#diveronastarter

Time: Evening

Location: A cafe near the river bank

Status: Open to all

Verona is always showing its teeth. It’s either snarling, or laughing. Tonight, Priam feels, it’s the latter. 

It’s one of those nights of brutal self-inquisition, when Priam finds the four walls of his lavish penthouse too suffocating and seeking no one’s company in particular, the Capulet prince finds himself sitting in a café, outside, nursing a bottle of wine, and a cup of black coffee, an odd combination, and watching river march to the beat of its own drum.

He got people killed today. Quite a lot of them. All for his personal gain. Sure, it advances the Capulet agenda, no doubt, but the new weapons deal solidifies his position within the mob like never before, and it’s just a beginning. Priam now has the blood of a few Capulet pawns he willingly sacrifised to lure out the Montagues and their weapons supplier, and even though he feels no remorse, it’s a strange feeling. To play with the lives of others like a puppetmaster. At least they met a swift end in a shootout, but the Montagues he had taken by the police will have no such luxury. They’ll die in prison, but only after they spill the information Priam needs and after they start to beg for a merciful death. He’s seen to that. It’s amazing the influence Taravalla money combined with Capulet power can buy.

Priam’s reach grows by day.

He will follow his ambitions like a cat chases sunshine on a lazy Spring Sunday. Other be damned.

A toast to his own victory, Priam pours another glass of the finest wine on the menu, and whilst his eyes are fixed on the amber liquid, he can hear a sound of a chair drag against a pavement. Unexpected company.

Not interrupting pouring the wine, Priam greets a newcomer with an entertained smile. “Want to hear a joke? A circus animal, an infant and a virgin walk into a bar. The bartender asks, what can I get you, Mr. Montague?”   

Where Henry goes, so too does Paola. It is the very nature of the job. As his personal assistant, she lingers in the corners of the room, keeping eyes on Henry not just as her boss but as a fellow Montague. With shared tragedies between them, the two have become something like family, and Paola will never forget the sight of Henry accepting death in his own home until she begged hi to live. 

The purple hues of the evening had painted Verona as a more presentable version of itself – like a morticians hand applying make-up on a corpse. The city had been just as morbid lately, the street gutters carrying to blood of the those gone far too soon.

Still, through all gore and violence the beauty of Verona shone through.

Priam never thought himself bound to something as trivial as homesickness, but even he had to admin there was a special feeling penetrating his soul after a long period of absence. For a past few months, he’d been based in New York, opening up a new office – and strengthening some of the old Capulet contacts overseas at the same time.

After a quick catch-up with Juliana, Priam sat at one of Verona’s finest, upscale restaurants, head buried in a latest status report he needed to sign off on, when the noise from a neighbouring table grabbed his attention. They were Montagues, no doubt, Priam had seen them before – certainly hadn’t bothered to remember names, though. In hindsight, choosing a restaurant on a heavily Montague populated are was uncharacteristically reckless of Taravella, but the restaurant served the best damn oysters in the city and he wouldn’t let Montagues deprive him of the pleasure.

Hell, maybe he’d even buy this restaurant on his way out.

“Do you mind keeping it down?” He addressed the group with an eye roll, “Whilst I know being civil is too much to ask from the likes of you, at least try to act like you weren’t raised on a hyena farm. My ears are sensitive to so much idiocy.”

The irony of it settles in Paola’s bones: once, she was only a server at Hotel Emilia. A bartender who drowned the sorrows of strangers, a waitress who fell away to the background. Here, she was once nobody; and tonight, she is the reason for a party. Montagues sprawl through Hotel Emilia in their finest, champagne flutes seamlessly replacing a gun in their hand.

This is her life, now. She is il Mietitrice, a reaper who becomes a living target.

Should she feel cast aside, belittled, unvalued for being cast as mere bait?

Paola lifts her glass to her lips: only water. She is not here to celebrate, after all. She is here to practice putting on a show. Casting a perceptive glance at the person to her right, Paola chooses her own mark. With a pleasant smile and lighthearted airs, she asks, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

when: april 15th, 2019

with: open to all 

No sessions scheduled for today, so Lamprius is free to float through Verona like a ghost and haunt the city whichever way he likes. He lands at a cafe, at which he orders one (1) plain black coffee and asks for three napkins: one for himself, one in case the wind decides to take the first, and one because he expects the unexpected.

