Hey guys. have recently become obsessed with Clopin from Hunchback of Notre Dame (Dinsey movie version), because not only is he hot and awesome but also one of the most interesting chaotic good characters of all time. So here's a story of how this twisted jester found and raised the little Esmeralda to be his most useful dancer, and most loyal friend. Clopin and esmeralda (along with a few others like Djali) are not my characters, they belong to disney, and the author of the original book. but my OC's are mine thanks.
It was only once a year that his people could come out onto the slippery stones of the streets of Paris without fear of being arrested, or scorned, or chased away from shop corners. This day was the only day his people could walk free. The guards were there to keep order, but none could raise a hand against the Gypsies without reason like they did on any other day, nor could they try capture the women or frighten the children who wore the gold painted earrings and bright, patched together frocks. Confetti would dance and swirl with the skirts of performing ladies and billow out the air of the instruments. 364 days they waited for this, one, day. And it was approaching soon enough.
But right back to their court of miracles they would have to jump, as soon as the sun started to rise on the following day.
Clopin Trouillefou sighed as his fingers found another moth-eaten hole in his favourite jester cloak, and he frowned when he saw a bell missing as well. He sat on one of the stools in his tent, his shoulders slumped. A bleat beside him made him turn his head, and he rubbed the head of the small baby goat that had flicked the tent door aside.
"Oh dear Djali. Frollo's making it harder every year for us." He scratched the pleasant kid behind the ear, and managed a smile to himself. One of the acrobat's children had taken the abandoned baby goat from a grumpy seller, and skilfully snuggled it below. When one of the women suggested they fatten it for eating, the child, dear little Aceline, had screeched a defined 'no', and ran off among the catacombs. Clopin had finally found her huddled with the fluffy creature amidst the bones, after scrambling through the tunnels close on three hours.
She had grudgingly let him sit with her, to pat the little weakened goat.
"Maybe you can teach him to dance." He had said, thinking it wouldn't be such a bad idea.
And here the creature still dwelled with them, a part of Clopin's outcast colourful crew.
"I'll have to ask Bernadina to patch my cloak, god help me how she might react." He said to the goat, who only bleated for more pats. He rubbed its head affectionately, then stood again to search for a shirt, and made his way out, bringing his customary smile up again. Other smiles met him when he exited his tent, the tick-tacking of Djali's cloven hooves behind him. One of the muscle men was drying up some more of the puddles where the heavy rains had dripped through the ground above their head.
"Clopin," the muscle man called.
"Bellamy!" he replied, and cartwheeled over. It was important to use one's skills in everyday life, to keep them fresh. "Let me help you."
"It's fine now, that's the last of it, but we're running out of cloth for it." The big man replied in his gorgeously deep voice.
"Shhhhh," Clopin hushed harshly, looking around. "You can't let the children know of the trouble. But after the festival, we'll be eating better than princes." He winked for extra effect.
"That's a week away, and a few short months is all we'll have of luxury, you know that." Bellamy replied, ignoring the usually-effective charm. "And it's getting worse.
That accursed Frollo is going to starve us to death."
"He's going to try, but if anyone can conjure up food out of nowhere, it's us." Clopin patted him on the shoulder and strolled away, his cloak over his shoulder, making his way to Bernadina's stall. He could hear her yelling at children from here, and had to dance his thin legs away as they ran his way, escaping her wrath while laughing.
He shook his head fondly as they slipped behind more stalls, Djali chasing after them playfully.
When he reached her stall, she was scolding one of her older daughters.
"You're holding the needle wrong girl! You keep doing that and you'll prick yourself bloody." She was standing over the girl who sat on a makeshift stool on a wooden plank, away from the dampness of the floor. The girl mumbled an apology, then adjusted her handle of the needle.
"You should enter as the monster for the festival Madame Bernadina, is you keep grouching to her the way you are." Clopin joked, and smiled kindly at the poor girl. Her hair was black and straight, and she was such a beauty. She had avoided her mother's hag like appearance, god-bless whoever her father was. The girl timidly smiled back, and tried again at the needle work.
