Author's note: Hello, everyone, I missed you all! Thank you very much for the reviews, they make everything worthwhile. Actually, I was ignoring this story for some reason, and it just popped into my head yesterday. So, I thought, darn it... I left Lilo and Quasimodo doing nothing... actually, Quasimodo's going to continue doing nothing for this chapter... But anyway, if you're still there, even though I totally went away for a while, I invite you to come back and read. Please, tell me what you think about my story! And, as always, constructive crticism is more than welcome, it is wanted!
There Clopin was, standing before the great cathedral of Notre Dame, staring up its facade with that familiar smile upon his thin face. He was totally soaked; he had walked all the way from the Court of Miracles to the cathedral through the rain, not even bothering to lower the brim of his hat to maybe keep the rain at bay, at least from his face. But no, that was not Clopin's style, and though rain did not stand to be the Gypsy king's favorite form of weather, it was not his least favorite either. He chose to enjoy as much as possible whatever weather he came across (though this philosophy only existed in his mind were he in an incredibly good mood). Lilo's bag was slung over his shoulder, almost as wet as he was.
"Well, here I am," Clopin proclaimed to no one in particular (especially if one were to consider the fact that there was nobody there). He wondered where Lilo was. He had expected to catch up with her on his way to the church, though he supposed that he could attribute his failure at this to the obvious hurry that she and her little pet had been in. He decided that she was probably somewhere in Notre Dame, keeping dry, or perhaps talking to Quasimodo.
"I might as well give it to her, other than wait out here," he suggested to himself. He made his way up the steps to the doors, and extended a gloved hand to the cool curve of the handles. He pulled open the door slightly, and poked his head inside, choosing to be discreet in his actions. He knew well the reactions of churchgoing folk to people that looked like him.
The scene before him was a somber one, as expected, the great hall lit up with sconces that lined the walls, their candles aflame. People were scattered about the inside, probably praying, though there were a few that lingered near the front, ignoring Clopin's presence, who spoke amongst themselves. Though church was decidedly not a place for gossip, there was something, it seemed, that had jarred this small group quite a bit.
"That dreaded hunchback," Clopin heard one mutter unhappily. "You saw him, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course," another replied.
"How dare he come down in such a manner," the first continued. "He had absolutely no regard for whomever was downstairs. Then running to the door as if he were going to chance a visit outside!"
"He wouldn't dare, would he?" the other questioned, sounding somewhat worried by the prospect. "Think of what might happen to the pregnant women... it would be a dreadful thing."
"Don't worry," the first began. "He wouldn't do it, not with Frollo watching him. He wouldn't dare. He can't deny his master's commands."
Clopin listened quietly to the conversation, a frown coming across his face. He had a strange feeling that Lilo wasn't there. He didn't know it solidly; he hadn't searched throughout the whole of the cathedral, calling out her name, nor had he asked anyone in Notre Dame whether or not they had seen a little dark-skinned girl wandering about. It was only an odd little suspicion brought about by this slight conversation, but it left Clopin with an unexplainable feeling of utter dread.
The Gypsy king pulled his head from between the door and its jamb, gently closing the great entrance shut. He pursed his lips, the inexplicable uncertainty clinging steadfastly to his mind. If Lilo was not there in the Cathedral, which is a thing he was quite sure of whether it was evidenced or not, where could she be? There was little sanctuary for a young girl like her during a rainy day in Paris, other than, he thought, Notre Dame or the Court of Miracles.
She couldn't be in the Court of Miracles, Clopin thought uneasily. Otherwise, I would have passed her on my way here...
The Gypsy let out a long sigh, watching the cold haze of his breath waft upward into oblivion. If Lilo was not in one of these safe shelters, there were few places elsewhere she might find herself, the majority of them unpleasant, especially for Gypsies. Or, in her case, someone who looks amazingly like one. Yes, he knew what she wasn't, though what she was still remained something of a mystery for the intuitive king. He had had his doubts about her supposed heritage since he had first discovered her, after all, and her ignorance toward the important Gypsy talisman was the detail that clinched his suspicions. But others, mainly the Parisian guards that patrolled the streets doing Frollo's dirty work, may not be so perceptive. Lilo could be in dire danger at that very moment!
"That poor girl," he muttered unhappily, shaking his head at the mere notion. "There's more than just a little chance that Frollo's captured her; those guards have no mercy for dark skin." The king tugged the brim of his hat downward, realizing now the importance of keeping dry in weather such as this, though one could argue that it was a little too late for this action. It was not usual for Clopin to become so grave, or at least it wasn't usual for him to show it so freely. He looked toward the distance, where, just visible above the towering roofs of the surrounding houses, peeked the pointed spires of the Palace of Justice, a place that evoked thoughts of torture and death.
"Lilo," he whispered, taking the few steps down to the paved square. "I hope that you haven't been given that fate."
Clopin walked down a side street to avoid the unsettling view of Frollo's domain, worrying and wondering over Lilo's current condition.
