Belle smiled to herself as she left the house that morning. It was the sixth of January, and all around people were making ready for the festival – and getting in what work needed to be done in the morning so that the afternoon could be free to celebrate in. For herself, since her mother had died, she had taken over the household duties: she cooked, cleaned, tended the horse and did the shopping that needed to be done with the money that her father made from his shop. He was a carpenter by trade, but an inventor by passion.

Belle walked along, list of things that had to be done in one hand, and basket hanging from the other. A common enough sight on the streets of Paris, save the list. Few and far between were the people who could read and write, but Belle's mother had been raised in a nunnery, and when she married rather than taking vows, she had determined that her child would know the wonders of literature as well. Reading was Belle's passion. It allowed her to escape to far off places and have grand adventures, while still being able to assist her father when he needed her.

A voice drifted down the quiet street as Belle completed her day's shopping, and she looked up to see where it was coming from. The voice was refined, lilting as it sung, and went from gentle high notes to strong, deeper ones with such feeling...

She smiled to herself when she finally spotted the source. A brightly coloured cart with a brightly coloured man, and a small flock of children gathered around.

"And some say the soul of the city's the toll of the bells, the bells of Notre Dame. Listen, they are beautiful, no? So many colours of sound, so many changing moods... Because you know, they don't ring all by themselves," the brightly coloured man informed the children in his audience.

"They don't?" asked a shocked puppet that was a miniature of the brightly coloured man, but in a high, squeaky voice.

"No, you silly boy," the puppeteer scolded. "Up there, high, high in the dark bell tower, lives the mysterious bell ringer. Who is this creature?"

"Who?" the puppet popped up to ask.

"What is he?"

"What?"
"How did he come to be there?"

"How?"

"Hush!" the puppeteer scolded, and cracked a stick over the puppet's head.

"Ow!" the puppet complained, and rubbed his poor little head.

Belle stifled a giggle, easily hidden beneath the laughter of the children who were gathered around the showman's cart. He was really very good.

"Clopin will tell you," the puppeteer said, a hand on his chest as he leant out to the children, drawing their attention further in as he did. "It is the tale of a man... and a monster..." he began.

Belle watched in silent fascination as the brightly coloured man, the puppeteer, this Clopin, told the story of the bell ringer of Notre Dame with his puppets, with gestures and voice and acting so well...

"So here is a riddle to guess, if you can, sing the bells of Notre Dame," he finished in that once more lilting voice that he had begun with. "Who is the monster and who is the man? Sing the bells of Notre Dame."

And with that last high note, the curtain closed over the puppet theatre. The children clapped, which drew the brightly coloured puppeteer out of his cart to bow to them before ushering them all off to their parents once more.

"Go on, mes enfents, you must return to your families and make ready for the festival this afternoon," he said happily.

Belle waited, a smile on her face, until the last of the children were gone and the man was returning to his cart.

"You have a gift for story-telling," she complimented him.

The man bowed from the waist. "Merci, Mademoiselle," he answered.

Belle reached into her money pouch and drew out a few coins. "One is for your little puppet, to buy a hat that will better protect him from your stick," she joked as she offered the gold and silver coins.

Clopin stared, jaw hanging slightly, at the amount of money being offered to him. "Mademoiselle," he said softly as he looked from the money to her face in astonishment. "I..."

Belle smiled. "Do not tell me that you cannot accept it," she said with gentle, teasing sternness. Clopin closed his mouth, and it twitched up in a vaguely melancholy smile – an expression that looked well out of place with all of his bright colours. Without looking, he reached into his cart and brought out a small drawstring bag, faded purple and patched with brown. He opened the bag, and blushed when a moth flew out.

Belle bit down on her bottom lip so that she would not laugh, and dropped the coins in.

"Merci, Mademoiselle," he said softly as he put the bag back into his cart.

"Will you tell me more of the story?" Belle asked hopefully. "The details that did not fit into the rhyme?"

Clopin blinked in surprise. "What would you like to know?" he asked.

"Monsieur," Belle said softly, "so few people know even as much as you told this morning of the bell ringer." She bit her lip as she considered how to ask her question. "Were you there?"

"I was," Clopin answered sadly after a moment. "I... You will not speak of this, I hope?" he asked before he continued, and waved for her to join him on the steps of his cart where their conversation would be more hidden.

"I shall not breathe a word, if you wish," Belle promised solemnly as she sat beside him.

"Merci," he thanked her, then continued with the story. "My mother had found the child, abandoned in the snow for his appearance, and took pity on him. My father would not refuse her... and then he was captured as soon as he were in Paris. He and my uncle both. I ran with my mother, and when we reached the doors of Notre Dame, and Frollo came upon us... she bid me hide in the shadows while she would continue to run. She would not leave the babe though, he had suffered the cold long enough, and I could give him no warmth then... I was beginning to turn blue myself, Mademoiselle," he explained with a weak smile.

