Violins were screaming in her head. It was a mournful sound.
Though tissue and organ cannot speak, nerve and blood never express, nor can innermost feelings be defined by those fleeting and unsubstantial things we call words, the violin seems able to articulate all of that turmoil. The light flounce of a bow over the neat tendons of string could reflect the delight one has when they spot a dear family member traipsing towards them, perhaps in a comparably delightful setting such as a park of some sort: there would be ducks, children giggling as they played their games, lovers romancing beneath a chestnut tree. Such fond recollections could be summed up by a single trill of a violin.
Oh, yes. Such a delicate instrument was the violin. So expressive.
It was impossible that she could have heard those violins. . . but she could. It happened in a fantastic nightmare, one that sent her reeling, or perhaps it was nightmarish fantasy? It was a thing that, for mere seconds, had lifted her to Heaven - only to let her fall to Hell.
"Innocent!" Archambeau roared.
The crowd mimicked his cheer as they raced forwards, but instead of the synchronised chant for death that cried from their throats, violin trills surged through the air like phantom hands that knocked into her so powerfully that she stumbled backwards, but those rough hands that grabbed her could not be robbed of their fresh blood. They forced her up, urging her to her feet and pushing her onto the highest platform until she could no longer make even the smallest movement, lest it is her last.
She must have lost her mind since those violin trills continued as if she had been dissolved in a symphony in her last moments. It was her disbelief that choked her; made her limbs jelly as the mob prodded the stand on which she was precariously balanced. Even as they tied the dreaded thing around her pale throat, a ghoulish man kissing it sloppily, she could not respond. How could innocence prove her guilty? Among these vagrants, she was a paradox enshrined in skin: her innocence made her guilty, but she had no guilt to provide them with. The Danse Macabre was trilling in her ears and she couldn't stop the music.
"Wait!" She cried, "Please - please, have mercy!"
"Did your father give quarter?" Archambeau roared, "Did your father, the sanctimonious Judge Claude Frollo, ever soften his heart to the screams of sobs of our children? Children," He ground his teeth with hatred, "Do you hear me? Children so young that they have not yet learnt to utter prayers, or to say the names of their mothers!"
Piercing her eyes like hot irons, tears beaded in her eyes, as she cried, "Dieu les bénisse!"
"He claims he is working for a merciful God, but Frollo is a devil incarnate! Death will show you the error of your ways!" Archambeau spat, "Death will show you your wrongdoings."
The violins were sharp and piercing in her ears, but she couldn't move to block them or even cower. The view of the Court of Miracles was foisted on her as she gazed over the hundreds of hollow, snarling faces who rose their clenched fists to the air with their thumbs tilted downwards, an ageless sign: Death.
"You won't even give me a chance?" The girl screamed over their voices as they malevolently wobbled the gangway, trying to force her to slip, "You won't give me the thing that you wished my father would give to you? You can't wash away the sins of my father with my own blood! You stain your own brick, you tarnish the Court that you hold dear," She swallowed, "My father will come with all he has to attack you. He will break apart the stone on which you stand and pave it with your blood, build it with your bone! His retribution will kill you all!"
Archambeau started forwards furiously and struck her in the face so hard that she almost lost her footing. Colours swirled in her vision as she stumbled, blinded.
"Do not threaten us!" Archambeau snapped.
Blinded by the colours, dazed by the sounds that echoed across the brick and stone, (Y/n) stumbled. The drums were pounding for her death now, she could feel the vibrations echoing through her as a tremble. There was only one thing that she could see: wings. Black wings of soft downy feathers, joined at the spine to a sinuous figure draped in a black robe with the hood drawn, feet covered by the dark robes. The figure was moving through the crowds, though people paid it no mind, almost as if they could not see that Death was moving among them. The figure touched no one with his death-bringing grasp. Instead, as her hair billowed around her sweat-beaded neck and froze her in place, she understood. This was the end of the line.
"Please," The word trembled on her lips, but she knew it was useless.
Death's hands were reaching out for her, seeking to caress her into the blackness of oblivion. It was seeking a dance partner for his macabre dance and he was going to ask her to be his partner.
