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"Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain," intoned Frollo, "but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."
"Pr-proverbs, master," Quasimodo replied. She did not look up from where she sat, head bowed, acutely aware that she could not see Frollo's expression. "Chapter... thirty-one."
"Very good," said Frollo. "Verses thirty to thirty-one."
"Thirty to thirty-one."
There was a moment's silence, and then she heard the delicate sound of a page being turned. "And what does it mean?"
"It means, it means..." she struggled with the words for a moment, trying to turn them over and back again to find the best way of saying them. "It means that I should be grateful that I am so ugly, master, and I should concentrate on what I can do."
"Indeed it does. Would you like to hear another, Quasimodo?"
"Oh, yes, master."
The slightest sound of amusement. "Very well. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to dominate over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor."
Quasimodo knew this passage very well. Frollo had taught it to her when she was very young, and repeated it often, to make sure that she understood it. "One Timothy, chapter two, verses eleven to fourteen. It means that I should learn what I am taught and be grateful for it, master, and know that you are right in all things and are my guidance."
"Very good, child."
A rush of relief ran through her as she heard the book close, and Frollo's hand came to rest upon her shoulder. It was a good day when she got all of her quotes right, especially since she had remembered to arrange the table and tablecloth and chairs for her master as well. If only she could stop thinking of the festival, all of the colours and people and music and dancing and celebrations and--
No, it was not good to think of those things. Not right to. After all, Frollo had said that the Feast of Fools was an abomination, as much as Quasimodo herself was. But sometimes, sometimes...
She just wanted to live.
She did not mean for things to happen the way that she did. She just wanted to see people, close up, to hear their voices in something other than prayer, to see the bright colours and smell the food and watch people dance.
She did not intend to see the woman Esmeralda. She was everything that a woman was not supposed to be, according to Frollo - she wore her hair long, and looked men in the eye, and danced, and showed her arms and her ankles, and Frollo would call her an abomination and worse.
Quasimodo fell in love with her in an instant. Everybody was beautiful, compared to Quasimodo, but La Esmerálda looked at her without fear and spoke to her as if she was not so hideous that people should recoil and she should hide in the shadows. She was so beautiful inside that it almost hurt to look upon her, like a fire in the darkest of nights. But she never meant to.
The next thing that she knew, she was being pulled onto stage, cheered for, and it was not until Esmeralda tugged at her skin that she realised they thought she wore a mask. "Please, please-" she began, and her voice cracked and betrayed her sex as well, and she was dressed in a man's breeches and shirt which Frollo had explained was for the best for her, to not flaunt her body, and it was all so very wrong.
"What better," cried the skinny man in the brightly-coloured clothes, "than a woman, for the King of Fools! What better way to turn the world topsy-turvy?!"
And so she is made King. For a moment, the world is upside-down, and Quasimodo rises to the top on the cheers of the crowd.
Of course her master was right, and it could not last. How could they ever do anything but hate a creature like herself?
"Wait!"
The Roma girl came after her, and Quasimodo flinched and attempted to flee into the cathedral. It had been her sanctuary for so long, the only one that she had to claim.
But Esmeralda was nimble, and unafraid, and found Quasimodo. Even after what had happened, she still did not look horrified by Quasimodo's face or form, the rags that were once a shirt clinging to her. Quasimodo tried to gather what was left of her shirt to her chest, feeling exposed and more hurt by that than by the cuts in her flesh.
Esmeralda unwrapped the belt around her waist and held it out. "Here. I'm sorry, it's all I can offer..."
"No, no," said Quasimodo, stumbling away. She wanted to look at the woman, to soak in her beauty and her fearlessness, but knew that she should not. It was rude to look upon people, after all, and more than that it exposed them to the horror of her face. "It's fine. I've got another shirt, here, yes, here." She shuffled over to the chest which contained her other clothes. Master Frollo would be angry with her again. She had just wanted to see the celebrations.
She heard a footstep behind her, and flinched before remembering that it would only be Esmeralda. "I'm sorry... about what happened. What's your name?"
"Quasimodo," she said quietly. She glanced around, to see Esmeralda's face twist to horror, and added quickly: "I was found on Quasimodo Sunday. My master was kind enough to take me in."
