|Open| The creature has a purpose, and his eyes are bright with it

[antichristsplusone]

WHO: Martin and anyone who's interested!
WHAT: Life, the universe, mostly daily life. More toplevels as required
WHEN: October catch-all
WHERE: Primary settlement, also Horizon

Outskirts of the Primary Settlement

Martin has a gun.

Martin K. Blackwood has a gun.

It's not like it's been suddenly thrust upon him right now, at least, he's been doing some training with Roland in and out of Horizon (ammo didn't run out there, after all; and until his hands had stopped shaking after every time he fired it, he was much happier knowing he couldn't misfire and legitimately hurt someone, though hiding the practice from Jon had been... difficult. Nearly as bad as the kids).

No, it's mostly still something he's just existentially baffled by. He never thought he'd reach the point in his life where he'd have a gun on him as a permanent accessory. So, at the very least, since that's a thing now, he'd like to at least make sure he can use it properly.

He's taken about a half dozen pieces of firewood to use as target practice, and lined them up on a fence at the very edge of the commune, so his firing disturbs as few people as possible - but a gun in a country town made of wide open spaces isn't subtle, still - and the field is out of rotation right now so the only targets he has are the wood, and he'll see people coming from a long way off.

So. Here he goes. Christ.

Horizon

His library may be small, but these days Martin keeps its doors wide open, and a little 'shrine' made of pebbles, sticks and already strung through with spider's silk next to the entrance, less than six inches tall.

The library itself is the same as ever: a huge, modern public library with rows upon stacks of shelves, arranged as per the Dewey decimal system; but at the front of the library, nearest the doors to Martin's office, a new shelf has been set up, filled (sparsely, at the moment, but neatly) with labelled tapes, and on the nearest table is a player-recorder for them, with a note taped to the table next to it in a neat hand: "Please don't tape over anything, thanks! ~Martin"

Once or twice a day, it's pretty easy to overhear Martin talking to himself in his office, with the door shut to keep unwanted noise out.

Wildcard
Martin's daily routine is otherwise remarkably consistent. Mornings spent with the kids he lives with, lunch through til the afternoon working on his own projects and interests, evenings helping the family with dinner, and nights to himself. So far he's yet to travel past the primary settlement, despite his curiosity.

Comments

[gardienne]

" I weren't beheaded, you know? What should it matter to me if some other stupid man was? They deserved it anyhow, I should think." She shrugs. "There is no point to think what is done. Will it change it? No. Will it affect what will happen? No. Had I been any longer in that damn prison, they would have booked me. And if they catch me again, you get a tattoo on your arm so everyone knows what they think you are. But I ain't. That's why that punishment were unjust. There were lots more they could have locked me up for, but not that."

She grins suddenly. "Good job I am good at lying, ain't it? They believed all I said, the idiots. Who would believe me when I say I'm fourteen?"

Eponine takes Little Women with a frown. The girls on the cover look so decidedly good. Maybe it'll be better? Well, it's better than reading about prisons or guillotines or something anyway.

"Thank you, Sir."

[antichristsplusone]

He lifts both hands in a light 'don't even mention it' sort of gesture.

"You're welcome. Now- I don't really care if you lie to me, generally speaking, but when you give me your statements I'd really appreciate it if you were as honest as possible. If people realise there's a lie in a story someone's telling about themselves it makes it really hard for them to believe anything they say after that, a-and we do want people to believe it, sincerely."

[gardienne]

"I won't lie. I swear. Not if you're listening to me."

She tightens her grip on 'Little Women', as if Martin is going to pull it back off her.

"And if I ain't in trouble." Eponine grins. "So what story do you want in payment? My life where it begins, or where it should end? Or them bits between? If you are to write my story though, Sir, perhaps we start at the beginning, before my parents lost the inn and to Paris we went?"

[antichristsplusone]

"As long as you don't lie, you won't be in trouble," he says primly. A nice Catch 22. "How about we start from the top, so people know where you came from, that always sets a good precedent. Let me just get a pen and paper, then we can get right to it. D'you want to come into my office? It- well, it can be a bit raw, for some people."

