tushanshu | oo2 ; [ video ]

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[It has almost been a month, and already Eponine looks far better than she had when she made her first appearance on the Network. Gone are her bloody rags, replaced by clothing that, while perhaps not her preferred style, actually fit her small frame and kept her covered. There's a light in her eyes that hasn't been there before.]

I had been wandering about the other night, keeping to myself- an old habit that I cannot drop, I do love to venture out at night, to see what there is, to experience a world that no one else sees because they are asleep- and I had a thought.

I have been here near a month. A month since I could feel my life leave my body. Such a long time! But already- already here I have been happier than I can recall in nine years! Only one other time can eclipse this!

Here, I have a home, clothing, a bed. There is food and I am warm. I have my beautiful brother- and mark me, I shall not leave him again, I have promised him and I will not go back on this promise. Not again- and I have friends.

I do not suppose I have ever had a true friend until I came here.

Death is by far one of the more grand things that has ever happened to me! To think-- no. I shall tell you, if you are listening, that I am happy here. Happier than I have ever deserved!

[She pauses for a moment, looking off to the side of the screen, and frowning.] Perhaps Enjolras is right. It is stupid to do these things so late at night. Forgive me. I have made a fool of myself yet again.

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[As he speaks, Eponine remains silent, reflecting on everything he has to say. He's a very smart man, that much is abundantly clear, capable of looking at the larger pictures in life, something that she herself failed at quite miserably. Eponine had never been able to afford thinking past the end of the day. Tomorrow wasn't promised to her, the way it was to other. As such, she wanted immediate results. Why should she do something that would hurt her currently, but help her in the present? It made no sense to her, and that much was extremely visible in her actions.]

You have given this much thought, Enjolras. I am quite impressed! I have little knowledge of the government here, or the way things are run in terms of us foreigners. If nothing else, I am happy that the Kedan have given us money and places to stay. But I am sure my opinion on this will change, in due time.

What I know, for the most part is very little, admittedly. Mostly I have been present enough to know that some things are hidden from us, and was here for a brief time when the kedan themselves were not so welcoming toward many of us.

And well, that the Empress does not like sharing information when she has a means to avoid it.

[So long here, and Enjolras still cannot with the gender neutral titles, sorry, Ma'am. It's not that he regards you with any less respect than he would an Emperor; he would disrespect a man equally. The titles thing though is just odd to him.]

I do not think that it is as bad here as it could be, and several of them have been kind, but there is the principle at work as well. I AM grateful to have another chance at life, to come to know myself. I had forgotten who that man was, but well, I resent that we were not consulted, and I suspect that some of the law would er on the side of the Kedan should a foreigner be charged by one of them, though the code that we were given does not specify...

[And that is a small shrug, and inelegant.]

Well. there is much more that we must all learn of them before doing much of anything, but I do mean to learn it if that makes sense, and to find infomation even if I must go to different lengths to find it. There are a few of us who feel the same, including Marius, upon occasion.

[Enjolras is a clever man, mentioning Marius here and there. It certainly kept her attention up.]

Of course it would. The law always ers to those in power, to think otherwise is naive. Even I know that, Enjolras. It seems wrong, to come in to their home and demand change to favor us. If anything, work with them to come to some sort of compromise. We owe them much. Particularly us, who had been dead before here.

As you said, I, too, am happy to have another chance at life. To set things straight. To try to do right. Though my habits are hard to break. But all the same, I understand the need for information. The need to learn.

Certainly we must find a balance, yes. I do not mean to propose we charge in and obliterate everything in sight. Merely...some unfairness was happening to other foreigners at first, simply because they were foreigners and I fear that there may be a hold over from that should the law be called upon here.

There must be some sort of an equality, particularly as we have been brought here to fight and die for the Empress and have begun to do much work to better things here regardless. I think that if we are here to fight for another world, then we are owed a similar respect mostly. We are not owed more than that, of course, but should also not accept less.

