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meta-squash · 4 years ago

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Brick Club 1.5.9 “Madame Victurnien’s Victory”

This is simply a translation thing, since Hapgood translates it as “success,” but I think the title containing the word “victory” is interesting because it really implies that Mme Victurnien got something out of what she did to Fantine, that she “won” against Fantine. What she got was a sense of sated curiosity, a curiosity whose satisfaction ruined another human being.

Hugo starts the chapter off saying that Victurnien’s actions did some good, only he then reveals that Valjean never entered the workshop and explains that the overseer was only charitable from a certain angle. How is this good? Valjean, who is described as “even the best men,” is trusting that this woman’s morals are in line with his own simply from word of mouth, rather than checking in. He never sets foot in the workshop and has given her full power. Again, no wonder people are turning to sex work as a side hustle. How many other women has this happened to? And the overseer thinks she’s doing some good!

The overseer is “full of the charity that consists of giving, though to some extent lacking in the charity that consists of understanding and pardoning.” But isn��t this the entirety of Madeleine’s system and philosophy? He helps people by giving them money. He tosses money at them but doesn’t want to see the aftermath and doesn’t want to be the one doing the face-to-face benevolence. He can’t handle being responsible for problems that a little bit of money can’t fix. The only time he seems to do things face-to-face with others is when they specifically come to him (like as a judge or a settler of conflict); he doesn’t ever go to them. The overseer is full of the “charity that consists of giving” because that’s what Valjean’s rules teach. They don’t have space for sitting down and trying to understand. The morality of these rules don’t allow for that. If the only rule to work in this factory is to be an “honest woman,” how do you confront a structure that creates this desire to seek out and banish immorality rather than examine itself and its components for prejudices and then find ways to assist these women who clearly have little to no support?

I’m wondering too if Valjean’s rule fostered this rumor mill. Having a strict code of morality is a great way to foster ill will if people are more nosey or malicious or less mutual aid-minded than others. Especially in a factory where people are paid by their output. If someone is better than you at the job you share, it makes sense to start a rumor about them to get them kicked out so you become the one who gets their pay. This isn’t quite what happens to Fantine, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened to other women. In terms of Fantine and Victurnien, again this strict moral code is a breeding ground for the gossips and rubberneckers that Hugo described last chapter.

Valjean’s system just frustrates me so much. Again, putting so much power in the hands of a person without checking if they’re trustworthy or not, without having a system of “is this person treating my workers right” is just so....careless? That’s not exactly the word I’m looking for but it’s just like Valjean puts this morally strict system in place and expects it to just solve all problems. He’s busy helping other people solve conflicts and things and doesn’t seem to realize that these rules he’s put in place are going to create problems as well. Not to mention that everyone’s ideas of ethics or morals are going to be different. Would Valjean have condemned Fantine if he’d heard her story? We don’t know. But this overseer’s idea of the right thing to do and the right action to take may well be very different from Valjean’s intention upon setting these rules. Which creates circumstances like this.

Am I reading something wrong, or did the overseer not take record that she had given Fantine the 50 francs? I read “of which she rendered no account” as the overseer not bothering to write down the fact that she gave Fantine 50 francs from the money for donation and aid to workers. Is that right? If this is true than it would also give even more reason for Valjean to have no idea: if he doesn’t set foot in the women’s workshop but does look at the expenses, this wouldn’t have shown up either.

The landlord telling Fantine “you’re young and pretty” is a foreshadowing of the next couple chapters, but I also think it’s interesting that the landlord seems to insinuate that she could be a sex worker. Again, this is a garrisoned town. Sex work must be an open secret here, something Valjean maybe refuses to see.

I love Marguerite so much. I think this might be the first and only time Fantine has a friend who actually cares about her. It makes sense that Fantine would have a much older woman as her friend. Hugo says she’s wise, and I think that her sort of quiet wisdom would resonate more with someone much older than with grisettes her own age. Plus an older person might be much more patient with her when teaching her these new ways of living and maybe guiding her through actually noticing these social cues for the first time. Marguerite is kind of like Fantine’s Myriel; she is a pious and religious old woman who takes Fantine under her wing to learn how to live and survive. Only, rather than taking Fantine’s soul for god or anything, she’s giving Fantine a friend, which seems to be something she’s never had before. This is the first time we see Fantine talking to someone else as an equal.

Hugo mentions that Marguerite taught Fantine how to give up an expensive bird. It’s odd to me that this bird is never mentioned. When did she get a bird? If it was with her in Paris why did she not sell it to move to M-sur-M? However, I 100% understand owning a pet even when you barely make any money to buy yourself food. Pets make you feel better about yourself because you’re caring for and getting love from another creature. Fantine has now had to give up Cosette and her bird, both two small things she’s able to give her love to.

Fantine’s backstory is so odd. How did she not know how to “live poor” already? She was an orphan, and as we see later, orphans in the Brick (taken in or otherwise) are generally treated poorly and are exceedingly impoverished. How had she never lived in enough poverty to learn how to reuse things and give things up? This is clearly the most poor she’s ever been, and even Feuilly makes a good deal more than her later on, but it seems strange that even as a young child or teenager she didn’t live in similar poverty, if she was an orphan with no other monetary support besides her own work.

Fantine mentions that she only sleeps five hours a night. We don’t get a lot of mention of characters sleeping. A little here and there, but the Thenardiers don’t seem to sleep, like, at all when they’re in Paris. This is a kind of subtle aspect of it, but being this poor is crazy hard to get out of because it requires so much work. Fantine makes like 9 sous (I think?) making shirts. She’s taking up just under 19 hours of her day sewing, which I would imagine might produce maybe 3 shirts? Depending on whether she’s doing the entire thing from scratch or using patterns or taking someone else’s already fitted and cut out pieces and stitching them together. Either way, sewing takes quite a while, and if she’s taking 19 hours of her day doing that, she has no time to do things like look for a better job. And she’s also still in debt, so she can’t move somewhere with more opportunities, either. The Thenardiers barely sleep because they’re constantly trying to come up with ways to get money as well. Marius seems to barely sleep; he spends his time translating. Sleep is so rare in this book, it’s kind of a surprise when it’s mentioned.

“When one is sad, one eats less. Sufferings, troubles, a little bread on the one hand, a little anxiety on the other--all that will keep me alive.” More of Hugo’s weird thing about suffering. Even more than an ableism kink, he’s got this whole suffering = good thing going on. This is from 3.5.1, about Marius, but I think it summarizes Hugo’s opinion well: “Firm and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a step-mother, is sometimes a mother; destitution gives birth to might of soul and spirit; distress is the nurse of pride; unhappiness is a good milk for the magnanimous.” (Hapgood translation as I’m too lazy to transcribe from FMA.) Reaction to suffering is Hugo’s gauge for a character’s goodness.

Also, this line about bread reminds me of Eponine’s line about not eating for three days, only Eponine admits to the misery of not eating, while Fantine tries to keep things light and optimistic. Again, we have Fantine seeing things through a sort of rose-colored lens. This time I don’t think it helps much, but it’s also not concealing danger from her either. It’s just that Eponine has lived so long in poverty that hunger is just an aspect of her life, and misery is something she seems to have simply accepted, while this is still vaguely new to Fantine and she’s trying to figure out how to deal with it.

“In this distress, to have had her little daughter with her would have been a strange happiness.” Mostly I just want to hang on to this quote because it parallels the later line talking about Baron Pontmercy wishing to have young Marius with him. I made a post before about the parallels between Fantine and Pontmercy, and somehow I didn’t catch this one, but here it is.

Everything in this book is about money, about how to pay. Everything in life is about money. It puts Valjean in an expressly unique position as someone who has a frankly ridiculous amount of money compared to pretty much every other character. But everyone except Valjean and Cosette are so highly aware of money, of how much everything costs, and what it takes to pay for something. And really the thing about poverty is that “cost” isn’t just francs, it’s also time and labor and emotion. If Fantine had just the tiniest bit more money, she could send for Cosette, but would Cosette then end up like the child of Valjean’s sister, sitting out in the cold in the early morning after Fantine went to work but before the schools had opened? Sewing shirts takes time; that’s either less time to be with Cosette and nurture Cosette or less time making shirts which is less money. Making enough money to live means sacrificing so much.

Only now does Fantine seem to be aware of social cues, which now have turned into paranoia (though she’s probably at least a little right). Since the beginning, she hasn’t noticed when people are laughing at her or whispering about her or making fun of her to her face. Even when Tholomyes left, I doubt she noticed because all of the grisettes were abandoned at the same time; I don’t think she would have realized that for everyone else it was a little bit different. But now all those whispers and mocking and social cues have been thrown in her face, and now she’s seeing them everywhere. It sounds like paranoia, but I think she’s right, and Hugo basically says so about a sentence later.

“She came and went, head high and with a bitter smile, and felt that she was becoming shameless.” This is another reason why I Dreamed A Dream in English frustrates me so much. The French version at least touches on Fantine’s anger, on the ways she has begun to harden. The English version really does not do that at all. It is interesting that she longs for the anonymity of Paris, and in the end seems to decide to treat M-sur-M as though it was Paris, and go out brazenly anyway.

Mme Victurnien and Tholomyes are at opposite ends of the self-centered individual. Tholomyes fucked Fantine over but didn’t care or think much of it, because once he’d satisfied the amusement he got out of his affair with Fantine, he simply dropped her and probably never thought of her or Cosette ever again. Victurnien, on the other hand, turns Fantine into a weird sort of obsession. Instead of not caring about ruining Fantine’s life, that becomes a kind of pleasure for her. A “dark happiness,” as Hugo calls it. It’s a sort of sadistic schadenfreude. Tholomyes didn’t spend anything to abandon Fantine, he simply left to go back to the country. Victurnien spent money to destroy Fantine’s life. Both are so terrible because one is so deliberately careless and the other is so heartlessly deliberate.

A last thought which is just kind of a throwaway thing, but since gaining the “Fantine as autistic” headcanon from whoever it was that came up with it, I’ve been imagining Fantine’s love of brushing and braiding her hair as a form of self-soothing. I haven’t had long hair in over 15 years but I remember when I did, brushing it or having someone else brush it always felt really nice. Fantine’s hair is so beautiful (later on Hugo says it falls to her knees which is !!!!) and I wonder if part of that is because of how often she uses brushing it to self-sooth when things are terrible.

