abraxaslogs | Open log prompts

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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!]

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"If I offered it, he'd take it. Baby or no." Susan's voice is sharp, defensive. She's no longer crying, but that doesn't mean the wound she uncovered for this game is any less raw, or that it stings any less to be told it was for nothing. We ain't all happy to be wanted, 'Ponine. We ain't all happy to give ourselves up to some brute with a knife, or spread our legs for anyone that passes. Even a gilly's got dignity.

It's a cruel thought, and an unfair one, and she bites it back with an effort, even as she opens her mouth to snap it at the other girl. She's as bad as her aunt, sometimes, she thinks: sharp-tongued, bitter, cruel. She won't let that be who she is here, won't turn into one of the girls who laughed behind their hands at the mayor's whore. She refuses.

Instead, she leans in to look into the bag, wrinkling her nose in unconscious mimicry of 'Ponine. "I dunno," she says, after a moment. "Naught I've ever seen before. Let me look?"

"I think most men would take any skirt what offered it. Even me. 'Xept, I want my coin first." Eponine's expression hardens, and she shrugs, forcing the momentary shame of her admittance away.Maybe Susan won't click. Maybe she'll think Eponine's just saying it.

Eponine hands over the bag. "D'you think it's a game? We roll 'em, p'raps? Or perfume like a rich lady?"

Susan clicks, all right. There's a kernel of judgement there, but no more. If there's one thing she's learned, it's that a girl has to do what she has to do to get by - and for all her own discomfort with it, didn't she get Hart Thorin's coin first, too?

She bites her lip again, looking down at the bag, and reaches inside to pick out one of the pink things, cautiously rolling it between her fingers and sniffing it.

"Smells sweet. Like berries. Mayhap it is perfume, though..." She glances back at the guard. "He don't smell like a man who'd use it."

"Like a berry?" Eponine shoots her friend a strange, disbelieving expression before snatching the bag back. The balls are covered in a weird powder, and Eponine wets her finger now, before sticking it in the bag. When she puts her sugar-coated finger in her mouth and sucks, her eyes close in sheer pleasure. The taste even from the sugar alone is overwhelming though, and Eponine looks at her finger curiously.

"It's food... I think? I've never had something so... sweet? It burns my tongue it is so sweet. What is it?"

Susan watches the other girl's expression change, and, encouraged, darts her tongue out to lick the small, marble-like object in her hand. It's sweet, sweeter than honey, and - true enough - with just an edge of berry-flavour.

She whistles. "Sugar," she tells 'Ponine, her voice low and impressed. "It's all of it sugar! Only ground all fine as flour, but..." She looks down at the bag, then back over at where the guard had stood. She'd known from the pastry Nadine brought her that they had sweeter things here than back home, but this? This little bag alone must have more sugar in it than even Hart Thorin, glutton that he was, had in that locked cupboard in his kitchen. "Sugar and strawberries. Man Jesus, how's a guard afford such a glut of it?"

"Sugar?" Eponine repeats dumbly. She doesn't really have much concept of it, honestly. It's for the very rich, not guards.

"Maybe he stole 'em too? He don't look so good to me, you know?"

She licks her finger again and sticks it back in the bag, pressing a little of the fine powder onto it before sucking it again. Now that the initial shock's worn off, the taste is nice. Too nice. She wants more. So she carefully takes a full bon bon and begins to lick it slowly, savouring the taste.

"It's like eating a cloud," she says dreamily.

There's something reassuring about being back on solid ground, on knowing more about something - even if it's just a small something. Susan wipes her eyes on her sleeve one more time, and her tone is almost teacherly. "Aye, sugar. Our mayor back home, he'd take near this much in his coffee." She holds up the bonbon between her fingers. "Though I can't imagine ye'd want strawberry smell in coffee. Guess he's just got a sweet tooth."

Not that she can blame him. When she pops the sweet into her mouth, the way she'd do with the almond sweetmeats they sell on Fair-Days, the sweetness is enough to make her jaw ache and her head light, but it's also so good. She tucks the bonbon into her cheek, where it bulges slightly comically, and looks down into the bag again. There's so many!

"They ain't money," she says, after a moment, "but we might get more use of 'em than we would of money, down here. At least they'll make life a touch sweeter."

