abraxaslogs | WELCOME TO NOTT!

WELCOME TO NOTT!

Welcome to Nott! A blend of old world Thorne and new world industrialism, densely packed wooden buildings surround a section of ancient stone architecture at the lake’s edge. The city rises up against the horizon and is easily seen from a distance, lacking any farmland or outposts around it to distract the eye.

The city gates are wide open. Whatever may be happening back at the Thornean capitol, there’s no obvious hint of it here. Busy citizens are going about their day, guards in local uniform patrol the streets with little urgency, and no alarm bells or horns are sounding. It appears,at least on the surface, as though no one is concerned about escaped prisoners here.

But it certainly is a bustling place! Sounds and smells assault the senses right from the gate. The streets are filled with vendors and panhandlers and criers shouting out deals and directions and soliciting money, hawking food and services and shops. There seems to be a tavern or a public house on almost every corner. A cool wind comes off the lake and the scent of the fish market carries through the city. People are everywhere and no one seems to notice or care that much about strangers - aside from wanting their coin.

It’s the perfect place to hide out from Thorne while staying within Thorne’s borders.

Within a few hours of arrival a city guard will approach each escapee from Thorne - regardless of what their standing was back at the castle - to politely inform them that Lord of Representatives Lyle Vela would be happy to receive them at the House of the Lords at any time today. Each character will be given a handwritten invitation marked with an official seal that gives directions to the House of the Lords, a sprawling Old Nott building on the lake that overlooks the city. The invitation is of course optional and there are no repercussions for declining.

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"Everything is so much. Too much. Freedom feels -"
She thinks of her wrists, bruised from the manacles the guards had clamped on her. She thinks of that tiny little cell where, altogether, she's been shut away for a month by herself. She thinks of Paris, of being tethered to the gang, of the prison, of the ditch she favoured to sleep in.

"No one's ever hugged me before," she murmurs.

It's strange, Susan muses, this way Eponine has. Every time she thinks she's got a handle on the other girl, she says something like that, and Susan's heart breaks for her all over again. Doesn't matter if she's irritated, doesn't matter that she's still doubting her choices, doesn't matter that she's gods only know how many miles from Roland's side, where she no doubt ought to be: Eponine says that, and she knows she's got to stay. How can she not, in the face of something so simple and so easy to address, something that's so absolutely unbearable?

"Well, I'm hugging 'ee now," she says briskly, after a moment, and hugs a little tighter. Eponine's so thin, she thinks. Bones like a bird's, shifting under her hand. Ye're soft, Sue, her aunt's voice sneers in her mind, but she can't bring herself to mind it. Soft's better than bitter. "And I ain't goin' anywhere, so if it's too much, just... just come to me, alright? I came here for 'ee. Might as well make use of it."

“Wait -“

Eponine struggles out of the hug so she can properly look at Susan.

“You came for me? I know we said it in prison, but it weren’t a true thing. If you had a better offer, why should you choose me? That’s a stupid thing to do, you know?”

She shakes her head. “Don’t tell me on it, please. Don’t say it’s so, Susan, for when you hate me for coming here, I shan’t be able to bear it. Please say it was for Nadine or Flagg. When I do it bad please don’t be mad.”

There it is again, that dull twisting ache in her chest. There's doubt, too: maybe 'Ponine's right. Maybe it's stupid to have come all this way for someone who doesn't want her to, who didn't think she meant what she said.

Only that's why you did, ain't it? Because you knew she'd never had anyone play her honest before. You knew this is what she'd say, Sue, you always did. She's soft, mayhap, but she's not blind; and she'd made that promise for the same reason, for how Eponine had pushed her away when she'd first come down to the cells as a 'guest'. Anyone who's so keen not to be loved seems, to Susan, all the more in need of it.

So she shakes her own head in turn, her jaw set. "Sai Nadine's kind and all, but she'd be as well off without me as with me. And I don't ken sai Flagg but a bit." She knows more about him than she wants to, now, but she can't say that. "But you look at me, 'Ponine. I ain't going to hate 'ee for it. If I shouldn't've come, then what? I made the choice. Ye didn't. I came to be with 'ee, because we're friends, and it was a true thing for me, what I said. I meant it. I wanted to come with 'ee. So what'd I ever have to hate 'ee for?"

“Because everyone always does in the end.”
It’s not self pitying. It’s resignation to her unpopularity.

“And truly Susan, I don’t want it to be you. But it will be, because that’s how it is. I’ll send you mad or angry and you’ll wish you’d chosen someone else. Someone better than me”

Roland, she thinks at once, of course. I'll wish I'd chosen Roland.

And then she rebels against that thought, with a fury that overwhelms doubt. Fuck that. She isn't buying into this. She won't let Eponine sell herself so cheap, not like this. She grabs the other girl's bony shoulders, holding her eyes, and there's a sharp intensity in her look.

"Ye listen to me, Eponine. That ain't how this goes. I don't care how many times it's gone that way for 'ee before, that ain't how it goes now. I won't hate 'ee, no matter how angry I get. I don't hate easy." And that's true, she realises; it's why it comes so deep and so all-encompassing when she does hate someone. She gets angry, sure, gets to dislike folk, but hate? Hate's a strong thing, and one she's only ever saved for those who killed what she loved. "So ye quit that talk, alright? I'm your friend whether ye want it or no, and ye're stuck with me, so ye are. Aught else, we'll just... we'll take as it comes."

Eponine's never had a friend. Never had someone that is never going to hate her, no matter how horrible she is. Well, perhaps Azelma, but she is so stupid, she hardly counts.
Now that she's got one though, in Susan, she doesn't know what to do or what to say.

How are you a friend?

So Eponine just nods. She doesn't know what else to do

Susan holds eye contact a moment longer, scanning Eponine's face, and then sighs and lets her hands drop back into her lap. "Aye," she says, almost to herself. "Guess that'll have to do it, for now." Then, because she can't quite help it: "Anyroad, I did choose 'ee, and we're here now. Ye give me that dress a while tonight, I'll put some tucks in it for 'ee. I got pretty good at tailorin', fixin' up my Fair-Day dress year on year. Might as well get some use from it."

WELCOME TO NOTT!

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