abraxaslogs | [ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

[ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

WHO: sam wilson and anyone/everyone.
WHAT: captain america cookout.
WHERE: sam's horizon domain
WHEN: third saturday of september (aka, about 3 weeks after the jailbreak)
NOTES: see below!

HELLO ALL AND WELCOME TO SAM'S CAPTAIN AMERICA COOKOUT!!!!

Over the last week or so, Sam has been going out of his way to contact as many people as he knows to invite them to a cookout at his place in the Horizon. He knows that after the jailbreak, a lot of people were separated, and this was his first thought on how to bring people together. The purpose behind it is simply because Sam thinks that the one thing all of them have in common, opinion on the Singularity and their situations aside, is that they were all brought here and can actually access the Horizon. He sees merit and use in coming together when they can, especially in ways that don't involve the politics of the land they're now living in. So, what better way to do that than around food?

The long and short of it is - this is a peace meal. Leave your issues at the door. Sam has very few rules and there is very little he will give in terms of what this cookout will entail, but three things he will make very clear:

1.) There will be no fighting at his home. You want to duke it out? Take it somewhere else. There will not be warnings or second chances. Don't be an ass.
2.) There is no meeting or serious reason for this cookout. Literally, he just wants people to come together who may no longer be able to see each other due to the travel constraints. It's meant to be fun. Come have fun. (he knows y'all know what that is, even when some of you pretend you don't). Bring food if you want to! There is also a kitchen (if you know what that is) and places to crash. Hope you like seafood!
3.) Anyone who can come into the Horizon is welcome. He'd love it if everyone came, so spread the word.

The cookout itself is set up out front, with picnic tables and chairs and fire pits and lights abound. There are tables set up near grilles if anyone wants to do any actual cooking outside, and a table (probably multiple) set up with sides and napkins and utensils. There are a variety of different places to go and sit and hang out while you're eating. Anything and everything you can want is available - food, drinks, yard games, music playing from out in the trees that will remain consistent unless someone tries to find the speakers and hijack the playlists, etc. If you can't find something outside, you're more than welcome to check the house.

All throughout the party, too, there will be a new friend. Red, as Sam fondly calls him, is a blood-red hunting hawk with silver in between the feathers. He can be found circling around Sam quite often, or perched on his shoulders, but also if you are out and about you can often see him checking up on anyone and everyone. He's a very curious little bird, and also pretty sassy, if you want to interact with him.

If you haven't, or have, been to Sam's domain before, feel free to take a look around. Anywhere is open (save for one locked bedroom) so everyone has open access, but most of the cookout itself will be located in the front yard.

OOC: This is mean to be an OPEN LOG, so leave your TLs or closed threads below! This party will last basically as long as people want it to, but the idea is for it to be an afternoon into the evening. Y'all have free reign save for destroying Sam's home, but if you have any questions, hit me up on plurk (disarmingly or disco (dai#3757). Sam's TL is below, and he will be bouncing around like the good host he is, but lets get a little party started.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He's not sure why she would have to feel guilty in the first place, given there's no lack of resources in this place. Even outside of the Horizon, he can't really blame her for stealing. Starvation does things to people, and it seems like she's been living with it for most of her life.

She compares herself to a cockroach, and he thinks he's an accurate comparison, though maybe not for the reasons one would expect. It has nothing to do with comparative beauty or wretchedness. He finds himself glad to see her less desperate - whatever counts as happiness in her world.

Nott, though? Is that where some of them went? He can't imagine why. Why stay in Thorne when they could go elsewhere?

"I went to Solvunn," he says simply, shrugging a shoulder. "Why travel to Nott? Are you still a fugitive, then?"

Eponine shrugs noncommittally.
“Nadine we’re going there. I thought she wanted me. She asked me to go with her and M’sieur Flagg and that. I thought they wanted me… so I went.” She sighs.
“Alas, lies. They were planning to kill me or something. That awful Julie, that one what breaks my nose, what hits my head open and that, she tells me. And they choose her over me. So now I am stuck in Nott and on my own. I ain’t staying to be murdered by such a woman as Nadine. Tricking a woman to think she loves her is the worst I think.”

Nadine is someone he's familiar with only from observing - mostly the way she hung around Flagg's cage. Flagg himself, Estinien is sure to be some kind of mad man. The way he shaped his territory in the Horizon was enough to tell him that. The idea that Eponine followed those two only to be forced to run, left on her own again...

