thearena | You Dropped The Bomb On Me

Except Eponine was.

She had been chasing another of the hallucinations through the woods, staggering after Marius and Cosette as they giggled and laughed and held hands and kissed. Why could she never have that?

As she drew nearer the Cornucopia, her hallucinations disappeared, fading into the long grass, and though Eponine looked for where they went, she couldn't tell their route. So, with a sob of frustration, she dropped the branches she used as crutches and sank down, leaning her back against the cool, gold husk of the Cornucopia. She was hungry; she hadn't received a gift from any of the viewers, and her food, though she had rationed it carefully, was gone now. And she was thirsty. But it wouldn't be long now, unless someone shared their water with her, or a Capitol citizen took pity on her and sent her a gift.

But no - they would give them all to Howard. She sighed, and dropped her head, so her forehead rested on her knees, which she had tugged into a tuck position. She was more emaciated than ever now, truly a walking skeleton. She didn't even notice Homura at first; but when she did, she took up her crutch and held it firmly, ready to strike Homura and hopefully knock her behind the knees so that she would fall and Eponine herself wouldn't have to stand.

It wasn't difficult for Homura to find Eponine, either. If sound could speak, she'd be screaming. Homura, on the other hand, had stood on the top of the husk for several moments, before jumping down to the ground wordlessly. Quietly, she stared, scrutinizing, scanning the older girl. After several tense moments, she at last went into the nearest pocket...

...and brought out a protein bar. She hadn't bothered to eat it, even when it had parachuted down. She'd had plenty of food, and still had plenty more with her rationing. Though, as she looked down at her offering, she couldn't help but find it ironic. And this moment was more than merely just lobbing extra food off onto someone.

It was symbolism, to her. Back home, entrenched in the system of the Incubators, a gift of sustenance was a way to gauge intention. Acceptance meant alliance, and rejection meant hostility. With Mami, it had been the Soul Gem. With Kyoko, Pocky.

It had been rare for Homura to even observe the idea of allying with a girl, much less a magical girl. Ironic, now, that she was the one ultimately offering, but she had her reasons.

"Here." Quietly, she took several steps towards Eponine, keeping the bar out in front of her, along with her other hand. "Take this."

Edited 2013-11-15 00:47 (UTC)

Eponine looked up at Homura, clearly puzzled. She had been prepared to meet her death, though she was determined, for once, to go down fighting.

So the offering of a food bar was completely unexpected. Eponine reached out her hand automatically, but she hesitated, withdrew her hand and shook her head.

"What do you want? I don't have anything with me to pay you with. If it's a trick to kill me, I would rather you just do it - I am tired of games. Just please do it."

Hesitation. She wanted to but assumed there was something behind it. Very well.

"I don't have a need or interest in killing you." She didn't withdraw the hand, even though she probably could have. "You're Eponine Thenardier, aren't you?"

She paused. She wasn't sure whether it would work, whether taking the gamble would even make sense. But...she had a remembrance of her playbacks in the Capitol, watching highlights and reels before she was brought in. Perhaps she needed to appeal to something deeper than hunger. And if she played it right, she had the feeling she knew what that would be.

"Surely you know of Dr. Klim."

Edited 2013-11-15 14:25 (UTC)

"You have cared for me enough to watch what they show of me, Mademoiselle? You care enough to remember my name? Why?"

She studied the girl stood before her. Eponine was quite certain she had never come across her before. So why did this girl know so much about her? Why had she remembered Eponine's name? And why did she offer food now?

Eponine's eyes drifted back to the protein bar in Homura's hand. She was hungry, starving. She wanted that bar. Slowly, slowly, she eased herself into a standing position, leaning heavily on her crutches. But once she was stood, she prepared herself to swing a crutch at Homura, to knock her over - or unconscious, even, so that she might steal the bar. But even as she shifted her weight to her right crutch and raised the left, Homura spoke.

"Surely you know of Dr. Klim?"

Eponine stopped.

"What do you mean?" She took a step closer to Homura. "What of it, Mademoiselle? Why do you need to know who I am and who I know?"

"He is dead to this Arena." The words were spoken plainly, matter-of-factly. She didn't sugarcoat. "His illness ran its course; he died in his sleep several hours ago."

~~It was basically true. The facts. The detailed specifics weren't necessary. It would be hard enough as it was.~~

She let the words sink in before she continued. She wasn't stupid; she'd seen Eponine raise the crutch. But she didn't allow herself to appear nervous or ready to counterattack. Eponine was already wary of her as it was, apparently.

