The stinging cold slaps her hand hard as she flees into the pitch black night.
Don't come back 'til you've got money.
Her father's cruel voice taunts her from behind. Straggling on the streets in naught but her chemise, eyes dilated in fear and hair falling about her cold cheeks, she glides through the misty shadows, searching for her ray of pure light that would illuminate her way.
A familiar silhouette of one man, dimly visible by the Rue Plumet, sends her heart leaping.
I can write, she remembers her childish, eager and prideful words. A dull flush spreads to her cheeks. The cool air swirls around her, and an icy chill seemed to wrack her fragile body, starved the by days of bread and water only, days of standing in the rain, but the pure, unadulterated hope that she felt when she saw that familiar figure warmed her.
He enters the Rue Plumet, unconscious of the stares she shoots him. He has only eyes for his new love, and the words of enlightened, glorious poetry flows from his lips, and his lady love responds in like. The soft words of the lovers float gently in the air, slicing the coldness and brittle ice in the air.
They are two, but she stares longingly, turns on her heel, and with the ravages of the parisian cold against her, she bows back down to the darkness. Still shivering, her feet cold and wet from snow and rain, she lowers her eyes and retreats, all light snuffed from her heart.
The stinging cold slaps her hard as she flees into the pitch black night.