Mini Arena 2

[etcircenses]

Tributes are woken early, and the hovercraft ride is a long one. Not the longest some have experienced, but they are clearly going far.

25 - 24 - 23

They land on the deck of the boat, and are ushered underneath, to the lower levels, quickly. Their stylists go from cabin to cabin, decking them out in over the top finery, before loading them into the pods installed into the corners of the rooms.

20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16

The platforms lift them up, and they are all ringed around a grand buffet table, loaded with a grand feast looking ready to sag down from the weight. Among the food are supplies, plenty of them, all for the taking.

11- 10 - 9 - 8

They've all been warned, don't step off your pedestal early. They have also been warned to put on a good show. That's all this is about, a good show. None of them have been told that there can be multiple winners this time around.

5 - 4

3

2

The sound of the gong plays crystal clear across the opening. The games have begun.

Comments

[gardienne]

"Miss?" Eponine did phrase it as a question. She remembered Rosalind, of course, but it didn't mean that she trusted her.

"Are you going to hurt me? I can hurt you with these stupid shoes if you try a thing on me."

[dotsanddashes]

"Rosalind," she corrected, setting the weapon down on the ground and standing on it. A gesture of trust. "Or Madame, if you must. And no, I will not hurt you."

She shuffled a little bit closer, dragging the weapon with her, but she put her hands up as she did.

"Honestly, it looks like you could use a bit of help."

[gardienne]

"Always they dress me in silly clothes, Madam." Eponine emphasised Rosalind's title in an act of contrition. Still with her eyes on the weapon, she sat down, and once more began to struggle with the buckle.

"Why should they put you in high heels I cannot walk in and a long dress I fall over, and so tight on my legs, when I am to fight for my life? It is hardly fair, Madam Rosalind."

[dotsanddashes]

"Because they want to make a spectacle of you. It's not supposed to be fair."

The words weren't unkind - they were matter of fact. She watched the girl for a moment, thinking, and then spoke again, her tone just a hair warmer.

"But we can even the odds a bit. I'll help you, if you'd like."

To illustrate, she reached down and tore at the skirt of her own dress - cutting it short to allow for better movement. "Nothing says we are required to leave all this nonsense on."

[gardienne]

"And of you, Madam?" She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. "I already know they don't want me to win at all. "

She watched in awe as Rosalind ripped her dress. She could practically hear her stylists bursting into tears.

"We're going to be in trouble when we go out, you know?" Eponine grinned. Trouble didn't bother her much.

"Will you cut mine?" She plucked at the silver material of her gown.

[dotsanddashes]

"Of course they mean to make a spectacle of me. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here."

When Eponine grinned, she smirked back, a little glimmer of fire returning to eyes that had been deadened since the last arena. "I doubt that. They want a show. We can't give them one stumbling about like this. Besides - I scarcely care what they think."

When she was asked to help, she stooped to pick up her steak knife, moving up close to the other woman. Calmly and with sure motions, she pinched the fabric away from skin, tearing a hole into it to make it easier to tear away. With a sure pull, she yanked the fabric away in a big, shimmering shred.

"You're right to take off the shoes. Bloody ridiculous things. If they weren't shaped in such a stupid way, I would suggest breaking off the heels...but they'll be useless even then."

[gardienne]

"If I were in Paris, I'd sell the lot. So much money - but here, they are only funeral garments. Such a waste, I think. I should rather die in rags than finery. I should rather live in rags, you know, and I hated it so when that were all I had. I wish I had it now."

Eponine closed her eyes when Rosalind approached with the knife - just in case the woman changed her mind and knifed her. She opened them again when she heard the ripping sound, grinning in relief.

"You didn't hurt me! Ha - I think my stylist shall scream when she sees us - scream at us both! Ha - it is best to make them cross!"

[dotsanddashes]

"I think most of us want what we had, compared to this." She didn't say more than that - didn't extrapolate upon her life, her own circumstances - but there was empathy in her tone. The girl was making a lot of sense to her right now.

She found herself growing a bit fond. Eponine had spirit.

Rosalind smiled back up at the girl, working at tearing the fabric into strips and neatly folding them.

"It IS best to make them cross. I don't care if they do scream at us - this way, we can move, and we have some bandages. The stylists should realize the clothes they put on us will be ruined, anyhow." A pause as she regards herself.

"This ridiculous dress isn't me, anyhow. I should sooner be naked, honestly."

[gardienne]

"That man, he made me take my dress off." Eponine admitted. She'd taken the time to struggle back into it herself when she had managed to escape the flooding dining room, not wanting to wander around naked any longer than necessary.

"He said he were gonna help me escape, but he told me to take it off. I think he wanted to look. I don't know. I do not care. These horrid people, they have seen me naked, and seen me lie with men and the lot. It don't matter no more. But I wish I could be a lady. A lady like you couldn't be naked, Miss."