#les miserables #les miserables meta #brickclub #lm 1.5.9 #les mis #les mis meta

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kingedmundsroyalmurder · 6 years ago

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Fantine arrived in Hadestown wild and cynical, already broken down enough by life up Top that she accepted the worst Hadestown had to offer with a bitter laugh that emphasized her missing teeth, as if to say, ‘this is no worse than what I had to endure up there.’ What that might have been, no one knew. Hadestown was not a place with time for solidarity, not this place where everyone already carried the burden of their own regrets. Fantine was shown the work, taught to swing a pickaxe in the mine and to shovel coal into the furnace, and left alone.

Eurydice took no more notice of her than she did any other new arrival: a flash of pity for the mistake they had made, a surge of jealousy at the smell of sunshine lingering in their hair, and nothing more. She had her own work to do, her own sorrow to nurse, had Hades to hate and Persephone to desire. And Fantine was easy to ignore. She kept to herself from the start, turned away from newcomers and old hands alike, worked like she had something to forget.

Time passed. Persephone left for the summer and Hadestown got just a little colder without her, the factory floor just a little sharper as its workers missed their lady and her moonshine. Eurydice moved from the furnace to the wall, stacking bricks to the sky that she would never see again, working in unison with all the other lost souls who’d once thought Hadestown the answer to their problems. Fantine worked the mines, her pickaxe not quite in time with the others yet, her shorn hair blackened with coal-dust. The two women passed each other on occasion, during their breaks, as Eurydice joined the crowd eager to sneak some of Persephone’s leftover wine. Fantine watched them from a distance, ignored and indifferent to it. No one offered her a sip, even when one of the eager workers managed to grab the bottle without someone else slapping it from their hands. Nothing was free in Hadestown, not even the stolen fruit of the vine that stained their lips purple and left them craving it more than they had when they began. If Fantine wanted some, she would have to fight for it just like the others.

Fall returned, and with it Persephone, trailing the wind behind her, a sunbeam still caught in her smile. She laughed as the workers surged towards her, her hair letting off waves of rainfall and autumn leaves as she tossed her head back. Eurydice pressed forward with the rest, fighting for a spot near the front of the crowd, where the sunbeam in Persephone’s smile might cast just a hint of light on her ashen face.

“Single file now, you know the drill,” Persephone called out, still laughing. She had yet to remove her traveling cloak or unpack her barrels of contraband, but the proximity to the Top was too strong to resist. While Hades watched new hires sign away their souls in his mahogany and leather office, Persephone took a coin from each of his workers and gave them a taste of the summer.

“Who is she?”

Eurydice jumped, startled. It had been days, weeks since anyone had spoken to her during work hours, not since the last time the foreman sent her to a new workstation. She was making bricks again, mixing the mud until her palms were raw from sand and every part of her was covered in a red dust that would not come loose until she was moved to the mines, to replace it with coal.

“Who?” Her voice came out rough, more a croak than a word. She cleared her throat, coughed out some of the clay in her lungs, and tried again. “Who is who?”

“Her. The lady.”

Finally, Eurydice turned to look at the speaker. It was Fantine, standing a little ways away, her hands gripping her pickaxe so tightly her bones seemed to show through. Her face was streaked with dust, but her eyes shone brightly with a light Eurydice had never seen in her before.

“That’s Persephone. She’s the boss’ wife, not that he deserves her.”

“And she goes Up? To the outside world?”

“Yeah, every year.” Eurydice turned back to her work, waiting for a follow up question, but it never came. When she finally looked around, all she saw was Fantine’s back as the other woman went back to her work.

The next time Persephone offered her bottle around, Fantine was in the crowd with the others.

Eurydice heard about the bargain through the whispers of the workers. Tongues flowed more freely in the winter, loosened by Persephone’s wine and warmed by her presence. Gossip traveled to those who cared to hear it, passed around under the hammering of the mines and the screaming of the furnace. “The new girl,” the gossip said, “she sends her wages up Top. Made a deal with the boss. Doesn’t even keep enough for herself to buy a spot by the fire.”

Even among the jaded workers of Hadestown, this news was enough to spark interest. Interest, and envy. The slenderest of ties to the Top set someone apart, in this place where one more taste of the sky was the only thing anyone longed for. Orpheus’ failed rescue had made a pariah of Eurydice for years; even now there were some, old hands without a trace of color left in their bodies, who avoided her eye and spat on her shadow. To have haggled with the boss, to have won a concession from him, these were things of note. Once ignored, Fantine how had eyes tracking her every move. She seemed not to notice.

Eurydice watched her on occasion, but she had nothing but a brief moment of pity to spare. Fantine would find it hard going here, she who still had not quite mastered the rhythm of the work, who now had whispers following her and women with cold eyes asking cruel questions about the man she’d left behind. “There is no man,” Fantine said, and refused to answer any more questions. She set her back to her work and tried to keep up and acted like she didn’t hear the snickers of the workers around her when she missed a swing.

Spring came again, and with it the cold ache that was Persephone’s absence. Eurydice hunched her shoulders against the sudden void, kept her head down and spoke to no one. The gossip dried up, as tongues became too thirsty to talk and as the boss drove them harder than ever to make up for their idleness of winter. The whispers around Fantine fell away, replaced with cold silence that cut to the bone.

The foreman sent Eurydice to the mine, to take her turn in the stifling air of the tunnels, choking on coal dust and aching from walking hunched to fit through the narrow openings. Fantine had yet to be moved somewhere new, stuck there until she mastered the work, punished for her ineptitude and for her audacity. Eurydice stepped into the space beside her.

“You’re holding it wrong,” she whispered, watching Fantine work out of the corner of her eye. “Here, do it like this.”

Fantine started, missed her swing even more than she would have anyway, and didn’t react as the foreman swore at her for it. Eurydice demonstrated again, her own swings in perfect time with the others, the result of years of backbreaking practice with no one to teach her the way.

When Fantine swung again, she hit her mark. For the first time Eurydice could remember, she saw the ghost of a smile on Fantine’s lips.

"It’s not a man.”

They were working together again, Fantine having at last mastered the mine with Eurydice’s whispered help and been sent to learn the furnace instead. Eurydice hated the furnace, with its blazing heat that seemed to tear through you worse than the icy wind on the wall, its unending roar and ceaseless hunger. There was no rest on the furnace, lest the flames start to falter from lack of fuel. An endless rhythm of shoveling, scooping coal from the giant pile and throwing it to the furnace’s maw, receiving only burning sparks and plumes of acrid smoke in return.

“What?” Eurydice said, or tried to say. She got a lungful of smoke instead, and her shovel faltered as she hacked it out again. The foreman’s curse barely even registered.

“Where I send the money. It’s not to a man.” Fantine was watching her, large eyes fixed on Eurydice as though she could will the other woman to understand. The fiery light of the furnace made their color impossible to determine.

“Where is it, then?” Eurydice asked, throat still raw from the burning smoke. The workers around them gave no indication of listening in, but Eurydice knew that every one of them, and the foreman to boot, was eagerly waiting for any scrap of information they could glean.

“It’s for my daughter,” Fantine said. “For my Cosette.”

As her daughter’s name passed her lips Fantine’s face was transformed, just for a moment, with a sudden burst of radiance, and Eurydice realized for the first time that Fantine must have been beautiful. The moment passed, and she was once more gaunt and tired, her face smudged with ash and her clothes smoldering slightly where a spark had not yet extinguished itself.

And Eurydice understood. Fantine said ‘Cosette’ the way Eurydice had once said ‘Orpheus,’ the way Persephone said ‘Summer.’ There were stories, in the winter when the wine and whiskey flowed, stories that said that anyone who still remembered what they had left behind might yet make it back up Top, might find the way. Eurydice had seen some try, seen some desperate fools with fading memories seize the last chance they thought they had at freedom, seen them scale the wall and vanish into the wastes. They all came back, dragged in by the Furies or the guard dog, bloody and broken, the light in their eyes extinguished for good.

But that was the thing about stories, about hope. No matter how many left and were dragged back, beaten and snarling, there were still some who tried, and more who believed, who clung to that part of them that was still human with all their heart and told no one of the secret hope in their breast.

Later, when they were on break at last, ears still ringing with the roar of the hungry furnace, Eurydice caught Fantine by the sleeve. She paid for both of them to sit by the fire, close enough to warm their hands and away from the blowing of its smoke. “Your daughter,” she said. “Tell me what she’s like.”

It was a quiet friendship, a cautious one, one that grew in the cracks in the armor of their respective hearts. They shared smiles when they chanced to work together, passed along whispered warnings when Hades was in a temper, little things that nevertheless seemed a thousand times brighter than the harsh glare of Hadestowns’ neon lights. Sometimes, Eurydice would pay double at the fire and they would both sit near its warmth.

Summer up Top drew to a close. The seasons in Hadestown never changed, not here where the sky was a thousand miles away. The bitter cold never ebbed, the artificial lights never dimmed. The only way to mark the passing of the seasons was to watch Hades, to learn to match his moods to the absence or closeness of his wife, to count the days till the return of winter by how hard the foreman drove them on. Eurydice was working the assembly line, tightening gears for machines she didn’t care to understand, and she felt it when Hades gave the order to pick up the pace. The conveyor belt stuttered once, twice, and then rolled on, faster than before, and Eurydice’s hands matched it. Around her, a dozen others did the same, and when the foreman wasn’t watching they glanced around at each other, each pair of eyes saying the same: “He’s getting impatient. She’s coming home.”

Come home she did, radiant and contrary, certain that he had miscounted the days and brought her back to the underworld early. There were mud stains on her gown and already wilting flowers braided into her hair. Every eye in Hadestown was fixed on her as she walked out of the train station, a thousand thousand souls desperate for the reminder of what they had lost. A hundred hands reached out to try and touch the fabric of her traveling cloak, to feel the thing that had so recently been exposed to the air up Top, and she twitched it aside before their fingers could reach. No welcoming kiss this year: the depression of winter had set in early, and Persephone jealously guarded all the summer she had managed to steal.

Every year before this, when Persephone had blown in like an angry gale, picking fights with Hades before even stepping out of the train, Eurydice had watched her with hungry eyes, bewitched by her anger, not daring to approach her uninvited and longing to see what might happen if she did. Persephone had taken her aside, when she was new, when she was young, when she thought she might still have a happy life, had given her advice and helped her escape. It was an old tie, one never acknowledged between them, one wrapped up in pain and the harshness of Hades’ justice. But Eurydice still watched her, longed for her, and sometimes Persephone’s eye lingered on Eurydice a moment too long, when Eurydice lined up with the rest.

