Open log prompts

[gardienne]

Who: Eponine Thenardier and You
What : Time to meet people before the mines
When : June 12-13
Where : Cell 3 or the Prison yard




Imprisoned

It hadn't been the first time people had scowled at the mere sight of Eponine, and she guesses it wouldn't be the last. Completely bewildered by the turn of events, she'd tried to run, though to no avail. Manacles had been clamped firmly to her wrists and ankles and she'd been dragged through to the dungeons with just a few harsh words to help her understand where she is.

Deposited in a heap on the floor, Eponine picks herself up quickly, turning back to the bars that are clanging shut behind her guards.

"Please. Please, at least tell me my crime."

Cellmates

Once Eponine's actually looked around at her prison, she relaxes. The beds are plain, and hard, but they're beds. And the cells themselves; in Les Madelonnettes, she'd been shoved into a dungeon with a hundred or so women. Even at home, she'd shared a tiny room with her parents and her sister. This, compared to either place is sheer luxury and Eponine revels in it. The silences that stretch through the tedious days are filled with her gruff voice, chattering about whatever comes into her head.

"It isn't so bad, you know? Why do you worry about it? There is nothing to be done to be freed anyway. In Paris, oh how bad, but here? Here there is a bed, can you imagine? A whole bed for a person, just one. I have seen only twelve mattresses for over one hundred before. This, this is not so bad."

Food, glorious food.

She's starving and eats with abandon, no matter what's put in front of her. She's the first one at the cell doors when feeding time comes, and the last one to finish sucking all of her fingers clean with the desperation that comes with being half starved. As she eats, she makes careful observances of her cell mates' habits - who munches, who saves, who shares. Those that share get her fixed, hang-dog stare; she licks her lips as she watches them devour their rations, silently begging their crumbs. Those that save their food, she ignores, or seems to at least. Instead, she scrutinises what they do with their left overs, where they hide it, and when they fall asleep or turn their back, she slips to their hiding place to try to take her fill of it.

Rec Time

Eponine doesn't ever seem to do much in the yard. She just sits, back against a wall, watching the others. It's nice to just see sunlight. Her fingers trace the dusty floor: she practices wring words as she sits and watching the others.

After a couple of days of just watching, though, she calls out to the person closest to her.

"They're so silly, you know, to give us such... toys? Do they not know we could use it to escape?"

Wild card
[I'm happy to go with the flow of ideas!]

Comments

Rec Time

[mytearsaremine]

Jolie looks between Eponine and the stiff leather ball at her feet that she's been idly kicking around. "I'd love to see how somebody'd use this to escape from armored guards." She's being a little sarcastic, but only a little. Mostly she's curious. Maybe this gal is more wordly than she is? Knows how to pick a lock or actually fight?

[gardienne]

“You doubt me? Madame!” Eponine says reprovingly. She glances over at the guards and beckons Jolie closer.

“First, we open it. Such a thing like that is a bag, really. And so, we must have a sharp stone or glass to make a hole or pick the lace. Then we stuff it - a heavy plate or stones or so. And then it is heaved at a head. It shall crack as an egg, Miss. That is what my Pa’d do. He escaped even La Force, though how, I do not know.”

[mytearsaremine]

Jolie does have to swallow a giggle at being called "madame". Geez, that's for like. Old people. Grandmas and stuff.

She masters the urge, though, half-sure she'll get scolded again for laughing. "Yeah, but see. You need a sharp stone and things to stuff inside it first, and we don't have any of those. Plus, a lot of the guards have helmets. We might rattle one, but probably won't crack anything."

It'd be nice to have a sharp stone. That'd be a weapon in and of itself, after all.

[gardienne]

“Or sharp teeth. Alas.” Eponine’s not got many left in her head. A lot have fallen out and she’s sold a couple too. To Jolie, she shrugs.

“Well, it is a dream. In Les Madelonnettes, we used to say what we should do to ‘em. Pull them into the cell and rob ‘em and leave them in chains and that. It’s nice to think even if it shan’t happen.”

She grins though. “Here is better. At least we have a bed. Do you know how long since I have had such? And food?”

[mytearsaremine]

"You didn't even have a bed before?" Jolie asks, mouth agape without her say-so. "That's awful! And one meal a day is-- it doesn't count as food. It's not even starvation rations. You had less than that?"

