Or Else Let Her Be Mine And Mine Alone

Truth as it was, raw and clear

Quasimodo held him back. 'You misunderstand! She came to give me food.'

'Oh, really? Wasn't that to be done by the archdeacon, if I remember well?' he replied, unaffected by Quasimodo's pleas.

'He had to leave Paris for work! He gave her the job because nobody else knew me. Nobody expected you to come a day early. Have pity. She- '

The judge raised a hand to shut him up. 'I have seen and heard enough. I had told you not to initiate any conversation with her. I didn't anticipate you to defy me, boy.'

Quasimodo guiltily looked at him. The dominance he had over the lad made Frollo forget his displeasure and smirk. 'But I can't blame you, can I? After all, she fooled me into falling for her trap.'

'It's not like that,' Quasimodo debated, but Frollo had already diverted his attention.

Esmeralda was still on the floor, clutching her abdomen. Nearing her, Frollo appeared calm, but his simmering eyes betrayed the mad, blind rage obstructed by his otherwise collected demeanor. Coming to his knees, he tenderly shifted some hair from her face.

'Sweetheart, I had faith in you. Even if you couldn't love me, you could've at least honored me as your provider,' he spoke in the softest of voices. 'But I suppose that it was unfair of me to expect loyalty from the bastard of a gypsy and a whore.'

Esmeralda looked up at him, dismayed. 'Claude?'

At once he grabbed her hair from the back. 'It was my fault to think that I could save you. The truth is that you don't want to be saved. I gave you all I had. I took you from the clutches of death and gave you more luxury than your lineage would get in a century. But the word "gratitude" doesn't exist in your kind's vocabulary, does it?'

Quasimodo was stupefied at this side of his master. 'Stop, she lost her mother today!'

Frollo halted. For a moment Quasimodo was hopeful that he had succeeded, but then he saw the hand pulling Esmeralda's hair get firmer. 'So you came to debase yourself by him the day your mother died?' he questioned before throwing her against the stone wall.

'I lost everything due to you! I was finally about to attain success after spending decades on alchemy, and you tore everything apart. Because of you, I was humiliated in an assembly of scientists!'

She didn't dare move. He took hold of her jaw so tightly that it hurt. 'I told you that I had made a deal with Maximilian against Louis, hadn't I? Turns out it wasn't even gold! I didn't bother to verify it. I never committed such a folly before. Then how could I do it now, you ask? Because not an hour passed without me thinking of you! How could my brilliant mind let such a trivial thing interrupt it, when it was occupied with fantasies of how my success would impress you? Just the possibility of receiving your love was too overwhelming for me to evaluate my own discovery. I should've known that that needless bargain Sister Gudule made us make wouldn't satisfy you. To seek true revenge, you had to hit me where it hurt. Even while I was away, you persisted in haunting me. You cast a spell to ruin my efforts, didn't you? And now you rub salt on my wounds by giving him what I've been asking of you for ages?'

'W-what?' said Esmeralda, blood oozing from her lip. Quasimodo rushed to her aid. She huddled close to him as Frollo burst into laughter- a laughter so demonic that it made all of Notre-Dame's sacred cathedral walls appear feeble. Hiding his face in his hands, he collapsed to the ground.

'I knew that you would destroy me. I knew it the moment I saw you. I'm powerless in front of fate, but I swear to Satan, gypsy witch.' He removed his hands, revealing that his face was stained with tears. 'As long as you'll live, you shall bear my curse. The passion you ignited in me shall drag you down to hell; and the hell you shall go to, I'll go too, and for me, it shall be paradise.'