(AN: A dear friend linked me to a few fics this morning. It is for her that I'm putting up these three drabbles. They don't need to be linked together. One could easily take them as separate. She enjoys Marius/Eponine sans Cosette bashing and I despise bashing of any character. Thus, these drabbles.)
She grew up hearing stories of knights on horses. She learned of gentlemen when she became older. What few books she read spoke of romance and how the man was always the one to slay the beasts and rescue the damsel in distress. The princess or queen wouldn't be bothered with the hassles of ruling her kingdom and tended to seek adventure elsewhere.
The streets were her kingdom, and within them she held no responsibilities except to herself and sometimes to Azelma. She subsisted on a day to day plan of finding anything she could to eat. She moved fluidly but gracefully, her lithe being capable of doing so despite the rags that she wore. She sometimes paused to look at the prettier, cleaner garments that women wore, and found them both wonderful and very inconvenient. There was nowhere to hide a blade in all those ruffles and skirts. How could you outrun a gendarme in those shoes? The parasols would make weapons, but they weren't good compared to clubs and nightsticks.
She did not dream of dragons or princes. She dreamed of a faraway land that had food aplenty and a way out for herself and her younger sister, but every dream has an end, and Eponine kept hers on ice for now. If there was one thing she learned in life, it was the constant change. It was pointless to let go of a dream even if she was living harshly. Her hope kept her alive and her spirit kept her fast to escape from danger.
In time, she became her own prince.
In time, she found her own damsel in distress. He dressed in black and seemed to be in a constant state of woe. He noticed her presence from time to time but never when it counted. She kneed Montparnasse in the groin when he attempted to rob the young man. She mocked her father with Marius when she received the note and ate his bread. She kept him safe at the barricade from the dragons on the other side.
When all was said and done, she had come out the other side all the more fiesty. She always knew what little she was worth, but now she knew how much she was worth, and the two numbers contradicted one another.
She kissed him and it was meant to be for farewell. She didn't want tears. She wanted to be away from her life, to find somewhere new and exciting. Homeless, she may be, but she had wings and she had Azelma, and she would find them a new nest somewhere out of the filth of the city.
But then his hand clasped hers and he asked her not to depart from him.
And because Eponine was a noble knight, she could not stand to break his heart.