She's starting to think this girl must have been homeless or something. She's not... unaware of that being a problem, she's just never actually been confronted with it.

Imprisonened

[moremilkplz]

The first day is spent just walking around the castle, getting to know this backwards, ren fair wannabe world. The stone walls, the smell of shit everywhere and no one wearing any kind of orthopedic shoes (which, is a good thing. The few months Vought had signed them up for sponsorship and before A-train joined the Seven, he'd been forced to wear those monstrosities at every televised event.)

Today was the day to check out the dungeon. The guards even showed him the way, as the dingy dungeon came in to light. Or, not-light, since everything was shadow-y dark and fully disgusting. He leans against the nearest cage, popping a grape in to his mouth.

"Maybe they caught you stealing, buddy. You can't do that here."

[gardienne]

Eponine's cheeks flush, but she glares back at Homelander anyway.
"You think me a thief, Sir? Pah!" She spits hard at him, her expression hard. "There is a word they say, isn't there? Not to judge how you look. I am a rat, Sir, and maybe p'raps, I am or p'raps I am not. But it ain't nice to call me a thief. Here, no. What am I to take?"
But she's looking at his grapes, and her fingers curl round the bars as she presses her face to the dank cage.
"Sir, they are starving us here. See how thin I am? Sir, please share with me?"

[moremilkplz]

The look on Homelander's face when she come close enough to almost brush against the tunic is somewhere between 'just stuck my hand in to literal shit' and 'poor thing'. She's dirty and dressed in rags, her bone hand clutching at the bars.

"How would giving you grapes help? They really don't have much nutrition in them."

Is it true? Hell if he knows, and he eats another one. "Then what did you do? You don't look like a killer to me, but I've been wrong before. Not a lot, but it has happened."

[gardienne]

"I ain't killed no one, M'sieur. I swear it. Here, I don't know what I have done. They pulled me from the water and the stupid man screamed and here, I am clamped in chains and locked away. At home, yes. I have... well, it don't matter, does it, Sir? If I am scum there? Here, I am still scum."

Eponine presses her face to the bars, her dull eyes fixed on the grapes Homelander is eating. "A grape? Is that what it's called?"
She licks her lips. She's so close, she fancies she can almost hear it pop in his mouth, and almost, almost feel the juice on her tongue. "Me, I've never had one. Please, Sir. Just one. I shall give you..." She casts round for something that she might barter with. There's only the blanket on her bed.
"I... there's... a blanket? Sir, a blanket for a grape? Or a promise? A promise to do as you wish, when I'm free. Will you?"

[moremilkplz]

Now she has his attention and Homelander crouches down so they're about level - face to face, and a slow smile spreads across his face.

"Did you really just agree to grant me a promise?" and the smile turns wolfish, "Can you do that, buddy? If I feed you grapes, you will--" there's a pause as he rolls a grape between his fingers. "Promise to do what I say, if you ever get out of this shithole?"

Rec Time

[girl_at_the_window]

Susan hasn't seen much use for the equipment. For the most part, she's just pacing, trying to keep moving while there's space to do so, her grey eyes watchful as she looks around at the other prisoners. She's spotted Eponine a couple of times already, wondered about approaching her, but...

But there's other things on her mind, and while it might be strange to consider this crowded courtyard solitude, there is a part of her that considers it a welcome respite from her cellmates. So maybe, despite knowing on one level that it would be smart to get to know others in this world, she just hasn't wanted to be the one to break that relative peace.

Still, that's an opening, and she's glad to have been given it - a friendly enough call, and one that's easy enough to reply to. It takes some of the pressure off.

"If they didn't kennit ere ye shouted," she remarks, with a smile to reassure the other girl that she's not entirely serious, "they sure do now." There's no bitterness in her tone, though, and she turns to approach the girl who called to her. "Toys is all they are, I fear."

[gardienne]

Eponine looks over to Susan and grins. She hadn’t followed every word, but she’s gathered at least that her subtlety is being criticised. It makes Eponine chuckle.
“We are so dangerous, Mam’zelle, that we ought to give these poor, idiot creatures a chance to run from us, after all.” She pats the floor next to her, inviting Susan to sit.

“That’s why we are locked up on sight, no? Because we are so bad even the sight of us has them shaking? Not many want me at home, Miss, but here is the quickest to hide me away so well. The Devil’s daughter herself.” She laughs again.

