tushanshu_logs | There Is A Flame That Never Dies: Enjolras Catchall!

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There Is A Flame That Never Dies: Enjolras Catchall!

Characters: Enjolras and OPEN
Date: The Month of June
Location: Various. Turtle's Head, A Tavern, The Streets
Situation: Enjolras uses an anniversary to mourn, celebrate his friends, and tries to gather Foreigner stories and information about how the common kedan view them.

Warnings/Rating: Grief, Talk of Death, Alcohol.

I.

There's A Grief That Can't Be Spoken. There's A Pain Goes On And On:

(Turtle's Head: June 5th, All Day and Night)

Enjolras is seated at the turtle's head starring out at the water the best way that he can, a hand on his soul gem, which is warm to touch. His thoughts now turn toward, not Taraja, though he'd come here with her often, taking the long trek because she enjoyed it. Today, he's thinking of the others who have slipped him by, of how Combeferre and he started something two...three mid summers ago, in the midst of the awful memories of the barricade and the love he'd learned not to deny himself. Now, he is alone, just starring out at the depths of the ocean, thoughts of those he's loved, and lost, floating through his mind.

IS he condemned to watch them die, then see them vanish in another world? Enjolras supposes he deserves it, but could it be a lie of Malicant's he's taken to his heart? Could it be corruption of his soul? Either way he's at the head, pacing back and forth from time to time and tossing rocks into the water as he tries to look under control, or at least, to have a private place here, where he can break down with the memory, not of their deaths, but of their lives, and the hard truth that this year, he's on his own; dread anniversaries causing him to think in such a way or not.

"At this time in 1832..." He muses, not quite under his breath. After all, who could not think of home, today?

II.

Drink With Me To Days Gone By:

(June 6th, A Tavern In Keelaiai)

He died today. Enjolras died today, holding the hand of Grantaire of all people. Grantaire, who loved his taverns, and his absinthe and whatever drinks that he could get his hands on. Grantaire who had loved...no, He's putting that thought firmly away. It's hardly for tonight, for blaspheming the men who died with and for him. Tonight is for honor instead.

It only feels right somehow, that he is sitting here, in this tavern, taking up a large table with a shot of this establishment's strongest lined up for Grantaire. And a glass of wine for Combeferre, of the kind they often enjoyed bringing back to their table here, a fruity mixed drink that he thought Bahorel would enjoy, brandy for Courferac and Eponine. All in all, there are several drinks lined up around a round table in the corner, and one Enjolras, chastely sipping at a glass of water, ignoring the filled wineglass by his side for just a while still. He's sitting silently, occasionally studying a slowly burning candle, a look of devoted, almost peaceful contemplation on his face, the candlelight catching on his earrings as he waits, for God Knows What.

III.

Let Us Take To The Streets With A Jubilant Shout:

(June 7th and Onward, Streets of Keelaiai)

"Would you like to talk about your life here, how you feel about the Foreigners?" Enjolras asks a keedan girl outside one of the shops and then a boy who don't seem to shy away so quickly from him. "What's it like for your family now?

From time to time, he's also spotting willing foreigners and darting over, notes in hand to learn what things he might. Books promoting Foreigners as normal can't be written alone, and finding out what image they have to lose is quite important after all! Enjolras is willing to grab anyone he can to tell their stories, whether they really wish to speak with him or not. This could be a problem.

IV.

They Will Come One And All, They Will Come When We Call!

(Choose your own!)

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"For one thing," said Solomon from--he was decently sure--behind the Frenchman, "some of them know what happened to family members who have vanished." He was interrupting, he knew, but Enjolras was talking to the client Solomon had come to see anyway. After his stint as a busker he was quite happy to go back to mediating between the living and the dead.

He still couldn't conjure the dead any more than he had been able to beforehand, and a number of the kedan had refused to see him again, but others had been curious about his new potential range of skills, willing to give him a try and had ridiculous notions about seances and other idiocies. If nothing else, it was providing some good on-the-job training.

"Indeed?" Enjolras asked, recognizing the voice as belonging to the man he'd prepared tea with not so long ago.

"Due to Foreigner presence or the result of our actions in the war?" He guessed, thinking it a very good reason not to wish to speak to them, as opposed to the other reasons. He RESPECTED each sort of reason, deep down but some carried more weight in the natural hierarchy his mind assigned to them than others. It may be an invasive question, in fact, it certainly was, but it was an important one all the same. If someone, somewhere, had caused kedan to be hurt because of them, it would go a long way to answering the question of why they were so disliked now.

"And am I in the way now?" he added, "I did not realize I'd been here so long."

"Both," Solomon said with a shrug. "I've been investigating kedanese missings since before Malicant's defeat. A lot of them were in the palace dungeons, which I would personally define as a result of our actions in the war, but not all. Perhaps two thirds of those I've found haven't died or did as a result of gang-violence or the invasion." Sometimes he'd managed to find remains. Mostly, the trail petered out.

"My brother vanished a couple of months ago," said the kedan, eyeing them both. "Detective Wreath said he could at least find out whether he's dead. He's been more helpful than the Snakes."

