Aleron Grantaire // R (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fitofgrandair) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sirenspull2012-12-16 06:45 pm
fitofgrandair) wrote in sirenspull2012-12-16 06:45 pm
Entry tags:
VIDEO
This is…
[A man’s face appears, expression an odd mixture of the sardonic and amiable, with perhaps somewhere a buried uneasiness. His eyes speak of unbelief and an energy without direction.] This is the strangest book that I have ever seen. Consider my very conception of books boggled, beaten into an utter absence of understanding. I have seen a book made… What is it they call this, again? No matter, let us say ‘made monstrous,’ reshaped to suit an unearthly purpose. Am I speaking to you? I’ve no idea who you are, or whether you exist. Yet let me speak! For there is no thrill in life equal to the sound of one’s own voice.
Let it be know to all naysayers and reluctant theorists, to every doubting Thomas, that we truly do exist in the most glorious of worlds, where a man may perish one moment and roam free the next! How foolish we are to believe we might die, how foolish to fear the end when every end is a beginning! Why, just think, we may continue in this manner forever, cycling from one life into another into another, and never forgetting, and never finding darkness. The scholars of optimism would call us creatures of eternal light. Why have we wasted such years in shuddering before the great god Death, when we might in rapture have praise the god Unending?
Will it never, never end. [He blinks, appears discomforted for an instant, than shrugs.]
And here stand I, believer in nothing, adherent to no doctrine. You may count me as lost as any other man, here and elsewhere, now and forever. I am a man without port, a creature lacking in connection. I belong to this world no more than to any other… ‘This world.’ I’ve yet to know what this world is, or if it is a world; if I may be classed as alive, dead, mad. What of these titles? Call me exile, call me one of un-belonging. I will answer or ignore to my liking.
But while we’re at it, a drink? What do you say? Ah, I would give my kingdom for a bottle of wine. Of course, my kingdom amounts to a thimble—That isn’t so, I haven’t got a thimble. But I would gladly take the wine, anyway. Come, lend a hand. If you must have payment, let me serenade you with a harangue or two.
I will tell you what most surprises me: that it is not emptiness that waits beyond, but more life, or whatever we would feign call life. This, well… This puts all of my knowing to shame. [Grantaire smirks, any sign of unease covered.] But that I am accustomed to, for who can trust to knowledge? It has been a joy speaking to you; we must do this again sometime. [With that, the screen blanks, and he is gone.]
[A man’s face appears, expression an odd mixture of the sardonic and amiable, with perhaps somewhere a buried uneasiness. His eyes speak of unbelief and an energy without direction.] This is the strangest book that I have ever seen. Consider my very conception of books boggled, beaten into an utter absence of understanding. I have seen a book made… What is it they call this, again? No matter, let us say ‘made monstrous,’ reshaped to suit an unearthly purpose. Am I speaking to you? I’ve no idea who you are, or whether you exist. Yet let me speak! For there is no thrill in life equal to the sound of one’s own voice.
Let it be know to all naysayers and reluctant theorists, to every doubting Thomas, that we truly do exist in the most glorious of worlds, where a man may perish one moment and roam free the next! How foolish we are to believe we might die, how foolish to fear the end when every end is a beginning! Why, just think, we may continue in this manner forever, cycling from one life into another into another, and never forgetting, and never finding darkness. The scholars of optimism would call us creatures of eternal light. Why have we wasted such years in shuddering before the great god Death, when we might in rapture have praise the god Unending?
Will it never, never end. [He blinks, appears discomforted for an instant, than shrugs.]
And here stand I, believer in nothing, adherent to no doctrine. You may count me as lost as any other man, here and elsewhere, now and forever. I am a man without port, a creature lacking in connection. I belong to this world no more than to any other… ‘This world.’ I’ve yet to know what this world is, or if it is a world; if I may be classed as alive, dead, mad. What of these titles? Call me exile, call me one of un-belonging. I will answer or ignore to my liking.
But while we’re at it, a drink? What do you say? Ah, I would give my kingdom for a bottle of wine. Of course, my kingdom amounts to a thimble—That isn’t so, I haven’t got a thimble. But I would gladly take the wine, anyway. Come, lend a hand. If you must have payment, let me serenade you with a harangue or two.
I will tell you what most surprises me: that it is not emptiness that waits beyond, but more life, or whatever we would feign call life. This, well… This puts all of my knowing to shame. [Grantaire smirks, any sign of unease covered.] But that I am accustomed to, for who can trust to knowledge? It has been a joy speaking to you; we must do this again sometime. [With that, the screen blanks, and he is gone.]
