Castle on a Cloud

Les Shaman Miserables

Annette slopped the mop across the wooden flooring, inside an inn in the town of Montfermeil. She stopped momentarily to retie her red headband that covered her dirty blonde hair, which had come undone as she worked. She was a drudge inside this inn, polishing, sweeping, scrubbing, and doing all the dirty work, basically.

Annette turned back to her mop, but then began to daydream. "There is a castle on a cloud… I like to go there when I sleep… aren't any floors for me to sweep… not in my castle on a cloud…"

"There is a room that's full of toys," Annette continued, abandoning the mop to take chairs off of the bar and set them on the ground with a deafening thud. "There are a hundred boys and girls… nobody shouts or talks too loud… not in my castle on a cloud…"

"There is a lady all in white," Annette imagined. She forgot all about the mop and the chairs completely. "Holds me and sings a lullaby… she's nice to see and she's soft to touch… she says… 'Annette, I love you very much.'"

"I know a place where no one's lost… I know a place where no one cries… crying at all is not allowed… not in my castle on a cloud…"

Distant voices began to sound. Annette gasped and grabbed her mop. "Oh help! I think I hear them now!" Annette looked at the dull floor and scrubbed even more furiously. "And I'm nowhere near finished sweeping and scrubbing and polishing the floor!"

A blonde woman, who was thin but a bit haggard looking, walked into the room.

"Oh it's her!" Annette cried. "It's Eliza – Madame!"

Eliza scowled. "Now look who's here. The little madam herself, pretending once again she's been so awfully good. Better not catch you slacking – better not catch my eye!"

"Ten rotten francs your mother sends me!" Eliza yelled, thrusting the coins in front of Annette before taking them away. "What's that going to buy? Now take that pail –" Eliza pointed to a pail in the corner. "My little Mademoiselle, and go and draw some water from the well!"

Eliza sighed. "We should have never taken you in, in the first place – how stupid the things that we do! Like mother, like daughter, the scum of the street…"

A little girl with pink hair, wearing a blue hat and clutching a heart-shaped board in her hand, walked in, her eyes bright with interest. Eliza smiled.

"Tamanine, come my dear," Eliza told Tamanine. She came forward. "Tamanine, let me see you. You look very well in that new little blue hat. There's some little girls who know how to behave and they know what to wear. And I'm saying thank Heaven for that!"

Eliza noticed Annette, still clutching the empty pail, staring longingly at Tamanine. Tamanine giggled.

"Still there, Annette? Your tears will do you no good!" Eliza bellowed. "I told you, fetch some water from the well in the wood!"

"Please do not send me out alone," Annette pleaded. "Not in the darkness on my own –"

"Enough of that!" Eliza interrupted. "Or I'll forget to be nice! You heard me ask for something, and I never ask twice…"

Tamanine walked up to Annette and gave her a shove in the right direction, literally – out the door and into the wood. Tamanine came back smiling, to which her father, Horodier, picked her up and told her that it was time for bed. Then, the inn began to fill.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Shaman King or Les Miserables.

A/N: Okay, I KNOW that everyone is mad at me now. Eliza… as Mme. Thernardier!? Exactly what you DIDN'T think of! There is a method to this madness, and I'll tell you what that is in the next chapter, which is becominga bitch to write… (sweat drops) It won't be up for a day or two...

And Ren won't be introduced until a few more chapters… so that narrows it down to...!!