In the light of the ten o'clock sunrise, a thin layer of clouds filtered the golden embrace on the city of Paris. Yet, in the silence, an even tolling of the hourly bells shook the gray stone of Notre Dame, as well as the bystanders that flocked to set up the Feast of Fools. Colorful tents and banners were being strung on every lamppost and sign, the dreary atmosphere being overshadowed by the pageantry of the gypsies and peasants.

And overseeing the entire event from her perch above the streets, a hunched young woman.

The young hunchback, a peasant by birth; was the mysterious force that reminded the vibrant and crowded city the time and date, the bells of the church being an eternal marker like a clock in the center of town. One simply had to count the number of tolls from the bells that echoed high in the steeple of the Gothic cathedral to have a measurement of the day. One toll added with each hour that passed, finally reaching its climax in the dark midnight skies at twelve rings. Holidays and festivals were marks by the sounds as well, light and soft bells sounding at the months of Yule, and dark and thundering bells rocking the city at passover and Easter Sunday, only to be replaced by the jubilant ringing once again by the next week.

On this day, Quasimoda walked out to the bough on the south tower, the mouth of a stone gargoyle acting as a nest for the one of the hundreds of fledgling birds that nested within the drafty parapets.

"Good morning," Quasimoda said softly to the little white bird, which cooed softly in the mouth of the statue. "You ready to fly? Is today gonna be the day?" She asked the small white pile of downy feathers. The bird looked at her and moved the back part of its wings upward, as if to shrug at her question.

The confident look dissolved into one of confusion. "You're sure? It's a good day to try!" The gentle giant indicated the fading overcast where a flock of the migratory birds left the cathedral; just like they did every January.

"Why," She moved both of her hands to the mouth of the gargoyle, taking the baby bird in both hands, the feathers not tickling her calloused palms. "If I could pick a day to fly; oh, this would be it!" The hunchback chuckled lightly and moved her outstretched hands over the stone railing, where a host of colorful tents and booths were being set up in the square below her, the calls of the gypsies echoing off the stone colossus. "The Festival of Fools!"

Quasimoda blew a strand of ginger hair from her forehead as a small chirp came from her hands, the bird looking down at the world beneath it.

She held the bird up to the safety of the cathedral, seeing no change in the birds willingness to fly. But knew she had to convince it to at least try.

"It'll be fun! There'll be jugglers, and music;" A beat of air blew against her hands as the baby bird began to flap its wings and float; slowly, but steadily above her embrace. "And dancing, and…" She stopped after the bird reached the height of her head, holding her hands up for the bird to see as proof that it was flying, and was ready to leave. The bird opened its eyes and looked at Quasimoda, then back at the ground beneath them, and released a lovely, confident chirp as it stopped flapping its wings and fell back into the hunchbacks waiting hands.

She started laughing softly at the accomplishment right as the flock of birds flew by, the cooing echoing like a call to the baby bird to join them. The bird in question began chirping wildly, looking between the hunchback and the flock, as if to say it was eager and ready to leave the cathedral it had grown up in.

Inside, Quasimoda felt a pang of jealousy. But it didn't bother her for the moment. She had bigger things to attend to. With a kind smile, she stroked the scruff on the bird's head. "Now go on! Nobody wants to stay cooped up here forever!" The young woman recoiled one of her hands as the baby bird began to flap its small wings and take flight, trying to catch up to the rest of its flock.

The hunchback watched with silent content as the flock of birds disappeared into the light of the sun to the right of the Palace of Justice, free to go and come as it wished.

"If only…" She mused before a loud gagging sound caught her attention.

"Ugh!" The gargoyle spit the bunches of straw from her mouth, combing the stray bits from her tongue with her cloven hooves. "I thought that rat would never leave! I'll be spitting feathers for a week!" She complained as a bunch of white downy feathers poured from in between her bottom teeth.

