A/N So this is actually something I wrote for my British Literature class. We just finished Beowulf and we had to find a way to represent one of the three main battles in the novel in a new way. I wrote it as the battle of Grendel and then the battle of Grendel and his mother. I got a 97/100 on it. I'm not exactly thrilled by the grade, I think I deserved worse than that. I would greatly appreciate it if you guys would let me know what you think I deserve for a grade out of 100. Thank you.
June 6, 1833
"Look at them," Enjolras sneered as he watched the busy Paris streets, unseen and unheard. "They do not care that a year ago today men, and women," he quickly added when Eponine sent a glare his way, "gave their lives trying to win the freedom of the poor and downtrodden." Upon seeing a National Guardsman, Enjolras teleported in front of him and started to scream. "How do you not see this? How do you not see all the pain, all of the suffering that is around you. Two streets away a young girl is being raped and beaten by her father and all you care is that we, the rebels, the revolutionaries, the supposed danger are dead and gone. We no longer grace you mind as you cater to the bourgeois, and nothing can ruin that!"
"Monsieur, calm yourself!" Eponine barked as she drew near. "Maybe we do not grace their minds, nor their hearts. They are proud and rich. But you know as well as I, that the last execution is today. Today, that last of the revolutionaries will fall. We must be there. It may be our only chance to leave these place. This in between where we are condemned. Where we are damned."
"We are damned no matter what. God has no care for us. We prayed for the people to rise. To hear our call. And look what has happened to us. Look what has become of instead. We sit here. We walk the streets of Paris unseen and unheard," the fearless leader despaired.
"Apollo, we did all we could," Grantaire comforted him. "For some the grief is still far too near. But you know as well as I that what happened a year ago is only the start of the revolution. The people will rise, just like in your histoires and speeches. It will merely take time."
"We charged in too fast," Courfeyrac said as he joined them after his visit to the Café Musain. "We may think that we planned accordingly but we were too rash, too young to really see what needed to be done in order to win. We thought a few days fighting would, a few school boys calling for help from the people would get the king off his throne."
"Courfeyrac is right," Combeferre said as he came upon them. "Even the first revolution years before we were born took time. It didn't happen overnight like we thought it would.
"I remember that in University I had to read an old British novel. It was more like an epic poem. I was reading it the other day and-"
"Combeferre! How were you reading a book? We are dead. We are phantoms that are tethered to this world because we defied God!" Enjolras ranted, not an ounce of passion lost in his death, or rather his after death.
"It was late, no one was around in the book shop. I was bored," the scholar defended himself. "We can pick things up, we just can't drink, eat, or enjoy, er, other pleasures of the living. What we do pick up simply disappears."
"Why did you not tell us sooner?!" Eponine yelled at him.
"I didn't realize that you guys haven't figured it out. Can I finish what I was saying?"
"Please do Combeferre. I would like to know where you were going," Courfeyrac said to his friend.
"The poem was called Beowulf. The lead character had the same name and came to help a kingdom lead by a man named Hrothgar. The kingdom was being attacked by a monster named Grendel that was attacking because he was jealous of how the kingdom always felt so safe in their beds. He didn't know when his next meal would be eaten or from where. So he attacked them. He ended up eating the people.
"Beowulf killed the monster and sometime after, Grendels mother attacked them in revenge for her son's death, something that was being celebrated. We are Grendel, mostly Enjolras though. The monarchy, safe on their throne, Hrothgar. The National Guard that they call upon so often to protect them, the police, they are Beowulf."
"What are you trying to tell us, 'Ferre?" Grantaire asked.
"I was talking to Joly the other day. He managed to get a message to Musichetta while she was sleeping. He managed to tell her not to weep over him and Bossuet and to move on. What if we started to plant the seeds of a new revolution into the minds of the people while they sleep? It will take time, Joly needed a few tries to get Musichetta to move on."
"What do you mean Combeferre? That we can start a new revolution?" Eponine asked.
"Yes! We can control the situation. We can plant ideas in their heads while they sleep. Make sure that they don't make the same mistakes we did! We can start with Marius-"
"No! We leave Pontmercy alone. He is the only survivor from our side left that wasn't put on trial or captured. He needs to be left alone, lest we make his situation worse."