She's just a little girl, he told himself at length, interrupting the disturbing ideas that her disappearance suggested. And, one that you don't know well enough to care in such a way. You should be worrying about your caravan, about your people, not some poor child who'd lost her way.
"I understand that," Clopin answered, nodding his head. "But, the problem is that I've got her bag with me, and it would be a terrible day with my conscience if I were to keep it!"
You idiot Gypsy! His mind screamed brusquely. You haven't a conscience at all!
"Of course I do!" he retorted. "Otherwise, we wouldn't be as poor as we are! Don't you think?"
I am thought, the essence of it! The reply came almost snappishly. And you haven't a conscience. You just don't fancy a jail cell or a noose about your neck, you idiot!
Clopin scoffed his own thoughts, waving them away with one gloved hand. "Oh, don't be ridiculous you silly... dog?"
Clopin stopped suddenly, lifting the brim of his hat with a thumb. Sitting disconsolately in the center of the street with his back to the approaching king was Lilo's blue pet. He wasn't moving, he wasn't barking, or whatever it was that he did. He just sat there, his short coat taking in the falling rain.
"Dog?" Clopin repeated, making a hesitant move forward. The creature turned his head toward the noise, a look of extreme helplessness mirrored noticeably in his beetle-black eyes. "It is you!" Clopin proclaimed, getting to his knees so that he and the dog were almost at eye level. "Tell me, where is Lilo? Where is your mistress?"
The dog seemed to start at the mention of the name, and it turned its whole body round to face Clopin. The man noticed something like a silver chain hanging from one shaking claw. Clopin jumped at the sight. He had seen Lilo wearing that the night before...
"She's gone, isn't she?" he asked quietly, shaking his head in disbelief. Stitch's gaze remained upon the Gypsy for a long while, then his eyes turned downward, as if acknowledging silently his statement as truth. The dog lifted his arm upward, looking down at a bracelet of his own, practically identical to the one that he held in his other hand. Clopin felt a rueful sadness in his chest. Oh well, thought he, trying to diminish the painful feeling in his heart, I didn't know her that well anyway.
"You have to help Lilo!"
Clopin turned abruptly to face the direction that the voice had come from. The dog stood quietly before him, a look of desperate determination taking his face. He stood on his hind legs, his hands clutched into angry fists.
"What?" Clopin demanded, furrowing his brow in utter confusion. He could have sworn that he had just heard the dog speak...
"Lilo!" the creature exclaimed, his teeth clenched tightly, as if it were a hard thing for it to impose such a request upon him. "You have to help Lilo!"
"Me?" Clopin asked, the shock of the talking dog moving swiftly to realize his command.
"Yes!" the dog replied quickly. It glanced back down at the bracelet and let out a disconsolate growl. "Stitch only has a minute left," it said, scowling at the information. It raised its head back to Clopin. "You have to save Lilo! The guards took her; you have to get her back!"
"Me?" Clopin repeated, not quite grasping the idea.
"Yes!" Stitch echoed, an irritation and desperation evident in his unusual voice.
"If the guards took her, then that means she's at the Palace of Justice," Clopin muttered, furrowing his brow. He gave Stitch a strange look. "If she's at the Palace of Justice, then that would mean that you're asking me to go there as well?"
"Yes!" Stitch exclaimed, nodding and taking another glance at his bracelet. Another anxious growl.
"And if I go to the Palace of Justice," the king began again, "then that means suicide!"
"Ye—" Stitch paused, thinking for a moment, then shook his head vigorously. "No!" he looked back at his watch. "Lilo!" he growled, grabbing his hair unhappily. "No, no!" He looked back up at Clopin, who was obviously unsure about doing the whole thing. In a fit of sudden anger, he grabbed the Gypsy by the collar of his cowl. "Look! Lilo needs help. Stitch can't help her right now. Stitch will try to get back. Which means King will have to get Lilo in Stitch's place, until he gets back! King has to save Lilo!"
"But I..." Clopin began. He was obviously ready to argue his way out of such a responsibility.
Stitch growled, interrupting the man's reason. "Give this to Lilo!" he said, cramming the bracelet into Clopin's fist. "Put it on for her!"
"But I..."
"Do it!" Stitch exclaimed, shaking his head. "Stitch thought you liked Lilo. What are you anyway, good guy or bad gu—"
With a sudden explosion of light, Stitch disappeared, and Clopin was left with a ruined cowl and a bracelet, not to mention more than a little uncertainty toward whatever it was that he was going to have to do.
"Let me go! Let me go! I didn't do anything! Why are you doing this? I don't want to be here! Let me go!"
The two guards ignored Lilo quietly, dragging her further into the dark recesses of the frightening edifice. She had begun fighting again. She hadn't struggled beforehand, refusing to make even the most rebellious squeak of noise as they dragged her away from her unconscious pet. They had taken her a long way, traveling along the labyrinthine paths that ran across Paris, and she had not paid any heed to it. She had done nothing other than walk alongside them, sometimes allowing them to drag her along, her feet bumping unceremoniously against the dampened cobblestones. Lilo had been too preoccupied with her own self-degrading thoughts, each passing contemplation chastising her for her stupidity. How could she have let this happen? She let her whole Ohana down...