[dotsanddashes]

It took everything Rosalind had not to throw the bandages down in disgust. If there was one thing that she did not tolerate - it was the way that people took advantages of women like Eponine. Not just in what they did, but in what they SAID. She had fought against unkind words and opinions for nearly her whole life. She knew full well how hard it could be to bear, she knew how much strength it took to keep her head up, and she knew - despite what she would admit aloud - what it had done to her.

And hearing this girl say that she wasn't ladylike struck a very personal chord.

Pulling herself off the floor, she stood up straight, reaching out to place a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"...A lady like me can be anything she wants to be. I am no less a lady when I am naked than I am when I am clothed. No matter what is done to you - no matter what anyone says, you are a lady if you say you are a lady. That is where it starts and where it ends. With you. You needn't wish for something that is already true." Ice blue eyes locked in place, sure and strong.

"Eponine, you ARE a lady. It does not matter who has seen you naked, who has seen you have sex - they cannot take anything from you that you do not give them. No matter what."

[gardienne]

"It don't matter, Miss." Eponine lowered her gaze, quite obviously uncomfortable with such a compliment. But she looked up, just a little bit, from between her lashes. Rosalind's words gave her that horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. Rosalind was giving her hope, and despite her best efforts to ignore it, she can't help but ask,

"Do you really think so? You don't think I am a slut? I have done bad things, you know? I should so love to be a lady."

She half wanted it to be false, just because when her hope was destroyed, it hurt so much, and quite frankly, Eponine couldn't take that any more.

[dotsanddashes]

It was heartbreaking to Rosalind to see someone so young so broken down.

Lifting the hand from the girl's shoulder, she used it to gently lift her chin, coaxing her to look her in the eye. Trying to get her to look at her with some confidence.

"I do think so. You are certainly not the only one who has done bad things - and the number of men you have been with has no bearing upon you as a person. If a man lies with many women, he's allowed to wear the number as a badge of honor. I see no reason why women should feel shame for the same thing. It's only sex. Sex is fun - it's natural. You are allowed to like it, and you are allowed to share it with whoever you see fit. Other people are not allowed to take your pride away. It's not their body. It's yours."

Rosalind smiled, as reassuring as she could - and spoke words that she dearly wished she had heard herself so very long ago.

"Being a lady is all about being confident that you are one. It took me a long time to realize that. You don't need to take as long as I did."

[gardienne]

Eponine met Rosalind's gaze, but she looked down as soon as Rosa started to speaking. It was difficult to hear such things - they were completely the opposite from the opinions she had been taught all of her life. Sex was not fun. It was a way to put food on the table and to keep a roof over her head and keep her dad in tobacco and alcohol. It was something she closed her eyes to, and her mind, and endured. It was something that left her feeling dirty and empty and more alone in the world than ever before. It was difficult for her to hear any other way. It was just another reminder of how different she was to normal women.

But Rosa kept speaking and Eponine had to look back at her. "You know it as I do?" Was there truly hope for Eponine in the end of everything?

[dotsanddashes]

There was something haunting in the way Eponine looked while she was being addressed - a sort of sadness that Rosalind had seen before. She did not fully reflect on why - it was really none of her business - but now she was most concerned with trying to coax some sort of strength into the girl's backbone once more.

"I do," she sighed, laying both hands back on Eponine's shoulders. "Since I was a child, I was told that the things I held most dear were not ladylike. I was told I was mad, disillusioned - that I was beyond hope. It came from my family, from their friends...and even in school, if it weren't for my thick skin, I may not have made it through. Even when I had achieved the impossible, when I had done something no one believed COULD be done...they still spoke down to me. Belittled me. Asked me who I slept with to get my funding. And when Robert came along, the credit fell to him without him even trying."

Talking about Robert hurt. She fought the knot in her throat.

"It's so easy for people to pass judgement on what you do - but they don't know what's going on in your head. It doesn't matter if you're brilliant, or if you have a good heart...it's secondary to the fact that you have breasts. I tore myself up for years over it before I decided none of it mattered. Let them talk, and prove them wrong. That's what I learned."

[gardienne]

"And if you have none of that, I suppose it is good that I have breasts - but even then they are not satisfied. They gave made them bigger for their pleasure. Not any more, though. They stopped caring so much when prettier girls came in."

And as much as she had hated how they had changed her body, she missed being the centre of attention. Now she was more an afterthought; just another tribute to dress.

"I need to learn to prove people wrong."

[dotsanddashes]

"It's never too late to learn."

A gentle hand moved up from the girl's shoulder to run a thumb down the side of her cheek in a comforting manner, a tiny smile on her usually-tight lips. Rosalind didn't have much in the way of maternal instinct, and friends were a concept that she had only vaguely flirted with the notion of - but in spite of herself, she was realizing something.

She liked this girl.

"I'll help you learn, if you will have my help."

[gardienne]

"Thank you, Miss." Eponine curtseyed low. As mad as it was, she was already growing quite fond of Rosalind. For some strange, unknown reason, she trusted her, and that scared Eponine a little bit. Or perhaps she was just trying to replace Eva a little. If Eva didn't want her any more, she would have to find someone else. She couldn't be alone again.

"I should like that."