make your mark|(open)INACTIVE

[ÉPONINE THÉNARDIER]

Between the peaks of the miserable-looking buildings, the sky was thick with rain clouds. Éponine glared at them as she leaned against the crumbling brick side of a former factory. Now the building was an empty shell of what had once been a symbol of power and strength. It was much like Éponine herself. She'd once been grand, if one could be grand as a child. She'd once been pretty. Now she was just like this factory: crumbling but trying to maintain a façade of strength. The thought of this made her sick. She pushed herself of the wall in disgust and a bit of mortar fell away, dust clinging to her fingers. More roughly than she needed to, she smacked her hand against her leg to get rid of all the filth.

She started walking purposelessly down the rough sidewalk. She watched her feet as she moved and smiled without humor at the sight of her pinky toe sticking out of a hole in the fabric of her Converse. She wiggled it, but then thought better of it. The last thing her shoes needed was any help in falling apart. Éponine adjusted the strap of the carpet bag on her shoulder as she turned into an alley that was one of her less-frequented haunts. The wall was decorated with brightly colored graffiti. Most of it she could understand, but others were in English words that she was still unfamiliar with. Her education had not prepared her thoroughly enough for moving to a country where England was the dominant language. Occasionally she ran into someone else who spoke French, but they were usually so much better off than Éponine that she didn't even bother trying to talk to them.

Éponine inspected the wall for an empty place to add her own personal insignia. It was beneath a tattered awning toward the mouth of the alley. It was the perfect place for people to look and see her crest. Well, it wasn't really a crest, but Éponine liked to think of it that way. She reached into her bag and pulled out her green spray paint and white chalk. She outlined the inital of her first name, E, with the chalk and filled it in with the spray paint. Over the bottom right corner of it she drew a horse. It stood for a pony, but she purposely drew it to look a bit more threatening than that. She had come to be called The Pony by the other ghosts in her life. Her family had never called her that, but Éponine liked that she had her own alias. She'd adjusted her mark accordingly. Now, instead of just saying "Éponine was here," it read, "The Pony was here." It was a more formidable name. M'appelle formidable, Éponine thought, liking the idea. She often still thought in French, though she spoke mostly in English.

Her head poked up as she was adding the final touches of her graffiti with white spray paint. A car was rolling down the street. It was probably a police car, looking out for hooligans like her. Éponine hurriedly stuffed her paint back into her bag and pulled her saggy hat further down her face. She left the alley casually, walking in the direction of the cop to prevent him from thinking that she was running from him. As he passed slowly by, she tipped her hat at him with a smile and went on her way just as fat raindrops began falling from the clouds. Once the cop had turned the corner, Éponine broke into a run, hurrying to find shelter before the rain soaked one of her better sets of clothing.

She turned a corner and barely made two steps before she crashed head-on into another body. A highly rude French swear word escaped her lips as she pressed her hand against the wall of another building to steady herself. Her hat had nearly fallen off, and she shoved it back on roughly, mussing her tangled dark tresses. "Hey! Watch where ya goin', huh?" Her voice, scarred from years of brawling and yelling, was low and a bit scratchy, not at all attractive. Her Rs where still guttural with French accent, formed in the back of her throat. None of this mattered to her, but she instead focused on her glare as she turned up her sunken face to the individual who had gotten in her way. "You don't own this place!"

[/blockquote]

[ROGER DAVIS]

Wonderful. It was raining and he was stuck in the god-damned Bronx. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he watched the ground under his feet, trying to wish himself back into the familiar territory of the East Village. It didn't help that the temperature had dropped. A cough rattled in his chest, and he felt a frown spread deeper onto his lips. The worst part of it all? He had left his cigarettes at home.

"Fuckin' rain. Fuckin' Bronx. Fuckin'--"

Slowly, a car moved and Roger gave a side glance, noticing the black and white of the cop car. Right. Roger wasn't a stranger to the police; he had been under the eye of the law when he had been a junkie, but had managed to never been arrested. He was too side-tracked by the cop to realise that a girl was running headlong into him. She slammed into him, and Roger's hand moved, steadying himself against the wall as an even harsher frown spreading on his lips at her words.

"What the hell?! Watch where you're going!" Roger spat back, wishing like hell he was at home. Why the HELL had he agreed to come down here with Sunny to try to get some contacts for gigs, when it hadn't even panned out. Sunny had left him, heading to another friend's house deep in the Bronx. Which had left Roger alone.

