God help the outcasts

The children of God

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Paris had never seemed so cruel as it did this day.

The guard had come for them in the morning, and dragged them both outside, into separate groups of condemned. But Aime's eyes followed him everywhere he went, until Rene couldn't even see him anymore.

He feared that was the last time he'd ever see him.

He stumbled on his own, his ankle still swollen and painful, and he winced at the light of the outside world, even covered in thick clouds and smoke as it was. Fires still burned across the city, but the only fire the boy cared about was the one waiting to consume Esmeralda. The ones that would follow, swallowing up his friends, Aime, and, soon enough, himself.

His tutors and maids had taught him about Heaven and Hell when he was very young. Hell was the place bad people went, where they burned for all eternity. It was a terrible place of torture and suffering and divine justice. It frightened him, and filled his heart with a sense of wrongness.

The blonde obeyed his parents and guardians, went to mass and confession as bidden, but he didn't like to think much about the afterlife, nor speak with God much on his own. But now that he was about to knock at death's door, he couldn't help but wonder. Where was he bound?

Rene shivered, hugging himself tightly.

All of the gypsies had been given white clothes and loaded into large, caged wagons like animals. But at least animals weren't often overcrowded and pressed together. The sheer amount of bodies, all varyingly scented with blood, sweat, and urine, made him dizzy and nauseous. There were men, women, and children alike; some sobbing, some swearing and pounding away at the cage, some standing still and grim, their faces hardened as the wagon lurched into motion. Rene would have fallen if not for the heavy man pressed up against his back.

The ride to the square was far too quick.

Frollo stood atop a large platform, and with him, in the middle of it all, was Esmeralda, bound to a post.

Esmeralda's face was a twist of fear and anger. Rene had seldom seen a look like it, at least when he had spent time with her. She was young and friendly, impish at times, but the closest thing to a mother, or perhaps more fitting, a sister, that he'd ever really had.

Rene wept a little at the sight, and the gypsies all around let out a cry of protest.

Then the townspeople echoed them.

He looked to them, shocked. They were defending her?

'But...why should they care?' he thought to himself. Didn't most people despise the gypsies as common thieves and degenerates?

A man near the cage shouted, "She is innocent!"

Rene looked to the crowd, but couldn't find who had spoken. All of the men seemed to be fighting the soldiers, trying to get up to Frollo and stop this madness. Could people have finally seen through the lies? Had Esmeralda shown them the way?

He didn't dare hope now, but still...the thought brought him comfort somehow, however small it was.

Rene looked across to the cages beside his, but he couldn't catch sight of Aime anywhere. For a moment, he thought back to their night of desperate passion, his first time, and he hugged himself again.

Then Frollo began speaking to the crowd, calling Esmeralda an "evil witch" who had brought Paris to chaos and ruin, and who he would personally dispatch today. More angry, protesting shouts erupted from everyone, but the soldiers held the free folk back. The gypsies seemed to have forgotten the fear for their own lives, as the wagon began to shake and shift when the people nearest to the bars began shaking and ramming them.

Then Frollo turned to Esmeralda and said something Rene couldn't hear. He looked smug, holding his torch aloft, until Esmeralda spat him right in the face.

It startled a laugh out of the boy, despite the grimness of the situation. But Rene sobered quickly as Frollo spoke to the crowd again, spouting more pompous, pretentious calling Esmeralda an unholy demon, and claiming he'd send her back where she belonged.

The world seemed to stop for a moment when he finally lit the fire.

Rene swore he heard a loud, bellowing "no!" before it was drowned out by his and everyone else's cries. He was shoved against the bars by the people behind him, but he barely cared, screaming and reaching out in vain as one of his only true friends in life was surrounded by flames.

The fire spread over the wood at her feet and began to lick upwards. It wasn't touching her immediately, but the smoke was so close and suffocating that she began to cough.

"Esmeralda!" he shouted again, cursing himself over and over again. Someone had to stop this!

And thankfully, someone did.

"Up there!" An older miller pointed.

Rene looked up and saw the hunchback swinging down from the cathedral on a long rope. The crowd gasped and cheered as he landed, freeing Esmeralda and scooping her up over his shoulder.

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The man was large, strange, and somewhat gnarled, but he looked so shamefaced in that moment as Rene approached him. So timid. He almost backed away.

"Please...don't."

The blonde blinked, but did not stop. Esmeralda was drawing the soldiers away from the hunchback, and entertaining the mob with their humiliation. All this he barely noticed in passing.

'There's something about him...'

Esmeralda must have seen it too.

"I won't hurt you," he assured the larger man, reaching out and touching his face. The hunchback flinched, but didn't draw back much further. "I'm still not convinced you are real."

"W-What do you mean?"

Rene smiled a little. "I've heard all kinds of stories about you, but I thought they were only that. Stories." He looked into both eyes, one normal and one strange, but found nothing malicious there.

He found the lonely look of a fellow outcast. Misunderstood, like the gypsies.

"I'm sorry this happened to you." He tried to think of something else to say, as he smiled sadly. "People are...like bells. They come in all shapes and sizes, and make different sounds, but they're no less beautiful to listen to. I only wish more people would understand that, and be kinder. They don't...listen very well."

The hunchback looked at him, almost startled for a moment, but he shakily nodded.

"Are you...-?"

Suddenly, someone grabbed Rene from behind and spun him around. It was a soldier.

When he managed to look back, the hunchback had hopped off the platform and out of sight.

