hamlet

“Attempting poetry? I never took you to be the type, Godrej. You always came off more brute force. More grunting and posturing.“

He wasn’t looking for a fight. Not in this place, not during such festivities and surrounded by a crowd of men, women, small children darting past their feet. But to make his way out of the tent involved walking past Hiran. If he startled the man, Orion had no reservations the skittish Montague would take it as a threat.

“And stealing the flowers.“ He clicked his tongue, shook his head. “That’s for the crowd to enjoy. I should attempt a citizen’s arrest.“

Hiran froze, the serene illusion of the garden cracking. He saw BLOOD, red ink dripping down his finger ( the memories of his neck getting cut, his mother dying between his arms, the world shattering ). The voice was enough to trigger the worst side of him -- and this time, nothing would be tamed. 

She considered his question for a moment. The only way to learn. She knew that well enough. But she had tried to stop after one failed trial.

“Trial and error implicates the idea that you’re changing something about the trial. But you’re grabbing the rose the same way that you did the first time. Which means, you’re only going to end up with the same error, the same result.

“If you want something different to happen, then you need to try something different to get it.”

“. . . well, what other approach would you suggest? The end goal is to get the rose without anymore injuries,” Hiran stated. It almost reminded him a textbook problem, and the memory of school made his lips twitch. He hadn’t been the most diligent student -- but he also didn’t hate education. 

Of all his war-brothers, Hiran was the one he looked upon with the most gentle gaze. There was something about him that made Matthias think of another life, another time where things might have been easier. Where things wouldn’t have to be so damned cruel, so unnecessarily hard.

Matthias understood the pain that loss bloomed. Grief was a scent that clung to him like perfume on a rose, and grief’s thorns had long-since cut into his skin, ripping it away bit by bit to reveal something dark. Ugly. Murderous. He wondered if for Hiran, things felt the same.

Upon arriving, Matthias reached out his hand and placed it over one of the boy’s (they were all boys to him: Alexander, Marcelo, and even Hiran, as they all hefted their weaponry and painted their hands red) to stop the shaking. 

“Hiran.” He bowed his head some. “It’s been too long.”

Hiran smiled, an automatic reaction to the other Montague’s presence. It felt nice to have him back . . . especially now. And the thought only made him realize how much things had changed. They weren’t boys anymore. . . they carried their family’s name ( with all glory and ambition ). 

She smiled, shooting an exasperated glance back towards where the jesters remained while waving away some of the smoke that lingered in front of her face. But the masked people hard darted back into the fog, most likely to find another victim. “If they didn’t look so cheerful i’d be a bit worried, I think.”

At the comment she returned her attention to him, mind a pleasant thrum even as music flowed and dancers began to make their appearances. “Really? Wow, lucky girl I am. Don’t tease me now, Godrej.” Val gestured to the chairs, taking a seat in one herself before the constant jarring messed with her pain tolerance. Plus, she knew she was in good company. “Having fun so far?”

“I think I’d be more worried if their attention was still on us,” Hiran mused. These jesters seemed to have their own agenda, entertainment being the main goal of the evening ( needless to say, he didn’t mind this given situation ). 

“Have you ever heard of someone who is active ever staying still? They’re always tapping their fingers, always tapping their foot! And I’m that type of person, signore. I can never stay still; hence, an impossible demand!”

Unsure of whether the other man was slow or merely didn’t understand those like Pavel, he licked his lips at the way Hiran checked what he had reported. Could no one trust each other nowadays?

No matter. His hand shot to the air, and he quipped, “Well? What’s taking you so long to help, hmm?”

"I . . wish I had your energy, signore.” It felt . . . refreshing, to run into someone that didn’t seem affected by death.  Regardless, even the most happiest of people needed to be careful running down these streets. Hiran’s examination had been cut short, but he would respect the stranger’s wishes. 

“A true woman of the cloth, then.” 

There lurked beneath his surface a simpleness, that sign of devastation. Hea tasted it upon their own tongue, because how frequent had their own mouth wreaked such havoc! It littered both of their cheeks with a fine haziness of ash, as though being desecrated through fire. And so did a similar hue hang over Hiran Godrej as he spoke in his volumes.

At least he took the damn thing. Their fascination ran rampant. He had questions, and perhaps a series of answers could be given to him. “There is no choice but to watch, signore. If they go to such an eternal place restless, so is their rest the same, so must they be driven to watch and to see. As for happiness – is that not a subliminal, morphing concept, even for those who are alive? Humanness is not suddenly lost when we cross into the void.”

“. . . she didn’t deserve having her life cut short,” Hiran mumbled. Then again, wasn’t it true for everyone that lost the battle in Verona? Blood would be spilled, it was inevitable, but to have so much of it from his own family had been inconceivable. 

He knew how easily the conflict could be over, knew that all it would take was a single uprising to rid the streets of the plague that had settled in them. All it would take was a single common impulse, a single shared desire for blood. But grief made people weak and febrile, scraped them raw and left them with little that was useful. Orpheus could easily bring about the change himself, he knew, if he whispered the right words in the right ears.

But there was something much more entertaining about watching this kind of chaos unfold from a distance.

How. With guns and knives and fists and teeth. By unleashing the kind of hell that even the gods of old would fear. Orpheus wondered whether the Montague was capable of contemplating such a thing, of even hearing about it. Revenge was easy until it came time to actually coat one’s hands with blood. “Can’t your colleagues help you?” Orpheus raised an eyebrow. “They must all be as angry as you.”

