in this world of ordinary people, extraordinary people

[forthsofar]

It felt as though they'd been planning this for months, and in a way they had; the idea of it born from scattered conversations through the winter as they rebuilt their friendship, vague we should dos and have you ever been tos laying out the bones of the idea. It had just been their will to actually carry out said plans that had faded a little as the winter bled into early spring, their time and energy subsumed into more immediate concerns: exams at school, Rosie's preparations for the choir concert, the unsettling strain of all that had happened with (and to) Tim.

With some of that strain now past and the rest of it on its way out, Rosie had begun considering it again, going up to Eponine after dinner a few nights ago with a bright flier in one hand and an oddly nervous flutter in her stomach that she couldn't quite explain. "There's a new exhibit at the museum," she'd said, holding the advertisement out, "if you still wanted to go?"

They'd settled on Saturday afternoon, the forecast having called for rain and a bit of chill. It seemed the perfect sort of weather for staying all day long within the cozy stone walls of the Darrow Art Museum, or huddled inside a booth at Phoenix Records. When the day itself arrived, bright and warm and summerlike, Rosie had to laugh--even as she was determined not to postpone their plans yet again.

Inspired by the delightful surprise and the new lightness in the air, it's easy for Rosie to succumb to the turn of the season and the sense of something beginning; to pull a dress to suit the weather from the back of her closet, to slip her feet into a pair of summery sandals, to fuss with her hair a little more and slick on a new shade of lipstick before admiring herself in the bathroom mirror. And while it's a bit silly given the nearness of Eponine's room to her own, once she's finished getting ready she knocks on her friend's door, just the same as she might if they lived down the street from each other rather than merely across the hall.

"Ready to go?"

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[daughterofawolf]

Eponine hadn't forgotten, exactly, that they kept making plans and not doing them, but they'd both been busy, and she generally thought of Rosie as even busier than she (which she was, to be fair). And plans are fickle things. Eponine knows well that there are many that are only ever an idea, something said in politeness or even real affection, but meant for only the moment more than destined to become a real event.

So when Rosie'd come up to her proffering a flier, it had caught Eponine by surprise a little. So had how warm and nice it felt to be picked out of anyone else to go to something like a museum, and she'd readily agreed and even picked out a date.

Eponine doesn't normally fuss with clothes too much -- her natural style seems to fall into the right balance of feeling pretty, being easily moved in and looking intimidating for what she wants to accomplish. Today, though, she's still examining herself in the mirror, trying to figure out if the corduroy shorts, printed men's buttondown she's buttoned all the way up, rolled up neatly at the sleeves but left untucked, tights and boots are nice enough for the museum and for going out. It doesn't feel quite enough, and she's added and taken away a few accessories already.

There's a knock at the door, then, and she doesn't have much more time to decide; she just makes a face at herself, finishes off her eyeliner and answers the door.

"Ready," she says, throwing it open, and blinks at Rosie. "You look -- lovely," she says, and then grins at herself. "I didn't mean that to come out like it was a surprise. Is that dress new?"

[forthsofar]

What surprise there is--or might have been--in Eponine's tone, Rosie's hardly insulted by. More delighted, really, than anything else. "Not new, so much as something I hadn't worn very much until recently." When she'd first bought the dress, it had seemed a little daring in comparison to the kinds of things she'd worn at home or had purchased for herself shortly after her arrival. Now, nearly a year removed from her first day in the city, it just seemed another part of her wardrobe.

And if it still feels a little daring sometimes, it's only in the way she's starting to like.

"Not that we need to be talking about me, when you look..." Rosie grins broadly, taking in the full scope of her friend's outfit and the dark, dramatic smudge of her eye makeup. "Bohemian, I'd say. If someone at the museum doesn't mistake you for one of the artists, I'll be surprised."

[daughterofawolf]

Eponine laughs, both embarrassed and pleased by Rosie's assessment. Besides, it's a word she understands, something that has managed to keep the same connotation from her time to Rosie's and here on out. "Do you think?" She beams.

"Let's pretend we are, when we go out," she declares, hooking her arm into Rosie's and closing the door of the bedroom with the other. "Artists or writers or musicians. I don't have a lick of talent, but it does sound rather romantic, doesn't it?" Like she'd felt about Marius, refusing his family's money and being kind to her, starving away translating poetry. Instead of just starving. How much better she'd have liked to have that for herself!

It is silly, of course: that's why it's pretend. If she were really starving again here, she wouldn't endeavor to keep herself that way unless she had no choice.

"Where do you want to go first?"

[forthsofar]

"We'd never get away with it," she argues, halfhearted and laughing. "But that shouldn't stop us from trying. For the sake of romance." Rosie says the last word with a dramatic, silly sort of sigh, the competing momentum of Eponine sliding her arm into hers while pulling the bedroom door shut pressing Rosie against her side a little. Not so abruptly as to send either of them off balance, just enough to spark an odd something that's there and gone before she can identify it.

Straightening up again as they walk arm-in-arm to the top of the stairs and clatter downwards--the noise prompting a smile and an affectionate eyeroll from Shana at the front desk as she sees them come into view--Rosie thinks over their options as they sign themselves out and step into the warmth of the day.

"The museum," she decides at last. "Phoenix is open later, so if we end up staying longer than we mean to, we won't have to completely forgo listening to records."