This girl truly is no end of trouble, he thinks, grimacing. He has no idea if Eponine is correct about Nadine's intentions, but it doesn't truly matter in the end. Her own mind is one of her greatest enemies.

"...Have you been left in the streets?" he asks.

“Not left. I ran. I chose it. I’d rather sleep in a ditch then wait to be killed.”

She sighs again. “Have you ever been loved, Sir? What does it feel like? So I don’t make the same mistake again?”

The question completely catches him off guard, his heart clenching miserably. He has been loved, yes. He is loved. Yet, having lost that love so painfully once before... it's impossible to think about without the hurt of it churning his gut. How can he describe such a thing, when it's been indelibly associated with the pain of loss?

It's a feeling he's even more terrified of losing a second time, and as such has often rebuked it. More than a few times, though, he's been given it despite his efforts. He doesn't have a good answer. He doesn't want to answer something like that.

"..." He tries to find words, but lapses into silence instead. "I don't know. Love is shown... is felt... in different ways."

It's such a terribly sad question. He's quiet for another moment, before taking a step closer to her.

"I do not yet know if it's possible," he says. "But... if a way can be found to cross the border... we could attempt to bring you to Solvunn. There's shelter here."

Eponine just nods. She doesn’t understand his pain - or no. She doesn’t try to see his pain. She doesn’t want to understand. Because how can love be so great when it is so utterly terrible?

“Why’d you do that? After how horrid I’ve been to you, Sir? About you?” She laughs unhappily. “And look who has more friends now? Me, I shall be happy if someone eventually notices I’m gone, and you, you have Himeka and others. Why would you help me?”

Her questioning it does cause him to hesitate for a moment, because he knows that she has scorned him on multiple occasions, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect she'd find some way to scorn him again were they to try to escape across a border together. Letting himself get that tangled up in her mess would be an incredibly foolish proposition... and yet.

Eponine continues to dig her own grave, and he feels as if he's watching from the ground above as the hole deepens and the dirt piles up.

"'Tis because you're in shambles, girl," he says, glancing downward. "You're a pain in my arse, and you know as much. And yet, when have you ever been given the chance to truly stand, free of need and suffering? I would rather judge you for what you do when you are not drowning in misery."

A drowning person cannot fully control themselves. They will grasp for anything and anyone that will allow them their next breath. He sees that reality in Eponine, and would rather see a time that she could stand on dry land.

"I'm wicked, Sir. The devil himself is in me." She says defeatedly. "And to you, I am a pain. To Nadine and Julie and the guards at the castle and my Pa and the gang, and the police and all that have met me, I am a pain in their arses, thorns underfoot and better kicked away. So they do. Get rid of me. Every time. Every time, I am on my own in the end to look after myself."

She shrugs. "I can do it anyhow. I don't need nobody but myself to take care of me. But Sir, it is so nice to know you care. It makes my heart feel warm, and truly, I thought I were turning to ice, it is so cold."

Eponine chuckles. "Maybe you are just a glutton for punishment, Estinien, to help a wretch like me over and over."

Well, it's something, though it does little to break through the wall of self-deprecation she raises around herself. This seems to be how it goes. One moment she is acting as if she could do nothing wrong, and the next, she seems to believe she's the primary force of all evil in the world.

It's strange, having this conversation, given that he knows in the past he would not have suffered this sort of nonsense for even a moment. Yet, he feels more responsibility for his actions now than he ever did before.

"You have a chance in this place, Lady Eponine," he says. "For as wretched as you feel you are, you could be allowed to become something else. Does that hold no appeal to you at all?"

He certainly knows the value of starting over.

"Yes." Eponine pauses, trying to articulate how she feels. For once, she actually stops and evaluates her words.

"Yes, I do. I would love to be someone else. I wish I could be pretty and have a life where people love me and want me. You know, Nadine were teaching me reading and writing proper? I can read and write, Sir, but sometimes, it's a bit slow. My Mama, when we were little, she learned me my letters and reading and writing and that, and my Pa teaches me numbers and adding and that, but she makes it better. Well, she was. But..." she sighs.

"Perhaps I am just that sort of a person? As much as I hate to be so, someone has to be on the bottom of society, no? I wish I were pretty but..."

Eponine looks down at her feet. It's hard for her to admit, to open up and share how she actually feels.