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He used to sit in the cafe where Marius went - he would have brandy after brandy whilst listening to his friend. That M'sieur Enjolras.,zBut what was this one's name? Eponine couldn't remember, or maybe she had never known.
But perhaps she could use this man to free Enjolras, and thry could both commend her to Marius when they saw him again]
M'sieur? You are a member of the Amis? Do you recognise me?
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[His first sense is of tremendous disjoint; the face is too nearly familiar to be seen through this book or to be seen in this world at all, and the voice shocks him somehow. It isn't one he has heard at length, but somewhere, he recalls and connects it to Paris.
And suddenly, Grantaire feels disjointed, findings himself at the collision of these apparently separate existences. Have they somehow overlapped? Is this truly some joke of an afterlife? A... A...
And if she--this girl he recognizes vaguely but cannot claim to know--is here, might there be others?]
Am. Was. Provisionally, in my own sense. [He shakes his head.] You must forgive me; it has been a long night, and a long... I have seen you before, yes, I have heard your voice, though the name--alas!--eludes me. That you are here shocks my being, I confess. And you are truly here? [Whatever 'here' or 'truly' or any of these implications might mean.]
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[She pauses. Perhaps he's seen Marius since he left?]
You're friends with M'sieur Marius, aren't you? Perhaps that is how you recognise me - he used to bring me to the cafe sometimes.
[Or rather, she used to follow him there. But these are unnecessary details]
He used to be here too - but now he has gone. There are others, though... I didn't think you knew my name. You never smiled at me inthe cafe. I didn't think you liked me much.
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[If Marius was here... or had been here? How many are there? This is... Not quite in line. Thoughts not yet matching up, so he shakes his head, allows them to collide as they will.
As for the girl... Grantaire nods. One of those who darted in and out of the cafe, perpetually in search of something. Usually food or drink, of course, but it had always been more interesting to imagine that each was on a separate search. This one had been seeking the key to the tower of absent adorations. Grantaire had never quite decided what that meant, but it had seemed appropriate enough.]
Marius never mentioned that he brought you, or perhaps I wasn't listening. [Or had been talking over Marius. That was also entirely possible.]
[He laughs.] My smiles are no more guarantee of fondness than my frowns. But I do remember you, and whether I liked you or not-- [Truth be told, he cannot recall any strong inclinations one way or another. Perhaps some irritation, but beyond that...]
But this is absurd. And if I am to wrestle with any more impossibilities, I need fortification. Shall we meet somewhere? A tavern was recently recommended, though I will trek my way to any house of wine.
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[She sighs at his recollections of Marius and herself at the cafe. Of course he hadn't mentioned her. He might pretend to want to be friends with such a girl as her, but he must have been ashamed of her really. It's sad to think, and Eponine's visibly disappointed. She sighs, too, at his poor memory of her, but brightens considerably at the mention of a drink. She was already sick of Hattie and Dorian for te day.]
where shall I meet you, M'sieur? Please, not somewhere owned by AGI. But I will come to where you wish.
[She's already dumping her scrubbing cloth and dring her hands on her apron; all through the conversation she had been half heartedly cleaning the floor.]
i shall bring money. [Filched, of course, on the way. maybe from Dorian... Hmmm.]
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[Grantaire doesn't really catch or comprehend what comes after, and the pieces that do filter through mean little. That information. That information is enough, though he cannot quite wrestle with the knowledge or perceive just what it means...]
The Dog's Breakfast, as soon as you are able. [He'll need to find the place, which could prove a slight challenge. Still, he has made his way through unknown places before, and now that he has hold of a goal, he's sure to reach the tavern. And there is no cause to wait around here any longer; he has submitted a housing request, will return later for anything else. This... This news, this drink, is far more pressing.
How odd, to urgently require action.
Slamming the book shut, Grantaire stands and starts off, purpose uncommonly firm.]
[action]
[Well, that was that. Eponine chucked her brush and ran out of the house, still barefoot, though luckily her power was back working and she didn't notice the wet pavements. She ran and she ran to get to The Dog's Breakfast. She knew where it was; she knew where just about everything was, and the quickest routes to get there - but she slowed herself, taking some of the more populated streets so she could pinch a purse or two.
She arrived at the cafe a little out of breath, looking quite unlike the raggedy girl Grantaire might remember from Paris. She had filled out a little, with the more regular meals, and her hair shone, not from grease, but from careful maintainence and it was twisted into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Perhaps most noticably, she wasn't wearing rags, but rather a crinolined black dress, with tapered sleeves and tight cuffs, complete with frilly apron and cap.
