sirenspull | [Accidental video-voice thing]

[For a long time, static fills the screen. Just static, crackling on and on. But gradually, over the static, a deep, gruff voice comes to be heard.]

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be used as evidence against you... [Crackle]

[It would seem that Eponine has managed to get herself arrested. The static is back now, louder than before, and the sound of material being rubbed against the NV can be heard; Eponine keeps her NV tucked well in her chemise. She's being hurried to a police car now, though it's near impossible to hear the police man's footsteps over the noise of Eponine's clothes.

After about five minutes, the deep voice can be heard again]

Got a right one here, Bob. Newcomer. Pickpocket and a prostitute to boot. Complaints about her all over town.

[And Eponine's whispered answer, clearer than Bob's answering laugh.]

Shut up shut up shut up.

[She says nothing else until she is apparently hustled into the police station, and then it is only reluctant.]

Name?

Eponine... Jondrette. 'Ponine Jondrette.

Powers?

[Silence]

Well, Jondrette, you're being charged with at least five counts of theft - and I'll be damned if I don't get some more to testify against you.

[She's silent. What is she supposed to say to that? But perhaps it's the determined look on her face that makes the policeman laugh]

Bob, take her down. Enjoy your new room, Jondrette. You'll be there a while.

[There is the sound of more footsteps, of a light clinking, handcuffs, and a -]

Too tight?

[Though Eponine gives no answer. There's silence, broken by the sounds of material shifting over the NV and the ominous clang of heavy prison doors. Eventually, there is a curt,]

In.

[and another heavy clink, followed by the sounds of a key turning in a lock. There's silence again, before the sound of gentle sobbing echoes through the NV. Eponine would be mortified if she knew it was recording.]

(ooc: basically, Eponine has been arrested for some of her many thefts over the last few months and has been locked up indefinitely for now. There's a high bail price on her head; the Port police are too used to these newcomers coming and going seemingly at random to let Eponine away easily. Feel free to comment and try to cheer her up though. I think she's going to be bailed out in a few days...)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I am NOT a child, Madame. And I can take care of myself. I don't need anybody else.

[Even though she has a whole hoard of people in the city trying to look out for her. She just cannot trust that their intentions are innocent]

La, do not make such haste in thy judgement - and child is merely a term I use for one younger than I - such as ye are!

[Her speech grows more halting, more frustrated, as she continues.]

How high art thy bail?

I am sorry, Madame.

[She's not - but she doesn't want to end up in more trouble for being rude to someone socially above her too. And, she reasons, this woman must be of the upper class. The way she talks is far too unusual for her to be a commoner]

My bail, Madame? Higher than I can afford. $50,000, I think they said.

[She shrugs] There is nothing to be done. It is my own fault. I should have run faster.

[She notes the insincerity but doesn't pay it heed - she was once a hot-tempered young thing herself. As for Sheila? Second cousin to a queen, but here she's a commoner, and has adapted as quickly as possible to that fact.]

'Tis not wise to lead the police on such a chase. They wouldst not hesitate to use great force against thee.

La, and higher than I canst afford as well. Mayhaps ye might speak to the representative of the Newcomer Fund? They doth help ones of our ilk who art stranded by such circumstance.

I... I would not take such money off you - or off anybody else. Never will I be able to pay it back.

[She's not desperate enough to accept such money. She will not lower herself to do other things for money. Eponine doesn't believe in charity.]

It is okay. There is nothing to be done. I was hoping Monsieur Byakuya... but he is cross.

That art what the fund is for, madame. It gives fund for the new to this world, and asks for naught in return.

[She winces.]

Aye, Sir Byakuya believes so highly in propriety he cannot bear to notice when circumstances force women to behave without proscribed mores. His world was rather much like mine in that regard.

[Sheila is a lady, still, of that world - yet she refuses to simply lie down and die.]

There's no such thing as free money. At some point, they'll want something back - and never can I pay this much back - and then they'll have me arrested or make me work to pay it back or-

[She won't mention the other possibility in front of Sheila. Sheila's too posh to know of such a life. She shakes her head]

I should have run faster. That is all.
I think my world is like yours - and his. The wealthy do not know why we do it - and they look down on us and sneer. But do you know, when I am a good girl, I am so hungry that everything starts going funny, and wavers as if the buildings are merely reflected in the water, and I think that people are with me, and I talk to them. And I lie down in a ditch, for I dare not go home emptyhanded, and rats as skinny as I nibble at my toes and my face till I bleed, and all the while I think it is Marius loving me. The rich do not see it. They cannot understand why we steal, and sell our bodies and close our eyes and just take anything for a single Franc. But that is why. And it will not be me that complains to Monsieur. Not I!

- Or they shall simply ask thee to volunteer thy time in service. I have nay taken advantage of their offer - I fear I am the most stubborn creature alive , and thus believe my problems solvable through brute force. So I worked until I built contacts, and with those contacts found myself within the sanctity of this job.

La. My mother believ'd in great charity, so our people wert well off, more so than the citizens of the king's realm. The huts were well thatch'd against the cold, and their bellies were kept full. When we starved, they starved - we were all at one with one another. I hath known the hunger of famine. But faith, I have seen it in the faces such as thee, and I hath known the sorrow of watching the children of villeins I hath help'd to birth die of spasms brought on by grain famine.

[She silences her temper, her voice firm.]

Come to me when ye are released. At the very least, I shall keep thee from e're going so hungry ye wouldst faint.

Exactly. And I cannot spare time to work for nothing. Here I have three jobs - perhaps two if M'sieur Byakuya is still cross. Here I am not hungry and I do not starve. Here, people are kinder than Paris... Not so kind as your hometown, perhaps though.

[An aristocrat who starves with her people? Eponine can scarcly believe it.]

So I do thank you for your offer - but I do not need food. But always, is that memory... I will not be caught without money for food and dresses and a bed again. And if Papa comes, and I do not have money for him, or it is 'Parnasse who finds his way here and sees that I have lost my touch or am out of practise with no wages to hand to him... For that I would be hit. Ans there is no sense in getting a beating, is there, when I can get enough extra to keep them happy. Just in case they come. And if they do not, I can get a dress, perhaps.

When I arriv'd at the Port, I carried two jobs as well. We all begin on strange new footing in this world - my royal ties are long dead, so I could not lean 'pon them for succor. One adjusts, as one must. I am grateful that thou starves not.

[She shakes her head.]

But the police wouldst not allow him to strike thee, Eponine. 'Tis against the law and codes of modern men. And - I know of several who can make thee a dress, or I might, in my spare time - a closet full.

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