A/N: Hi all, and welcome back! As usual, I don't own the characters associated with Walt Disney Studios or Victor Hugo's creations or the versions from Der Glockner von Notre Dame, only a few minor characters of my own creation are sprinkled throughout this story for originality purposes and to make it a bit different from the movie's plot, but not so drastically different that it doesn't read like something someone from Disney might have come up with. (I hope!) Anyway, I hope that you enjoy it!

Chapter Fourteen: A Gargoyle's Advice

QUASI thought for sure he was mishearing things, given how ringing the proud but massive iron and brass bells of Notre Dame multiple times a day was something of an occupational hazard and had damaged his hearing somewhat, causing a constant ringing in his throbbing eardrums.

He could have sworn he heard the audible sound of a pair of light, delicate footfalls ascending the steps to his tower, but as he cocked his head to the side and strained his ears, closing his eyes to listen for any indication that the noise had come again, he didn't hear it a second time.

The boy almost growled in frustration. Just his luck he had been physically and mentally taxed and tortured to the point of no return, but now, to add further salt to the already tender wound that was his broken heart, he was hearing things now, too?! Was he going touched in the head?

Was that it? He gave his head a curt shake to clear it, though he could not help hearing Master Frollo's voice inside his mind, warning him to be wary of the female sex and their wicked, tempting ways meant to stray the righteousness away from the path that led to Heaven's gates upon death.

"The seductions of women will never die, Quasimodo. You must fight these feelings, boy. I cannot help you obtain salvation if you allow yourself to succumb to thoughts of the pleasures of the flesh, my son. A grown boy in both body and mind, already possessing those urges. Fight them, boy," he heard Master Frollo utter.

Even in his mind, there was no warmth in Master's tones. None. Quasi's teeth clenched in annoyance as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He knew the smartest thing to do would be not to get his hopes up, to force this day from his mind as though it were an unpleasant memory.

But Madellaine, she—No! He forced his mind to grind to a halt.

He would not think of Master's new hearth keep. He could not, no matter what. He knew the smartest course of action he could possibly take would be to close this chapter of his life and stow in the dark recesses of his mind and lock it tight, never to dwell on the proceedings of today ever again.

He would be doing the girl a kindness by swearing to leave her in the past the moment her petite silhouette had faded from the view of the mezzanine.

Though Quasimodo already knew this would not be easy. As practical as he prided himself on being, he could not stop his mind from dwelling on the way that she had looked at him. As a…. "Friend," he whispered hoarsely, feeling his heartstrings give a painful little tug as it lurched within the confines of his broad chest. Quasimodo drew in a breath of frigid cold air that pained his lungs and burned as it pushed down past the growing lump in his throat, filling the void in his heart. He willed his mind to think of anything else but her.

His fists shook and balled desperately as he wound his gloved hands tightly around the balcony's railings, grinding his teeth in sheer annoyance. His broad chest heaving for calm, Quasi squeezed his eyes shut.

Don't think of her, he scolded himself. Just…just don't. For your own good.

The bells needed polishing, and a crack that had begun widening in Big Marie's side needed mending with hot lead, but he was dragging his feet at getting his work done, his mind still ruminating over the horrible events of today, and the unmistakable amount of sheer embarrassment and anger he had caused not only Master Frollo by daring to disobey the Judge's orders, but also the girl as well. Madellaine, his conscience reminded her, sounding somewhat harsh.

She has a name. Use it. She's your friend now. At that thought, he blinked, his cobalt blue eyes widening in utter disbelief. Just the utterance of the word 'friend' in his mind plastered a quiet vibration underneath his cursed skin and made it crawl with utter shock.

A loud, boisterous voice from behind him made the bell ringer jump. "Perhaps today wasn't a total loss after all for ya, kid!" Hugo's annoying, grating voice that sounded like nails raking their way down a slab of stone resonated within his tower as his voice cut through the silent air.