[girl_at_the_window]

Susan hesitates for a moment, then sits, cross-legged on the hard ground, looking at the other girl. She likes her immediately, if she's honest - doesn't trust her, this girl has the sharp-edged look of someone who's never had much given to her, and that kind of person can be dangerous, but likes her nonetheless. It's a different kind of humour to that which has been wearing on her from the men in her cell, something less threatening and less keenly-edged. Maybe that's just because it's coming from someone of her own sex, and maybe it's because she can get up and walk away if she needs to, but this joking tone seems comforting, where Eddie's and Jaime's have done nothing but set her on edge.

"I don't ken mam-zelle, Miss." Miss she knows, and it seems like the most polite thing to call this stranger. Given how young she is - not much older than Susan herself, Susan would guess, if she even is older - calling her sai like an old wife feels out of sorts, so in the absence of a name, Miss it will have to be. "Susan. Ye may as well call me Susan. We're all devil's daughters here, after all, ain't much of a time to stand on courtesy."

[gardienne]

“Susan?” Eponine smiles. There hasn’t been much humour in her cell either - two brooding men, and the other man. He’s friendly at least, and Eponine’s noted him as an easy mark.
“‘Ponine then, if we ain’t standing on titles. I’ve been so used to bowing and scraping to all that it seems almost unnatural not to use a courtesy. Even with them what don’t deserve it.”

She pushes her knotted, dark hair out of her eyes impatiently. “I asked for a ribbon, you know. To keep my hair tied away. It is so bothersome when it falls in my face. But no - and I so do not want to rip my cloth for a ribbon.
Eponine looks slyly at Susan, before adopting a pitiful tone. It’s worked before. She’s conned several here already out of food with her carry on.
“I ain’t never had nothing so nice before as this.”

[girl_at_the_window]

"Especially with them as don't deserve it, for they're always the ones to demand it." Susan rests her back up against the wall, letting her head fall back. If she squints up at the sky, she can almost pretend that it's not such a small piece of daylight, that the walls don't rise so high.

'Ponine's words bring her back, though, and she looks over, her hand automatically going to the long golden braid of her own hair, the ribbon that ties the end. It was a gift. People do keep on giving her gifts, and no matter how she might chafe at that kind of charity, she's not unaware of the luck of it. There's advantages to being a pretty girl, no matter what it might cost as well.

She rubs her fingers over the knot of the ribbon. If she had a knife, it occurs to her, she could cut off a piece for herself, and they could both have enough to hold their hair back. But she has no knife.

"As jails go, I've seen worse," she agrees, after a moment, still fingering the ribbon thoughtfully. She could give it away, ask Nadine for another - but her pride rebels at the idea, at any thought of begging even for so small a favour. Especially for so small a favour. "Though it's queer, ain't it, to feed us so well and yet be so tight over even string to hold a braid? There's a great deal's queer about all this." She sounds distracted.

It's only a ribbon. At the end of the day, it's only a stupid ribbon. She thinks of how her aunt scorned her for vanity, the time she'd scrimped and starved for new ribbons for the Fair-Day two years past, standing there restless as Maria pinned up her hair with ribbons tainted by what they'd cost. She thinks of her father. Pat Delgado would've given the shirt off his back for a stranger, so they said. A good man. A fair man. A man whose honesty had gotten him killed, and whose legacy had been picked clean.

"Ay, carajo," she mutters under her breath, and scowls briefly, as if tasting something bitter, before tugging the ribbon off the end of her braid and holding it out. "Here. Though if you find aught sharp enough to split it, I'd thankee to give half back, my hair tangles too easy."

Bunkies

[gunbunny]

"That math can't be right."

Jesper had grown up poor himself- well, relatively speaking. Humble was more accurate. A farmer's son and nothing like the soul grinding poverty that came with the city life of the truly desperate. But he'd never put much thought into what the true other side of the coin must be, and now, as he tries to figure it, his brow furrows. He tries counting it out on his fingers as he reclines on his own bed.

"Ten a bed? They'd never fit. Unless it's those dwarves you hear stories of."

[gardienne]

"Dwarves, Sir?" Eponine draws her legs up close to her and wraps her arms about her. "I have heard many tales of 'em, but I ain't never seen it. I should like to though. They're them what find money, yes?"

She smiles and rocks forward to crawl to the end of her bunk, closer to Jesper.

