Epilogue

I woke up the next morning with a pleasurable ache between my thighs, and I sighed from sheer happiness. Last night was my wedding night, and I lost my virginity to the man I love... I never knew I would be so blessed. I attempted to roll over but felt strong appendages keeping me held firmly in place, and after a moment of tense wonderment, I realized it was Quasimodo.

My husband.

Tears welled up in my viridescent eyes against my wishes, I was so overjoyed that Quasi and I were bonded inseparably. I became aware of my nakedness, and I clutched a sheet around my breasts as I began to squirm in his firm grip. He allowed me free with a grunt as he turned over, and I knelt over him for a moment after I sat up to look at his gentle expression. He looks so innocent when he is asleep... But he certainly is not innocent, I recalled with a blush at the delights we had partaken in the night before. I sighed wistfully at the reminder and touched my glowing cheeks timidly, not realizing a pair of blue eyes were hungrily gazing at my sheet clad body and swollen lips with lust.

"Stop looking in such a way, unless you would like a repeat of last night" Quasi warned, and I almost jumped from the shock of hearing his voice, clutching the sheet tighter against my bosom and glaring at him for interpreting my peaceful interlude before the begin of the day. He smiled his crooked grin unapologetically and moved to capture my face in his sleep-warmed hands. He stole my breathe away in the next instant, and I felt his growing interest through the thin sheet separating our naked bodies from one another.

"Quasi! Wait" I exclaimed shakily, attempting to catch my breathe as he moved down to create love-bites on my neck and jawline. I tried to push him away, but he would not be dissuaded from his path, and he continued licking and kissing his way down my neck and chest, attempting to move the sheet away since it was hindering his explorations. I began to lose myself to the pleasure, moaning from the onslaught, before I remembered my reasoning for stopping Quasi in the first place.

"Love, the b-bells ohh!" I gasped as Quasi successfully yanked the sheet away from my form and began to kiss down the valley of my breasts to my midriff, kissing lower still and causing my heart to skip a beat and a strangled cry to leave my lips when he finally reached his destination. We both lost our sense of thought after that and fell into bed, overcome by our desires. Thusly, we spent the rest of the morning blissfully entangled with one another, being together intimately and forgetting about the rest of the world.

And thus, for the first time in over twenty years, Quasimodo neglected to ring the bells.

Many of the Parisians did not rise from their beds that summer morn, unknowing the time since their despised bell-ringer did not part from his wife to remind them of their duties.

But Quasimodo and I could not find it within ourselves to care.

As we lived our lives, I learned how to properly ring the bells, and we both became responsible to the city for reminding people of the time and the magnificent Cathedral in their immediate vicinity. Together we became more open and sanguine as the years passed, the hatred and scorn we had faced left in the far recesses of our minds, through we rarely left the stone walls of the Cathedral, preferring each other's company to that of the world below.

God did not bless us with children, but Quasi and I never faltered; even after every fight and the heartbreak of being barren, we always fell into bed each night- holding each other and apologizing before expressing our love and devotion to one another. Our passion for life, knowledge, and one another never faded, but rather grew with time.

Quasimodo died in his slumber one night, late in our years together, and I followed mere hours later; our souls intertwined so tightly, they could not be separated from life and death. The clergymen did not discover our bodies until they came to inspect why the bells had remained silent, and our bodies were buried together in the church courtyard on a quiet summer's eve. Due to my request, my family never spoke of my marriage or my whereabouts, and only Pierre was ever informed of my passing from this world. He visited our grave often, to mourn his beloved sister and esteemed brother-in-law, and my soul always smiled down on him and his kind wife and children.

Our names were not carved into the simple stone slab, the marker was empty but for the words, "L'arme la plus puissante dans le monde contre la haine est l'amour."

The most powerful weapon in the world against hatred is love.

And as the years passed in Paris and beyond, the story of our love became distorted and tragic- since the Parisians as a whole never knew of our marriage and resulting happiness- and my name became wiped from history all-together. But the love Quasimodo and I shared lives on through the love-lorn souls who come to Notre Dame to pray for love, loss, and hardships. For we are Notre Dame, we are the bell-ringers, and we are the true story that lives on through the people who search for understanding and love in a world full of disillusion and heartbreak. We are the heroes of each other's stories.

Quasimodo, my beloved husband, and I, his Adeline.

Fin

† Thank you for reading my first labor-intensive story. I had originally written it for my eyes only, but I decided it might be interesting to see if anyone else would enjoy reading it. To those few of you, thank you very much. †

Adieu

Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunchback of Notre Dame