The girl spat out that she didn't own the place, and Roger scoffed. "Fuck no, I don't own this place! Look, baby, why don't you just shove the fu--"

Roger's eyes moved over her shoulder, to see a cop pointing in her direction. All of his better instincts told him to turn the girl in for whatever she was running from, but Roger hated cops, and knew that most of them just searched for ways to make people's lives horrible. "Don't turn around."

[ÉPONINE THÉNARDIER]

Cuss words spun through Éponine's head as she regained her balance on the pavement. She gave the man a dirty look as he swore at her, seeming extraordinarily pissed off. Well, that wasn't really unusual in people like them. Even tempers and clean mouths weren’t common in lower class folks. One look at him told her that he was better off than her, but not by much. He looked like he at least had a place to live, food to eat, and maybe a shower now and then. Éponine didn't have much of that, not since her parents had been thrown in the slammer for an attempted kidnapping. Éponine herself had been detained for that, but insignificant evidence had been the saving grace of Éponine and her younger sister Azelma. She'd hardly had any idea what was going on. She had been standing outside the apartment and Zel had been inside. Her sister had been the one to tell her what the issue had been. It had had something to do with some girl their parents had taken in back when they'd been middle class in France. Éponine hated to think about it. It just didn't seem worth it. Now her mother was dead and her father was still in the slammer. Pathetic.

Without her dad to pay the rent, Éponine and Azelma had been quickly thrown out of the tenement in which they’d been living in. They probably would have left anyway, considering their father had made Azelma smash the window with her bare fist to make them look poorer to philanthropists. Zel had needed bandages for weeks. The girls had separated a while ago to see what they could do with themselves, even though it was a little more dangerous. Éponine was planning on seeking her out soon to make sure she was doing all right; despite their troubles, Éponine did care for her little sister. Neither had a penny to their name after their parents had been locked up. The small income they received from a prostitute who was raising their two younger brothers, Mathieu and Benoit, had dropped off. It wasn’t really a surprise. Éponine didn’t care for those two boys anyway, since she’d never gotten to know them before her parents had effectively sold them for money. Her feelings were equally ambivalent toward Gavroche, her other younger brother, who lived as a street urchin like her without the reputation of being a Thénardier. She’d thought she’d caught a glimpse of him last week, but she barely remembered what he looked like, so she couldn’t have been sure.

Éponine’s life was dreary at best, and she didn’t know what to do with her days besides come up with different ways to get food without getting caught. She was pretty good at it. Her pick-pocket skills were phenomenal, and last week she’d succeeded in getting a guy’s wallet with a nice wad of cash in it. Credit cards were no use to her, of course, since she’d easily get caught trying to use one of those. She’d split the cash with Azelma before they’d parted ways once more. Éponine had used her half to buy some warmer clothes at the thrift store and a fresh can a spray paint. She’d just cracked it open now. She was extremely irritated because her new clothes were going to get wet with the rain that had just started. She glared at the man in front of her as he began to tell her to shove off when he stopped short. She raised her eyebrows, already preparing a snarky comeback, but then she noticed the look on the guy’s face. She cringed as she heard the door of the cop car slam shut. She’d been counting on him not noticing her newest work of art.

She couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying, but she recognized his voice. It was one of the Inspector’s flunkies who’d been responding the night of her father’s little operation. “Damn. It’s Pauly,” she muttered. That was her nickname for him. She had one for most of the cops in the district. His name was really Officer Paulson-Wick, but Éponine didn’t care to remember that. She just knew he was not fond of her, so even though she usually wouldn’t she took the guy’s advice she listened to him and did not respond to the officer’s call. “Zanks. The name’s Éponine. Pauly over zare’s got a stink with me. Ya know, one of zem ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ guys.” Éponine gestured with her eyes, not her hand. She didn’t care if the guy would turn her in if her assumed she was a felon. She’d be able to get out of it. Plus, it would get him out of her hair, which was even better. She just wanted to get out of the rain.

[/blockquote]

[ROGER DAVIS]

The policeman stepped closer, and Roger wondered if he was going to stop for the girl. It wasn't exactly what Roger needed at the moment; he wasn't looking to get in tangled up in any shit. He was sure that Officer Martin talked, and Roger was still labeled as a problem, as a drug addict and a risk even though he had been clean for two years.

