#and only *then* does she get the opportunity to wash out the stain (the wax on the shirt) from her sin

[bookshelf-in-progress]

I've had an odd nostalgia for the Once Upon a Time series of mediocre short-novel-length fairy tale retellings. I've been wanting to read the retelling of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" from that line.

The trouble is that there is no such book.

Which makes me want to write it.

Unfortunately, the only straightforward traditional retelling of that fairy tale I want to write doesn't fit with that style.

But thinking about it got me excited about that old idea all over again.

[diveronarpg]

In fair Verona, our tale begins with BORIS KOVROV, who is THIRTY-THREE years old. He is often called BRUTUS by the MONTAGUES and works as their EMISSARY. He uses HE/HIM pronouns.

The only home he knew was in Yekaterinburg, but Boris remembers next to nothing of his early life spent largely ignorant to his father’s forays of trading between the American and Russian mobs. He was too young to question it when they were sent to work for contacts in Verona - the Montagues. His family eagerly pledged FEALTY and their lives to the Montague name, opportunism running through their veins, their blood itching to dance with gold and ichor, and he was encouraged to view Damiano as a second father. Though, he would have even without the conditioning. Where Boris’s own father was slowed by his own indecision and follies, it seemed Damiano strode without misstep, making a home in the shadows as much as in the far-reaching sun. This was a man, a god, who seemed to be two steps ahead of everyone else, seamless in his scheming and saving his notorious BRUTALITY for when it mattered and never once showing his hand. There was something to be said about a boy who revered the cunning of a god and not his divinity. But what? That he was born DISHONEST? Or that the stars had already foretold a man who dared not to be blinded by them, who didn’t seek to join them but strove to navigate them instead and find his place someplace higher.

Boris wasted no time in making himself indispensable. Upon joining, he carried out every assignment with almost mechanical precision and asked for more when many other would beg for reprieve. It was damn near IMPOSSIBLE to be invited into Damiano Montague’s inner circle, but Boris was persistent in proving his loyalty, be it taking on assignments at which both soldiers and emissaries balked or going beyond his scope to gain acquire new clients. “Your aptitude is something brilliant,” Damiano once remarked, eyes sharp and appraising. Boris remembered the cigarette smoke in his lungs, the swell of pride that burned more. How hopeful he’d been, how young. How desperate. In hindsight, it was here Boris wondered if his own impatience had been a curse of a blessing. The current underboss was a terribly competent man, quick on his feet and possessing a quicker mind - his only flaw, his fatal flaw, perhaps, was his implicit trust in anyone who declared themselves loyal to the Montagues. He was careful, never sprinkling so much as RAT POISON into the man’s whiskeys and coffees for it to be detectable or for its effects to be anything but gradual. Boris washed his hands and made a quick, mocking sigh of the cross when news of the underboss being admitted to the hospital in critical condition reached them, and awaited news of his own promotion.

It never came. Alvise Vernon received the honor instead, and Boris watched as Alvise and Damiano expanded their EMPIRE, their light falling on newer spaces in Verona with each day. Bs’s enemies will call it bitterness, and perhaps it was, but Boris has seen what unbridled ambition and greed had done to himself, how irrevocably they’d blackened his soul even when his dreams fell flat. Men who fancied themselves divine would do anything to retain their divinity - not for the good of the mob, but for their own IMMORTALITY, and as ambitious as he was, he would never confuse power for anointment. It was because of this that Boris decided to steal away into the night, buying a one-way ticket back to his hometown without looking back on the stain his sudden abandonment would leave on his name. But very few mobs would take in an a man who had DEFECTED their former sovereign - none of them, in fact. None but one. He gave up everything he ever knew about Damiano Montague, every assignment ever given to him, and any other name was asked of him. It was his own penance, his own admission of how irredeemable he was and how far he’d fallen, and it’d been accepted. A deal was struck, a soul was traded. And then he returned, welcomed back to the city that would likely fall all at his expense.

History has never been kind to TURNCOATS. The tomes of old paint them with the red of greed, the yellow of cowardice, the green of envy, they are immortalized as yellow-bellied villains who were too myopic to know of a glorious kingdom to come despite them. Boris never claims to not have known any of these foibles, but neither will he admit that was wrong, that he was a fool for knowing avarice where it grew. Never accuse him of shortsightedness when he foresaw a god descend into mortal TYRANNY and hoped to stop it. Never call him a coward for recognizing his own efforts would do no good, for leaving a ship before it sank. Is he a villain for manipulating pristine souls into marring, for moving with shadow, for using every dark art he’s ever known to ensure a king doesn’t became a despot? The historians fail to mention that the traitors are the ones who survive, who outlive empires and kingdoms, who lay their sovereigns to rest and spread their ashes like trail markers.

ALEXANDER RALLIS & LAWRENCE VERNON: Competition. He is aware of the obstacles that beset the path he has chosen for himself. The trepidation that lurks at his every step is nothing new, the wolves that hound him – but a nuisance to what is owed him. He has spent the last couple years assessing the group of Montagues that are most likely to prove difficult to overcome and has narrowed it down to these two men. They see him as nothing more than an efficient member of the mob, a reputation he has meticulously created, so as to make himself seem as nonthreatening as possible. But the smell of chaos is in the air – and if he has learned anything from his American contacts it is this: power is most easily acquired when the air is ripe with ruin. And, to him, it seems as if Verona is on the brink of it.

BERNADETTE DU PONT: Amusement. People say that the sun and the moon are often lovers, one chasing after the other, while the other has no option but to run away – a rather tragic love story. But what if the moon was running from the sun, for fear of being scorched by its ruthless rays? What if the sun chased after the moon, so as to see its silver glow turn black from the burns that such heat could bring? He is the sun, they are the moon. But do not be mistaken, this is no lovestory. This is the story of a man who wants to see destruction reign for the sake of it, just for the knowledge that he can destroy. And he can do so mercilessly.

TOMAS SABELLO: Leverage. An idiot if he ever saw one. A potential means of advancement if he ever knew one. Tomas Sabello is one of those cursedly lucky bastards that has more money than they know what to do with, Boris is one of those blessedly cunning bastards that takes advantage of men lesser than he. Since getting to know Sabello, he has made a habit of befriending the man and intoxicating him before he could wax on about the trials, tribulations, and wonders of being married. It is only a matter of time before something irredeemable slips from his mouth and Boris is able to do as he does best – profit from the mistakes of others.

CASTORA AGUILAR: Thorn. She has a special penchant for being in the right place at the wrong time. Truly, no one is as vexating as a fool who does not know what scene she has stumbled upon -- and she has, multiple times, walked in on Boris in a less than ideal situation. These situations often involve a Capulet soldier seeking intel, and Boris promptly having to take care of this loose end in front of her so that she will remain none the wiser. At first, he thought it was somewhat amusing, but after the fourth or fifth time, it has decidedly become less so. So this will either end in one of two ways -- Castora finally putting two-to-two together and outing him before he has made a grand escape, or in her untimely and seemingly accidental death. Either way, he will be free from her; what utter bliss is that. 

Boris is portrayed by MARTIN SENSMEIER* and was written by EM. He is TAKEN by JULIE.