Belle nodded her understanding.

"The baby had cost me my mother. I would not have minded having a younger brother, even one who had been abandoned for his appearance, but I was also a child, and for a moment hatred burned in me at him for taking my mother from me, as surely as Frollo had, and so I did not speak up for him at the time," Clopin finished, and there was a look of distant regret in his eyes as he turned them to the towering church that was not too far distant.

Belle lay a hand on his shoulder in an offering of comfort. "Do not be melancholy for what cannot be changed Monsieur," she implored gently. She considered his face, though he wore a mask over half of it. "A frown does not suit you as well as a smile does," she said.

Clopin's answering smile was a bit lopsided, but it was a smile all the same. "And today is the Feast of Fools," he added. He rose to his feet then and offered Belle his hand to help her onto her own feet once more.

Belle smiled back and accepted the hand. "Oui," she agreed. "May I look for you there?" she asked.

Clopin laughed. "Mademoiselle, if you do not see me, I shall be surprised," he answered, his gaiety returned.

Belle laughed as well, and curtseyed to the colourful man. "Then I shall look forward to seeing you there," she said with a smile, and turned to continue back to her home and her father.

"Mademoiselle," Clopin called after her before she had taken but a few steps. "Forgive me, but I did not ask your name."

Belle smiled. "Belle Leburinrusée," she answered.

Clopin smiled back. "I am Clopin Trouillefou," he returned, with a flourishing bow.

Belle nodded her head in acceptance of the name, gave him one last smile, and continued on her way.

"Belle," Clopin contemplated softly to himself. "It suits her," he decided as he lifted the handles of his cart and started to tow it towards the square in front of Notre Dame – where the preparations for the Feast of Fools were already well under way.

~oOo~

Belle laughed with delight when she returned to her father's shop, above which she and her father had rooms, with their kitchen behind. There were a pair of gypsies there – a man and a woman – and she danced and played her tambourine while he played his flute. But more entertaining than that was the young goat with a gold hoop through one ear that pranced around the tattered hat that people had been dropping coins into.

"Papa!" Belle called into the shop. "Come and see the gypsies!"

"What's this Belle?" her father, a kind, if slightly portly and mildly eccentric man by the name of Maurice answered as he left his varnishing to come to the door.

"They have a dancing goat, Papa," Belle declared happily.

Maurice chuckled. "Anybody who can teach a young goat to dance deserves a few coins," he declared. "You put away your basket, and I'll fetch a couple of francs."

Belle embraced her father briefly, and headed out the back to the kitchen. She returned to the door quickly, wanting to take joy in the sight of the dancing goat and the cheerful music, and took a crumpled piece of paper to the face.

"You leave town for a couple of decades and they change everything," a blonde man with a slight beard complained to his horse.

Belle raised a curious eyebrow and un-wadded the paper that she had caught. It was an old map of Paris. She couldn't help but laugh.

"Monsieur," she said, and stepped up to him. "Where are you trying to find?" she asked.

"The Palace of Justice," the man answered a little unhappily.

Belle bit off laughter, for it would have been at his expense, and that would not be kind. "Straight down that road," she said, pointing to road that continued under an arch just past where the gypsies were performing.

"Ah, merci, Mademoiselle," the man said, and a slight blush rose to his cheeks. With an embarrassed cough he excused himself to continue on his way, and dropped a few coins in the tattered old hat the goat was dancing around as he passed them.

As the blonde man continued under the arch into the next street, a little boy appeared atop it and whistled shrilly – a warning, if the reactions of the gypsies was anything to go by.

The man with the flute disappeared, the woman started to run as well, but turned back when the goat – which had grabbed the hat in his teeth – bleated. A good portion of the coins had fallen from the hat across the street.

Belle then spotted the two soldiers approaching. The attitude held by Frollo – who was now no mere judge, but a minister of the city – and his soldiers towards the gypsies was well known, and proven quickly when the two soldiers immediately focused their ire on the gypsy woman.

"Alright, gypsy, where'd you get the money?" one demanded as he tugged on the hat. He had a very impressive moustache.

"For your information, I earned it," the woman answered back angrily, holding tight to the purple cloth hat that held less coins than it had before.

Belle surreptitiously moved to collect the coins that the gypsy woman hadn't gotten to yet – but quickly.

"Gypsies don't earn money," the first soldier insisted haughtily, as though he knew everything.

"They steal it," added the second, as he made a grab for the gypsy's coins.

"You'd know a lot about stealing," she answered fiercely.