As soon as she spotted Grantaire, she went over and bobbed a curtsey.
"M'sieur."
She can't remember his name.
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The city itself is too much to take in, really. Everything jumbled, the architecture makes little sense, and strange contraptions barreled through the streets. Almost everything and everyone feels slightly out of place, somehow. And nothing quite clicks in. 'What is this place. What is any of this.' Grantaire doesn't try to make everything fit into sense (or whatever can be classed as sense), but allows the input to pass through his mind and stick if it will.
Upon reaching the cafe, Grantaire purchases a bottle of wine, searching for the girl. He cannot recall an exact impression, but surely once he sees her...
She finds him first. And when Grantaire turns, he does find a flicker of recollection, though he might not know her if she hadn't spoken first. There is both more and less life to her, and she no longer looks the part of a down-and-out beggar. She looks... Well. Could perhaps be called attractive, though he notes this at the back of his mind. What he finds familiar is a sense--in her face, mostly, but perhaps discernible in her very stance--of some war between oppression and vitality.
For his own part, Grantaire is something of a mess (not that this is particularly out of the ordinary). His final hours in Paris had been filled with drinking and then sleeping off said drink while the battle raged outside. Add to that a worn (but, Grantaire had been glad to find, well-cut) coat obtained shortly after arrival, and yes, he was a little more mussed than usual.
It would be nice to have his own jacket, but alas, it is back in Paris, all alone and without him. How sad to be a jacket and alone.
"M'lady."
He returns a mock curtsey, then pats her on the shoulder. "It is Grantaire." There is much to ask, much to say, and he is impatient, even eager to hear her news. "Shall we?"
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"You don't have to call me a lady, M'sieur Grantaire. I ain't a lady. I'm just 'Ponine to everyone here abouts - and in Paris as well. I like it when people call me that - when they remember."
It means they've taken the time to listen to her and take notice of her. It means she's just a bit more real, a bit less invisible.
"Marius used to remember... it was so lovely when he was here, you know? Such lovely things happened when he was here. I had a new dress, and jewellery, and I went to the ball and danced all night. And I had a room all to myself and he gave me dresses - and a hairbrush. I hadn't had one for years and years - since I was a little girl. I had to sell it all when M'sieur Enjolras came though and M'sieur Marius went."
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Marius and the girl dancing. That is... precious. And an idea occurs: was this the girl that Marius been fixated on of late? (Of late, over there...) The thought didn't seem to fit, but perhaps Grantaire was missing something. Or perhaps Marius had moved on when he arrived in this world. All in all, Grantaire didn't care so very much. Any actual questions ran more along the lines of where and how Marius had gone, how this girl had arrived, and...
Happy occasion: the girl finally stopped speaking long enough for him to get a word in. "And where is Enjolras?"
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Her reply is a little stiff, then. Of course the M'sieur is only interested in Enjolras.
"He lives in a place known as the 'House of Awesome', or the HoA - I think awesome means good, because it is most surely the most magnificent house I have ever seen. There are marble floors, and a kitchen and a dining room and a sitting room and bedrooms. Oh, and the water runs out of taps for baths - and it runs hot - and you can flick a switch and lights come on and there are such things to make crumbs of your food and to heat things up without flames, and things that make bread jump, and a cupboard that makes ice."
She tries her best to sound charming, to not drop her letters, so her speech sounds a little unnatural. She remembers her odn amazement at technology here; the material things seem somehow more important than the men who lied or brushed off her help.
"My old boyfriend, Monsieur Deadpool lives there. He has M'sieur Enjolras."
She drains her gin with a grimace, though itis difficult to know if the taste or the conversation topic offends her more.
" You can't see him. Do you know where the Starter Apartments are?"
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The girl certainly does like to talk. It is endearing, almost, and Grantaire smiles slightly as she speaks in detail and he works at draining the third glass. Her chatter isn't unpleasant, after all. A bit besides the point, but who is he to censure any speaker for embellishment?
The information itself he finds peculiar at first. Fervently as Enjolras had championed the cause of the poor, he had never (so far as Grantaire had observed) lived as one of them; most of the Friends of the ABC had held the funds to live rather well. Even so, this house seems absurdly extravagant, and Grantaire has a hard time suiting Enjolras to such a dwelling.
Then the girl offers an obscure indication that unseats all of Grantaire's suppositions. "He... has--What?"
