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[Hello, Turtle. Here is an Enjolras who looks a bit embarrassed that he's even started this late night/very early morning post, but well. The question he wants to ask IS actually a valid one, now that he has TIME to ask it, and he finds the current most popular phrases to be incredibly awkward or childish so..The hell with it. People have asked all sorts of questions here, haven't they? He's clearing his throat, flushing a little, then glancing into the vid directly and clearing his throat.]

A question, everyone.

I find that most of the current terms for one's...romantic friend...but more than such are either juvenile or not quite accurate. 'Boyfriend' for example, makes us sound as if we were children, 'Partner' has several connotations that do not immediately state the obvious and 'Lover' sounds particularly awkward.

[And well, they have not quite gotten to the lovers stage yet. Enjolras is hardly ready for it and still accustoming himself to the kissing and cuddling things that he never let himself seek out in life.]

When others here speak of the other piece of their soul as he is to me...what terms seem to work best for you?

[He will deny this video happened later. He really will. He just...really wishes to know and can't sleep so...here it is. Have fun with it?]

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Yes, yes it quite is at that. There was a brief time where I almost lost him, due to my own...

[Enjolras is not sure how to phrase it in a way that makes much sense.]

...weaknesses I suppose is the best way to put it. HE never knew but I'd convinced myself that I should be alone, because I knew that I deserved nothing, especially not him, and did my best to push him out without saying the words.

That I am past that now and managed to not ruin it, that I can ask something so simple as the labels I might use now...grateful does not seem strong enough at times.

[She's quiet for a moment.]

It's a fortuitous turn of fate, to be sure. For what it's worth, I'm happy you were able to move past that.

As am I, yes. Things are working...quite well these days.

[He's managed, somehow, to do well in spite of himself. That much is something. ]

[She nods, in acknowledgement.]

May I ask something of you? Your... boyfriend, how long have you known him?

Ah, my first year reading law in Paris.

[He was seventeen and outspoken and angry and loudly crashed his way into everything that first semester, until Combeferre had approached him, after a particularly vitriolic outburst and attempted both to reign him in and to steer him in a more productive direction for the future.

He's shaking his head a little ruefully at the memory.]

I was...not as in tune with reason as I am now to be frank. He was brought in by one of the professors to attempt to reason with me and we became friends from there. So, he has seen me in the most significant moments of my life.

Nine years of my best and my worst and Etienne has been beside me for it all. I suppose that branching into a Romantic Friendship was eventually bound to happen with us in the end.

[She smiles, softly.]

I can see how it would, I think.

But you said you were from Paris. Would you happen to know Jehan?

Ah, I do indeed. Jehan is one of the few who I trust completely, and a friend who has done much for me. One of our dearest.

I met him my first day here. He seems very kind. I'm glad to hear he's a good friend of yours.

He is quite kind, yes. I think the kindest of us, truthfully. I can hardly be surprised he has shown you that.

He and I spoke, briefly, on the nature of the relationship of tyranny and monarchy. Do you share his thoughts?

In general, we do share many of them. More specifically, I imagine that there are variations in some of our thoughts but over all, we might say that.

[his smile is less subdued here, as it grows.]

We strove for republic, yes as those before us did, and for the right for everyone to have equality and the same rights for all. In those most important things our beliefs match.

Those are noble ideals. What happened?

A good many things, actually did. Some of them good and some of them terrible.

The people went to the barricades in 1830, and we managed to resist our king, though they gave us another after, and things continued to grow worse. The poor in France have ever faced difficulties and there was the Cholera and discontentment and in 1832 we took to barricades again.

It was to have suceeded. It ought to have succeeded.

[Enjolras may have expected to die making it succeed, but even so. He had thought that discontent and popular opinion would bring about great numbers and...]

I lead one of them, with my friends and a group of supporters we had gathered, Students like us, some of the workers... We had good numbers but the national guard and then the army were brought out to deal with us.

Our barricade was all killed, down to one last man. Have you had chance to know Marius Pontmercy? He was the one upon that barricade who lived.

the other barricades in Paris fell but I do not know the fate of all their men...I woke here shortly after I was shot. Knowing of what happened to all of them, men I worked with and knew, though we weren't close...well that is something I would have wished for here.

[So Jehan, too, then. Well, Isabeau wouldn't have told herself, either, had she been him.

Fighting an opposing army, with only one surviving, it was what she and Flynn had done in the end. And Walter and Jonathan... they had died for ideals, hadn't they, and she had been prepared to do the same. Her voice sounds a little distracted when she finally answers.]