"It is not a question of need for me," Homura spoke again, quietly. "But the truth is, Dr. Klim seemed an ally to you, just as I may consider him one with myself. If that's true, I assume that he wouldn't wish to harm you. Instead, he would probably wish for you to continue forth and do your best so you might prosper. Even if he cannot say he wanted that right here at this moment."

At this, Homura flipped her hair.

"Besides...as I said, I have no need or desire to hurt you. Still, we have been brought together by fortuitous serendipity, and have a shared commonality. You now know of my side, so I suppose the question now is this. What do you intend to do to me?"

Edited 2013-11-15 19:32 (UTC)

"Dead." She repeated the word. Dead. By himself. Without her. She had abandoned him in the same way so many people had left her. Alone and cold and probably upset. The realisation of what she had done hit Eponine hard and she felt like she was going to vomit. Perhaps, had there been anything in her stomach, she would have expelled it. But as it was, she retched and closed her eyes, leaning back again against the cold, moulded metal.

"He's dead. Was he... was he alone?" She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip, not even listening to Homura, so lost in guilt was she. He must have felt, perhaps, how she had done, when Marius left her outside the gates in the Rue Plumet all that time ago. Or how Howard had made her feel just those few weeks ago before the arena. She sniffed hard and swallowed, scrubbing her nose with her fist. What was the use in tears?

She tuned back in to Homura's chatter in time to hear 'fortuitous serendipity, and have a shared commonality.' Eponine had no idea what Homura was talking about, but she decided not bother asking. What did it matter? But the girl asked the question, and Eponine was desperate.

"Food. And water. Every bit you have, or I'll strike." Did she sound fierce? She hoped she sounded like she meant it. She hoped that Homura would just give her a bit. She hoped she wouldn't leave her alone.

"When I found him...he was by himself." Homura didn't know Eponine had left him, but her reaction confirmed that the younger girl's suspicions had been somewhat confirmed. "I gave what comfort I could to him, what little he could receive in his condition."

It was, still, the truth. Even with his death. ~~But again, specifics needn't be given here and now.~~

"I cannot give you everything." That was yet again the truth, and not simply leaving things out. Homura, robot-like though she may have seemed, still needed food too. "But I am willing to share with you. No doubt we will also find more edible food as we continue on, as there are places with endless caches. Attacking me is unnecessary."

And - on Eponine's end - likely futile. Desperate and hungry as Eponine was, she was still not in a condition to fight against someone who'd subsisted on unlimited food for a good part of the competition. At the least, Homura was visibly in better condition in comparison.

Edited 2013-11-15 21:17 (UTC)

"By himself?" She sighed. "I should not have run away. I should not have left him. You know, last arena, he gave his life fighting to save mine?" She smiled wistfully. "And I could not stay with him to his end. I am a horrid woman, am I not?"

Eponine's wistful smile became a little more satisfied when she heard Homura's suggestion of sharing her food. Eponine hadn't thought that her threat should work; truly, she hadn't expected anything to come of it, and she was sensible enough to know that she would not last in a fight. And so, she nodded quite happily at Homura's proposal.

"Do you have a lot of sponsors? Do you have any water?"

"By himself." Homura quietly sat. "But, that can't be helped. And you will have a chance to make it up to him soon enough, whether you win or lose this round. That is the nature of these Hunger Games."

At this, Homura managed to draw out one of the bottles of water from her pack, handing it to Eponine. She did have Sponsors, and she had water.

"Even though you will have many chances for failure, there are also many chances to make your own successes."

Edited 2013-11-16 01:51 (UTC)

"Win." She laughed. "Now that is a funny joke, mademoiselle. You can see for yourself that I will not live long enough to see the end of the arena."

She grabbed for the water, twisting the top quickly, and gulping at the cool liquid.

"You sound like that troll, mademoiselle." Eponine was not at all given over to philosophical sounding things. "Or perhaps Monsieur Enjolras. Me, no. I do not make successes. Nothing ever is good for me. Always, no. It is not for me. But I suppose that is okay. I do not mind so much. Only, I wish we had only to die once."

"...Hm." Homura wasn't sure which troll she spoke of. At the moment, it didn't matter as she mused on Eponine's words. "You sound like someone I knew, once. She believed there was no point to living, as she had no worth to anyone. The truth is, I sympathized with that girl from my past. But I also came to realize, long ago, the difference between me and her."

Slowly, she stood up.

"And that was purpose. And it is always easy to believe in one's own complete lack of worth without one to pursue." Her hair slowly swayed in the wind as she turned to look at the older girl. "What do you know about explosives?"

