Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

Scortum Formosus

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Phoebus would forever hold her close and croon that she had nothing to do with any of it, nothing at all, yet she knew differently. Esmeralda was sharp, keen and quick; this no one debated. So then why did her fellows pretend as though she had nothing to do with it, any of it? Esmeralda was not stupid.

Esmeralda was also not innocent, and although she had never performed black magic, and had never put curses upon children or maimed creatures for potions, she was not pure of heart. No one is completely pure of heart and to pretend that Esmeralda had nothing to do with Frollo's insanity really did a disservice to the late minister of justice. To say that Frollo was beguiled and bewildered by forces unknown was lunacy and to say that Frollo's condition had been all of Esmeralda's doing was also a great lie. Frollo may have been a misled man, a malicious dictator with a taste for blood, but spreading falsities about the dead is as big of a sin as setting a home on fire.

Bigger?

This Esmeralda knew, although she was keeping her mouth shut. The odds were in her favor now. The hand shakes and smiles and good feelings were well-deserved, and she was not about to ruin her hero treatment, no, not just yet.

Of course, it was obvious. Frollo had been at the Festival of Fools, yes, but he'd have never approached Esmeralda if she'd left after her dance. He'd have been appalled, yes. Mildly amused, yes. Slightly aroused—of course. Those were his issues, and he could have treated them carefully. He was minding his own business.

Frollo did not ask Esmeralda to gallivant into his lap. He did not ask for a smoldering lap dance that ended in her roughly embracing his neck with her scarf, jutting her cleavage forward, smirking at the pious priest's perplexed expression as she jumped up as quickly as she had come and yanked his hat over his eyes in a saucy fashion.

Frollo never asked for that.

Esmeralda did that all on her own.

She knew she was breath-taking—dark, busty, athletic, bruised with raven curls and Gitano lips and flowing skirts and naked feet and a breathy voice and an angry sneer and so much goddamned arrogance that she could almost be Frollo's counterpart, yes, she'd seen that.

Because, complimentary colors are at opposite ends of the color wheel, it's true.

Did this make her sick? Oh, a little. Did it almost feel good?

Oh, a lot.

Judge Claude Frollo was quite a bit older than she (the gypsy was twenty-two, the minister must have been in his fifties), but he had his poise, his walk. That chiseled bone structure and high eyebrows and somber grace, and those fingers. Frollo was a person who never was imaginable as a child; he seemed too sad, too wise to be young. Born at seventeen, that was how Esmeralda saw him.

She'd been watching him. Proud on his horse, going about his day, chatting to the guards—he's too smart for this city, she'd thought. So smart, so shrewd and cold and nasty that it seemed like he should have his own island where no one could bother him.

She hated him so much so she told herself that was why she was watching him. That's why she appointed herself to the task of spying on him, so that those in the Court of Miracles wouldn't question why she was always following the judge, or asking about the judge. Why else would she flirt with him and then openly humiliate him? Why would she escape from the chapel after she knew she'd driven him under the edge?

Why didn't she surrender so he would stop killing innocent people?

Because she was part of the chase. She was the reward for good spotting. Frollo had to work for her, and oh, yes, he did. She wanted it that way. She wanted the ordeal to last forever, just to see how long he would keep looking.

And when he did, she was just as disgusted as ever, not just with him, but with herself.

Frollo hadn't asked for it.

Esmeralda had.

fin