."

Her voice was quieter, no longer shouting. but she sounded so defeated, so utterly fed up.

"I wish you hadn't done it. i wish you'd let me die - but Sir. Do not ask me to kill you - for that is all the Capitol has not taken from me, and I will not give in to them yet. A murderer I will not be!"

But it's not the same, R said in his mind because it would never make it to his mouth without getting mangled. I'm already dead. It's not really murder.

It was the same as when he saw his other Dead friends die: he felt something, maybe even sadness, but he looked the other way and eventually he forgot how they even groaned. He viewed himself the same way. How to get Eponine to see she might need to do what she needed to? R had that same trapped look he probably died with on his face, frozen in a death mask, as Eponine lay it all out there. The fact she wasn't shouting anymore somehow made it worse.

The only thing he knew for certain was that she was wrong. She wasn't nothing, R wanted to tell her, she really wasn't. Coming from a zombie who ate her alive, that might not account for much. R remained silent behind his muzzle, casting about for words.

"Won't...be. But...might not...stop if...see you?" R sucked in a shaky breath to force a final word out. "Defense."

Not murder. Eponine was someone - she deserved to defend herself.

"I would rather run from you, Monsieur." She was completely firm, completely unmoving on this at least.

"I will NOT be a murderer for these people. Do you not understand, Sir? I am wicked. I am bad, all through, the very devil himself. Do you not see it? Can you not understand? That I have never killed is the only thing I have for myself, Sir, and I will NOT let these people take it away from me, not for anything. And I will NOT let you help them. I WILL NOT. They cannot make me and neither will you."

She shrugged. "You will do something for me, to apologise for eating me alive. When we are in the arena, you will kill me quickly or you will run far, far away from me and not come near at all. And perhaps you will find some chocolate for me - I do like chocolate, Sir."

If she was going to layer on the guilt, she may as well get something out of it. And she needed to bulk up before the arena, desperately.

It was definitely working. There was a limit to what R's face could morph into expression-wise - his nerves were mostly dead, the facial muscles rigor-mortis stiff - but he was starting to wilt and slump in on himself. He'd only met Eponine, technically, but did she really think she was that bad? Did she think she was "wicked"?

Running works, though. R could groan that running is a pretty good way to get away from him at his speed. A head shot would be more final, but running works.

"I'll...do...that," R croaked, hoping he wasn't making a promise he couldn't keep. Would Maximus's training actually pay off? Could he learn to control his new hunger? Hopefully it wouldn't come down to a dark corner, a scared girl and a starving zombie next Arena, R staring lost at Eponine.

One of these things didn't seem like they fit, though. R frowned, working it out until finally he could force it out of his mouth. "Cho...choco-late...?"

"You don't know chocolate? I thought everybody knew chocolate, Sir." Eponine couldn't help the note of surprise creeping into her voice.

"I had not had it before I came here, but Sir, it is one of my favourite things, beside ice cream. And so, if a person is your favourite thing to eat, then you must bring me chocolate, for that is mine. I have no wish to kill you, Monsieur. So you will bring me a different food, for I have no money left now, and I have no wish to thieve. Will you do it?"

She's bold, asking. But inside, she worries. Has she said too much?

Look, he knew what chocolate was. He just hadn't associated chocolate with...this. Eponine had to spell it out for him, R's face stuck in that blankness of a dead boy until she finishes. Oh dawned.

"Can't...carry, but..." R fished about for a solution, his face crumpling into concentration as if he was to get a hernia trying to think. "...This...hggh...help...?"

R reached into his pocket and held out the card his Escort gave him. The one he was supposed to use to buy things, he guessed. Eponine would have more use for it than he would. He would've been happy to give it to her whether or not he'd killed her, to be honest. She could've had it back in the boat, almost a lifetime ago.

"You're giving me your money?" Eponine eyed him suspiciously, before snatching the card from his hand.

"Why? I only asked for chocolate - it is not so much as this. Sir, if you are giving me this so that you might say that I stole it, well then, Sir. I will not have it. I will not be considered a thief, do you know? I will NOT be arrested for your cruel trick. I am more clever than that, let me tell you."

R gaped at her. How did she come to that conclusion? He wished he could groan to Eponine that zombies really, really aren't that sneaky. Emotions might run so slowly they appear to not exist, but motive wise, R always thought all Dead were pretty open about what they wanted and when they wanted it.

He didn't make a move to take his card back.

"Want...you...have," R said, his groan baffled. "More...use. More...cho-co...late."

(He hadn't thought ahead to what his Escort might say when she found out). This seemed very cut and dry.