(Hello this my newest gender-bend fan-fiction retelling of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I was inspired to make this story by many Disney Gender-bend fan art and also from classic stories; Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.)
{Disclaimer: I don't own Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame or the characters.}
In the city of Paris, the bells from Notre Dame rang out joyously in the morning as the people in the town were dressed in their finest and preparing for a special event.
"Lovely day for the wedding," the baker man greets the passing villagers as he made a special cake for the occasion and placed in his cart.
"Yes, it's a beautiful day for the wedding," answered the florist girl with a basket full of many coloured roses for decorations.
As the grown-ups were getting ready for the grand day, the children; who finished their chores, ran straight to the puppet theatre wagon run by Clopin; a puppeteer, an entertainer and King of the Gypsies.
"Listen, they're beautiful, no?" Clopin asked the children as they gathered around him, "So many colours of sound, so ever-changing moods, because you know they don't ring all by themselves."
"They don't?" Asked the hand puppet that looked like him.
"No, you silly boy," Clopin answered and drew back the curtain of his theatre to show the children and his hand puppet the Cathedral bell towers, "because up there, high, high in the dark bell tower used to live a mysterious bell ringer."
"Who is this bell ringer?"
"Who?" Asked his hand puppet.
"What kind of person lives there?"
"What?" The puppet pestered.
"How did this person come to be there?"
"How?" The puppet interrupted again.
"Hush!" Clopin scolded his puppet and hit on the head with a stick; the children laugh as the doll groaned, "And Clopin will tell you."
The children gathered closer as Clopin began his story.
"It is a tale, the tale of a hero...and a monster."
One winter's night at the docks of Paris, four frighten gypsies, and their ferryman was sailing by ferry in secret into Paris.
The passengers were two brothers and their younger sister and her arms wrapped in a blanket was her baby, as they were sailing under the bridge the baby began to cry in the freezing cold air.
"Shut it up will you!" The gypsy woman's brother whispered her in alarm.
"Will be spotted!" Her other brother hissed in fear of being discovered.
"Hush my sweet little one," the mother gently hushed her baby, and let the child play with her oval-shaped gold pendant with a dove symbol engraved on the surface, the child quietens down as they continued the journey.
At last, they had reached their destination and quietly stepped out of the boat.
"Four guilders, for safe passage into Paris," the ferryman demanded, and just as one the gypsy men prepared to pay him, and arrow came out of nowhere and stuck on the ferryman's oar.
They looked and saw a group of soldiers with weapons in hand had surrounded them with nowhere to escape.
Then they heard a sound of heavy clomping in the snow, they slowly turned and saw what's coming towards them.
"Judge Claude Frollo!" The oldest brother whispered in horror, trotting towards from under the bridge on the towpath, was a gaunt man with slightly grey hair and dressed in black robes with a purple and black hat with red trimming and rides on a giant black steed.
Judge Claude Frollo had a long to purge the world of vice and sin and saw corruption everywhere except within.
He seems to have a partial hatred against the gypsy folk wants nothing more than have the world rid of them for good.
As he came closer to the fugitives, the oldest brother tried his best to protect his sister but was torn from her along by the soldiers and was cuffed in iron along with his younger brother and the ferryman.
"Bring these Gypsy vermin to the palace of Justice," Frollo commanded the soldiers and they began to drag the prisoners away, leaving their sister with the soldiers. As one of the soldiers was about to clad the woman when he notices the bundle wrapped up tightly in her arms.
"You there," he shouted at the gypsy girl, and she tried to make a quick getaway he seized her by the hand, so she doesn't escape, "what are you hiding?"
"Stolen goods no doubt," Frollo assumed as he sternly look upon her and the bundle in her arms from his horse, "take them from her!"
Frighten that the soldiers will take her baby, then her older brother suddenly gave the soldier a sudden jerk with the chain he was attached to and tackled at the soldier that held his sister.
"Run!" He cried out to her as he stalled the guards, the gypsy girl looked upon her brothers, for it might be the last time she'll ever see them and with no other choice, she ran.
Through of streets of Paris, she ran as fast as could while holding tight to her baby and from behind her she suddenly hears the sound of hooves against the cobbled ground, and she took a glance over her shoulder and saw Frollo on his horse chasing after her.
She quickly turns around a corner to a small flight of steps of a platform hoping that man slow down, but Frollo managed to manurer his horse and sped after her.
The girl raced on as fast as she could because she knew that if she stops, the horse will crush her, or Frollo will catch her and her baby. As she sped on through the street, she almost feels the horse's breath at her back as it nearly caught up with her.
Frollo drove his horse hard into the race, knocking away sigh post of an inn that got in his way, but then they came to a dead end with a small gap half block by an iron gate.
The gypsy girl athletically leapt over the gate while holding tight to her baby and landed securely on the ground and kept on running through the dark and narrow streets.
Frollo could not get his horse through such a narrow gap, not wanting to give up he turned his horse to find another way into the street.
