Eponine Thenardier (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gardienne) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
abraxaslogs2021-09-22 08:28 pm
gardienne) wrote in abraxaslogs2021-09-22 08:28 pm
In an old house in the Horizon... closed to Nadine
[...All covered in vines, lives one lonely young woman and unfortunately, the sun never shines. The cottage is small, but quaint looking. Outside, there's a garden bursting with flowers: the scent of roses and lilies makes the air heady. Through the darkness of the perpetual night, the moon illuminates the trees in a silvery glow; the little stream looks like molten metal running through the garden.
Inside, most of the house is dusty, neglected, empty, even. Eponine's bedroom isn't. There, a huge fourposter bed takes up most of her room, and blankets and pillows sit on top. On a shelf are piles of books - though the pages are blank because she doesn't know any stories to imagine. By itself, one lone doll from her original house sits. It's brown hair is matted and it's missing an eye. It's scratched and battered and dressed in an untidy silk gown - but it's clearly precious to Eponine.
Eponine's sat, not in her bed, but on the worn wooden floor next to it. Her knees are drawn up to her chest, and her face is buried in between her knees. She looks too stiff to be asleep, but she's also not moving. On her head is a rough wreath of flowers, evidently from her garden, wound together with an indelicate hand. With her tattered gown she looks positively ethereal.
She starts when she hears footsteps on the bare wooden floors and looks up and to her door.]
Who's there? Show yourself. Make yourself known.
Inside, most of the house is dusty, neglected, empty, even. Eponine's bedroom isn't. There, a huge fourposter bed takes up most of her room, and blankets and pillows sit on top. On a shelf are piles of books - though the pages are blank because she doesn't know any stories to imagine. By itself, one lone doll from her original house sits. It's brown hair is matted and it's missing an eye. It's scratched and battered and dressed in an untidy silk gown - but it's clearly precious to Eponine.
Eponine's sat, not in her bed, but on the worn wooden floor next to it. Her knees are drawn up to her chest, and her face is buried in between her knees. She looks too stiff to be asleep, but she's also not moving. On her head is a rough wreath of flowers, evidently from her garden, wound together with an indelicate hand. With her tattered gown she looks positively ethereal.
She starts when she hears footsteps on the bare wooden floors and looks up and to her door.]
Who's there? Show yourself. Make yourself known.
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[Nadine hasn't bothered to do herself impressively, instead wearing a black pencil skirt and a white high necked button down blouse. The sort of thing she's taken to wearing in the Horizon in her own domain.
And the Horizon, she's realized, is the only way to quickly and easily find Eponine.]
I've been looking all over for you. Why would you trust someone you barely know, that you know lies and wants to hurt you over me?
[Okay, she hadn't been planning on leaping right into it. But it's been gnawing on her mind, how easily Eponine threw away everything she's said and done. It hurts.]
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[Nadine hadn't even made it into Eponine's bedroom before the urchin was shouting at the poor woman. Eponine stands up, her features twisting in anger.]
You come here and lecture me, Nadine? PAH!
[She spits hard, aiming right at Nadine's face.] I ain't waiting round for you to kill me, you hear? I ain't - I - oh, just GET OUT.
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[Nadine stays where she is, not flinching when Eponine spits at her. She works with elementary school kids, she's been spit on before.]
Think for a minute, Eponine. Julie doesn't even know me, she doesn't know anything about me. She just said whatever she said to hurt you and to hurt me. And I am hurt. I'm hurt you took the word of someone you know you can't trust, I'm hurt you didn't come to me to talk to me about it, and I'm hurt that you think so little of me that you could so easily believe I'd do something like that.
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[She shakes her head. She feels sick.]
She says you'll kill me. She says you've done it - and honest, I don't care if you have. But I will not wait around that you might kill me for your stupid husband.
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[Nadine has stressed as much on multiple occasions, knowing Eponine needs the reassurance.]
And why would my husband want you dead? You're not an enemy. You're not a threat. Not to mention...if Randall wants someone dead, he doesn't usually need to use me to do it, he does it himself.
[She decides to be honest - she doesn't have a reason not to be.]
I've killed someone in self defense, I've killed an enemy in the midst of war, and I killed a really awful guy who did really unpleasant things to me and treated me like crap. I don't hurt the people I care about. And I don't just blindly do whatever my husband tells me to - Julie has to blindly do what she's told, but not me. Julie for some reason thinks the same rules apply to me that apply to her. They don't.
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[Eponine shakes her head stubbornly.]
You pick... you chose Julie. I mean, she's prettier. She is a better fighter and that... but you chose her. You let her come though she smashes my head open. You let her come though she takes my food. You let her come though she breaks my nose. I know... I know I ain't much to look at, but with a broken nose? Who will have me? Nero?
[She looks like she's about to throw up. She's done things she'd rather not tell Nadine about for that elf in her desperation and the whole thing was... was lovely and awful and terribly bad and yet terribly just what she needed at the time.]