Bernadina however, turned on him like a bar-owner.
"And what do you want, our spindly king?" she said, strangely delicate hands placed on her wide hips.
Clopin lowered his voice and glanced around nervously. "I've got a few bronze if you can see to my favourite cloak." He held out the gold satin cloth delicately.
She grabbed at it, though tenderly. "You've had this thing repaired so many times, I should better well make you a new one."
"No, please." He said hastily. He very much loved that cloak. "Just another repair, and I'll even tire the little ones out."
"I would love a decent sleep tonight. Almost everyone has asked for repairs, and old bastard Absolon had the stupidity to ask me for a new red-velvet shirt. Puh!" She inspected the spot of a missing bell. "I suppose you want that fixed too."
"What a bell of an idea, but no." Clopin chuckled at his own joke, then continued "I'll have one of our jewellers see to that little piece. But you're my trusted cloth-fixer and I'm leaving it to you. Along with these." He held out his hand containing the last of his Bronze coins. She took them, and said,
"And the little ones?" with a raised eyebrow.
"Leave them to me." He chuckled.
It was only minutes later when squeals and laughter could be heard as Clopin dragged out one of his largest puppets, a green dragon. He had grabbed one of the young men to be the night in shining armour, shoved a golden wig on his head and a wooden sword in his hand. They clashed and danced around stalls and Gypsy tents, the children following eagerly. Mothers and fathers, performers and sellers and traders, would stop and watch for a few moments, as the small group of children turned into a whole mob of all the Gypsy born children following, joining in, and dancing to all the best knight songs that Clopin conjured from memory.
"And here our prince,
tired, hurt, and his horse's tail singed,
can only do what prince's do best,
and put that dragon right to rest!"
"A sure swing and the blade goes in,
on our Valliant's face a triumphant grin,
and rolls away the forked tongue head,
where there the dragon, lays, deeeeeeeeeaaaaaaad!" Clopin dragged out the last syllable, and slowly lowered himself and his puppet to the ground below, closing his eyes to pretend to be dead.
it was easy after that. The children all wanted turns at being the dragon and being the prince, and even added princesses and warlocks and fairies to the story. Clopin played a damsel in distress for one scene, then the twisted evil witch in another. Soon all the children were soiled, ragged, and so was he.
it was hours before the children finally calmed down, and only the most energetic could continue, while the rest became the audience, Clopin included.
They had all gone 'awwwww' when he sat upon the stone, at which he had laughed. "I need to save my strength, little ones, for it is no use being a king if you're tired all the time."
"But you're not a real king." One of the young boys piped up, resting against Clopin's thin leg, who picked up the morsel of a moral, and placed him in his lap with a smile.
"No. Real kings have enough to eat, and they're born into it. We choose our own kind here."
"How long will you be king Clopin? You're only eighteen." a little girl asked, a strange beauty in their world. She had deep blue eyes, instead of deep brown like most of the others. He himself had the blackest of browns, which had earned him a good night with the occasional beauty who admired the colour. One had described that they shined like the night sky.
He shrugged his reply at the girl. "We never know. I just have to do what I can do, and if it starts to displease my people, I lose the title." He placed a deft-fingered hand on top of her head fondly.
"Is there ever a Queen of Truands?" another girl asked, even younger than the last. He picked her up and placed the small thing in the crook of his elbow easily.
"There has been a few. Let's see, there has been Ada, who was the most wonderful Contortionist we ever had! She could bend into a box, and spring out at intruders.
She could bend through bars and free our trapped people. There was Fabienne, who had fingers so deft it seemed food was simply spring from them…"
And he relayed all the most loved kings and queens of the Truands, the Gypsies, the motley folk of Paris.
By the end of the tales, he had most of them yawning and their eyes drooping. He himself was trying not to tire, but lowered his voice more and more, to lull them.
