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[bonapartist]

This is a journey on which I am not keen to travel. I hardly need to speak of that, and yet I feel I must. I must leave Cosette now, when our lives together are beginning? That is not what I intend. I can never be happy if I am apart from her.

[ He sighs, looking troubled and unsure. ]

Too much has been lost already. I have seen too many empty rooms, and I wish not to leave another one behind me. The friends who are gone cannot be found again, it is impossible.

I have to keep looking forward, it's the only way. The world is not how I dreamed it might be, it is not how any of us imagined.

I do not need another reminder of that fact.

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[bonapartist]

[ Eponine.

The sight of her might break his heart. ]

To a strange place, 'Ponine. To a ship full of dangers.

[ A tiny, uncertain laugh. ] Forgive me. I must be dreaming, to see you here.

[roseoftheunderworld]

[She doesn't want it to. In fact, she almost wants him to be angry with her for what she's done. What she did before she died.]

These games...they are not all bad. Mlle. Mundane sent me somewhere nice before, a city of dreams. But, she could not keep me there.

But where you are going does not sound so nice.

[Her smile in return is less a smile than a grimace.] It is no dream, monsieur. The dead can come back in places like this.

[bonapartist]

Were it a dream, Eponine, you would not be dead. Would that I could make it so.

I am sorry that you could not remain in that other world. I would be glad to know that somewhere, you continued still, even if it were in a world less comfortable than that - like the one to which I am bound.

[roseoftheunderworld]

[A snort. Honestly, Marius.] But you cannot, monsieur. There is no use lingering on things you cannot make happen.

I suppose it does not matter, though it was very nice there. Perhaps one day, Mlle. Mundane will find the will to put me somewhere else, but for now, I suppose I am content to stay in what she calls her headspace. It is not uncomfortable.

[She draws a little closer, unsure.] I wish you did not have to go where you may be hurt. Will there be others you know there? Your friends?

[bonapartist]

I… am not certain of that. [ He supposes so, but it cannot be possible.

Just as talking to Eponine now is impossible. Already, the mechanics of that place confuse him. ]

It may be so, but it is difficult for me to believe. As you say…the past cannot be restored. Not for you. Not for them. [ Not for him. ]

But there is nothing for you to worry about. I do not relish the thought of danger, but I am more concerned with what I leave behind. A little pain has never worried in me the past.