"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

Rumi

There is a kingdom, just over the water, under the clouds, and a long gaze away. It's beautiful: tall towers and open fields and when the sun shines on it, it glitters in the light of the beams. It's known as the The Sun Kingdom, having lasted since the first sunrise, the legend says. The Kingdom is happy, as happy as a kingdom can be. Whether it be the usually good weather or the kind ruler, no one really knows.

The ruling king is Jean Valjean The First. The only, it appears and worries people. King Valjean is kind, gentle, and fair. A loving King his people cry for and praise. He smiles at them, touches their hands, tells them good omens, and helps their lives as much as anyone can. They asks to kiss his feet, he shakes his head, says he is not worthy. This is how Jean Valjean the First is and loved for it.

Many worry though, for King Valjean is aging faster than can please anyone, and yet he has not had an heir to rule as he has. It worries his people, which worries him. He can't find a suitor though, for the one he had loved had left him in the dead of the night with a terrible heartache. Quite frankly, he can't find it in him to look for someone new.

"Who was your love, dear King?" a small boy named Feuilly, maybe five years old, asks. King Valjean has a habit of visiting the hospital as often as he can, comforting those who are sick or with the sick. Feuilly is a little boy with a terribly broken arm. Valjean comes to visit him as often as he can, because Feuilly is also an orphan, and no one comes to visit an orphan.

King Valjean smiles, sad but true. He sits down next to the boy with red hair and rubs his hands together. "A beautiful lady," he tells the boy. "With chestnut brown hair and green eyes with golden spots in them. She was beautiful. More beautiful than any woman I have ever tried to meet. She told me she loved me, once upon a time, said we... well, that we might get married." Tears collect, just a few, in the corners of his eyelids, and he clears his throat to remind himself not to cry. "Sadly, a few months ago, we had a dinner together. I asked her to be my queen, and she cried but never gave an answer. Then, when I woke the next morning, I was told she had left the kingdom. She didn't even leave a note. She merely disappeared." He has to wipe his cheeks, for his tears are slightly dripping. He's not ashamed, all good men must cry.

Feuilly's voice, quiet and tame, asks, "What was her name?"

The Kind King, can barely manage to whisper, "Fantine... Her name was Fantine."

!&!

On the other side of the bay, a kingdom lay that was downdraught with terrible woe. The kingdom lay in the middle of the darkest woods in all the land, shaded under big thick branches and terrible moods of the people. The people cried in hunger and ached under the ruling of King Javert.

It's important to note that King Javert was not a bad, selfish man. He loved his people almost as much King Valjean did, he just wasn't good at ruling an entire population of citizens. He believed deeply in the law and sought to make sure it was just. He arrested those he thought were dangerous and spent little time ensuring his people actually felt safe, because he was arresting the dangerous folks, so why wouldn't they?

They don't grovel below him, don't call his name in love, don't praise him. King Javert is never turned off by this, not so much, not really.

He has heard of the Sun Kingdom, but since he had started his rule he had never been across the bay. He's heard rumours, of a loving King with an embracing following. He's also heard of a system in place, where prisoners can plead innocence, talk through with the king himself, and see if their neck is worth saving.

This disgusts King Javert, down to his bones. The idea of listening to the scum of the streets, of reasoning with them- it's terrifying. King Javert sends a letter to King Valjean, asking what his purpose is with this idea of "trials". King Valjean replies in so:

"Dear King Javert:

I believe that everyone deserves a second chance. My oldest, dearest bishop here in my kingdom once told me second chances were created by God and given to all men. Don't you agree?

Sincerely,

King Valjean"

!&!

He's leaving the hospital, late at night, when he sees her. She is tripped over on the sidewalk, holding her large stomach and vomiting into the gutters. He knows it's her, for her hair is a memory stained into him and when she looks at him, he starts to cry.

"Fantine," he whispers as he approaches her. This is her, sweet Fantine whom he had loved, but she is not the same. This Fantine is worn and broken, beaten by something intangible, and pregnant. "Fantine," he whispers again and kneels in front of her, staring at her stomach and tear stained face. She is beautiful, she is broken, and he picks her up without a second thought. "Fantine," he mumbles, astonished as she begins to cry harder.

