A/N: Absolute fave chapter in the story--you'll see why. ;) Remember to vote and follow if you're loving this story!
Drizella bit her lip with worry as she and Clopin saw Esmeralda off, through the graveyard and into the burning Paris beyond. She didn't say a word until they were safely within the Court of Miracles.
"She'll be caught for sure. They're looking for her, you know."
Clopin smiled. "Esmeralda is the least likely of any of us to be caught," he said, "and there is really no use in stopping her from leaving. She will find a way out."
Drizella nodded, but it didn't make her feel any better. There was still a burning city out there, and a judge burning with rage. If Esmeralda was caught...
"Can I cook you a meal?"
Drizella met Clopin's gaze with surprise. What kind of a question was that? He simply grinned, and before she could stop herself she smiled back.
"Well, I suppose," she said, trying to fight off the warmth in her cheeks, "but why-"
"You know, your smile is quite beautiful," he said. Drizella blinked. She felt her blush deepening, and she gulped past a suddenly dry mouth.
Clopin cleared his throat and finally averted his eyes. "Well, come along," he said jovially, extending his arm toward his tent. He hurried ahead of her and disappeared into the tent, pinning back the flap so she could come inside. To her further surprise, there was already a pot full of water, bubbling away atop a small flame. Somehow Clopin had found or made a metal ring that encircled the pot and kept it hovering just above the fire.
He sat in front of this pot, chopping carrots, potatoes, onions and countless other vegetables into it quicker than she could follow. "Come, sit," he urged. She did, and watched as he seasoned the mixture in the pot with several handfuls of a pungent herb.
"Did you plan this?" she asked.
"Why, whatever do you mean?" Clopin avoided her eyes, but he was smiling. He gave the mixture in the pot a few more good stirs and then produced a finger puppet from behind his back. Drizella giggled, as it resembled Clopin almost perfectly. He began to sing, much like he had at the Festival, but this time the song was different.
"A sister whose name is Cinderella,
A past that is full of woe,
That is all I know of my dear Drizella,
That is all she would have me know."
Drizella couldn't help but laugh—the puppet had made the words sound so silly.
"That's not all you know about me," she protested with a smile.
"Au contraire!" he said. "I feel as if I hardly know you!"
Drizella thought about her mother, about Cinderella, about practically everything in her past, and her smile faded.
"You know enough," she said.
"Ah, see?" Clopin held up a finger. "There you are again, evading me. Don't friends learn more of each other as time goes along? I simply wish to do the duty of such a friend, and in return, you shall know more about me."
Drizella raised an eyebrow. To learn more about this man, perhaps one of very few who cared for her, was a very tempting offer. But could she pay the price? Would he leave her alone if he knew how cruel and petty she had been?
"Well, I..." she began to protest, but could not think of a legitimate need to hide from him besides her own fear of losing his friendship. But in order to keep him, I must risk losing him, she thought. And his kind eyes, wide and resting their concerned gaze on her burning face, affirmed her inner voice. "I suppose I have no choice," she relented.
"There is always a choice," Clopin said, his worried gaze relaxing into a gentle smile. "That is what makes the sharing all the more valuable."
Drizella smiled; he had the tendency to be very philosophical at times. But as she thought again about where to begin, her frown returned. Should she start with her childhood? What important event had happened then? Her mother had remarried and Cinderella had come into the picture. As she recalled her stepfather's kind words and gentle features, she smiled.
"I will say it again, your smile is very beautiful. Would you like to share what has made you smile this time?" Clopin said.
Her reverie broken, she glanced up sharply; he had stopped stirring and was watching her expression with an admiring smile. The sudden attention brought heat rushing to her face, and a laugh burst from her lips as she looked away.
"I-I'm sorry," she said, "I was just...thinking." Clopin picked up the wooden spoon and began to stir again, though he still looked at her expectantly. "I was just remembering my stepfather." She smiled again. "He was so kind to me and my sisters. Of course, Cinderella was the apple of his eye. Who could blame him? But he loved us as well. Every thing was...was really nice when he was around. Only Mother made Anastasia and I treat Cinderella badly and encouraged our meanness towards her when we were children. And I suppose...that remained when Cinderella's father died." She frowned. "It was like a light had gone out, and poor Cinderella was so sad and lonely. Then everything just got worse. She was made a servant. A servant in her own home! All because Mother wanted the prettiest daughters, the daughters that would marry the prince, and Cinderella got in the way of that." She shut her mouth and her eyes against the lump in her throat. She didn't want to cry now—she hadn't even gotten to the worst part. But the tears were already leaking out; she covered her eyes with her hands, trying in vain to blot out the memories. Tripping Cinderella up the stairs and making her break all the china; watching her get whipped with twisted satisfaction; looking hungrily for any hint of impatience or hatred in her bright eyes as she stooped to every menial task and drudgery they could think to put her to; tearing and shrieking like banshees at the beautiful pink dress she had made from their unwanted scraps of fabric and beads—it seemed they would never grow out of their childish, hateful antics. What they had hoped would destroy Cinderella only made her better and stronger, while they grew more and more corrupted in their petty willfulness.