"But no, in Les Madelonnettes, no. No dwarves. There weren't no magic there. There were... it were nothing. Just - in a cell, one hundred of us, and they keep us in chains, ankle and foot. And me, I am quick on a knife and that, Sir, but I were robbed even a minute after being shoved in. And the beds moved, Sir, there were so many rats in it. Me, I didn't go near. I pushed to a window and found a seat near the sill, but Sir, the dogs outside, with such teeth. I am almost glad to be here, you know?"

She grins again, despite her horrific tale, and blatantly looks Jesper up and down. "Either you are a conman, like Claquesous, or you ought not to be in prison, Sir. You look to nice for such as the rest of us in here."

[gunbunny]

Jesper's eyebrows slowly went up as she spoke until his eyes were about as large as they could get without physical aid. He'd avoided a lot of the worst parts of being poor thanks to Kaz, he'd honestly just stumbled into his boss' caring hands. Now, though, in this place, these kind of stories make a man think-

What happens next?

"That's, ah- That's a terrible story? Rats...I hate rats. But don't fret, dear. I'm neither: a simple bar bouncer. Just one that's never quite been bad enough for them to bother locking up until now."

At least, not for anything he's been caught doing.

[gardienne]

"I don't mind 'em, really, you know. They are everywhere." She smirks, almost unkindly. "They're probably not so far away even now, you know? What would you do if you saw one?"

Eponine tilts her head, considering his words. "A bar bouncer? Is that a type of thief? There are so many, I don't keep up. Me, I am not so interested, but my Pa knows 'em all."

[gunbunny]

"Shoot it, my unkind lady."

It's an immediate response, and he frowns as he remember he very much does not have his guns. He just pulls his feet up off the ground instead, eyeing the dark corners warily.

"And it's a living. How legal is really a matter of looking at it."

Yeah. Totally a thief.

food~

[opioid]

Eddie's not in her cell, but he can see well enough, and he's getting better at pretending he's not looking. Roland taught him a thing or two about that, about watching so surreptitiously it seems like he's not even awake, through his eyelashes.

He waits until she's done pilfering leftovers from one of her cellmates and then a few minutes besides – if nothing else, he respects her jive. Some people deserve to be stolen from, he figures, and if he's right about who she's been forced to share a cell with, then that's doubly true. "Hey," he whispers, sticking his hand between the bars to wave, to catch her attention. "You still hungry?"

[gardienne]

Eponine jumps when Eddie whispers to her. She hadn't realised that anyone was watching. She goes quickly to the bars, curling her fingers around them and she presses her face to them.

"Are you gonna tell, Sir? Don't blag on me, will you? They'll fair kill me if they know it were I that took it."

That's probably not true. Jesper's an easy mark. Flagg, gruff as he is, has shared his food from his wife. And Eponine hasn't spoken much to the other man. None of them seem like they'd care if she took their food anyway. But Eddie doesn't know that, and if he feels sorry for her, he might give her more food.

She licks her lips. "Do you have more, Sir?"

[opioid]

"Not much, but here."

What he has is a few bits of bread he's not going to eat – God help him, sometimes he just doesn't want to eat the crusts – and there's something distinctly waifish about her over there. With some difficulty he sticks his arm further out from between the bars and tries to toss the scraps over to her like he's sharing food with a dog, trying to banish all thoughts that they're all dogs down here.

"I won't tell, don't worry. You got quick hands."

[gardienne]

Eponine grins, not at all offended about being thrown crusts. She sticks her bony arms through the bars to grab what she can. Never mind that they’re crusts or covered with dust from the floor. Food is food and Eponine has no qualms at eating it.

“Thank you Sir. You know, I think I like the crust the best. It don’t taste as good but you can chew it the longer, you know?”

She presses her face back to the bars, once the food is safely hidden.
“Are you still there, Sir? What is your name? I’m Eponine but no one never calls me, except some of the students I’ve met and that. To most everyone else, I am just ‘Ponine.”

[opioid]

Never in his life has Eddie considered the chewability of crusts as a net positive for crusts in general, and it's such a strange observation that he can't shift the grin off his face.

"Yeah, I'm here. You don't have to call me sir, 'Ponine – Eddie's fine. Edward, I guess, if you want my full name, but nobody calls me Edward. Makes me sound like an old man."