This year, when Persephone stormed home, Eurydice bought an extra place by the fire and told Fantine, in halting, uncomfortable words, what had happened that day, so many years before. Fantine listened gravely, her eyes fixed somewhere just above Eurydice’s, and when Eurydice’s words finally dried up, she said fervently, scathingly, “Men.”

The response, so different than what she had been expecting, startled laughter out of Eurydice. She laughed until she was breathless from it, until the people around them had turned to stare, until Fantine had joined in almost despite herself. When at last she had to stop, her lungs complaining from the unexpected abuse, she felt lighter than she had in years, since signing her soul away to this place, since watching Orpheus lose his faith and doom her back to hell.

The lightness lasted through the next day at the factory, through the foreman’s curse and the cuts on her hands from the badly filed gears that healed as soon as they formed but still stung for hours, through the fight between Hades and Persephone that set the whole factory shaking and the conveyor belt to triple its speed. It lasted when Persephone blew into the factory hours later, her smile bright and brittle, to pass her bottles around as her husband roamed the world up Top to find more pliant souls than she to satisfy him. Eurydice fell into line with the others, a coin clutched in her hand, waiting her turn for just a taste of sunshine.

It lasted until Fantine found her that evening, looking wilder than Eurydice had ever seen her. She drew Eurydice away from the crowds, away from the fire to the darkest shadows of Hadestown, by the wall. Her eyes blazed through the darkness. “Those thieves,” she spat. “All that money I send them, every month, and they’re starving her. They said... every letter they wrote... they lied, and she eats with the dog...” Fantine’s words dissolved into an ugly, broken sob, of rage and heartbreak all in one. Eurydice watched helplessly as she wept. She had been too long underground to remember how to comfort someone, had been too long up Top to think that this was an easily comforted hurt.

Instead, when Fantine had exhausted her sobs, she said, “You’re sure?”

A glare and jerky nod. “I gave the Lady everything I had left, last spring. She promised she would tell me the truth.”

A promise from Persephone meant nearly as little as a promise from her husband, but neither would she lie so directly. Like her husband, Persephone manipulated with half truths, when it amused her to do so, but driving others to despair was not her amusement of choice. If Persephone had said Cosette was starving, it was likely to be true.

Eurydice absently licked dust from her lips as she caught them between her teeth in thought. Finally, bracing herself and reaching out to take Fantine by the hand, she said, “I think I remember the way up.”

They snuck away during the shift change, when they were least likely to be missed. Eurydice pressed all her savings into the suspicious palms of the wall builders as incentive to let them pass, to not report their disappearance for a few precious hours. She took Fantine’s hand and together they fled the harsh lights of the city, running for the shadows of the wastelands with all their strength. Eurydice jumped at every noise, convinced they had been betrayed and Hades had sent his guard dogs after them, but they reached the shadows without being stopped.

They stopped to catch their breaths, to take stock of what they had done, to marvel at their own daring and contemplate the task still ahead. Eurydice had walked this path only once, years ago, more focused on Orpheus’ back than the scenery. She closed her eyes, pushed past the pain, tried to recall the walk as clearly as she could. Follow the tracks, Hermes had said. Ignore the barriers and just follow the tracks. There was no contract this time, no stipulation that either of this do this alone. Eurydice took Fantine’s hand and together they started walking.

Eurydice could never have said how long they walked. They didn’t get tired, in this wasteland between worlds, didn’t get hungry or footsore. The pressure of fear weighed ever more heavily on both of their chests, insidious whispers in their minds promising failure, promising betrayal, suggesting that there was no such place as the Top at all, that they were doomed to wander the wastelands forever unless they turned back. Fantine ignored it all, put one foot before the other with a look of grim determination, more automaton than woman. Eurydice drew strength from Fantine and kept pace. They walked.

The first ray of sunlight burned Eurydice’s eyes so badly she screamed.

They had emerged in the first frost of autumn, emerged from the underworld with no plan or money, nothing save Fantine’s burning need to be with her child and Eurydice’s desire to help her friend. In leaving Hadestown, they had lost the security of work, of food, of the possibility of a place by the fire at night. In the dark and cold of Hadestown, these seemed small prices to pay for the taste of freedom. Here, bathed in a sunlight that burned rather than warmed, faced with a world they had both chosen, once, to leave behind, that price seemed suddenly higher.

Eurydice thought to mention this, thought to ask if Fantine had a plan, thought to confess that she didn’t, but Fantine beat her to it. She spoke, and the words coming out of her mouth were foreign, strange and unintelligible syllables spoken in a familiar voice. Fantine spoke again, turning to look back when Eurydice did not answer, and from the look on her face it was clear she realized the problem. Eurydice dug her ragged nails into her palms, feeling the wild terror of helpless despair well up inside of her. They had come all this way, had defied Hades and broken their contracts, all for it to fall apart in an instant.

And then Fantine laughed. The sound jolted Eurydice out of her growing despair and she stared, wide-eyed, as Fantine threw back her head and laughed. The hole left by her missing teeth stood out starkly in the autumn sun but she seemed not to notice. She laughed wildly, reaching out to grab Eurydice’s hands in hers, and despite herself, despite everything, Eurydice joined in. They laughed at the absurdity of the situation, at the idea that this setback hadn’t occurred to either one of them, even for a moment, laughed because the only alternative was to scream.

At last the laughter subsided, both women out of breath and emptied of their emotions. Slowly, the sound died away, replaced once more by the quiet chirping of the birds nearby and the distant rush of traffic, and Fantine and Eurydice looked at each other. In the light of the sun, so different from the harsh neons of Hadestown, Fantine’s face was softer, its gauntness less pronounced, the brightness of her eyes easier to see. The walk had rubbed off some of the dust from her hair, and Eurydice could finally make out its color, its gold brighter than any metal the mines had to offer.

They walked. They taught each other words, their tongues tripping over foreign syllables as they haltingly echoed tree, leaf, sun, wind in each other’s half forgotten tongue. They couldn’t say each other’s names, Fantine’s coming out of Eurydice’s mouth with too many syllables and Eurydice’s coming out of Fantine’s with too few. Theirs had never been a friendship of conversation, and its lack was easy to bear.

Harder were the privations of the flesh, as both women’s bodies remembered what it was like to be hungry, to shiver in a cold that could do more than just penetrate the soul, a cold that could kill. They foraged for what they could, aware that they wouldn’t last long without help, unable to do anything except keep walking and hope to find a road. Eurydice shivered her way through the nights, too hungry to sleep well, the light from the moon harsh in her eyes, and she cursed herself for her foolishness. Orpheus hadn’t been lesson enough, it seemed. She had let him lead her to ruin, and now she had let Fantine do the same.

Yet when the morning sun came to burn her eyes, when Fantine sat up from her own sleepless night, Eurydice would force her body up after her, and they would walk on.

The farmhouse was on its own, its back to the forest from which the two emerged, facing a road more path than highway. Fantine and Euydice exchanged glances, a silent communication learned in the blistering heat of Hades' forge and honed in the burning sunlight of the Top. What if nothing comes of it? their eyes asked. What if we are left to freeze just like we were before? And then, We have to try.

Fantine went first, her only asset the words that were slowly returning to her tongue. Eurydice followed half a step behind, her ragged nails biting into her palms. When they reached the door and knocked, the woman who answered it nearly screamed.

Later, Eurydice would never quite piece together how it happened, how Fantine's torrent of pleading, unintelligible words and the farmer woman's fearful, short responses ended in a barn for the two women to sleep in and a crust of bread for them to eat. She watched the interplay of expressions as the conversation washed over her, watched Fantine's large eyes and the wary set of the farmer woman's eyebrows, saw Fantine's shoulder start to slump even as the farmer woman's were beginning to relax, saw the slow, almost unwilling creep of compassion into the farmer woman's face as Fantine explained their story as best she was able. Left without the substance of their words, Eurydice could only see how their faces changed and each woman's tone of voice modulated in response to the other's, a cacophonous duet that at last resolved into a cautious harmony of mutual communication. Eurydice could only smile her thanks, as the farmer woman led them to the drafty barn and avoided looking them in the eye.

It was cold in the barn, the walls doing little to cut the sting of the wind, but they pressed together and ate their food, stretching the warmth of the farmer woman's kindness as far as it would go and then a little more. In the dust of the barn floor Fantine sketched out a crude map, a handful of lines and an X showing where she thought they were. From the farmer woman, she had apparently learned the name of the nearest town, a name she did not recognize, and the distance to Paris, a name she did.

“From Paris,” Fantine said in words Eurydice was slowly growing to understand, “from Paris I know the way.” She drew another line in the dust, a confident, longing stroke of her finger, and at its end she drew a shaky heart. “Cosette,” Fantine said, as though Eurydice needed the confirmation.

“Cosette,” Eurydice echoed, and they looked at the lines drawn in the dust. Somehow, as they looked down, Eurydice's hand found Fantine's, and when they curled up to sleep they did not let go.

In the morning, the farmer woman came into the barn before they could leave. Eurydice braced herself, expecting harsh words or early morning regret for impulsive charity, but instead she held out a loaf of bread. From the way it steamed in the frigid air, it could only have just come from the oven.

Neither Fantine nor Eurydice moved to take it. Neither was accustomed to charity, to kindness, to gifts without contracts attached. The farmer woman frowned, spoke, offered the bread again.

“She says,” Fantine said, speaking slowly so that Eurydice could puzzle out the meaning behind the words. “It will snow today. We can stay here until it stops.”

The woman nodded and spoke again.

“She wishes she could offer more,” Fantine said, before turning to the woman and, in words Eurydice could half make out, thanking her for her kindness. She took the bread, rapidly cooling now that it had met with the winter, and the farmer woman smiled. Eurydice, half surprising herself, smiled back.

It started to snow around mid-morning, a few flurries turning rapidly into a storm that sent icy wind and snowflakes through the cracks in the wood. Fantine and Eurydice huddled in one of the empty stalls, pressed against each other and shivering. Even Hadestown, Eurydice thought, had not been so cold as this.

She shook her head as soon as the thought entered her mind, banishing it lest it attract the wrong kind of attention. There were stories, down below, that the boss could sense when mortals were most vulnerable, that he could read despair on the breath of hungry souls. Stories, mostly, legends told to excuse choices made in moments of weakness, excuses even, coming from some. Eurydice had never truly believed it. But here, on the run from that very man, shivering and hungry despite the bread in her belly and the roof over her head, Eurydice did not dare put that lack of belief to the test.

By sundown, Eurydice had begun losing the strength to shiver. Fantine, the skinnier of the two, had stopped shivering earlier, and she now sat huddled in on herself, whispering her daughter's name like a prayer. Earlier, Eurydice had made her talk about Cosette, to distract them both and remind them of why they had come, but Fantine had long since fallen silent and Eurydice no longer had the strength to urge her on. They were, Eurydice realized, going to die here.

