for ellie

[daughterofawolf]

[dated to June 5th]

It's a Friday, so there's school today, but Eponine is pretty certain the second-last week of the semester, with no tests scheduled for today, isn't all that important to actually attend. (Her teachers might say she doesn't find much of school important to attend, but that's not precisely the truth: she's done a lot better this year than the last, and her grades reflect it, it's just that it's hardly the most important thing.)

She sleeps through her alarm, and she doesn't bother calling in with an excuse, though she does smile at the idea of calling in dead for school for a couple of minutes.

It's not even that she's upset. She's not sad, exactly; that's not quite right. She's not sure there is a word for what it feels like to know that it's the anniversary of your death, because there shouldn't need to be one.

Eponine texts Grantaire, after she lies around for a while, but he doesn't answer her, and she assumes he has his own ways of distracting himself, or he's at work like a proper adult, maybe. The apartment is too-big and empty and quiet, the city too-noisy and modern outside her window. She finds herself looking at one of Marius's poetry books and feeling a little unmoored.

So she messages Ellie. It's a thing that doesn't need as many excuses anymore, asking for some company, though she still finds herself rephrasing and wryly rolling her eyes at her own self-consciousness before she hits send.

Hey.
Do you want to, I don't know - go for a drive, or a walk somewhere, together?
It's all right if you can't. I just -- I need to get out of my head.

Comments

[and_survive]

omw

She was in the car before she considered that actually, maybe she needed a little more information than that, and sent another text to actually find out where Eponine was. She just... understood the sentiment. Ellie had been stuck in her own head enough to know that sometimes you needed to get out of it. Sometimes you needed to someone to get you out of it and you didn't know it, which was sort of the worst kind. So if Eponine knew that's where she was, she wasn't going to say fucking no.

She sent another when she arrived, then wondered if she should go up instead. She decided to go up anyway. They could figure out drive or walk on the way down.

[daughterofawolf]

Her phone buzzes back before she really expects it to. Eponine knows she must be a little more deeply unsettled than she'd identified, because the pragmatic, unquestioning on my way in response to her hesitant, apologetic question makes her eyes sting a little gratefully.

"Stop being a baby," she mutters to herself in French, and then the phone buzzes again and it makes her laugh, Ellie being so hasty to get in the car that she hadn't even bothered to find out where she was going, and texts her back to let her know she's at home with a little thank you and a heart. She gets herself dressed quickly in something comfortable and nice enough to be seen in public and pulls her hair back in a braid just to get it out of her face.

The books she has of Marius' aren't even really anything that defines him. They are, but they aren't. Nothing unique. Theatre, and German poetry, and history from between this time and theirs, but they just belonged to him. She wonders if the revolutionaries are even in the history books.

Then her phone buzzes with a second reminder that Ellie is there, and she grabs her keys and goes to the door, just in time to see Ellie step into the hall. "Oh," Eponine says, caught flustered, and then smiles, grateful. "You didn't have to come all the way up," she says, heading towards her.

[and_survive]

"Eh, I could use the exercise," Ellie said, shrugging one shoulder and pausing at the entrance to the hallway. "I wanted to see if I could beat my text, but guess I still can't take- whatever those are made of."

Electrons? Something like that. She hadn't, really, it was just something to say. Although kind of weird to think about. You sent it, and it went to a tower and then it went to a person's phone, in their pocket. She guessed it wasn't weirder than radios, they happened fast, too, it just seemed... flashier. Like a lot about the world, a casual marvel.

But more than any of that, Eponine said she was too much in her own head, wanted out, so that could start with the walk down.

[daughterofawolf]

Eponine makes a pfft noise at Ellie saying she could use the exercise. It does make her smile, though, the idea that she could run faster than whatever it is that sends their messages to each other.

And of course, the pure ridiculousness of that, which makes it even more evident that it is a gesture, and one she appreciates.

"I'm the wrong one to ask," she points out, "to me it might as well be magic. I guess that's what you need, better magic," she teases softly, and reaches out to catch Ellie's hand with hers, twining their fingers in a squeeze.