[Does that go too far? Perhaps it does, but Enjolras has never been one to strive for only half of the equation when something he holds important is at stake, or when he wishes to achieve it.]

It has been good for me here, yes, but even so...So much is missing that if we are to be here for the rest of...well, I suppose that is rather open ended in a place where I have heard that even death may not quite last, well, if we are to be here for the duration, there is much that we must know. But yes, to do things better here. I HAVE been trying.

[Once more, she's ruminating on his words, taking them into consideration.] But you, Enjolras, will always hold more respect than me. I am a woman.

[He may or may not be fully aware of that. She doesn't have large breasts, but they're there. Reproductive organs? Not exactly healthy enough to work the way they're meant to, but she gets some fun out of them.]

I would not fight. Not for something that excludes me. That views me as less than, I suppose in this case, sentient. If that means I must not fight, I shall not fight. I have no desire to pick up arms again. I shall fight with my voice and fists if I must. I have always seen more success with them. [Remember that time she made a whole group of grown men run for the hills? Yeah, she does, too.]

Here that has begun to change. Our sole ruler, the arm of absolute power in this place is a woman. It is different in this case, when it comes to respect. As it should be, though I do not particularly like this one, I do like the larger principles associated with that. Women work as well in the same jobs among the kedan and...they have something of a better way of it, where relations are concerned.

[Sure, women. They're the half of the population, or roughly half, or whatever it is, who wear skirts at home, and can bear babies, and such. Of course Eponine is one, and of course tld not hat would have mattered, socially, at home, though he remains mystified as to why. Does the lack of a penis make one so different from all of that? Only society has made it so. ]

We can say that we would not, and fight with voices and fists, but I do think it may not be so simple as a matter of our survival on this island. If the forces coming at us are dangerous enough, there will be no choice but to cast aside the most important of ideals. I worry.

I worked in the same jobs as my father and his compatriots. [Y'know, thieving.] But there were some, as I have told you, that I did as he could not. In the underworld, there is little room for lines to remain uncrossed.

Perhaps. Hopefully it will not come to that. I have no desire to return to any sort of combat situation. I believe you understand me better than most.

Indeed.

[And Enjolras is nodding at that part, understanding where, well, there would be the necessity in such a life.] I think that here though, there is at least a bit more chance of that being different. I will not say that I know yet, but I would suspect it.

I have met Ma...[And he stops himself from using the name again, knowing well what occurred when people DID mention Malicant's name and what occurred. He cannot do that to the turtle eggs, to Temeraire or any of the others caring for them as to allow him to get close.]

I have met the being who we would likely be carrying out a fight just now. I suspect that the fighting may need to be different from the traditional combat, but yes, I would avoid it too.

I disliked the barricades in 1830 though I knew that they were needed and we had successes there. I liked them less in 1832, though their time had more than come again, and it was no time to be less than resolved. I cannot blame you for wishing to avoid it if you might or there was any other way. I would have chosen the same then and I would choose it now.

I like listening to you speak, Enjolras. I believe you are a much different man from the one I saw in brief on the barricade that night. It makes me sorry that I do not have as much to contribute to our conversation, as I wish I could. But I laid low, and avoided such things until I no longer could. It was not my fight. My fight was to remain alive.

[But even that was a fight she had not wanted.]

I hope it does not come to that.

The barricades brought forth the best and worst of us, I think.

[His thoughts turn to earlier in that day, the man he'd executed for one, how he had stood there after, covered in gore proclaiming love as the path to the future in what had looked like hypocrisy, considers how his speeches dealing with the glory of peace were intercepted with bursts of violence, and well...He can understand that, certainly.]

You managed to catch us at, yes, a terrible moment. I am not surprised that you may think otherwise of me right then. I do not dismiss my potential to be terrible when I must, but it would seem quite...offputting to say the least, at times like that.

You contribute quite enough already, Eponine. You were already in the longer, harder fight, and forced to it at that. There is much that I have learned and can learn from you there.

