ConcreteAngelRoxHerHalo- STFU. And, haha, maybe... I actually really like that. Chapter after next, because I want to have some Ceara/Bahorel brother/sisterish things because it's relevant in the end.
TheIbis2010- I read a story with Cosette/Courfeyrac and I fell in absolute love with Courfy. And, I tend to be in the habit of shipping Eponine with my current favorite barricade boy (That was Grantaire for a long time... IN a somewhat platonic-we-bondover-unrequited-love-sorta-thing. Thanks for the compliments! I usually am TERRIBLE at writing OC's, so that means a lot. :)
Kansas- Thank you so much! I love Gavroche too, by the way. (I was going to do a Ceara's little sister/Gavroche thing but then this chapter happened)
stagepageandscreen- Tell my parents and professors that, please? ;)
Guest- YOU READ MY MIND.
Henri flipped through the rest of the textbook, passing over random sketches of everyday objects. There were several drawings of Ceara and random Amis, alas there were no labels telling of the dates. Along with these, there were several almost risqué sketches of Enjolras, and Henri found his neck prickling with a blush from some of the compromising positions his blond cousin had been drawn in.
He scanned through the last pages in the textbook with a vague interest. Nothing struck as particularly special in his memory, and those last few images were obviously mere more than doodles to Grantaire. They were obviously drawn with his unique skill, but carelessly so. He was ready to close the book and make plans to contact Grantaire's concierge in the morning when he came to the end of the book and stopped. The room seemed to drop several degrees. There was a full-blown painting on the back cover of the textbook, and it procured an image that was sure to haunt Henri.
Based on some of the rounder lines, Henri could tell that Grantaire painted it from memory. The colors were of a morbidly dark palate. Since it was the first fully colored work of Grantaire's that Henri had seen, he was shocked at the roughness with which the paint was applied, as if Grantaire was using the paintbrush as a pencil. It depicted a dark street in winter time, with gray snow dotting the painting. Snow of the same dismal color covered the cobblestones. Henri's eyes followed the snow, until his eyes hit something that he started at. It wasn't snow, nor was it part of the road. Only when he followed the object up did he realize that it was a bare foot, belonging to someone who melted into Grantaire's painted shadows. From the cut of the dress that was just barely visible, Henri recognized the person.
The macabre scene was completed with the terrible background that consisted of the black, starless sky and a single light in the entire image, a street lamp in the near distance that was just enough light to differentiate Ceara from the shadows that appeared to have small arms and teeth, reaching out to grab at the poor girl who stood in the stance of one in intense thought. There was no clever title on this one, instead a date scribbled as an afterthought in the bottom corner. In white pastel, it was written:
December, 1831.
There are moments in one's life in which despair overcomes all else and swallows someone's heart, damning said organ for no set amount of time. This form of grief freezes one's muscles and stiffens their joints, causing them to appear indifferent and uncaring, unable to create emotion. It is different from a normal mourning, in which tears are shed and curses are uttered to the heavens. No. Emotional pain that comes from shock is almost worse, for the mourner believes that they are dysfunctional and unable to show their remorse. It mixes guilt with grief, and once this strange stage fades, the normal one replaces it. Some have been known to never leave it. Their eyes become dead and their faces stone.
This was Ceara's emotional state when Feuilly spotted her on rue de la Chanverrie. At first he wasn't sure that it was indeed her, for she appeared almost a spector amongst the flurries that floated from the cloudy night sky. As he crept closer, though, and her image neither wavered nor vanished, he hurried his steps to speak with her. For it was past dark and she was standing dangerously near a wine shop from which drunken men could emerge and harass her.
Feuilly was notably humble and easily capable of affection. He and Ceara bonded over their shared status as orphans, and he was quite appalled when she mentioned that she was no true citizen of either Ireland or France. She was an illegal immigrant to France, having crossed the sea by stowing away with her siblings aboard a merchant's ship. Her papers were destroyed in a chaotic village fire in which their church was decimated.
Although Feuilly was not a rich man by any means (he worked long hours for his three francs a day), he had a coat and a small garret on a side street by the Seine. He was shocked that his friend stood in the snow with neither coat nor shoes. He'd always assumed that she was an apprentice for a seamstress or a washerwoman, but it now became clear to him that his fellow orphan was but a street girl, alone in the cold on a day so close to Christmas.
He came up to her and laid a careful hand on her shoulder. To his surprise, she did not flinch or even turn towards him. She made no move to acknowledge his presence, which added to Feuilly's worry. And, underneath his gloved hand, he could feel her small body trembling from something other than the cold. In the dim light of the nearby street lamp, her lips were discolored and her face pale.
