The SEQUEL to Avenir! The second book in Let Others Rise: The Series
Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Les Amis journey to the future and attempt to reunite with Avenir and save the peaceful city of Paris from the ever-present threat of the society of Mars...
(A/N: This one's intense; if it's bothering you, know your limits! Also a lot of this was inspired by Tangled.)
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Avenir POV:
"I...don't know what to say," spoke Javert, gruffly. "You're expecting me to convince them to attack your friends, and you think you can explain to me the sense in that? You could be setting us up, and then all of you will be squashed. The National Guard aren't patient."
"It's the only way to achieve justice. We need to think we are going to lose, so that we are inspired to work all the harder. When you were at your lowest point, and you thought you lost it all, didn't you work all the more harder?"
"Fair point; as I'm sure you are well aware, I would indeed work twice as hard. But you would trust the word of a war-crazed general?" smirked Javert.
Keeping my voice low so Soult or other eavesdroppers wouldn't hear, I hissed, "Jean Maximillian Lamarque is a man of the people and a savior of justice, and I will not have you acting as if he's some monster when you have men in this very building who have used the guillotine! Don't think I don't know about you overseeing those procedures..."
"I was forced to, and you cannot even begin to imagine the traumas I have faced!" he hissed right back.
"Then believe the general. Give back to the people. Prove that those individuals did not die in vain, and prove that their deaths have affected you in such a way that you will stand up for the people."
"By killing them."
"By letting the Guards have a taste of victory, and the students a taste of failure so we work all the harder and triumph."
"I'll be murdered by your pretty young lover there, and you're in grave danger too, if he finds out of your betrayal."
"Lamarque was like a father to him. He will understand, eventually. I can't even wrap my head around this order, monsieur. This order is going to get me shot," I spoke numbly, which was true. "But it was Lamarque's dying wish, and I must stay true to what he would have wanted. And Enjolras never kills."
I turned to go.
"Your loyalties are most impressive," Javert commented.
"Let's see if yours are just as well," I said, taking one step toward the door.
"You look like him, you know," he grumbled, causing me to stop in my tracks. He meant Metias Soult. "You have his hair, especially when it's hiding under that cap and you make it look short."
"I am not my ancestor," I spoke loudly, not comprehending as to how Javert had found out I was a descendant of Metias Soult, but annoyed nonetheless. "Is that why you're helping me? Because you feel you have to help a blood relative of your boss?"
"I follow only the law, and justice," commented Javert. "You have much faith in others - myself, for example, and the ability to turn others to...one might say, the right side. Why not him?"
