A/N: Another Les Miserables Fanfiction. Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Les Miserables, the characters or any lyrics I've borrowed as part of this fanfic.
Chapter One: Castle On A Cloud
Icy wind blew through the inn doors. Cosette shivered in her rags as she swept some dust out of the side-door of the inn. As she did so, across the street a doll caught her eye.
Forgetting about how bitterly cold it was, Cosette gazed across the street, pausing with her sweeping, and began to sing to herself.
"There is a castle on a cloud." She glanced towards the corner she slept in, with a dirty rag as a pillow. " I like to go there in my sleep." The wind blew some snow in, causing her to hastily send it back out with the broom, before backing away from the door. "Aren't any floors for me to sweep, not in my castle on a cloud."
Her eyes fell on another doll, not quite as grand as the one in the window but just as lovely. 'Ponine's doll. "There is a room that's full of toys. There are a hundred girls and boys. Nobody shouts or talks too loud, Not in my castle on a cloud."
Subconsciously, she reached for Eponine's doll. "There is a lady all in white, Holds me and sings a lullaby. She's nice to see and she's soft to touch. She says..." Cosette lowered her singing to a whisper at this point, smoothing the doll's silken dress. "Cosette, I love you very much."
After realising how she'd be punished if she was seen with the doll, she laid the doll down as gently as Eponine or Azelma would.
"I know a place where no-ones lost. I know a place where no-one cries. Crying at all is not allowed..." She picked the broom back up, and hastily began to sweep.
"Not in my castle on a cloud."
Heavy footsteps came from the stairs. Both Monsieur and Madame Thenardier had been up there, preoccupied with things Cosette shouldn't know about but had been deprived of the innocence of not knowing.
"Oh no! I haven't nearly finished cleaning. It's Madame!" At this moment, Madame was coming down the stairs. Cosette continued sweeping quickly, the bristles of the broom scraping the splinters of the floor.
"Now look who's here! The little madam herself! Pretending once again she's been so awfully good." The woman towered above Cosette's tiny shivering frame.
"Better not let me catch you slacking! Better not catch my eye!" The woman snapped at Cosette, causing her to flinch at every word. She truly was expecting to be hit, however, when thrust her hand into Cosette's face, it only held a note and some coins.
"Ten rotten francs your mother sends me. What is that gonna buy?" Scoffed the woman, before pointing to a large bucket in the corner. "Now take that pail! My little mademoiselle." Anger flared into Madame Thenardier's voice. "And go and fetch some water from the well in the wood!" She snatched a cloth from the table, causing Cosette to flinch again.
"Should never have taken you in, in the first place! How stupid, the things that we do! Like mother like daughter, the scum of the street." She ceased to rant when Eponine skipped through the door.
"Mama!" She called. "Eponine, come on here! Eponine, let me see you! You look very well in that little blue hat." Eponine giggled as her mother kissed her on the forehead, and her sister, Azelma appeared behind her. "Azelma dear! Azelma darling, how those ribbons suit you!" Madame Thenardier pulled Azelma into the hug as well. "There's some little girls who know how to behave, and they know what to wear, and I'm saying thank heaven for that!"
A few tears couldn't help escaping from Cosette's eyelids, which she'd pressed shut as Azelma pointed her way.
Madame Thenardier turned, her eyes seeming to burn holes through Cosette, who opened her eyes to see what was coming.
"Still there, Cosette? Your tears will do you no good." Cosette wiped her tear away. "I told you to fetch some water from the well in the wood!"
"Please do not sent me out alone, not in the darkness on my own-" Cosette's feeble tearful gaze did nothing to Madame Thenardier's sympathy.
"Now shut your face! Or I'll forget to be nice! You heard me ask for something and I never ask twice." Madame Thenardier watched as her daughters skipped over to push Cosette out of the door. Smirking, now pleased, she went to wake her husband up for the inn to open.
Monsieur Thenardier hugged a barrel before rising and dusting himself off. He checked on all the drunkards who seemed to spend their lives in his inn.
"Homing pigeons, homing in. They fly through my doors, and they crawl out on all fours." He murmured to himself, before Eponine ran up to him.
"Daddy!" She reached up to put his hat on. He smiled, before tending to the customers whose feet he could hear crunching in the snow near the door.
"Welcome, Monsieur, sit yourself down, and meet the best innkeeper in town." The first customer found himself with no hat or coat or belongings, just a bottle of wine. This is how the Thenardier's treated their customers, by making them drunk so they'd forget who'd stolen from them.
"Seldom do you see, honest men like me." He winked at his wife, who snatched a glass eye ball from his hand.
The drunks in the inn sang merrily, unaware of what was happening: "Master of the house, quick to catch yer eye! Never wants a passerby to pass him by. Servant to the poor, butler to the great. Comforter, philosopher, and lifelong mate! Everybody's good companion, Everybody's chaperone!"
"But lock up your valises! Jesus! Won't I skin you to the bone!" The master of the house said to himself.
Unaware Eponine was watching, Madame Thenardier began to sit on a young mans' lap.
"I used to dream that I would meet a prince...but God Almighty, have you seen what's happened since?" Eponine was shocked to see her mother glance at her father in the way she did. "Master of the house? Isn't worth my spit! Comforter, philosopher' and lifelong shit!" Eponine had heard enough. Her and Azelma went to alert their father.
Monsieur Thenardier headed towards his wife, as listeners giggled and looked at him. However, he dismissed his wife's actions when she produced money from the young man's pocket.
However, as that moment both Thenardier adults' gaze fell upon a rich-looking old man and small boy in the corner. The boy's face was covered in freckles.
"Eponine, Azelma." Madame whispered. Monsieur Thenardier crouched down.
"Girls, I want you to talk to that boy. And rob his grandfather." Azelma nodded, like she always passively did. However, after Eponine glanced at the boy, she turned to face her father.
She did something she'd never done before.
"No."