Lamprius hasn’t been here since, well, before, and this is the thought that strikes him as he catches sight of the planter box right next to his table. The café owner is growing violets, purple and delicate, but Lamprius is much more interested in the planter box itself. Red and rough, built out of bricks, and standing at a little more than half a meter in height. It looks all of the decade it has been sitting here; just another bit of Verona for the average passerby to let their eyes slip over.

But Lamprius’ gaze stills as soon as he sees it. He remembers a night, years ago, he’d sat at this very table, almost certainly next to this very planter box. He wonders...

He reaches down to let his fingers crawl over the bricks. Idle is the gesture, like a dreamer lost in thought - but Lamprius’ mind doesn’t dream nor is it ever idle. He’s counting. What was it? ‘13 steps towards the sky on a sunny day?’ Lamprius counts out the bricks while feeling that warm Vernon sun beat down on him as he waits for his black coffee. When his hand stops, he gives the brick its settled on a little push -

Nothing.

No wait, it’s: ‘12 steps towards the sky on a sunny day.’ He moves one brick over, and tries again. Sure enough, with a little wiggle, the brick comes free from its bed.

Lamprius gives his first smile of the week. It graces his face, small and lost to the city almost immediately, but it exists.

Fucking Hecate. He thinks as he draws out the pack of cigarettes from the little cubby in the planter box. Fucking Hecate. With her hidden treasures and dramatics. ‘The city is willing to share its secrets with you if you let it.’ She’d say to him cheekily. There were bits of the Witches, hidden just like this, all over the city. There is some small comforting knowing that if he dies, those pieces will still stay embedded in the very walls of Verona forever.

Lamprius remembers more now, how she used to equally say ‘Those things will kill you’ whenever he’d hold a cigarette between his fingers. And Lamprius would always reply with ‘God, I hope so,’ before tossing the stick aside (because he’d been thinking about quitting anyway.) They’d sat here once and shared a cigarette together one similarly sunny day, hadn’t they?

In midst of this memory, Lamprius feels eyes on him, as steady as the rays of the Verona sun. He lets his gaze gently flick up to settle on his spectator with no signs of being startled or even surprised. Anyone who went a second in this city thinking they weren’t being watched would do well to think again. He holds up the pack of cigarettes, showing he doesn’t mind the stare.

“Would you like them? I don’t smoke anymore.”

As he does this, something shifts in the weight of the box that makes him realize - he opens the pack to check- 

“Ah.” Evidently not even death stops the Witches caring about whether this soothsayer fills his lungs with soot. The small box, though it does have plenty in it, definitely does not contain cigarettes. A joke that’s literally spent years waiting for him to stumble across it. 

time: 11:00 AM 

location: castelvecchio ruins

status: open to ALL

    He hadn’t slept since he saw Paola and it shows. Well, it shows to him, to everyone else he probably still looked glorious. And to be honest, he probably felt better than a man who was about to throw himself into a den full of lions and pray that they don’t eat him. Just because it happened in the bible he knew that miracles were few and far between. God smiled kindly on those who were faithful to him and Felipe was most decidedly not. Ah, well. He’d blacked out for a number of nights consecutively and still somehow managed to live through to tell the immemorable tale. 

    Peeling the skin from the clementine he had filched, he swaggered about the market that surrounded the ruins, tourists and locals alike gathering to look at the once-great site laid to waste. The smell of the citrus stained his fingers and, not for the first time, he felt a little thrill at the ability of being able to eat the fruit so openly, beneath the warm April sun. He tilted his face upwards, breathing it in for a moment. For all the wrongs he had committed in his life, it seemed that the stars were weighing the scales of justice in his favor. 

    Or perhaps he was simply cleverer than whatever forces worked against him. 

    He tossed the rind over his shoulder and stood atop a rather large ruin, naturally drawing eyes towards him. This would be a lot more satisfying if Cosimo hadn’t stolen his thunder by crucifying Valentina, but what was to be done. Paola had stirred within him an impulse that he could no longer ignore. The information about the Montagues, the Capulets, and the brewing storm was placed in Lucien’s capable hands. If ever there was a time to arise from the dead, now was it.

    “Ciao, Veronesi!” Felipe cried, chewing on his clementine. “It is good to be back again.”