[daughterofawolf]

Rosie swings into her side a little, sighing over melodramatic romance, and Eponine can't help but laugh, cheeks warm. She's never had anyone to be dramatic and silly with, not quite like this, and she's never quite sure she doesn't sound stupid or hard to Rosie, but in this moment she feels absolutely light.

"Clever," she says in agreement. "And good -- I do want to listen to music, too. Tell me about this exhibition, while we walk?" As though she hasn't turned the brochure over and over, but she knows Rosie will know much more about the details of it. She knows so much about so many things, and sometimes Eponine likes just hearing it, the same way she loved the way Marius would get impassioned about poetry or likes Elio melting into his piano.

[forthsofar]

"It's a photography exhibit," she starts, as they turn the corner and head towards the park. The museum's just on the other side, a fairly direct route, but she turns onto one of the more winding paths. The weather--and the company--nearly demands it.

"All lady photographers, from all different time periods," Rosie continues. "Darrow photographers only, I think--I don't even know if the art museum has anything that's come from outside, like us."

[daughterofawolf]

"I wouldn't know if it did," Eponine teases, because although she thinks, from what she's read and heard, that photographs of a kind did actually exist in her time, they certainly weren't commonplace enough to be perfected as art. It's one reason why her phone delights her so much. She rarely uses it for voice calls -- somehow that's more surreal feeling than just messaging someone and being able to have a response back immediately -- but she adores the camera.

"I like that, though. All women. Is it like -- well, everything, then, that there are more famous men? Or is it just taking a look at the --" She looks for what she means, gesturing. "Point of view, you know, what women see?"

[forthsofar]

"Yes, alright," she says, crinkling her nose at Eponine as she teases her. "You're from a very long time ago, before anyone, man or woman, was famous for being a photographer." It's not quite true, and they both know it, but it's near enough.

"From what I've seen about it," she continues, "it's a little of both. Even here in Darrow, there seem to be more men who've been photographers than women." It was the same at home, as far as Rosie was aware; when she thought of photographers at all, people who had captured all the faraway places she dreamed of visiting one day, far more male names came to mind than female ones. "The focus is on, um..."

Rosie tilts her head, trying to recall the description she'd read on the museum website. "Women's use of the camera lens to capture society and explore identity in and out of the studio." She smiles at Eponine, pleased to have remembered. "It sounds very grand indeed, doesn't it?"

[daughterofawolf]

"Once upon a time, that's me," Eponine jokes back, and grins, but nods, listening.

Rosie recites the description carefully, which makes her smile and raise her eyebrow. "It does. Very grand." She thinks about the words individually, and they're less intimidating. It makes her think of all the disguises she's put on in her life, been made to, both more and less material and sometimes more than one.

"Identity," she repeats again, thoughtful as they walk. "I think of it like a name or a record, you know, what they put on a card, what someone has on you. That can be slipped easy as anything, swapped out and hidden, but you still have to be you, whatever that is, don't you."

[forthsofar]

"You do," she says, turning her head to look at Eponine for a moment as they walk. "People think what they will, or assume what they do, but you're still you underneath it all. Unexciting as that person might be."

Rosie thinks about Anterwold, of being treated as a grand lady or honored guest when she'd known the truth of her presence there was something more accidental. It had felt as though the space she'd inhabited had already been carved out, that all she'd needed to do was step into it and let everything happen as it would. Given what she knew Anterwold to be, perhaps it had been; something sketched out by the Professor during an afternoon at the pub with his friends.

Not that she wanted to dwell on the implications of that for longer than necessary.

[daughterofawolf]

Unexciting. Eponine tilts her head at Rosie, narrowing her eyes in curiosity, and she bumps her shoulder lightly. "Do you think that's what you are, unexciting?"

Maybe she'd like her own life to be a little more unexciting, honestly, but she doesn't think of Rosie that way at all. To her, the things she talks about back home or even here are novel, delightful. Even just having a life with parents -- or terrible aunts -- who worry about who you're going to marry sounds terribly romantic and far-off, even at its most annoying.

[forthsofar]

"I..." she smiles, ducking her head slightly, and shrugs. "Compared to some people here."

Why the question--so softly delivered, with a gentle press of Eponine's shoulder to Rosie's own--makes her stomach do a little flip, she doesn't know. She was unexciting, or had been so until she'd wandered down Lytten's cellar stairs and made the most thrilling discovery of her young life. All she'd ever wanted was to live a life that was a little more interesting, full of strange sights and fascinating, glamorous people. Something that would make her interesting too, reflected in its glow.

[daughterofawolf]

That little embarrassed duck is cute, and Eponine can't help grinning.

"This place is mad," she declares. "That doesn't mean the madder it gets the better it is. Sure, there are people with magic and powers, or that came from the end of the world, but that doesn't make your life boring. You are interesting and you should feel it."

"Besides, it's not always a good thing," she points out. "My life wasn't boring, back home, but it was only because I was too afraid to be bored, most of the time."

That's a dark turn for a sunny conversation, and one a little more vulnerable than she intended to be, but thankfully they're nearing the museum, and she laughs at herself wryly. "Here we are: this is a better sort of interesting."

[forthsofar]

Something warms within her, bright and happy, when Eponine says You are interesting. It's not unexpected, given their friendship and the way they've managed to rebuild it over the past months, but it pleases her even so. More so, perhaps.

There isn't much time to say anything, about that or the darker, more curious mention of Eponine's life before Darrow; they turn the corner, and the fine grey stone of the art museum looms before them. "A much better sort of interesting," she echoes, turning her head to grin brightly at her friend. "Let's go in."