OPEN | at the changing of the seasons

[girl_at_the_window]

WHO: Susan, OTA (closed prompts in comments)
WHAT: Roaming the Horizon and Nott; a couple of closed prompts
WHEN: October catch-all
WHERE: Nott, the Horizon
WARNINGS: Slutshaming, talk of pregnancy loss, gore/violence, emeto.

[ I | Nott ]
Susan has, at least on the surface, fitted herself pretty neatly into life in Nott. She can often be found by the docks, her long hair bound up under a cap, helping to unload boats or gut fish or whatever other work is going. It isn't a lot, but it's enough to keep body and soul together - and it's enough to keep her mind busy, which counts for something.

And she watches. She's gotten good at watching, keeping an eye on the comings and goings of folk around the streets. It feels... important, somehow, to keep alert to what's happening. If she sees someone she recognises, from the cells or from the castle, she'll whistle to draw their attention. "Hile! Over here!"

When there's no work, and she's not sleeping back at the inn - she spends less and less of her waking time there, just long enough to sleep and share out her takings - she spends most of her time sitting on the waterfront, her bare feet dangling in the cold water of the lake. Restlessness wars with weariness, and both with loneliness. She won't object if anyone comes to sit by her, either.


---

[ II | Horizon ]
When restlessness wins out over weariness, the Horizon ends up calling her. Her domain has some space to move, after all. It isn't as large as some, but she maintains its borders, gives herself a good-sized field to roam in. There's still a ranch house there - still just as she left it, back in her old life - but she's almost never inside it. She prefers to sit out on the stoop, beneath the summer sun of a perpetually warm evening - or, more often, to roam the grassy slope.

You may find her in the quarter she's designated for target practice, stony-faced and intently focused as she fires shot after shot from Roland's gun at the bottles set up on the wall. She's getting better - but she's not necessarily getting better at noticing who's around, so don't walk in front of the firing line.

Sometimes, the limited scope of her domain isn't enough. At those times, she saddles up a horse - almost always the big bay, Pylon - and rides out more widely, exploring others' domains. She cuts a strange figure in some of them, no doubt, a girl dressed like a vaquero in serape and wide-brimmed hat, with the mark of the Lovers patterned into her clothes, riding a horse that looks too big for her. But she'll tip her hat, for all the world as though she has the right to be there, and rein in her horse as she approaches.

"Nice place, sai."

Never hurts, after all, to be polite.

---

[[PM or plurk me at jormandugr if you'd like a starter in the comments!]]

Comments

CLOSED to Eponine

[girl_at_the_window]

Susan worries. She worries a lot. Eponine is, at the end of the day, the whole reason she's here - and now Eponine is gone.

She's not about to accept that. She waits a day or two, just to be sure Eponine won't come back on her own (like a dog that's not been fed is the rather unkind thought that comes to mind), and then, with an air of some irritation, she starts looking. There's a part of her that resents it. There's maybe even a part that whispers Ye could still take a horse and ride for the Free Cities. He'd meet 'ee there, and be glad ye came.

But there's a much bigger part that's concerned for her friend's safety and wellbeing, and that stubbornly refuses to give up on Eponine. So here she is, cap pulled low over her eyes, trying not to be uncomfortable in this kind of rough company, looking for Eponine in the darker alleyways of Nott.

When she finds Eponine, she doesn't hail her immediately. Instead, slipping into a seat nearby, she digs into her pocket and pulls out a bar of chocolate, holding it out to the other girl. That bitterness is still there, but it's below the surface, tamped down by relief. Her smile is genuine, if a little scolding.

"Ye could've asked me to come along with 'ee."

[gardienne]

“You couldn’t live like this,” Eponine fires back.

She’s cross too, though in the back of her mind, she registers that she has no right to be. She’s cross that she’s been forced into this lifestyle again, and she’s cross that Susan’s found her. Eponine doesn’t want to be seen like this, dressed as she is in a dress so ragged that long rents in the skirt show the pantaloons beneath. The whole thing is filthy and Eponine herself seems dirty too. Susan wouldn’t know it, but it’s a costume, an act. Her dress from the castle and even the nicer ones that she stole here are safely hidden away. Poor gets money here and Eponine knows she cuts a pathetic figure.

“Why have you come to find me? You can tell Nadine to stick Julie’s nose up her arse. I’m not licking it no more.”

[girl_at_the_window]

There's the anger, flashing bright and raw in her eyes, and the smile is gone like a gleam of sunlight on water.