"That depends," said Solomon, inclining his head toward the kedan. "I don't necessarily mind your presence. What are you doing, exactly?"

This was news to Enjolras. The gangs and their Dust had made life problematic before the war itself. He and Shepard had investigated a form of Dog-fighting rings once, long ago, and there had been something about it discovered way back when he'd first come into contact with Malicant, the first summer he'd been here, so he would have attributed it mostly to the gangs. All that said, the idea that there was a third for whom circumstances were different did cause him to wonder. The idea of the war causing some o it did make sense but the rest...

"So then another third..." he winced a little at Solomon's words there. "My God, that's frightening." He spoke to the kedan now as well, of course. "A good detective is hard to find." he said, his thoughts turning to Javert and what he might have done with all of this. It was hard to imagine the man taking personal interest, certainly. "I do hope he is found well enough." He said, and then turned back to Solomon.

"Ah, at the moment, looking for war stories, or...things that relate to how the kedan have lived during the war and after. Things to do with our presence, what it may have caused for them, and how we're seen now. We have a reputation and I should like to know how it was earned, but also how we might began to lose it."

"I'm being general," Solomon said with a shrug. "But, yes, judging by the bodies found in the palace dungeon, a great many kedanese missing were as a result of Malicant, and therefore because of us. We didn't try very hard to oust him from the palace, after all."

He said it matter-of-factly. Though Solomon avoided getting embroiled in she-said-he-saids with the city's leaders, or about them, the fact that most of the Foreigners didn't seem to comprehend why the kedan took issue was astounding to him. It seemed obvious. So while Solomon didn't feel particularly guilt-stricken over what they'd done wrong, he didn't bother being angry at the kedan, either. There was something of a political bent in helping the way he was.

Besides, he was good at it.

"Stories?" asked the kedan, baffled and tugging at his hair. "You mean ... personal stories?" He frowned. "To be honest, until someone directed me to Detective Wreath I'd never met a Foreigner before."

"We did fail there, it's true." Enjolras pursed his lips, considering those days. They'd been afraid, and perhaps they'd let fear make them too cowardly. It had been easy, at the time, to say that it would be a stupid choice. Now, though, with a young kedan in front of him he did feel badly about it.

It was, after all, the truth that Solomon was speaking there. Simply a truth he'd not considered. They'd done a great deal, but had they done all that they could? Perhaps not. It was sad, as the state of their relations was sad too. "You make a lot of sense, monsieur, to put the words into a context. "That does help."

He seemed to be, apparently.

"And yes." He nodded to the young kedan. "I want to know what life is like for you too, from the kedan side and our own. I want to know all about your lives too, not just ours. What do you do for work, or fun? Did we do anything stupid and wrong that no one tells us to our faces?" There's a little smile, uncertain though, as Enjolras answers there.

"I think if we learned from each other more, it would help us all to get along a little more. If someone could read about your life, and you could read about one of ours...Maybe we'd understand each other a little more, you know?"

"Well ..." The kedan looked between them, clearly baffled--or at least clearly to Enjolras. "Are you ... writing this down, or something? Weren't you the Foreigner who had that newspaper? Is that what you're doing with it?"

"Why don't we go inside?" Solomon suggested a touch dryly. "I can give you an update, you can give Mr Enjolras and interview, and he can expand his horizons."

"Oh, well ... okay." The kedan shrugged and turned from his small row of windowboxes to open his door to them, and Solomon put out his hand to cast shadows across the doorstep so he could see where he was going. He'd been here before after his accident, though, and knew the hall was short before the small sitting area, spartan but nicely furnished.

"Sort of." Enjolras nodded an assent. "Something bigger, these days, and for everyone. Including people like yourselves, everyone not a foreigner who's willing. Ah, that DOES seem like a good idea."

He hoped his thanks was clear, since he could not signal that with a nod or smile, the way he might have otherwise.

"I'm hoping to make a book, to write about everything as many people who'll be willing to help me, saw. And I didn't want things to get too unbalanced." he added, on the way in. That the kedan version of how the war had gone might have to play a part in things would probably help in the long run, and was probably true from some perspectives so...best to know than not and to leave it uncovered, after all. Neutrality wasn't easy, and he was still learning the art, but it would help them all in the end. ...Right?

"A book is a lot different to a newspaper," said the kedan, keeping--from experience--out of Solomon's way but directing Enjolras to a chair. He was interested, but still obviously discombobulated, as if manners were taking place of actual thought. Then he added thoughtfully: "No one's ever asked me what I thought about big things before. I'm going to get tea, excuse me."

"Have you had much response?" Solomon asked Enjolras quietly while their host went to the kitchen. It was such a ... an idealist idea. Not necessarily a bad one, but idealistic nevertheless; the only question was whether it was too little, too late to have any effect on the kedan at large, let alone the Foreigners.

"It is." Enjolras agreed. "And then it must be translated as well. We have so many languages here. The same problem that I did with the paper, but I think some sort of record...it is important." He thought, for a second, of the barricade, of Feuilly's carvings in the wall, leaving a mark for those who would come after. That was why he tried it here. "There has been so much good, along with the hard times. For those who have endured...I think it fitting. That is why I ask." He explained, giving the kedan a little nod there.