"I'm sorry," she groans. She says it again, before coughing blood into her hand.

!&!

He is a boy, young and shy. His cheeks are dotted with a constellation if freckles and wrinkles in his eyes. He's terribly cute and blushes away when people tell him so. His name is Marius Pontmercy, and he's barely three years old.

His mother left him, moments after his birth, crying to God, "I never asked for a son." No one ever tells Marius this, they tell him she simply left.

Marius's father dots on him. Carrying him and singing him lullabies and telling him he's perfect- absolutely perfect. Marius giggles and blushes and thinks of his father brilliantly. Mr. Pontmercy raises his son in the shadows of the Shaded Kingdom, but wishes to get away from the heaves of depression, maybe move East to where the sun shines on the water, at the Sun Kingdom.

Mr. Pontmercy has a father though who is very fond of the way King Javert rules. He likes the way he is held above the rest, because his long bloodline is a nice little reminder that they can't be bad people. He even has some influences in places, such as the church and the schools. Pontmercy Senior is very fond of the influence, so much he doesn't want his bloodline to lose it.

It's a long, drawn out fight of custody. Marius is lucky; his father shields him from the fight. Pontmercy Senior says he knows what's best, whereas Mr. Pontmercy declares that as the father of the boy, he will relocate their lives as he pleases. The fight is so severe, it is presented in front of King Javert himself. King Javert wishes to lose nine of his kingdom, and tells Mr. Pontmercy he must give his child to the grandfather, for the bettering of the boy. Mr. Pontmercy cries, begs, and screams. Screams such terrible things, he is sentenced to prison, then banished from the kingdom altogether.

Pontmercy Senior tells Marius his father has left him, for good. Left him because he couldn't love him anymore. Marius cries for a very long time.

!&!

"She is ill and dying," tells the bishop to the King. "The baby is too much for her - her body is small and frail and the child inside is strong and large. The way her body is though - she'll die before the baby has a chance to live."

"You must cure her," King Valjean said at once. "No matter the cost - I will pay what I must pay. Please, you must save her, and the child." He looks to the room, where Fantine is staring at her stomach with hollowed eyes and cheeks. "You must."

"Is the child yours?" The question falls on deaf ears, fore the King has went to talk to his old love.

Fantine is young, still, though Valjean can't help but see new lines and marks on her pretty face. Her cheek bones are prominent and the color in her eyes has faded to a murky gray. Her hair is thin, spots of her scalp are balding, and the color is dimming to a terrifying shade of gray. Her bones are showing, in her fingers and ribs. She is dying, and Valjean still thinks her beautiful.

"I am sorry," she says, her voice sad and uncontrolled. "I should have told you. I should have. My mother had sold me the night before our dinner. She was convinced you would never do more than have an affair with me. She sold my womb to a man in the Shaded Kingdom. He had me for a week, and grew tired of me. He had two other wives, much prettier than I. When I told him I carried his child, he slapped me and said he wouldn't dare have a child with me, and kicked me away from him. I was so lost, and no one would take me in. I've been sick for several days now, you see. Oh, I suppose months. My. I've been sick for an awfully long time."

Valjean weeps, weeps terribly in her fragile hands. She cries, but not as much as he. She has cried enough for a very long time.

"I will heal you," he promises. "I will."

"And my child?"

He looks to her, and he sees in the eyes he once swam in with love, true fear. Fear not for herself, but for her child. Fear to keep her child alive, more than herself. Deep, dark, sacrifice.

"And your child," he promises.

!&!

King Javert realizes, in the pit of anger in his stomach, that the people from his kingdom are slowly trickling to the next. At the rate it has been, he will not have a kingdom in five years time.

"Temptation," he slurs, drink of feverish rage that whatever he is doing is good. It must be! It must all be good. "King Valjean- he offers temptation. Ugly temptation. I must rid the world of the Sun Kingdom's vain."

He is never corrected, never wronged. He believes he is right, and no one teaches him the difference between that and wrong.

!&!

The bishop is able to wield a potion made from a flower, claimed the be from a drop of the sun. It's bright, yellow to gold and shining. The potion is a sweet, honey flavor, Fantine tells them. She is still fading, but the taste makes her smile.