"Coffee?" Again, she knows the word vaguely, but it holds little to no meaning to her. Still, Susan's teacherly tone makes Eponine want to faint away inside. She's embarrassed. Embarrassed that she doesn't know what a sweet is, that it's been so long since she's even seen, let alone tasted sugar, that she can't remember it at all, and now coffee. She feels inadequate compared to her pretty, apparently sophisticated companion.

"You're stupid if you eat 'em, Susan." She licks the bon bon again, before folding it carefully into her pocket. "Think of what they mean. It ain't money, but should people fight for 'em? We could sell 'em or trade 'em. We might have extra blankets or even their mattress too? We could have extra food. Real food. These are nice but my belly rumbles too much for such food, you know?"

Susan considers this for a moment, then sighs. "Ye're right," she admits - but doesn't spit out the bon-bon in her cheek. Selling, trading, or whatever... sometimes none of it seems quite so important as just a moment of things being a little sweeter. She does fold the top of the bag over, though (realising with fascination that it's made of paper, or something very like paper) and, for want of anything better to do with it, holds it back out to Eponine. Probably that means she'll get less than her share of whatever comes of it, but she's had the sugar at least, and she's got a sense the other girl needs it more.

Also, she sees that embarrassment dawn on Eponine's face, and it makes her feel guilty, knowing that it's just what she'd hoped for.

"You should take 'em," she decides aloud, and adds, by way of conciliation, "Ye'll get a better price for 'em, anyroad." She's not entirely sure that's true - she's accompanied her father to enough horse fairs to consider herself at least a halfway-decent haggler - but it seems like it might be kindest to let Eponine be an expert at something in turn.

Eponine shakes her head.
"That weren't the deal." She doesn't like charity, though she's not too proud to take it from the rich either. But Susan isn't rich. They're one together, thieves together now too. And if she gets caught, then she can tell on Susan too if they have half each.

"Here -"

She pulls her tunic hard: the coarse fabric has little give, and begins to tear. It's not enough though, and Eponine ends up looking at their feet for a sharp stone to pierce the material enough to allow her to tear a square free. Her prison uniform's ruined, but Eponine has survived in worse rags before now.

"Put half in here and these are mine, and you have the rest. I can use your ribbon to do it up with, or a string or that."

Susan can't say she's too upset with that as an outcome, in fairness. She can let Eponine be the expert, and still take her share of the spoils. Provided it doesn't get her caught, it's a win all around, and she's sure Cersei, at least, will be glad of a little sweetness in her life. (Just so long as she can give Cersei a sweet or two without Jaime finding out she has the others, because fuck knows she doesn't trust that man not to rob her in the night.)

"Don't waste the ribbon on it," she advises, and considers for a moment before, frowning, she bites the hem of her own sleeve, making enough of a hole that she can unravel a length of thread. She holds it out to Eponine. "Too bad they stitched the stupid siguls on the back, else we'd be well set for thread."

"Why did you ruin yours too? We only needed one of us to wear rags, you know? We could have taken turns."
Now here is a girl who has lived a life where clothes are plentiful, if she doesn't think about ruining more than one set.

"D'you think they'd care if we got rid of it? Mine is of a hanged man. I don't want to give them ideas, you know?"

Susan stares, a little hurt. She had been trying, first and foremost, to show some kind of solidarity, to ensure that they were in this together on all fronts. Now she looks down at her damaged sleeve, and suddenly wonders if it was stupid to make that gesture.

"It's just the sleeve. It ain't rags." She clears her throat, picking at the frayed hem self-consciously. "And for the sigul... I ain't sure. Could be they wouldn't care, could be they'd punish us. Guess we won't know unless someone tries it. But they seem to care a good deal what we're wearing."

"I'll try. I don't care."

She's saying it to be boastful, to pretend like she actually doesn't care in front of Susan. In all honesty, she's more concerned about ruining the tunic than the trouble she'll get into for it. But then, her's is ruined now anyway.

"I've not had clothes for - for years. Only a chemise that were my Pa's and a bit of rag for skirt and some string to hold it on."
she strokes the rough cloth of the uniform. "I always wanted a pretty dress though. 'Parnasse'd let me try one from the ladies what he slit their throats before he sold 'em, but he laughed at me when I did."