"Ceara? Come, we must bring you inside. It is far too cold."
But when he tried to move her, she stood fast, refusing to move her swollen, red feet from their spot in the slushy snow. It was only then that he followed her blank gaze to the gutter, and his heart ached with sudden realization. He gasped, just a little, for it was a terrifying sight to behold. And he knew then that she needed more to urge her to move.
The door to the back room opened again, revealing neither Ceara nor Courfeyrac (the most notably present members who were not currently in attendance), but Feuilly, the fan-maker. About to chastise his worker friend for his late arrival, Enjolras paused to frown slightly at the sad look on Feuilly's face.
"What has happened?" Asked Enjolras. "Are the police on our tracks? I heard they arrested our brothers down in the Latin Quarter." The blond man's face, already fair, turned an even lighter shade at this terrible thought. How could they hope to accomplish something if they are in La Force?
"Non, mon ami." Feuilly answered in a tone that he meant to sound reassuring. However, he rather sounded quite nervous and rushed, such a demeanor that a forced smile presents. "Although, one of our members has encountered a slight… altercation… by the Corinth."
"Has Courfeyrac been thrown out by his mistress? Is he drinking his sorrows like a good man?" Grantaire asked, and Enjolras shot him a sharp look.
"Grantaire," Said he who was made of marble, "I would appreciate if you could attempt to be more serious."
"Alas, Apollo, if one is not merry and drunk than one is cynical! And have you not expressed extraordinary disinterest towards my latter behavior?"
"It is Ceara." Feuilly said, his voice carrying through the chatter. Grantaire was the first one who really reacted, he stood clumsily, grasping onto the nearest solid object to support him. Unfortunately, that happened to be Enjolras, who snarled and shrugged him away. The blonde's face had paled even more upon hearing her name.
"Is she…" Jehan's voice trembled as he asked. Feuilly shook his head, and Joly very quickly joined in the raising concerns over their youngest member's health.
"Sick? Has she come down with consumption? Influenza? Pneumonia? Hypothermia?" Joly rattled off the various illnesses that one could acquire during the colder months. However, Feuilly just shook his head, a dusting of snow lightly clouding from his sandy hair.
"No, but she may catch something. She is just standing in the cold." Feuilly's voice shook, remembering what lay in the gutter. "And I worry for what thoughts she may be thinking."
"And you did not force her to come?" Bahorel, always the one to resort to the physical means to accomplish things, was taken down with a shake from Feuilly.
"I feel as though she would break under my touch. And," He looked to Enjolras and Combeferre, the two who thought most clearly in times of need. "She has neither shoes nor coat."
"I shall go speak with her. Wine cask, we may need you." Enjolras shot back, and went to leave. First he exchanged a few words with Combeferre over the nature of the meeting. (They needed more ammunition, which was increasdingly more difficult to come by as the govermnat became aware of ther plans)
"And why, may I ask, am I required for such a noble quest?" Grantaire took a deep gulp of bourbon, and Feuilly pointed at it.
"She will most certainly need a drink."
"Also, you were the one of us she met first. How your first impression did not drive her out of France, I do not know." Enjolras grimaced in something that was probably intended to be a smile. As the three men exited the back room, Bossuet murmured something to Joly.
"Did Marcel Enjolras just tell a joke?"
Meanwhile, at the entrance to the café, Enjolras stopped Feuilly from joining them with a simple raised hand.
"Feuilly, do not be simple minded," (One must occasionally cringe at Enjolras' bluntness and inability to tell when he has crossed the line) "You have just come from a long walk. Rest." Before kind-hearted Feuilly could protest, Enjolras stopped him again by gently tugging on the collar of his coat. "If you wish to assist us, you could lend your coat. She has no protection, she will need something."
Feuilly agreed, albeit reluctantly, and retreated back to the rest of the group. Enjolras and Grantaire, the most contrasting pair on the streets that night, left on a mission to find a broken girl with her mind in the grave.
There she was, on rue de la Chanverrie, just as Feuilly said. Enjolras stopped at the sight of such a small, slender (only then did he consider that perhaps she was skinny from lack of food) girl standing with little to no protection against the freezing winds. He shifted Feuilly's coat in his arms, ready to confront her for being so silly to have them all worried.
(If someone tried to say that he was the one who worried the most, he would frown and ignore the question because there was no way he could downright refuse that assumption)
However, Grantaire drunkenly grabbed his bare wrist (he hadn't time to put on his gloves when he left).
"Do not stir her." It sounded like a slurred warning, but for what?
"Excusez-moi?" Enjolras asked. Grantaire wisely refused the pointed use of the formal verb tense and elaborated on his observations.