"God is asking for a soul," the bishop explains. "The flower will heal the child, it will keep the child alive."

"What of my love?" demands the King, to tears with rage. "You said to save her!"

"I said to try. She will whither, and the child will live. The child is strong, a brave soul. Fantine will be proud."

She screams from the room she is giving life in. Valjean is winces in rage. "I am angry with God, Bishop," he confesses.

"It is okay. He will forgive, and you will earn your light, dear King."

!&!

Marius has a dream when he is still three years old. He sees a man, with baked honey hair like him and splattering of freckles. He cradles Marius and cries and says he's awfully sorry. He doesn't know who he is, but he listens to his soothing voice tell him love. The man cries, and as he does, small wings sputter from his back. He strokes his Marius's hair, tells him he loves him and he's sorry. The wings get larger and Marius asks if he is a bird. He nods and kisses Marius scrunched forehead.

"I do love you, my son," he whispers.

Marius wakes up, no memory of a dream.

!&!

"It's a girl," Valjean tells Fantine, who is still bleeding and cannot keep her eyes open. "Hair golden like the sun."

"Gold? How... How strange," her voice is a whisper. "Where is she?" Her eyes are barely open now.

"Being cleaned, my love. She will be here soon. Stay with me, dear Fantine," he begs.

She does not seem to hear him now, and instead smiles to the ceiling. "A girl with golden hair... How beautiful... Oh my. What will... What will I call her?" Her head turns to her dear love a, but her eyes have shut. She is not asleep, merely dying. "Euphrasie... Yes. What a beautiful name for my... Dear pet. Yes, I love her. Where is she? Where is... Where is my child?"

Valjean is crying again, and he wonders if he will ever be done. "Euphrasie will be here soon, Fantine, I swear."

"I'm going to die," she whispers. "Tonight, aren't I? Oh... Where will my Euphrasie go?" It is the first time distress appears on her face, her eyes opening for a moment and Valjean feels a rush of protection.

"I will care for her. I will love her. She will be my heir- Euphrasie will be a princess for the rest of her days, dear Fantine. She will be here in a moment."

Her lips are pale, trembling in the low light and she is grinning again. "Thank you, " she whispers. "Tell her I... I love her... I will love her tomorrow, when I hold... Her..."

And in a gentle sigh of the light, Fantine is gone. Whispered out of breath and into a place where her smile shines and her flesh breaths again.

The nurse comes in, baby wrapped tightly in her arms. Valjean asks for her, holds her, and cries.

!&!

Javert plans, prepares, and wields his people to fight against the kingdom of disgusting rituals and villains not laid to rest. They attest to him, thinking anything will cure their agony.

It takes a year - one year to accommodate. He does though, he has an army and ways to fight. King Javert is ready.

Marius is four, tugging at his Grandfather's pant leg and being swatted away. He asks, "What's happening?"

"Justice, my boy," is all the Grandfather has to say.

!&!

Jean Valjean is granted one beautiful, short year with Euphrasie. He sings her songs and throws her in the air and tells her she is beautiful, perfect. She has hair, long and golden that Valjean can't bring himself to cut. It shines in the morning light when the sun trickles through her stained glass window and onto her crib. She has a large birthmark on her shoulder that, when looked at carefully, is very similar to the outline of a flower. Her eyes are big, green orbs that Valjean knows well. The way her eyelids curve and her eyelashes slope and the speck of gold dust on the irises - she is the spitting image on her mother.

Euphrasie doesn't cry much as a baby. Only when need is desperate, and she gurgles and coos and Valjean thinks she's trying her hardest to talk. Eventually, her first word is, "Papa!" and Valjean is hit with the realization that he has fully taken this child as his own. He loves her dearly.

After her first birthday, three weeks after precisely, King Javert begins his raid on the Sun Kingdom.

!&!

The war is gross, brutal, and harsh. King Valjean is so surprised that his army take far too long to get ready and he is down in the kingdom, attempting to gather his people to safety. He leaves Euphrasie with the bishop, begging him to keep her safe. The bishop is old, but says he will do what is in his power. Valjean kisses her head before running of, going to help his kingdom fight.