It had been all too much as she felt her knees finally give to the punishing blows of the gypsies that surrounded her. The joints melted like butter and oozed. Her balance weakened as she was jarred forward, but there was nothing to save her this time. Only one thing would catch her: the noose.
As she swooned, the violins stopped their playing and she knew that her journey into the next life would be passed silently. There was a snap at her neck and a breathless cry panted at her lips as she felt the knot burn at her throat as if she was being purged. The cold hands of Death sought her out in the darkness and she could feel it holding her, cradling the battered shape of her body as her mind reeled. There was a throbbing in her head that felt like her soul was a rat scratching and clawing for a way out of her head.
The crowds were roaring again. Louder than the bellowing of volcanoes, more violent than the hisses of storms and cyclones interweaving into a body of mass destruction that would strike its fist of rain and thunder on the world, obliterating that which had been. (Y/n)'s low, terrified breath did not pierce that heinous sound and she could not make sense of the hellish cacophony. Her ears had been damaged when she'd fallen from earth, she was sure of it, but so long as the noise rattled her, she gripped onto Death's figure with a hope that the promised oblivion would be swift and merciful, even if those people were not.
"You honourable liars, generous thieves, guiltless murderers and chaste wenches!" There called the voice of Death, "Here me as I proclaim this: the King of Truands has returned!"
She was about to be ripped apart by sheer paradox. Inside her skin, which seemed so brittle that it was hardly more durable than paper, the blood rushed and pumped: it sought a place where the skin had broken, pooling blood from down her slashed throat. Trembles were present everywhere: especially her hands, which quivered in Death's grip. She tried to reach up and touch that busted skin, let the blood trace her fingernails, but the trembling prevented it all.
Death reached up, his fingers grasping for the hood.
The screaming did not stop, nor did it change to the bloodcurdling cries of those who would witness the true face of the life-taker, instead the harsh rush of blood pumping through her ears became all that she could hear. Drums were not as palatable as violins, she discovered. When that blackened hand reached for that hood, wrenching it back, she fainted.
When she awakened, the scene had altered.
(Y/n) was in a small room, paved with rough-hewn sandstone and panelled with wood. From the pallet on which she lay, she huddled desperately for warmth in the scruffy woollen blanket with which she had been provided. The oval shape of the room made her feel trapped, cornered in like a caged animal. There were only the most rudimentary of furnishings in the room: a single wooden table, small enough to be a writing desk; a paraffin lamp on the bedside stool; a ragged cloth, blackened with age, hanging over a cracked washbasin.
(Y/n) started when the door opened. It revealed a dark, guarded face. After a set of sharp green eyes studied her for a long instance, the door opened more and allowed in a figure of a woman.
"I know you," Whispered (Y/n), "You're that woman. The Gypsy Esmerelda."
The glean of her midnight hair, as supple and lustrous as raven wings, was unmistakable as she entered the room. Without speaking a word to (Y/n), the gypsy woman set down a bowl on the small table.
"This is yours," Esmerelda was curt, "Eat it."
Instinctively, (Y/n) touched her throat. There was an uncomfortable lump there, flowering just beneath her chin, which circled her throat. She remembered.
"I'm not hungry."
The gypsy woman shrugged. The pitcher of water was poured into the cracked bowl, making a hollowly piercing sound that echoed through the walls. When she had poured all of the liquid, tipping it out for good measure, she pointed to it austerely.
"Bathe yourself."
A flush cropped up onto (Y/n)'s cheeks, "While you're in the room?"
Esmerelda's gaze was cold, "It does not matter to me. How do you think you changed clothes?"
Alarmed, she drew back the blanket. It was true. The bloodstained garments had been replaced, as well as the warm underthings that left her so exposed to the cold, and instead, she wore something new. It was a dress, coloured green so vapid that it could not match the intelligent sheen of Esmerelda's eyes. Pulling back her knees, (Y/n) pulled the blanket over her again.
"Is the water hot?" (Y/n) shivered.
Esmerelda looked at her blankly.