"Ye think Nadine sent me? What, after everything?" She tosses the chocolate bar down in Eponine's lap, scowling, and folds her arms. Under the anger, there's a visible hurt, too. "How many times do we have to have this talk? I came 'cause ye're my friend, ye miserable pendeja." Though times like this, I couldn't say why. But she's hitched her horse to this wagon, and she's not about to let Eponine fall away this easily. Not while she's got the choice. She's not had many friends in her short life, and she's not going to just turn her back on any of them. "And if I ain't yours, then ye'd best tell me now, 'cause if ye don't, I'm gonna keep comin' back. I think ye need someone to talk to. Tell me I'm wrong."

[gardienne]

“Why?”
Eponine picks up the chocolate bar from her lap and she runs her fingers surreptitiously across the foil wrapper. She’s doing better than in Paris here, but she’s not had money to spare for chocolate either.

Eponine sighs. She finds friendships difficult. She doesn’t understand it - doesn’t understand why Susan does keep coming back.

“What am I supposed to talk about, Susan?”

[girl_at_the_window]

"Why ye ran off, for starters." Susan sighs, tucking one leg up to her chest and resting her cheek against her knee as she looks at the other girl. That anger's still there, still visible in her expression and the tension in her shoulders, but it's hard to be purely angry at someone who looks so... well, so pathetic. "Ye never really told me anything. Ye just upped and left. At least tell me what got your goat so bad."

[gardienne]

The anger between them both is palpable in Eponine’s silence. Admitting her mistake makes it irredeemable. Makes Nadine irredeemable. And Eponine so wishes that everything could be fixed. She feels stupid.
She scuffs her bare foot against the stone where she’s sat.

“I thought Nadine…” she starts eventually.
She takes a breath, steeling herself for the truth.

“I thought she wanted me. I thought she loved me, or at least liked me to have me. I thought it were gonna be a good life.”

Her smile’s pained, and she sniffs, blinking back tears.
“She’s just wanting me to kill me. That’s all. Shouldn’t be surprised really, should I? I mean, it was stupid to think nothing else of it.”

[girl_at_the_window]

Susan looks at her for a long moment in silence, chewing on her lip. She wants to stay angry. She probably should stay angry. This is no kind of explanation, really, no kind of excuse for running out on someone who's given up as much for her as Susan has, and it doesn't even really make sense.

Except that it does. It makes total sense. The look on Eponine's face, the crack in her voice, makes total sense. I thought she wanted me.

Fair enough.

She sighs, digging in the pocket of her pants for a kerchief, and holds it out. "Who told 'ee so?" Knowing the answer, of course. Fucking Julie. That trouble-making sow. Except that, beneath the bitterness, there's a certain nagging sense that there might be truth in it. She isn't about to forget what Roland said to her when they parted, nor how Nadine looks at her husband like she'd do anything he said. "What'd she want to kill 'ee for? If she wanted 'ee dead, she's had chances before now."

[gardienne]

Eponine ignores the handkerchief. She's not crying. Not properly, not yet.

"Who would hate me enough to tell me, Susan? Use your brain!" She snaps. Her anger isn't directed at Susan, but unfortunately for the other girl, she's there and she's so easy for Eponine to take her frustrations out on.

"She is waiting for Flagg to give the order. It's what he does, you see? Kills people to keep the rest in line. Isn't it just so always? The ruler kills the others to keep them scared." She shakes her head. "And who would miss me if he killed me? Nadine ain't stupid. She knows that no one would bother looking. It's me what's stupid for falling for her. Why would anyone want to help me?

[girl_at_the_window]

It ain't her fault. None of this is her fault. Don't be a bitch about it, Sue. Just breathe, and stay calm, and...

Her hand snaps out without the intervention of her mind, and she slaps Eponine across the face. Not hard, not hard enough to do more than sting a little, but a slap nonetheless; and she's on her feet, legs akimbo, glaring.

"Ain't I here? Ain't I been here this whole fucking time? Didn't I leave everyone else to come along with 'ee, to help 'ee?" This isn't helping. Still, she can't keep it from spilling over, and there's a hint of tears stinging at her own eyes now, as though she was the one who just got slapped. "Nadine's a pawn, sure. Flagg, he's evil, evil like ye don't even ken. And Julie's a bitch, aye, and mayhap one who'll even tell the truth to hurt 'ee, but don't ye sit there feelin' sorry for yourself that no-one wants to help 'ee! What the fuck am I to 'ee? Or do 'ee reckon I'm out to kill 'ee, too?"