His eyes stayed on the cop, until he heard her mention the name of the cop. "Yeah, well, New York cops aren't exactly friendly to people like us." The cop eyed Roger and the girl, making Roger smile slightly. "...Officer." Roger nodded to the officer before he looked at Eponine, seeing the officer move away finally. A brief sigh escaped his lips, and he shook his head. "He lookin' for you for something?" Roger asked, and then a smell hit his nose. The smell of paint.

"You're a wall artist?" Roger asked after the officer was out of earshot. "I got a friend, she does work down in Alphabet City. She's pretty good." Roger paused, shoving his hands into his pockets. "My name's Roger, by the way."

((OOc: Ugh, sorry it's so short, and sorry it took so long! Lost track of this one for a sec!))

[ÉPONINE THÉNARDIER]

Éponine had to admit that she was slightly uneasy knowing that Pauly was looming just a few yards beyond her. It wasn't that Pauly was particularly intimidating, but Éponine had come to mistrust most law enforcement. The logical side of her told her that there might actually be some good cops out there, but Éponine had only ever met one. He had been one of the fellows at the station where she had been detained, and he'd brought her and Azelma sandwiches once the inspector had left to deal with their parents. He'd made them keep it a secret. Aside from him, though, Éponine's experience with cops had been pretty miserable. Even though Pauly was one of those pale, fat, sweaty cops, just the feeling of having a blue poking into her business made her feel on edge.

She heard the guy standing with her address Pauly, but she didn't do the same. She didn't like him, so why should she play nice? She brushed some of her dark hair behind her ear and relaxed as she heard Pauly stomp off. She cracked her neck and breathed a sigh of relief. "Whew," she said. "Can't stand that guy." She looked up as the stranger in front of her asked if she was a wall artist. Darn. She'd tried to bury her cans in the carpet bag to hide the smell, but obviously it hadn't worked. That was probably how Pauly had caught on to her. Well, nothing had come of it, so that was all right, then. Still, she ought to be more careful in the future. Cops didn't like wall art, even though it was a form of self-expression that Éponine wasn't about to give up.

"Yeah," she said in reply. "I dabble. Alphabet City, huh? I'm around zare sometimes." Her strange half-Downstate, half-French drawl revealed itself in this sentence. It wouldn't surprise Éponine if she'd seen some of the work of this guy's friend. She spent a lot of time in alleys. She spent a lot of time admiring graffiti. She wasn't great herself yet, but she was pretty good compared to some of the amateurs out there. It was usually pretty easy to tell what kind of person had done up the wall by what they wrote or drew. Personal insignias were usually done by lone street walkers like herself. Political satire or rude phrases were typically rich kids trying to be tough. Éponine couldn't stand that kind of person. They only wanted the cool side of street walking, but they really had no idea how tough it was. Éponine was far from wallowing in self-pity, though. She took what she had and tried to make the best of it. She'd be lying if she said she didn't have the grandiose dream now and then, but she tried not to dwell on it.

Éponine stuck out her hand to shake the man's as she'd seen her father do in the past. "Nice to meet ya, Roger. What do ya say to getting out of za rain?" She gestured around them, where the rain had definitely begun to increase. Granted, Éponine didn't exactly have a place in mind since she didn't have a place, but she'd kind of hoped that Roger might. If not, they'd figure something out.

[/blockquote]

[ROGER DAVIS]

"I don't think anyone in their right mind can stand police." Roger commented honestly; more than once Roger had been acosted by Officer Martin, as well as any of the other NYPD that had slid their way into Alphabet City. "Guys are pricks." Roger told her honestly. "We got one that's willing to arrest us just for walking down the street. It fuckin' sucks."

When the girl spoke of the city, Roger nodding. "Yeah, she mainly just stays in ABC. She doesn't like the venture out that much. She's really good; she mainly paints, you know...rainbows and shit, fight AIDS, lotta things the cops don't like her for. She's got a good eye for shit like that."

The girl spoke of the rain, and Roger looked up to the sky as the rain dripped down. "Yeah, sure. I was just getting ready to go back home. I was gonna stop at the Life for some coffee if you wanna come?" Of course, he didn't know the girl from Adam, but he sometimes found himself trying to find the decent side of people. Besides, if she stole from him, what exactly would she get? A whole lot of nothing.