thesphererp | Éponine Memshare 2

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Éponine Memshare 2

Night had fallen over the streets of Paris, lit only by lamplight. There was no sound, save the soft breath of a wind, wafting through flowers and vines. On one side of the the gate, the side closest to the large house on Rue Plummet, was a beautiful garden which contained a small bench. The bench was perfect for sitting on and thinking, or watching the world turn. She’d noticed her sitting there, often, a book in her lap. She was a smart girl, then, Eponine thought of the young woman. Smart, educated. Beautiful.

All things Eponine Thenardier would never be.

The girl was there tonight, but she was not the focus of Eponine’s dark gaze. No, through the leaves, Eponine kept her eyes on the man that sat beside her. He was tall and skinny, handsome with his freckles and beautiful hair she longed to run her hands through. He was smart, too, a student of the law, and his political interests aligned with her own. She had no idea that the young gentleman’s father had been saved by her own, and that irony would never be known to her, even when she bled out in his arms.

But that was some months away. Tonight, Eponine watched. She watched near every night now, putting her own sleep aside for the chance to look at him in his dark green coat. In the darkness, his coat matched the black dress of his beloved. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she didn’t care. Certainly they were professing their love for one another, planning on how to start their lives, unaware that the girl who had brought them together still stood sentinel.

She should have looked away, gone back home, found a bottle and Montparnasse and drowned her sorrows with drinks and then fucked the pain away as she so often did with her favorite criminal. But she didn’t. She stood there and watched, thinking of how Cosette, the girl who sat beside her Monsieur Marius, had ruined everything.

She remembered her, of course. How could she forget the girl who had been taken away by the man in the yellow coat that Christmas? Eponine had gotten a cat that year, she remembered. A cat her father had since dashed against the wall. It was after Cosette had been taken away, stolen, as her parents said, that the Thenardiers lost their money, their inn, and were forced to find a place to live and work in Paris. It was because of Cosette and her father that she had fallen into poverty, that she had been used and abused for so long.

Eponine places both her hands on the bars of their gate, watching the two lovers. How funny, that her neighbor, the one she had fallen in love with, had run into the very same woman that had destroyed her family as she had known it. She smiles, watching them, her lips curled in a strange sort of look that didn’t reach her eyes. Around her, rain began to fall, painting the cobblestones silver in the lamplight. She pulled her thread-bare shawl about her naked shoulders, never daring move, no matter how much hunger gnawed at her stomach.

The hunger pains were no match for how her heart and stomach twisted as she watched the young lovers bask in each other’s eyes. No one would ever look at her that way, she knew in that instant. Not Marius, not Montparnasse, no one.

She would spend however little of her life was left completely and utterly alone.

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"Oh, Gavroche would keep up with him," Eponine says with a knowing smile. "He left home the moment he could, and has been on his own for some time. It is a small miracle, but he fares better without us." She loved her little brother to bits, but life within the Thénardier household would have killed him.

"It is a silly thing, but there is a statue in our city- a giant elephant. The inside is hollow, and that is where he lives. To get in you must climb to the top- he and Bran would be good friends indeed." She looks up at the painting and smiles sadly.

She nods with a sniffle. "I told him he no longer owns it." That's not how ownership technically works, but she wants him gone. Lifting her head slightly, she looks at Ned's face, studying its features. "He is angry with me, too. In your defense, m'sieur, you did not know who I was, and like him, you were mourning. He is angry with himself now that she is here. That he was lead so easily. But he is a man, as are you. You cannot think with your cock and brain at the same time."

One corner of Ned's mouth rises in a lopsided smile at her brother's hiding place. "It is a Bran sort of place to live," he comments, eyes alighting just imagining Bran's glee at climbing inside such a place and hiding there. "Is it selfish to wish that this place would bring both of them here, so that they might know each other?"

As she studies his features, Ned shrugs, then blushes. He did not wish to defend himself, to Robb least of all. But he had thought with his cock that night, with his heart so bruised and battered by what he'd seen those past two days. And he should have been stronger than Robb, with twenty years of experience on him.

