It was the sixth of January. The Festival of Fools that comes around every year as happily proclaimed every single time from Clopin. But it was slightly different this time around. Esmeralda was going to partake in this year's Festival of Fools and she was excited. Well, excited was more of an understatement. Thrilled? Well, let's just say that no words could describe it. She was eager to make more money for the Court that she hoped that she would be able to get more coins than she did on the streets without the guards always forcing her to leave or claiming that she "stole" the coins. She heard Clopin happily cry out after the rather strange encounter she had with a man that somehow ended up crashing into her tent nonetheless due to Clopin. Hearing a wagon pull up, she took a peak out of her tent, staring at the dark wagon. She let out a breath, not realizing that the minister himself was joining.
Minister Claude Frollo was already tired before the party even started. Sometimes as he rubbed his face in the vain attempt to relieve some of his stress, he wondered how long he still had to do it.
In times like this, he wished for being a priest and being able to spend his days alone in a silent tower.
His thoughts are interrupted the moment he sits in his chair and a masked gypsy with a strong smell of cheap wine throws paper confetti over his head.
Esmeralda let out a breath before she got ready to appear on stage. "Wish me luck, Djali," she mumbled to her goat who bleated in response, chewing on his usual blanket silently at the back of the tent. She heard her name called out and on cue, she arrived on the stage, moving to the music. She caught sight of the minister at the corner of her eye, her eyes shining in the sun as she connected them with his dark ones. She couldn't help the tiny smirk that pulled on her lips as she continued the dance, more than intent on approaching him one way or another.
Phoebus, on his horse next to Frollo, was more than excited to witness the show that the gypsy queen was displaying, his own blue eyes sparkling.
"My goodness from heaven." It was the only words the minister could muster in his mind. He had not breathed in for several minutes but he didn't even realize... if he realized he simply don't care. Breath is not that important. He could not miss a second of the sight before him.
Until finally he begins to feel pain and realizes the urgency to fill his lungs with air. And with violence he shakes his head and thinks, "Calm down, Claude." It's just a woman, beautiful indeed. It is not the first and I doubt it will be the last beautiful woman you see "
Esmeralda turned and went towards him as the music began to pick up, climbing onto the wood in front of his chair. She threw a cheeky grin at him, wrapping the thin purple shawl with faded yellow stars and moons around his neck, pulling him close. She stared deep into his eyes and a shudder of desire went through her but she managed to mask it. She leaned in, placing a gentle kiss on his nose, not truly knowing where it was coming from yet she did. It was strange. Once she managed to come to her senses once more, she slammed the chaperon down in his face to make sure that people thought it was merely a joke before she turned and left to continue her dance.
It seemed like a dream. Slowly she was walking toward him. Not walking ... she did not seem to be touching the ground. As if she floated and mocked any law that held her to the ground. Despite struggling not to look, the minister could do nothing but be mesmerized by the eyes of such deep green. They got bigger because they were getting closer and closer.
"What do I do? What does she want? Why is she smiling at me?"
"What she did on my face. She did something I know she did. I closed my eyes. I have not seen. But ... I feel that is burning. As if she ... she kissed me? UGH!"
The minister's thoughts are interrupted again. This time because of the abrupt blow he received in the head, which buried his hat on his face.
The crowd merely laughed at the act and Esmeralda smiled in success at what she achieved. She had managed to perhaps embarrass the minister which was a success to anyone and everyone she knew. She continued her dance and bowed at the end, breathing heavily, the dress that clung to her revealing every little detail as her chest rose and fell quickly against it. She closed her eyes, catching her breath as Clopin began to announce who was the King of Fools.
At the moment he was trying to pack his hat back into place. Frollo thought all the curse words that he knew. There were not really many. But it was the only way he had found to relieve the frustration he was feeling.
He could have arrested this gypsy girl for her insolence, but that would only cause more discontent. He knew he was not exactly the most loved person in town. So it was better to avoid doing this now ... at least in public.
When his eyes turned to the figure in red his body began to go into trance again as if the episode that had just happened had never occurred. But this time he got wise.
And he closed his eyes, crossed his arms and turned his face. And he prayed that God would make time pass faster. And to get rid of it soon enough. And as if He had heard, he hears the name of Quasimodo.