Quasi merely grunted wordlessly in response, not sure what to say to that, furrowing his ginger brows in contemplation as a light breeze wafted through his drafty tower loft, lightly brushing his bangs off his forehead.

Notre Dame's bell ringer, for reasons he could not explain, could not quite shake the feeling of dread that crawled its way down his twisted vertebrae, like a spider leaving her gentle trail of silk in her wake as she did.

He was sure, yes, he was sure, that he had seen this girl before, but…

And then it hit him, and poor Quasimodo reeled back, as though someone had doused him in a bucket of ice-cold water. His nightmares.

She was the young blonde woman who burned at the stake and hearing her screams, and how he always failed in his attempts to save her.

His nightmares constantly reminded him of who he was. What he was. A monster, he thought bitterly, clenching his gloved hands into fists, and slowly raking his nails down the front material of his brown hosen.

That's all I'll ever be. A monster. Why pretend to be something I'm not, he thought, feeling his molars lock together in nervous anticipation. His nightmares of the young blonde woman were more of a night terror because it felt like he might die from the pain in his brain.

He was always desperately trying to wake up, to beg for help, though he never saved her.

But it seemed like it didn't matter anymore. She was real, and his mind was having a difficult time accepting the truth as fact.

His brain wracked with the memory of the young blonde in his tower loft, she who had held his arm and cupped his chin in her hand, her gaze unabashed and unwavering, now that her bright and cheerful disposition had quit the scene of the north bell tower loft, Quasi's heart was a hollow, empty pit.

The skin of his palm, even underneath his glove like this still tingled and burned where she had held onto his hand, had touched him so tenderly, much like a lover would, that he could not begin to fathom it.

Even in her absence, Quasi could still feel Madellaine's presence, hear her laugh, or have a very good idea of the young woman's laugh, at the very least, as though she were right here standing beside him.

As if she were there with her, he saw deep into the depths of her pale blue orbs, felt the gentle embrace of her hand over top his slightly misshapen shoulder. His body tingled still where the pads of her fingertips had touched him, on top of his palms, near the column of his throat and collarbones.

When she had tended his wounds. This celestial-like creature, this angel from his nightmares, she was real, not simply a phantasm that his mind had created to ease the burdens of his miserable, desolate existence.

She—she's real. His mind felt like it was reeling as he pondered over the ending of the Feast of Fools, that while, yes, it had ended in disaster, something good had come out of it. Madellaine had not seemed put off by his monstrous appearance. She was very kind, and if truth be told, quite pretty, though the bell ringer's eyes widened once he realized what was happening to him, where his thoughts were headed, and he gave a curt shake of his head to clear it, letting out a growl of irritation and carding his fingers through his thick tuft of short red hair, wincing as he realized he'd need a trim soon. Sister Alice would have to take care of it for him one of those days.

He bit the wall of his cheek and stared pensively out at the city of Paris and down out into the square, knowing that today was the one and only day that he would ever dare to go out there and explore.

Never again.

Quasi was pulled out of his torpid whirl of conflicting thoughts by the sound of Laverne and Victor's voices as the stone gargoyles hobbled their way out onto the balcony terrace, where their young charge sat stooped, gloved hands curled into tight fists over the balcony railing's beams.

He didn't have to glance over his shoulder to see them hovering. Victor was the first to break the heavy and somewhat awkward silence.

"A true vision of pure loveliness the girl was," he chirped jovially, his eloquent tone optimistic and hoping to steer the conversation in a more pleasant direction and away from the unbelievable torment Quasi had been forced to endure this afternoon. "I think she likes you, Quasimodo."

Hugo looked as though he wanted to argue with his comrade, for he opened his mouth and then promptly closed it, thinking better of it upon seeing both Laverne and Victor shoot him, quite literally, a stony glower.

Again, this was not necessarily enough of a comment to elicit a response, though after what felt like an eternity, the boy lifted his head almost sanguinely and turned to regard the scholarly gargoyle incredulously. "What makes you say that?" he questioned in utter disbelief.