OPEN to anyone at the inn in Nott | CW: blood/injury

[girl_at_the_window]

The inn didn't seem that far away when she walked it before. Now, the other side of town feels like it might as well be on another continent. Her hands are slippery with blood, and her head's spinning, and more than once, stopping to lean against the corner of a street and catch her breath, she wonders why she's even trying. Why bother? Who's to say if Nadine and her posse will even help, when it comes down to it?

She does it for the same reason she's done a lot of things in her life: because she doesn't see anything else to do. No matter how much she wants to just lie down in an alleyway and pass out, to cry herself to a sleep she might not wake up from, she's too stubborn for that. She's embarrassed, and exhausted, and grieving something she didn't know she'd been so afraid to lose - and none of that is a good enough reason to lie down and die. So she stops every few hundred yards to catch her breath; she presses her hands as best she can against the worst of the wounds in hopes of staunching the bleeding; she sways and staggers and swears; and she keeps on going.

When she staggers into the inn, it's dark outside, and the bar is all athrong. Later, she'll have the wherewithal to be pissed off about that, embarrassed at having an audience when she finally makes it into the lamplight inside. Right now, she's barely aware of those watching eyes. Her tearstained, bloody face is pale, and the whole front of her shirt is crimson. It has occurred to her several times, in this past hour, that she might just die anyway. Eponine might have killed her, after all.

I just went to give her chucklit and a friend. That's what feels worst of all. At least the first time she'd died, it had been for something. This wasn't for anything. Nothing but her own blind, trusting hope. Nothing but soft-headed stupidity.

She lets out a rough, breathless sob, and collapses. Someone, somewhere, is yelling for help.

Get yer own help, she thinks, and is dimly aware that she's about to pass out. I'm done.

[princessvegas]

After about a week at the inn, Julie picked up a job as a barmaid. She figured it made sense -- if she had to work, ideally it should be somewhere that was a) close, and b) she could get trashed at nightly. And it wasn't the most frequent engagement, usually only taking a few hours here and there for a few days a week. She also knows that a drunk man is a generous man, and she's considered exotic enough to make a healthy sum in tips that were almost always dropped between her boobs and into her bodice. So she's there when Susan stumbles in, holding a tray of mugs aloft on one hand.

"Jesus Christ, fuck," she swears as Susan falls across the floor, and puts the tray on the nearest table to rush over. Holding a clean bar towel, she pulls Susan half into her lap, pressing down on the wound. "Fuckin' shit, you gotta hold on, girl. Someone -- someone go find Flagg! Or Nadine!"

Across the bar, someone rushes upstairs to their door.

[nadine_he_loves]

It's Nadine that comes rushing down, still tying on her kerchief, the bodice of her overdress only half done. All she knows is there's an emergency, someone's hurt, but it's more than enough to put a fire under her.

"Shit!"

She's not a woman given to hard cursing often, but when the situation warrants it...Face severe, Nadine joins Julie to assess just how bad things are. There's no time to ask what happened, not right now.

"Okay. Susan...Susan, listen to me, we're going to take care of you. Just hang in there."

She turns to Julie, her voice quieter and more grim. "We need to get her to her room and we're going to need to a big bowl of clean water, clean linen, and...maybe a needle and fishing line. I think I can do something about this, I had to give myself a crash course in field medicine right after the world ended, but I'm going to need your help."

At least assuming there's no damage to any vital organs. A handful of books consumed in a very short time while trying to bring Joe back from the brink only covered so much.

[girl_at_the_window]

Susan's head is spinning. Or mayhap it's the room that's spinning. Hard to say, really. Everything feels distant, like it's coming to her from miles away. Echoes down the sharp-cut sides of a canyon. She manages, after a moment, to summon up enough sense to realise that whoever's holding her, they're trying to help - enough sense to quit weakly pushing Julie's hands away and start trying to press down on the towel instead. Whether that's any less unhelpful remains to be seen, but at least she's trying.

The gun. The thought comes to her floating on a dark wave, almost gentle. Fuck, the gun. They mustn't see it. Although why it should matter, or why it needs to stay hidden, she can't seem to remember. In any case, what is there to do? It isn't exactly well-hidden, tucked under her bloodied shawl - good enough when she's awake to distract from it, but she has a suspicion she's not going to be awake very long.

The thought nudges at her again, sharp as cornflower-blue eyes. Ye've got to do summat. Summat to stop 'em finding it. Ye promised.

Her eyes manage to open a little way, squinting up between the two women. "...'ll be alright. Just need to sleep a bit, is all."

[princessvegas]

Supporting Susan's upper half on her lap, Julie holds down the cloth with one hand and brushes the hair out of her face with the other, glancing over her shoulder as Nadine approaches.