That hurt, being likened to a girl who had no purpose, no self worth. Eponine didn't have much of a purpose; she had spent too long merely trying to live another day. But she had a little bit, just a spark of self worth. Eva loved her, didn't she? And Sigma.

So Eponine didn't answer. Not to the allegations of not having self worth? What was the point? Instead, she blinked a little at the question.

"I know that they bang, Mademoiselle. They kill... Is that your game? To blow me up? Or to blow someone, at least? Well, I won't be blown up, and I will not blow anyone else up either. Though... it would be a quick way to go - a good way, perhaps."

She considered that idea thoughtfully, a frown creasing her brow.

"I will not play their game. I don't care what I said.It is no good."

The heavy cuff around her emaciated left arm is testament enough to the idea that she will not do as she is supposed to.

Self-worth. It wasn't simply having others love you. It was loving oneself, or at least not hating oneself. At least, that was the way the magical girl looked at it.

Homura didn't reply to Eponine's declaration. She simply walked off. It seemed abrupt, and rude. And yet several moments later, she returned, her arms full of wires, parts, many things. Some of them quite advanced-looking.

Eponine would immediately recognize the parts having come from the platforms.

"Even if you do not wish or care to fight, you must always be prepared for one." She carefully set them down. "I learned to make and unmake bombs some time ago. You could say, as the Gamemakers would put it, they are my specialty weapon."

Casually, she began to unplug the wires on one of them. There was a click, a buzz, and then silence.

"With the amount of explosives in the Cornucopia, I'm surprised others would not think to take advantage of the weapons...given to them right at the beginning. They are quite easy to use, if one knew how to handle and rebuild them for more suitable purposes."

Eponine just watched Homura walk away, and return again, with the platforms. She didn't actually know what she was looking at, and was definitely unimpressed by Homura's explanations.

"Perhaps the others have not thought of returning here? Or perhaps they do not want to injure themselves by trying to break them apart."

She was firm on one point, though. "You must do as you wish but I will not kill. I cannot. It is all I have left that they cannot take from me."

"Perhaps."

She was used to it, it seemed, as she continued to carefully take apart the items. Not being appreciated, or being told her choice of weapon was...well, problematic, as opposed to a good idea.

"So what will you do?"

Eponine shrugged and turned away.

"Wait to die, I suppose. It won't be long. Someone will murder me, or I will starve away, or die of thirst. And then I shall be in the Capitol again, or dead, if there is any luck. But I have said that good things are not for me."

She sniffed and wiped her hand on her wrist.

"If you do not believe good things do not come to you," click. "Then, guaranteed, you never will find them. That kind of resigned selflessness...gets people nowhere."

Silently, she reformed the pieces of platform into something more palatable around the explosives. Deftly, she reconnected the wires, this time to the cap.

"Would you like to learn how to do this? At the least, it will get the work done quickly."

Years and years of starvation and sleeping in the open and being beaten and used and shouted at and locked away and fighting every minute for mere survival have pretty much killed any hope that Eponine ever had that good things could happen to her. And Howard breaking up with her has only reconfirmed it. She she merely shrugged at Homura's comment, watching her uninterestedly.

"I have said I do not want to murder, Mademoiselle. Do not ask me again. It is the only nice bit of myself that I have left, and I won't let them take it."

But she sat up a little straighter anyway, and prepared to watch carefully.

It wasn't hope, that Homura spoke of. Not entirely. Maybe. More like the idea of just living for yourself, and not for the sake of others. Not demeaning oneself for others' sake. ~~Her situation was different. It was not Madoka who had demeaned her.~~

"One doesn't reach for what they need, by simply being nice in all they do. I don't mean to say, that you should murder." One more click. He's done. "But you should not be timid and give up, either. This is not a world to be that."

"Timid? I am not afraid, Mademoiselle. I am not scared - but I will not play their games. They laugh at me - everyone, for so many years now, and perhaps, at last, I am fed up. I am not playing their games. I am not murdering, or fighting. And that is it. I do not care what happens - only, I am fed up."

She's so fed up of not having control - any control - of her life. For so long, she's been pushed into corners or goaded to act, or been left stood alone. For so long, she's had to watch those she loves push her away, had to realise that she is a ghost among the living. Eponine can't live for herself, or others either. She simply lives, plodding through the days in this arena, much as she had done in Paris. She wasn't really alive at all; she was a gremlin, a goblin, something not quite living, and yet solid to the touch. And this refusal was the only way she could take control, even a little bit, of her life and her future.

There is another quiet pause.

"I'm not laughing at you. Nor would I."