"I'm glad you came up."

She can't think exactly how to explain what's going on, isn't even sure she wants to just yet -- wasn't the whole point of this not to brood? -- though she also thinks it'll probably come tumbling out one way or another.

"Tell me something good," she decides, instead.

[and_survive]

"There's a new deer family near Konoha-Uchi," Ellie said, promptly. "They don't trust me yet but I'm gonna be right in there soon."

She was an old hand at it. But sometimes they moved on and she had to start over. "I like to think word gets around, y'know?"

[daughterofawolf]

Eponine's eyes light up a little. Both the speed of the reply and the sheer rural magic of getting close to deer go a long way. "A whole family, with little ones, even? Oh, that is lovely."

She knows Ellie has quite a lot of animals near her, and that she's clever at gaining their trust -- she has the sketches to prove it. "I'm sure the deer grandmothers pass it on," she says with a little smile, and affects an old-lady voice. "Stay away from the city with all the..." she tries to imagine how a deer would think of a city. "Giant stone trees full of humans, but that one there by the pond, she's all right."

"I've never seen deer up close," she admits as they walk down the stairs. "I mean, once in a while at a distance, getting out of the way, but not right there."

[and_survive]

"Oh, shit," Ellie said. "I never- I know what we're doing."

Eponine needed out of her head, Eponine hadn't seen deer up close. Ellie knew where there were deer. Easy solution. Problem solved.

Well, not solved, and it wasn't guaranteed, but it was something. Ellie just sort of figured... animals. They'd worked for her.

[daughterofawolf]

Eponine blinks in surprise, brow furrowing and baffled smile creeping over her features. "What, you mean -- the deer --?"

She's accustomed to the idea that Ellie has an instinct about nature, about the countryside in general that's far beyond her own; it's disarmingly charming even if she knows there's not just pleasant memories behind that knowledge. Eponine's only starting to really discover the flora and fauna of this place, and realize that she likes discovering it.

But she isn't quite expecting her to act as though she can summon up deer for her. Even if it's a bit less magical than all that, the quick decision making, the readiness to just do something ridiculous and amazing is exactly what Eponine needs at the moment. She leans up and kisses Ellie at the corner of her mouth, wrapping both arms around her near one for a moment.

"You're very good at this."

[and_survive]

Ellie dipped her head. "Ehh," she said, not dismissing the concept of being good at this -- if there was something she wanted to be good at, this was it, a thing that didn't end with blood on the ground -- but demurring slightly. "If I was good at this you'd have met them already, this is just me making up for- big oversight. Huge."

[daughterofawolf]

"Oh yes, you terrible thing," Eponine rolls her eyes fondly, "Not introducing me to all the wild animals right away, like some sort of princess in a movie."

"No, see, it set you up perfectly to bring it out today," she adds as they step out into the fresh air, "when I need something cute and maybe time-consuming and that we can do together instead of lying around being dramatic."

[and_survive]

"Oh, yeah, it's all my master plan, keeping it in reserve just in case..." Ellie said, trailing off a little. She didn't know what the in case was, here. And if she was here to be a distraction, asking after it probably wasn't the thing.

Did that mean she was avoiding it? She didn't think so. Eponine wanted a distraction, she was a distraction. Sometimes you had to talk about things, sure, but in your own time.

"C'mon, princess, let's see some deer."

[daughterofawolf]

Eponine has never been called princess in her life -- maybe when she was being doted on by her parents to make Cosette feel awful, but she doesn't remember -- and if it weren't a fond reference to a joke she just made, she doesn't think she'd quite accept it, but there's a part of her that flutters a little at it anyway.

She nods, disentangling herself from around Ellie's arm to get in the truck. It's a big thing, one you do have to sort of climb into, but Ellie handles it with ease, and it's become one of the few cars she feels fully comfortable in.

As they drive, Eponine looking out the window a little, she glances back over at Ellie, unable to keep the day far from her mind, and not even sure what she's feeling about it. "Do you ever...think about what you'd be doing, if you were at home?" she starts, uncertain how to begin.