Cosette
- Masterful Virgin -
L'Alouette
Posts: 15
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Post by Cosette on Mar 16, 2009 19:17:30 GMT -5
Cosette collapsed, intending only to catch her breath on a convenient stump. She found soon, though, that she could go no further today, and lay there panting, eyes shut as she tried not to think about how hungry and tired she was. It had already been two days since she'd left--Montfermeil wasn't exactly far, but it seemed that way to a starving, sickly little girl, and she wasn't even sure that she was going the right way. Her only hope was that they didn't catch up to her.
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Post by Eponine on Mar 16, 2009 19:23:08 GMT -5
*Eponine happened to be going out that way to visit her past. To make peace, hopefully. And she was walking. Somehow it felt... better that way. If she was trying to come to terms with it, walking felt like the best way to do it.*
*It seemed, though, part of her past had unknowingly come to meet her. She gasped when she saw the little girl on the side of the road... and immediately bent to make sure she was still alive.*
"Petite, are you alright?" *She asked, gently shaking the girl's shoulders.*
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Cosette
- Masterful Virgin -
L'Alouette
Posts: 15
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Post by Cosette on Mar 16, 2009 19:28:09 GMT -5
Perhaps it was fate that brought them together, or God; Cosette did not know. She hadn't much chance for philosophy in her daily life. Now she was more concenrned with her immediate problems, and whimpered slightly, shivering as if cold despite the warmth of the day.
A shadow passed over her, and she whimpered again, afraid that it was them come to drag her back. The woman's tone, however, seemed to be compassionate, and her touch gentle...maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. Slowly, she turned to look up, her already wide eyes widening even more at the sight. It looked like Eponine...but grown up, so that wasn't possible. "I...I don't feel so well, madame..."
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Post by Eponine on Mar 16, 2009 19:37:42 GMT -5
*Eponine knew that face. She knew it very, very well. It was the tiny, starving face which had always haunted her dreams, her nightmares, her prayers...*
*She pulled the underfed girl closer, propping her up.* "What's your name, Petite? I'm Madame Eponine..."
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Cosette
- Masterful Virgin -
L'Alouette
Posts: 15
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Post by Cosette on Mar 16, 2009 19:39:27 GMT -5
Her expression showed that Cosette clearly thought now she was hallucinating. It obviously couldn't be the same girl she'd been teased by so recently; perhaps she was close to death. It would be best, though, to play along...
"I am Cosette."
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Post by Eponine on Mar 16, 2009 19:43:40 GMT -5
*Eponine's heart constricted. It couldn't... then again, a lot of things were possible. In her Paris, she'd just learned to deal with it.*
"Alright, Cosette, why don't we head into the city... you aren't that far, and my patiserrie isn't far from that..."
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Cosette
- Masterful Virgin -
L'Alouette
Posts: 15
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Post by Cosette on Mar 16, 2009 19:46:13 GMT -5
Hallucination or not, Cosette felt comforted by having someone nice to talk to her, and she managed a brave smile.
"That...that sounds lovely, Madame Eponine." She turned her face away to cough gently, and sniffled. "Sorry..."
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Post by Eponine on Mar 16, 2009 19:52:04 GMT -5
*She picked the tiny, birdlike girl up in her arms, carrying her back towards the city...*
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Cosette
- Masterful Virgin -
L'Alouette
Posts: 15
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Post by Cosette on Mar 16, 2009 19:53:34 GMT -5
Smiling softly, Cosette cuddled up weakly to Eponine, closing her eyes and, in fact, soon falling asleep.
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Post by Lavinia on May 19, 2009 16:45:49 GMT -5
**NEW NIGHT**
Although she had a place to stay more concrete than she'd ever had before in the Bates Motel with Maria, it had taken centuries for the pattern of wandering aimlessly around a city to impress itself, and would doubtless take a few more to break it. Lavinia occasionally popped out for a couple of days, and had even explained to Maria that she did this, after the first time she'd been missed a night, and then returned, very dusty, a little famished, but fine nonetheless, and it had been a day now. Wearing typical Victorian day dress, it was harder than usual to tell whether or not something was off about her, for while there were no hands of any note, the usual cuff at the wrist covered the fact that those were all she had. Lavinia could not quite recall when she'd changed, but she forgot a lot of little things, and this didn't unduly distress her. She'd given up on distress over that aeons ago.
She had gone pretty far north by this point, and wasn't entirely certain she was still in Paris, as this area was just a bit off the main roads, and mostly seemed deserted. The sky was heavily charged with electricity, and Lavinia supposed it would rain soon. She could find a tree to huddle down under; there, over that hill, was that a cemetery? She could find shelter there, surely.
She was hungry now. Pausing on her way towards the hill, having noticed a berry-laden bush that had not been entirely picked away at by birds, she knelt beside it, placed her wrists at the ground, and leaned forward cautiously to carefully, with her teeth, pluck a berry away from it. She was used to eating like this; she'd done it most of the time. Thorns made it slightly more difficult. A few berries later she snapped back with a scratch on her lip, shaking her head in an almost animal-like way, as though something had snagged on her and she were impulsively trying to shake it off.