Quasimodo's tone was guarded as he slowly swiveled his head and merely proceeded to fix Hugo with a rather pointed stare

Hugo snorted through his snout and made an odd little strangled noise at the back of his throat as he clucked his tongue in disappointment.

"C'mon, kid, don't play dumb with us, boy!" he scolded in an unusually somber tone, not at all like the nature of the fat stone swine's usually flamboyant nature. "Blondie was eyeballing you, even if you weren't looking and couldn't see it, but I was! That kid likes ya, Quasi!" he grinned.

Quasi glowered at Hugo, carding back that one stubborn lock of coarse, fiery hair out of his eyes, and let out a haggard sounding sigh of defeat. "I…appreciate what you're trying to do for me, Hugo, but it won't work," he growled, ducking his head in shame, and turning away from them. "Y—yes, she—she was nice, b—but…let's not fool ourselves, guys."

The bitterness and self-loathing were laced throughout the man's quiet, tenor-like tones, that Laverne did not even have to guess as to what his next statement would be, and she felt her heart sink at the boys' words.

"Ugliest face in all of Paris, remember?" he growled bitterly. "I'm not her type or any woman's type, and there's no point in hoping for it."

Laverne furrowed her stone brows into a frown and folded her arms across her chest, noticing the forlorn expression on the young man's face.

The elderly stone gargoyle considered her ability to judge the boy's emotions, what Quasi was thinking and feeling, quite excellent, and she was, considering she had spent over twenty years up here in the tower with the man, and this moment as she watched him in silence was no different.

She could tell the poor boy was greatly disturbed by whatever was ailing him, though whether that was the psychological and physical torment he had suffered at the hands of the Parisian townspeople today or the fact that for the first time in his entire adult life, a woman other than Alice de Beaumont had visited his tower loft had come and gone as she pleased and had even taken it a step further and tended the boy's wounds, and had not looked upon the man with any hint of fear, scorn, or revulsion, she could not say.

The fear of whatever was on poor Quasimodo's mind looped around until Laverne was sure there was room for nothing else.

The 'loop,' Laverne imagined, continued in a vicious sort of cycle, as the wheel of a cart until the wheel stopped moving. These next few hours as she, Victor, and Hugo lay in wake with the boy would either pass as a blip in the course of the young man's life, or they would be the final trauma that completely broke the poor fragile man with a wounded heart.

Laverne's frown deepened as she reached up with a lanky stone arm and pressed her cold stone hand to Quasi's forehead, checking for any signs of warmth, any indication the boy might have a fever or some sort. She did not particularly like the pallid way the boy was looking, how ashen and clammy his face had gone, but was concerning her the most was the look of extreme mortification and sheer, unbridled terror on his face.

"Quasi, what's wrong?" she pressed in her ancient, warbling tone, knowing full well she was going to have to pry the answer out of him. "You wanna tell old Laverne all about it?" she asked, patting his leg.

Laverne flinched at the radiating heat that seemed to emanate off Quasi's skin, like a brick right out of the stokes of a fire. His cheeks burned with the flush of what at first, she thought to be fever, but a closer look revealed that wasn't the case. He was…angry. His breaths quivered in short, quick gasps every time he inhaled a sharp breath of cold January air, his lungs having no choice but to take in the chilled air of the outside world.

The poor boy couldn't seem to stop his shaking, either, which in Laverne's mind was new. She exchanged a dark but concerned look with her stone companions. Sometimes it was rough, other times, Quasi could manage, but every time it would seem to Laverne he would start to calm down, a new violent spell of shaking would force his posture to go rigid.

Whatever was happening to Quasimodo, it wasn't bloody good, and Laverne heard herself sigh as she felt the boy gingerly but firmly wind his strong, ironclad grip around her stony wrist and pry her hand away from his forehead. "Maybe he's sick?" questioned Victor, trying to be helpful.

