INTRO LOG #2

[abraxasmods]

Intro Log #2

It has been two months now since the initial group of summonings first took place. Castle Thorne, or at least the part above ground, is buzzing with a vibrant air of hope following the 'success' at the Singularity. Eager smiles and excited chattering are to be found in nearly every corner of the castle and surrounding town. The honored guests may find grateful looks turned their way more often than not. A new and brighter day seems to be dawning on the kingdom.

In the dungeons it's a different story entirely. The mood is somber and uneasy. The prisoner taken for trial has yet to return, and no word has come regarding her or her fate. There has been no mention of any further trials as of yet and guards seem to have little patience for unruly behavior or even conversation. Some seem to not even look at or acknowledge the prisoners at all.

[ Feel free to continue threads from the TDM here or start your own! As cell and room assignments will be short-lived due to this month's event, you're free to assume whichever cellmates and roommates you like instead of officially signing up as long as there are ICly no more than four people in a cell or room at once. ]

Comments

[gardienne]

Yeah. I guess so. Not if they keep us locked up here? Who should marry me in here? There is one boy I saw, in the horizon. He is so beautiful, you know? And he spoke to me. He fixed my doll. But here? No. I wonder if he was just a dream too. Even if he was real though, who would marry us here? A prison wedding is a miserable affair, I think.

[Eponine uncurls herself slowly. She edges closer and closer to Amos until their knees are almost touching.]

You’re a kind man, you know? To tell me such fairytales. It’s nice to hear them. Even to hear it from a brute of a man such as you. Me, I would be a friend if you’d have me. I were teasing before. So bored am I that I hoped for a fight but no. You’re kind. Would you have me?

[baltimores]

[ He listens to her — she still goes on and on, but now it's less of an irritant, more of a... just something that's there, would feel weird if it stopped — but continues to stare out at nothing. Yeah, she's right. They'll probably just die miserably in prison. Alone, but that goes without saying. That's how people die.

Looks down when he catches her movements out of his peripheral vision, first at their knees, then back up at her face. He's still tired, but maybe he didn't fuck up as bad as he thought. He still did, but it's more of the "drown my sorrows in the fact that I'm irredeemable in a days-long bender" fuckup, less the "pick a fight I know I can't win so someone finally puts me out of my misery" fuckup.

You know, if either was an option. Which they're not. Because prison. ]

I'm not kind.

[ He's not. Brute is a good word for him; monster would be better. His words aren't from someone who protests too much, they're from someone who's long ago accepted the ugly truth about himself. Doesn't know what he did to make her think otherwise, unless life was so shitty to her that her standards are so low that he could ever be considered kind.

Which, he knows about life being that shitty. Amos pauses. ]

I can protect you. Anyone tries to fuck with you, I can kill them. That's about all I'm good for. [ His eyes dart in a guard's direction, back at her again. ] Might get that fight out of me, anyway.

[gardienne]

You'd do that?

[Eponine's genuinely touched... but she has a sinking feeling in her stomach too. She knows exactly what she's said to Homelander about Amos and it isn't exactly complimentary. That fight is probably going to be battering her if he ever finds out. But he won't, surely?]

No one's never done that before. Always I've just looked after myself. I don't think no one's ever cared if I survived a fight before. It's good of you, Sir. I don't care if you don't think you're kind. You're good, you know.

[baltimores]

[ He shrugs, non-committal even though his words are a commitment; exhausted with himself. But when he says something, he means it. So. Yeah. ]

Sure.

[ He'd do that. Wouldn't have said it otherwise. From her words, Amos knows all about the kind of life she's lived, is more than familiar with it.

He blinks, stares when she calls him good. That's what. He's trying; that's what he's trying to be. He can never get there on his own, though.

Except here he's on his own. And someone thinks that of him. And he genuinely doesn't know what to do with that, but it feels like an added pressure to doing right by her. Makes it more important.

He should probably actually say something. Blinks again after his prolonged silence. ]

Name's Amos.

[gardienne]

'Ponine. Well, Eponine really, but you might call me whatever you will.

[The silence hadn't bothered her. She'd used the time to study Amos, taking in his bristly hair, his sun-weathered skin, his sturdy chest. If she forms an opinion of him, she doesn't show it, doesn't say it. As he speaks though, she edges closer so that their knees meet.]

I like that. Amos. It sounds like a word I know. Amos. Amour. It is love, no? I told you there was kindness there. See! I know lots of things, me.

[baltimores]

[ He glances down when he feels their knees touch, an implicit sensation of trust. Feels. He's not sure. He's probably going to fuck this up; he really needs not to.

Doesn't move away. 'Ponine it is, then. It's not a name he's ever heard before, but not like that makes a difference.

Furrows his brows at her analysis of his name, though. At the sign of The Lovers that he'd been branded with upon arrival, splayed out for all to see on the back of this shitty tunic. It all feels like some sick joke. ]

Maybe. Think your analysis might be off, though. [ He doesn't want to take anything away from her now, but it's— Love doesn't exist, is the thing. ] That kind of thing doesn't really apply with me.

[gardienne]

I dunno. Though, what is a name anyway? My mama called me for a romance novel she read once, and my sister Azelma the same, and la petit Gavroche, just so. All us with fancy names when we are street rats. She should have been better giving us a common name: every man in the underworld knows Eponine Jondrette. Everyone knows to give me passage safe or risk the Patron Minette. Or, I suppose now, they would have known to hold me until the Patron Minette found me. They would have had favour then.

[She shrugs] Perhaps it was good I were pulled here then, for I would have been murdered at home. Here at least, it is only a jail cell. But if my name were just Charlotte or the like, I could have disappeared even in France. With a name like Eponine, it is on a lot of lips, you know? Perhaps Amos the same?

[baltimores]

[ Oh, okay. Her name's from a book. Makes sense why he's never heard of it before, then; he's never read a romance novel in his life, probably never will. Just not his style.

He— gets what she means, though. A street rat with a fancy name. That's not something that happens; nobody he knew growing up had one of those. They're all just commoners with common names. Anyone with something fancy — well, he wouldn't have judged, but plenty of people would have. Trying to sound better than you were. Maybe it'd get you more, better clients. Maybe it'd mean you'd think you were better than the rest of them. Not that he'd have ever cared, but the dichotomy between worlds does exist.

He sighs, pulling himself away from his past. It's over. It's done with. There was nothing pleasant to remember and it's in everyone's best interests that he was removed from it. ]

It's a common name.

[ Is it? He says it almost robotically, like it's something he's convinced himself of. Like it's an excuse for something. ]

Names hold a lot of power, yeah. You couldn't just change yours? Guess it don't matter here, but still. Why not just say you're someone else? Spare yourself the trouble, disappear.

[ It's... exactly what he did, actually. Found a way to overcome the technological barriers, got out by changing his name. Though if the opportunity hadn't presented itself through outside forces, he never would've done it. Wouldn't have even thought about it.

Still a question worth asking, though, since he's keenly aware of what a life-saving option it turned out to be. ]