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Marius de Romanus
- Masterful Virgin -
I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough.%\0\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Marius de Romanus on May 19, 2009 17:43:22 GMT -5
His home was far enough from Paris that it was not a long walk to find some open space. Not that it was any great exertion to travel from one end of Paris to the other, but Marius found that his preference for open dwellings also led him more and more to the outskirts of cities, as populations increased, industry rose, and the buildings piled higher with both. Things were different now; the masses, though humanity had changed little in essentials, were of a slightly different sort in every era.
Marius was out walking, getting to know this new area, though Paris in general was not entirely new to him. Still, he cultivated a curiosity in the details. He may have studied many pine trees, but he had not yet fixed this one in mind, and that was a sort of pleasure.
He saw the girl's condition instantly, of course, and ascribed her odd posture to the fact of her missing hands rather than some other deficiency, say of the mind, right away. He had approached silently, though now he stood a discrete distance away, under another tree, watching her for a moment as his mind reached out gently and touched something very, very old. That surprised him, for she was clearly no vampire. No common unfortunate, either, though her movements were nearly feral.
He took a few more steps, intending to be heard though he did not move towards her, but rather to the side of the bush. Without speaking, his face unassuming and kind in repose, he swiftly plucked a handful of berries that would have been unreachable to her and extended the hand, palm full of the ripest ones, in her direction.
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Post by Lavinia on May 20, 2009 11:16:26 GMT -5
Lavinia was startled enough for one arm to jerk upwards, as though shielding her breast, the sleeve getting slightly caught in thorns, although not, luckily, in such a way as to hurt. She had not heard the stranger approach, but intuition had become something near an art to Lavinia, and deciding whether or not to warmly trust someone had to be done, often, in a time shorter than the blink of an eye. The undignified act of eating out of someone's palm would have been nearly unthinkable to many people; in life, even after her condition, Lavinia could hardly have borne it, proud daughter of Rome that she was, civilized, urbane; those old concerns had been mostly worn away through time, and Lavinia beamed at him as she knelt, cautiously, something like a tamed doe, and ate without a thought.
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Marius de Romanus
- Masterful Virgin -
I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough.%\0\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Marius de Romanus on May 22, 2009 12:46:18 GMT -5
Marius had not intended to surprise her so thoroughly, but it was easy to forget how silently he could move, even when he was not seeking stealth. Still, he was surprised at her reaction, and even more by the lack of echo he made in her thoughts. There was something about her, something ancient and feral though not without a peculiar kind of intelligence. He got the distinct impression that time accounted for her manner, more than the obvious trauma which likewise looked to be long distant.
How curious. And how sad. She was, in a sense, the very definition of innocence. Or Marius's, anyway, which required some degree of needing protection.
He let her eat, enthralled--in his somewhat distant way--by the experience and the creature before him.
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Post by Lavinia on May 24, 2009 11:04:40 GMT -5
Once, like a dancing bear or a lamb, Lavinia had been kept more or less like a pet by someone who had loved her. It was one of far too many memories for Lavinia to separate in her mind consciously, but it crowded around and bumped against other thoughts swarming in her mind as it tried to rise to her consciousness. It didn't quite manage to do so, but it did provoke a curious sort of reticence in her. Unable to communicate for a very long time - and often living in places where even if she could have spoken, she could not have made herself understood, and did not understand the tongue that was being spoken - Lavinia had occasionally gone very quietly and pleasantly (and even more occasionally, loudly and wailingly unhappily) mad. The recent gift of mindspeech that Heike had bestowed had acted against this in a strange way. Although it was difficult to overcome old patterns, and she often forgot that she had it, except in the presence of Maria, and even then she could sometimes launch into pointless babble until reminded, being able to communicate made it so that she more than ever made the attempt. When she had scratched her name into the ground for Tybalt, this had been one such attempt.
Although this sense of herself as an individual and a person - a collected set of untidy and unruly thoughts, feelings, and memories, bound together in one thin shell, no matter how frustrating it was in its shortcomings - did not quite demand obvious respect, and did not shame her there, suddenly, faint awareness of it made her pull back when she was done, crouching back and kneeling and moving to sign thoughtlessly to him that this was unnecessary, although she had not signed to anyone since before her dear old Roman father had died.
A crack of thunder distracted her, though, and she looked up to the sky, suddenly, frowning slightly - her face still pretty, but a bit berry-stained.
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Marius de Romanus
- Masterful Virgin -
I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough.%\0\%
Posts: 39
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Post by Marius de Romanus on May 26, 2009 11:24:05 GMT -5
He understood, of course, her sign. How could he not? He had not meant to arouse shame or fear or anything but hunger, but then, generosity always had a purpose and Marius did not always stop to consider the possible consequences of it. It was logical that he, who could, hold the fruit the young woman could not. Shame or other emotion did not enter into it--at least until Marius considered the possibility. Ideally, in his mind, people did as they could, which was not to say he actually subscribed to the theories of Marx.
The berry stains reminded him, with a mixture of gentle amusement and sadness, of blood.
"Come," he said, his voice commanding but only by habit; there were layers of gentle concern, too. He spoke in Latin, the language coming naturally and conversationally to his tongue. "It will rain soon. You need not fear; you will be warm, and dry, and no harm will come to you."
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