Until Cinderella won and they got a taste of their own medicine.
That was when Anastasia had gotten her happily ever after—and her excommunication from her mother's home. Drizella, too, had lost the urge to fight—Cinderella was simply meant to be with the prince. They weren't. End of story.
But she had been the only one left after Anastasia's marriage, and Lady Tremaine was as stubborn and adamant as diamond. Oh, why hadn't she seen the vanity of it all sooner?
Drizella let herself cry. It was the only way to get past her remorse and make herself say what had to be said. She heard the scraping of the spoon on the pot stop, but didn't dare look up. A gentle hand squeezed her shoulder, rested there for a moment, and then departed. All the while, Drizella shook with silent sobs.
She was sorry; she wished she could take it all back, could go back to the past and stand up for Cinderella, befriend her, love her as her father had so graciously loved and adopted them as his own. Instead she had repaid his kindness with cold condescension and left his memory to burn, forgotten, in the fires of her desire to be loved by royalty.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her own voice in the now silent tent seemed too loud. She hastily wiped away her tears with her sleeve and peered up cautiously, head bent with shame. To her surprise, the fire was out, and Clopin was gone.
"Well, I..." She stood, examining the entirety of the little tent, her anguish forgotten for a moment in her sudden indignation. "How could he just leave me here?"
"I could not bear to see you cry," came a meek voice from outside the tent. Drizella peered out and saw Clopin with a small trowel. He offered his free arm and smiled. "Come. There is something I want to show you." Clopin led her through the maze of tents to the outside, careful not to step in the water. They came out into the graveyard, a dull, silent heap of tombstones which seemed to defy the golden sunlight filtering through the smoky air. "This way," said Clopin, beckoning. She followed him warily to a darkened, shady corner of the dirt under a scraggly bush. Peering more closely at it, she saw lots of thorns jutting out from the slender stems which drooped under their own weight. Near the tops of the stems were several greenish-brown buds, all tightly closed.
Clopin yanked the plant up, exposing its shriveled roots to the light. "Will you carry that watering can?" He pointed to it briefly before traipsing off toward the light. She picked it up—it was a small thing, only half-filled—and followed him, confused thoughts tumbling through her mind. What on earth is he doing out here, and all this fuss over a little plant? It's so ugly and withered...like me. She scowled and pushed the thought away forcefully. No use thinking of that right now.
As she approached Clopin, she saw him pulling and tugging at other, smaller plants near the base of a fence-post.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I am weeding, my dear. I am getting rid of the bad-" he grunted as he yanked out a stubborn weed, "-to make the ground healthy for my special plant."
"You mean that old thing?" Drizella recognized the old sneer in her voice and hurried to correct it. "I mean, I'm just confused as to what makes it special. It looks dead to me."
"Ah, but there is life in it yet!" The conviction in his voice made her smile. He threw the last of the weeds aside and dug in the loose ground with the trowel. "You see, I found it one day amid all those other awful plants and knew at once that I must rescue it."
"But why?" Clopin took the watering can from her and moistened the ground in the small hole he had dug. He then carefully took the plant and lowered its roots and bottom into the hole, covered it with dirt, patting gently all around, and watered it again.
"I am putting it in the sunlight because the poor thing was dying. You were right. It had no warmth, no light. The other plants were choking it, so it had no room to grow." He took bits of string from his pocket and began to tie the stems loosely around the fencepost. "Here, supported by this fencepost, it can climb and spread and grow, and these little buds-" he took her hand and pulled her closer to the plant, pointing precisely, "-these buds will bloom beautifully and give such a sweet smell that passers-by will stop and admire them." Drizella looked at the bud, examining its tightly wound shell, and found no signs of hope that it would ever bloom. "This, my dear, is a rosebush, one-of-a-kind, hardy, very special. It can survive almost anything, but it needs light, just like other plants."
She felt his gaze on her and gulped, slowly piecing his words together as her throat tightened and her eyes filled with moisture. He turned her face gently so that their eyes met, and gently brushed her hair back behind her shoulder. "The only thing I do not know is what beautiful color it shall bloom." He smiled broadly. "But with enough sunlight, we shall know in good time."
She felt her lip quivering and couldn't help but smile. Tears dropped onto her cheeks unwilled. He pulled her into a tight hug, running his fingers through her hair. In all her daydreams about royal love, she had never imagined anything like this, never imagined that a man could see her without trappings and makeup and love her soul, love what she could be, would hold her in his arms so willingly and gently as he did now. It didn't matter, she now knew, who the love came from. Love was as rich—no, much richer, she thought, as she listened to his heartbeat and felt the rise and fall of his chest—coming from Cinderella's father, from Esmeralda, Nakoma, and yes...Clopin, than it ever could have been from the prince under an enchantment. It was pure, real, golden, and warmed her from the inside out...just like sunlight.