A/N: Not a single review... that bad, huh? Still, I'm not discouraged... yet. And again, I'd be glad to hear what you're thinking on the upcoming chapter, which might make clearer the direction in which I am aiming... I hope
Addendum: Small change due to an absolutely rightful criticism by Lady Aescwyn
Addendum 2: And another addition because judybear236 rightfully pointed out some mistakes. Thanks a lot!
Chapter 2: A slightly different Rue Plumet scenario
"Because the alternative is too terrible to consider. Without the hope that things will get better, that our inheriters will know a world that is fuller and richer than our own, life is pointless, and evolution is vastly overrated."
They never carried names. They had no use for them.
They knew each other by faces, and the fact that they all shared the same speech, the same knowledge, and followed the same shadowy path.
There were six of them, a band of brothers, and even though they had no use for names, they had use for distinctions among them, and thus they were, the Juggler, the Friend, the Shadow, the Knife, the Boy and the Hound.
There had been a Gun once among them, in the beginning, when they still had been seven, but his use had expired, and he had vanished without a trace.
They lived today, and thus had not mourned him.
The Hound was sitting in the chapel, a man barely past thirty but looking older, his features sharp, hollow and gaunt under retreating, pitch-black hair. He might have been handsome, but for the traces that some plight had relentlessly hammered into his face, and he listened attentively, his face half hidden in the shadows of the flickering candle light. The words of the Friend usually were worth listening to.
And with every word, there was a smile that grew on his face.
And, as the Friend finally ended, a single nod.
The marketplace was packed with people, as was customary on a Saturday, and the screams of the vendors mingled with the sounds of various animals being herded and traded, the laughter of children, the cries of the beggars.
This was one of the poorest of markets, the one you went looking for when you tried to cover your basic needs, food, simple clothing, probably a hen, if you were lucky and had managed to scramble together some more coins.
The storm had ridden itself out during the night, and in the morning, the world appeared fresh and new, the still moist pavement in the strengthening sunlight gave even the poorest of surroundings a certain, crude beauty.
They were three of them here – the others had turned towards other places where there were crowds to be found – and three should be a good number, enough to get attention and supervise the situation, but few enough to scatter and hide should the everything take a turn for worse.
Marius Pontmercy, Enjolras and Jean Prouvaire, whom they called Jehan, strode into the market with all the confidence of men with a just cause, walked through the alleyways without even a side glance at the goods that were traded and sold here. Their mission was a different one.
Eponine watched them from the shadows of a baker's stand, in part surveying the proceedings around the group of students, in part waiting for an unwatched moment to nick a pastry from the stand and quickly disappear into the crowd.
For a brief moment, she wondered what the effect might have been on the actions that the young men planned, had they begun their visit to the market by going from stand to stand, by buying some of the things for sale and discussing with the patrons, taking part in the haggling, hustling and bustling, that everyone except for them had come here for.
But then, Eponine concluded, they would probably just get themselves on the really bad side of a deal. Which again would not exactly inspire confidence.
There was a saying that one should stay with what one was good at. Therefore, it was probably a good thing, that Enjolras, in posture and demeanor clearly the leader over the small group, looked out for a convenient place to go, somewhere elevated where he could be seen from all over the market, instead of trying to mingle with a crowd that, for all the sympathy that he harbored for them, was very distinctively not his.
He finally found a staircase leading up to the first floor of a tanner's shop, a series of wooden steps, steep but solid, and in plain view of the whole place and found it suitable to his purpose.
He attracted attention as he placed himself there, a beautiful young man, his blond hair glowing in the morning sun, and he waited for a few instants more for a crowd to assemble, while Jehan and Marius had placed themselves at some distance, surveying the place and the steady stream of curious passers-by, that was beginning to congregate in the direction of the spectacle to be, and while Eponine, still standing beside the baker's stand, watched Marius with a hunger that had nothing to do with a breakfast missed.
He was so alive this morning, eyes sparkling, an air of excitement around him that called out to her in the most cruel, most unintentional way. It was the sweetest torture, and she was addicted to it.
The opportunity presented itself just as Enjolras began to speak, his strong voice carrying far, which caused the people around her to turn their heads, and a raisin bread to drop into Eponine's pocket.
Casually, she strolled away from the baker's stand, in the general direction of Marius, while she absent-mindedly listened to what the revolutionist was saying.
"Citizens, Parisians, compatriots", Enjolras began, looking around at the group of spectators that had formed and was growing. "I stand before you as a messenger, the bearer of news such that no one should be forced to deliver, and yet, truth is one of the fundamentals of the world as it should be, and hence, I cannot keep silent, nor hide from you what is meant to be told. Yes. General Lamarque, the man that all of us know and worship, is ill, and fading fast."
There was a murmur in the crowd at that. Lamarque, generally honored by those of lowly birth, had been a focal point of trust for those that assembled at the market, assuming that they still retained the ability to trust at all. Rumors had been spreading for a few days now, and hearing it voiced in such a public way made the situation only graver.
Enjolras bided his time patiently, waiting until the murmurs had died down again before he continued speaking, and as his voice vibrated over the place, there was a fire in his eyes, a liveliness in his gestures, that reached out in its conviction and sincerity, across all borders of class and wealth, and in that one moment, the audience before him was indeed his. "And yet – the question is: What do we learn from this? These events, my compatriots, only show in sharp profile what is wrong, what is the danger of today, only show all the more, what you, me, all of us were robbed of two years ago. Our lives, our fate hangs on the nobility, the sense of few men, on their mercy towards us that may be well deserved, but can never be demanded. Lamarque is a man of the people – yes! And by chance, by pure chance, he found a voice of influence now and then, and preciously seldom at that, as you well know. So I ask you – can you, can we rely on this? Who are we to still expect only the crumbs of the table, who are we to still expect someone to do for us what should rightfully be taken into our own hands? Are we not their equals? Are we not human ourselves?"
