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(no subject)
Who: Eponine and Aunamee
What: One needy teen seeking revenge with enemy of ex-boyfriend.
When: After Eva saves Eponine from the Cornucopia and stashes her with Sigma. (And after Eponine has recovered enough to walk a bit.)
Where: Somewhere in the forest
Warnings: Standard warning of Eponine and Aunamee - proceed with caution and I will update as necessary.
It has been several days now, since Eva stashed Eponine with Sigma. Several long, long days in which Eponine had drunk the beer she had managed to get at the Cornucopia and had learned to grit her teeth and limp through the pain of her wound.
She thought she was beginning to go crazy.
She hated it - hated that these people, that Eva and Sigma loved her enough to want to save her and look after her. She hated knowing that she was going to disappoint them by dying again. And she hated herself for knowing she would choose death over them both.
Eponine was quite comfortable with the idea of her own death; she had made her peace with it, and quite frankly, she prayed to herself that when she died in this arena, then it would all be over. Forever and ever, the blackness, and hell. She wanted out. But there was someone she wanted to take with her. Even if he swore at her. Even if he called her a whore. She still wanted him to want her - to want to be together for eternity.
And deep down inside, she had to admit to herself that she wanted to hurt him a little bit, too.
As soon as she could walk well enough with her leg splinted with the remains of her shorts and some old bits of branch, she hobbled away from Sigma. Had Eva been there, she would have stood no chance. But caught by the fever as he was, Sigma was oblivious to her groans.
So she took herself away, and started on her trek to find Howard, singing under her breath as she went:
"My mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my sister 'Zelma made sure to see, my bones were all beneath the tree, oh what a birdie am I!"
What: One needy teen seeking revenge with enemy of ex-boyfriend.
When: After Eva saves Eponine from the Cornucopia and stashes her with Sigma. (And after Eponine has recovered enough to walk a bit.)
Where: Somewhere in the forest
Warnings: Standard warning of Eponine and Aunamee - proceed with caution and I will update as necessary.
It has been several days now, since Eva stashed Eponine with Sigma. Several long, long days in which Eponine had drunk the beer she had managed to get at the Cornucopia and had learned to grit her teeth and limp through the pain of her wound.
She thought she was beginning to go crazy.
She hated it - hated that these people, that Eva and Sigma loved her enough to want to save her and look after her. She hated knowing that she was going to disappoint them by dying again. And she hated herself for knowing she would choose death over them both.
Eponine was quite comfortable with the idea of her own death; she had made her peace with it, and quite frankly, she prayed to herself that when she died in this arena, then it would all be over. Forever and ever, the blackness, and hell. She wanted out. But there was someone she wanted to take with her. Even if he swore at her. Even if he called her a whore. She still wanted him to want her - to want to be together for eternity.
And deep down inside, she had to admit to herself that she wanted to hurt him a little bit, too.
As soon as she could walk well enough with her leg splinted with the remains of her shorts and some old bits of branch, she hobbled away from Sigma. Had Eva been there, she would have stood no chance. But caught by the fever as he was, Sigma was oblivious to her groans.
So she took herself away, and started on her trek to find Howard, singing under her breath as she went:
"My mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my sister 'Zelma made sure to see, my bones were all beneath the tree, oh what a birdie am I!"
no subject
He was like a junkie craving a fix. Every night, he dreamed about it, and every day, he let morbid imaginings twist in his mind until the world disappeared under his feet and only blood remained. His time in Panem had been like some corrupted form of grieving, only instead of following steps, his brain undulated between denial and rage and depression, and when the acceptance came, it was filtered through the lens of all three. Right now, he accepted that he was a murderer. He accepted that he needed nothing less than for someone to wink out in his arms.
And then he saw her.
He recognized her immediately, of course, even in this hellish landscape (his landscape) with the rain and the bugs and the unending humidity. She was some distance away, and he knew that it would be trivial to sneak up behind her with a knife and get his wish. But another part of him, a more controlled part, reminded him that there were better ways to solve problems. More appropriate ways.
More spectacular ways.
He whistled, sweet and low, hoping to catch her attention with the soft, melodic sound.
no subject
She thought. He was the man Howard didn't like, the one that frightened him... Aunamee - that was his name. Yes, Aunamee. And Howard was scared of him. But he didn't look particularly frightening to Eponine. Then again, she wasn't scared of much - and certainly didn't scare as easily as Howard did. More to the point, she had very little to lose; in her state, she was hardly able to outrun him if he wanted her dead.
So she smiled and hobbled over.
"Monsieur, you wish for my attention?"
no subject
But this is a girl who does not fear death, his mind filled in. Like Howard, he suspected she yearned for it, but unlike Howard, this yearning was not buried under years of dirt and adrenaline. She wore her death wish like a scarf. She had begged Wesker to kill her, once. She had smiled in his arms.
He suppressed a shudder, the kind that starts in his lower back and ends in the back of his throat like vomit.
"I know you," he said, smooth despite the remnants of bitterness in his eyes. (She had thanked Wesker too, didn't she? Why wouldn't Howard thank him?) "Your name is Eponine."
As an afterthought, he lifted his weaponless hands, palms exposed.
no subject
She hobbled closer, looking curiously at him. "What is it you want, Monsieur? Id you have no weapon to kill me? Or - do you lure me here so someone else might kill me from behind?"
She looked back over her shoulder - just in case.
"Will you make it quick?"
no subject
How fun it was to imagine.
"No," he said. "I help people."
It was the same thing he told Howard in his first arena. He sounded just as sincere despite the hours of bloody footage proving otherwise.
"If you wish to die, I can help you." He laced his fingers. "If you wish to live, I can take you to safety."
no subject
Eponine came no closer. She might not be afraid of Aunamee, or afraid of death, but she was also not stupid. She didn't know him. He didn't know her - and chances were that his help would not be free.
