A/N: So, an annoying rodent has been tormenting me for the past few days. I was about ready to up and call animal services on it when someone politely informed me that it was a "plot bunny" and not something to be taken light of. Apparently, to get rid of it I have to do what it wants…. It's threatening to bite me unless I write this!
Éponine Jondrette was the best actress in the whole of Paris. She was so good, in fact, that no one even knew it. Her real emotions rarely surfaced, and the mask she wore was smooth and no cracks could be found. She would play a role to its full extent, all memories of her past life left behind as she immersed herself in the role.
You are a lady, she would tell herself, and she was. Her rags turned into silky clothes with one muttered word, and she took on the air of a rich, beautiful lady. To those who passed her by, she was nothing more than a bourgeois with nothing better to do than parade the streets in extravagant clothing, giggling behind her fan, and flirting with young and handsome bourgeois boys. She fooled those who saw her with ease, all the while expertly pocketing their fancy rings and wallets. At times she thought that she should feel some guilt, but she never thought much into it. Little they know, she chided, little they care.
Éponine spent her time this way, often a rich lady, some nights a whore, some days just the street rat she was. Her father had stopped paying for her efforts long ago, because he knew Éponine understood what the consequences would be if she refused to help him in his-for lack of a better word- business. Oh, Éponine knew far too well.
She had long stopped feeling anything- for the beatings, the guilt, the loneliness- yet, there was something that always made her heart twitch in ways she did not want it to, and that something was Marius Pontmercy. He saw her without her finery and accepted her for who she was. Marius Pontmercy accepted Éponine, but she knew he would never feel anything but pity and friendship for her.
In order to ease her heart, she would sometimes sneak into the revolutionary meetings he often attended. There, Éponine, dressed as a dirty gamin, was allowed to peek into a world she had never known. It was a world where everyone counted, where students spoke in loud voices of better days; a world where girls were not forced to whore themselves out to stay alive.
She knew she did not belong in this world, but it didn't hurt to pretend just for a little while. How much damage could one more little lie do?
Other than Marius, one of the young revolutionaries stood out from the rest. Their golden-haired leader, Enjolras, had been blessed with the gift that allowed him to captivate crowds with a sentence. He was a born leader, and although she knew that things could never change, when he spoke, she had no choice but to believe.
But then, when she felt she had outstayed her welcome, she would leave that room of dreams. Staring at the sun too long, a shadow could get burnt.
Every night, she would leave the meetings and go back to the streets, to her life where she was one in a million starving bodies begging for the gods on high to have mercy on their pitiful lives, one in a million girls dreading the nights of fear. Éponine was one of the miserables.
A/N: Was it good? I might continue, but I don't know... I actually liked how this turned out. I may just leave it as a one-shot. Also, I know what Hugo meant by Les Miserables... guys, I'm tired.