[gardienne]

"You think I'd lie?" she asks, incensed. "Me, I don't tell lies." That's a lie right there. Still, as put out as she is, she follows Martin back to the office.
"But what d'you mean, raw? The inn were the best my life has ever been, you know?"

[antichristsplusone]

"I think you'll tell me what you think I want to hear," he drawls, his tone amused. "I used to do that a lot when I was your age, too."

The office is only a short walk, and quite comfortable-looking: a long desk sits near the front, with a chair on either side and a tape recorder currently sitting on it with a pile of paperwork beside it, and Martin rounds the desk to pack it all up neatly, and pull out a fresh thick notepad and pen. "Some people, when they've been through a lot of difficult situations, um. Well, the happy memories can be upsetting, when they remember what they used to have. Is all."

Warnings for child abuse and domestic violence

[gardienne]

“You want to hear about the inn, no?”
Eponine settles onto the chair, curling up her legs.
“It don’t make me sad though. It doesn’t bother me so much.” She smiles.
“”Our inn were in this small village - Montfermiel - just outside Paris. It were big. The Duke of Waterloo, she was, and all through everything Pa wouldn’t get rid of that stupid sign. Even when we were freezing - I don’t mean cold, I mean we were freezing to death, when you wake with even your nose filled with ice, never that to burn and never Monsieur Bonaparte. We carried ‘em everywhere. My Pa sold my brothers before he’d sell the pictures.”

He sold Eponine too, sold her out enough times that she lost count anyway. But that story isn’t this one.
She takes a deep breath.

“Me and ‘Zelma shared a room. We had a bed each and when Gavroche were born, his cradle in there also. Out front were a swing and I had a doll, such a beautiful doll, and clothes for it. Sometimes I let Azelma play but she’s stupid to. I had a cat too, Antoinette, what I’d dress in my dolly clothes.”

She smiles dreamily. “Such a lovely time. We had a servant too. She were Cosette, a child like me. She were perhaps a year older but not much, but stupid. Mama’s have me watch her, and I would tell Ma when the last thing stopped working or were playing or stealing a glass of water or a potato peel, and my Ma’d wallop her. It were funny to hear her scream and beg and that. Stupid child, and she’d cry, which’s make Pa threaten his belt. Idiot. I dunno if she took it but it bloody hurts your arse when the buckle hits. Back then it were funny to see her hit, but when she were taken away by that old man, it were me getting the belt and that were not so much.”

She bites the inside of her lip ruefully.
“I had wanted a doll - a beautiful doll with brown curls and green eyes and a rosebud mouth and such a dress. Pa said for Christmas but Cosette were given it by the man. I made such a fuss that he gave me the belt on my hands. I were seeing stars, I swear. It hurt so much. That were the last Christmas and all because… well I don’t know what happened to the inn. I don’t know, but people stopped coming, and the guards looked for Pa, because even then did we fleece people. Me, I’d pick through their cases and take the good stuff. Anyway, we were out of the inn with a cart full of stuff and Maurice our horse, and onto the cart go Mama and Azelma and Gavroche, but me and Pa, we much walk walk walk to Paris. Such walking. My feet ached and I cried for the way… but Pa were handy with his hands and soon my arse hurt too much to think of my feet.”

Eponine shrugs. “Is that what you like?”
She sounds curiously detached from her story. Eponine the obnoxious child doesn’t feel at all like Eponine the woman, and until she gets to the part about going to Paris, it feels almost like she’s remembering a story, not her life.

“There were good times though. I were Mama’s favourite, I remember, and Pa’s. I had all I wanted. Pretty dresses, a bed, dolls… mama taught me reading and letters and a fair hand, and my Papa taught me numbers and bills. It were a novelty to have me charge the guests and it made it well to add errors and blame my youth if they noticed. And to a child, a pretty child like me, they’d tip more. That is what I miss, you know? I could have been pretty. I am clever. I could have been a fine person… but life is not so. I became a gamine - that is a street girl - married to a man what holds his knife to my throat to make me comply, and running from him and my Pa and left to die either murdered or starved in the alleys of Paris. Everyone cared for me in Montfermiel. Now, and in Paris, no matter how I scream and fuss to be heard, nobody never listens or cares.”

She breaks off her narrative with a smile at Martin. “But you care, no? You’ll listen even to a gamine like me?”