"I have nothing to give you in return. I have no beer, only a can or so, and a potato. Not much. Why should you help me over that?"
And didn't Aunamee hurt Howard? Wasn't Howard petrified of him? Wasn't he the reason why Howard had curled under his bedsheets and cried until Eponine wished to slap him? Howard, Howard HOWARD! Stupid, Horrid boy! Eponine gripped the branches she used as walking sticks all the harder.
But no. No, she couldn't think of how mad, how sad he made her now. She had to die quickly or win. So she focused herself back on Aunamee.
"Why do you give me a choice, Monsieur? You don't scare me, you know? If you wish to kill me, I should ask you do it now. I do not wish to play cat and mouse with it, for being eaten is all the same if you please."
no subject
"Because you care about someone that I care about," he said. The simple transitive property. "Howard."
'Care' was the right word. Aunamee was so often desperate, blind, lost. In this mad, crumbling world, the one constant was suffering. Howard excelled at suffering.
"And I recognize that he cares about you, too," he said, dipping his head. "You must be a lovely girl."
Just a warning for potentially offensive attitude and connotations of homophobia
"He does NOT care for me, and I do NOT care about him."
That was a lie, of course. But Eponine couldn't admit, even to herself, about how much she still cared for Howard and wanted him to be happy. She couldn't - she was too proud, too sore to admit it.
"He is a HORRID boy. He is disgusting - do you know, he loves men? He is a fop. Gay. Dirty! He doesn't care about me. I am not a lovely girl - I am just a girl he has used to make people laugh at me."
no subject
And then he spoke.
"Oh," he said. "You poor children."
Yes. That was right. Focus on the suffering. Focus on the misunderstandings, the betrayal, the anger. He pursed his lips.
"Will you hurt me? Now that you know I'm on his side."
no subject
Eponine felt sick to her very core when she heard those words. Didn't Aunamee hate Howard? Was Howard not terrified of him? And yet - and yet, he would still choose him over her. He would still defend Howard over Eponine, despite Eponine being the innocent party (at least, innocent in her version) in the whole mess.
But of course he would, for why wouldn't he? Everyone liked Howard. The whole Capitol loved him - and they had only loved her because she had been in love with him. Without Howard, Eponine would never have a helping hand again. Even Sigma would choose Howard. Probably even Wesker. And now Aunamee as well.
"I won't hurt you." She whispered back; her voice squeaked a little from the lump in her throat. "I've only killed one person, and that was an accident, you know? Maybe I didn't even kill him."
sorry for the delay!
"It's kind of you to say you won't hurt me. I won't hurt you either, you know."
He winked. With his open eye, he bathed in the signs of her anxiety.
"I'm on most peoples' sides."
ditto! hope the conference went well!
She was immediately suspicious. "You cannot be on everybody's side -how can you be?"
She shot her words at Aunamee as arrows from a bow. But even so, she edged closer.
"Is it so that you reap the benefit, Monsieur, that you may keep picking the winner? So when I am no good to you, will you do me in? Because if that is so, Monsieur, I would rather know now. I have had enough of these games - this arena makes me see things and I do not know what is true and what is in my head any more. Even if you are real, or perhaps I talk to a tree. I was doing so before, you know? The tree looked so much like Madame Mona - you know her? I ran to her and hugged her and I said why she did not come to the party in the Capitol and I thought I heard her answer - but it was false - it was all in my head. It is a better thing than some I have seen, though. In Paris, often when I was starving, I heard children shouting at me and calling me names and even throwing stones. I have not had that -merely Howard taunting me. He is a NASTY boy, that one. I saw him try to kiss Marius, but he loves Cosette and not I."
She sighed, sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "My Papa says I talk too much."
no subject
But then his own thoughts caught onto the meaning behind those words. This arena makes me see things. Aunamee had seen something (someone), an old friend (daniel), but in his half-asleep daze, he took it to be a dream.
(Daniel had told him that when the cat is away, the rats will dance, and Aunamee told him to lay off metaphors because he was never any good at them, but he kept turning the mismatched idiom in his mind because it sounded so much like a warning.)
"Most people," he corrected after a beat, blinking the doubt out of his eyes. "Not everyone."
He took another step forward.
"This doesn't mean I don't kill, of course. I am only more forgiving than most."
no subject
If Eponine is the daughter of a wolf, she is also the sometimes-wife of a snake. And now, apparently, she was an ally of another one.
In a weird way, that kind of reassured her. She knew where she was with snakes. She knew how to deal with them. So she held her position as Aunamee came towards her, and she simply held eye contact with him.
"Do you have a knife?" It was Montparnasse's weapon of choice. Would it be his too?
no subject
He lowered his raised hands, finally, moving them bit by bit to the belt of his pants. He removed the knife from under the belt with a smooth, fluid motion and once more lifted his hands in surrender, balancing the blade harmlessly in the space between his index finger and thumb. He watched it out of the corner of his eye.
"It's small," he said. "And it isn't very efficient."
Killing you with it would take a long time.
"But my skills, I promise you, make me a worthwhile ally."
no subject
"We shall find you another, Sir."
When the time came, when she had found Howard, he would do it. She tilted her head as she assessed him. He would help her end Howard's life, and he would kill her as well. And all would be right and Howard would love her. And Aunamee? She didn 't care what happened to him after . But he would need a bigger knife than that to stab her through the heart. That was how she would die.
"But truly , you wish to be friends with me? You wish to help me here ? We will make Howard jump, will we not?"
no subject
And he would get to watch them.
"But I have an interest in being your friend. And looking out for you."
He lowered one of his upraised hands and offered it to Eponine.
no subject
So, she edged her hand towards his, and put it in his own.
"Friends, Monsieur, indeed."