Thor's Hammer
That day was a stormy, quiet one. The sky was dark all day and there the faint noises which thunder makes somewhere out of sight beyond the clouds. Eponine hid under a table someone had thrown out in the street and looked up anxiously. If she went out in the rain, everything would be slippery and cold and she would probably fall and kill herself. This was a highly dismal prospect, and she felt rather unhappy as she picked wood bits out of the table leg. The spot where she was sitting was getting nastily damp.
If only she could make the clouds go away. This was an interesting thought. Could you curse the clouds and made them hide? Or did you have to coax them off with coddling and nice words until they listened? Or did you instead order them firmly, the way her father did when he was in a good humour? What /did/ you do to make clouds go away? Perhaps you just spoke to them reasonably. But she did not know how to speak to anyone reasonably, so that was no good.
She was scraping the grit and dirt out from around a big cobblestone when someone came out and sat down on the table. That was interesting. Carefully, she poked her head out from under and saw two very blue eyes looking back at her, with yellow eyebrows that were raised.
This was a look her father often used to mean he was going to ask a few patient questions before he shouted and knocked everyone all about, so she tried very quickly to duck back under, but a brown hand caught her shoulder.
"It's going to storm. He's angry."
"Who?" she asked worriedly, tugging. The hand did not let her go.
"Who do you think? Thor. He's banging his hammer. You hear it, don't you?" The big mouth with a yellow moustache made growlish noises that she supposed were meant to be thunder. She nodded. "That's because he's angry."
"I thought it was the Devil."
"No, it's Thor. Loki makes fire, you stupid child."
"Loki?"
"Haven't you ever heard of Loki?"
She shook her head, still trying to pull away from the hand. The yellow eyebrows went up even further, and the yellow moustache moved as the voice spoke again.
"He makes fire and plays tricks. Bad tricks."
"Does he take little ones, like the gypsies?"
"Bloody gypsies! He's not a gypsy!" The hand shook her a little. "He's got wolf-children and burns all over him. D'you know why he's burnt?"
"No." She would have said 'M'sieur', normally, but she was starting to be angry with the blue eyes and the hand that wouldn't let go.
"Because he's chained inside the ground and snakes drip poison on him. All the time, everyday, they drip poison from their teeth. How'd you like that, eh? He's got a bowl he holds to keep it off, and it's heavy like hell, but it fills up and then the poison goes over the sides and spills. He's got a wife, too, and she empties it then, but all the while she's off, the poison gets all over him."
Eponine glared. "Isn't any such person! Let go!"
"Do you hear Thor banging his hammer?" the big mouth demanded angrily, and she pulled away very hard and ran.
After a bit, when she was all out of breath and her sides and her throat hurt, she stopped, cursing. She'd lost her table, and it was the only thing she'd found all day to keep the rain off. With a sigh and another curse, she stopped by a shop selling cloth and stood by the window. At least there was a bit of a thing over the street there.
Suddenly she heard a little laugh and turned. "'Parnasse!"
"Poor little Eponine, standing out in the thunder. What's gone on?"
"I'd a table, but some bastard chased me out."
"The world is full of that sort of bastard. You could stay with me, mah cherie."
"Oh, all right."
"All right?" Montparnasse looked at her reproachfully, and Eponine frowned. When he went all hurt like that, he was usually annoyed.
"'M glad, but you've got holes in the roof, and the window don't shut."
"Eponine, you really must be more grateful," said Montparnasse, but he was smiling and meaning it, so Eponine relaxed as he put his arm about her shoulders. "Now, mah cherie, tell me about this bastard who chased you out."
That day was a stormy, quiet one. Several people passed by the street where a middle-aged man was sleeping under a table someone had put out. He was perfectly ignorant of the fact that he was going to die sometime later that evening, like Baldur when he'd been struck with mistletoe.
He would have been quite terrified to learn of the promise Montparnasse had made to Eponine after she'd told him about things; but Eponine, who had realised Montparnasse's place didn't have so many holes after all, was feeling much better.