Even as she let herself voice that thought, in her own tongue so as not to alarm Fantine, the barn door opened. A blast of wind came rushing in and Eurydice flinched, gasping a little at the cold.

The farmer woman closed the door behind her, hurrying forwards amid the snow she had let in. Eurydice blinked, too stupid from cold and worry to understand she was doing. She nudged Fantine, but Fantine barely moved. Her skin, when Eurydice went to shake her awake, was cold to the touch.

The farmer woman squatted down before them, speaking far too rapidly for Eurydice to hope to understand. All she could do was shake her head until the woman trailed off. The woman frowned, cast an expectant eye towards Fantine, and frowned further. Turning back to Eurydice she spoke again, slowly this time, as though to a child. “Too cold here. Come inside.”

Eurydice hesitated. The farmer woman, mistaking calculation for unwillingness, held out a hand. “Come,” she said.

On her own, with no one but herself to care for, Eurydice might have hesitated further, might have taken her chances with the cold over testing the fickle kindness of her fellow men. But Fantine was freezing to death beside her, and the farmer woman was looking at them with wide, concerned eyes. Slowly, Eurydice nodded. “Thank you,” she said, in her broken, accented approximation of Fantine's tongue, and the farmer's wife beamed.

It took both of them to get Fantine inside, and Eurydice thought her strength might give out before they got there. When at last they reached the house and the farmer woman opened the door, Eurydice nearly collapsed from the sudden wave of heat.

Somehow the farmer woman got them both inside and by the fire. Another half loaf of bread appeared, and Eurydice pressed it into Fantine's still cold hand. Fantine didn't take it, her fingers not thawed enough to grasp and her mind too far gone to fight. Eurydice, between the violent shivers that had begun to return, wrapped her arms around Fantine's bony shoulders and tried to will the life back into her.

“Please,” Eurydice whispered, in her language and in Fantine's. “I can't lose you too.” When the farmer woman turned away to pull the quilt from her bed, Eurydice pressed a kiss to Fantine's icy cheek. “Please,” she said again, and could not have said if she was pleading with Fantine or with the God of Death.

The farmer woman returned with the quilt, wrapping it tightly around both of them, talking briskly in her language. The words fell like raindrops around Eurydice, too rapid to be intelligible even if Eurydice had been in a state to try. The farmer's wife seemed not to mind.

At some point, despite her worry, or perhaps because of it, Eurydice drifted off to sleep. When she woke, with a start of panic, the fire had turned to a bed of embers that gave off more heat than light, and Fantine's hands were warm to the touch.

The storm lasted another two days. The farmer woman -- Jeanne, they learned -- refused to let them leave, and so in return Eurydice and Fantine made themselves as useful to her as they could. Fantine coaxed her fingers back into needlework, and Eurydice, never having been adept at that art, took up other chores, accomplishing the tasks that Jeanne, a widow of six months, did not have the strength to complete herself. In the evening, the three sat by the fire, sharing bread and wine and stories. Eurydice, unable to offer the latter, instead reached into long ignored memories and brought out some of Orpheus' songs, and only cried a little when she heard how her own voice couldn't do them justice. At night, she and Fantine curled up by the remains of the fire, pressed together for warmth and intertwined for comfort.

When at last the weather cleared, Jeanne gave them her husband's old coat and a bundle of food, enough to last a few days if they were careful. They thanked Jeanne yet again, Fantine with earnest fluency and Eurydice trying her best with words that would not cooperate on her tongue, and took their leave.

They walked. The storm had cleared out the bitterest of the cold, leaving the world grey and sparkling but slightly warmer, just enough to not freeze in the weak sunlight that pierced the cloud cover. The nights, though, brought the cold back with a vengeance, a damp cold that seeped through the coat they shared and thrust tendrils of ice deep into their bones. Despite the cold, they shied away from the houses dotting the road, all too aware of the figure they cut, two women alone, ragged and desperate and alone. Jeanne had been kind, but who was to say that luck would hold. They did not dare test it. Still, after two nights on the road, huddling under trees to try and break the wind, rationing Jeanne's provisions as strictly as they could bear, Fantine's breaths had begun to rattle in her chest and Eurydice felt faint every time she stood and they both knew they could not continue like this much longer.

The first farmhouse they knocked on slammed the door in their face before Fantine could so much as get out a word, but the second housed a tired young woman with three children clinging to her, all fighting to get out the door as she struggled to keep them inside. The biggest of the three, knees already knobby and cheeks red from even this brief exposure to the cold, escaped her grasp and darted for the snow. Fantine caught him as he went, scooping him up in arms stronger than they looked and laughingly scolding him for his mischief before passing him back to his mother. This earned Fantine and Eurydice a place inside the house and a bowl of soup to share -- a scarcity of dishes as much as of food -- and their story, of two women seeking work in Paris after the death of their fathers, earned them an invitation to stay the night. An old woman looked suspiciously out at them from under a pile of ragged blankets in the corner, but the young woman spoke quietly to her and she subsided.

"Her mother," Fantine murmured to Eurydice, having caught a snatch of the conversation. Eurydice nodded, and was distracted by a tug on her sleeve. The biggest of the girls, a toddling thing of no more than three, looked up at her with wide, curious eyes and lisped a question Eurydice could not hope to decipher.

Fantine, though, smiled at the girl and pulled her onto her lap, leaning in as though sharing a secret as she answered the girl's question. Soon, this attracted the attention of the smaller girl, barely walking at all, and Fantine beckoned her over, raising her voice a little so both girls could hear. From her tone, Eurydice thought she was telling them a fairy tale, or perhaps inventing one as she went. Even the boy, still sulking from his thwarted escape attempt, crept over, trying his hardest to look as though he wasn't listening as intently as his sisters.

Fantine finished her story and, spurred on by the wide eyes of the younger girl and the eager pleas of the elder, started another, but Eurydice could hear her voice starting to give, could see the glint of unshed tears beginning to well up in her eyes. She cleared her throat, attracting the attention of both her friend and the girls, and began to sing.

In the morning, as they made to leave, the mother caught Fantine by the sleeve. She had a sister, in the next village down, a kind woman with children of her own. If they knocked there, she promised, they would be well received. Fantine and Eurydice glanced at each other, both too experienced in the cruelties of men and women alike to trust this kindness, both too afraid of the winter winds to turn it down. Finally, Fantine pressed her hand in thanks and promised that they would ask. She kissed each of the children and, as the door closed behind them, hastily wiped away her tears before the winter could freeze them to her cheek.

They spent a night here, two nights there, knocked at doors until they found souls kind enough to offer shelter, huddled together under trees when they found none at all. They stayed in one farmhouse for a whole week while Eurydice burned with fever, and in another for nearly as long until Fantine's sickness had faded to nothing but a persistent cough she refused to wait out. They fought about it, Eurydice terrified of the ravages of the weather on their bodies and Fantine growing more heartbroken with every mile they closed between her and Cosette, argued in rough whispers to avoid waking the family that had so generously offered them a place by the fire. For the first time in weeks they slept with their backs to each other.

Word traveled fast, faster than two exhausted women could ever hope to, and as they got closer to Paris more and more doors opened to them, cousins and sisters and friends of those who'd already given them a roof for the night. They played with children and helped where they could, took messages and gifts from one village to the next, paid their way with deeds since they had no money to offer. Some houses, home to richer families or just more generous hearts, pressed coins into their hands as they left. Others gave them food, what little the family had to spare, or clothes when their own could stand no more of the wind. Some could only offer prayers to their God to keep them safe.

The closer they got to Montfermeil the more Fantine talked, about Cosette, about what she would do to the inkeepers who had treated her so badly, about how they would get a room in Paris together where no one would talk and live until they had saved enough to move back to the country where Cosette could play outside all summer long. Eurydice let her talk, held her hand when no one else was looking, stayed silent. She thought of the lengths someone had once gone to to save her from a Hell of her own choosing and promised herself that Cosette would have a happier ending.

Paris was a crush of noise and people, louder even than Hadestown and its ever-present din of machinery, filled with shouting people and screaming animals. Children, ragged and cheerful, scampered endlessly underfoot, while tradesmen offered their services at top volume and well-bred women picked their way through the mud, escorted by equally well-bred men, and pretended not to notice the chaos around them. Eurydice shrank back from the press of bodies and even Fantine, who had lived in Paris not so many years before, seemed wide-eyed and lost. Unconsciously, their hands found each other.

They found a place at an inn, paying all the coin they had managed to save up over the course of their journey for a tiny, filthy room barely less drafty than an alley. It left them nothing with which to buy food, but they had long since grown accustomed to hunger.

"It's not far now," Fantine said. Her voice was hoarse from wind and hunger and the cough that had not quite left her chest, but her eyes shone brighter than they had in weeks. "Less than three days, and that's if we stop on the way."

"And after that?" Eurydice wanted to know. Weeks of exposure had given her more confidence in the language, had trained her ear to pick out words and make sense of sentences, but her tongue had yet to follow suit. The words came out ugly and hesitant, and when she could she stayed quiet, let Fantine do the talking and let their hosts think she was simple.

"We can find work," Fantine said, as she had every other time Eurydice had asked this question. "I can teach you to sew, and we'll make shirts and take in mending. And then we can take our work outside in the summer, and earn our way in the sun."

Eurydice nodded, swallowed her objections, told herself that they had come too far to turn back now. She let Fantine talk until her chest was exhausted and the words had turned to coughs, then pulled her close and kissed her silent.

They left Paris at daybreak the next morning, crossing paths with the wave of tradesmen and laborers coming into the city to start their work day. Fantine was subdued, her excitement of the night before faded by the reminder of the last time she had taken this path. The ragged children of the streets scampered around them, hollering to each other as they began their days, ignoring Fantine and Eurydice completely. One, a tattered girl of no more than eight, with a heavily patched skirt that still barely covered her legs and a head of dirty brown hair that fell into her eyes as she ran, made Fantine start and gasp. She dashed away the tears always welled in her eyes these days, just on the brink of falling, and put her head down, placed one foot in front of the other on the road out of Paris and pretended that it required her full attention. Eurydice walked by her side, watched as the late winter dawn played over mother and children alike, tried not too ask questions, even to herself, that she did not want answered.