It wasn't long until the people went against the hunchback, throwing things at him left and right. The pleas from Quasimodo were ignored and Esmeralda emerged from her tent, watching the scene quizzically.
It didn't take much longer for her to realize what exactly was happening and she was definitely couldn't stand such a poor soul being tormented due to how he looked. Once she began to approach the stand, it immediately grew quiet as everyone watched her.
"Don't be afraid," she whispered tenderly as she approached Quasimodo, taking off the purple cloth tied around her waist. She knelt down, gently wiping away the food from his face. "I'm sorry… This wasn't supposed to happen," she whispered, feeling immense guilt for one, thinking that his actual face was a mask, and two, bringing him up on the stage and showing him to everyone.
"Ah. Quasimodo, I warned you. I can not deny that part of me feels ashamed of you. After all. You were the big mistake of my life. I knew you would run away someday ... but on fools' day? Really? And had to be crowned king? You should have run the instant they discovered you. Now you must pay for your mistake .. Just as I have paid for mine for twenty years."
Despite his coldness the minister didn't take pleasure in the sight of the hunchback being tormented and turned his face, so as not to have to face the boy's eyes. Until he heard the crowd silenced. Curious slowly he turned his gaze to the torture wheel.
There she was again...that... woman. Without her red dress she looked more real. More human. Crouched with her face so close to the boy's face, the minister realized she was helping him ... wiping his face... giving him water. She seemed to apologize.
The minister didn't notice but inside of him a new feeling was exploding in all directions, on all sides, in every hollow of his chest. Jealous.
"You! Gypsy girl! Get down at once!" He screamed as hard as he could.
Esmeralda immediately turned to him, anger seeming to explode in her chest, the frustration and the sheer annoyance rushing through her veins quickly, filling her from her head to her toes yet she knew she had to keep her cool. As long as he didn't make it anymore difficult than it already was.
Obeying him, yet not entirely, she stood, tying the cloth around her waist once again. "Yes your honor," she nodded, addressing him, "as soon as I free this poor creature."
"Why was she doing this? Why was she being so kind to him? He's horrible. Do they already know each other? How long?! Why does she think she can make fun of me and not make of him? What's so special about Quasimodo ?!"
Jealousy took over his mind. He would never admit it, but he would, at that moment, give everything he had to be in the place of Quasimodo.
"I FORBID IT!" He ordered without thinking too much about.
Her eyes immediately darkened with anger, her emerald eyes becoming more jade like. She knelt down, lifting her skirt but not to tease, not to provoke either. She had no playfulness at the moment, merely down to business and straightforwardness.
Attached to her calf was a dagger that she always had on her just in case she needed to defend herself and Djali wasn't able to help her out. She quickly grabbed it, ripping it through the rope that was holding the disfigured man, testing Claude. What she held for him earlier had diminished entirely and she felt no need to try to please him. In fact, she merely wished to do the exact opposite.
May was his imagination but she seemed to have transmuted herself right in front of him. As if that beautiful little red bird became a fierce lynx.
"Was that a knife? She walks with a knife, hidden in her leg?"
Now yes. Now he was impressed. His first thought was to arrest the Gypsy. But the minister has something she does not have, experience. To say the order to arrest her now in the midst of this crowd is the same as to have her run away.
"She wants to challenge me, of course, she does not mean to please me, she obviously wants to see what I'm going to do, of course."
The minister then gives a broad and elegant smile. And he starts to clap slowly, as his palms accelerate, his smile grows bigger, to the point of giving a rich laugh. "BRAVO," he says.
She watched him with confusion, her fingers clasping tightly around the knife even more, causing her dark knuckles to turn white with the hold she had on it. She studied his face with cautious emerald eyes and looked back at Quasimodo who seemed as clueless as she did.
The crowd turned, staring at the minister as though he had gone mad, even Phoebus not knowing what to think about it. "She's bewitched him," someone muttered and they turned their attention back to the gypsy standing on the wooden stage. "The gypsy's bewitched the minister!"
Esmeralda stared at everyone that quickly turned against her. She knew well how easily they could. One second, she would be admired much like Quasimodo had, the next, she would be the one burning at the stake. This may be the first time she bit off more than she could chew.
Letting out a breath, she closed her eyes and clenched tighter to the knife, biting her lower lip as the crowd began to approach her, the guards doing the same. She looked back at Claude. "Is this what you wanted?" She demanded. "For people to go against Quasimodo, who has done no one any wrong, and for them to go against me?"