The bishop is old, too old. Years have withered him. When someone breaks in through the window of the safe house, his heart stops beating and he falls to the ground anticlimactically. The old bishop dies on the floor, hearing the shriek of young Euphrasie and seeing two young folks break in.

"Aye! Did you kill him you old dingy, bat," a woman says slapping her husband in the face. "This wasn't a part of the deal!"

"He just fell over!" The man distresses. "Don't look at me! He fell! I'm sure he's just asleep. Come on now, grab the kid! You don't want to get caught in this nasty war, do you?"

Madame Thenardier sticks her tongue out of her mouth, giving her husband the middle finger before turning around and grabbing the blonde, crying child out of her crib. "Shush it you brat. Ugh, I don't want another of these."

"Hush up, we're only keeping her for a bit," Thenardier reminds her, jumping back up through the window and holding his hands out for the baby. "We snatch her, send a ransom note, and then give her back. Remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," she snides and hikes up the window herself. "We've already got a brat at home though - oh, bother I forgot about her again." She sighs, snatching the baby from her husband and covering it with towels to keep it quiet. "Let's go. Montparnasse is only eight - he can't really watch a one-year-old.

!&!

The war will be lost, and the realization makes Valjean cry. His people are dying and the forces of King Javert move closer. He tells his men to run - to find their families and go. There will be no victory. His men apologize, but he shakes his head. A bullet goes off and they all scatter - Valjean to Euphrasie, to find her and take her away with him.

The sight he sees to her is cruel. Bodies along the streets, blood staining the way. Children, men, women, dogs - all dead corpses he has let down. He wishes to bless them all, but he wants to be selfish, and find his daughter and make her safe.

The safehouse is small and hidden, least likely to be noticed. It has been though, judging by a broken window on the wall. Valjean gasps, running as fast as he can. He rushes in, falls beside the old Bishop's corpse, and cries into an empty crib. He hollers her name, begging God and Fantine above to give her back. Give her back.

Someone hears the commotion, they run in to see their beautiful and dutiful king screaming to heavens. It's Feuilly, and he's broken by the sight of the broken king. He doesn't know what to do, just that the Guard of the Shaded Kingdom are coming. Coming closer and closer and King Valjean will be executed if caught. So Feuilly grabs him by the hand, pulls him as hard as he can, and Feuilly pulls and pulls and runs with his king crying behind him. He pulls him past the kingdom's borders, into the woods, and sits him behind a tree. "You alright, King?" Feuilly asks, the weeping having lost it's volume.

Valjean doesn't look at the boy and just says, "I'm not a king, not anymore."

!&!

The Thenardiers live in a gross, large hut on the outskirts of the Shaded Kingdom. It's dark and damp and no one really likes it. Mme. Thenardier even says so when they get back.

"Don't you worry, love," her husband tells her. "As soon as we get the money for the princess here, we'll be rolling in enough money to buy you two nice houses."

"Yeah, yeah. Go start writing that letter. And I want lots of money." She takes the baby into the next room, where a young Montparnasse is sitting and glaring at a young baby. The baby is a girl, the same age as Euphrasie. She is darker, like her mother and father. She has dark raven hair and dark black eyes. She's a beautiful baby with long droopy eyelashes and dimples. She's also crying, loudly. "Oh, what did you do to Eponine!" Mme. Thenardier yells.

"She bit me! Hard!" Montparnasse yells in return, showing the woman his finger, which is actually bleeding a bit.

"Shut your face boy, here, take this." She practically drops Euphrasie in the eight-year-old's arms and goes to grab her own daughter. She coos at the baby, rocking her gently in her arms. "There, there Eponine. Aww, don't cry darling," she bounces the child in her arms, cradling her child with an affection even she never knew she could have.

Montparnasse rolls his eyes and sits down, barely holding Euphrasie, who is still crying. "What's this?"

"Shut up!" Mme. Thenardier hisses before continueing to cradle her child. "Now, now, dear. Mother will sing you a lullaby, okay?"

It's an old song, that her mother taught her. It's from some folklore, about a flower who could heal. She's not familiar with the tale, but she does know the song by heart, and starts to sing it. Her voice is soothing, gentle and soft. Another quality she had not known existed.