The inn in Montfermeil was loud and crowded, filled with travelers and tradesman come in from the cold for a drink and a song. Fantine and Eurydice slipped in as a gust of wind blew through the door, their chapped faces and battered clothes standing out even among the rough crowd already assembled. The inkeeper's wife looked them over, her eyes cold and bright with suspicion, and she started toward them, parting the patrons in her path like a steamship. Eurydice had a dozen stories on the tip of her tongue, half translated into the language she still only partially spoke, when Fantine let out a cry and ran, darting past the advancing woman toward back of the dining room. It took Eurydice a moment to drag her eyes from the inkeeper's wife, her advance paused in surprise as she and the rest of the inn looked to see what had caused so much distress and movement, and a moment more to realize that the creature Fantine now held tight in her arms was a child, stiff and dirty and terrified. The inkeeper's wife too realized the source of Fantine's distress, and immediately changed course, charging towards mother and child with a fury that would have sent nearly anyone diving for cover.

But Fantine had defied the Lord of the Dead to reach this place, had survived the journey through hell below and the winter above, had given everything she had and more that she didn't, and she met the inkeeper's wife head on, arms still wrapped protectively around the child, who was now shaking with terror and confusion. Eurydice edged slowly forward through the crowd.

"What is the meaning of this?" the inkeeper's wife demanded. "You, get back to work immediately!" This last was addressed to the child, who quailed more than ever and tried to wriggle out of Fantine's arms. But Fantine's grip had been strengthened by months in the mines, her arms toughened by weeks building the wall, and the child could not escape.

"I am Cosette's mother," Fantine declared, and at these words the child stopped struggling and stared at her, shock plain to see on her thin little face. "I have come to take her home with me."

Fantine's words caused yet another commotion among the guests, all of whom began exclaiming at once. Eurydice, still not quite re-accustomed to the noise of the Top, worked hard not to flinch. In the chaos, the inkeeper sidled up to stand by his wife, who immediately stepped back, ceding him the floor and glaring at Fantine with all the strength of her fury. Eurydice's eyes narrowed, as she looked the inkeeper up and down.

"Mother, are you?" he asked, and his every word seemed coated in oil, greasy and bitter and vile. "If that is so -- and don't think I trust your word alone on that -- then you owe us a considerable debt for our troubles. 12 francs a month we asked you, an entirely reasonable request in this economy, to provide for a child of that age, we who have daughters of our own to raise." He seemed to be talking to the audience more than to Fantine, an audience already disposed to siding with his grease than with her desperation.

"You asked 15," Fantine snapped, not to be intimidated. "And you promised she was being treated like your own child."

At this pronouncement the child -- Cosette -- let out a bark of bitter laughter. She instantly turned ghostly pale, hunching down as much as she could within Fantine's grip as though expecting a blow. From the way the inkeeper's wife's face twisted into a sneer of hatred, Eurydice thought she was not wrong to fear one.

If Fantine saw this she did not react, too focused on her hatred for the inkeeper himself. He too was laughing, a twisted mockery of true mirth, inviting the watching crowd to join him in tearing Fantine's dreams to pieces. "With what you sent us, you're lucky we didn't turn her out on the street," he said, and one of the watching tradesmen let out a call of agreement. One by one the others took up the cry, until Fantine was pelted on all sides by accusations that struck like stones and jeering suggestions of how to pay her debts. She shrank back, fighting tears, but did not back down. Eurydice, meanwhile, felt despair rising in her, a helplessness nearly as all consuming as the one she'd felt right after Orpheus lost his faith and doomed her to Hell forever. They could not win here, not when the inkeeper already had the town on his side and the inkeeper's wife looked ready to beat both mother and child and leave them to die in the cold.

But Eurydice had sworn, that day so long ago when she told Fantine she knew the way out, had sworn that she would not repeat the failures of her past, that she would stay this time, would make up for both Orpheus' failures and her own, and so she stepped out of the crowd and into the space next to Fantine.

"And who are you?" the inkeeper demanded, sneering and dismissive already.

"What's it to you?" Fantine demanded, just as Eurydice said, "Her sister."

The inkeeper raked his eyes over the two of them, taking in Eurydice's dark skin, ashen now, from so long without sunlight, and Fantine's shorn blond hair, the way Fantine's words flew easily from her lips and Eurydice's sank like stones, awkward and misshapen. He leered, his expression clearly conveying the accusation he did not need to say out loud.

"A debt's a debt," he said, the leer still twisting his face. "If you can pay what you owe, you can take the girl. If not..." He shrugged. "Well. I'm sure you can find a way to pay."

"And we're full for the night," his wife interjected. "Find somewhere else to sleep."

Fantine looked around, took in the faces of the crowd, sought a friendly face where there were none, looked at Cosette still trembling in her arms. Eurydice touched her arm. Theirs had started as a friendship without words, back when they were just two more lost souls lost in a sea of them, a friendship of gestures and sidelong glances, of stolen smiles and silent solidarity. Eurydice drew on this now, met Fantine's eyes and said Trust me.

Fantine jerked a nod, barely perceptible to the watching crowd. Eurydice glanced at the inkeeper, then at Fantine, gestured slightly. Distract him? Fantine took a breath, drew strength from her lover and her child, began to argue once again. Taking advantage of the moment, Eurydice bent down and touched the child, who started as though she'd been struck. Fantine swallowed a soft cry of distress as she talked. "Tomorrow," Eurydice told Cosette in an undertone, her words still halting but filled with all the gentleness she could muster. "Can you find a way outside?"

Cosette nodded mutely. She seemed not to know where to look and so kept her eyes on the ground, her shoulders hunched in as far as Fantine's grip would let them go.

"Bring anything you want to keep," Eurydice said. "And we'll take you away from here."

Cosette didn't respond. Eurydice waited a beat, just in case, then straightened. When Fantine paused for breath she interjected, "We should go."

"Too right you should go," the inkeeper said. "And don't even think of coming back here, or I'll have you arrested."

Fantine made to argue yet again, but Eurydice squeezed her hand. Trust me , her body language said, and Fantine did. The argument died in her throat and she slumped, the strength seeming to leave her completely. She clung to Cosette a moment longer, kissed her head and smoothed her dirty hair away from her face, then let go. The moment she was released from Fantine's grip Cosette practically dove under the table, picked up a pair of knitting needles attached to a tangle of yarn and began almost frantically working at it, shooting terrified glances towards the inkeeper's wife as she did so. Eurydice and Fantine made their way out through the laughing crowd, let themselves be mocked and reached for. As they stepped through the door into the wind, Eurydice glanced back, and her eyes met Cosette's as the child watched them go, her eyes wide with confusion and the slightest glimmer of hope.

Fantine wept that night, as they huddled together under the blanket a kind family had given them. "She didn't even know me," she repeated, her words incoherent and aching. Eurydice held her, ran her hands through Fantine's jagged hair, whispered in her own language, "She will." When at last Fantine drifted into troubled, exhausted sleep, Eurydice stayed awake, eyes on the stars glimmering above.

Cosette did not come until past noon, when the sun had already passed its zenith and begun returning to the underworld. She walked slowly, gripping a bucket as large as she was with white-knuckled hands, glancing back furtively with every few steps. When she caught sight of Fantine and Eurydice she stopped. Fantine half ran to close the distance, and Cosette stayed still, watching with wide eyes. When Fantine once more swept her up into her arms, Cosette asked, “Are you really my mother?”

“Yes,” Fantine said. “And I’m so sorry.”

“Have you really come to take me away?”

“Yes .” It was spoken fervently, like a promise, like a prayer and finally, finally Cosette smiled.

“I’m glad,” she said, and she set down her bucket and returned her mother’s embrace.

As the three headed away from Montfermeil, Cosette walking between the two women, the wind carried a trace of a sound toward them, a sound that Eurydice would have thought she'd only imagined if it had not been so familiar to her, the sound of a train whistling its way towards the earth. Fantine and Eurydice exchanged glances, smiles tucked into the corner of each of their mouths. Spring, it seemed, had come at last.

#hadestown #eurydice #les miserables #fantine #cosette #fixit #for those who prefer to read on tumblr #and with my apologies to those on mobile #achievement unlocked: completed piece of fiction

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aflamethatneverdies · 6 years ago

Note

Fantine for the character meme thing!

Fantine!!! I love her so much!! Thank Friend

Why I like them: She’s such a well written and brave character who despite her circumstances would have been fine if she had a little support. She keeps fighting bravely for so long and with so much hope for Cosette and her future and yet she keeps getting screwed over by the system which doesn’t have any safety nets in place for unwed working mothers trying to take care of their children and also because of that by the unscrupulous Thenardiers. It’s so hard to talk about Fantine for this reason. I love her so much and I wish so much that she had had a chance to be reunited with Cosette, a chance at happiness. She would have been fine if she had just had a little help, if things had gone only a little bit different.

Why I don’t: There’s no way to dislike her. She’s amazing and one of my favourite characters of all time.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): Most of them are sad because her life is sad. I love Fantine having fun in Paris before the surprise even though Tholomyes had created a lie and he didn’t really ever care about Fantine.

I love her moments with Marguerite. I love Fantine sending little things for Cosette and thinking she had clothed her in her hair. I love the scene where she is rightly angry at the mayor and where she fights back with Bamatabois (I love her rage and anger at society). When she thinks about Cosette and teaching her to read and write and being there for her Communion.

Favorite season/movie: I loved Fantine in Les Mis 1934. That was such a great portrayal of Fantine. Also Shoujo Cosette’s death scene made me cry my eyes out. Oh but I think the winner in this case is clearly the Arai Manga and the symbolism with the mirror where she could see ‘what if?’ because it keeps haunting me. She was so brave, she fought for so long, she could have had a future with Cosette by her side. That’s all she wanted. I’m not crying.

Favorite line: I love the line where she laughs because she knows the Thenardiers are cheating her. But it’s her daughter so she has to pay them. I don’t have any happy lines for her. ;_;

Favorite outfit: I think the one she wore for their day out in Paris.

She wore a gown of mauve barege, little

reddish brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her

fine, white, open-worked stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles invention, whose name, canezou, a

corruption of the words quinze aout, pronounced after the

fashion of the Canebiere, signifies fine weather, heat, and

midday.

OTP: They never meet but I am really really attached to Bahorel/Fantine. I think it is a really good ship and Fantine needs someone with whom she can form romantic attachments and Bahorel is really great.

Brotp: The grisettes in an alternative world and/or Marguerite.

Head Canon: That she learned sewing and basic skills at the farm where she worked in her childhood and also I really want her childhood at the farm to be relatively happy, so much.