"I am sorry to part him from his business," he says heavily. "And I am sorry that - that he was not more careful with your heart, Eponine. I always told my boys to break no hearts and leave no bastards whenever they should take lovers. We are not always a wise House, Stark, as much as we'd like to be."

He meets Eponine's eyes with a rueful glance. And then there was a knock on the shut door, and he easily slides out to go retrieve the food and pay for it, returning with the bags in hand. Each package unwrapped smells delicious. One of the disposable bowls is set in front of Eponine with her beloved melted-cheese-between bread, and Ned settles next to her with the same fare. "Don't worry about manners today," he tells her, grinning. "We've already broken enough of them this week, hm?"

"I... do not know. I should like to see them both, and I should want Gavroche to have all the happiness that this place has afforded me. It is a wondrous thing to always have access to food and a bed to sleep in." She sighs, her stomach giving another grumble.

His words catch her off-guard, and she pushes herself up slightly from where she leans. "You did not part him with it. I did. Do not blame yourself. He made his actions, too." She watches him get up to answer the door, and she makes even more of an effort to stand.

"That is good advice. But women's hearts, they are made to break. Mine, it seems, shatters." With permission to forego the manners she would have foregone anyway, Eponine digs into her her melted-bread-cheese-sandwich, greedily shoving it into her mouth. When she can, she pauses only to turn her eyes soupward. "We have," she says, around a mouthful.

"Yes, it is. They are remarkably kind to the people they bring here." For what purpose, Ned is not sure yet, and perhaps that should be a suspicious thing, but for now it benefits those like Eponine who have never had such bounty, and benefits those like both and Eponine who were no longer even alive to enjoy any bounties back home.

A little incline of his head for the truth of her words. Robb certainly had made his own actions here, and not all of them seemed right to Ned, but he would wait before saying so to his son, who was already wroth enough with him.

"Women's hearts, so strong yet fragile too." And Ned has barely had time to take his first bite before she's wolfed down a good chunk of hers. She'd taken that permission quite to heart, and it was clear to him that this was her first meal in a while.

Without saying a word, he cuts his sandwich in half and hands her the untouched portion. It will do her far more good. "Did you know that my younger daughter has just arrived too? That makes all of my family here save my two youngest sons and my wife. It seems quite likely that you will get to meet Bran after all." (But she's not going to meet Catelyn if she ever comes, Ned will try to make very sure of that.)

"Ah! Thank you, thank you!" She's eager to continue her frenzied monching.

"Arya, yes? No, I have not yet meet her. But Robb told me of her, too. Your other daughter said I am of size with her. She is very beautiful- Sansa- and talented! He had her make me gowns, so I would be a true lady. I had never felt so beautiful, I tell you now. I cried putting them on." But now, she will literally never wear them again. They were too beautiful to destroy, so she will place them outside Robb's door.

"I would like to meet him." She speaks between frantic bites, as though the food will disappear in front of her. At one point, she even foregoes her spoon and opt to drink from her bowl. "Robb did not say he would introduce me. He was ashamed of me, though he would not say it."

"Yes," says Ned; of size and age with her, but he does not say that part. "Sansa's needlework was always very fine. Whereas Arya's sword is named Needle. They are very different girls." But it is clear from his tone that he adores them, each in their own way.

"Dresses fit for a princess," he murmurs, glancing at Eponine, who looks much more streetrat at the moment than the princess she longed to be. Ned eyes the way she wolfs everything down with concern. "Slowly, or it will all just come back up and be for nothing. And that would be a waste of good food." He is enjoying his own at the moment, his first time experiencing the healing power of grilled cheese and tomato soup aka comfort food.

...But frowns when she says Robb is ashamed of her. "Of himself, more likely. Why would he be ashamed of you specifically? Because you aren't highborn?" Few here would be. And this approach does not sit well with Ned. He wasn't about to tell his family the full truth about Eponine, but there was no reason to hide her away either. Except from Catelyn, and that would be less hiding and more giving himself the chance to tell her the truth first.

"If Bran or Rickon comes, I'll introduce you myself. And you will do the same for Gavroche? I would like very much to meet him." His gaze returns briefly to the painting. A special boy to Eponine, indeed.

