fandomtownies | The Graveyard, Wednesday Afternoon

It wasn't that Norman liked the dead more than he liked the living, really. Honestly. He was perfectly okay with the living, so long as they were perfectly okay with him. It was just that... well... this was a lonely holiday for a lot of people. Sure, most holidays were. But he suspected that most of the people back in the dorms had gotten some manner of recognition today, and he didn't know very many of them terribly well anyway.

But the people in the graveyard? Nobody ever thought of them on a day like today. Valentine's Day was for the living, for the romantics of the world who had lives together to look forward to. And the dead? Well. They had already lived it, provided they were lucky, or provided that was the path they even wanted to take in life at all.

So today, Norman had gathered up what little of his savings he had left - the last good kick in the seat of the pants that was probably going to drive him to look for a job in town - and gone to buy a few dozen roses. And now he was going from gravestone to gravestone with his bouquet, leaving something at every one, whether there was still somebody at 'home' in there or not. A few spirit orbs bobbled, glowing, in the corners of his vision, and he smiled and wished them a Happy Valentine's before moving on. Every now and again, he'd stop and chat to a ghost that was brave enough to peek out and investigate, not caring about who was watching who might think he was just a crazy kid talking to thin air.

This was going to take some time, but he didn't seem to mind.

[OOC: Open graveyard!]

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A day like today, it was only inevitable that Éponine would be back and forth quite a bit with some delivery or other, so it was likely not a surprise that one of her delivery runs would take her past the graveyard while Norman was there.

She didn't say anything at first, only leaned against a gravestone near the sidewalk, watching silently with a fascinated expression on her face.

At least she wasn't lurking furtively. That was an improvement.

"And one for Mrs. Nesbitt," Norman said, holding up one more rose for a moment, pausing halfway to laying it down on the grave in question. She'd wanted a better look at it before he put it down, so that she could take in all angles of it, and... well. Norman was out here in the first place, he was hardly going to deny a ghost a good look at a rose. He smiled a little as the ghost thanked him, and then set it down and reached for the next one.

It was about then that he realized he was being watched.

Maybe Mrs. Nesbitt could have warned him of that? No? He blinked up at the lady who was leaning against the gravestone, and then he waved.

Awkwardly.

Awkward was fine! It wasn't like Éponine was an expert at social interaction anyway. If anything, it made her more kindly disposed toward the kid.

"There's something I haven't seen yet," she remarked lightly, meandering a few paces closer. "It's gift-giving and flowers every which way today, seems like, but the dead get the bad end of the deal 'f you ask me."

She shrugged. "Didn't think I'd see someone remembering about them today, but it's nice, I tell you that."

Nothing in her voice or demeanor seemed to find anything odd about his apparently talking to himself.

That caught Norman off-guard somewhat, yes. He blinked, and then he put on a tentative smile, looking down at the handful of flowers he had left.

"They get visitors from time to time, but sometimes it's the days they know they aren't going to get visitors at all that they're the most lonely," he offered. "I thought maybe they would appreciate it. A few of them might not, but most of them do."

Éponine thought that over for a moment, then let out a little grunt of laughter.

"So not all that different from the living then, 's that it? I guess that's not so surprising." Vaguely, she wondered if anyone ever visited Monsieur Marius and his friends.

She perched atop a tombstone and gestured toward Norman's flowers. "That's nice of you, it is. To remember the people who get forgotten. There's not many who do."

"Well..." Norman shrugged a little, smiling awkwardly as one of the nearby ghosts clapped him engouragingly on the shoulder. "Forgotten doesn't necessarily mean gone, you know? Not everybody necessarily understands that."

He paused, and then held up his handful of flowers.

"I have a few more to go, but I think I got extra anyway. Would you like one?"

Éponine burst out into mildly surprised laughter. "Me! As if you even know -- well, no, seeing as you're the type to do all this it makes sense. You're a decent sort. I like you."

She hopped up off the stone and bowed, somewhat ridiculously, only to have to stop and scoop up a heart-shaped box of chocolates with a mailing label slapped on it that had fallen out of her bag in the process. . "I'll happily take it, and thanks. Say -- d'you hear them talk back to you?"

Norman picked out a nice rose and held it out to her, smiling faintly. At her question he did kind of exchange a glance with a nearby ghost, though. And then he turned his look back to her and shrugged his shoulders.

"I... yeah. I do. The ones who are still here, anyway. Not everybody sticks around. And out of the ones who do, not everybody is always up for a conversation."

"Not much different from the living there, either," Éponine decided with a nod, though there was a hint of bitterness behind the words. (Just a small hint, diluted with resignation, nowhere near as concentrated as it might have been a few years ago.) "Only there's most of us who can't hear them."

Norman hesitated for a moment as he heard that small hint of bitterness, that wash of resignation. And then he shrugged a little.

"Some of them are tired," he said. "They've been there for hundreds of years and they've seen horrible things happen on the island that they couldn't do anything about. Or they're just not used to speaking to the living, anymore. It took them a long, long time to accept that they couldn't, so I'm not going to be angry at them if they don't come out to chat now, just because there's someone who can hear them. I won't be here forever, either. That thought, the thought of talking to me only for me to leave, hurts a few of them almost as much as just never being heard."

The Graveyard, Wednesday Afternoon

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