"She is mourning someone. Her stance is hopeless, and she is shaking not from cold but from restrained sobs. It is unadvisable to approach a crying woman, for how does one comfort a beautiful, sad creature? Pretty things aren't meant to be sad, it distracts from their appeal, which makes women more self-aware in their despair. Thus being, a man in their crying presence will incense them to the point of unbelievable frustration." Grantaire said, but Enjolras rolled his eyes (as blue as Ceara's lips were at that point).
"She is no more than a girl." And with that, Enjolras approached her and, without saying a word, he wrapped Feuilly's coat around her shoulders and gently rubbed her arms through the thin fabric of her dress sleeves. (He was no expert in affectionate gestures, but he had once seen his father do such a thing when his mother complained of the cold on a long carriage trip) She leaned ever so slightly into his caressing hands, which he took to be a good sign.
Ceara's eyes were fixated on a small form that Enjolras took the time to observe, and his blood ran cold. Had he not had her under his hands at that moment, he would have believed that it was his companion laying in the gutter like a piece of discarded trash. Indeed, Ceara was staring at the stiff body of a young girl.
Past the first glance, the differences became clearer to Enjolras. The dead girl's hair was golden once, although it had since been dulled by grime and death. Her build was taller, lither. Ceara, had she been fed, would have been petite and perhaps even curvy. Also, the other was notably younger, by at least three years. However, they had the same bold cheekbones, the same chin, and the same cupid's bow lips. Indeed, it was far too easy for Enjolras to imagine the child's body as Ceara's. It did not help matters that Ceara's lips were steadily growing to be the same terrifying shade of blue, and her skin was nearly as sickly.
The first stage of mourning passed with a single, broken sob, and she nearly collapsed, but Enjolras uncomfortably supported her. She managed to hold herself together after the initial outburst. She stood straight with much trouble, and her face was gaining a red shade. Tears slipped down her cheeks and her lip quivered. Ceara appeared to be tougher than they expected, for a woman. She managed to force her face into a blank mask that could make the marble man himself jealous.
"Come." Enjolras said, gently. "It will not help if you catch your death as well."
A few feet away, Grantaire cringed. But his blunt-edged words appeared to have the right effect, for Ceara's numb feet slowly turned so that she was facing Enjolras's wide expanse of a chest. There she clung to him, creating a surprised expression on his face that many would pay a fortune to see. T was from the recesses of Enjolras's overcoat that she finally spoke.
"Monsieur?" Her voice cracked, revealing her inner turmoil. Against his better judgment, Enjolras gingerly wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer to his body. (For heat, he told himself. It wouldn't due for Ceara to catch a bout of Pneumonia). "She was my sister."
(If one tried to imply that Enjolras enjoyed her closeness, he would shrug and say that it was nothing. But really, it was everything.)
"I know." Answered Enjolras. I know."
Enjolras was none too pleased with his men's distraction from plans for La Republique, but he couldn't very well stop them without feeling like a terrible human being. He was just as unpleased with the copious amounts of whisky that Ceara was consuming at an alarming rate.
"What was her name again?" Jehan asked, gently. "Evelyn?"
"Aoibheann." She corrected, her voice just a touch thicker than usual. "Aoibheann Niamh, isn't that beautiful?"
"Yes, it truly is." Jehan was the best at comforting. He was so gentle spoken and he understood woman and children better than the rest. After all, Ceara was a mix of the two. Despite her street-gained wisdom, she was still younger than seventeen.
"She was always the pretty one…" Ceara continued, a strange smile ghosting her features, resulting in a rather grotesque sight. "She was always so healthy looking, rosy almost. Ironic, non? I haven't seen her in two years; even in death she remained so damn pretty."
"How old was Aoibheann when she passed?" Courfeyrac asked, and Ceara shot him a fleeting nasty glare, thinking he was dwelling on what could have happened with her younger sister. When she saw his green eyes, usually so mischievous, widened in sincerity, she sighed and took another deep gulp of whisky.
"She would have been thirteen tomorrow." Ceara said, softy. There was a whoosh-ing sound as some of them exhaled slowly, at the same time.
None of them took any notice of the drunk in the corner. Enjolras and Combeferre were pouring over notes, some for class and some for the new France. Bahorel had left after giving Ceara a well-meaning hair-ruffle which actually did relax her features a touch. The rest were attempting comfort, none besides Feuilly having truly lost a loved one before.
In the meantime, Grantaire was making a rough sketch on the inside of his textbook…
I'm sorry if this is bad, I didn't read it over because I'm on the job hunt and I wanted to get this posted before bed and I have to get up by six and I'm just DONE with summer and ready for classes because then I'm funded for food and stuff.