"ah! I like that. Needle the sword- do you all name your swords?" She had never thought to ask Robb, and now she certainly would not. How like men, to name their sword!

Eponine swallows the bite of sandwich in her mouth and pauses for a moment. When she resumes eating, it's slower, dipping her sandwich in the soup, really savoring it. "You are right- I have not had much to eat in some time. I ate pretzels." Delicious pretzels that she had introduced to Ned their night together.

"Yes. Because I am crass and a whore, with no table manners. Perhaps because he knew I was a mistake. He did not want to show people our love. I should have known then." She sighs and looks away.

"Of course I will introduce you! I warn you, he does not like kings and queens."

"Most knights do, I think. Sellswords - unlikely, when they carry for coin and not justice or defense. But most others are proud of their steel, I believe. It is strange not to be armed, here." Especially after seeing both Jon and Arya so well-armed.

Her explanation makes him sigh and contemplate the crisped edges of his bread. He does not believe Robb was in love, even before Jeyne came. But he cared for Eponine, certainly. At least he cared for her at night. Which makes Ned frown. And spare himself the necessity of reply by taking another bite.

Poor Gavroche and his hatred of royalty. "Good thing I'm not a King then," Ned says with half a grin at Eponine. "Robb declared himself King in the North. I merely was Lord. And overthrew kings myself." To put new ones on the throne, but that undermines his jest. "And what is your opinion of them, Lady Eponine?"

(He has known whores. He's never treated them as the world treats whores.)

"Robb was a shit king," she explains. Robb had said it himself, and she had no problem saying it now. Once, she would have told him he was the best king. Now?

"His men declared him, first," she says casually, biting into her sandwich with great gusto. "My family are proud Bonapartists- we supported our Emperor Napoleon before his exile. He came into power after we killed the old king and queen. Now we have another king and he's just as bad as before. To me, I do not care. They will never care for the little people, who have no money for bread and must fight rats for crumbs. It does not matter who is in charge. Only that they think only of themselves. Besides, I am a woman and have no say in politics. My opinions do not matter."

But he asked, and called her a Lady, and the girl was blushing something fierce.

"That's my son you're talking about," Ned warns her good-naturedly. It was hard to be very cross when one was eating tomato soup with extra basil. "I'm obligated to be loyal. He did his best."

Of course, he knows nothing about her own people's history, but it is a familiar story. Kings who care nothing for their people, only for themselves and grasping more power. And women whose voices would never be heard. "That was not the kind of Lord I was," Ned says, thoughtful. "I kept a seat open beside me at my table so that I might speak with someone each day. Man or woman, high or low, it did not matter. They need only to come to me and ask." Just as they were doing now. Although with less asking and more fulfilling what Eponine had clearly needed.

"What happened to your emperor?" he asks between spoonfuls.

"He said it himself!" She says defensively, though she teases him back.

"Good. You were a good Lord, then. I know of no man that would so readily open his home to people." They were lucky to have a man like Ned Stark around.

"He was exiled. I... Do not really recall. My parents did not explain this, and I am no student of history." She's nearly done with her sandwich now.

"Aye, he did," Ned agrees, "and he did it for me. I will go easy on the lad." But he understands why she doesn't. Her heart has been broken, whether Robb intended it or not.

"I tried to be. I wanted no part of the games they played down South, their intrigues and secrets, while the smallfolk paid for their excesses." He thinks of Robert, the debts he had left the Kingdom in, and sighs. "I was pulled into it in spite of how I despised it. I was the friend of our King, as close as a brother. Once." Ned's look is sardonic. "He needed me there. We both paid dearly. I should never have left the North." He would still be alive. Sansa and Arya would be safe. Robb and Cat would still be alive.

"I learned what history my maester drilled into me. But I would rather learn by doing." He nods at the bowl he's finishing. "I'm learning here. Good choice. I'll have it again, I think. Next time, your coin." A lifted brow at Eponine, amused.

"Do. For I was very harsh with him." It was any wonder she hadn't thrown something at him. Though, she has to ask: "are you still cross I hit him?"

As Ned speaks, Eponine takes the time to finish her plate. Having been told there was no need for manners, she slurps the rest of her soup, and uses her capable tongue to remove what cannot be slurped. When that is done, she turns to her fingers to suck them clean.