She stood her ground, refusing to move even though she continued to grow even more unsteady and nervous as the crowd came closer.
"Well ... until this festival is more fun than I expected." He thought.
"ENOUGH. Get away from the gypsy." The minister shouted.
With mockery. The minister begins his speech never letting his smile wither from his face.
"An entire city decided to torment a poor hunchback lad, and you're the only one who realizes how low that is. How not entertaining is had ... hum ... what was the word? It's been so long since I've seen it, so I've forgotten. AH! I remembered ... compassion!"
The minister didn't believe in compassion. Not for the gypsies. She might look good, but he knew gypsies didn't have that ability. She was smart. Just that.
"You gypsy! Bring the boy you called a... creature, up here. You have been so helpful. Help him walk here."
With that said. Slowly he sat down, without cutting eye contact with the gypsy. And then he gave another command in low tone. So that only his captain of the guard could hear.
"Put away those idiots, let her come here, and take her knife away."
Phoebus gave a curt nod to the minister. "Will do, sir," he responded, watching the woman who had a hand on Quasimodo's back.
Esmeralda's eyes narrowed when she saw the move of his lips towards Phoebus and the nod that was the response back. She placed her dagger back where she had it, wrapping an arm around Quasimodo. He seemed frightened, disheartened and it appeared that he wanted nothing to do with what was about to happen.
"Nothing is going to happen," she whispered in reassurance to him. "I promise you. Nothing won't. I'm right here," she nodded.
The crowd parted, making a large pathway for Esmeralda and the hunchback to go through, people grimacing in disgust for Quasimodo's looks and for how they believed that Esmeralda was a witch. She didn't respond to any of them, not allowing the red haired man to look either.
She stopped right in front of Claude and Phoebus, moving her hands behind her back with silence, Djali laying down by his mistress' ankles.
Frollo could do nothing but smile. "She is small! Haha! Her eyes must stay at the height of my chest." That thought made him laugh. But it was clear from the expression on her face that she didn't like his smile. But that didn't make him want to stop laughing. He was happy. Who knows, why! But he was... Very happy. Maybe because now he's got her attention again.
"Thank you Gypsy. Now, Quasimodo are you happy? Did you get your little moment of joy? It was worth of it?"
Quasimodo just kept his head down, looking down at the floor. Crying.
"Oh stop it! Come here." Ordered coldly. As he pointed with his index finger at the floor next to his chair.
Like a dog, Quasimodo climbs on the platform where Frollo was sitting. And while still looking down, he knelt down to his knees and begged between tears: "Please... Forgive me."
With disgust Frollo placed his warm hand on the cold, exposed skin of the hunchback's back. And he said in a serene voice: "At least now you know I'm not the only one who can look at you without fear..." Abruptly Frollo grabbed the boy's cheeks.
Forcing him to look into his eyes. And then said: "Console yourself with that."
Releasing his face and turning his gaze to the gypsy Frollo says: "Why are you still down there? Please... if you can be kind enough to give your... knife, to the captain and come here. I would be grateful. If I wanted to arrest you I would have done it. "
With his gaze still connected to hers he stands up and says: "Come here. Now." Now with a serious expression. Without a trace of his mocking smile.
Esmeralda watched the exchange with annoyance and anger at how easy Frollo had control over the boy. Not only did the minister tell the hunchback something that wasn't true, he wasn't even treating him like a human, rather than a monster like everyone else perceived him to be.
"And what is he to console himself with?" She demanded when she was allowed to talk, not even taking in mind his serious expression. She felt every need to go up there and tell the man off who dare called himself a man of God.
"The knife is not yours. I shall not harm you with it. You've taken much from my people and myself. The knife, my mother gave to me. You do not have the right to take it. And you," she turned to Phoebus. "You're just going to stand there while Quasimodo was laughed at and degraded? You didn't stand up?"
"I did, ma'am," he responded back, "yet I had orders not to."
"If you truly cared enough about his well being, you would have went against him," she snapped in response and then turned to Frollo. She walked up to him, her emerald eyes blazing, her hands balled into fists. Djali bleated and followed her, staying beside her like a guard dog.