You choose her. And that's okay, Ma'am, but please. Please leave me alone, for my heart breaks and aches and I ain't got the tears left to waste on a woman what chooses my tormentor. I would've been a daughter for you. But not no more. I am tired of being the last one thinks of.
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[Nadine sighs, her expression tired. If only the two didn't have such volatile personalities.]
And Julie won't bother you if you don't bother her. She's like a sleeping bear. Ignore her and she'll leave you alone. Poke her...she's going to get angry and lash out.
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[Eponine's not backing down on this. She shakes her head stubbornly and folds her arms defensively.]
I don't care one jot for your stupid husband, Nadine, truly. He is nice and kind and I will do what he wants... but not for that - that - bitch. I hate her. I wish she were dead.
[That's not true. She wishes she was dead, not Julie.]
Your husband is stupid if he accepts followers so readily. Why don't he push them to prove their worth? Even me with Patron Minette...
But it don't matter. Nadine, do you not understand me? I am fed up. Always, I am last, the disposable one. At home, I do prison time for 'Parnasse and that. I am the one that goes to the courts and begging with the police and so. Here, I will not be the last in line, the one to watch where to put a toe to keep the peace. Nadine, I am sick, sick, sick, of always being the last thought and consideration of everyone, you know?
[She shakes her head.]
I thought you were different. It is a way to teach me, ain't it? I am always the dirt on the shoe, to be got rid of when you are through. It's to teach me to mind myself. A slut like me don't get such ideas of being proper and that. I shouldn't - I - I - I wanted... wanted to be proper. But Nero... God, I am just a cheap slut...
[She shakes her head.] Is that your Flagg's plan for me? Sell me till I'm half dead then kill me? Julie said... well. She told me all about you two, you know?
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[God, Nadine is tired and she doesn't know what else to say at this point.]
I don't know what you think is going on, but the first time I met Julie was when she was in a cell in Thorne. And all I know about her, outside of here, is that she's proven herself to my husband and he has a use for her. But neither I or him want you dead. You're not a threat, you're not an enemy...those are the reasons we'd want someone dead. I have never hurt anyone I care about.
Look, if you won't come back...at least let me get you a room somewhere in the city. Give you some money.
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[Eponine stamps her foot on the floor. She's so frustrated.]
Everything's going wrong, Miss. Everything... everything's bad and I don't know how to fix it and - and - and I just... God! God, I want to make it better.
[Suddenly, underneath the hard, weathered exterior, Eponine looks completely young and vulnerable.]
I wanted to be her friend. I wanted... She is so beautiful. But never... never for girls like me. Not a girl like that. She just laughs at my dress. God... Nadine, I just hoped for a family. And now I am worse off than ever
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[Nadine softens, taking a few steps forward and holding her arms out to Eponine. It's automatic, done without thinking.]
It's okay. We can fix this, I promise. We're going to get through this, I'm still right here. You didn't ruin anything.
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[She so wants to fall into those arms and just collapse into a hug. It takes all of her strength to refuse it.]
No. I am tired of being pushed off the ladder. I cannot fall again. If I stay at the bottom, no hope and that, no one would care. Or notice. I can find happiness with sluts and thieves. Like and like.
[She closes her eyes, and her clothes transform into the dress Nero gave her. It's too big.]
I can't fit in with you. I am too... Nadine, I can't do it. I... I am too... sad? No. That's not right. But I am not... I want... I want... but how can I be normal? Everyone knows what I have done now.
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[She won't let it be.]
We all do things we regret. It doesn't matter. And definitely not with my people. Lloyd's a criminal - like a real one. I'm an orphan who came from nothing. And Randall...he's a lot of things, but 'normal' isn't one of them. People like us...the outcast, the disadvantaged, the ones who don't have community or family...we're exactly the sort of people Randall's trying to build a world for back home. You fit right in with us, actually.
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[Eponine stomps her foot again. Usually, she swallows everything down. She absorbs the anger, refuses to acknowledge it, grits her teeth against it - but every now and again, she does explode in a spectacular fashion.]
Don’t you get it? Don’t you get why I’m so mad? She has everything - everything! And me - I worked hard for the biggest bun in the dungeons what they gave out. If you know how I bargain - and then she pushes me and the guards let her take it. Nero says they knew - they knew we’d fight and like it. But Nadine, no apology, no nothing. And everyone says it’s ok. Who cares if she has destroyed your face, ‘Ponine? You ain’t much to look at anyhow. Who cares if you were so sick in that room and no one came? No one wants you. Who cares if she has a man and a home and won’t never get her comeuppance? You leave her well enough, ‘Ponine, for this is your fault entirely anyway. Nadine, I ain’t having it. That woman is a bitch what stole from me what I earned and were keeping to me and I shan’t let her away with nothing. You know. Fuck your stupid husband. She ain’t gonna rest until she apologises and gives me her coin in return. It’s not fair and I am fed up of taking nothing!!