(Author's notes: On a whim of inspiration, I present a Big Four (a probably) one shot of the Hunchback of Notre Dame by Disney and the 1997 movie starring the departed Richard Harris, whom you may know as the original Dumbledore. Also, part Phantom of the Opera.)
Dawn rises over Paris and the brightness of the city blooms in the light as the city awakens. Work resumes, music begins and the day starts anew. The buildings cast slanting rays upon the pavements and against the walls, but no structure casts a larger shadow than that of old Notre-Dame cathedral.
"Morning in Paris, the city awakes to the bells of Notre-Dame…" sings a jester with a pleasant voice.
People fill the streets, and the scent of baking bread and such fills the air as nearly all marks of business from the previous day are swept away. Up in the bell towers of the great church, the bells begin to sing, beckoning angels.
"The fisherman fishes, the baker-man bakes to the bells of Notre-Dame," he continues.
The jester dressed in gaudy blue and white, like an imp of ice or Old Man Winter himself, sits atop a wall, peering out into the waking world through a half mask, though it did no more to hide his mischievous features that would either amuse or startle a passerby. His feathered cap sat lightly yet snug upon his snowy head a smirk finding its way on his pale lips as he looks up at the towers that had begun the morning songs of the great bells.
"To the big bells as loud as the thunder," he sings, "To the little bells soft as a psalm…"
He could almost hear friars singing their hymns under the great halls. Bu then again, perhaps they sung beforehand. Never mind that, he thought. The people loved the song of the bells better.
"And some say the soul of the city's the toll of the bells…"
A musician down in the corner begins to play an accordion and the jester's blue gaze returns to earth to follow two children running along. A boy and a girl, a brother and sister who woke up quite early and were already playing in the morning light.
"The bells of Notre-Dame."
They stop in hearing him sing and stare up in wonder at the gaudily dressed young jester with a staff in hand, perched atop the brick wall like a blue-jay in the morning. He smiles and hops down with a small bow of good morning.
"Jacques Trouillefou!" they gasped.
The children look up at him, eyes bright at such a lovely-stranger. The hazel-haired boy greeted goodmornings with his fair-headed little sister.
"Listen," the jester says, crouching before them and glancing up at the towers, "They're beautiful, no? So many colors of sound, so many changing moods…"
He had a charm to him, like a gypsy, though his attire hid his nature quire well, looking more like a sprite than a young man. And the children were entranced as if her were the pied-piper.
"But you know, they don't ring all by themselves," he smiled to them, tapping the little girl on the nose with a gloved finger. She giggled.
"They don't?" asked Jaime, her elder brother.
"No, silly boy," said the blue jester kindly, "Up there, high, high in the dark bell tower…lives a mysterious bell ringer."
They cooed in awe, holding on to his every word.
"Who is this creature?!"
"What is he!?"
"How did he come to be there!?"
"Hush!" the jester laughed, looking to them fondly, "Jacques will tell you…it is a tale, a tale of a myth and a monster."
Dark was the night when our tale was begun
On the docks near Notre-Dame…
Four frightened gypsies slid silently under
the docks near Notre-Dame.
A boat rows carefully along the river, glinting like a silver ribbon in moonlight, the ferryman looking around nervously as its four passengers huddle together as if they would disappear if they didn't.
"Shut it up, will you!?" hissed the ferryman.
"We'll be spotted!" warned one of the passengers to the shrouded woman with tangling black hair holding to her bosom a babe.
"Hush, little one…" she muttered to the child, looking like she was fading by the instant.
The ferryman reaches a guard standing duty at the dock.
"Four guilders for safe passage into Paris," he says, an odd smirk on his face. The guard pulls out a sword the gypsies scramble from the boat, trying to escape. The men scattered, caught one by one as more soldiers pop out of nowhere in the dark of night.
But a trap has been laid for the gypsies,
And they gazed up in fear and alarm.
At the figure whose clutches were iron as much as the bells…
The bells of Notre-Dame.
A dark form towers over them all as the church towers over Paris. He was a man mounted on a dark stallion, clothes in a long robe of black. He was a terrifying man of a lean, tall stature, with no remorse on his pointed face, leering down at the gypsies along his hooked nose.
"Judge Kozmotis Pitchiner…" one of the gypsy men breathed, cowering.
Judge Kozmotis longed to purge the world of vice and sin
And he saw corruption everywhere
Except within.
"Bring these gypsy vermin into the Palace of Justice," he said in a cold, calculated voice.
The ferryman turns aside to receive a bag of gold. A gypsy man sees this, and in utter panic, runs for his life, only to be cut down by a swing of a soldier's sword. The others let out horrified cries.
But the woman knew better than to scream. She had been in such situations before.
"You there, what are you hiding!?" a soldier turns to her, grabbing her by the shoulders at the sight of the bundle she clutched.
"Stolen goods perhaps," said Pitchiner, uninterested, though he looks down at the woman.
The defiance in her eyes struck through him. He knew the woman. She was caught before, only to elude the justice of church and state time in time again. The woman was Gothel.
And she was the only true witch he had ever encountered.
"Take them from her!" he commands.