With a sigh of tiredness he responds. "Uhg ... calm down, woman. You're getting very hysterical." The minister said scornfully as he shook his hand in the air.
Walking to the edge of the platform the minister began his speech. "What are you all looking at, are you going to finish your little mundane festival? Get another drunk to be the king of fools and continue your stupor, alcoholic, banal!"
Turning to his captain he said, "Bring my carriage. I'm tired of being used as entertainment for these pathetic peasants, who barely know the meaning of the word bath."
Turning to the gypsy, he said, "Ah, yes, I almost forgot you."
Slowly he approached the gypsy. And just leaning forward to reach her ears he whispered, "Do you want to know what he is? You know what he is. He is a man. A man who was born deformed. A man that was never loved by a woman. All the few humans who saw him, screamed in horror ... would you be the one who would love him, marry him, have children? The cross he carries is the deep desire to be somebody else, except himself. "
Returning to his imposing posture again. The minister exchanges looks again with the gypsy and without fear turns his back to go to his carriage.
"Master?! And I?!" Shouted the huncher with despair.
"Do what you like Quasimodo. You're a free man. Was always." The cold minister answered without even looking at the boy.
Esmeralda watched the minister and bit her lip to try to suppress an angry retort. "You're no better than these people here! You are below them! You are below us gypsies! You are below the people in the slums! Below the criminals, the rapists and the murderers and you claim to be a holy man!
"You treat your adopted son like garbage! He may be deformed but he is your son nonetheless. You've raised him, cared for him but I doubt you care if he lives or dies. And look at him! He grovels at your feet, calling you master and loving you because you're the only person he's ever had in his life. Just because his deformity limits him in many ways than one does not qualify that he is below you or anyone else.
"He is above all of you! Every single one and for you all to laugh at him, mock him, torture the poor boy, you have stooped down to a level so low that it is the equivalent of the seventh layer of Hell!"
She let out a breath once she finished. "Claude Frollo. You hold nothing to the title of Minister. You are a murderer, a liar, a sinner. And if you believe that you are better than everyone else here, you are delusional. You grew lucky to have become minister."
With that, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd with her goat without another word.
When she started screaming and kicking. He only gave another sigh of tiredness and kept walking and thought, "Oh God, what she has of vulgarity she has of meters of tongue. Is the air of her lungs never ending? Leave me in peace." He honestly didn't care what she was talking about.
When entering in his carriage he could listen: "Claude Frollo -You are a murderer- if you believe that - are delusional. You grew lucky to have become minister!"
Now finally alone he can laugh without making others think he was bewitched. Not that he cared if she could be called a witch... But he didn't want the fame of being the bewitched minister. He already had many fames, don't need that one.
"I must be getting old and soft. When did I let someone talk to me like that and walk free?" The Minister complains with himself as he rubs his temples.
"Surely this will not be good. She took out my authority ... soon the gypsies will think they can throw confetti at me every day and make me an idiot by burying my hat on my face and... and... kissing me.
Unconsciously frollo touches his own lips with his fingers.
Esmeralda headed by the graveyard where the Court of Miracles was. She stopped before she could go inside, looking around at the trees surrounding Paris. "Come on, Djali. Let's go somewhere else for today…" the goat bleated happily and followed her into the forest.
Phoebus stood by Frollo's carriage, waiting for further instructions. He stopped when he saw Esmeralda retreat and began to follow her, getting off of his horse as he did.
About an hour into the walk, she realized that she was being followed. She turned around, taking out her dagger. She stopped when she saw who it was and her eyes narrowed. "You."
"Oh, that looks sharp! You can hurt someone!" The captain said with real fear that he might have had his neck cut off.
Esmeralda scoffed. "So is that sword you have your hand on," she murmured and backed away slowly. "What do you want?"
"Talk. Maybe know your name. Or is your name really Emerald? Not that it's ugly, it's very beautiful. So beautiful that it not seens is Phoebus by the way."
"Esmeralda. The Spanish equivalent to emerald. What does Phoebus mean? Mine may not seem real but neither does yours. It sounds… strange, abnormal," she grinned, obviously teasing him. She still kept up her guard, making sure she had her dagger in her hand.
"AHA! Touché! You are completely right. My name means God of the Sun. It's not the best Christian name. But what I can do, right? And... Spanish? Interesting. I thought it was portuguese." Her expression remained immovable.