Moving with a silence that belied his hulking shape, Quasimodo climbed the last few feet of a sheer building wall to perch atop it's newly repaired roof, noting with satisfaction that it only gave the slightest bit to his weight. He allowed hinself a brief moment to cup his large hands together and blow warm air into them; as little time as it had taken him to scale the building, his hands were already starting to feel numb at the fingertips.

It had been just shy of a fortnight since the crazy man had appeared at the fountain, and though he had not been heard from or seen since, his actions seemed to have heralded the coming of a sudden cold snap that gripped all of Paris. Any ash that had yet to be cleaned from the city streets had now become lost under drifts of deep snow. The Seine became choked with ice and then froze solid enough for travelers to walk on without it cracking, if they walked quickly. People who had already tasked themselves with repairing their homes as soon as possible now had a second priority; that of finding warm clothing for their shivering families, when many people's possessions had been burned or buried along with their homes. Any individual who was a fair hand with a needle had their pick of work, but seemingly in a span of a few days, cloth to make garments had become well worth their weight in coins.

Most cloth that is. Looking down from his restful, albeit cold perch, Quasimodo spied a small splash of red poking out from one of the snowdrifts, and he recognized it for what it was; a gyspy scarf. The sight caused him to fidget as he began to recall the last several days. At first, as the cold had increased with no signs of getting warmer in the near future, and bolts of cloth had dwindled down and vanished, the gypsies had at first offered what they could; bolts of silk and the light, airy garments that they used to clothe their own, such as the scarf that now poked out from the snow.

But there was a reason why, in a city gripped by a shortage of warm clothes, that such an offering lay out to moulder. While accepting the silks with nods and smiles of thanks, the city folk could barely wait until the gypsies were out of earshot before complaining.
"What do they expect us to do with this? I can practically see right through it!"
"I'd have to use this whole bolt to make something just the least bit warm!"
"Doesn't matter to them, doesn't it? They can just go underground if they get cold; what're WE supposed to do?"
"Think this might be the curse that crazy priest was talking about?"
"How could it be though? He said the gypsies would be suffering too, but it's only us..."

But Quasimodo had been making much use of his newfound freedom outside of the cathedral, and he saw much of what others did not. The truth of the matter was, nearly everyone in Paris was suffering. Food and water continued to be in short supply (the latter more so as the water all over the city froze bit by bit), and so many people still needed to repair their charred and broken homes. The sudden change in the weather had brought along a rash of colds that seemed to favor the children in particular, and, Quasimodo had noticed in spite of the weather, a surge in attendance at the cathedral as more and more came to light candles and beseech the Holy Mother to look with favor upon their struggling families.

And hanging over all of it were the whispers that reached his misshapen ears, increasing in frequency with each passing day.
"Never should have let them help us..."
"I heard the baker gave a gypsy a loaf with a burned end, and the next day his child got brought under with this infernal cold going around. What do you make of that?"
"Maybe that crazy bastard was right...nothing's been going right for us since we threw in our lot with them and started treating them like our own God-fearing folk..."
"We should drive them out; more food and water for us..."

Even Quasimodo himself had taken to appearing less and less as time went on, remembering all too well what an easily-influenced crowd could do. It was all still so fresh in his mind: the sneers on the faces of the city people as they had tied him down, their mocking laughter as they had pelted him with rotten food, his entire world spinning and swirling in a blur of vivid colors and foul smells with evil sounds that rang out like peals from the bells of Hell, broken only by the discordant ringing of an oversized bell from his King of Fools crown, jangling it's own mocking tune in his ear.

It made him afraid for all of the gypsies, his friend Esmerelda in particular. If the Parisians ever did decide that the gypsies were to blame for all of their troubles of late, would he be able to save her a second time? When the odds would be so much more numerous than a crazed judge and his guard escorts? When those masses who had helped the gypsies before were this time the ones rallying against them?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening below him. Clutching the edge of the rooftop with his thick fingers, Quasimodo ventured a peek down below, seeing the baker's puffy hat bobbing up and down as he turned and addressed someone still inside. "I won't be but a minute, love; I'm off to take this to the blacksmith's. Says his son's taken up with something awful." He heard a woman's voice coming from within the house, and the baker replied. "Thought that too at first, but t'aint the cold, this. Poor lad gives back anything they try to feed him, and I mean anything. They've tried just about every 'erb and mixture in the city; fever just won't come down. Got a nasty cough too, like he's choking on his own tongue, and today they say he's starting to spot a lil' blood with it. My old ma swore by this mixture I'm taking to him, but...well, either way, I won't be long. Keep the little one in bed until I get back."

Quasimodo watched the baker vanish down the snow-covered streets, but rather than follow him, he aimed a leap to the next building over and began to make his way back towards the cathedral. He hadn't been there for the incident with the crazy Father Mark and his curse, but he had heard about it from those who had been there. Was this truly the hateful words come to fruition? Could God really curse a whole city for welcoming the gypsies among them, and if so WOULD He? He wished he could know for certain, but seeing as his only mentor in all things spiritual had been just as prejudiced against the gypsies as Father Mark had been, who was to say that the ones they prayed to day in and day out did not have a similar mindset?

