A/N: Okay, so this is the first thing I've written in some months not for school. (Yes, I know it's pathetic.) Anyway, it was written for the revolutionbut July Flash Fic challenge. The point is to write for eight minutes straight, no more, no less, and see what you come up with. So I did. But be warned that this is the result of 8 minutes not-so-hard labor on my part, and it basically is not that great. In any case, I was told to post it here, so 'ere I am. I own nothing. NOTHING.
Be warned: I am a favorite target of the angst bunnies.
The name, Cosette, held a wealth of meaning for 'Ponine. But it could not be the same Cosette. This girl was beautiful. Silky hair, pale skin, red lips. Small, soft hands. Hands which had never done anything so base as stir a kettle or shear sheep. Hair which had always been brushed until it shone lke ebony in the candlelight. Skin which had never been chafed by a rough Paris wind. Certainly not the poor, shivering Lark Eponine remembered from a childhood long erased by years of street life.
And yet...where was this Lark? She had gone, vanished with a stranger in the night. Who was she now? Did she ever remember Ponine and Zelma, who had always kicked her about in perfect mimicry of their mother? Would she recognize her "playmates", now so drastically changed? These playmates, who once looked as this Cosette did now: beautiful. Clean, happy, fed. Until the Lark left...until, perhaps, the Lark stole their happiness and beauty, leaving behind only an imprint of their joy?
Yes. That was just the sort of thing she'd do, nasty little creature that she was. Living off their charity, stealing their bread, sneaking the bones from their meat. Trying to be one of them, trying to be like the two sisters. Always a nuisance, a bother. Someone to be as forgotten as quickly as possible, once she was gone.
But there, Eponine had disobeyed her Daddykins. She remembered the shivering little Lark.
No, not Lark. Cosette.
Cosette.
Okay, if you've read this far (not such a hard concept), you might take the extra 30 seconds to post a lovely little comment. And I wouldn't mind particularly if it contained some criticism as well. But that's just me shamelessly hinting.
-CC