Edited 2013-11-19 21:35 (UTC)

Eponine shook her head. "I do not mean you, Mademoiselle. You must forgive my clumsy speech. But I mean those in the Capitol - they laugh at me, and I shan't have it any more. Howard has made a fool of me, and they bring in Cosette as well - well, I have had enough. They can make me wear their cuff, but I am not a murderer."

She spoke with vehmenence, all the while trying to push the idea that she might have killed Alex in the last arena, to the back of her mind.

"I see." Quietly, Homura began work on her second bomb. "I have no doubt the same awaits for me, for different reasons. Well-wishers and sycophants who will line up for my autograph are using their ink to write targets on my back, even as we speak. But, that can't be helped. After all...we are celebrities now. I don't know how it works in your world...but its nature seems similar to how it goes where I'm from."

Click, click.

"Cosette. She is from where you come from as well?"

Edited 2013-11-20 04:29 (UTC)

"We didn't have celebrities, Mademoiselle. We didn't have anything that we have here; there was no beds and clothes and parties and - there was no screen to watch moving pictures."

Eponine sighed when Homura brought up Cosette, and turned her face away again.

"Yes, Cosette is from Paris. Like me. We lived together when we were children, if you should believe such a thing. She was a terrible child, you know?"

"Paris." Even as Homura worked, her fingers deftly working, and her eyes off of Eponine, she seemed to hear everything the other was saying. "So, then, a king? An emperor? Or a president?"

A better gauge might have been what year. Ah, well.

"Most children are. Girls, especially." Click. "They are liable to become monsters far more easily than little boys are. But, how was she terrible?"

Edited 2013-11-20 22:45 (UTC)

"Yes, Paris. You know it?" Eponine grinned. "There was a king - he was horrible. He didn't care for people like me, only his aristocracy, Miss. But he was not like this - if we touched him, we would be shot where we stood. If they waited that long for the excuse, Mademoiselle."

She turned back to Homura, listening to her, watching her, with narrowed eyes and a stern expression about her mouth.

"She was a bad girl. She made my mama hit her often. She never did as she was told, and she used to creep about the customers. AND, she was a thief. Always she was stealing my toys, and my sister's toys and trying to pet our cat. But she ought not have touched - she weren't allowed."

Eponine sighed through her nose. "Well, what does it matter? Look what has become of me."

"It is one of the biggest cities in the world," Homura replied. "It hasn't had a king in a very long while, though. The kings were long ago overthrown for good."

Made my mama hit her.

Something about that made Homura instinctively tense, very slightly as she finished the wires of her second bomb. It was clear something Eponine had said had hit a nerve, though what it was was unclear outwardly.

Inwardly, it wasn't that Homura had actually experienced that kind of thing on her own, but even with her own public and brusque dismissal of children those age, it made the hairs stand on her neck, much like with when she heard Kyuubey's excuses.

"...She wasn't allowed. Why not?" The tenseness lessened as she worked again on the bomb; if she was too hair-trigger, the explosions would end their conversation then and there. "Did she not have toys and a cat of her own?"

Edited 2013-11-21 00:41 (UTC)

"Oh."
Eponine didn't really know what to do with the information about the king. To be quite honest she didn 't care. There was a king whilst she lived and that was that.

"There was talk of rebellion, Miss. Monsieur Enjolras, he is here, he led it I think."

She bristled when Homura asked about Cosette.
"She were the servant, Miss. Servants can't play with toys or have cats. She was a sneak, always trying to touch my dolly."

"...So..." Homura quietly reached for the next cap. "A servant. Then, she was like the Avoxes?"

Testing. She wanted to see what Eponine would say to that.

Edited 2013-11-21 01:00 (UTC)

"NO!" Eponine spoke quickly, turning fully to face Homura again.

"No, she was not as an Avox. She had a tongue. She had her own toy. She was fed and she had a bed. She were lucky, Cosette. She is always lucky, that one."

"And yet, somehow, she was not 'lucky' enough to avoid being hit by your mother. Or to be allowed to touch an animal companion of the household."

She looked back at Eponine. Whatever Eponine's indignation, Homura's own expression was not reciprocal. There was no indignation or condemnation. It was simply that same distance on the surface.

"I must wonder. While children can be terrible, it is almost always because they have simple needs and desires that may not be met. Some of those desires are greedy and selfish, and some are not. Some should be punished, and some should not. But no matter what, in the end, either way, a child is a child. A servant child is still a child. There are ways to discipline...and ways not to. Ways to satisfy the child's wants and needs..."

Click. Second bomb finished.