Eponine shrugs. "I thought I'd be beautiful in 'em, but I suppose a cockroach is just so no matter what. They were lovely though, all silks and satin and damask. But then, I suppose this is as good."
She strokes her uniform. "One day, I want a nice dress."

"If I had one, I'd give it 'ee." It's not just a rush of generosity that makes Susan say it. Rather, it's a stab of anger at the unfairness of it all. Eponine, she's sure, would have taken kindly enough to Hart Thorin's gifts, to silk shirts and petticoats and embroidered gowns. Eponine would have stood still and let herself be poked by pins while they fitted her for all those endless, endless Reaptide dresses. Eponine might - and the thought feels small and mean and hard - have thought it worth the price. Might have delighted, not recoiled, from the scooping necklines meant to draw the eye to her tits, the thin and clinging cloth that stuck too close to the body.

And, again, there's that guilt, for hadn't Susan cast them aside? Wasn't she just as ungrateful as Aunt Cordelia had accused her of being, tossing silks and satins aside for her pa's old work shirt and rolled-up jeans?

It's unfair. It's unfair that she had such clothes and hated them, and that Eponine had nothing. It's unfair that anyone would laugh at Eponine, and that anyone would slaver so over Susan. It's unfair in a way that makes her angry at herself, and at the world that's let it be that way for women everywhere, and - in a queer, oblique sort of way - at Eponine herself for making her feel that way. For not giving her anything to say but if.

"Ye'd be pretty," she offers, by way of conciliation, though whether it's herself or Eponine she's trying to reconcile with, she isn't sure. "If ye had a proper bath, and let someone do up your hair and put a dab of rouge on, ye'd be plenty beautiful." It's only when it's out that she realises that word's crept in again, that if, and she could kick herself.

Eponine would have loved it all. Being made a fuss of, treated like a doll, wanted and envied and appraised for her beauty. Eponine would revel in it. As it is, she's turned out in her rags and made to beg the rich and turn any trick she can to get the coin from them, whether theft or pity or - well. It turns Eponine's stomach every time, no matter how often it happens. But who cares? A twisted stomach is better than a sore arse and an empty belly.

"If."

It hangs between them.

Eponine closes her eyes, and sucks in a breath through her nose. She's trying not to cry, not to let Susan see how much her careless words have hurt Eponine. Eponine nods her head, reconciling herself to her ugliness, before nodding again, bigger this time.

"If." Her voice is strangled. "I suppose not everyone can be beautiful, Miss. Or have a bath or someone to do their hair. Me, I ain't had a wash since we came to Paris when I were perhaps seven or eight, and I do not even have a comb. I've seen them, though, in the houses. I've seen the baths too. What I would give for a bath? Me, I'd promise anything for one of them. Just five minutes."
She slides down the wall where they're stood until she's sat all hunched over again.

"What's it like to be beautiful? And rich? I bet you had lovely dresses."

Susan looks at Eponine for a long time, her mouth pressed tight, her brow furrowed. At last, she lets out a long huff of air, like an annoyed filly, and sits down beside Eponine, settling her own back against the wall.

"I ain't rich," she says, unable to keep the faint edge of frustration from creeping into her voice. It isn't Eponine's fault, she knows that - but she's trying, gods rot it, trying hard as she can to find common ground between them and to make the other girl feel better, and it's hard to fool herself into feeling like this is friendship, when 'Ponine doesn't know her at all. (And how should she, missy, when ye've not met her an hour?) "I never was rich, though we used to do all right by it, when Da was alive. And when he died, we sold all the horses, sold the tack, sold everything we had that could bring in money for the rent." It feels uncomfortable to talk about it this way, like somehow this is also rubbing it in, but she just... she needs Eponine to know. She doubts 'Ponine would think this all sounds like real poverty, but it had felt real enough. "I'd one dress, for fairs and the like, and it was nice enough, though I'd taken it out time and again and it was startin' to show. For the rest of the time, I'd one of his old work shirts and some jeans I tucked up to the knee, and bale twine for my hair." There's something fierce in the look she gives the other girl, a hurt of her own. "I ken that it ain't the same. I kennit. But ye're talking like I dressed all my life in silk and velvet and never earned a thing myself. Like... I dunno. Like I was some high lady, snacking on sweetmeats and dancin' the nights away. I ain't that, all right? Closest I ever got was a rich man's toy."