Quasi responded in kind by barely repressing the urge to roll his eyes. "N—no, I—I'm not sick, Victor," he stammered, sounding more tired than the gargoyles had ever heard him in their lives. He noticed the three stone companions' doubtful expression and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards in a wry, sardonic little half-smile. "I promise. I'm not."

Laverne remained unconvinced, however, as she knitted her brows together, not at all fazed by Quasimodo's gentle words of reassurance.

"Are you sure you're all right, Quasi? You're looking…peaky. Flushed," Laverne murmured as she thoughtfully tapped her chin. "Have you taken ill? Perhaps the next time that nun comes up to bring you supper, she could give you something to bring down your temperature."

But Quasi flinched and turned his head sharply to the left to avoid her gaze, hanging his head and allowing that damned stubborn lock of his fiery red hair to hang in front of his eyes, effectively shielding his vision from that which he did not wish to see, which, in this case, was Laverne.

She harumphed and huffed in frustration, and this would have been the part where if she would have had feet, she would have stomped one.

It seemed to take the boy an eternity to find his voice and confess to his companions what was bothering him, and it did not escape Laverne's attention that he pointedly refused to meet their gazes, painfully wringing his gloved hands together.

"I…I…hurt her, you guys, a—and I…don't know what to do about it," Quasi stammered as his breaths caught in his throat, and he swallowed down hard past the lump in his throat as he drew in a breath of cold air. He knew it would be better for all parties involved if he were to just tell the truth, and judging by the pensive, thoughtful looks on his guardians' stony expressions, they were patiently waiting for him to speak.

The bell ringer let out an aggravated sigh and launched into an abbreviated version of his nightmares, how the blonde angel was real, and the very same person who had visited his tower not even fifteen minutes ago, was…her. By the time he had finished, he ducked his head in shame.

Victor, as usual, was the first to break the awkward silence as the boy allowed his confession to hang in the air between the four of them out here at the top of the world on the balcony terrace. "Perhaps it's a vision?"

Quasi shook his head numbly and offered no verbal response, instead favoring silence as an apt response as the man pursed his lips.

"It's not," he managed to croak out hoarsely. "I…I don't know anymore…" But his voice trailed off and he did not bother to complete what he was thinking.

Anguished, the boy let out an agonized moan and buried his head in his gloved hands. When he spoke, considering his head remained buried in his hands, his voice to the three stone gargoyles sounded faint. Muffled.

"Have I done something, said something to God to make Him despise me so? Why—why is this happening to me, you guys? What do my dreams of her mean? By God's good graces, why does He hate me so much?" he demanded, lifting his head from his hands and blearily gazing at the three stone figures in front of him with a look of helplessness.

Laverne offered a short, curt nod in response, something in her beady, stony eyes glistening as she proceeded to rest her chin in her hands. "No one hates you, Quasi, so don't talk about yourself like this, do you understand?" Laverne chastised. "We don't hate you," she added darkly, her gaze flitting to Victor and Hugo for confirmation and support here, and the pair quickly nodded their agreement. "That girl who paid you a visit earlier does not seem to hate you, Quasimodo. It was just a dream, Quasi," she murmured rather numbly. "The girl is fine. You saw it for yourself with your own two eyes, kid. Your new friend? She's fine…"

Though even as Laverne heard the words uttered from her own mouth, the stone gargoyle could not help but flinch at her statement.

She could not quite explain it, but the simple fact of the matter was that the fact that this blonde slip of a lass was Judge Claude Frollo's hearth keep. It did not sit well with Laverne at all, though she knew if she were prompted by the boy for an answer, she would not be able to give him one.

And this bothered her. More than Laverne ever cared to admit it, and until she could figure out why this was, she saw no reason to trouble the boy any further with an explanation, when she wasn't even sure if it warranted getting so upset over, but she could tell, she had already succeeded in upsetting him even further as she heard the boy make a noise.