Then again, he mused as he reached the doors to the cathedral in record time and slipped inside, Frollo had never really been the only example of the church in his life. The Arch Deacon, for one, though his interaction hadn't exactly been as frequent. Also, more recently...

As he passed the pillars lining either side of the main sanctuary and began to vanish into the shadows of the outer edges, a figure in brown materialized beside him. "Quasimodo; good to see you again, my son." The hunchback smiled in spite of himself as the hood was pulled back to reveal the smiling face of Father Matthew. When Phoebus had insisted that the new Father remain in the cathedral, he had actually taken pains to seek out Quasimodo for himself and make a formal introduction, stating that he may as well get to know everyone who lived there with him.

Quasimodo had been hesitant at first, and had no qualms about saying so.
"Why would you even want to talk to me? I'm just...just-"
"The hero of the city, or so I've been told." Father Matthew had interrupted him with a smile before Quasimodo could say what he had wanted; 'just a monster'. "If I'm to help this city heal, the least I could do is get to know the one who saved it in the first place."
"But...aren't you...afraid of me? Don't you think I'm..."
"Ugly?" Father Matthew had actually chuckled. "I'm not entirely sure of the scope of your Biblical education, my son, but do remind me sometime to tell you the tales of Zaccheus and Jezebel; then you might come to see how little looks truly matter in the grand scheme of things." That was all Father Matthew had cared to speak of on that matter, at least for that moment.

Since then, in spite of Phoebus withdrawing his order to remain there when Father Mark did not appear a second time, Father Matthew had spent much of his time in the cathedral, helping the Arch Deacon when his duties became too much for his healing leg, and interacting with as many people as he was able, stopping wherever he could to offer a word of encouragement here, a shared prayer there, and the occasional stormy look from the odd Parisian, which he took with grace and a helpless smile. Though he had been working very hard to make it clear that he did not share the same viewpoint as Father Mark had, everyone had witnessed the exchange between the two at the fountain, and though everyone knew Father Matthew to be the better man, it appeared that many still couldn't help but feel that one would not have been there without the other, as Father Matthew had not even tried to hide the fact that they had indeed been 'brothers', brought up under the same spiritual guidance. The latter didn't seem to be holding it against anyone there, and still did his best to comfort anyone who came in looking for comfort or encouragement.

Robes rustling quietly, the robed father moved to match Quasimodo's now-slowed pace. "What news from the city? Have you heard anything of note?" Quasimodo nodded slowly. "There's still a lot of people angry at the gypsies, thinking that the weather and the sickness might be because of them being here and that other father's curse. Also...I heard the baker say something about a new sickness, and it sounds worse than a cold." Father Matthew turned his head to look straight at Quasimodo. "Would it happen to involve copious vomiting and the coughing up of blood?" The other blinked for a moment. "C-copi..." Without any impatience, Father Matthew clarified "A lot of." "Oh!" Quasimodo replied, "Yes...yes that's it. Have you heard of it too?"

The robed figure nodded and lifted a hand to point at one of the cathedral's many pews. "See that young man over there? He is here praying for the healing of his gran, whom he told me an hour ago is suffering from a most terrible fever that prevents her from keeping anything down, even water. And that woman over there with the long black hair has been here since daybreak, beseeching the Holy Mother on behalf of her little girl, who refuses to eat and has started to cough up blood."

Both stood there for a moment and watched the crowd of people, candlelight flickering off of worried faces and lips mumbling prayer after fervent prayer, reaching the ears of both men like the barely perceptible murmur of oncoming thunder. "What does it all mean, Father?" Quasimodo finally said. Father Matthew continued to watch the sanctuary and it's inhabitants with troubled eyes. "I wish I knew, my son. The thought that all of this trouble is brought on by a divine hand as punishment for these people does not sit well with me, and still my heart rejects the very notion. Yet it also fills with dread at both this and the news you bring. I spent a liberal amount of time in my studies with those who practice medicine, and this new illness strikes me as being...singular. More than a cold, for certain, but without knowing it's cause, we have no means of stopping it or even slowing it down. And until we figure that out, people will continue to harbor the belief that it comes from God above." Quasimodo nodded as he stared ahead, eyes focused on nothing in the room. "And that doing what Father Mark said is the only way to stop it."

Several minutes later, Quasimodo climbed the last of the stairs leading up to the belltower and along the outside walkway, pausing to absently brush off snow that had collected on one of the gargoyles perched on the stone railing. He knew his stone friends were awaiting news further up, and he only wished he had better news to bring them. It seemed as though the sounds of celebration at the coming together of the city had barely left the air before all of this had happened. That the echo of the last footstep sounding in the empty halls of the Palace of Justice had faded just before being replaced by the bellows of a lunatic raining curses upon an already bruised and bleeding city. Even with Frollo gone, would his city ever know the peace of an ordinary day again? And at the rate things were going, would there be anyone left to enjoy it?