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A couple of guards moved to climb onto the platform, but the hunchback scowled and ripped the burning pole she'd been bound to from its place and knocked them all back. He swung back up and scaled the cathedral, as swift and surefooted as a cat, and held Esmeralda above his head for all to see.

"SANCTUARY!"

He shouted it three times, and each time, the crowd let out a cheer.

Rene joined them, smiling gratefully up at the deformed man. He truly was a kind person.

But Frollo was not defeated. He called to his captain to seize the cathedral, and the soldiers rushed to the main doors.

Before they could reach them, a large beam of wood fell from the top of Notre Dame. Everyone scattered, and the beam fell upon Frollo's imposing iron carriage, shattering it into pieces.

"Come back, you cowards!"

Frollo ran to his captain and drew his sword, ordering the remaining men guarding the wagons to break down the door.

Rene shook the bars and grit his teeth in frustration. How could they do this? Was Frollo mad?

"Citizens of Paris!"

Startled by the new voice, the blonde looked to the wagon nearest to the platform. A man with short blonde hair and a thick, stubbled chin had broken free of his crate and climbed atop it. As he motioned to the free people, still standing idle and awed by the hunchback's daring rescue, he looked somehow familiar to Rene. Even as hope sprang forth inside him once again, his thoughts were consumed by the man's face.

He wasn't a gypsy, though he was dressed in similar clothes. And he spoke with a stern authority that not even Clopin could manage.

'But where have I-?'

"Frollo has persecuted our people!" the man cried. "Ransacked our city! Now, he has declared war on Notre Dame herself!"

The mob shouted, growing increasingly angrier. Rene looked around them, realizing that most of the guards had run off, or were attempting to storm the cathedral. The prisoners and townsfolk were barely guarded now.

"Will we allow it?!"

Another loud cry answered him, and the blonde boy watched, astonished, as the people who had once shunned and reviled the gypsies began busting the locks and doors, freeing the prisoners and arming them.

His wagon opened, and Rene stumbled as the sea of people holding him in place poured out into the square, tugging him with them.

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Someone tried to pass him a set of strange, wheel-like weapons, and Aime almost refused. But looking out into the mob, with the townspeople attacking the soldiers and drawing them away from Notre Dame, he realized he would need it just to get through.

"Merci."

He took off into the crowd, using the blades to block incoming blows and slice through defenses. He was clumsy at first, still frustratingly weak and unfamiliar with the weapons, but adapted slowly, finding that he liked the flow and range of motion the blades allowed. It felt almost as effortless as his daggers and flaming batons.

The other commoners and gypsies paid him no head, but a guard would try to cut him down, and he would respond in kind. It was very difficult, but he managed.

He could not die here.

'Rene...'

He crossed the square and looked to each caged wagon, calling for his lover over the din.

"Aime!"

The redhead jolted at the call, his head snapping to the right. Limping towards him, using a large pitchfork as a walking stick, was the boy he'd feared he'd never see again.

He ran to him and gathered the other in his arms, dropping his weapons and his guard as his thoughts centered on one fact and one fact alone.

'We're free. We survived!' He began to cry with relief, and knew from the shivering body pressed against him that Rene had too.

Somehow, this was the highest feeling of joy he had ever known. It was insane, with so much violence and death happening all around them.

Freedom.

"Rene...oh, thank God you're safe." He kissed his lover's forehead and held him back at arm's length. "Are you-?"

"Look out!"

Before he could even realize the danger, Aime felt Rene slide from his grasp and spin behind him, barely maintaining his balance as he raised his pitchfork.

A soldier's blade sliced the tool in half, sending Rene to the ground. The blade would have cut through Aime's shoulder, if it had been given the chance.

"Filth."

With a growl, Aime bent and retrieved his weapons, quick as a striking snake, and sent the man staggering back with a few blows to his armored chest.

"it's time you zealous bigots learned some manners!"

Finally, he knocked the man down and out, then hurried to help his lover to his feet. The blonde was breathless, tired and dizzy looking.

"We can't stay here!" he shouted.

"B-But...Where will we go?" Rene asked, leaning heavily against him. "We have no money!"

Aime shook his head and took his hand, pulling the younger boy with him. "Come with me!"

Their movements were slow and clumsy. They had to continually stop to fight their way through the surging mass of people, and even help some of their troupe where they could.

Aime had been so fearful that they would reveal precious secrets to Frollo and his men, that his mind screamed for them to leave Paris completely. In the confusion, they could slip away into the night...

But Rene was right. They had no money, no connections, and no papers. They'd be poor street urchins again, just in a whole new city.

And they hadn't done anything wrong. They hadn't betrayed the gypsies, and no one ever need know how close he'd come.

For a moment, Aime looked to the burning city all around them, and his tearing green eyes caught sight of black.

Clopin kicked a man to the ground and moved to attack another. He moved with an almost inhuman grace, slender but fluid, almost completely taking the soldiers by surprised. His jolly, carefree expression belied the cunning underneath, and his eyes were hard and grim beneath the mask, giving an odd light to his smile.

For a moment of calm, he looked over and locked eyes with Aime. The redhead could practically feel him staring into his soul, reading everything there...

Then his eyes softened, and he nodded to them.

Aime nodded back, a grateful, tired smile tugging at his own lips.

Rene had not seen him, and looked up at his lover questioningly. "What is it, Aime?" He followed his gaze, but found nothing.

The older boy looked for a moment longer.

"Let's going see to the state of the Court of Miracles."

So as quickly and quietly as they could manage, the two weary, beaten boys fled the square without a second look.