"Well Harry, that's what you get for sleeping with your mouth open!" The gargoyle on Quasimoda's left answered to the plight of the talking statue.

"Ha ha ha, go scare a priest." The gargoyle mumbled under her breath, knowing Victoria had been right.

She quickly forgot what she was mad about and leaned over into Quasimoda, a playful glint in her grey eyes. "Hey, what'cha watchin'? A fight? A flogging?" She guessed as the hunchback looked down at the festival being set up below them.

"A festival." Victoria guessed leaning in on the girls right. The gentle giant nodded, her ginger locks blowing in the light breeze.

"You mean the Feast of Fools?" Harry guessed with so much enthusiasm Quasimoda doubted when Harry said she couldn't fly.

"Uh huh." She replied in a bored tone, despite the giddy atmosphere.

"Alright, alright! Pour the wine," The pig like gargoyle held out one of her arms in a pouring motion. "And cut the cheese!" She started armpit farting, much to Victoria's dismay.

"It is a delight to witness the colorful pageantry of the simple peasants." She added in a soft, alto voice.

Harry scooted over, knocking Victoria to the side at she vied to cheer her friend up. "Nothing like balcony seats for watching the old FOF, eh Quasi?" She peered down at the square below.

A huff came from the twenty year old woman, her eyes dark and bored. "Yeah; watch." She said halfheartedly and turned to walk away from the balcony, the sight of the yearly tradition too much to bear.

"Hey, wait! What gives?" Harry turned to the hunchback, who didn't answer.

Victoria followed the gargoyles gaze, her face etched with confusion. "Aren't you going to watch the festival with us?" She called out to Quasimoda as she turned the corner to go inside the bell tower.

"I don't get it." Harry admitted defeat as Victoria looked over at her fellow gargoyle with a look of horror striking her face.

"Do you think she's sick?" She asked breathlessly.

"Impossible!" Lorenzo hopped hands first, a flock of pigeons following behind as he came closer. "If twenty years of listening to the two of you hasn't made her sick by now," He scoffed and hopped to the ground from the stone railing, the pigeons trailing behind like a shadow. "Nothing will." He finished with a small cackle.

Harriet, Victoria and Lorenzo were three stone gargoyles that had resided in the Notre Dame Cathedral since it had been completed, watching over the city in silent awe until a baby was brought into the bell towers by Judge Claudia Frollo, interest taking hold of the three statues almost the instant the cruel judge left. At one point it had been Victoria who heard what the child's name was, and from then on the girl was known as Quasimoda. Harriet, or as she liked to be called: Harry, was short, chubby, and had pig like features, tall horns, and small wings. She was constantly fooling around, gutsy, and always able to entertain the hunchback whenever possible. Victoria was the tallest of the three, had a slim build yet soft features that were covered by a thin jumble of stone where horns once rested, but gave the appearance of hair. She had the largest wings of the three, the texture being far more feather like; like that of an angel. Her personality was knowledgeable, educated, and often the most rational. Lorenzo was the eldest, being carved far before Notre Dame for a cathedral in a place he called the Vatican, but was shipped the Paris instead because gargoyles were not wanted in the Vatican. He was wise, cynical, and easily the most nurturing of the gargoyles, his hunched back and wrinkled features not unlike Quasimoda herself, layered horns poking out of his head the same shape as the goatee on his chin. All three considered the hunchback family, Frollo hardly ever coming up for visits.

"But watching the Feast of Fools has always been the highlight of the year for her!" Victoria protested, throwing a thin hand down to indicate the festival in the square, the construction nearing completion.

"And tell me Victoria; what fun is watching the party when you can't join in?" He responded with a blunt stare before hopping along into the bell tower to comfort Quasimoda, who was slumped at a table that overlooked the west alley of Paris.