"Not so much as I had hoped, but enough to keep me busy." he answered the question. Idealistic, certainly, he would agree with that. "I do not know if it will do much good, but...there is truth that needs to be told all the same. We owe it to everyone here, and those who've left us. Maybe them the most of all." He added, thinking to Evandau and the unfair reception that the man had worked under, one that Enjolras had contributed to, and then to the lost hatchlings. Something, clearly, needed done.

"Maybe it won't," Solomon said with a shrug. "Maybe it won't in the near future and will in the far. If we all reconsidered our actions on whether it would do any good, nothing would ever get done." Presumably the man was doing it for some sense of self-satisfaction as well. Motives were multi-layered things.

Definitely, however, idealistic. Almost cloyingly so. The poor man was destined for a rude awakening, if he wasn't just in denial already.

The kedan came back with a tea-tray, distributing the drinks before sitting down to say, "What would you like to ask about, specifically?"

"Indeed." Enjolras agreed. "I do think it worth the chance all the same. I've risked higher stakes than this might come to have, I'm fairly sure. It would be ridiculous to simply stop it now." Even that hope of someday feels worth it somehow.

"If it helps to reach one person, I should think it worthwhile after all." Perhaps there is something to that, in terms of gaining something from this. It's a far cry from telling Paris the truth, from fighting and dying for that truth, but he'll take this on just the same.

"I could not see my republic restored, nor justice served to her at home, but I cannot leave anyone voiceless simply because this is not Paris, or my barricade." Well, he'd died for those ideals once, along with his friends, and he would do it again in an instant. They had at least triumphed in the moral sense, which had seemed to matter more to him. A life was simply a life, after all. Better to spend it having done what he could have, and better to find the same thing here.

"Ah thank you." Enjolras nodded toward the kedan, smiling as he did so. "And well, I would know what you were doing before the war, before large groups of us...foreigners that is...first arrived. And what happened after that. It cannot have been an easy change." he adds, prompting, or trying to prompt the information all the same.

Not only idealistic, but dramatic as well. As annoying as those tendencies could be when directed at Solomon, they were absolutely amusing when viewed from the side. Worth the affiliation all on its own, but with added allusion to 'barricade' from a Frenchman ...

Interesting.

He took the tea quietly, more interested in listening to the conversation than in participating, since he could give an update on his investigation afterward.

"Well ..." The kedan paused, somewhat nonplussed by the fact he had to think about it. "I don't remember it being very difficult. I don't remember many things being difficult, before the nightmare was killed. A lot of things were challenging or took some time to do, but that isn't the same as being difficult. One day you weren't there and one day you were. We were told you were going to stop the nightmare and that was a good thing, so we didn't have any reason to object. You understand?"

They COULD at that. Grantaire had been amused by them enough times, as well as irritated, and had made that clear to an often exasperated-with-him-leader's face. Enjolras, especially, perhaps, had the tendency among others. Although being here had helped him to step down a little, from the summit of a barricade, there were moments still, when he saw only what things could be viewed from that great height, the ideal of human civilization, the true republic of men, and the things necessary to get to it, the great injustices to be overturned to protect that ideal instead of the day to day steps involved in getting there.

And, sometimes, he still did sound quite a bit...well.

Enjolras noted the kedan's pause, and he could chalk it up to the things that had happened to them in the year's time everyone had been away. Remarkable, still, that it had, and not something he would have changed for the world.

"We did rather vanish on you." Enjolras had to agree, frowning at the way it must have looked, and felt to them. Challenging, but not difficult. It helped to know, actually, that things had felt that way. Perhaps the foreigners had had more difficulties in terms of fathoming what to do, and that was part of the problem. Not a thought he would de-value anyway. "That does make sense, from your perspective, worrying as I imagine it could have been."

"It wasn't the vanishing," the kedan tried to explain, and then stopped. "Exactly. It was ... thinking about you afterward. It was ..." He was clearly struggling, even to Solomon who only had his tone to go on, but finally the kedan tried to explain, "It was like a veil lifting. Or ... taking control of a dream. When the nightmare was gone. That was how we knew he had, you see, because we could think clearly. Not that we didn't have feelings beforehand, but after ... I'm a mason. I've improved on some of my father's work. But until the nightmare was gone I never looked at a stone and wondered what it could be, or imagined that it could be something other than a variant of what my family has made for generations."

He fiddled with his cup. Solomon wordlessly lifted his to take a sip. "Some people, once they realised they could imagine, looked back on what things were like when you Foreigners were here and ... didn't like what they remembered. So they didn't like it when you came back, either. Not that I mind." This was said quick. "As I said, I'd never actually met a Foreigner before Detective Wreath."

And that had taken some convincing, too, Solomon thought wryly, but in light of the kedan's eagerness not to be seen as a bad person, and Solomon's desire not to antagonise one of his few patrons, he left note of that.

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There Is A Flame That Never Dies: Enjolras Catchall!

III.

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