* Meow *
I am walking down the street, hunched against the wind and rain. It bites through to the bone, this harsh gusting gale. The rain washes some of the blood from me, but not much of it. My single-minded desire is to get out of the wetness, find a way to block the cold, but I know it'll never happen. I've nowhere to go. "Home" is not a word in my vocabulary - I dare not go there. Mine isn't a home but a prison, in which my son-of-a-bitch father is the warden and head slave driver. The bastard treats his friends and partners in crime such as an indulgent father would treat his favorite son. And in this case that favorite son is Marc Montparnasse. My father is dead to me. The only part of him he left behind is the cruel shell of his being that cares only for money and his own greed, the part of him willing to sell his own daughter to be the mistress of a man who neither cares for me nor gives a damn about what damage he inflicts upon me. My father has sold me to Montparnasse. I am deathly afraid of that man - Montparnasse, not my father. My father can be dealt with. 'Parnasse is a different matter altogether. If I came upon his dead an mangled body lying in the gutter somewhere I would feel sorry for the street, as this hideous rat of a human being has the nerve to lay there and defile the stones beneath him. The same goes for my father. These thoughts of bitter hatred fill my mind as I storm down the street to the bridge. If I hide under it on the bank it could provide some respite from this bleak Parisian weather. I hope.
As I continue to walk, drowning in my misery and loathing for the world and what it has done to me, I almost don't hear the piteous mewling of a small animal shivering close to the wall of some old dingy building. I stop to see where it's coming from. My eyes light on the body of the cat, soaked to the bone and half frozen like I am, and shivering worse than I am. For some reason I pity the thing. I stop to scoop up the little creature and continue on my journey to the bridge. She shivers in my hand, and I tuck her into a pocket on the inside of my threadbare old coat trying in vain to keep her warm. I do have some semblance of a heart in me, contrary to what the rest of the human race seems to think.
When I reach the bridge I walk underneath it and I lean my back against the lee of it to block the rain and wind and to stay reasonably dry. I slide down to the ground and I take the cat out of my pocket. She shakes herself off, splattering droplets of water on my face. She looks up at me and mews.
:What do you want from me?: I think, :I have nothing to give you.:
It mews again, louder this time. I scratch behind her little ears, one of them torn, and she purrs.
:Happy now?:
When she tires of my petting her, she stands up in my lap and puts her front paws on my stomach, staring up at my face, as if to get a better look at me.
:Now you can see I'm not much to look at.: I think. I picture my face in my mind, grime-smudged, ugly muddy brown eyes too large for the face they are housed in, dirty wet hair falling like sodden strings around it. Not the prettiest thing in the world. Well, I'm an eyeful, if nothing else.
:I could've been pretty. If my father hadn't lost all our money. If we never had to leave the Waterloo Inn and my parents gave a damn about what happened to me.:
She mews again.
:Now what?:
I fish around in my pocket for any scraps of food I might've shoved in it at some point in time. I find bits and shreds of various papers - a sketch of something (the Seine, I think - my one talent is sketching things. I've never been good at anything else), and a letter I'm supposed to deliver for my father. I take it out and fling it to the river. I'm at the point where I could care less about what my father wants done. I'm still seething at the bastard and I'm sure I'll never forgive him for giving me life in the first place, let alone for what he just did to me. I don't know if even life's worth all the manners of hell I've been put through. I'm just someone else for that hellspawn of a father of mine to push around and try to bend (or, in my case) break to his will. He hasn't broken me yet, but I'm not sure how much more I can take.
Digging deeper in my pocket, I come across an extremely hard scrap of bread from a few daws ago.
:Better than nothing.:
I hold it out to the cat. She takes it in both front paws and gnaws on it hungrily.
:Well, you're welcome.:
Halfway through her meal, she looks up at me once more and mews.
:Meow to you, too.:
She just looks at me with liquid teal eyes.
:What?:
"Meow."
I stroke her fur absentmindedly as I look away, out to the river.
:I could've been this cat in a former life. If I believed in former lives.:
I think on it. I really could've been. It's like me, in some twisted little feline manner. Except for the fact I've got no one to find me shivering in the rain and take pity on me and feed me and be my friend.
:I'd rather be the mangy little cat.: I think bitterly.
:Well, Eponine Renee Thenardier, stop your self-pity and accept things the way they are. You are not a cat. You are a dingy little gamine whom no one in their right mind would give a damn about.: the common-sense part of me makes sure to say.
:But it's not my fault!: that little shred of my soul hidden in the back of my mind cries out, soon to be suppressed by the far larger part of me ruled by common sense and desperation.
I look back down at the cat. She meets my gaze, my muddy brown vision meeting her brilliant teal blue. She's finished what little food I gave her, and she climbs up to my shoulder, propping her paws there. She stretches out her neck to rub her head against my cheek. I smile wanly. She purrs and runs her tongue over my my skin, leaving a slightly paler, less-dirty streak there. I laugh. Seemingly satisfied with herself, she hops back down to my lap. From there, back to the ground. She mews again as if to say thank you, and starts off into the rain.
I watch her retreating tail, a smudge of darker grey against the pallid buildings a short distance away. She turns around one last time and I wave. She mews and continues on.
I watch her until she's faded into the washed-out landscape, long gone, the rain fading to little more than a misty drizzle. I miss her already. She's a resilient scrawny little thing, I'll give her that much.
She's not the only one who can be a resilient scrawny little thing.
I pick myself up and walk back the way I had come, with a new spark of will that was never there before to light my way.