Gothel holds the child to her bosom and runs as fast as she could, evading the soldiers and scuttling into the narrow passages of the streets.
She ran.
They make chase, the soldiers mounting on to their steeds with Pitchiner at the helm, chasing after a woman on foot. Gothel was swift, whether by sorcery or true skill, they cared not. Even if the woman sprouted angel wings that moment, they would see no more than a pagan witch and would shoot her down.
A narrow wooden wall was up ahead. She climbs the stacked crates along the sides, much used to being hunted, gladdened at the sounds of horses neighing to a surprised halt behind her.
But Pitchiner had disappeared from their ranks. He had turned the corner and waited for her to make her mistake.
She pants, scurrying into the night like a mouse evading clowder of cats, her dark cloak flowing behind her like a shadow and the footfalls of her light boots drowned by the thundering gallops of the civil horses.
Gothel clambers out of the streets, nearly falling over but quickly catching her balance and saves the child from hurt. The babe was crying.
Looking up, she sees the sight she could only pray for a moment before. Notre-Dame stands in the moonlight, illuminated so that, in the eyes of the persecuted, it looked like the façade of heaven. She spares no second and scampers up the stairs, caring no more but for her and her priceless bundle.
"SANCTUARY!" she screams, banging at the wooden doors desperately.
There was fear in her heart and she knew it. The man had chased her so many times, but like this, she cannot escape.
"Please give us sanctuary!"
Gothel turns to see that Pitchiner was riding up the steps. She turns to flee once more but he was upon her before she could escape along the pillars. He reaches to down to grab any part of the witch, to hoist her up and drop her away. He wanted her dead or alive.
But instead, he grabs hold of the bundle. A child's cry rang in the night as he yanks up the cloth. Gothel's grip slips from the fabric, her lost footing sending her tumbling down the marble stairs.
With a sickening thud, she hit the paved ground and remained still.
Pitchiner knew that she was no more as crimson blood stained the white flagstone, seeping from her raven hair.
And at that moment, he turns to the weight dangling on his fist. He takes the bundle and checks the contents, having been oblivious to the cries of the infant.
"A baby?" he wonders, a faint flutter in his heart for the child he had stolen from its mother. But what he saw within cleared whatever remorse he might have had in his blackened heart.
"…a monster."
He must rid the world of it, as was his duty. Gypsies, demons, pagans, the lot of them. He looks about frantically and along the stacked houses, like an image from God, a well.
With no hesitation or second thought, he moves his steed towards it and holds the babe by the cloth of its coverings over the black waters below. They would drown it, and cleanse the world of the demon, like holy water baptizing one of sin.
STOP!
Cried the archdeacon.
Pitchiner turns to see Father Nicholas come down the steps, with one scan of the surroundings having known the business that had expired upon the churchyard. He bends down over the dead woman, checking her pulse and finding none. He looks up at the judge.
"This is an unholy demon, I am sending it back to Hell where it belongs," Pitchiner said, feeling righteous in his decision.
"See here the innocent blood you have spilt," he says.
Pitchiner withdraws his hand and the bundle with it, his stallion moving back towards the priest holding the fallen witch like she was the most pious daughter of Christianity.
"I am guiltless, she ran, I pursued." Said the judge, towering over the bearded old man, though the priest seemed to be looking down upon him.
"Now you would add this child's life to your guilt, on the steps of God's house!?" he said, always the sound of moral in the whole of the city.
"My conscience it clear!" hissed Pitchiner.
"You can lie to yourself and minions, Pitchiner! Claim that you haven't a qualm!" said the old man, holding up the dead gypsy-woman, in death, looking neither good nor evil, just a remnant to the soul that had already departed. The old priest knew the judge even when he was younger. He was once a good man, of morals and character. The greatest hero the whole of France had ever seen, both in battle and conduct.
But the world had hardened him. He had seen war and the horrors that came with it, how people can become savage and murder eachother in the names of leaders and gods that do not even care to glance if they are dead. And when he returned, he saw the same potential of evil in each person, each thief, each beggar. The death of his family was the last nail on his coffin.
And he never saw the world in good light again.
"But you'll never run from nor hide what you've done from the eyes…" said Nicholas, pointing up at the numerous gargoyles and statues of the Notre-Dame cathedral, basked in the moonlight, their shadows making them feel…alive.
"The very eyes of Notre-Dame."
They all stared at him. Every demon, every saint that adorned the walls of the church looked upon him with empty marble eyes that judged every fiber of his being and saw no good in his soul. Theire eyes were cold like his. And to see that deathly gaze reflected a thousandfold would be more than enough to break a man.
And for one time in his life or power and control
Pitchiner felt a twinge of fear
For his immortal soul.
"What must I do?" he breathed, a cold chill running down his spine.
The priest had risen, lifting the dead woman in his arms to be properly buried in the graveyards with the grace of the church, "Care for the child, and raise it as your own." He said knowingly.
"What?" he hissed, looking down at the deformed child. It was a girl.
And in that moment, he thought of his lost daughter. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever set his eyes on. And she was the complete opposite of the demon spawn he saw before him.
