Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it? Well, anyway, here's the latest (and poorest) addition to my little ficlet pile. The character? Gibelotte. I forget what other editions call her, but she's the sleepy waitress from the Cafe Musain. The translation of her name as "stewed rabbit" might be subject to debate, as I've seen it translated differently in other editions, but I'm just going with my book for now.

This chapter includes poor grammar, of course. I don't add poor grammar to these as a rule but it always manages to rear it's ugly head!

Thanks for reading and enjoy!!

So many dishes to be washed.

There weren't as many plates as before, and it made things a little easier, as there was less scrubbing involved. Still, those students drank so much wine.

So very many wine glasses...

It would be at least midnight when she finished. Sometimes sickly, pre-dawn light trickled into the kitchen before Gibelote wiped the last tea cup dry.

Gibelotte. Had she no other name? She racked her brain trying to think of the last time someone had called her anything but "Stewed Rabbit."

"Geneva..." She sounded the name slowly. Geneva seemed a stranger. Gibelotte and Geneva were no longer one.

Gibelotte often wished for someone to spend the long nights with. How lonely darkness was! Matelote had long since gone home, and Madame was snoring to wake the dead. The place was not quiet, but it was lonely. Snores and sleep-growls were nobody's friends.

Indeed, that was why she came to Paris. To escape her biting loneliness.

The life of a ward is never easy; you can never misbehave the way normal children can. There was no splashing through mud for Geneva, though she wanted to splash bitterly. Everyday, she was reminded by her guardian, the village Goatherd, that he was doing her a costly favor. So, every day, Geneva cooked and scrubbed and never got any sleep.

The Goatherd, whose name Gibelotte had long since forgotten, had compassion for his goats and his goats alone. Often Geneva was banished to sleep in the goat pen and would wake to the sound of The Goatherd whispering kind words to the animals.

"Papa," Geneva had asked one day, in her rough peasants' speech, "Why d'you love them goats so? I'm a people, I am, an' you treat me worse than you do them!"

"You," he growled, "You ain't nothin' more than a stupid bitch who's gonna grow into an even stupider whore. If I treat you with compassion, you ain't never gonna leave my house."

Often Geneva wondered why he didn't just throw her out if he felt such contempt for her. She supposed someone had to wash his disgusting clothes and clean his disgusting house. Often she was hit for "not working hard enough," but nothing short of a miracle can cleanse a shirt of the smell of wet goat.

Her life was consumed by work. When she was not slaving away for the Goatherd, she slaved away for others. Geneva was the oldest girl in the village without children, so she sometimes was hired to watch the babies of farm laborers while they toiled. She received little more than nothing for her work, as laborers are not known for their wealth. Still, after a decade, she had enough to ride in the back of a wagon headed to Paris.

Her first thought upon entering was how many people were bustling about Paris. How many friends she could make!

Her second thought was that everything was so very expensive. Her first acquaintance was a man who was extremely well dressed in the eyes of a mountain peasant. He promised her quick money and ever quicker friends.

He was not her friend.

Within days, Geneva was nothing but a drunk street wench. She had made no friends, but being poor provided her with enemies everywhere she went.

One night, after waking up from a drunken stupor, Geneva stumbled into the Cafe Musain to eat. She usually ate at small cafes; the fewer the waitresses, the easier it was to run off without paying.

Geneva ordered nearly everthing the cafe offered, and true to custom, she stuffed the last piece of bread into her mouth and attempted to run out the worm-eaten door.

Minutes later, Geneva was washing tables.

It was during that first day she had gotten her name, but the weary days had eaten away at her memory and she could no longer recall how.

A shrill voice pierced through Gibelotte's dream just then, and in that split second, Geneva died.

"Wake up, you lazy idiot!" The voice belonged to Madame and it lacked the usual odd qualities that people associated with it. "I took you in out of the cold and you repay me by ignoring your work?!"

Gibelotte opened her eyes and was startled to find herself bathed in the golden sunlight of morning and the wine glass she had been washing in shatters on the floor.

"Perhaps you would like to return to your life as a whore!"

Gibelotte almost wished to go back to that life, but she she said nothing. It is better to be a warm ward than free and freezing, wasn't it?

Gibelottle sighed. Wasn't it?

The life of a ward is never easy.