And I, too, can be terrible. I am terrible. The things I have done and will do. [She can recognize now that there are things wrong in her. Deeply ingrained that are nothing like those around her. She can try and she can pretend, but at the end of the day, she was still very much a nymph of the streets, to borrow a phrase, and in modern times, would very well have some sort of diagnosed condition.]

I know you do not believe me. But I could tell you stories of what I have done. I shall not- I have shared much with you already in terms of my life, but with what you know, I am sure you can imagine.

[She looks at him curiously, pausing for a few moments before she speaks her next words very carefully.] ...Thank you, Apollon. Perhaps we all have much to learn from each other.

[And his nod there is serious. That is something Enjolras cannot doubt, somehow.It makes sense to him that it is the case, and while what she is saying is quite different from his general inability to relate to people, he knows the feeling that something is wrong inside of you quite well enough. ]

I do believe you, and that you could. I believe that you have lived in darkness for far longer than any of us strayed from the light, and that darkness, and what one may have to do in it, causes a harm even if one is not actually hurt.

Long before the July Revolution, I thought it would be easy to repair such things if we simply could change the world. I had not counted on such injury being permanent.

[And he's shaking his head in disgust here. Not at Eponine, never at Eponine, but at his much younger self.]

I was so naive and stupid then. I think some things cannot be healed, though perhaps they can be helped a little if someone knows the way. We are both far from being healed, and your darkness is different, but perhaps here, there is some way.

Thank you for all that you've shown me. I believe we do at that.

To some of us, to me, the injury is permanent. It's a scar across my heart, over my soul. I do not believe it shall ever go away, and if it does? Then what is it that I should do? How to live without such a thing when I have never done so before? It would be too easy to fall back on to old habits. To take further relish in them.

[She sighs, pursing her lips slightly as she regards Enjolras.] I do not believe I can be healed, Enjolras. Deep down, I am not sure I want to be. [If only for Marius, would she want to wash herself clean of everything that came before.]

What is it that I have shown you? I appreciate your gratitude, but I do not believe I am worthy of such praise.

How to live without that is the thing. When there is something which defines us so much as that did you, being without it feels uncertain and what ground that we are left to stand on is shaky at best and there is little of it. What I thought then...I have no idea. I was stupid when we were getting started, and I still had much to learn when I came here.

Perhaps not healed, no. [Too much has happened for that. For Eponine to have escaped that life unscathed, it would have needed to happen a very long time ago, when they were both too young to have done it themselves. The thought of it is painful, perhaps more than it would have been once because she is now a friend.] But perhaps helped enough that it must not harm you any more than it has, or even enough that it does not take your future.

You have shown me greater realities than those I knew. That when I think something has reached its worst, the path can still continue downward, but in spite of that, one can survive, that there is still an ember and it glows at least, if it does not burn. As long as it glows, and one goes on, there is still something in this world, in people themselves. It is something to keep in mind, I think.

[To escape unscathed, one must have been Cosette. How she had done it... That ugly scrap of a thing who'd hidden under stairs, who'd played the whipping boy at Eponine's every whim. She was the lucky one. Always had been.]

I have no future outside this city, m'sieur. At home, like you, I am dead.

[She smiles faintly at his words, something inside of her coming to life.] And I burn. [That was what Loki had said. Darling Loki. But he said she burned. And he was not the only one who saw it.]

[It is still odd to think of that, that the people he speaks to here are dead. For Enjolras, it is not so strange as all of that to BE dead, as he remembers the moment well, and he suspects it may be that way for everyone else who has died, though he he has not asked either, but at the moment, he nods.]

So you do. Burn brightly then, for so long as you can.

I shall do so as best as I can, Enjolras.

[She gives him a sad smile.]

I should go. I wish to bring Gavroche dinner. I shall speak with you soon.

Never forget.

[And he is returning that smile with a firm, confident nod. He damned well knows she will burn, at any rate.]

Of course. Do tell him I said hello. I know he has been busy lately so we've not been so much in touch.

Of course. I shall see you soon, Enjolras.

[She disconnects.]

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