For a moment he stares at the girl, then looks away, considering, before returning his attention to her. "You must pardon me; I am woefully slow of mind before my second bottle. But if you would care to explain what you mean by 'has him,' I would gladly listen."
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The words are out before Eponine can stop them, a knee-jerk reaction to people like Grantaire who ask for her help. Her cheeks colour, and she picks up her glass, realising it's empty only when she raises it to her lips.
She puts it down and mutters, "What the hell?" before staring back at Grantaire, her mouth pressed into a hard, thin line. She wants to retract her question, but she doesn't know how to without sounding clumsy and ignorant - and that she will not do in front of such a fine speaker. So she sits and waits, hunched over and determined. She may as well make some profit from Enjolras, after all the losses he has caused her.
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And why should anything in life change so very much?
Watching her steadily, he allows the silence to sit for several moments, then smirks. "You surprise me, Lady 'Ponine. But do tell, what is it that you would like of me? I have this jacket; newly acquired, and I might be convinced to part with it. The remainder of this wine I claim is my own--there, I will not yield--and I will keep hold of enough money to purchase one more bottle; the rest is yours." He pulls out the remaining cash, reserves what seems an apt amount, and tosses the rest to the girl.
"Or is it something else that you require? A song, perhaps? A poem in your honor? I would advise you not to request a favor, for I am notoriously unreliable. And ineffective. Do you require someone to talk at you? Or... Ah. Perhaps you require someone at whom you may talk, someone to whom you can pour out your feelings. Someone who will assure you that yes, yes, dear Marius held you to his heart, and no doubt waits for you still."
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Eponine finds she can't hold Grantaire's gaze as he suggests prize after prize, so she stares down at her bare feet peeping out from below her maid uniform.
"I don't -" she begins to whisper, but stops as Grantaire mentions Marius.
"Don't, M'sieur.Don't tell me such lies. M'sieur Marius - he would not - not with a girl like me."
Somehow, talking of Marius makes her look smaller, younger than her years. There's a sort of innocence to Eponine, unpractised as she is at hiding her pain over Marius from anyone but the man himself. But it's tempered with the harsh reality that Eponine knows; even here, she works every minute she's awake, eighteen to nineteen hours a day, and comes away with a pittance. But how is Grantaire to know?
"I ain't a lady, M'sieur, and if you please, I don't want to be made a mock of... Keep it. I don't want it."
She pushes the money back to him, before removing two wallets from her apron that are obviously not her own. "Wine, you like? I will buy you wine, and then I will tell you of your M'sieur."
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Fine. Say something less abrasive, this time. "You need not take what I say to heart; I am something of an ass, trained solely in the art of mockery. My words are jests, my barbs mean little, and my sense is often absent." Close enough to truth, anyway.
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She shakes her head and stands up. "Don't. Not of M'sieur Marius."
She walks quickly to the bar without further ado, wrangling for wine and gin. She comes back to Grantaire monents later with a new bottle of wine and another tumbler of gin for herself.
"It's a strange place, this. It is like France but the monsters in the shadows are not my father's gang and me, but real monsters of nightmares and that strange time when you are awake but so dizzy from cold or hunger, M'sieur, that nothing is quite real. People will give you a job too - but you must be careful who you talk to, M'sieur. We are in trouble, M'sieur Enjolras and me. You should be careful...
There are two - they callthemselves companies - but they do not have businesses. There is SERO - they do scientific things; they have clever people. But AGI are worse. They run the clubs and bars. But M'sieur, here, slavery is allowed. There is a brothel here; it is known as XXX and there some girls are paid. But some are slaves. It was good money, there, if you didn't think on it..."
She sounds wistful. As much as she had loathed herself, she had been fully independant and doing okay.
"I told your M'sieur and - well, we have both heard him talk before. He would not wait for ms to help, M'sieur. And he was caught. And if AGI catches you, they sell you as a slave. A man named Loki bought M'sieur. But he is gone and Deadpool has him. And he let me get in trouble. I tried to help him, but I was found too, and searched and... And I lost my job there. No money, you see."
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He has heard some of this: the manifestation of nightmares (a notion that makes little sense, but in this situation, he cannot truly discredit it), the entities that appear to steer life in the city. What he hasn't yet heard are the details, and Grantaire slowly begins to comprehend some extent of this city's corruption. He notes, too, the girl's reference to what must have been her line of work, but the news that follows arrests his attention.