It seemed she would accept whatever fate these guards had in store for her; she didn't deserve anything else. It hurt to think that she could make Quasimodo feel so sad... she had been so close! But she couldn't even open up the door and run up a few steps... she couldn't keep a single promise.
But then, in her view, came the incomparable vision of the Palace of Justice, its sharp spires striking the air above it almost threateningly. The flight of stairs that led up to the doors seemed to her the path to hell. The place gave her a bad vibe, a very bad one. She felt that whatever future she might have in this place would not be a pleasant one. And, as expected from her, she dropped the surrendering thoughts that had taken her mind, and began fighting. She attacked the men in whatever way that she could manage. She kicked them several times, but their pants seemed to be thick enough to soften the blows and did little toward her escape. She had even attempted biting the fellows, but the two were somehow smart enough to move their hands away from her mouth the moment she had thought of it. So, she had resorted to screaming. Reasoning peppered her dialogue every now and then, but most of it seemed naught more than demanding shrieks. It mattered little, anyway. The guards seemed to ignore both easily. The only difference one might point out was that the guards were considerably more annoyed by the demands than by the explanations.
"Let go of me!" Lilo exclaimed again, squirming disobediently against their vice-like grips. The two yet again acted as if she hadn't even opened her mouth and pulled her into a room that existed just beyond a set of bars, dark, damp, and just reeking with unusual smells. Lilo stopped for a moment, struck mute by the intense pungency of the scene.
One of the guards took this opportunity to speak. "Look around, gypsy," he said, gesturing with his free hand the room that they stood in. "This is going to be your home for a while."
Lilo's eyes widened at the information and her struggling restarted, intensified by her obvious discomfort in the area. "No!" she screamed, trying to break free. "No, you can't do this!"
"Of course we can," the second guard said, one corner of his lips curling into a sadistic smirk.
"Why?" Lilo demanded, her voice becoming horse. "Why? I didn't do anything! You can't do this to m—"
Lilo's sentence remained incomplete, both guards deciding to release her from their grip at that moment. They tossed her unceremoniously into the cobwebbed corner of the cell, where she bumped her head painfully against the rough stones that formed the prison. She let out a wounded yelp, and her thoughts were momentarily jarred. Her eyes shut suddenly for the soreness, and she heard only the sharp, grating squeal of the bars as they came to a close. Lilo shook her head of the pain and made her way to the bars, grabbing the metal poles in her tiny hands. The guards had left immediately after closing the cell. There was no one there... no one to help her, no one for her to scream at...no one. Lilo fell onto the floor, near a pile of hay that would serve from then on as her bed. She was now officially a prisoner in the Palace of Justice.
A/N: Okay! That was it, the twenty first chapter! Frollo reappears in the next one, so hold on until it comes up!I think that, because it's summer, maybe I should make a schedule for my writing and updating. What do you think? Oh yeah, and I'm thinking of rewriting the first three chapters, because in the past year, they seem to be the ones that people complain most about... what do you think about that? I'm almost afraid that if I change the first three, then I'll be forcing myself to rewrite the whole story because of the change in my writing style... I don't know...
Funfact #Who knows what: The Hawaiian and the Hunchback was so close to me that I was trying to make a graphic novel based on it for a while. I did all the character designs and everything, and the plot began changing a lot, but after a while I was unsure whether or not people would actually want to read something like it. The plot was pretty much about a fourteen year old girl, whose parents died because of a disease that she had been carrying. Because of her unusually strong immune system, she hadn't been affected by it, but her parents had contracted it and died. She was forced to live with her cousin Lela (Yes,I was SO uncreative with the names) and her Aunt and Uncle... whose names were just Auntie and Uncle as far as anyone knew. She has to go to a new school, where people somehow learn about her parents' deaths and its cause and treat Naomi as if one touch by her and you'd die. It isn't long before the impression becomes so deepset in her mind, that Naomi starts believing it. I'll say more about it later... now for last chapter's funfact...
While Hawaiian and the Hunchback was being written, I had another Disney crossover bit in my head. It was a mass crossover, incorporating practically every Disney animated movie... but it was also AU. It was a sort of "mondern city" type of thing... It followed the lives of three characters: Belle, from Beauty and the Beast; Jim, from Treasure Planet; and Quasimodo, named Casey Frollo, from Hunchback. It took place in a city called Sindey, where mayoral elections were beginning, the two main candidates, E. DeChateaupers and C. Frollo. Belle was one of her assistants. Jim was a troubled brooding young man who was dealing with a bad reputation, hassles from hisschool (mainly one teacher,Mr. C. T.), and a crush on his best friend, Nani. Casey is foster son of the curren mayor who has to deal with his fellow classmates, whose parents disagree with the mayor, and so, sadly, disagrees with his son. In the story he was only ten... I decided not to do the story because I realized the unpopularity of crossovers, especially AU ones. It is a story that I very much like, but my problem was if others would like it too.