"Well, either way, my point is that we are both Grendel and Grendel's Mother. We are going to have our revenge. The only difference is, is that in the poem, Grendel and his mother died. We are going to live. We are going to be the ones to bring freedom to France"
"In that case, it's good thing that Grantaire can't get drunk again," Eponine said with a smirk. "And Gavroche will help."
February 23, 1848
"It finally happened," Eponine said. "It took 18 years, but the Orleans monarchy is finally over."
"It's not over yet Eponine," Enjolras said. "The king may be gone, we may have won this round, but think of all the pain, and how hard that was."
June 6, 1842
"You were there, you saw what happened," Grantaire whispered to a young man as he slept. "At Lamarques funeral, you saw us go prepare to go to our deaths. We died. Ten years ago. Don't let our hopes be in vain. You must continue the fight. Help take down the monarchy.
"Remember my words. République française. Liberté. Egalité. Fraternité."
Grantaire smirked in accomplishment as he hear the twenty year old mutter his words under his breath. His assignment done, he left to meet up with his friends and see they were faring.
He saw his friends laughing and sitting around the café. It was as if the barricades had never happened.
"To another year of planning!" Enjolras said as they all cheered. There were hugs and pats on the back, or in Grantaires case, staring wistfully at a rack of wine bottles.
February 23, 1848
"Where is your king now, Paris?!" a man in his mid twenties called from the top of an upturned carriage in the barricades. "Where is your Prime Minister?! They are gone! Your King is on his way to England! How will he help you from there! He has left! VIVE LE RÉPUBLIQUE! VIVE LE RÉPUBLIQUE!" he chanted as the crowd started to chant back.
Enjolras smirked. It had taken a long time. And it was not without loss. Enjolras looked behind him at the lost souls that his friends were comforting.
"God, guide them, protect them. Guide them through the times to come and protect them as they recover and change," Enjolras prayed as his friends stopped and looked on.
"It will be fine Enjolras," Combeferre comforted him. "Maybe the barricades had to rise again, but we always knew that it might have to happen."
"But did we really win?" Enjolras asked, starting to become engrossed in a memory.
Flashback
"To the barricades!" Enjolras screamed as everyone ran, some to the Café Musain.
The barricades were up in minutes, fitted to open to let in their spies. He watched as the National Guard came in the night, they were barely prepared. He watched as Eponine saved Pontmercy, losing her life in the process, the first to fall. He watched the lull as they sang and drank to better days, when all of Paris was safe from the monarchy, when it wasn't just the rich who had the pleasure of drinking all night and waiting when they were hungry. When half of Paris wasn't struggling to find their next scrap of a meal.
Gavroche, Eponine's little brother was the next to fall in the following morning, having snuck out of the barricade to get dry gunpowder and ammunition off of the dead soldiers, shot by the National Guard when he was only twelve years old. What happened next could only be called slaughter. He watched as some of his friends were run through with bayonets. Others shot, some dying instantly and some slowly and in pain. But it always ended the same. And in the end, it was him and Grantaire, nothing but their red flag to symbolise a new France, on the top floor of the Musain, next to the tiny window that overlooked the barricade, no weapons, and up against a firing squad.
End Flashback
"In the end, we lost that battle," Enjolras told his friend. "You were right, we are Grendel, but you were wrong about us also being Grendels mother. That role belongs to Patria. Patria, who used us to rise back up and through these new, young men and women rose up."
Flashback
The crowds surrounded the palace, flooded the streets and sang. The sang about how they would not be slaves again, how they would see tomorrow come and be a new day. It was the song of angry men. And women. A song that had been sung over fifteen years earlier at the June Rebellion, the men who died that day were their inspiration. They were the ones that they were avenging. They who were the ones who had their arms torn off and died slowly and painfully, their deaths celebrated and forgotten. But no longer. For they were seeking their revenge. It had been quiet and calm. None had expected the barricades to rise again, or the people to finally rise with them.
At the end of the day, only fifty-two were dead. And they had won the battle. Maybe they had been considered the monsters once upon a time, but now, they were the heroes that had defeated the monster.
In the end it had been a simple realization that Enjolras and the young man who had lead this new revolution came to the same conclusion while praying for luck in Notre Dame.
That in everything and everyone there is good and evil. It is the part of us that which we act on that defines us.