tushanshu_logs | EVENT | LANDFALL

[Certainly a memory yes, but enough of a recent one to bring on more emotion than Enjolras had showed anyone in days now, and, if his somewhat guilty start was any kind of indication, one he had not intended to share with anyone actually present at the moment. never again in any form of presence, and you had better get used to that, Enjolras reminded himself, rather sharply,as he drew himself up straight, composed his face, or so he hoped, and turned to notice Midii. Ah, they'd spoken more than once before. She was not close enough that she should witness his upset now, but even so, something of a familiar face was not quite so unwelcome.]

Ah, sorry. I did not know anyone else was here. Etienne is, was Combeferre. It is something of a pity he did not remain with us for long enough to see all of this is all. I do think he would have loved it.

[Combeferre didn't ring any bells, either. Midii had met surprisingly few of Eponine's acquaintances, despite their close relationship. At worst, she would have seen him in passing over the Network. Nothing more.]

It's alright. I'm used to people not hearing me.

[Actually, she had made a habit of being quiet enough for them to not hear her, but it sounded wrong to admit that much.]

Then he was a friend of yours. I'm...sorry he left.

[It's true that Enjolras had something more of a non professional presence, he'd been finding, these days. Combeferre was usually at his clinic when he was out, and when he was not, he and Enjolras had spent a good deal of their evenings at home together, only occasionally with the others.

In a way, Enjolras was glad of it, that he did not have to inform many of their mutual friends as to what happened. Temeraire had been his main thought after he'd gotten over the initial gutpunch to the system, and then the other dragon had been gone too, so, well, really, he suspected he was one of the few who knew him enough, besides the kedan from the cafes they had been to, or those who had been treated at his clinic. It may be somewhat selfish, but a complete break made things easier. ]

Are you, then? I would hope that no one disregards you because of that. The few times we've spoken, you have been, well, anyone but someone to be ignored.

[There were advantages to being near invisible by choice, really. Enjolras could not deny them.]

I...thank you. It does seem rather odd. We've never been apart since our meeting save for a few weeks at the term breaks at first.

[Eventually, it had ended in Enjolras not returning to his parents, on the knowledge that he terrified his mother with his politics, the stark relief he tended to view things in, and Combeferre bringing him home to his own family on more than one occasion. Well, at least until the last few years, when they had mostly been in Paris together during the peak times, with too much work to finish to allow them to go home. But they had made that work, had made things work here, for the year that they had been allowed to have. It was only that Enjolras had been so young since they had met, and now, for the first time in just a bit over a decade, here he was alone, with no idea of what to do with that.]

I am as sorry for Eponine leaving too. I miss her very much, but I can only guess what that must be like for you. You were close to her before I'd managed to get to know her. We did not know each other in Paris, you see, although I know you did brighten her life while she was here, and that is something.

And I do know, from both of you, that survival is possible under worse odds than mine. That's rather like an inspiration, you should know.

[He had gotten another year with Combeferre, where Midii had gotten nothing with anyone from her world, he reminded himself harshly. Another year had been nothing to frown at, so much more than others had gotten, and the thought did help him to gain some sense of calm about the thing, for now.]

How are you? I...ought to have asked that a great deal of time earlier. Can you forgive me for that?

[Once upon a time, the sentiment might have been cause for alarm. Someone to be ignored was somebody who remained out of the spotlight. Out of the eye of the wrong people. Safe. To hear that she had been developing such a presence...it should have been disconcerting, at the very least.]

[For some reason, Midii was okay with it.]

[Not a complete 180, but the fact that people weren't willing to dismiss her so casually any longer was a good thing. Really. There was a chance that, should she ever become next on the list of disappearances, people might actually miss her as well.]

Eponine... [Speaking of missing people] ...you're right. We were very close.

But I'm alright. And you need not apologize. I haven't been looking into your well-being, either.

[Out of the spotlight was one thing so far as Enjolras was concerned. That was not so much of a problem for him. He'd rather preferred keeping things that way himself when he could. It hardly meant simply dismissing someone though, particularly those who seemed intelligent and caring and, well, he was actually reminded something of Feuilly who would have perhaps adopted a similar approach to hers. The connection was somewhat surprising when he made it, but it did feel right.