Maybe her gamine years were also much like Gavroche filled with some little happiness here and there that she created for herself despite having no name and no place to call home. She’s had to be resilient and rely on herself for nearly all her life, which is sad.

She might have had some fun in Paris before she met Tholomyes and was relying on sewing to get by?

Unpopular opinion: What is a Fantine terrible opinion and whomst do I have to fight? :P Oh, can I talk about what BBC Les Mis did to Fantine, reducing her arc to the way she’s seen through the eyes of men like Tholomyes and cutting out her entire agency?

A wish: That the grisettes hadn’t scattered. I know why they did, but part of me always wishes when I’m reading those chapters that they would all raise Cosette together as one big family. It never happens but maybe on my next readthrough….

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: She died without meeting Cosette. That happened. ;_;

5 words to best describe them: Resilient, brave, caring, hopeful, beautiful

My nickname for them: I don’t have a nickname for her.

#midautumnnightdream #meme games #thank you friend <3 #Fantine

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mysunfreckle · 7 years ago

Text

Amis & Magical Realism

Because @jehanproufaery asked for magic and @fishandchipsandvinegar wouldn’t let me give up on this AU ❤

Combeferre: Was born with second sight and can see magical energy around people and objects. He has very good control over it, but overdoing it still gives him a headache. He's getting proper tutoring for his gift, but instead of letting himself be recruited into government security, he’s studying engineering, wanting to integrate magic and technology.

Enjolras: Was born with healing magic and can detect physical damage in people, but refuses to take tutoring to become a healer, because he’s studying law and politics and wants to make a difference that way. As a result he never trained his healing and when he does heal people, he drains himself in the process.

Courfeyrac: Was born with an affinity for emotional magic and perfected a memory prompting technique that allows him to ingrain the recall of a particular type of memory to an object, so that when someone touches it, it feels like they are back in that moment again. Has a tutor that is running out of things to teach him and studies psychology.

Jehan: Was born with the talent to sense and manipulate life force. There are two ways you can go with that, healing and necromancy. Their family are adamant it shouldn’t be necromancy. Never received formal tutoring beyond the basic levels, because of how controversial their gift is. Works in a flower shop with strangely unwilting flowers.

Grantaire: Has no talent for a specific type of magic, but his power is directly linked to physical movement. He was absolutely rubbish at magic until his tutor struck on the idea of teaching him sign language. When he signs Grantaire can cast extremely well and he’s learned that dancing is the best way for him to draw up a lot of magic.

Bossuet: Was born with emotional extension and managed to learn emotional reading as well, meaning he can feel other people’s emotions and extend his own emotions outside of himself to influence those around him. The first costs him effort, the last he does accidentally a lot, which is why he feels it his duty to go through life looking on the bright side, so the feelings he’s scattering around are at least positive.

Joly: Was born with a rare talent to amplify another’s magic. It takes its toll on his body, but as long as he’s touching the source of the magic he can extend and amplify it by startling degrees. He uses amulets a lot as they are much more powerful for him and generate steady magic.

Musichetta: Was born with a specific transmuting magic that allows her to alter materials. The smaller the change the easier, but she’s especially good at fabrics. She works as a seamstress, changing her plain fabrics into fine ones (law dictates they all have a label to mark them as a magical fabrication). Her magic is generally very safe, but when she falls asleep on a rough surface it does tend to soften a bit.

Feuilly: Has an innate ability to binding magic to objects and studied hard to learn as much crafting magic as he could. Makes the extremely reliable amulets and enchanted objects. He prefers working with natural materials, as they conduct the magic best.

Bahorel: Wasn’t born with any specific talent, but has such a passion for food that he learned to mix food and magic like the best of them. He specializes in putting emotions into food and drink. Is still torn between going to culinary school and just trying to start his own restaurant or café.

Marius: Was born with the talent and instinct to weave protections. They hang around him at all times, keeping him safe and when he’s anxious or affectionate towards someone they spread. Most of the people Marius cares about have protections clinging to them, he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Because his magic is so strong he has grown oddly indifferent towards his own safety.

Cosette: Intuitively good at spells that have to do with nature. Studies biology and receives very broad tutoring. In the places where Cosette lives dandelions seem to be breaking through the cracks in the concrete much faster than they should and moss grows on even the most barren roofs.

Éponine: Developed a great talent for written charms. Her magic is noteworthy because of how simple it is. She can get as much power out of plain French written in block letters as most casters struggle to summon with an entire incantation. Considering her childhood she has developed a considerable talent for protection charms.

Gavroche: He’s a firestarter, plain and simple. Considering his age he has rather good control over his gift, but he is less than scrupulous about when he decides to use it.

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eirenical · 7 years ago

Note

SUCH A GREAT MEME. Courfeyrac and Feuilly? :D

IT IS A GREAT MEME. XD And… that cider I had is definitely catching up to me so these answers may end up very interesting. ;D

(ETA: PFFT. SORRY THAT TOOK SO LONG @thecoffeetragedy. I hope you like it? ^_^)

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter

Courfeyrac is the werewolf and Feuilly is the hunter of… PHOTOGRAPHS OF UNUSUAL CREATURES. Courfeyrac, in wolf form, is absolutely fascinated by this human who’s been hiking around the woods, lying totally still for hours to take pictures and just can’t resist messing around with him a little bit. This results in situations like this. Eventually, Feuilly figures out that Courfeyrac is messing with him and demands an explanation. Courfeyrac switches to his human form and they end up spending the whole day and night talking. ^_^

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman

Feuilly is the mermaid. He’s collected human artifacts all his life, completely fascinated by the human world and these strange creatures that walk about on two legs. With each passing day, he travels closer and closer to land, wanting to get a glimpse–or even talk to!–one of these elusive land creatures. He sees Courfeyrac on the docks one day, staring off into the distance with his feet dangling in the water and looking so sad. Feuilly can’t imagine that someone who lives amongst all the treasures of the land could ever be sad and eventually decides that something must be done. After the initial EH??? moment is past… it’s love at first sight. ^_^

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar

Feuilly is the witch and Courfeyrac is a bedraggled little black kitten he found outside in the rain. Feuilly took him in and cleaned him up, brought him to the vet to get checked out, and then took him home to spoil him rotten, thoughts of when his great uncle, Valjean, took him in similarly as a child. As Courfeyrac ages, Feuilly starts to get the feeling that when he talks to the kitten… he’s getting answers? But it isn’t until he almost makes a fatal mistake with a spell he’s brewing and Courfeyrac knocks his hand away from the cauldron just in time that he realizes that the stray kitten he took in from outside is so much more than just your everyday cat. Once he’s realized this, he does all the appropriate spells to make Courfeyrac his familiar so he can understand him properly… and from that point on, he can never get Courfeyrac to STOP talking! And Courfeyrac has opinions on everything, not just spellwork. Who knew a cat would have so many opinions on fashion?

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict

Courfeyrac is the barista and Feuilly is the coffee addict.

[AHAHAHAHA-- and here we are like TWO WEEKS after I started this response, debating whether I have it in me to finish it--because I have to crash my browser and reopen it which means I’ll have to save this back as a draft--and most likely lose it if I don’t.]

...*sobs Feuilly as he goes back to the counter for yet another cup of coffee and really, it’s almost 11 PM and the shop has to close, but Courfeyrac has been watching Feuilly struggle with this project for WEEKS now and he knows the deadline is midnight and he wouldn’t get in THAT much trouble for keeping it open just long enough for Feuilly to finish, would he?*

who’s the professor and who’s the TA

They’re both the professor. Feuilly is in the sociology department and Courfeyrac is in the elementary ed department. They’ve collaborated on grants before and really enjoy working together. Really. That’s why they do so many joint research papers. And grant writing sessions go really late sometimes. And one will end up crashing at the other’s apartment. And then you can’t expect that person to teach classes in the same outfit they wore yesterday, can you? THAT must be how Professor Feuilly ended up wearing Professor Courfeyrac’s sweater. Right? RIGHT?? *sweats* (The students absolutely ship them. There’s a betting pool going on in both departments. The department of the winner has to take the professors in the other department out for dinner when all is said and done. Feuilly and Courfeyrac don’t have the heart to ruin everyone’s fun by explaining that they’ve been dating since college. ;D)

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss)

Feuilly is an adventurer... who’s a prince(ss) in disguise. Feuilly had known in their heart their whole life that they weren’t cut out to be princess material, but still did their best to live up to the expectations and responsibilities of their office. They drew the line, however, at the thought of an arranged marriage to a neighboring prince, having heard tales of the corruption of that kingdom’s noble class and and the oppressive taxes heaped upon them by their king. That’s something they just won’t tolerate being a part of, so rather than take a chance that the son will mirror the father, they flee the palace in the dead of night, only their sword and a small travel pack to sustain them.

Courfeyrac is a wandering bard who meets Feuilly in a tavern one night. A brawl erupts because one of the rogues who frequents the tavern takes a liking to Courfeyrac’s hat and tries to acquire it for himself. Courfeyrac is pretty good at the running and charming, but not so much at the turning and fighting. Feuilly initially rolls their eyes at the nonsense, but when they see how outnumbered Courfeyrac is (and how he’s doing his best to stick to areas of the tavern that will take the least damage from the brawl), they finally step in. Thanks to a few well-placed slices of Feuilly’s sword, many of the brawlers end the fight with pants around their ankles--and thus faces planted into the floor--and red-faced with embarrassment, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Courfeyrac is utterly delighted (not to mention thrilled to be saved), and declares that he owes Feuilly a life debt for saving his hat and that they will travel together until he can return the favor.

After many adventures--and a few too many blanket scenarios since Courfeyrac wasn’t nearly as well prepared for his journey as Feuilly was for theirs ^_~--another truth comes to light.

Courfeyrac isn’t just a bard. He’s a prince. He’s THAT prince. The one Feuilly refused to marry. And he fled *his* home because he’s part of an underground revolutionary group seeking to overthrow the monarchy in his homeland, and really they could use an excellent fighter like Feuilly, if they’d like to join up, too. Feuilly is absolutely delighted, even though they occasionally chafe at the cliche that they they and their prince end up marrying anyway, even if neither is royalty any longer when they do. They do both end up senators in the new joint Republic though, so really it all worked out for the best, in the end. ^_~

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent

Courfeyrac is the teacher and Feuilly is the single parent. Courfeyrac has a terrible time trying to figure him out, in the beginning, though. It seems like every time he runs across Feuilly in school, he’s with a different child. Eventually he runs into him outside of school with five different kids in tow and can’t resist asking. Feuilly, it turns out, used to be a social worker, but the work ground him down so hard that he had to step away. Not wanting to abandon his chosen calling, however, he decided to be a foster parent. He and his sister, Cosette, had been foster-siblings who’d been adopted by their foster father, Valjean, and it had made a world of difference in his life. Figuring that if Valjean could do it alone, so could he, Feuilly applied to be a foster parent. When it became apparent that he had a way with even the most difficult and withdrawn of children, his old colleagues started funneling more and more children in his direction. Eventually, Cosette and her fiance volunteered to go in on a house with him and help out with the fostering. It wasn’t long before their father moved in with them, either. And with four adults in the house, managing so many children became... well, maybe not easier, but at least became more manageable.