On that table was an extensive model of wood and craft supplies that resembled the square around the cathedral to near exact detail; the faces of the whittled and painted citizens as they had been for the past twenty years. The articulate paint and carving of facial features and expressions gave the figures a new life all their own. The shepherd holding a faint look of amorous love for the milkmaid down the way, the grocer holding a dark stare at his across-the-street rival, as if pondering the recipe to the other man's souffle. Even the superfluity held a gaze of eternal kindness and knowledge towards the superior that led them.

Ever since she was ten, the bell ringer had discovered a talent for whittling, the only ones impressed by it the gargoyles; as her Mistress looked on with silent indifference at her adopted daughter's talent.

"She's not made of stone like us." He continued as their voices echoed through the lofty towers.

Quasimoda sat on a stool at her table, looking over the small people, the small bits of wood shavings sitting in corkscrew curls around the pebble plaza. She let loose a sigh of discontent, burying her head in her hands.

The three gargoyle watched from the curtained off archway, none of them having ever seen their friend in such a state of self pity. Finally, Lorenzo hobbled up to the table, his withered face level with the hunchbacks.

"Quasi, what's wrong?" He placed a thin hand on her muscular shoulder. "You wanna tell your old patrizio all about it?" Lorenzo had the small quirk of saying some things in Italian, the time he spent in the workshop giving him a broader knowledge of both that and French.

The young woman gave a small grunt. "I just don't feel like watching the festival, okay?"

"Well," The gargoyle mused putting his hand on one of the carved women in a simple purple dress. "Did that thought of going ever come to you?"

"Sure." She admitted. "But I'd never fit in out there. I'm not…" Quasimoda paused and took the figure from Lorenzo, looking at the beautifully thin figure, delicate features, lack of scars. "Normal." The hunchback deadpanned and set the woman back down on the table, to which the fatherly gargoyle chuckled lightly and picked up the wooden masterpiece, twisting it indifferently in his stone gray fingers.

"Quasi," He began as one of the pigeons landed on his nose, and he lost his patience. In an instant a string of horrible swearing that would have made a drunk man shiver flew from the gargoyle's mouth like the ten pigeons. In Italian of course.

At this moment, Harry hopped on the table, and took a figure from the bell towers. That figure was a hunched wooden chunk at wat abstract at best, the features like that of a seven year olds drawing; which it in the simplest of terms was. Quasimoda had been carving since the age of six, her self portrait being a source of inspiration to continue after Frollo complimented the resemblance of it; to which the young girl hadn't understood at the time. She hadn't the heart to change it, the crude figure being exactly what she thought she was: ugly.

"Stop beating around the bell towers. What do we gotta do? Paint you a fresco?" SHe took the figure of Quasimoda and placed it among the villagers in the square.

"As your friends and guardians, we insist you attend the festival." Victoria piped up from behind and pulled the hunchback to turn around on the stool, her thin composure holding quite a bit of muscle.

"Me?" She questioned as if she hadn't heard the statement correctly.

Harry stifled a giggle. "No, the pope." She held a pope figure in her hands, then knocked Quasimoda on the head with it playfully. "Of course you!" She gave a piggish smile.

"It would be a veritable popery," Victoria snatched the pope figure from Harry's cloven hoof and held it aloft. "Of education." She finished as the other gargoyle interrupted her.

"Wine, whittlers and then some!" She juggled three of the carved people like an expert in her hooves.

"You could learn to identify various regional cheeses," Victoria began once more only to be cut off once more.

"Bobbin' for snails!" Harry held up a big bucket of water with slugs in it.

"Study indigenous folk music-" The thinner was stopped short as Harry dumped the bucket of water on her head.

"Playin' dunk the monk!" She laughed confidently at her prank.

At this, Quasimoda stared ahead blankly, unsure just what, if anything, had changed her opinion about going. She had cheese as well as wine when her mistress came to visit, and didn't think much of it. Bobbing for snails sounded disgusting, and she didn't find any humor or justice in drowning anyone; much less a monk.