And well, besides all of that Midii was a countrywoman along with everything else, and one of the few who still remained from France as far as he knew. That was a bond in and of itself, though not quite a close one, maybe.]

I miss her a great deal. I think, well. Eponine taught me a lot while she was here. I am glad then, that you are all right. And I have been, well, fine enough as well.

[And then, as changing the subject seems like a good idea right then, Enjolras attempted that.]

This place is immense. I think that anyone might well be lost in here forever, you know?

I could think of worse places to get lost in.

[Speaking of remaining out of the spotlight...it was quiet here. Peaceful. A plethora of hard and soft covers filled to the spines with so much information. She was itching to read everything in sight, no matter how impossible the task ahead seemed.]

You certainly are quite right about that.

[Enjolras may not have outwardly enjoyed many things in life, or even here for the most part, but a collection of books this immense certainly is one thing, or rather several of them, going by the number of volumes, that he is rather obviously enjoying. Of all things, there is a compilation of Rousseau on a shelf near enough to touch, and he's drawing out the leather volume almost lovingly, fingers tracing the lettering on the cover.]

So many things to read in here. I think that it would take a lifetime. And it would be well worth the lifetime too. I always wished in Paris that I had more time to devote to...

[There are some loose pages. folded newspapers by the looks of them tucked into the dead center of the book he's looking through, which fall to the floor the moment Enjolras opens the book. Bending to pick them up, he finds that they are more familiar than he'd thought.]

Oh, but these actually are dear friends of mine. I nearly died attempting to save this one. [He's explaining, showing Midii the front page and the date. July 27th, 1830.]

France... falls back into revolution by the act of the government itself... [Enjolras does not need to read the words, though they are not his own. He knew the situation, and the man who had written them so well, and had practically chained himself to the press that produced these words until he had been knocked unconscious himself. He does not quite allow himself the sentiment of tears, but there is something in his eyes that show that he is moved, regardless.]

...The legal regime is now interrupted, that of force has begun... in the situation in which we are now placed obedience has ceased to be a duty... It is for France to judge how far its own resistance ought to extend...

Armand Carrel. He taught me more in the two years I worked with him than anything I learned in school.

[And then, he's ducking his head a bit, realizing that dusty old newspapers are probably not to the best of everyone's interest.]

I...sorry. There's me getting a bit carried away.

Edited 2014-07-19 09:40 (UTC)

[There was a point when Midii had leaned in, attempting to peer over his shoulder. Well, maybe not his shoulder, given how much taller he was than her. The date was of little surprise; she already knew that the people of Eponine's world came from far in her past.]

No, it's alright. [She shook her head gently.] This is my history too. I think.

[And Enjolras shifted now so that she could better see the paper itself, offering Midii a bit more of a smile at her words.]

If the France that you are from is much like ours, then, yes. Yes it is. This is from our July Revolution. Two years before, well, before the revolt that brought many of us here. I could tell you a little of that, if you'd like."

[Maybe a little too alike, as they had merely gone from one war to another, with only a few centuries between them.]

Alright. I'm listening.

[ ~~Picture it, Paris, 1830...~~ Enjolras takes a moment to consider what of the political background is needed here, and what would be too much of an information dump. All things considered, Enjolras decides to go with a slightly amended version of past events. ]

About six years before our July Revolution, a new King came to the throne. He, and his brother before him were set up as rulers because they were members of a ruling family, not because the people had wished them to be there. It is a very common thing, or was at home, that Kings inherit their nations by birth and power of blood. About sixteen years before we revolted, when France was given a king again, a charter was established and it severely limited a good deal of freedoms for the people. Censorship of the press, persecution of religions other than the Catholic...they were aggressions that started to wear upon the people.

Slowly, things began to grow worse. There was a law proscribing death as the penalty for profaning the church. [For the Eucharist, in specific, but it's a matter of religion Enjolras is not certain is the same between worlds and he hardly wants to get into that explanation too.] And then, there was another law passed arguing that the people must pay those who had been deemed enemies of the Republic back in our first Revolution.