Again, he paused, as the crowd waited anxiously, while Eponine had reached Marius, taking a bite of the sweet bread she had stolen. The young student was beaming, not precisely at her, more at the situation itself, but a reflection of this brightness also touched her with gentle fingers and warmed her core.
"It's going well, isn't it?" he asked enthusiastically, and Eponine could have wept for hearing him talk about something else than the eternal litany of the many virtues of Cosette. Rather listen to his dreams. They were meant well at least. Yet, she was a bit at loss as to what to reply and resorted to an undefined "mmh", her mouth still full of the bite of bread that she had had, but Marius didn't seem to mind. "It's going to happen", he continued excitedly, "it's really going to happen!"
Eponine was doubtful, but did not have the heart to quench his enthusiasm. Her own life did not inspire the belief that things were ever in any way, shape or form, becoming better at all. Best accept it and be over with the fickle concept of hope.
Her own heart, when watching Marius Pontmercy, violently disagreed with that philosophy.
"If he continues like that, that may be so", she therefore replied ambiguously and Marius laughed, placing a quick hand on her shoulder. "You are a real friend", he replied, and despite everything, she felt her heart melt. So there was still something of a revolutionary in Marius, deep beneath layers and layers of a lovesick fool. Speaking of hope…
"And therefore I say", Enjolras continued, his voice rising, "let us take our fate back into our own hands! Is this not the city that has not once, but twice overthrown oppression? Is this not the city where the voice of the people, louder than anywhere else in the world, has shouted out with a thousand tones 'what cannot be borne shall not be borne'? Is this not Paris? And are we not all children of the revolution?"
A few cheers came from the crowd, fewer of course than in the habitual café Musain sessions, but still, not bad for a rich boy preaching to an audience of beggars. "And do we not", continued Enjolras, a bit more softly, "have hope?"
A whistle distracted the attention of both Eponine and Marius, as they saw Jehan pushing his way towards them through the growing crowds, and as he approached them, neither the gamine nor the young baron needed any instruction as to why he was searching them out.
A group of guardsmen had been gathering at one of the corners of the market and both Jehan and Marius grasped the situation immediately.
"We need to get him down there", Jehan voiced the thought of both, and both pushed through the crowd of people, determinedly, to reach Enjolras and alert him of the danger.
Eponine wanted no part in this. This reeked of trouble unending, and trouble was not something she had need for. She retreated again, to lean against one of the shabby walls of the surrounding houses and surveyed the situation.
She had to give Enjolras credit that he seemed to have retained some remnant of knowledge of what was good for him, because at the tumult caused by Jehan and Marius, he very quickly realized what was going on. After a last, quick glance at the forming squadron, he jumped down from the makeshift stage and dove into the crowd, quickly reuniting with his friends while the policemen began closing in on the assembled crowd.
Eponine watched them, worried. There were a hundred ways to leave the market, and she doubted that the police had closed off all of them, but she also doubted that the young, rich men were as proficient in the small and dark alleys of the city as she was. For a brief moment she considered stepping up to Marius and his friends to help them find a safe passage, but before she could even come to a conclusion, her attention was caught by something else in the crowd.
A familiar face that it took a moment for her to place. Only when he turned around, grasping the situation around him with a single gaze – the police dissolving the assembly, people scattering and hiding everywhere, the three students making their escape to one of the less well-known exits of the place (good, but probably not good enough, concluded Eponine), she recognized the man she had seen a few days before in rue Plumet.
While she was still trying to digest the information and to understand what to do with this particular thing, she realized, that he was, indeed, not randomly scattering with the crowd, but instead following the students, as they made their way out of the place.
Following them in a very determined, quick and decisive sort of way.
Eponine decided that this did not bode well.
She tried to call out to Marius, but it was hopeless against the shouting, against the chaos that had started to take the place in a deadly grip, and it was then, that she realized the glitter in the man's hand, cruel, bright and fully unmistakeable.
A knife.
And this was what spurred her into action without thinking. There was no question, no doubt now, not even a single thought for her own safety. There was a man, and he was following Marius, a naked knife in his hand.
The students were oblivious. Eponine broke into a run, pushing through the crowds mercilessly, all attempts at stealth abandoned. There was a man, and he was following Marius, and he had a knife in his hands that, as far as things go, he would probably use without hesitation. Fear sang in her veins, and she shouted, "Marius, Marius, take care!" and similar things that neither make sense, nor were heard over the general noise of the square.
The man closed in. He was very good at trailing, moving through the crowds unhindered like that knife of his would through human flesh, and the knife flashed in his hand, mercilessly, and about to end Marius' life in a quick flash of cruelty.
But Eponine was a street rat, thrown into the harsh world of St. Michel and hardened by it, and she fought as one, dirty, unexpected and without hesitation or reservation.
She was not very strong, but she was fast and knew what she was doing, when she threw herself at the potential attacker. She used the full speed of her run to knock him off his feet, taking him by surprise with her assault from the sidelines, and after a dreadful moment of staggering, he finally fell to the floor.
It was not the end to the story. The man was quick as a fox, and all Eponine managed was to pin him down for a moment, winded herself by the fall, but then a sharp pain flashed in her shoulder as he fought her, and then he was free again, hissing and spitting, his eyes breathing fire and pure hatred in turn.
But then, Marius had realized what was going on, and the three students had turned to the man as well, who, all of a sudden, saw himself outnumbered. If there was any confirmation on his nature needed for Eponine, he gave it by the skill with which he managed to melt in with the crowd.
Moments later, he was gone.