Laverne could only watch as the boy processed her words, her heartstrings giving a painful little pang and she felt a stab of pity for the lonesome and isolated bell ringer currently slumped against the stone wall of the balcony's terrace, currently carding his fingers through his red hair.

Quasi sanguinely lifted his head, his mind processing his friend's words. He heard the antagonism in Laverne's warbling tone and felt his blood turn to ice in his veins, that he knew had nothing to do with the frigid winter air. It was not Laverne's voice.

She may have said this just to reassure his frayed nerves, but that was not his guardian's voice. It was much too listless and flat! It did not sound like Laverne at all. Her voice was entirely too flat and emotionless, and then…it hit him.

Laverne, and Hugo and Victor for that matter, did not believe him.

Quasi bit the wall of his cheek and ran his tongue along the top wall of his teeth and felt a myriad of emotions hit him squarely in his strong, broad chest. Hurt, anger, confusion, sadness, betrayal at the stone figures' disbelief and rejection of his claims that his nightmares were real somehow.

He was sure he had never felt such a pain in his chest like this before until now, and matters were only made worse when Victor queried him.

"Are you all right, Quasimodo?" he questioned politely, raising his stone eyebrows in alarm upon seeing how rapidly his face drained of color.

Quasi flinched instinctively at the stone gargoyle's question, just as another light night breeze tousled his hair off his forehead. Of all the things he had imagined his companions would ask, this was…not exactly it.

Was he all right? Was he all right?! No, he wasn't all right.

What a question! He had been dreaming of this mysterious blonde woman for days on end without fail for the last several weeks, maybe even going on months, unable to shake the scent of honeysuckle and eucalyptus from his senses when he woke from his nightmares bathed in a cold sweat, and now, to make matters worse for himself, he discovered today that she was very much real and very much life and not a phantasm of his imagination.

And she's Master's servant, his conscience reminded unhelpfully, though before he could ponder this revelation further, Hugo spoke up.

The flamboyant gargoyle was unnaturally grim and somber, something of a rarity for the stone creature, and Quasi knew whenever he got in a mood like this, that it must be serious for the stone figure to have such a shift in his countenance.

"You say these dreams of the girl are no ordinary dreams," he began slowly and cautiously, as though he were speaking to Quasi when he was twelve-years-old and not a grown man of almost twenty-one years.

Quasi nodded mutely, not sure where Hugo was going with this.

"Then…if it's no dream, then do something to fix it," Hugo urged. He did not quite know as he spouted out his advice what kind of reaction he had been expecting from the boy, but pure unbridled terror wasn't it.

His face became ashen, beads of sweat forming along his brow, and his face suddenly turned an interesting shade of green, as though he were about to be sick. Hugo persisted. "Help that girl, Quasi. Be her friend."

Hugo cursed himself internally for what he was about to say next, to goad the boy into anger like this was not exactly his preferred method of eliciting the desired response from the man, but the three of them had to know just how far he was willing to go for the blonde lass who'd helped him out, and he could tell Victor and Laverne were thinking of this, too.

"H—how?" Quasimodo demanded hotly, flinching, hating hearing the crack, and dip in his voice as it wavered and broke. "I—I can't go out there again, you saw what happened out there today, you guys! I—I can't help her, Hugo. E—even I—if she—she is in danger, what would I say to her if she comes back? That I've been having dreams of her? I don't see that going over so well with her, do you three?" he snapped, hearing anger drip from his words as poisoned venom as it seeped into his tenor like tones. Quasi fell silent for a moment and ducked his head, drawing in a shuddering breath before continuing. "I…I can't."

The last word left him as a reluctant, half-choked sob, and he further lowered his head, ashamed.

Hugo silently bristled, wracking his brain and his one working brain cell to try to find some way to make the bell ringer see that he was wrong.

"If you don't…find some way to help that girl, then…" God save me, here it goes, he thought sadly, squeezing his eyes shut. "Then you're nothing but a coward, Quasimodo. I thought we had taught you better."