The Gyspy girl may have escaped from Frollo, but she and the baby need to find a safe place to hide, she desperately looks around and saws to her astonishment, a magnificent architectural cathedral covered with many gargoyles. It was the famous Notre Dame cathedral.
The sight of this majestic building brought hope to her and her baby, she knew that Notre Dame will accept anyone who needs protection. So she headed straight for the cathedral as fast as she could run, clutching tight her baby to her chest.
She soon reached the large wooden doors as the snow began to fall from the night sky.
"Sanctuary," she screamed as she hammered hard on the door, desperate for someone to let her in. "Please give us sanctuary!" Then she suddenly heard the sound of hooves coming from the streets, she turned around as saw to her horror was Frollo; who had managed to get his horse through the narrow lanes and sped straight for her.
With a desperate effort, the gypsy girl moved from the door and ran away again.
But it was too late, Frollo's horse had finally caught up with her and Frollo leaned forward with an outstretched hand and grabbed hold of the cloth of the bundle with the gypsy girl still holding on to it tightly.
The gyspy girl refused to let go of her baby and struggled to get her baby free, but Frollo gave her a hard kick, and she fell hard on the stone steps and hit her head. The white snow on the steps began to turn red with her blood.
Frollo as looked on the corpse of the dead girl without pity of what he had done. He noticed the bundle he thought were stolen goods had begun to move and make a mewing noise.
"A baby?" Frollo was astonished and then began to unravel the cloth take a look at the gypsy baby, and when he saw the baby's face, what he saw made him look with terror.
"A Witch!" Frollo gasped and quickly covered the baby's face and looked around for something to get rid of this creature and saw the old town well and steered his horse towards it and when he reached it and raised the cloth holding the defenceless baby over the opening of the well, prepared to drop the baby so it will drown.
"STOP!" Cried the Archdeacon; who came out when he heard knock on the cathedral doors and witness the horrifying scene of Frollo killing the gypsy woman and was about to drop her baby in the well.
"This creature is an unholy demon," he explained to the Archdeacon while still holding the child over the well, he was very annoyed by the Archdeacon's interference. "I'm sending it back to Hell where it belongs!"
The Archdeacon came upon the dead girl's body and gently lift her up from the stone steps.
"Look, Frollo," Archdeacon reprimanded at him, as he gestured with his hand to show Frollo's crime. "Look at what you have done! See the innocent blood you had spilt on the steps of Notre Dame."
"I'm guiltless," Frollo proudly justified himself as he guided his horse towards the Archdeacon, "she ran, I pursued."
"Now you would add her poor child's blood to your guilt?!" The Archdeacon continued, outraged by Frollo's unfeeling to be remorse for his deed.
"My conscience is clear!" Frollo argued back.
"You can lie to yourself and your minions," Archdeacon fired back at Frollo, "you can claim that you haven't a doubt."
"But you can never run from nor hide what you done from the eyes!" Archdeacon warned Frollo and pointed at the gargoyles and statues of the cathedral, "The very eyes of Notre Dame!"
Frollo looked towards the cathedral and the eerie statues that looked as though they watching him and what he had done. And for one time in his life a power and control, Frollo felt a twinge of fear for his immortal soul.
"What must I do?" Frollo appealed to the Archdeacon for his advice to redeem himself.
"Care for the child," The Archdeacon answered as he carried the dead woman to give her a proper burial, "and raise it as your own."
"What, I am to be saddled with this deformed...?" Frollo was about to argue about this decision, but it was the only way to save his soul. " Very well, but the infant live with you in your church."
"Live here?" The Archdeacon asked he was surprised by this unexpected request from Frollo. "But where?"
"Anywhere, just so the child kept locked away where no one else can see," Frollo answered him. Clearly, he didn't want the people in town to see him with the child he had to take in and have them believed that if they saw the child's face they might assume the child may be a witch and he was in league with the devil. That's the last thing he wants. He knew the only place where the child can be hidden as he looked at the two towers of Notre Dame as the snow was falling softly.
"The bell tower perhaps," Frollo suggested, as he gazed upon the child with a sneer on his face, "and who knows, our Lord works in mysterious ways. Even If this ugly creature may prove one day to be of use to me."
"And Frollo took in the child back to his home at the Palace of Justice and have the servants look after the baby," Clopin continued the story to the children who were awestruck by the tale, "and they found in the child's hand the gold pendant with a symbol of a dove. They also found a name carved at the back of the locket and they decide to give the child the same name, a name that means holy... Agnes."
Then Clopin showed a puppet Frollo holding the baby wrapped in cloth as he continues the tale.
"Now children I'm going to tell you a riddle and guess if you can," Clopin said to the intrigued children, "who is the monster and who is the hero in this story?"
The children were quiet, unable to answer and too excited they begged Clopin to carried on the story.
Who is the hero, and who is the monster in this story? Can you guess?
(I hope you've enjoyed this first chapter and there'll be more coming soon. Please let me know what you think.)