Her jaw shifts under her skin, and she lets her head fall back against the wall, staring up at the sky. "Ye want to know what it's like to be beautiful, 'Ponine? If you wear a dress they'll try to get under it, and if you wear your da's jeans, well, ain't it a filthy thing for a woman to show her legs like that? They'll grab at your ass in the street. They'll corner you in the hay-yard and try to get you somewhere for a quick fumble, and, well, who could blame 'em, for a man's got needs and a girl who looks like that, she no doubt invited him in." Her voice is bitter, and almost as strangled as Eponine's. "They'll fork the evil eye at you in the street, and the girls you thought might be friends, they'll see their man look at you and turn to wishing you into Hell. And they'll look at you trying to keep one thing, just one thing, of what your da spent his whole life to build, and all they'll see in it is that you can't say no. And a part of ye'll be glad when it happens, because ye've been called whore since before you grew tits, and at least bein' one lets you have summat to show for it."

She's not crying. She's all cried out, maybe. She shoots Eponine a rather baleful look, her arms now wrapped around her knees.

"I ain't sayin' I didn't have it easier than some. But I didn't ask to look the way I do, and, sure, for a time I had pretty dresses and a maid to do my hair, but I paid. Ye don't know how I paid." She feels suddenly drained - tired, hollow, and rather embarrassed at her outburst. She rests her chin on her knees, closing her eyes, and sighs. "And ye can comb your own hair out with your fingers and braid it, and it'll look just as good as any high-falutin' noblewoman, once you get the hang of it. I'll show'ee how."

Eponine listens to the tirade. She wants to tell Susan that it's not just pretty girls who are catcalled in the streets, or touched when they're not asking for it, or even made to go further. It happens to the bony, the dirty, the ugly too. She doesn't want to admit it because she doesn't want to admit that she loves when it happens. Even when it hurts - and god, Montparnasse knows how to make it hurt - she loves it. It hurts but it proves that she can feel, that she's still alive.

But Susan doesn't need to know that.

Eponine sits in reflective silence for a moment or two.

"I'm sorry."

She sighs. "I... it happened to us, too. When we lost the inn, we sold everything, and then when they were coming to arrest Pa, we fled. We ran to Paris, and Pa sold the horse, the cart - everything we had. We changed our names and lived - god, we lived in hovels and holes, and rooms filled with other families. They sold -"
She shakes her head bitterly. "My Ma had children. Boys, they were. She had 'em and she sold 'em. And then, when there weren't more to sell..."

She shrugs. "There is always something to sell, ain't there? To 'Parnasse, for a better placing. To offer the men what he begs from. Don't matter what you look like. But, it's a warm bed so I don't mind so much. And 'Parnasse is so beautiful, Susan. All the girls like 'Parnasse, even the real ladies of society. And he still picks me. It's worth something, innit? More than a dress, I suppose."

She's silent again. She hadn't meant to admit any of that.

"I weren't meaning to be rude, you know? It's just... here, this is the best life I have had in forever. A prison is my best home, you know? I just wish there were summat - summat I can say to them others, or show, or have. And them what are free. I just wish -" She shrugs. "But wishes are stupid, and I ought not have said any of this."

In a horrible sort of way, Susan's glad for this - glad that she's almost crying herself, glad that Eponine's sighing and apologising, glad that both of them seem to have ripped healing wounds raw. It's a terrible thing to be glad for, but she's glad, all the same. It feels honest, as though they might actually be friends now. This, more than talking about bonbons or thefts or even love, feels real.

She reaches out, hesitant, to touch Eponine's hand. "I oughtn't've snapped at 'ee, either," she says, quietly, and with real feeling. "I'm sorry, 'Ponine. Truly, I am. For all of it, every bit. For what they did to 'ee, and what they did to me, and for bein' an ass about it, and for... for all of it." Sorry is such a broad word, but for once, she feels it's the only one that fits: sorry that and sorry for and sorry over. Just sorry. They're a pretty sorry pair, she thinks, and almost laughs.

Biting her lip, and tasting the sweet berry-sugar from the bonbon she ate, she shifts where she sits and turns to face Eponine more fully. "We've got a while yet out here," she says, hoping it's true. "Let me braid your hair? Even if ye ain't got money, ye can say there's a girl does your hair, and there's sugar in your pocket."

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