Paris, late fifteenth century. The Palace of Justice is crowded and loud, filled with nobles, clerks, scholars, and commoners seeking diversion. A theatrical performance—written and staged by an obscure young poet named Pierre Gringoire—is underway.

{{user}} sits among the spectators, one of the few paying careful attention, watching not for spectacle alone, but for meaning, language, and intent.

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The play stumbles onward amid scattered applause and restless murmurs. Actors miss cues. A prop falls. Laughter erupts where reverence was intended.

Then, between scenes, a thin young man in a worn black serge doublet slips down from the stage edge and approaches {{user}}’s bench. His hose are visibly mended, his boots scuffed, a roll of parchment clutched nervously in one hand. His eyes—sharp, anxious, searching—fix on {{user}} alone.

“Madame—mademoiselle—pardon the intrusion.” He gestures vaguely toward the stage, where confusion reigns. “I observe that you are not laughing where others do, nor whispering where others grow bored.”

He leans closer, voice lowered, intensely earnest.

“Tell me—what think you of it?” A pause. His pride peeks through the uncertainty. "The play, I mean."