"Troublemaker, eh?" the first soldier asked, and sounded pleased by the idea.

"Please!" Belle interjected frantically, latching a hand onto the arm of one of the soldiers. "Please, a boy just stole my basket!"

The soldiers were immediately at her disposal.

"What did the boy look like Mademoiselle?" asked the first soldier.

"About this high," Belle answered frantically as her hand hovered about the height of her waist, but with a note of worry in her tone, as though she could not be sure. "And blonde hair," she added, more sure of that (false) detail.

"He went that way," her father joined in, and pointed down the street towards the gates of Paris.

"Oh please sirs, my basket!" Belle wailed.

"Certainly Mademoiselle!" the soldiers answered, and hurried off.

Belle smiled as she watched them go, and turned to the gypsy woman.

"You..."

"Lied," Belle finished. "But don't tell them!" she added cheekily.

The gypsy turned her head on the side in confusion.

"This is yours, I believe?" Belle asked, and held out the coins that she'd picked up.

"Thank you," the gypsy woman said. "But... why?"

"Because you taught a young goat to dance," Maurice answered happily, and gave her the coins he had not yet dropped into her hat when the soldiers had come.

"And maybe I'm just getting into the spirit of the Feast of Fools a little early," Belle added with a smile and a wink. "Now, I really must go and wait for the soldiers to return and apologise for not being able to catch the thief," Belle said with a polite nod and went to stand by the door of her father's shop.

"The festival!" the gypsy woman gasped, and hurried off down the streets towards the square.

"Think she'll be performing this afternoon?" Maurice asked his daughter.

Belle smiled and rested her cheek a moment on top of her father's balding head (she had gotten her height, indeed all of her looks, from her mother). "You just want to see the goat dance some more," she teased fondly.

Maurice chuckled. "Ah, my daughter knows me so well," he answered with amusement before he went back into his shop. He had work to do before the festival after all.

Belle hesitated to follow him – she did want to wait for the soldiers to return with the bad news after all – but as soon as it was done with, she headed in as well.

~oOo~

"Papa," Belle said softly as they closed up the shop.

"Yes Belle?"

"Do you really want to leave Paris?" she asked. "Again?" she added pointedly.

Maurice froze where he stood, then sagged with a sigh and turned to his daughter. "Belle," he said gently. "Having the shop here in Paris has been good to us, I know. The business is good, and our humble lives allow us to give to those in greater need than us, and to save our coin for a day when it is us who will need it... but as much as I love my work, I just..." Maurice sighed again tiredly. "And even with what happened last time..."

The last time they'd moved to a little town... Well, she'd gotten to fall in love with a cursed prince, which had been... exciting... right up until Gaston had shoved a knife into his side and even though the curse was lifted the mortal wound had remained. At least that vile man had fallen to his death as well, and Mrs Potts had been very understanding about Belle's sudden, burning need to not be there, where the halls were all filled with conflicting emotions. Cogsworth had presented her with a deed to the castle before she left them. Apparently the whole staff had talked it over, and as thanks to her for breaking the curse on them all, the castle and all that was in it would be hers. They would keep the place clean for her if she ever desired to return. As far as the castle was concerned, she was their new princess, their mistress, even if she would not live there.

"I know Papa," Belle said softly. "You want the leisure to invent."

"The idea of leaving behind lively Paris for a provincial town did not appeal to you before," Maurice noted sagely with a speculative nod. "And after what happened last time, I will not blame you if you wish to stay this time -"

"I'm not going to leave you Papa," Belle said firmly. "Not if I don't have to. If I am not with you, then who will take care of you?" she asked rhetorically. "Certainly no one there," she added pointedly.

After Maurice was almost sent to the asylum as part of a threat to get Belle to marry Gaston, and the horrible events that had spiralled out from that, no, no one there would care for him. The trouble was, to Belle's thinking, that the little town was full of little people. Not physically, as such, though there were more people of a height with her father than with herself, but... small minded. Such a thing as thinking was a pass-time actively discouraged by almost the entire town. In Paris, weakness in the ability to read and write did not stop people from learning, or from appreciating the written word, and there were clerks who could be employed for a truly small sum to read and write letters for those who lacked the ability themselves.

Maurice considered his daughter. "I may be getting to be an old man," he said, "but I'm sure I could take care of myself if you wished to remain."

Belle bit her lip in nervous thought. The people there would be unkind to her father, but there was the castle and all the staff there...

Maurice took his daughter's hands gently in his own. "Make no decision today," he ordered her tenderly. "Today is the Feast of Fools. Time to be frivolous and ridiculous."

Belle smiled at her father and nodded in acceptance.

Maurice nodded firmly, and finished locking up, then escorted his daughter to the square before Notre Dame.