Date: March 25th, 2019.
Time: 10:00am.
Place:Ā Roman Baths.
Availability:Ā Open!
Youāll pay the price, theyād warned him.Ā
Maybe it was naivety that kept him from seeing it, or maybe it was arrogance.Ā
Iām neutral, heād declared, reassuring his worried friends over the phone. Iām an actor, Iām well-known, they wouldnāt risk hurting me. Itās been done before, his rep had argued, begging him to stay low in the Galaās aftermath. And heād tried, for Giacomo and Celeste heād tried -Ā but who couldāve foreseen that trouble would find him in his own home, in the form of a woman heād mistaken for a friend?...
Everyone, he thinks morosely, trying to ignore his aching body as he slips into the blue-green pool. Everyone saw it but you.Ā
The irony, of course, is that for all the Montaguesā intention to set him straight, all it did was fill him with so much burning resentment that the last thing he felt in relation to them just now, was neutral. No, Tomas thought to himself as the cold water drew up to his elbows,Ā if there was a rightful ruler to this city - a claim he still privately doubted - that position certainly did not belong to Damiano Montague, nor his Dorian Gray-esque son. Not when theyād undoubtedly sicced Pandora and her thugs on him. Not when theyād beaten him black and blue and all for what? - Saving a girl that needed to be saved?...
The environment that surrounds him is peaceful, beautiful. Domed frescoes, marble statues, light filtering gently through the room and playing between pillars; catching tiny specs of dust in its wake... But the actorās mind is uncharacteristically bleak today; mired to the bottom of a well too far down to see the sun. So when he hears footsteps approaching he braces himself with a sigh. Heās come here to escape the world; up on a hilltop near the cityās outskirts. Quietly, he prays that whoever it is isnāt a Montague.Ā