Eponine's mostly been going to the river, with Regan's father, a strange sort of dynamic when Regan herself largely isn't asked on those runs. But she knows how to fish with a hand line anyway, and how to flay a fish with brutal efficiency, and she thinks her ease with hunting and gathering and lack of disgust with it has earned her a -- possibly confused -- sort of respect.

She's still a little uncomfortable with it, though, and she's opted to go with them picking out the ripening fruits and berries, herbs that can be used for medicine and such.

Eponine'd been bent to gather blackberries, ignoring the sting of their sharp leaves as she plucks at them. There were more than a few berry bushes in the gardens of Paris that she'd snacked on when she lived there, and it's an easy task to get lost in without making noise.

So when something comes crashing through the underbrush, she just about has a heart attack, jumping upright and then freezing as her eyes go wide. The creature is like nothing she had even quite imagined in Regan's explanations. Eddie grabs for her -- something she wasn't expecting at all, though she's sure it's just that she's the nearest person. His fingers wrap around her wrist so hard it hurts.

Eponine turns her hand over to hold his hand sideways, trying to slow her breaths, trying to will Eddie's own slower, her mind pulling her away as though she's watching them from a long distance away.

It's much harder, as it turns out, to confront danger when it's not just you that might get hurt if you fight it. At home Eponine'd have laughed, dared it to kill her when she didn't even care if she lived one day to the next, run at it with her knife. She's dead at home and on borrowed time: what does it matter? But it does, a little. And more importantly, she isn't going to charge it when she's coming from Eddie's direction.

Slowly, it disappears further into the underbrush and she takes a breath, lifting her hand to Eddie's shoulder. "Ok?" she signs, even though nothing about this is okay.