The people had been promised a good deal of more freedom than they proved to be getting, you see, and the air was already ripe for change and a return to their lives under the republic. While all of this was going on, a good many of my friends and I arrived in Paris to begin studying and found each other, which helped a good deal, actually. It did not do enough, but it did help, and we formed our little society as a sort of smaller subgroup branching off from the rights of man society. We'd come together, started our great work of liberating the republic once again, and started finding our feet as it were.

We'd authored some pamphlets, printed articles in papers sympathetic to our cause and that was how I came to know Carrel. When he assisted in the founding of Le National, he offered me a place writing articles for our cause, perhaps every...week or so, I think it was. In Spring, the King dissolved our parliament, who some were allowed to vote for, though most of us were below our majorities still, and suspended new elections, which was more than enough to upset even the calmer of our group, but then things became harder still. He dissolved the National Guard as well. Back then, our guardsmen were much more on our side in things. They served as much more of a link between the king and people, and with them gone, and a extremely hot summer, well...

[It's actually approaching the anniversary of those days themselves, roughly, at least, Enjolras thinks,given the timing of Christmas and it feels somehow right to have found the papers now. That does not make the story of the July Revolution any easier, but even so, he'll tell it to the death. Feuilly had the injustice of the Partition of Poland to rage at, but the acts of Charles, and their result, are his particular grievance, even now.]

In July, our king signed yet more ordinances that wrested away more of our power. The middle class were also barred from voting, more positions were dissolved, business owners now banned for running from office, and,on top of this for many of us, he suspended all liberties of the press instead of 'just' [Those are some air-quotes Enjolras has learned here that he is attaching to the word, yes.] the censorship we had been under.

That day was a Sunday, but by the next morning everything had changed. Our business owners wished to protest, so they shut their businesses, and the workers had nowhere to go, but joining others who'd been slowly fired all summer. They ordered our republican papers shut down, and many did, but fifty of us met at Le National and signed that we would keep on printing. Well, they made the choices, but I did sign in my support as well. Because we had stayed open, they came to shut us down that night and take our contraband.

[Here, Enjolras is tapping at Carrel's printed words again, nearly seeing the man himself as he put down those very words.]

We stayed around, of course, on principle, and well, we were a group of journalists. I do not think that I've ever known journalists to flee before any major events, and republican journalists at that, meaning we had a great deal of things to defend.

We'd gathered quite the mob in our support, at our press when they arrived, and that was when we started fighting.

[Enjolras, himself, had draped himself over the press containing the arranged print for the edition now in his hands, and, though he did not raise his voice, made everything quite clear to the officers sent in that they would have to take the press from him by force, or by his death. There is something of that spark he had shown then in his eyes now, almost as though he expects for someone around him to provide a challenge.]

It was exactly as I read. Obedience was long past a duty we would even pretend at, and we prepared to offer up what resistance we could. There were no chances, or leaving the press to fall into police hands, and I...well, things all became rather confused...

[They'd tried to pull him off, or push or shove, but it had finally been a knock to the face with a nightstick, and a boot firmly, sharply, pressed into his spine and quite a lot of darkness rushing up to meet him then, though he had kept this secret from near everyone, or he had tried to, then.]

The next I knew, it was much later and I sent Gavroche and some of his small army to gather everyone else that we could meet and plan our next moves together.

[Here, Enjolras is pausing, taking a moment to breathe, and giving Midii a halfway sheepish expression since this is probably the first time she's heard him going on like this at all.]

This is all much longer than I'd thought that it would be. Perhaps we ought to find somewhere to sit before I tell you more.

Edited 2014-07-21 11:07 (UTC)

[~~Oh, she was picturing it alright~~ Some of the story was vaguely familiar to her. Not enough to be sure it was decidedly the same world, but enough to know it was at least a parallel one. War was circular, after all. Their would have not been the first in France's history, and hers would certainly not be the last in its future.]

[The main difference was that they had a King, and in her time, there was the Alliance. Not just a single monarchy usurping power and punishing the current generation for the pasts' actions. The Alliance was world-wide, and the Earth itself had been at war with the Space Colonies that only desired autonomy. Religion was a momentary escape for some, but no longer a direct means of persecution. It simply did not carry the degree of sanctuary it might have once had--Midii heard stories about a Church which had been burned to the ground for its alleged allegiances. Father and Sister (meaning the priest and nun who lived in the area) brutally murdered.]