...I have yet to meet him.

[While Enjolras is not the most skilled in terms of interaction, there is something in her voice there that makes him pause a bit, studying her.]

...Is something wrong?

I'm sorry for being so forward, especially given that we have yet to exchange introductions, but may I ask you something of a... more personal nature?

Edited 2013-09-20 04:21 (UTC)

If you would like. I may not answer if it is too much so but you may try

[She shouldn't. She really, really shouldn't. But if she is, the least she can do is look him in the eye.]

One lived, you said. Were you afraid? I - it's - my friends died for their ideals as well, and....

That...is actually more complicated than it might seem at first.

[Enjolras pauses, his mind slipping back to the barricade, a little. Not the one from the death realm, with the corpses of so many making up the baricade itself, but the one that he actually lived though, with its piles of furniture, the ghastly, funeral purple of the flag shining in the light of their lantern, and the moments that came after it, when things started to shift and..taking a moment's breath, he shuts his eyes before the answer comes.]

I think, to some extent, all of us must have been afraid. It would be madness not to be. On the other hand, I had known for...years before, that my life was never to be my own, but to belong to Patria, to France herself. It was hers to do with as she chose whether that meant I lived or not.

[It had given him a thrill of peace, even in the worst of things, to know that whatever happened would be for its reason, and yet even so...]

I was the last of us standing, I thought at first. They managed to surround me, Etienne was not there to hand me a spare weapon, and I knew the fight was over. I was afraid then, though I knew what must come. It did not do to show them that, and I would not reject the path that She'd set out for me to follow, yet...

[He'd tossed away what remained of his weapon there, behind the billiards table, and invited them to shoot him, bold as anything, but even at that moment, he'd felt something he did not, couldn't like.]

I was afraid to leave the fight unfinished, I suppose. I had done what I could, and knew that the republic would not come that day. We did not fail, but we could not succeed. I hated knowing I would never see it come to pass, if such uncharitable thoughts might count as fear.

And then Grantaire...

[His eyes remain closed as Enjolras plays the moment over in his mind, and the ghost of a smile, wider than usual plays across his face there for a moment.]

One of our friends who did not come to us for politics, but for the company, stepped out of the shadows where he'd been asleep. He told them he was one of us and wished to die for the republic.

[This is when he opens his eyes, and, if possible, at all, Enjolras's face is filled with light.]

Grantaire was a man who believed in nothing, and held little else sacred, yet he found Patria too, enough to choose to die for her. He was as transfixed as the rest of us. The thought of that, and his company as they shot us was enough to put the fear, and the anger at bay.

It can be done, you see. To know you are afraid, accept it, and move on anyway, as difficult as things might be. And at times, there are things that make it even better.

I'd have died for her alone, and done it calmly, but the surprise of Grantaire...that drove away all else till I could focus solely on what mattered most, and find my way back to her arms.

[That metaphor got a little out of hand there, really. Ah well. It IS the truth, and all of it.]

[She listens intently. This had been much more of an answer than she had been expecting. In the end, she's not sure what to it.]

I see. I had thought myself ready to die if I had had to, but actually doing so is something else entirely. Thank you for being willing to tell me so much. I can't say what my friends were thinking when they made their choice, but... I think what you said helped.

Edited 2013-09-20 17:09 (UTC)

It IS quite different when it comes. That you were able to live instead...there is no shame in that. I had hoped, actually, to send more out of our barricade than I was able to. Because of the next steps that the republic called for.

It can be as much a choice for your ideals to live on, and pick up the pieces after the war is over and the world must begin again. I think not many are so suited to that, so those who can do have a value.

[After what he told her, it seems that she should reciprocate as well as she should, even without his asking, but doing it over the network is not a thing that's going to happen. The world beginning again, that's exactly what the situation back in Tokyo is.]

I wasn't ashamed, per se, but nevertheless that you would say that sincerely is reassuring. I don't think there are many that could do so.

There is much to be said for those who stay behind and face the firesl it seems you may be one of them. Though this is no time or place to speak of such. If you would like to, though...perhaps coffee or some such later? It can be difficulf to find those who understand.

I would like that! Is there a particular place you like to go?

My name is Isabeau. I'm sorry to introduce myself so late.

Enjolras. [he nods at the monitor in a greeting.]<\small>

There is a cafe in the wood sector if that would suit?

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