He smiled at the mention of a slow death, pleased even by the promise of bloodshed, and fixed Hiran with the stare of a predator. “And what do you plan to do about that, exactly?”

date: 26 March time: 11:20 PM location: The tent of veils status: closed for @h-godrej 

She’d entered into the wrong tent in an attempt to find the gardens. And the tent of veils was anything but. The smoke curled around her, a wisp of fabric brushing against her shoulder like a caress. She turned to leave and stopped short at the two jesters before her, holding their hands to their lips in silent glee. With a shooing motion, she was urged back within. Val winced, attempting to continue on but the jesters grew wilder, arms arcing wide and attempting to herd her once more. “Fine, fine, you  ridiculous little things!” 

Head spinning a bit in the haze of smoke and the mixture that coursed through her, she almost missed the body pushed towards her own. Stumbling lightly, she gripped their arms for a moment before letting go, clutching at her side momentarily. “God, i’m so sor–Hiran” The woman cuts off, small smile on her lips at the sight of her friend. A smile that only spurs the dancing things around them as the two are led inside once more, and urged towards a table for two. “—-I just wanted to go outside.” Valentina says almost wistfully, amused at the turn of events. At least she wasn’t alone.

Hiran didn’t wander into the tent intentionally -- he was pulled inside by the jesters ( before he could even object ). The fogginess and abundance of incense did nothing to help him leave either. Instead, he kept walking deeper into the abyss, the eeriness disappearing the moment a familiar face collided into him. Valentina. 

Closed: @goldenharbinger​ Location: The Two Gentlemen  Time: 11:45pm

She gently grasps his hand in attempt to view the injury, or attempt to incite some sort of reaction perhaps. Yet she is the one surprised as he reaches out to touch her cheek. Her expression doesn’t reflect the confusion, best as she can tell, but she busies herself with looking down as she retrieves a packet of tissues from her pocket.  “Are you alright?’ is such an inane question to ask in current times, so when she raises her head she asks instead “Do you need some water?” 

Her hand has strayed for his while she pulls a tissue from the packet, before returning to press it to the blood. She doesn’t respond to any of his words at first, when the priority seems to be to fix him in some way. “Unfortunately not. Which means you really should hold onto this very real tissue, to stop your bleeding. And maybe we should get you a drink?”

“Old habits die hard,” the Daly woman agrees, “but please, signore, release the rose. If you want, when all of this is over, I’ll buy you a dozen red roses, if you want. I hate to see you hurt yourself as you are.” Even if the wound was minuscule, it was still there.

“Oh, I don’t know much. If anything, what little I knew comes from–” a hitch in her breath, and then, “–came from halfheartedly listening to my friend. She always said red roses conveyed the deepest of emotions.” And how befitting that such a crimson flower would signify such crucial feelings. “However, my eyes are always drawn to peonies.” She motions towards a bush adorned with beautiful, soft pink flowers to their left. A warm smile spreads across her visage as a fond memory of Maeve and flowers and her childhood flash throughout her mind.

And then, the memories fade, though Catherine does her best to keep the gentle smile on her face. “Are you sure you’re alright?” she asks again, just for good measure.

Sorrow, in its tangible charcoals and crimsons, engulfed him. He remained inside of his safest nest of grief. Hea regarded this collapse with their telltale neutral expression, although a change at the corners of their mouth could be perceived, if one looked close enough. A slight frown, an intention of approach and regret. 

“No? She would have wanted you to bleed everywhere?” 

A pinpointing gaze to the bleeding finger; and they removed the handkerchief from their pocket, monogrammed ( three kept on them at all times ) and handed it to him, in its small folded shape of a triangle. “I believe the dead appreciate many things that were not appreciated in life. They are all sensation, not distracted by sight nor sound.”

“. . . she would’ve wanted others to bleed.”

Bellamy was pleasantly surprised the captain took him up on his offer. But Hiran was not heartless. In fact, it was quite the opposite. His heart bled, savagely, profusely. And amazingly, not many noticed it. But Bellamy had patched his own far too many times to ignore the symptoms. And he would gladly stitch together another’s all the same.

“Nonsense, they’re beautiful,” Bellamy replied, voice as warm as the food heating on the stove. He accepted the bouquet, genuinely stunned by the quaint pastels of the flower petals. He was often and quite easily amazed by the beauty in simplicity. Bellamy didn’t receive flowers often. They were more fit for the many funerals he attended, given his family’s line of work. The colors looked almost soft to the touch. So much so that Bellamy couldn’t help but let his finger trace along a flower’s edge, gentle smile gracing his lips.

Looking back up to his company, Bellamy reminded himself of his hosting duties, walking back toward the kitchen to scramble around for a vase. “I hope you worked up an appetite on the way over,” he joked casually, one hand rifling about his cabinets, fingers stumbling over clattering pots and pans. 

Finally, Bellamy came across a glass container, the remains of a vanilla scented candle he lit come winter, wick bluntly protruding from a pathetic layer of wax covering the bottom. He filled it with water and placed the flowers inside, hovering his hands until each stem shifted into place, able to stand on its own.

“Excellent,” he said, mostly to himself, then to Hiran, “Can I get you anything to drink? Wine, water, soda, coffee, tea…”

Hiran gave Bellamy a smile, but it seems . . . to fall easily. As if all the warmth inside the young Montague’s apartment can’t seem register amongst his senses. Hiran blinked, pushing the thought aside -- trying to assume nothing of it ( this is a transformation, a numbness ). “Of course, y’know I’m always craving for a home cooked meal.” Anything that reminds him of his mother, those lascivious dinner parties, an abundance of wine. He wants it all back ( and he would steal it with every last drop of blood ).