"Oh, I saw how kind your master was, all right," said Esmeralda. She folded her arms. "Kind enough to keep you cooped up in here."
"Do you like it?"
Quasimodo was proud of her home. Her master thought that it was ridiculous, taking time to make models or the mobiles of broken glass that the birds sometimes bought up, but Quasimodo thought that if she had the skill then she should use it. After all, it was no good to let a gift from the Lord go to waste.
For a long moment, Esmeralda looked around, then her eyes fell on Quasimodo and her expression softened. She smiled, and it was like looking at a sunrise. "Yes. Yes, I do."
They sat on the roof of the Cathedral, and looked out over the city. Quasimodo pointed out the sights, the Châtelets, the Halle aux Vins, the Pont au Change and the Porte Saint Honoré. Esmeralda described the places that she had been, the cities and lands beyond Paris that Quasimodo had only heard of in the most distant of ways.
"You should come with me," said Esmeralda.
Quasimodo shook her head, fear suddenly washing over her. "Oh, no, no. There's no place out there for a monster like me."
"A monster?" She looked shocked at the word, and it made Quasimodo want to recoil further until she realised that she shock was not at her, but for her. It felt strange to have someone feel something for her. "You're not a monster, Quasimodo. Why would you think that?"
"Look at me."
Esmeralda looked from her fiery red hair (everyone knew that came from a demon, Frollo had told her so) down over her men's clothes (she was unfit to wear the clothes of women, after all), her heavy build, down to her feet. Then back up once again. "Well," she said, "I don't see a monster."
It was the first time that anyone had ever said anything like that to her, and she blinked in surprise. "Are your eyes all right? You're not ill, are you?"
"Quasimodo..." Esmeralda reached out and took her hand. Her hand seemed very small, her skin dark, but it was soft and she smelled so sweet. "I don't see anything monstrous in you. And I've told you how many places I've been to, haven't I?"
Quasimodo nodded.
"Well, there you are. I think that I'd know a monster when I saw one."
She smiled again, and even more than her words that cut through to Quasimodo's heart. So enraptured was Quasimodo that she did not even realise that Esmeralda was leaning closer, not until those curved red lips came to press against the corner of her mouth, and hair brushed against her cheek.
Quasimodo gave a yelp and scrambled away over the rooftops, her heart pounding. "No! You can't!"
"Can't what?" said Esmeralda defiantly. "Can't like that you were willing to help me? Can't say how beautiful the things you make are? Can't say that you are kind and sweet and so many things that people should be, but are not?"
Quasimodo rubbed her hands together. "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman," she said, all of the words tumbling over each other. Just as her master had taught her to recite. She had to learn all of the rules that were laid out, live by them, then she could be good and make up for being the devilish creature that she was. "It is an abomination."
" Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." Esmeralda replied, her voice musical and sweet and gentle, and when she reached out again her hand on Quasimodo's arm felt as hot as a brand and soothing both at the same time.
Her hand slid down, and she twined her fingers through with Quasimodo's. There was no anger in her touch, nothing unkind, and Quasimodo was struck all over again with thoughts of beauty for which she did not actually have words.
"Maybe you should come with me," said Esmeralda, "and we can see all of those places together."
I am not an abomination. This is not an abomination. They are the most rebellious thoughts that she has ever had, and she is almost horrified at herself for thinking them. Almost.
"It's a pity, you know," said Phoebus, as golden as the sun and straight as a tree. Quasimodo wanted to hide from him as well, but Esmeralda insisted that all three of them stand together before the people of the city. "I could have loved you greatly."
Esmeralda clasped his shoulders. "I do love you greatly, good soldier, but perhaps not in the way that you desire."
Good-natured, Pheobus just laughed and raised her hand to kiss it. "I will take what love I can gather, and consider myself glad to know you."
"You should get an earring," she said, with a grin. "To remind you of our people."
"Somehow, I do not think that I will forget."
They left Paris as the embers were still cooling, and for a long time Quasimodo wore her hood low to hide her face, and would not speak to the others even as Esmeralda taught her the words.
Finally, Esmeralda reached over, and pushed back the hood. "It's okay," she said. "You don't have to hide any more."
She smiled, and finally, Quasimodo smiled back.