thearena | (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!"

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For Aunamee, the adrenaline associated with surprise always kicks up nausea as well, like pebbles rolling down his veins and into his stomach. When had this relationship changed? Did Eponine draw away from Howard, or had it been the other way around? By speaking to this girl, Aunamee had plunged himself into the unknown, and for a brief moment, his words were stuck in the back of his throat.

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."

"His side?" Howard's side? Aunamee was on Howard's side?

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."

"Maybe you didn't," he said, and he found himself loving the ambiguity. Not the mystery, of course -- he hated that he couldn't bury himself in this fragile girl's mind and learn what really happened -- but he loved how she hesitated, how maybe she lay awake at night and thought about whether she did or did not kill this person. He loved her self-doubt.

"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."

"Why?"

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."

In the old days, Aunamee hadn't been very fond of useless words, useless voices. With his telepathy, he could sip thoughts like wine. What use was hearing those same thoughts aloud? But now he found it almost refreshing, the barrage of words, that surge of mental energy leaving her lips and resting on his ears.

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."

He reminds her of Montparnasse. That is it - Montparnasse, with a different face and different clothes... not as handsome, perhaps. She studied Aunamee's face carefully. Aunamee was older, of course, and his hair lighter. His skin was looser - not loose, but definitely not pulled as tight as Montparnasse's. His lips were not as full, his eyes not as dark. But his attitude was the same. Benevolent - but there's warning in his eyes.

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?

"Yes," he said. Quiet, yet certain. Regretful. "I have a knife."

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."

She eyed the knife. It wasn't much good for killing. It was a shame, really. Had he had a knife, a proper one, the picture would have been complete .

"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?"

"I have no interest in making Howard jump," he said, although yes, he would jump, wouldn't he? Seeing this girl so close to him, sharing his supplies, breathing his air. It was a tantalizing thought. Intoxicating. He wanted this girl, this suicidal, hopeless romantic who talked too much. He wanted her because he knew that wherever she was, there would fireworks.

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.

Eponine sighed. Not the response she wanted. But it was as good as she would get. She couldn't go back to Sigma and Eva; she couldn't put them in such a position as that they would have to kill her. And Aunamee, perhaps, wouldn't hesitate when he had finished with her. She liked that idea.

So, she edged her hand towards his, and put it in his own.

"Friends, Monsieur, indeed."

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sorry for the delay!

ditto! hope the conference went well!

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