"Flower, gleam and glow... Let your power shine... Make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine..." She continues to sing the small song to Eponine, who slowly stops crying.

Montparnasse isn't really paying attention, he's just sitting on the floor, bouncing baby Euphrasie on his knee and tangling his fingers in her abnormally long hair (a habit he developed as a child.) He doesn't notice her hair starts glowing at first, but it slowly gets brighter and suddenly the light is blocking his thoughts and he looks down at the girl, who's now sleeping in his arms with bright hair shining. He's shocked, so shocked he sits there for a minute and watches and he looks at the finger Eponine's made bleed and he watches and it slowly starts to repair itself and slowly starts to make Montrapasse's eyes get bigger because his wound is being repaired by glowing hair.

He screams, high pitched and squealish. The babies resume their crying and Mme. Thenardier is livid in raise, asking what in the world is wrong with the almond-eyed orphan. He shows her his finger, which yes, she does remember when it was bleeding.

"I-it was her hair!" He exclaimed. "It started glowing! An-and it healed my finger!"

"What the devil?" Mme. Thenardier said and deposited Eponine into her crib without a second thought, running over to the other baby and picking her up. "What did you do?"

"I-I-I was just twirling my fingers in it while you were singing and it started glowing!"

"What the blazing," she mumbled and stared at the baby. She thought hard about the song she had sung. She thought of how her mother use to sing it to her, of how the words had a story... An old story, about a flower at was grown from a drop given by the sun. It was meant to have magical properties- healing wounds and perhaps- even?

She sings it again, holding the child's hair in her hand. This time she is more careful than gentle, and her eyes widen as the baby's hair begins to glow. She watches, as old wrinkles on her hand slowly start to smooth and disappear, and suddenly she feels much lighter, much more of energy and the crick in the back of her neck is gone. She asks Montparnasse if she looks different, he merely nods. She screams for her husband.

He enters, knocking over a table and asking, "What's wrong? Why is Eponine crying?"

"Never mind her!" Mme. Thenardier hollers. "Look at me! Can't you tell?"

And he can, for he renders the last time he saw his wife's face she had been older, slots and wrinkles slowly becoming more and more apparent. Now it was smooth- more beautiful than when they had first met. Her eyes are shiner, her hair is more vibrant- she's so stunning. "Wh-What happened?"

"This child's hair!" She explains, then shows him, and suddenly his face is much younger too. They are astonished, and Montparnasse is the only one to realize Eponine is still crying. He tries to shush her, as the adults talk of what to do.

"Cut it," Thenardier says. "Cut it, we keep it, and then sell the child back for ransom. We'll have so much money we won't know what to do." He pulls a rusty knife out of his pocket, grabs a lock from the child's head and cuts it as close to the scalp as he can get.

It dies in his hand instantly, the gold fades to a muddish brown and the hair attached to the child's head dies as well. They try to see if it will work, but the only hair that glows are the ones still growing from the children's scalp. They look at each other, distressed.

It's Montparnasse who finally says it. "You'll have to keep her."

!&!

Valjean finds himself in an old, abandon house that's two stories high and filled to the brim with the lone survivors from his kingdom. Many are orphans, and this makes him cry.

"I am sorry, children," he says a million times. "I have left you with no parents and I have been left without a daughter."

"Where is she?" A boy named Courfeyrac asks.

Valjean heaves a heavy sigh that shakes his heart. "She must have been killed, kidnapped and killed. I've lost my very own child." He cries again.

Eventually, a boy who is only twelve with short black hair speaks from the back. "We'll get you your kingdom back sir! Maybe Princess Euphrasie is there still!"

Valjean manages a small smile, "Yes, thank you, Enjolras."

!&!

They build a tower, in between the area of the Shaded Kingdom and the Sun Kingdom. They keep Euphrasie there for her years, call her a name so know one knows (usually Cosette, but sometimes they forget). They says she is their daughter, and that she is being kept safe. Her hair grows and keeps the Thenardiers' young.

Cosette, for that is how she knows herself, looks out of the one window she's been permitted, and stares at the sun in the sky, watching until night falls, and wonders, "Is this all I'll ever do?"