[Then, of course, there were the rebels. Small pockets of resistance that sought to regain control for the People. Midii knew of them all too well...and it pained her to realize that, had their situations overlapped, she and Enjolras would have been fighting on opposite sides. Not even out of principal, but of survival for herself and her family. Mostly her family. The money the Alliance had promised her...]

[Would things have been different in another time? Another France? She couldn't help wonder.]

That might be a good idea.

[She had been so caught up in the tale, after all, she'd hardly noticed him "going on" or the fact that they were both still on their feet.]

[Given all of the differences Enjolras had found, even among rough contemporaries, or those whose dates matched on some accounts that they might have overlapped, Enjolras would almost be shocked now to meet many people from the Paris he had come from here unless he's personally known them, or at least of them. Hell, he could run into someone like Victor Bloody Hugo and not be convinced that they exist within the same universe, even though he's actually met the man. Not that he's got a penchant for the Romantics, anyway, but the point remains, he supposes. Something of it anyway.

An alliance may, at first, have seemed better than a king had the subject come up, but then again, what had most of the parliament been in action but a united group of bourgeoisie who strove to protect their own self assured importance and interests above all else. There were, well, so many horrible things that seemed to function most of all as universals and could be taken to so many terrible extremes no matter what the differences making up a world were. He did not doubt that there could be a better one, but perhaps the work of the Utopia he had seen from the barricade was still the work of centuries, maybe more than those, in the making.]

After all, I've not gotten to the first day of the revolution itself yet.

[He's confiding this with a little nod, then glancing about for somewhere they might sit, mostly for the reason that he tends to ramble and there are three more actual days to get through. ]

Here we are [He's saying, after a moment, finding a perfectly comfortable looking table and pulling out a chair for Midii before taking one across from her, his hands splayed across the table as he thought where to continue.]

As it transpired during our meeting, and the messages we'd gotten, it was expected that the workers, and the others who were being harmed directly by all of this, would try to form a revolt in the next day. There was the hope that things would go to barricades, and it seemed as if, perhaps, our time had come.

I think we spent that night, almost all of us, trying to plan for what may come. It had occurred to all of us to some degree we might not all meet again, or we may meet again in a world that was changed. We spoke to some of our larger society, learned where some barricades were the most likely to be placed, and where we could expect to stir up fighting reasonably. It was one of the best nights, and the best three days that followed them, you know.

[It's a time that Enjolras can think of even the friends he lost here, in addition to those who did not come, with smiles as bright and vibrant as he is just now.]

I had rarely felt, even Paris herself, had never felt so alive, so filled with hope at that point of the night and into the next day. And when the people gathered, we were there to meet them, to attempt directing things, really. I left a lot of that up to the others, especially when they sent out members of the military to patrol. My friend Bahorel was, well, always rather fond of riots and tearing things up and throwing them at people who deserved it. He was in charge of a good deal of our group's area of influence and getting things started that day.

[You know, to put it mildly. There are less politic ways to refer to Bahorel, probably, but Enjolras does want his friend to remain in a good light in this re-telling so phrases like 'one stop destruction' and 'reincarnated god of mayhem and chaos' are best left in his mind.]

So things got on to twilight, and the mobs attacked. I think we had no more streetlamps in Paris after that night, really. But what started as just a riot quickly became something more. When the fighting really started, and the next day, as all of the insurgents across the city tried to capture some of our most important landmarks, some of our group separated. Feuilly, the best of us, and some of the others with more noble purposes in mind, went to La Louvre, not to capture, but to guard it so that everything within, our greatest works of art, could not be harmed as a result of the mob or violence.

Everyone fought across the city. I was on a barricade with most of my friends then, and we took on a little damage, saw some of those who'd joined us killed, friends of ours, even, but none of our set of nine. We were lucky to be spared that fate, then. And we kept on for three days of it.