"Quasi," Lorenzo placed a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "Take it from an old spettatore." He removed the hand and indicated himself. "Life's not a spettatore sport. If watching is all you're gonna do," He walked his fingers on the air. "Then you're gonna watch your life go right on by without you." He finished with a knowing smile.

"Yeah!" Harry piped up as Victoria was beginning to peel slugs from the bucket away from her stone features. "You're human, what with the flesh and bone and heart," She thumped the young womans chest. "We're just part of the architecture." Harry then thumped her own chest to reveal the solid sound of rock clicking onto rock. "Right Victoria?" She nudged the thin gargoyle, who gave her a death stare.

"If you chip us; do we not flake? And should you moisten us," Victoria peeled a slug from her hip. "Do we not moisten?" She flicked the moist creature onto Harry's head, who started shrieking in a desperate effort to remove it from her head, the gargoyle placing the bucket over Harry's head to silence her.

"Quasi, just grab a fresh tunic and a clean pair of hosen," Lorenzo wrapped both arms around the hunchbacks enormous bicep. "And just-"

The girl held her other hand over Leonardo's, her gaze dim and unchanged. "Thank you all for the encouragement, but you're all forgetting one very important thing." She eased the old gargoyles hands off of her arm and waited for an answer, but got three 'whats.'

"My mistress, Frollo." She deadpanned and produced a figure of her mistress; also an early work, but far better than her self portrait. A chorus of saddened agreement came from the statues, Harry tossing the bucket aside after having gotten rid of it and the slug.

"Well," Victoria held her head in her chin. "When she says you're forbidden from ever leaving the bell tower; does she mean ever ever?" She looked for a loophole, to which the hunchback quickly responded.

"Never ever! And she hates the Feast of Fools." The bell ringer deadpanned, twirling a strand of ginger hair in her large fingers. "Mistress would be furious if I asked to go."

A mischievous smile surfaced on Harry's face. "Wait; who says you gotta ask?"

"Oh no," Quasimoda shook her head, her eyes alert with dread.

"You sneak on out;" Harry illustrated by walking her cloven hoof in a bouncing motion. Lorenzo also voiced his opinion. "It's only for one afternoon." He nodded.

"I-I could never-"

"And… you sneak right back in!" The fat gargoyle mused at the horrible plan. "The vecchiaccia will be none the wiser!" Lorenzo agreed.

"And if I got caught-" The hunchback ran both beefy hands through her hair, beads of sweat trickling down her forehead at the thought of it.

"Better to beg for forgiveness than to ask permission." Victoria stated matter-of-factly.

"But if she saw me-" Quasimoda suggested setting the figure of her mistress beside the figure of herself.

Harry grabbed an old curtain that was a shade of burgundy and full of holes; just like their plan. "You could wear a disguise!" She suggested wrapping herself in the worn fabric like the habit and robes of a nun. "It's only once! What Frollo doesn't know, can't hurt her!" Harry began to clumsily sneak around, ending up behind Victoria, who looked at her fellow statue with a look of mutual respect.

"After all, ignorance is bliss!" She chuckled as Harry hopped on top of her and gave her a noogie, wearing away the chips in her weathered horns.

"Nobody wants to stay cooped up here forever!" Lorenzo gave the bell ringer a small punch to the arm, to which she smiled at. They were all right. It wouldn't be that bad. And as much as she hated to admit it; she didn't want to stay in the bell tower forever. Just once would be enough; knowing the odds.

"You know what; you're right. I'll go!" She stood up and began a confident walk; or limp, towards the archway where her tunics were. Happy cheers sounded from all three of them.

"I'll get cleaned up;" She mused throwing a fist ahead of her in confidence as if that hand was leading her forth to a new beginning.

"I'll stroll down those stairs," Quasimoda smiled at the thought, wandering free in Paris.

"Walk through those doors and-"

"Hello, Quasimoda." A dark silky voice greeted the hunchback.

Her Mistress, Claudia Frollo stood directly in front of her.