Seraphina's hair was black like his, and it fell over her warm features like silk, her smile warmer than any graceful summer he had in his entire life.
And the notion, the very inkling that this witch's child standing in her place repulsed Pitchiner to his core.
The baby began to cry again, her face scarred as if she had been burnt on purpose beyond recognition. She cried and cried as a baby would and in a small moment of passing, he saw the glint of green eyes.
Like dear Seraphina's.
"Very well," he said after a moment of consideration and turned back to the priest, "Let her live with you, in your church as my ward."
"Live here?" the priest wondered, though was rather relieved to hear so, knowing of Oitchiner;s cruelty, "Where?"
"Anywhere," he replied, looking back down at the child whom he now cradled, "Just so where she's locked away where no one else can see…"
An inkling struck his mind, "The bell tower, perhaps. And who knows, our Lord works in mysterious ways…"
Nicholas eyed him suspiciously, worrying for the child's fate.
"Even this foul creature may yet prove one day to be…of use to me."
And Pitchiner gave the child a cruel name
A name that means nothing
Rapunzel.
The city square is always full of people. Artists. Vendors. Children. Beggars. Gypsies.
Then there's the occasional scholar thinking that he could change the world. Most of the time a privileged young man whose time in university apparently made him feel as if centuries of society's manners and practices can be changed with one charter.
And during the Feast of Fools, it could not be more crowded as tents and banners and stands were put up in ever nook available.
So the people at the center of the square waiting for the festival to start were less than pleased to have this young activist rub politics at their face.
"The court of Spain sent a man across the Ocean to discover a New World!" called out a freckly young man, shoving papers into the hands of anyone he could see. The people muttered and grumbled (and some openly complained) about his rants.
He jumped up the side of the side of the fountain to be heard better.
"Our king-!" he began, but a man booed.
He ignored him, "Our king," he repeated, "Would have us believe that there is no world beyond the walls of this city!"
A man sitting down to enjoy his pint of ale crumpled his flyer grumpily as he continued on to an uncooperative crown of Parisians.
"They tax our houses, our meat, our salt," continued the young man with such passion of an idealistic student while people looked to him as if he were spouting idiocies and didn't give a damn, at all.
"Is there shortage of food in the Palaise Royale?" he spoke on while Jacques was making his way to the courtyard, eyeing the scene and keeping his cloak about him.
"What's going on, she's about to start…" he asked a nearby Englishman they know as the thief, Flynn Rider, looking boredly out into the scene as he leaned on a maypole.
"Politics wrapped up in the skin of drama," huffed the man.
"Why are there no books in Paris save those in our churches?!" continued the gangly young man with radical ideas. Though he looked rather frail, his mind ran with ideals.
"He's good," smiled a gypsy woman to the cloaked young stranger, her black hair in a braid, wearing a crown of colorful feathers fitting the festival and donned In iridescent shawls and skirts that made her look like one of the fairy-folk.
"A populist, Tatiana?" asked Jacques, putting on a black half-mask.
"Worse, Jackie," replied Rider, "An idealist."
Jacques (Which we will now call by his alias, Jack) stepped up, putting on his feathered cap, and winking to Tatiana, "He's mine."
"…they want you to have NO MINDS of your own, citizens of Paris!" continued the speaker as Jack came up, covering his bright clothing with his old brown cloak.
He looked about. People were actually starting to listen to this idiot.
"Knowledge…" the young idealist said with such emotion, "..is power."
Everyone stared at him.
"We must not sit idly by, we must rise up! Rise up and-"
"SIT DOWN!" Jack interrupted.
There was a roar of laughter.
Tatiana chuckled beside Flyn, who was standing back, arms crossed and enjoying the show.
"They'll raise you up high enough, on the gallows!" said Jack with another wave of laughter from the people, "What's your name!?"
"Haddock…" he said, "Horrendous Haddock the Third."
"Horrendous!? You're no more than a hiccup, kid!"
People began to chant 'hiccup' over and over again.
"They're keeping the people ignorant!" Hiccup insisted, annoyed at the jester's lack of seriousness/
"Ooh! Here we have an expert on ignorance, eh?!" Jack taunted, sitting down by where he stood.
"Will you just shut up," pleaded the young scholar to Jack, "I'm giving these people the truth!"
"The city of Paris doesn't need the truth!" Jack guffawed, getting up and tossing aside his dull cloak in opt for his wintry colors that made people cheer.
"It's Jacques Trouillefou!" children pointed and gasped in awe.
"We need dancing! We need music!"
"We need La Merida!" Flynn hooted from the side.
Music began to roar, and Jack turned to the crowd, "We need Danse la Merida!"
They cheered in unison and agreed to do so, diverting their attentions from Hiccup to the splendid tents that were starting to take on their lives in the Festival of Fools, with people starting to sing.
"Come one, come all!" Jack called out merrily, "Come join the feat of fools!"
People began to move away like a tide retreating from the shore to see the celebrations whilst Hiccup stood there, baffled.
"It's a topsy turvy day, mate," Jack chuckled as he leapt to the ground, "Better luck tomorrow!"