[Three days which, actually now, are something of a blur to Enjolras. They had not stopped to eat or sleep, after all, so that the whole revolution comes to him in bits of memory, rather than a full construction of events. That was until the end and how it had been ruined, then.]

It finally felt, it truly did, as though we finally had won. The more buildings those on our side gathered, the closer a republic seemed, the truer that it was.

[His next words are a sigh,deeply sad and disgruntled at the same time, and the next words are darkly bitter. ]

The closer it had seemed...

[If he was looking for precise dates to compare...that was a little above even Midii's mental capacity. She had always been smart for her age, sure, but never a genius. Not like some of the actual prodigies she'd known. It was more...the essence of the history. The emotion and human nature of action and reaction to the events surrounding them.]

[Events such as war.]

[She accepted the chair he pulled out for her with a grateful smile, sitting with proper posture and her legs crossed at the ankles.]

That seems almost ironic, doesn't it? That your sense of hope would have come at the very beginning of the war.

[Then again, it made sense. Not yet weary from all the fighting, if chances looked good at the time, why wouldn't they have reason to believe that such a battle would be over soon?]

[Dates were not what mattered in all of this, no. Scopes of events, rough periods in time and thought were more than enough to establish things on a formal scale. Other than that, what truly mattered in those cases were the simpler things. The songs being sung in the streets, forms of address among citizens, the leading topics in the air. Those made a time and place much more than a date written on a paper and established it forever as Enjolras was concerned.]

Maybe a bit ironic that we did not wait until much longer to allow ourselves to consider the outcome and whether too much enthusiasm and hope might lead to a disaster. But then again, it was also something else though. Very much like...

When I was a child, it transpired that my favorite aunt was to have a child and I was to have a cousin. The months of waiting seemed so long, even though they were busy ones with a great deal of preparation. But when she realized that it was time to send for the midwife and the hardest part of birth began, it was also the moment that our family was filled with the most hope and the most joy. Even though the moment could and was filled with a lot of pain, my aunt was at her most excited. At the promise of a child and all the hope one has for an infant who is being born.

[Is that improper? It would have been a bit at home, to even speak of such, but here it hardly seems as socially strict, not that Enjolras was one to worry too much about lines of propriety before.]

Our July Revolution started quite like that. The second French republic was being born, and we were all set to labor, and to, as my friend Feuilly pointed out, deliver and see it fulfilled. However, [And his tone is a little wry] the births did vary in terms of success.

My cousin was born healthy and brought us a great deal of joy. Our republic was killed before it left the womb we had prepared for it.

[Perhaps to another, but Midii actually found yet another parallel to his story, if what she suspected was true.]

So your cousin was okay. What about your aunt?

Well, Aunt Apolline was weakened by the experience, more than was thought usual and she became ill rather easily after that, but she did live until Gahariet was old enough to be sent to school. I do suspect she waited until then, to know for certain that he would be all right without her there.

[Thinking of that moment now, visiting with his aunt in the last few years of her life, always at her home in Paris, where her husband had insisted on bringing her for better access to doctors, Enjolras remembers just how afraid she seemed of leaving the earth. It had seemed the sort of thing that one understood would happen, but naturally brought her so much worry for the beloved child she had longed for and nurtured, despite the promises and assurances that things would be as all right as they could.

It was a fear he could acknowledge all too well back then, at seventeen, himself, but he had not understood it very well, and had not considered even then, that he would ever have a child. Only, right here, with Midii, another metaphor in the scenario he started to explain becomes perfectly clear. The only regret at his death, the only sorrow was that he did not know who remained behind to care for the idea of the republic, and...

Well, it seems his metaphor and story went deeper than he knew, and he's reasonably sure that his Aunt Apolline is laughing at him, somewhere in spirit. Trolled, almost. From behind the grave and a universe.

Oh QUITE well played indeed! A little snort escapes him then before he realizes that one does not often punctuate stories of beloved relatives who have passed on with laughter.]

I...forgive me for that but I've just realized something even deeper in the metaphor than I imagined, and I believe my aunt is laughing at me.

[So she didn't die in childbirth after all. Huh. But she was lost all the same.]