Almost instantly, his poisonous words had hit their mark, and Hugo flinched as the boy's head whiplashed sharply upward to regard Hugo, a lock of shock and anger flitting across his pale face as his lips parted open.

As he slowly rose to his feet, now towering over the three stone companions and fixing Hugo with a pointed glower that caused the fat horned swine to swallow nervously, he wouldn't put it past the boy to grab him by the horns or give him one good swift kick and roll him off the balcony's ledge to plummet to the cobblestones below, where he'd shatter.

Hugo squeezed his beady eyes tightly shut, waiting for the fateful kick off the ledge that would surely spell his doom and the end of his existence. But that moment for the fat stone gargoyle never even came. Quasi stood towering over his three stone companions, a look of antagonized hurt evident upon his slightly misshapen features as he wracked his brain, struggling to think of something to say to Hugo.

But nothing came. He knew that, deep down, Hugo was right. He was a coward, and he did not know what to do to help Madellaine at all.

He parted his lips open to speak until a noise deep within his tower loft interrupted whatever hateful retort Quasi had been about to say next. The three-stone gargoyles and the bell ringer fell silent, all of them wide-eyed and confused as they thought they'd heard a strange noise.

Quasi instinctively stiffened, hoping it wasn't another kid come up to his tower to catch a glimpse of the 'monster,' that 'demon,' that 'man.'

But then he heard the unmistakable creaking of the floorboards on the lower level of the mezzanine and a girl's familiar light, tinkling laugh. His ears practically perked up at the sound of Master Frollo's servant's voice, and Quasi did not bother to stifle the small but crooked smile that crept onto his features.

She…she had come back. It was her!

Madellaine had promised him that she would return, though he had been led to believe that considering the sun was setting below the horizon and the sky outside was only getting darker as night fell, that she had returned back with Master or one of his soldiers to the Palace of Justice.

And then he heard her voice, that almost made him jump, wanting nothing more than to immediately hide for cover, thinking that the other girl, La Esmeralda, had merely come to his tower to humiliate him again.

Quasimodo stiffened, grinding his teeth in annoyance and fear. He did not think he could face La Esmeralda again a second time. Not after…

"That," he whispered hoarsely, and darted to the left and right, looking for a place to hide, not wanting the Romani woman to find him.

He darted back into the tower and raced towards the top ledge of the wooden platform of the upper level of the mezzanine that led into his living loft, and he froze, having suspected and fearing the worst, and look!

From below, he could see two someone's, both feminine figures, and both women that he recognized, walking in through the door, and he was quick to note that right away, the dancer that had pulled him on the stage did not look at all pleased to see that the noise had made such a racket.

Quasi flinched, drawing in a sharp breath that pained his lungs as he swore the ebony-haired dancer's gaze flitted to the top of the mezzanine. A surge of adrenaline and panic coursed through his veins as he wildly looked to the left and right as he swore her emerald eyes brightened upon landing on his silhouette, and she had sensed the two of them were no longer alone.

She—she had seen him! It didn't even matter that Madellaine had come up with her, he did not think he could face La Esmeralda a second time, and he was hardly aware of the gargoyles hobbling up from behind.

"Quasi? A—are you up here, my friend? I—I came back. I hope…it's ok," came Madellaine's soft voice, a susurration, wafting up the tower loft, her tone light and tinkling like the soft chimes of a million bells.

Hugo, unbeknownst to the pair of women below, was the first to break the silence as he whispered in a hushed but excited tone. "Damsel alert!" he grinned, looking towards Victor and Laverne for confirmation.

"A lovely vision at that. It's your friend, Quasimodo, and she's brought someone with her this time, it seems," Victor chimed in eagerly.

Quasi let out a low, mournful whimper laced to the brim with fear as he swore, damaged hearing or not notwithstanding, the women's footfalls coming closer to the wooden ladder that led towards his humble abode.