"Sir, do you know what it's like, over and over, for all of the life you remember, to be called names? I am whore, bitch, slut, gamine, c- well. I hear it so often that I don't care. I answer and laugh and shout back. But it never stops. And soon, that is all I am. For years, Sir, no one has used my name. I am 'girl' or slut or so. And then you become what you are named, no? And even here, I try to escape it, but... but it doesn't go away. I am Eponine, the woman so desperate for food that she will do anything she's told. I hear the rumours, even before I had acted on them? So what is the point? Every time I try to make myself better, I am pushed straight back. It is a struggle against the tide, Sir, and I am so exhausted that I cannot swim no more. My heart hurts too much to fight."

Eponine opening up to him just makes it even more clear how unequipped he is to deal with this - his main method of making an impression on people emotionally is to simply speak truth, consequences be damned. It's in these moments where he has to measure his words that he realizes how thoroughly unguided he is.

He doesn't know what it's like, to be as she is, to have been through what she has spent years experiencing. He has his own pains, of course, but they are different ones. It's not reasonable to compare the two.

"Yet you are still here," he says, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "I can't possibly know how you feel, Eponine... but those that have called you these things no longer need be the arbiters of your destiny. There are those here that would help you, if you allow them to, and power that is yours to seize."

And what someone like Eponine would do given power, he isn't sure. Based on her actions so far, probably nothing good. Yet, she deserves the chance to try.

"'Tis possible to change. You will not be someone else... but you could be a different Eponine, shaped for a different era of her life."

“I thought Nadine would help. I thought she liked me, despite everything. I thought she might even love me one day. But -“ it’s not often that Eponine actually gives into tears but one tracks down over her face, and another and another until she’s sobbing.

“It’s a lie. It’s a lie and I am must run or she will kill me for that Flagg. That’s what it has been, you know? Just to kill me?”

She rubs her eyes. “So i run. Again. And now I am back on a street with nowhere to go and what I can steal in my pockets. I am tired, Sir. So tired. And every time I try and it gets worse, that fall hurts more. I don’t know how to help myself. And if I kill myself, there is more of this in hell. There is no escape, no? I just… Estinien, Sir? I just want a home and a bed and a book. That is all. Is it too much to ask?”

He wishes someone else were in his place. Someone better.

As it is, he scarcely knows how to offer comfort. It isn't too much to ask - it shouldn't be. He isn't even sure if it is in this scenario, or what is truly going on beyond Eponine's flawed perception. He's already decided that he'll find out. It's the least he can do.

"...If naught else can be done, where you are now..." If talking to Nadine doesn't help, if no other can stand in her place. "I will come for you, Eponine. As soon as I am cleansed of this wretched brand."

Part of him wants to reach over, to offer her physical comfort, but he can't bring himself to. He can't imagine how someone like him would.

"Why? I've been nothing but horrid to you." And about him. Since getting caught, Eponine has sold Estinien out and bad mouthed him to anyone who will listen. She looks at him, plainly puzzled beneath her tears.

"I don't understand you, you know? Why aren't you telling me that this is what I deserve after how horrid I've been to you?"

He has to wonder that himself, but at the root of it, it's because he wants to know how she would react if someone actually did pull through for her. If it would make any difference at all. How much of his own soul had been spared by the mercy of others?

Without guidance, he never would have made it, so why wouldn't the same be true for her? And if this Nadine can truly no longer give it...

"Because your suffering gives me no pleasure at all," he says. "The only thing that would please me now is to see you living a better life."

Eponine almost smiles at that. "It's not so bad as at home, you know. Here, only Julie seeks to batter me and only Nadine to kill. Women, I can slip of. There is even a man what loves me. He calls me beautiful and sweetie, you know? I think he might love me one day."
Her smile becomes almost dreamy as she fantasises about Nero holding her close. One day, he might love her. He's terrible and honestly scares her, but he might love her anyway? It won't be so bad to be married to such a man anyway. At least it's someone.

"I think he loves me now, you know? He said I were the only woman what's worth having here." That's a lie. But it sounds nice. As if she's worth something.

"I just wish... always, I will wish for more."

If Estinien concretely knew what she was thinking of he'd be horrified, but as it is, he merely raises an eyebrow in question. The word 'sweetie' does cause a chill to run down his spine - but at the same time, that is clearly not the dominion of one man.

...Still, though. He frowns slightly, not angrily, but with uncertainty. He tries to imagine who else it could be, among those he's seen here. Is it a local from the city of Nott?