Because there it is: Enjolras faced with the actuality of slavery. Not a label slapped upon the lives of the poor, but a truth of condition. Of course he wouldn't have remained silent or waited. And to discover this just after inciting his own revolution, just after giving his own life... Fire will never cease to spread, and Enjolras will never cease to fight; this much, Grantaire firmly believes.
Then another piece of news. Enjolras sold as a slave.
How could that even...
Grantaire laughs, but the sound of it is tinged with something more like pain. "Who among us cannot say that life--here referenced as a sentient being--has not a sense of humor? Ah, Enjolras..."
As he continues, Grantaire raises his voice. "I for one am in awe: have we managed to find ourselves in a world still more repugnant than our own? I shouldn't be surprised, knowing all the ghastly ingenuity of humankind and its eternal evolution." Now he stands, addressing no one in particular. "I congratulate each and every one of you--of us, I should say, on our fine achievements. From one roil into another, is that not the way? Wherever and whatever else we may be, we are the gods who spend ourselves in crafting our unending destruction. What marvelous beings, all of us!"
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"M'sieur, you must be quiet," She hisses. "You cannot say such things here. You do not know who is listening. Do you wish us to be arrested?"
"It is a bad place, M'sieur, and there are bad people. People who hate us 'newcomers' - any excuse and we are to be in prison. Their prisons are nicer than France's, though. But you must not end up there. You are a nobleman. It is not right. Please, not another word."
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Although Grantaire holds the capacity for discretion, he doubts that he can maintain hold of it in these circumstances. "It would be wise to continue this elsewhere."
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"You may come back to my lodgings - to Madame Hattie's house? We can talk in private there, and it is not too far away."
In all honesty, she's just glad that Grantaire's sat down again, and stopped talking about dangerous topics. But - what will Hattie think? Eponine decides she doesn't care; she does enough for Hattie for her mistress to allow her a liberty.
"Will you come with me? Or would you prefer the Newcomer Flats; you will have a room there?"
She picks up his almost-full bottle, to conceal it beneath her apron. Waste not want not and all.
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Sense argues that it is best not to be captured and bundled away. Sense says that if it happened to Enjolras, if Enjolras has become a slave...
What is that, what is that, what is Grantaire to make of it?
He almost protests when the girl snatches the bottle, but holds his silence after realizing that she means to bring it along. All right, then. As long as she hasn't made some grab to claim it for herself. (Never mind the fact that she purchased it; he needs and damn well deserves it.)
Leaving, he glances around and tries to make note of faces, location. Then the tavern is behind them, and Grantaire finds that already he has largely forgotten the place and its patrons. The world around retains the blurred quality of incomprehension, his mind elsewhere, chasing after problems that it cannot patch.
To ground himself and to keep from venturing into the topic on his mind, Grantaire poses a question, an attempt at casual speech. "Tell me of this Madame Hattie. Is she a creaky crone, a buxom entrepreneur, perhaps a swindler in or out of disguise?"
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"Follow me close, M'sieur, or you'll lose me. Unless it is that you do not mind being seen in my company?"
She begins to walk.
"Hattie... Well, she is a lady, and she makes me call her so. She has blonde curls and blue eyes, and she wears lovely clothes. She can be lovely, when she likes, but she can be horrible too. She gave me a room but she makes me work for nothing. And she marched me to my third job so she does not have to provide. She can be spiteful and call me names; she likes me to remember I am poor. But she lent me a dress for the ball and her own jewellery, snd she teaches me to be a lady."
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The woman in question sounds not too far removed from the social aspirants that fluttered so vacantly through Paris, carping about the latest ball or the hold on their newest dress. "Madame Hattie sounds like a thoroughly charming harpy, and I've no doubt you draw considerable satisfaction from her employ. Such fulfillment she allows you: the impression of becoming a lady! Do you enjoy writhing in her claws? Or is it indeed the sheer pleasure of playing dress-up that draws you?"
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Eponine peers down an alleyway.
"You don't mind, do you? It's quicker not to go through the real streets."
She sets off down it, regardless.
"I do not writhe in her claws. But dress up... You know how long it was since I had a new dress before I came here? That old skirt was my mother's. A woman died in that blouse I had before it came to me. And I had worn those for two winters already. M'sieur, it is natural for girls to long to be beautiful, or at least well dressed. So do NOT scorn me. If I were a lady, grand men would love me. So do not scorn me. Do not."
She turns back, obviously upset. "She thought I had murdered her sister - I did not, M'sieur - but it was work or the guillotine - or perhaps here, gallows. I do not know, and I had no wish to find out. But My Lady - I hate that - she is not so bad."
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