"I gotcha," she says, and it's not that Julie knows a lot about wound care, but she is from the middle of nowhere, and sometimes that requires knowing just enough to keep yourself alive long enough to reach the hospital an hour away. So she's better than no one as an assistant. "See if you can get one of the men to carry her upstairs, I'll get everythin' I can find."

She looks down at Susan's barely-open eyes, and shakes her head. "Nuh-uh, sug. You gotta stay awake as long as you can. We're gonna take care of you, but you gotta help us."

[nadine_he_loves]

"You need a lot more than that. Listen to Julie, try and stay awake."

Nadine commandeers one of the larger patrons to help with Susan, already rolling up her sleeves as the girl is set down in bed. After shooing the man back out brusquely, she sets to work to see just what they're dealing with.

"Luckily I've got some experience here." She's talking mostly to give Susan something to focus on, forcing her voice to be calm and even. "But I need to see how bad it is." She starts tackling Susan's clothing, trying to be careful and not irritate the wounds beneath any further. "We're going to get the wounds cleaned, and if they need it...stitch them up."

[girl_at_the_window]

Susan groans quietly as she's picked up, a few more tears squeezing out of her eyes and onto her bloody, dirtied face. She feels so tired. Gods, she's never felt so tired in all her life. She had been trying to put them off with the mention of sleep, sure, but if she could just close her eyes, just drift off and not think any more...

She's got just about enough sense left to recognise the truth in what they're both saying - that if she goes to sleep now, she'll as like as not never wake up. Then again, there's a part of her that thinks it might not be so bad. A quieter death than the last one, anyway. This time, it's only one friend who spat on her and smiled to see her bleed. And it doesn't hurt so badly any more, now that she's not trying to drag herself around the place. It feels distant. Hazy. Like the pain belongs to someone else.

She barely notices when she's laid down on the bed. All her attention is on keeping what pressure she can on the towel. Even so, when Nadine moves to pull the shawl back - to reveal the gun underneath - she grabs weakly at the older woman's wrist. Don't let them see.

"...Will 'ee tell Julie I'm sorry? Only I figured she must've done more to..."

Just as bad as my Papa. There's the tears again. Gods, did anyone hurt Eponine as bad as she wanted people to think?

[princessvegas]

"You can tell me yourself once we get you on the mend," Julie says, walking through the door brusquely, her fingers and apron both stained red. Her hands and arms are full, with a stack of towels from the bar, with a bowl of warm water. She'd been able to find a needle without much trouble, but the fishing line had to come from a ship captain who was drinking downstairs -- it was only luck that he had some catgut in his pocket to give her.

She settles at Nadine's side, gently taking Susan's hand from Nadine's wrist and pulling it back. "What happened? We can help better if we know what we're lookin' at, you know," she tells Susan, running her thumb over Susan's hand. Don't fight us, what do we care what you have to hide? Letting go, she also works the shawl undone, and sighs when she sees the gun. The girl had a gun and still got messed up this bad?

Julie takes the gun without a word, just twists and delicately places it in the drawer of the bedside table.

Nott

[jealousbitch]

There'd been entirely too much blood for his taste, and he'll admit he hadn't really handled it all that well. Thankfully, Nadine and Julie had been there to take charge of the situation while he'd slunk off so he didn't have to look too closely. Susan was fine. She'd take a while to heal, but she'll be fine. Of course she'd be a little badass about it, right? Still, it wasn't right of him to cower and he comes to find her later. Once she's in bed and well on her way to healing. Lloyd knocks on the door to her room to announce his presence before he slides in.

He holds up a warm bowl of soup and some bread from the tavern below as a peace offering.

"Holdin' up okay? Y'know you scared the hell out of us."

[girl_at_the_window]

Susan is sitting up in bed by the time he actually comes in, although from the pale, strained look of her, it's not exactly comfortable. None of this is comfortable - what happened, what's happening, being stuck in the inn all bandaged up and hardly able to move, knowing that they know about the gun. Knowing she let Roland down.

Knowing, on some level, that she let Eponine down.

Honestly, she's decided that the injuries are the least of it.

She doesn't much like Lloyd - he ain't the worst of them, sure, but a follower can be worse than a leader - but she smiles wanly at him anyway. Fuck knows her judgement of people isn't exactly unimpeachable, right now.

"Aye. I know I did, and say sorry for it." But not that sorry. Regrets aside, she's still alive, and she guesses she's got their scare to thank. "I'll live. She didn't get me that deep, I reckon. Just bloody."