"And ways not to. Think about it. Assume you are her in her place, in your house, for one moment. You are alone in the house for a few moments. And there is the cat you are not allowed to touch. But perhaps it wants to be pet. Perhaps it wants to be fed. Perhaps something is wrong with it. And you want to help it, or simply just pet it. Because it is a good cat. It is a member of the family. It is a creature with its own wants and needs that you can help it with, and in return, it purrs and makes you feel better, knowing it is content."

The bomb was laid down next to the first.

"But you know the punishment for touching the cat. And you decide not to, and you did it not out of obligation or respect, but fear of punishment. As a child, that would be how you saw it. And being hit is a very tall punishment indeed. However, I'm not finished. Suppose then, because you had left the cat alone, it had gone off, went outside, and been hit by something. A horse. A carriage. It doesn't matter. Now the cat is badly hurt, if not dead. And because you were the only one in the house when it happened..."

Quietly, Homura looked up fully to Eponine.

"As the servant, as the child bound by your master's whims, this is your choice. Would you be punished because you gave into a simple, harmless desire? Or would you be punished for obeying, but the result being an action you had no true control over?"

Edited 2013-11-21 18:20 (UTC)

Eponine's expression had turned from indignation, to anger, and then to sadness, upset... and then to a strange blankness. By the time Homura had finished speaking, Eponine was looking back in her direction, but at her? No - her gaze was more inward. She looked through Homura, and perhaps it would be difficult for Homura to read by Eponine's expression, exactly what the French girl was thinking.

What she was thinking, though, of the times when Cosette had been hit for following the rules, when she'd been hit for things Eponine had done purposely to get Cosette in trouble. And she thought of the times when Cosette had been taken away, when they still had the inn, when she had been told to clean it, when her Ma had flown into a temper with her for the first time because she had forgotten the potatoes and the water had boiled through and spoiled the pan. She remembered how she had tried to hide because Cosette wasn't there to take the blame, and she remembered how her Ma had found her and caught her by the arm and slapped her legs hard.

And she remembered the times in Paris, when her Pa had made her stand watch whilst he robbed a house, or he made her pickpocket, or - or the most horrific memory of all, when he had marched her out to the man he knew, when money had been exchanged - how she was arrested and made to sign the register by Javert. But if she hadn't done it, she would have been beaten until she couldn't walk. Or, the beating that would have happened had she not come to Panem.

In her mind, Cosette was lucky.

For a long time, she said nothing. What was there to say? What could she say to defend herself? Her Pa? But she blinked at Homura, properly seeing her again.

"Cosette... Cosette, she were lucky. She was."

She couldn't know fully, but the expression, and its evolution, indicated to Homura that she had, at least, gotten the other to stop and think. Really think. With things like this, Homura couldn't let it drop, if only because she learned long ago to usefulness of questioning and questions. And in this case, it seemed to get through, in some way, some way she couldn't entirely fathom - she didn't know poverty in royal France, it was not her experience.

Still. If ~~her friends~~the girls back home. Mami, and Sayaka, them in particular. If they had listened, ruminated, the way Eponine was, at least considered the other point of view...things could have, would have been so very different.

Of course, when Eponine came back, so to speak, it seemed like nothing had changed.

Still. Homura knew, she'd gotten through the entrance, at least. She knew it was a start.

"...You're out of water."

Edited 2013-11-21 18:51 (UTC)

"Don't want any more."

Eponine wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and pushed the empty bottle back at Homura. Then she used the side of the Cornucopia and one of her crutches to pull herself up onto her sore legs.

"Thank you for the water, Mademoiselle. And the food bar. But if you do not mind..."

And she began a slow hobble away.

"...Eponine."

Homura doesn't rise to stop her. But, she speaks.

"You may leave, if you wish. I simply wish for you to know. It wasn't for that girl, Cosette's sake, that your cat had to die for."

Edited 2013-11-21 19:09 (UTC)

Cat?

Eponine's cat hadn't died - not at Cosette's hand, at least. So she stopped to look back at Homura in surprise.

"Cosette did nothing to my cat. She had a good life. You see yourself she is a lady now, and to be married to -"

Her voice caught, but she cleared it, and carried on. "-To be married to a gentleman. A true one. She is lucky - she should be dead by all rights."

A lady. They had said Mami was very lady-like. Graceful, refined...

"I meant...what I did. Just now."

Eponine shrugged. Let this girl take Cosette's part.

"What does it matter anyway, Madame? She was hit and we laughed at her and that is everything to it."

She turned away again, her heart heavy.

You Dropped The Bomb On Me

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