[That was not quite true for Midii's mother, who gave up the fight by the time her fourth child was born. Midii never blamed her for leaving, but she was also never truly close enough to her mother to be so greatly affected by her passing. Except for the part where it left her the primary caretaker for her three little brothers...and then, later, for her father as well, when he got sick.]

No, that's alright.

I wasn't offended.

[Not offended, no, but there is something else there, something more to the question that has Enjolras searching Midii's gaze, and trying to find something to say.]

It was not so uncommon, then, for women to lose their lives that way in my Paris. A few of my friends experienced it for themselves when they were young. I cannot specifically relate to the experience of so much loss, my mother and I do not speak, but if you would feel better to speak of yours, or not to speak of her, or anything at all, I would gladly listen.

[She hesitated at first. Not because she didn't want to talk about her mother. There was never a time when she would make a point of bringing her up, but she never shied away from the topic before.]

This is your story. I wouldn't want to interrupt.

Please, if you would like...

I've told you so much about those who were important to me. It would only be fair for you to do the same thing. And, well, my story does not exactly end there, but the July Revolution does.

The old king fled, and we had hopes that we had won but they installed another. That is what came of our attempt just then. There...is not so much more to tell you of that, so please. Speak away.

[Besides, it may be good to listen to someone else for a change. Someone with another perspective of things. Enjolras had not gotten along with his mother since he was a young teenager, and he last saw her at age 18, on a visit where he overheard her saying she was "terrified" of what he had become, so it would be nice to learn of someone else's really.]

[There were few people who knew of her past, and even less who knew the whole story.]

[Maybe...it was time. Time she finally told somebody who could understand. Different eras, but same world. One filled with war and death and heartache. The only difference between them was that Enjorlas knew what it was like to experience hope first. Midii had never been given that luxury.]

I was born in southern France, around le Midi. [At least, that's what the region was referred to as by her time; the coastal area regions that bordered the Atlantic.] Our village was too far north to gain much from the oceans, though, and the war had already been going on for years. Before I was even born. Tensions between the Earth and the Space Colonies had existed for a long time, but it was the Assassination of a peaceful ambassador...a man named Heero Yuy...the year After Colony 175 that started it all.

Not everybody was affected by the War. Not the rich. But the rest of us were. It's all we've known our whole lives. Soldies coming into town for supplies. Fights breaking out. People get hurt or killed when they didn't even want to be involved. That was the world we lived in.

[Hope had been a major part of what kept Enjolras steady on the barricades and spurred him through a lot of situations, yes. He may not have realized the extent of that hope back then, but since he's been here, he has learned a LOT about who he is, and was, and the things that sustained him. A life without hope, even if he did not quite realize how deeply he hoped then, is a hard thing to face, especially in those circumstances
.
Give a man a life without hope and they turn into, well... Grantaire came to mind, actually. Midii herself did not seem that way, of course, but well, he was interested to learn more of her, really, given the talks they'd had so far. Enjolras leaned forward in his seat a bit to study her.]

That sounds... [He's frowning a little, trying not to make this seem dismissive or as if he does not care and the words show it as the come out.] much like the world that Epoinine knew. The nature of war is terrible, more to its effects afterwards in most cases, I think. I am sorry to hear of that.

[It would have been a lie to say she didn't flinch ever so slightly beneath his gaze. It was as if he were trying to look right through her. Not that she thought he was accusing her of lying. Again, she had no reason to. Not anymore.]

I wouldn't know about that.

The year I came from, just before I was brought to Haven, was After Colony 1-9-0. The War had still been going on at the time. I had been right in the middle of it all.

[An interesting pronoun choice. I, not we, when until a moment ago she had been specifically referring to the home and people she'd been born into.]

[Not quite to look through her, maybe, but to understand her more than anything else. Enjolras had never been quite sure what to make of women, especially younger ones, so it resulted in situations like this one. And of course he would never think she lied at all. Midii's truth was her truth, no matter how different it was from anyone else's. It was only fair that she be allowed to speak her story, however she felt it best. Enjolras himself was interested in what she had to say, not in accusations.]

You had been.

[He is nodding and looking up a bit to meet her gaze.] You were a soldier of some kind then?

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