Courfeyrac is amazed and impressed and really touched that Feuilly would choose to devote his life this way. He eventually finds himself getting more involved with the Feuilly clan--designing special enrichment exercises, organizing family field trips, helping to work with the students who are still too damaged to go to school. Eventually being involved with Feuilly’s tribe of youngsters leads to being more involved with Feuilly himself and, let’s just say that five adults in the house definitely make things more manageable... but they’re gonna need a bigger house.

who’s the writer and who’s the editor

Enjolras is the writer and they’re BOTH the editors. And... honestly, my brain is frying quickly and I can’t think of why, but it sounds right? So, we’ll go with that. ^_^

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mpgiswiki · 8 years ago

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the rest of this post will be under a readmore cause its really just for me to have handy an itll probably be a little long

ok so like i said a bunch of times already today, i keep having dreams about one specific tooth of mine falling out??? so now im convinced its actually gonna fall out

anyways now im gonna try and write down and analyze my dreams (or at least the ones i remember) and try to figure out How My Poor Tooth Will Go

so from what i can remember, the first dream i had about this tooth falling out was earlier this month (may) or late april. the dream started out normally?? like more normal than having a tooth fall out i guess…i was in my ap lang class and the teacher wasnt my normal teacher, it was this math teacher at my school that everyone just fucking hates. she was being a real bitch and when i answered one question wrong, she literally kicked me out of ap lang? the whole class like i wouldnt get credits for the class and i couldnt take the exam or anything i was just gone for good. obviously i was pissed about this, so i screamed and kicked things and did my usually anger breakdown thing and walked out of the class, heading to guidance. i cant remember which of these events happened first but at one point i was walking down the hallway (which now that i think of it, seemed more reminiscent of a hallway at my middle school) and i saw 3 of my friends (maybe 4 i cant remember) and they were doing karaoke in the middle of the hallway since there was a tv hanging from the ceiling. paige was singing and she was really getting into it. at another point in the dream, like i said, not sure if this was before or after the karaoke thing, i had to get on a bus in order to get to guidance. while on this bus, i had to talk to this girl i used to be friends with but told to fuck off freshman year cause she was toxic and i wanted to get ride of her. she just talked to me like normal?? like she didnt hate my guts for calling her an annoying bitch lmao?? and i just talked to her normally too which was fucking weird…anyways after i got off the bus, i was at guidance. the door to the guidance offices looked like the? jungle?? or whatever??? like some environmentalist designed the place…there was even a hug recycle bin there. i just kinda stood by the door for a while…i think my Dumb Ass couldnt figure out how to get in the door. i just kinda gave up i literally just said “fuck it i gotta go im late to drama practice” which is weird bc im not even fucking in drama. but nonetheless, i went to drama practice. drama practice was held in some huge ass library and the only other people there that i was talking to were my friend dana and my?? drivers ed teacher??? we were supposed to be practicing a scene from les mis which i guess was what play we were doing (i think?? i was cosette and dana was eponine and my fucking drivers ed teacher was marius…) but instead of practicing, we were just talking about the bullshit that was the fact i was kicked out of ap lang like a week before the exam. and then?? my tooth (top left, second from the front left tooth) just fuckign fell out and i started gushing blood and then i woke up…

after that, i had an assortment of little dreams i can hardly remember where my tooth (the same one as always) either falls out or is pulled out. i remember in one its very violently pulled from my mouth and the only other thing i remember from that dream is that this bitch, holly, was there (she didnt pull out the tooth tho i think mikan tsumiki pulled out the tooth). in some other ones, i remember that my tooth was already pulled out before the dream and i would like keep it in the socket in my mouth and pretend like it was still attached?? which leads me to my other very vivid and most recent dream,

so, this one i had last night. its kinda in the opposite order the first one was in, it started with the tooth and ended with ap lang. so in this one, i started off in a dentists office. my dentist was actually my psychiatrist?? but in the dream i just saw her as my dentist but anyways i was talking to her about my teeth and whatever. she asked if there was anything else id like to say before we ended the appointment (kinda like how she would at my irl psychiatrist appointments) and i was like “oh yeah, my tooth fell out” and i just kinda take my tooth out of its little socket. apparently it had fallen out before (like, i long while before) and i had been keeping it in cause i didnt want people to know it fell out i guess?? and when i showed my dentist she was like “oh you pulled out your cracked tooth huh” or whatever and i got really confused because i was under the impression that it had just fallen right out but she pointed out that the tooth itself was cracked. then the bell rung and suddenly i was in the cafeteria at my school and i had no idea what fucking class i had next. so i was just kinda slowly walking out of the cafe when the fire alarm started to go off. i was super confused cause we had just had a fire drill the day before so it didnt make any sense why we would have another. until the principal said on the loud speaker that it was For Real and i started to FLIP. i finally figured out we had D period next, meaning i was supposed to be going to ap lang so i had to find that class so i would be accounted for. i was about to bolt the fuck out when i noticed my ap lang teacher was like right near me. i asked him why he was down by the cafe and not near his room and he said it was cause theres a lot of stuffed lions (tigers?) in his room and he was having electrical problems so it was only a matter of time before one of them caught on fire. so that was weird. anyways we went outside to where we were supposed to wait if there was a fire and i played some kind of hopscotch? game with some kids ive seen around school but have never talked to. none of them were in my ap lang class but whatever. the fire department quickly put out the fire and we all had to fucking continue school because of fucking course we would. so i went to my ap lang class and looked into the door window of the classroom and it didnt really look like it was on fire it looked more like one of the classrooms in corpse party…we held class in the class directly next to it with the other ap lang class and we were basically coloring. someone stole the seat i was sitting in when i got up for like a second. then like sparks started flying off god knows where and something caught fire and then i woke up.

wow this is already super long…ok well here goes my analysis of the dreams and my prediction.

so the reason im so insistent that i might actually lose my tooth is cause a lot of times, i can correctly predict the future. it happens a lot with dreams especially. like if you know me you probably know im kinda a little psychic ?? in some ways. so im kinda taking this recurring dream as an omen. anyways the fact that in all the ones i can remember, theres something that has to do with school and especially ap lang?? makes me think somethings gonna happen in there. i thought before, in the first dream, the whole ap lang part was because i had my ap exam coming up and i was nervous about it but now that ive finished that and stuff im not too sure. i feel like the karaoke gang will end up being the people i see on my merry way to the nurses office with the tooth in hand, especially dana who has a really big presence in the first and last dreams?? dana was in the karaoke scene, she was there when it fell out in the first dream, and she was in the cafe with me when the fire alarm went off. i think ill probably talk to her about it right after it happens..i dont think she’ll be the reason i get my tooth knocked out tho bc if it does happen in ap lang like i assume then she wouldnt be anywhere near me at the time. i believe the reason my drivers ed teacher was also there was because at the time i had the first dream, i was taking drivers ed. and he was probably marius cause i hate marius and him. also the bitch i hate was there cause i have dreams about her and i being friendly constantly so that means nothing in regards to my tooth. the fact that i was so shocked the tooth was cracked may be my dream just telling me that its gonna crack off and not that it just falls or is just plainly pulled out. my psychiatrist was there because the other day i was wondering when my next appointment was. and the whole stuff with the fire probably came from the fact that we had a fire drill the other day and it also may symbolize the panic and whatever when my tooth fucking breaks off in class. now how exactly do i think itll go down, based on the dream + other stuff??? well like i said, itll be in ap lang most likely. how does one chip off a tooth in fucking ap lang? well right now my teacher is teaching the chinese students that are visiting about american sports so he has a bunch of sports balls sitting on the table in the front of the room. before he comes into the classroom to start class, some kids pick up a ball and play with it for a while. so im guessing my shit luck will cause someone to accidentally hit me in the face with a ball, hard enough to break my tooth. i, or someone else, will then probably have to pull my cracked, loose tooth out of its socket. there will be tons of blood. i will walk to the nurses office and maybe at some point see dana and tell her what happened. and thats what the fuck ive been thinking about all day.

so ya tldr; some kid is gonna knock my tooth out in ap lang probably so

#WOO that was fuckign long #anyways ive accepted my fate i just want my tooth gone #dream log #the world according to britt

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miraculous-nights · 8 years ago

Text

Supervillians

Title: Chapter Five

Summary: Marinette was kidnapped when she was 6 and her cage was next to a boy in a similar situation. Tikki and Plagg renamed them to be Ladybug and Chat Noir, but they still don’t know who their companion really is. Suddenly, they are let loose into the world with no explanation.

Word Count: 2692

Rating: T

Note: This definitely is a short-ish chapter. Whoops, I posted this on both A03 and Fanfiction.net at school and forgot you wonderful people! So sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you waiting longer. I went through some writer’s block, so I think the next chapter will be up sooner.

Disclaimer: I sadly do not own Miraculous Ladybug or any of it’s characters…

“Lucky Charm!” Ladybug shouted for the first time since the current Tikki had used it a few weeks before a young girl named Marinette could be her only new friend.

A red paintbrush covered in black polka dots fell from above Ladybug’s raised fist and dropped into her other hand. There was white paint ready on the brush.

“You need to go home soon, so do the second half of the spell that fixes everything and then I’ll give you a bit of food before your dinner tonight,” Tikki said as Ladybug nodded.

“Miraculous Ladybug! How do I get out of this spandex?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. It’s called Spots Off!” Tikki began to get up and walk around for a minute while Ladybug rolled her shoulders.

“Spots Off!” A flash of pink light filled the room and Marinette collapsed to the floor. She sighed as her stomach growled.

“That’s it. Here’s some high protein granola bars. Up you go, keep hold of me and we can get back to the park very soon. Yes, we still have over twenty minutes until you have to be home, and guess what? It only takes ten minutes to get you home!”

“Okay,” Marinette mumbled as Tikki began to drag her towards the door. “I can walk, let me go,” she slurred before Tikki let her go. She promptly started to fall yet again before Tikki grabbed onto her once more.

