God Help the Outcasts: A Disney Crossover Fanfic

Chapter Ten: La Esmeralda

**A/N: Thank you so much for the recent vote and follow! Please enjoy Chapter Ten--it was one of my very favorites to write.

Nakoma couldn't believe it. She simply couldn't believe it. How could a man that claimed to know God be so cruel? She had to meet this Judge Frollo and get the other side of the story. There was no way that puppeteer was telling the whole truth.

She and Drizella were making their way toward a large, decorated platform as she thought about all this. They hadn't chosen to go in this particular direction, but there was a rather large mass of people they had merged with that were pushing them along.

They filed in with the crowd and found themselves in the second row; they would have an excellent view of whatever was going to happen onstage. To the right of the platform a scary-looking carriage was brought in, accompanied by a group of soldiers on horseback. It was painted black, reminding Nakoma of Clopin's depiction of Judge Frollo, and had several gothic spikes and ornamentations jutting from the top. It was a drab looking thing, especially compared with the variously colored tents in the area. Farther to the right, a procession of men and women were entering the courtyard, singing a festive song that belied their plain-looking clothes.

"Come one! Come all! Leave your looms and milking stools, coop the hens and pen the mules! Come one! Come all! Close the churches and the schools, it's the day for breaking rules, come and join the feast...of..."

"Fools!" cried a brightly colored figure as he slid out from beneath the robe of the leader. Confetti filled the air around him, and he laughed jubilantly.

"Can this get any stranger?" Nakoma said as she nudged Drizella. The other woman, though, was completely focused on the singing figure.

"Isn't that Clopin?" she asked. Nakoma shrugged, but as the figure came closer she recognized his crazy hair and beard.

"I guess it is." She turned from Drizella, though, and chose to stare into the distance, becoming lost in her thoughts. She wondered how Mrs. Jenkins was doing back in England, and how Pocahontas was faring with her new love. Nakoma frowned and bit her lip to keep the tears at bay. How she missed Pocahontas! They had been as close as sisters back in Virginia. And Virginia...the tribe, her people, were thousands of miles away, across two seas. She suddenly felt alone in the crowd; there was no one here who really knew her. They knew nothing of her life or where she was from.

Had she been wrong to want this adventure? Maybe she should have just gone back to Virginia instead. She would be safe there, at home and comfortable among her people. But then what would she do? Maybe find a husband and get married, the way the other women did.

That's not what Pocahontas would do, though, and the whole reason she had come to England in the first place was because she had envied Pocahontas' bold and adventurous lifestyle. She hugged herself tight and steeled her will. She would finish out this adventure, and then, if she still wanted to, she would go home. Home at last.

Drizella tugged on her arm and pointed up to the platform, where Clopin launched himself up using the back of a cloaked man near the edge.

"See the finest girl in France make an entrance to entrance! Dance, La Esmeralda..." His voice rang into a crescendo as he swung his arm. "Dance!" With that he threw something onto the platform; it made him disappear in a cloud of pink smoke and a tall, beautiful girl in a red dress take his place!

The crowd around them went wild, but Nakoma was stunned into silence. She'd never seen anything like it, except for when the elders in her tribe conjured images from the smoke. But this was no image. This was a real, living girl dancing around on the stage! Her voluminous black hair swayed around her as she danced, and her turquoise eyes smoldered with mischief as she pulled a violet, star-studded scarf from her skirts. Quite suddenly she leapt from the platform and dashed across the tables stretching out like spider legs along the courtyard, ending up at the chair of a dark-robed figure.