Guardians and older siblings and parents started appearing from the main area of the Gypsy camp, and leading young ones away by the hand, or taking the sleeping ones away in their arms.
When the last of them had gone, it must have been well into the night. Clopin gave a yawn and a stretch where he sat, and leaned back against the cold wall, smiling widely at a cracked skull that sat nearby. Every single one of those kids was going to be of use to their troupe, he could tell. Little Pomeroy could already juggle five balls, and he was barely eleven, and darling Hetty was twisting herself from cages and boxes, let alone her older-sister's arms. Children were their hope, and learned quickly that you had to find a skill or starve.
He must have dozed off there against the stone wall, because he was softly awoken by one of the girls his own age, who loved his company in many forms. Shining Suzette, her nickname, because of her skill with jewellery. Her father had made the lovely gold hoop earring that Clopin obsessively wore. It was simple, but important to his look, but Suzette could make the most delicate of things. She gently rubbed the earring now, looking thoughtful, and not the right kind. He smiled at her and pulled her down to lay with him.
"You look worried." He said, running a hand through her hair tenderly.
"I am worried." She said. "We're running out of materials, and our usual seller denied us today."
"What!?" Clopin gasped. That hadn't happened in years and years, to the jewellers anyway. They were the best treated among the normal people of France and other parts of Europe out of all the Gypsy people, because their travelling meant they had skills from all over the world that few other jewellers possessed. Dancers could be taught anything from anywhere, but learning how to perfectly place a rare stone inside a rare metal was not so easily sought.
She nodded, and put her face softly to his chest. "Old bastard. Said he needed the extra for another purpose. God knows what he meant by that." She looked up at him with a pout of concern. "Are you okay Clopin? Your heart is hammering."
And indeed it was. He could feel it in his chest and throat. The jeweller denied? I would understand our cloth sellers, or mask makers, but this! What does this mean for the rest of us!?
The Feast of Fools was a week away, and it was looking like they'd have less jewellery than usual, and he had no idea what that would mean for the rest of the makers of the Gypsy crew. Performers would survive, that was for certain. They were different. But…
Clopin rubbed a hand over his eyes. "Oh dear Suzette what could this be the start of, or even worse, the end?"
"We're just one stall. It's not the end of anything." She sounded so certain. That was a wonderful thing about her, she could never waver, in hand or mind.
"I don't want to see you go hungry." He said with a tired and unconvincing laugh.
"We never do. We'll make enough money to survive." Again, her tone started to relax him, but he couldn't help feel the doubt in the back of his mind.
"Do you have anyone else who will sell it to you?" he asked. Her face scrunched up in thought, and he noticed how gorgeous the sight was. Other men would scorn the idea of a woman having thoughts, but not a gypsy, especially not Clopin.
"A man in the next town over. Its two days there and back, on foot."
"We'll go in the morning." He told her.
"What? Clopin no! We'll be fine. The road is dangerous and there's still heavy storms coming through. It's worse being a sick jeweller who can't work, than a jeweller without metal to work with."
"What's the difference!? I'll go with your father and a few others, and you stay here and keep making whatever you can. Take my earring if you need to."
She looked at him aghast. "Never! That was a gift to you from my father and I'm not going to treat it like scrap metal. If you're so set on going, then at least be safe."
She whispered the last part, avoiding his eyes.
"Me? Safe!? Wherever did you get an idea like that. Frollo has been searching for this place for years, and before him was the other Priests or knights or captain of guards wanting to earn a pretty favour. Men like me my dear, are never safe." He laughed.
She looked away even further, and his devilish grin started to fall. He gently placed a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head his way.
"But if it makes you feel any better, I'll try to keep out of trouble for you."
She smiled, and he kissed her softly. It wasn't the first time he'd kissed her, and to his hope it wouldn't be the last. She was one of a kind.
She kissed him back, and kissed him again and again until they drifted to sleep, not bothered by the lack of a sleeping mat. She was warm and he was comfortable enough. As a Gypsy, you got used to the rough life.