"So good!" She mutters.

"I would like to learn at all. I could have been a student, if I'd had money. I would be a fancy lady."

"Of course." Honest, blunt. He contemplates her with a raised brow. "Would you not be protective of your child? But he might have deserved it. I was not there to see, to judge. I am simply glad he did not hit back." Ned pauses to touch her chin, very gently, before releasing both gaze and touch.

She eats like a guttersnipe. And licks like a champion. He, frankly, looks away. Not needing reminders of the last time he was in here. The last time he'd had such attentions on him rather than a bowl.

"Why cannot you learn here?" Ned finally has a reason to turn back. He frowns. "What is stopping you? You can make money. You can be a fine lady, as fine as you want. Why do you need Robb or any man? Whatever you believe in - gods, fate, your own making - has given you this situation. You should not waste it. I will not. My life is extended beyond what it would ever be at home. And yours."

He hands Eponine a napkin. "Let us take full advantage of it."

"He could have." She averts her eyes. "I expected him to... Wanted him to." Because it meant he still gave some sort of damn. Walking out and leaving her to her life? It meant she was dead to him. And that was worse.

This is a new thought that Ned brings, and she turns to him, smiling lopsidedly. "This is my tavern after all. And I make money here. Perhaps I shall read more. I told you that night- I cannot say it was terrible- to live here. I should take my own advice more often than not." She accepts the napkin.

"How shall we?"

Expected, even wanted him to hit back. Ned says nothing. Tully temper or not, Robb was not that sort of man. By nature and by training, his instinct would be to protect, not to inflict hurt on, a woman. Ned is proud of that, hopes he never loses it. But Eponine was not like that. She wanted Robb to care in that demented, twisted way. Which just proved how little she truly knew Robb.

Ned inclines his head at an angle. "It was not bad advice," he says thoughtfully. "Questionable application, under the influence of many rounds of whiskey." He will not let Eponine how ashamed he is that it took so little to yield to a few pretty smiles and kisses, much less to break a lifetime of faithfulness and a legacy with his son. He'd been played for a fool, which would not have been so bad if she were just a pretty smile and not someone who had been important to Robb.

"But sober, it is a good place to start. Eating - and you've done enough of the drinking part of it to last weeks -" Ned chuckles and rights an empty wine bottle on the table. "Discovering things in this city, learning whatever we may. There are things here beyond my wildest dreams, and I would like to understand them if I can. Meeting new people. Hearing what they have to say." He glances at Eponine. "You have the perfect opportunity for that here. And to discover what it is that you really want."

Because as much as she thinks she wants Robb, if she really had him, she wouldn't even know what to do with him.

"If I do not drink, m'sieur, I become sick." It's no big deal, of course. She's not worried about it. She was always a sickly child, why would now be any different?

"I thought I had found what I wanted. Who I wanted. There are people here with swords of lights and strange books and the movies. I had someone to explore it all with. Now... I feel on the fringes again. Looking through dirty glass." She finishes her soup, and leans back in her seat.

"I feel like I did at home."

He inclines his head, aware that that in itself is a kind of sickness. She will either pull back from it enough to right herself...or like Robert, will fall prey to its dangers sooner or later.

"You thought," Ned agrees. "It is...very hard. Giving up that hope. I have done it. Life goes on. It is terrible for a time, but it goes on." Poor consolation when you are in the throes of it. He feels for Eponine more than he can say. "You loved a dream," he says softly. "That dream is not Robb, it is yours."

And Ned shakes his head, coming back to the present. "You are better off than you are at home. It only seems as bad because you have known such great happiness. Now normal life without that thrill seems hollow by comparison. It will come again. I am sure of it." He smiles at Eponine. "A pretty girl like yourself, charming, funny, and a business woman to boot. You will find someone even better." for you

"I only love dreams," she tells him after a moment. "Dreams do not hurt until they become nightmares." And then she was stuck.

She ducks her head, blushing as he calls both pretty and charming. "I wish I could bring you with me to France. No one else would believe me, that someone would say such kind things."

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Éponine Memshare 2

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