I am walking down the street, hunched against the wind and rain. It bites through to the bone, this harsh gusting gale. The rain washes some of the blood from me, but not much of it. My single-minded desire is to get out of the wetness, find a way to block the cold, but I know it'll never happen. I've nowhere to go. "Home" is not a word in my vocabulary - I dare not go there. Mine isn't a home but a prison, in which my son-of-a-bitch father is the warden and head slave driver. The bastard treats his friends and partners in crime such as an indulgent father would treat his favorite son. And in this case that favorite son is Marc Montparnasse. My father is dead to me. The only part of him he left behind is the cruel shell of his being that cares only for money and his own greed, the part of him willing to sell his own daughter to be the mistress of a man who neither cares for me nor gives a damn about what damage he inflicts upon me. My father has sold me to Montparnasse. I am deathly afraid of that man - Montparnasse, not my father. My father can be dealt with. 'Parnasse is a different matter altogether. If I came upon his dead an mangled body lying in the gutter somewhere I would feel sorry for the street, as this hideous rat of a human being has the nerve to lay there and defile the stones beneath him. The same goes for my father. These thoughts of bitter hatred fill my mind as I storm down the street to the bridge. If I hide under it on the bank it could provide some respite from this bleak Parisian weather. I hope.
As I continue to walk, drowning in my misery and loathing for the world and what it has done to me, I almost don't hear the piteous mewling of a small animal shivering close to the wall of some old dingy building. I stop to see where it's coming from. My eyes light on the body of the cat, soaked to the bone and half frozen like I am, and shivering worse than I am. For some reason I pity the thing. I stop to scoop up the little creature and continue on my journey to the bridge. She shivers in my hand, and I tuck her into a pocket on the inside of my threadbare old coat trying in vain to keep her warm. I do have some semblance of a heart in me, contrary to what the rest of the human race seems to think.
When I reach the bridge I walk underneath it and I lean my back against the lee of it to block the rain and wind and to stay reasonably dry. I slide down to the ground and I take the cat out of my pocket. She shakes herself off, splattering droplets of water on my face. She looks up at me and mews.
:What do you want from me?: I think, :I have nothing to give you.:
It mews again, louder this time. I scratch behind her little ears, one of them torn, and she purrs.
:Happy now?:
When she tires of my petting her, she stands up in my lap and puts her front paws on my stomach, staring up at my face, as if to get a better look at me.
:Now you can see I'm not much to look at.: I think. I picture my face in my mind, grime-smudged, ugly muddy brown eyes too large for the face they are housed in, dirty wet hair falling like sodden strings around it. Not the prettiest thing in the world. Well, I'm an eyeful, if nothing else.
:I could've been pretty. If my father hadn't lost all our money. If we never had to leave the Waterloo Inn and my parents gave a damn about what happened to me.:
She mews again.
:Now what?:
I fish around in my pocket for any scraps of food I might've shoved in it at some point in time. I find bits and shreds of various papers - a sketch of something (the Seine, I think - my one talent is sketching things. I've never been good at anything else), and a letter I'm supposed to deliver for my father. I take it out and fling it to the river. I'm at the point where I could care less about what my father wants done. I'm still seething at the bastard and I'm sure I'll never forgive him for giving me life in the first place, let alone for what he just did to me. I don't know if even life's worth all the manners of hell I've been put through. I'm just someone else for that hellspawn of a father of mine to push around and try to bend (or, in my case) break to his will. He hasn't broken me yet, but I'm not sure how much more I can take.
Digging deeper in my pocket, I come across an extremely hard scrap of bread from a few daws ago.
:Better than nothing.:
I hold it out to the cat. She takes it in both front paws and gnaws on it hungrily.
:Well, you're welcome.:
Halfway through her meal, she looks up at me once more and mews.
:Meow to you, too.:
She just looks at me with liquid teal eyes.
:What?:
"Meow."
I stroke her fur absentmindedly as I look away, out to the river.
:I could've been this cat in a former life. If I believed in former lives.:
I think on it. I really could've been. It's like me, in some twisted little feline manner. Except for the fact I've got no one to find me shivering in the rain and take pity on me and feed me and be my friend.
:I'd rather be the mangy little cat.: I think bitterly.
:Well, Eponine Renee Thenardier, stop your self-pity and accept things the way they are. You are not a cat. You are a dingy little gamine whom no one in their right mind would give a damn about.: the common-sense part of me makes sure to say.
:But it's not my fault!: that little shred of my soul hidden in the back of my mind cries out, soon to be suppressed by the far larger part of me ruled by common sense and desperation.
I look back down at the cat. She meets my gaze, my muddy brown vision meeting her brilliant teal blue. She's finished what little food I gave her, and she climbs up to my shoulder, propping her paws there. She stretches out her neck to rub her head against my cheek. I smile wanly. She purrs and runs her tongue over my my skin, leaving a slightly paler, less-dirty streak there. I laugh. Seemingly satisfied with herself, she hops back down to my lap. From there, back to the ground. She mews again as if to say thank you, and starts off into the rain.
I watch her retreating tail, a smudge of darker grey against the pallid buildings a short distance away. She turns around one last time and I wave. She mews and continues on.
I watch her until she's faded into the washed-out landscape, long gone, the rain fading to little more than a misty drizzle. I miss her already. She's a resilient scrawny little thing, I'll give her that much.
She's not the only one who can be a resilient scrawny little thing.
I pick myself up and walk back the way I had come, with a new spark of will that was never there before to light my way.