Eponine Deschiens ~ District Eight [Finished]

Looking at the young girl, people have a hard time looking past the dirt smudged all of her face. It's become a part of her. Even if she manages to find some water to wash her face, there is plenty of dust to take its place, covering her features and identifying herself to everyone as the lowest of the low. It's a fact of life Eponine has come to accept. The girl has an almost defeated hunch about her shoulders from all the truths of life she has come to terms with. Eponine's best feature are her eyes, they're just a plain brown but in her best moments they show the small strands of hope she clings too. There isn't anything else in her appearance that really stands out, dirt isn't the best thing for your complexion after all.

Her hair might be considered pretty if it earned some serious attention- but sadly it is a neglected, oily curtain that Eponine has cut away from her face and slips up into a ratty old cap most of the time. With only the barest of necessities the girl sports only a small collection of garments made from rough, cheap fabric covered with patches and little holes she managed to sew up. Like her younger brother, Eponine tends to walk the District streets barefoot although for different reasons. The oldest of the pair saves the lone pair of boots for winter time so they won't be worn out when she really needs them.

For all the elements Eponine's appearance goes through she is often mistaken for a boy, which isn't a bad thing.

As it usually is with girls her age, Eponine is a dreamer. Her head is often filled with pretty thoughts and "what if"s. However the never amount to anything. She does her thinking in quiet and rarely expresses her dreams, even to Gavroche. She is jarred to reality all to harshly where she has to keep after the only family she's ever really known. Quiet and not exceptionally bright, Eponine is just another face in District Eight- easy to forget.

Very protective of her younger brother, Eponine goes the extra mile for him. Although is does make it harder for her to take care of Gavroche when he is constantly being followed by stray dogs and Peacekeepers alike. The self proclaimed "King of the Slums" gets into more trouble than Eponine would like to deal with. She isn't the best with words and can't seem to get through to him to think before he speaks. Always talking as if there isn't any authorities listening in and ready to snap up any traitors or criminals.

You could call her paranoid, but Eponine does fear the Peacekeepers. The finds no comfort in their white uniforms and goes out of her way to keep from walking past one on the streets. And if she can't avoid passing one, her stomach ties itself in knots that take hours to undo. She constantly fears that they'll recognize her and send her away- she has yet to realize that no one remembers her.

Eponine rarely finds comfort in anything but when she does it's with singing. Sometimes when Gavorche is long taken by sleep, she'll leave her post of guarding him and hum to herself and eventually the humming turns into full out song. In the dead of the night no one is awake to hear you or dispute the pretty dreams that are tied in with the tune.

When she was younger, Eponine lived with her parents in an actual house, but they weren't the best of mentors. They were arrested for smuggling alcohol and her and her brother were put in the community home. Eponine absolutely hated it there- it was filled with other children and most of them weren't the friendliest of people. The adults who ran the home weren't pleasant by any means. The rooms were filthy and they have more to eat on the streets than in that awful place. Eponine imagined that was what the Games were like- filled with other children you didn't know and forced to survive with gloomy men and women making sure your life was as hard as possible.

It was Eponine that got fed up with the treatment and one night she packed her few belongings, grabbed her brother and fled the community home convinced that some old friends of their parents would take them in. However, that small hope was just a dream. The rough characters of their childhood were either in the Detention Center or not willing to take in two children. That's when Eponine accepted her responsibilities. Living on the streets wasn't any harder than living in a community home. Sure there were Peacekeepers to deal with and the weather to worry about but the open air seemed so much easier to deal with.

Late at night, in some back alley where they made their home for the night with some other poor souls, Eponine manages to talk Gavroche into getting some sleep and listens to him ramble about how he's going to go into the Games and come home with a lot of money for them. It's a dream with good intentions, but it terrifies Eponine beyond anything else. The thought of the cruel men in white uniforms taking her baby brother away from her- watching his face grow pale on the large screens in the square- no. She couldn't do it. Gavy is all she has now and there isn't anyway they'd take him away from her without a fight.