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.

[gardienne]

Eponine shakes her head. “Before the prison, we had a room - my Ma and Pa, and Azelma. But we all to prison and when we are back, who has the money? Ma is dead. Azelma? I do not know. She is too stupid to be alive still. And my Pa? He shall kill me if he finds me again. I should rather sleep in a ditch than go to him. He didn’t even care to tell me they were out.”

She grins ruefully. “Some days, it is three, four of no food. Grass only fills a little, and I have eaten mud, soil - anything - just to have a weight in my belly. If no one will give me a sous, then how can I eat? Some days, even for a crust that has been discarded, I will beg. It is not unheard of to do so where I am from.”

She wraps her thin arms about her knees. “Someone told me they’ll send us back from here soon. I would rather be a prisoner here forever than go back.”

[mytearsaremine]

"If they could send us back, they would've already," Jolie points out, sort of trying to be reassuring. She's not very good at it. "It's a lot more expensive to keep us fed and guarded than to just throw more magic, or whatever, at us to get rid of us."

Either that or they still wanted the rest of them for some evil purpose. Jolie can't write that off, either, but she's also, you know, trying to be reassuring. So she doesn't say it out loud. Instead, she rallies a little, with her now-customary annoyance: "And it could be a lot better, you know. People who mean well don't just treat other people like this."

[gardienne]

"Do you think so?" But then, that poses the question of what's to become of them. Eponine's learned not to worry, or at least to try not to worry, because there is absolutely no point. She can't change what's going to happen to her - and honestly, when she does try to take control, it usually goes horrendously wrong for her.

"I wonder why they're bothering to keep us then? To make us a servant perhaps? I don't think I should mind that either."

Eponine'd be a horrendous servant though. She's already thinking of the treasures that are sure to be lying around a castle that she might be able to swipe.

[mytearsaremine]

"If they wanted to make us servants, they shouldn't have thrown us in a dungeon," Jolie says with a scowl. "All that did was make us hate them. Well." She looks Eponine over briefly, and amends, "Most of us. And a servant who hates you isn't going to be any good at all. We'll just be looking for a way to escape or to make life harder for them." They'd deserve it, Jolie thinks fiercely. Maybe not death or anything, especially anybody who wasn't that wizard who brought them here, but certainly not comfortable.

Cw physical child abuse

[gardienne]

"Do you think?" Eponine ponders this for a minute. "We had a servant, you know? Cosette, she were called. I remember. Such a stupid little girl, always stealing my toys, but she weren't to touch em."

Eponine smiles almost sadistically at the memory of the little girl being beaten because of her, Eponine's actions. But she soon sobers back to her usual melancholia. "She must've hated us, you know? Hated me? But still, she were a servant. She were rubbish, but then we were only children."

Eponine shrugs, apparently not acknowledging her casual mentions of child labour or abuse.

"What is the point of hating, Miss? It shan't get us nowhere and a dungeon is better than Paris, you know?

[mytearsaremine]

Yeah, Jolie is torn between horrors at... a lot of things, here. "I mean. I don't think hating is super great, unless it's really deserved. But I think I'd probably hate someone who had me beaten for touching a toy." She absolutely hated Hiskott, and anyone trying to tell her not to would have another thing coming.

She rocks back and forth on her heels a little, frowning. "Just because someone's a servant doesn't mean they're a lesser person, you know. And just because a dungeon is better than where you came from doesn't mean it's right to be in one."

[gardienne]

"Then she ought not to have touched what weren't hers. Cosette was a sneak when she was a child. Mama said so. She ought to be punished." Eponine chuckles humourlessly.
"But she won in the end, you know? She is a rich lady now, and in love with a proper gentleman, and me? I am a street girl that says a prison is better than her life before. It is funny how it works, no? If I had been beaten as a child, would I be free now?"

Eponine tilts her head, looking Jolie up and down as she considers her.
"Were you a servant, Miss? My words have angered you."

[mytearsaremine]

"I'm not angry," Jolie says, shaking her head. It's not entirely true, she's angry on behalf of... a lot of people in this situation, apparently. But mostly she's kind of frustrated, baffled by Eponine's way of thinking. "I just don't think that's a good way to think about other people. And I'm pretty sure beating didn't have anything to do with who turned out rich and who didn't."