I've decided to go back to writing this story, because I actually have more ideas for it than most of my other stories. In all honesty, I have a veritable structure worked out for the entire piece. That being said, a major rework needs to happen.

I've evolved quite a bit as a writer since I first published this story, so I've just reworked the beginning in my new style. It's much more descriptive, so I think you'll all approve of the changes.

HOWEVER, I haven't actually changed anything about the characters themselves. People who have already read chapters from years ago seemed to really enjoy Minette, the main character, and my interpretation of Esmeralda. I assure you, this rework will still reflect all that but now with much better prose.

Also, please CHECK MY PROFILE. I have a new picture of Minette up on my profile for reference.

Leave me a review with thoughts about the rework; I'm very interested to hear opinions.

Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic. And I could feel it now, rolling deep in my gut. Resting a hand against the fabric of my frock, I imagine it shakes. The very world shakes before me. Thrown into the chaos, I fight. Each step brews a cataclysm inside my head. Each fearful glance, pale lids peeling away from dark, swimming eyes, is rewarded with a frosty gust. Eyes burn. Tears run cold down freckled ghost-white cheeks.

Fierce December winds have the tidal force of something I've never known. So many buildings. Alleys so thin and winding; like veins. The wind is the blood, rushing on and on, relentlessly pressing on me: the foreign contaminant, the thing that doesn't belong.

I belong to memories of lilting sunlight, golden as honey and warm as hearth bricks. I belong to the mirror-image worlds reflected in rivers, to the merry splashes of fish, to the salty smell of something preserved taken out to be had for dinner. I don't belong to Paris, to this harshness, this unforgiving place, to the hardened faces of every Parisian I've asked for help. They claim this chaos I'm battling, railing against; but they take no joy in their triumphs. And they share none of their spoils. As wicked as the wind. As unmoving as stone. But more beautiful than I'd hoped. More fantastic than I'd dared to dream.

I felt daring, and exhilarated. Living on my broken, frayed shoestrings. Wandering endlessly with a quiet, steadfast intensity. Starving like an artist... The glory of my struggles was certainly lessened by the internal gnawing of hunger. But adventurers don't give up. Trailblazers don't complain… And adults don't cry.

I wipe furiously at my cheeks; they're feverishly flushed, either from the bristling cold or my red-hot embarrassment.

My family isn't rich, but in all my life I've never lacked for a hearty meal. Growing up, there was always something ready to eat, always something else getting made. It's never once occurred to me that food has a value, and things of value cost coin. I've never known the value of money. But now, newly on my own, I've had to learn it, in the hardest way possible: no money, no food.

I don't even know how to obtain coins. What work could I do, what skills do I have? I'm literate, surprisingly so; my father taught me. Where he, a simple fisherman, had learned to do so was something he didn't share; I hadn't really known to ask, not until leaving the village and experiencing the inherently unbrilliant nature of most people. Thus so, uncommon and sought after as it is, the people willingly to pay for my literacy are the people least likely to have the coin to pay me for my services.

I convulse: my most violent shiver tonight. Dark had fallen some time ago; I had no means to be accurate about just how long ago, December nights are as long as they are cold: it could be evening or morning. I was disoriented enough to readily believe either. All I could do was continue forward, continue shambling north, following that most famous guiding star.

Early religions, and all religions that I know of in actuality, had a fascination with the North Star. Ancient Egyptians thought the Star marked the destination of heaven in the sky, and said that deserving souls travel along its path to their eternal life. The bodhisattva in Buddhism, an intensely sublime human state only reached by the most passionately empathetic, can personify the Star and are in fact deified. And the Bible recants the story of the Three Wise Men who followed the route of the Star straight to the newborn son of God.

Call it religion's cosmic prerogative, with a liberal dash of blasphemous assumption, but following the Star has in fact led me right into Notre Dame square. Divine intervention answers the moaning of my stomach with a beautiful chorus of bells, not unlike the voice of God himself I think with a blurry mind. My vision mimics the fogginess of my thought and my steps trudge along through the thick mud coalescing within my head.

I can't even claim the sanctuary I suddenly realize I desperately need. I'm falling; though far less gracefully than the snowflakes fluttering around me, I come to rest on the ground beside them regardless. The night manages to become darker and colder still as I succumb.