(Y/n) brought her hands to her face sullenly, pressing her fingers into the skin of her features. She raked a breath, raw and ragged, from her lips and steadied her swirling mind. She composed herself. When she drew her hands away, she noticed that Esmerelda was not seated at the chair and was eating what appeared to be brown onion soup.
Barefoot and unused to the chill of the air, (Y/n) crept out of bed and headed for the basin. Testing the water, she cringed at the chill. Wringing out the well-worn cloth, she drenched it in the cold water and started to dab her face.
"That cloth isn't for regular bathing," Esmerelda interrupted, "It is a menstrual cloth."
(Y/n) froze, "Oh."
"You may wash with your hands," Esmerelda explained.
Despite the reassurances - if you could call such hostile comments reassuring - that Esmerelda would not be perturbed by (Y/n)'s nakedness and the fact that Esmerelda was unwilling to leave, the woman only washed what was visible out of her clothes. After scrubbing her throat clean, her fingers roamed hesitantly across the bruised skin. Staring into the dirtied bowl, now rust-coloured from her wound, she glanced up.
"Why?"
Esmerelda's dark brows narrowed, "It is uncommon for newcomers to receive bathing waters. It is not our care of what temperature - "
"No," (Y/n) muttered, "Not that."
"You wish to know why I am here?" Esmerelda assumed, "That is because I was tasked to look after you. You were considered to be a hazard to be left alone and, despite the heavy bloodstained burden that you carry, I hate you least of my tribe and probably will not kill you."
The gasp of relief that escaped (Y/n) was deafening as a gunshot at midnight. Settling on the edge of the mattress, which sagged under her weight with the suggestion of being made of hay and cotton, she felt the words sink in.
"So, it's true," (Y/n)'s fingers absently traced her bruised throat, "The gipsies have given me mercy," Her eyes prickled with tears, "I cannot believe it."
Esmeralda stalled from eating the soup. Tossing back her dark hair, she gave the young woman a superior look. With her dark (and yet perfectly manageable) brows furrowed like that, the beautiful gipsy woman looked shrewd. (Y/n) blushed, though she was displeased about it.
"The gipsies haven't spared you," Esmeralda said simply, "The King of Truands has."
(Y/n)'s eyebrows rose, "I - I beg your pardon?"
"Though I can't imagine why he took the effort," Esmeralda's words were sceptical but unerringly honest, "Its possible that he might use you for a trade or for political reasons since you are the offspring of our most hated enemy," The woman shrugged, "Or he might just want to bed you."
At her words, (Y/n)'s cheeks flushed but she couldn't think of a reasonable response and remained silent. As she watched the gipsy woman polish off what stew remained in the bowl, (Y/n) became aware of how hungry she was. There was an audible grumble from her stomach.
"There wouldn't happen," (Y/n) chanced, "to be any more - "
"Rations are thin," Esmeralda smiled thinly and shook her head, "You made your bed, so now you must sleep in it."
To (Y/n)'s relief, the gipsy woman tossed a stale slice of bread at her as she finished off the soup. The bread was so stale that it broke apart in her mouth, becoming like honeycomb as it parted over her tongue. It was not very appetising and it hurt when she swallowed it, but she couldn't deny how hungry she was and finished it completely, licking her fingers free of the flour.
"Am I confined to this room?" (Y/n) asked.
"No," Esmeralda shrugged, "There is no rule against your wondering. Though I would advise against going anywhere without him or his escort. Unless of course," She watched as (Y/n)'s face filled with hope, "you want to have a knife curved under your ribcage."
(Y/n) deflated.
"I thought you said they wouldn't kill me!"
"Archambeau and his associates weren't pleased with the decision," The gipsy said as she gathered up the empty pitcher and the bowl, carrying it in the crook of her elbow, "They might try to kill you to show the King just how displeased they are. Of course," She added, "They might just kill you anyway after two years are up."
(Y/n)'s blood ran cold, "Two years? You're going to keep me captive for two years? Why must it be - "
"You're just full of questions," Esmeralda snapped, "I'm not the one who should be answering these questions and yet he sends me here to do all of the talking. She needs a female touch," Esmeralda mimicked a male voice," Probably knew how curious you were."