There is a mug of coffee that has long since gone cold sitting in front her, her hands resting  on either side of it, nails bitten until flesh is red and raw. She is nervous and scared, like a cornered animal with nowhere left to run. Hazel wonders if she could have even pretended to be calm. It seems impossible, what, with her heart racing and head aflurry. Just yesterday, she accepted the montague’s offer to have a way to pay off her debts. She can’t help but scoff at that. An offer. It wasn’t that at all. It was a threat. Do this or die. 

She had once thought herself strong, bold in her convictions and resolve, but all it took a gun pointed to her face to her face to have her realize that, no, maybe that wasn’t the case.

Every time the door of the café opens, the little bell above it jingling, she startles where she sits, head jerking up, body stiffening. She half expects every person to come bearing a threat or a message. It’s ridiculous, she thinks, to do this, but how can she not ? Ramona had entered her life as quiet as a dove, but she showed her teeth and true colors quickly. Now Hazel couldn’t help but wonder who else bore such terror underneath easy smiles and beautiful looks. Going home, she had panicked, and as soon as she woke up this morning, she had thrown her things into her bag and left her apartment. If anyone was looking for her, surely they’d know to find her there.

And so instead she is sitting in a cafe, only a few blocks away, staring at nothing but a spot on the whitewashed wall in front of her, while a movie of her life plays through her mind, restarting and bringing new twists. Some endings are happy, she’s free and far from verona, all of this a distant memory, but others are not so lucky and happy. She cannot help but think of herself dead over and over, her blood sinking into verona’s pavement like that of the other misfortunate. Motion catches her eye and she is pulled from her daydream. She looks up, her eyes as wide as a deer, startled. “ Did you need this table ? ” her voice is high, nervous. “ I was just about to leave, but there’s room for you to be here still. ” 

Suddenly, she starts pulling all of her things in front of her in a mismatched and uneven pile. It’s all scattered memory of her old hobby ( it’s strange to call forging that, but how else could she refer to it ? ), passport books and embossing ink. She wonders briefly if it had been dumb of her to have it out in the open, but most had walked by paying her little mind. She couldn’t help but remind herself how it had felt like she was suffocating within the walls of her apartment and it would have been a sin to step into the cathedral when she was drowning in the guilt of her mistakes.

She reaches for her mug, long fingers wrapping around it. She winces at how cold it feels on her tongue. She speaks again, “ I promise I don’t bite. ” She wonders how many in verona can say that and have it ring true.

rumors travel fast in verona--nik is used to keeping track of them, to tracking down truths that he can in turn funnel to izzy’s pen, that she can render into something useful, into a complete narrative. what he isn’t used to, is being the unnamed subject of them. he isn’t used to being forced to look at himself in pieces, fragments of fact wrapped in the shrapnel casing of fiction.

my wife heard it was someone attached to the capulets.

a buddy of mine said the guy was definitely russian--he used vodka to light the thing up.

i heard it was neither--just someone who wanted both of them to suffer at once. guy’s the rightful king of verona for a stunt like that, if you ask me.

he grins every time, has to stifle a laugh behind his hand or turn his head and feign a cough--he doesn’t want to be the rightful king of verona, but he likes the idea of stealing a crown that so many who see themselves as better would kill each other for. let the mother, the lover, anyone who had never wanted him look at him standing on top of the heap at the end and wonder about the decision they made.

it’s an idea and nothing more--nik has only ever been interested in survival, not glory or any of the gore that goes with it. not to mention the fact that noteriety tends to get in the way of his work--the best fires are lit from complete darkness, and the worst thing that could happen would be for the wrong people to start sniffing around, asking questions with answers that lead back to him, potentially to the scant few people in this town he gives a damn about.

laying low for the time being is his best course of action, which means timing a trip to the roman baths at an hour where he hopes the place won’t be crawling with mob personnel. he just wants an hour--60 whole uninterrupted minutes where he can just focus on the warmth of the water, the way it seeps through his skin and into the parts of him that will always remain made of ice and snow, the way it soothes the ache of overtaxed muscles and renders burn scars something beautiful, something unintelligible.

he gets about 20, before he’s forced to crack open one eye and confront an intrusion. what does one even say, in a place like this? he wonders, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. he lets his neck relax against the tile and drawls lazily, “lovely weather we’re having, no?”