“Nope. Eat your granola bar. It’s like you’re drunk and tired. If you puke on me, you are most definitely buying me new designer shoes. Maybe a Chanel purse.” Tikki said as she opened the packaging of one bar and stuffed multiple bars into her hands. After gaining back some strength that she had lost, Marinette unhooked herself from Tikki and rolled her neck.

“How long do I have until I have to be home?” Marinette asked Tikki as she grabbed onto her arm in order to disappear before they left Miraculous.

“Fifteen minutes, it takes ten to get you to the park and we originally had twenty if you hadn’t acted so stupidly,” Tikki snapped at her and set a brisk pace. She was annoyed, Marinette could find that out herself beut she didn’t understand the why. Then again, she had never understood the why from Tikki’s point of view. “Meet me at the park tomorrow night right after school.”

“Why?”

“Do you think I deserve to tell you my plans? I haven’t told you my plans for the past nine years.”

In the metro, Marinette almost let go of Tikki before realizing what that would ensue. Panic among the people around her, a girl showing up out of nowhere. Although she stepped out of a dark van that sped off quickly from a park that nobody cared about her.

In the train car, she let herself loose the time to the clicking of the tracks without being afraid of her magic taking over the sound. Tikki was right that her magic would be mostly blocked off as Marinette now, which wasn’t bad. Sitting in class with a pencil writing for her would be nice, but it might scare Alya, her only friend. Unless you counted Adrien and Nino, but Marinette thought she worried them because of her stumbling through words. It was just Adrien, really, that she was worried about. Adrien, whose golden head was nicer looking practically every period throughout the day.

He had a nice head, and cute eyes, she had decided. Sure they were very green, a pleasant reminder of her kitty. Chat always had to wear these weird contacts as he got older that made his eyes look like cat eyes. He hated them, but if he took them off Plagg would have done something worse to them that beatings. Plagg would have turned off the light. Plagg could have them separated and kept in different places, alone with or without lights. Being alone in the dark was the worst fear either of them had in that place.

Tikki let her off at the park and nobody noticed a girl magically appearing out of thin air. Tikki explained that anyone who saw her before she let go couldn’t see her until they saw her a second time. She was just a passing face between strangers to anyone.

Dinner was an interesting thing that night. Marinette was less hungry than she thought, and had already surprised her parents by taking so much food. It was delicious, but those protein bars that she ate had filled her up much more than she thought. Tom ate her leftovers, and he finished them quickly.

Retreating to her room after some awkward conversations between both parents about her day and appetite, she laid down on the chaise that still had dust in it. She figured it would probably stay there forever, woven into the fibers of the cloth. She ran fingers over the seams of it, and studied the embroidery. It was simple stitching, back and forth in the pattern by a machine.

She stood up and looked at the dress form she had. There was plenty of supplies to start learning and she had the computer her parents got. She looked up how to make dresses and started her first project.

After an hour, Marinette looked at what she had accomplished. It was decent, something between a dress and something unknown. The torso was there, but the sleeves were all scrunched up around where she had tried to connect them to the dress. A spot in the middle of the torso had also been messed up and was curled in on itself. She wasn’t sure how she did it, but attaching a brooch to the spot made it look intentional. Marinette didn’t know what to do with the sleeves, so she bunched up the collar and made it a bit wider to look like it went with the dress theme. Pleated sleeves and a pleated collar made it seem like a thing, but the pleats and brooch made it too much.

Pretending like the way she cut out the fabric wasn’t the issue, it was an okay attempt. Feeling happy with doing something, she put it into the corner and got ready for bed. Her homework was mostly finished, and she finished it up before climbing up to her bed.

Marinette was ready to fall asleep, but she stayed up thinking. It was hard not to contemplate the reasons behind Tikki’s methods of teaching her. To take her where Plagg was, to let her know what the place was called. She focused on Miraculous, the gym on the outside and secret… lair on the inside? If Tikki wasn’t lying about the mysterious Hawkmoth, then is the secret Miraculous still a secret lair? It looked more like a den where old friends that are the only ones able to see each other drink together.

She loved the studio, though. Everything about the studio was beautiful. The dust sitting in mid air, catching the light to make it glow silver. The wooden floor that was losing its polish and beginning to age, and the mirrors. The mirrors that lined up one wall that had her love from the moment she saw them. Beautiful things, mirrors were. Marinette liked the fancy ones as a child, and didn’t see them in the cage. Now, she understood that mirrors showed who she really was.

Mirrors carried her to sleep peacefully, but it was a nightmare that woke her up. She was in a room only made of mirrors. She stared in wonder that each mirror she focused on would lead to a fantastical world of myths, while mirrors around her showed her reflection. The mirrors started to break behind her until she turned, then the mirrors she had turned away from would break until there was nothing left but her and the mirror below her. Cracks formed before she woke.

She laid there until her breathing leveled out and she could sit up without a panic attack. Terrified about what it meant, she got up and went to her computer. The clock read 4:28 in the morning, and she opened up a search in Google and searched myths about mirrors. Her windows were beginning to let light through before she closed the tab and went to get ready for school. She looked at herself in the mirror and noticed a hairline crack in the mirror.

She arrived at school while the bell rang. Slipping quietly into her seat late, Mlle Bustier let it pass because of how good Marinette knew how to listen. She was lecturing on the last chapter they had to read in Les Miserables, just like the day before. The book started off quite boring, but Marinette was interested in what was going on in Fantine’s life before Jean Valjean had swept into her life. There was an american movie that she heard had cut out all of Fantine’s life before Cosette was in the innkeeper’s care, so she didn’t think she’d bother with the subtitles.

She listened to Mlle Bustier lecture endlessly, but really didn’t listen to the words. Marinette did what she did on the train that day. She took background sounds and focused on them alone, in order to pick out different sounds. There was a vent above her somewhere that was making a different sound than the day before, an almost breath as it blew air out of the ceiling. She quieted her own breaths, trying to make out sounds barely there.

It was just a game to her. An old game, actually. Her mom would have her sit on the ground as a child, and listen for the quietest things she could hear and describe them to her mother and see if she could find them. Then, her mother would repeat the game back to her until one of them couldn’t hear something that the other could. She played it with Chat when they were new friends and she had won most of the time.

She picked out the sounds hidden between the low whispers in the back of class and the paper rustling between page flips when students looked for a certain passage. She smiled at the sound that was just barely there, a sound she had picked out everywhere. When she was alone, eating dinner, in class, even on a busy street. A thrumming sound, beating like her heart. She had taken her pulse and measured the sound. It was faster than her heartbeat, and she had come to one conclusion. Her magic was a beast, beating with its power inside of her softer than a heartbeat, yet when she listened for it alone it could have been the only sound in the world.

She listened to the softer sound she had heard before in the classroom. I beat that was opposite her own magic. They beat in time, in turn. She didn’t always hear it, but she had recognized it before. She had heard both of those beats before, in a dark room with a single lightbulb.

It was distant from the fact that the beat wasn’t coming from her, but a person in the classroom. If he didn’t sit near to her, she probably wouldn’t have heard it. She had figured out who Chat Noir most likely was, but she wasn’t going to tell him or Tikki. Or Plagg, since she most likely see him wherever Tikki wanted to go tonight.

The bell rang, and she stood up with Alya, following her motions listlessly for a moment. Alya looked like she wanted to snap in front Marinette’s face before Marinette smiled at her friend. She wondered why Alya liked her so much, the girl who spaced out in class and could barely keep time in order.

“Alya, remind me that I need to ask my mom for a watch, would you? With my luck, I’ll forget before I even leave the next class,” she said before sighing.

“Girl, with your luck, we’ll be late for the next class!” Alya huffed before grabbing her arm and dragging her to Maths Class with Mme Mendeleiev.

They sat in class together, time dragging on yet again. Marinette listened to Mme Mendeleiev, and she took more notes than she expected to take. She stared at Adrien’s golden head nod up and down while he looked up to listen and look down to write down his own notes. Then, she looked at the teacher again, studying her expressions when she took a pause and gave a pursed look at some students in the back.

“Nathanael, do you have any idea what the answer to this problem is?” Mme Mendeleiev was seeking a student who would have the right answer, but nobody wanted to raise their hands. He quietly answered her, with the correct answer. It was a setup problem, just how to take each variable and number out of the word problem and put it into the equation they had.

“Good, good,” Mme Mendeleiev muttered while she turned to the board, “And these numbers all add up to… 273.8. That was the number we were looking for but if you would like a double check, take all of the numbers and cross check the original equation with the numbers we took from the original word problem.”

She turned to the students and moved aside for students on the edge of the classroom to be able to see the full problem. Nobody seemed impressed, but it was a school classroom.

“So class, now that we have all the examples finished, the homework is page 165, numbers three through fifteen. You have the rest of class to work on that, about twenty minutes.” Mme Mendeleiev went to her desk and started to check papers while the class started talking about the latest gossip.

“I heard that a girl was found, strung high from smoking, in her teacher’s closet. It was across Paris of course, Daddy wouldn’t let me go to such a disgusting school. There’s rumors that she was even having an affair with the teacher, or she was at least doing more than just smoking in that classroom,” Chloé said loudly as the chatter grew. “I can’t even believe it, it could make the news it was such a huge scandal. There was a scandal I read about that made super international news from America. Some nasty boys did things to their cooking class icing nastier than their personalities.”

Marinette tried to tune out Chloé, really. It was just so hard with her annoying voice that didn’t know what an inside volume was. She looked at the clock and pulled out a tangled pair of headphones to help her tune out the gossip table, surrounded by more and more people wanting to be included in Chloé’s elite circle.

With only five minutes left in the school day, Marinette fretted about what Tikki would want tonight. She didn’t have any homework that would take too long, so Tikki’s mystery activity would probably be her homework. She didn’t slip into her Ladybug persona anymore, it was helpful even if she had no access to magic without it.

She left the school and ran home, depositing her backpack in her room and telling her parents a white lie that she was hanging out with some friends. She said they decided on a place and she didn’t recognize the name. It wasn’t a total lie, but she still felt guilty.

Finally, Marinette went to the park to find Tikki. She looked around, but could only find a blonde boy with Plagg. She didn’t want to talk to Plagg, and she figured it was Chat. Chat Noir and her had never seen each other’s unpainted face, and they were threatened with beatings if they exchanged names. If they saw each other, Plagg would probably threaten to have Tikki snap both of their necks.

#supervillians #hey this is a thing today #ML #fanfic #ml fanfic #ladynoir #marichat #ladrien #adrienette #writers block finally over

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