"And who is this suitor of yours?" he asks. "Is he one of us? Those that were summoned by Thorne?"

"Suitor?" She chuckles. "Why? Are you jealous? I don't know why, for if you hear them rumours from that Julie, I have had every man in Nott and every guard in Thorne. Truly, not so many as that." She smiles ruefully.

"But this man - he is for me to think about. Them times when you are all alone in an alley going to sleep on the floor. It is nice to think of a gentle caress or even a hard squeeze. But no, he spoils me, that one. It's nice to think about when the world is so black that there is someone who thinks I'm pretty."

Jealous? What a disconcerting concept. It has nothing at all to do with her appearance that the idea of that causes his guts to twist with a polite amount of revulsion. He would much prefer that she never spare him even a remotely sexual thought, and neither he in return.

He shrugs his shoulders, trying not to dwell on his irritation. He scoffs softly instead.

"I'm not interested," he says. "To be considered 'pretty' is hardly anything at all. Anyone can call you as much, no matter how wretched they themselves are. Your worth is not determined by a man's gaze."

Which is perhaps easy for Estinien to say when he's never been a teenaged girl in revolutionary France, but the sentiment is genuine.

"Well, there ain't a need to be rude of it," she replies, obviously disgruntled. True, she's a mess of tear-stained cheeks but she's surely not so bad as all that? Though - she knows it's a lie.
"And that is stupid. Don't you know nothing. You can say you want as much as you like, but at the end of the day, it's how they think you're worth is what you get and you don't dare complain or it's back to Les Madelonnettes and I don't think they'll believe me a second time if I plead ignorance, do you? You take how much a man thinks you're worth and you're happy with it."

She shrugs defiantly, almost daring Estinien to object.

"Then, course, when they're snoring, you take their purse and run for it back to the alleys where they won't be able to find you. So you get what you want in the end."

Eponine shakes her head. "You're stupid sometimes, you know, Sir? Of course we are judged on how we look. And if M'sieur Nero thinks I am pretty, then who am I to object? He is the only one what thinks it. Even Susan thinks I am unfortunate looking - but M'sieur Nero..." She trails off, her defiance almost sagging out of her. "He is so lovely to me. He is so kind!"

Godsdamnit he knew it.

There's a lot of things she says that he doesn't fully understand, presumably relating to things back where she came from, but the mention of Nero is really where his mind sticks. That man is a reprobate. Of course Eponing would get pulled in by him of all bloody people, the manspreading himself across tables because no sane woman would give him affection.

There's still he disagrees with that she's saying, his intent being different from what she took away from it. It wasn't that no one could judge you on your looks, it was more that their perception of you could be fickle - an award trivially given and taken away. What value was there to that? To be held ransom by another person's whims about something so meaningless?

"Nero," he grumbles, the name obviously drawing his immediate attention. He furrows his brow. "I'm well aware you care little for what I think, but the man is depraved. I could only wish that he were the sort of person that could bring you lasting comfort."

As much as his heart sinks at the target of her affections, he knows it's hopeless to convince her out of it - much like it would be hopeless to ward Nero off with anything less than his outright murder.

"There is nothing wrong with your appearance, Eponine - only symptoms of your circumstance."

"Do you think me stupid? I thought Nero were in my head when he came to me in the dungeon and made his deals. It were after they pulled me from the room with no window again. God, I were so ill I could barely stand, Estinien. You know the slops they gave us last time - the half eaten buns and that? They give me only a little of it. But Sir, my nose did not stop bleeding, and my head were cut, and I were sick as a dog, and when they take me out, my head is pounding and my stomach turning and and my face is so swollen I can't see - and he's there. Touching... touching me."

She shakes her head. "He's vile... but I think he loves me. And that'll do me, Sir. He ain't as beautiful as 'Parnasse but he ain't so violent neither. 'Parnasse'd have me by the hair and slap me if I weren't paying attention, or his knife at my throat so I'd spread my legs to him. M'sieur Nero, no. He's so kind to me, you know? He treats me so nice. I think he is lovely, even if he does hurt me sometimes."

She purses her lips. "He gave me a dress for a princess, you know? But it's too big - my waist is too starved, and Julie laughed at me, and Susan with that pity in her mooning eyes. I dunno if he's laughing at me or he thinks I'm truly pretty? But it's so lovely to hear."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

Re: food

Re: food

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

WARNINGS for Eps' view on what a consensual relationship is