The gargoyles were looking especially pleased amongst themselves that their young charge had now not one, but two women in his tower loft.

Laverne snorted and shot a withering look at Hugo's way, folding her stone arms across her chest. "What am I, Hugo, chopped liver, huh?"

If the sound of his companions arguing amongst themselves resonated within his tower, the women were completely unaware of this.

Madellaine's voice once again reached his eardrums, and he froze. "I—I brought E—Esmeralda up with me, Quasimodo. Sh—she wants to apologize to you. Will you let us come up?" the girl whispered.

The gargoyles' eyes, particularly Hugo's, widened in surprise as he turned towards the spot where Quasi had been standing near the ladder.

"Got the girls chasing you, already, huh? Knew you had it in you! They want you, Quasi, aren't you gonna say something to them, kid?!"

Only to find that their charge had hightailed it to the nearest hiding place he could think of, which in this case, happened to be behind a thick woolen tarp behind a rather large stone statue of the head of Moses.

Madellaine and Esmeralda were out there, searching, listening for him. One movement, one involuntary gasp of surprise and it was all over.

Quasi felt the sting of blood as he bit down on his tongue hard enough that soon the metallic tang of copper filled his nostrils as it lingered on his tongue and palate. He was debating whether or not he was having a panic attack or a heart attack as a shudder ran up and down his twisted spine.

Trapped. He was well and bloody trapped with those two women. Madellaine he wasn't too concerned with. Truth be told, he was delighted to see her again, however briefly, though it was the other, the young Romani dancer, that he was not sure how the woman would react.

It was only a matter of time before one of them found his hiding place. All it would take was one swift tug of the curtain to pull back and—

"Quasi?" came Madellaine's voice, sounding much more subdued and closer than she had before, and he almost tripped and fumbled over the large stone statue of Moses's head as he staggered backward in shock.

His heart thrummed in his chest, pounding relentlessly against its cage until he thought it would break free. Everything wasn't fine at all.

That woman, why was she here?! What did she want with him? She should not be up here! Damn. Quasimodo's thoughts were swirling around in his tired head as he bit the inside wall of his cheek in a nervous fit.

His mind felt like it was racing, showing no signs of stopping anytime soon as he drew in a hitched breath, a relatively poor attempt to calm himself, as a gloved, shaking hand found its way to his red hair as he raked his fingers through his hair nervously. He could not let himself be discovered by Esmeralda. Nothing good would come of it, of this, he was sure, even if Madellaine had ventured up here with that woman.

Quasi stiffened as he heard Madellaine's boots walk to his left, and when there had been enough of a pause in sound, he dared to peek his head out from behind the curtain and look for the next available hiding spot, ducking out from his safe sanctuary, though in minutes, warm hands were restraining him, effectively preventing him making a run for it.

Madellaine. He swallowed down hard nervously past the lump in his throat as his skittish, wide, unblinking pale blue orbs met the blonde's gaze.

The young blonde hearth keep reached up a hand to steady his slightly wobbling gait as he almost fell over in his effort to flee from her. "It's all right, my friend, neither of us is going to hurt you. You are safe with us. I...I promise, Quasimodo," Madellaine whispered in a voice smoother than silk, though as she opened her mouth to speak further, whatever she had been about to say next to her new friends died on her tongue when she appeared.

Quasi let out a tiny whimper as he blearily lifted his chin and met her gaze. It was her. The dancer, La Esmeralda, and she was looking at him with a look that he could only perceive as one of nervousness and hatred.

And this time, Madellaine could not stop it from happening again. Tersely, his gaze flickered from Madellaine to La Esmeralda, with Madellaine shooting him looks of concern for his physical well-being, and the other woman held an unreadable expression. Was it pity? Loathing?

He couldn't be sure, but what he did know, was that he did not want to be here right now in the young ebony-haired Romani's presence.

Quasi started to fear for the worst by the way Esmeralda was looking at him…