She has no idea if that's true. She wasn't in a state to assess her situation at the time, and she hasn't really dared to look under the bandages. Reckon, then, is more akin to hope.

[jealousbitch]

He doesn't understand Susan all that much, and he hasn't really tried, either. Not to say he couldn't if he wanted to, but she's a little too different to level with. Couldn't understand his devotion to Flagg even if he put it all into words. Sometimes you just had to be there to really understand.

"Hey, do what you've gotta do and we'll have your back. As long as you're fine, it's all good. Don't go dyin' on us or anything." He feels at least a little obligated to look out for her since Nadine is the one that brought her along. He respects the hell out of Nadine and as the First Lady, her decision is just as gospel as if it came from the Big Man himself.

Lloyd sits on the edge of the bed and offers the food to her. "Snagged it from downstairs. Should still be fairly warm."

[girl_at_the_window]

It doesn't seem right to Susan, after everything: all that she worked and sacrificed for Eponine, and this is what she gets for it - but she came here keeping secrets and carrying a gun, all but a spy against Flagg's folk, and they've been naught but kind to her since she stumbled back in. It's near enough to make her doubt.

Kind when ye ain't a threat. And kind folk can follow evil men, too. There was kind folken in Hambry, too. Ones who'd still jeered, at the end.

Still. It's something to think on - but not to think on right now. Right now, she takes the bowl as carefully as she can, aware that her hands aren't as steady as they ought to be, and offers him a more genuine smile.

"Say thankya, Lloyd. It's kind of 'ee to think of me." Wincing as she shifts, she manages to settle the bowl fairly steadily in her lap. "And don't worry, I ain't got any plans to die again. Sure as hell not like this."

ah jeez arrives way late, my b

[jealousbitch]

"Nah, don't sweat it. Only lookin' out for my people, y'know? Nadine says you're one of ours, you're one of ours."

He'll look out for her just the same as he would anybody in Flagg's good graces. She's a sweet girl, and Lloyd gets the feeling that she's been pretty sheltered. Not that he's worldly or anything, but he'd gotten around, right?

"Whatever happens to that bitch is less than she deserves." He might be biased in his feelings about Eponine because of her run-ins with Julie, but he stands by it if she attacked someone sweet like Susan.

it's all good!

[girl_at_the_window]

Susan hesitates a little, at that. There's a part of her, still, that feels more pity than anything for Eponine. It's all too clear how she's gotten to be such a... well, alright, bitch absolutely is the right word. But at the end of the day, she's more pathetic than anything. There's a part of Susan that still wants her to get better, to find someone who can love her.

And, at the same time: fuck Eponine. Given how much her midsection aches as she shifts, that part of her is definitely ascendant.

"I reckon there's not much anyone could do to make her more miserable than she already is." She wrinkles her nose up, breaking off a piece of the bread. "No sense worryin' over her, I guess. Though I might not be so measured about it if I see her again."

There's still bullets in her gun, after all. Next time, she's decided, she's not holding off.

[jealousbitch]

"People like that are only gonna drag you down with 'em so you're just as miserable." Sometimes it's hard to see when it's happening because at least you don't think it's that bad, but being far away from the situation makes it easier to notice.

Lloyd shakes his head, looking serious. "If you see her again, you come get me and I'll handle it."

He's already got blood on his hands, right? Already being fucked up over it won't make it worse if it's actually for somebody he's keeping an eye on. That's his justification in his own mind, but he's always been more bark than bite. Maybe he really means it.

[girl_at_the_window]

She's quiet for a moment. Then, carefully setting the soup bowl aside on the bedside table, she pushes herself up to sit straight, gritting her teeth against the ache of her stitches. There's something searching in her grey eyes, her lips pressing together as she scans his face.

Is that what ye think of me? He's got every right to, she guesses - all of them do. She's given them little enough cause to think she can look after herself, even before she got herself into this state. Even so, it stings, and she can't help thinking of Eponine. Of how Eponine kept acting like Susan was some spoiled, sheltered kid, like she couldn't look out for herself.

"I only didn't shoot her," she says at last, "'cause I didn't think she'd be dumb enough to go for me when I had a gun to her head. Ain't gonna make that mistake twice." There's something hard in her voice. "I can handle it, Lloyd. Whatever it looks like now, I'm done makin' those kinds of mistakes. I ain't fixin' to die again." Then, sighing, and sagging a little where she sits: "Thankee for sayin' it. Truly. But if I can't handle myself a second time, then I'd guess I deserve what I get."