Memoirs of Les Amis de l'ABC

Chapter Thirteen: It's Friendship, Friendship

The air was a blanket of heat upon the two adopted sisters as they walked briskly together towards the Seine where they were to meet Muschietta along with the girl's friends. Cosette wore a yellow dress with a knit maroon shawl draped around her shoulders while Sybill dressed merely in an olive-toned dress that would have almost been considered too loose considering her ankles were visible. The cobblestones underneath their feet burned slightly through the boots Sybill wore and the flats of Cosette with weather that was strangely heated for this time of season.

"Will they like me?" worried Cosette as she patted her hair from underneath her bonnet. "I was not invited after all."

"I am sure you would have been," assured Sybill. "Muschietta merely does not know you, sweet sister, though I am sure she will like you. No one can ever help but like you."

"You think so?" questioned Cosette anxiously. "I do not with to be a nuisance, Sybie, please oh please do not allow me to be a nuisance."

"You will not be a nuisance," promised Sybill.

"You will not be a nuisance," sighed Cosette. "I am merely a tick behind your ear."

"You are more!" protested Sybill immediately. "Dearest Cosette, do not think so low of yourself. You are wonderful. Everyone always likes you. Now, come," she added, taking her sister's arm in hers, "we need make haste for I fear we are too late already."

With that, the two sisters hurried upon the heated pavement with a certain fever to their step. They had been hurrying for the past while as the sun was high in the sky at noontide. They had walked Gavroche part of the way to Madame Dubois's bakery before turning the little boy loose upon the city to go on with their own endeavors.

It was not long before they arrived at the bridge they were set to meet the girls upon. Before anyone could speak, Sybill and Cosette looked at the two strangers before them, taking in the girls. Muschietta greeted Sybill with a friendly hug then tossed a kind smile in Cosette's direction that reached even her eyes. Cosette could not help but grin in return.

Sybill's eyes looked to Éponine. Her eyes saw the end of a skirt which seemed to be a torn pattern of brown and green rags that had been sewn messily together with uneven stitches. Upon her first glance of the girl before her, Sybill realized that Éponine was clearly a raven that was bound to soon take flight. Éponine's hair was nearly black and in clear tangles as it fell to her shoulders. Her skin was pale and there were deep hollows where round cheeks should have been. Sybill could make out a scar upon her forehead. It was despite everything unruly about her appearance, that the raven looked utterly beautiful. 

If Éponine was a raven, than her sister Azelma was a dove beside her. The girl was shorter in stature yet her frame seemed to be healthier than her elder sister's. Azelma had the same intense, brown-eyed gaze as Éponine though on her lips was the friendliest of smiles one could encounter. Her hair was loose and flowing, and her gray skirt was torn. At sixteen, she was beyond the age of it being acceptable though Sybill and Cosette suspected no one had taught the girl the ways of societal norms. Sybill was secretly refreshed at the appearance of the rosy-cheeked girl. Her eyes fell to the ground, and she noticed that both of the girls were walking barefoot upon the cobblestone that the heat turned to fiery coals.

"May I present Éponine and Azelma Jondrette," smiled Muschietta to Cosette and Sybill. "And this is Sybill and Mademoiselle Cosette Fauchelevent," she added, gesturing to the other two girls. Cosette noticed how her name was the only said with a title to it with a slightly self-conscious air.