#diveronastarter

[priam-taravella]

Date: July 20th

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?”   

[paoladamasco]

MAY 23 AT THE MONTAGUE PARTY IN HOTEL EMILIA, 11 PM. open to all.

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?”

[ofaguilar]

after hours // open to montagues may 23rd, hotel emelia, late evening

Even though she had only arrived no more than fifteen minutes ago, Ramona was already overwhelmed. The gold-drenched room felt overbearing and all too bright, the air felt sour and choked up along her tongue, and the crowds seemed large and limitless, as though they were going to swallow her whole and spit out her bones if she dared to drift too close. Matthias’s steady presence had soothed her, but considering his promotion and the celebration around it, he had to leave her side sooner than either of them preferred.

Now she stood alone, lingering beside one of several tables carrying a wide array of food and drinks, firmly resisting the urge to steal distant glances at her cousin or throw beckoning looks Matthias’s way. It was strange, to think that, in this moment, she would choose the battlefield over a simple party. She had grown somewhat accustomed to it, comfortable with attributing her roiling emotions to that volatile environment; however, she couldn’t even recall the last time that she had emerged from her isolation to engage in such raucous, brimming activity -- if there had even been a first time. And to think, that once upon a tarnished time, she had actually thrived on it.

Rubbing at her knotted brow, Ramona took a deep breath then reached for a drink. She took a long gulp, staring down into the empty glass for a long moment before closing her eyes and breathing a clipped sigh. “Fuck.” She muttered to herself, taking note of the companion lingering at her side only after it was too late.

[tomassabello]

Date: March 25th, 2019. Time: 10:00am. Place: Roman Baths. Availability: Open!

You’ll pay the price, they’d warned him. 

Maybe it was naivety that kept him from seeing it, or maybe it was arrogance. 

I’m neutral, he’d declared, reassuring his worried friends over the phone. I’m an actor, I’m well-known, they wouldn’t risk hurting me. It’s been done before, his rep had argued, begging him to stay low in the Gala’s aftermath. And he’d tried, for Giacomo and Celeste he’d tried - but who could’ve foreseen that trouble would find him in his own home, in the form of a woman he’d 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. 

The irony, of course, is that for all the Montagues’ 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, 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 they’d undoubtedly sicced Pandora and her thugs on him. Not when they’d 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 actor’s 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. He’s come here to escape the world; up on a hilltop near the city’s outskirts. Quietly, he prays that whoever it is isn’t a Montague. 

[cleosokolova]

date: 20 april 2019 location: the dark lady status: OPEN to ALL

She spends as much time at The Dark Lady as she can without drawing too much attention to herself, without being deemed a regular or worse--a woman with a motive that exceeds those of others who visit. Calina knows that Mona and her Sparrows are highly skilled in the arts of watching and coaxing information out of unwitting souls--but don’t they know that they’ll be hard-pressed to best the woman who’s spent more than half of her life engaged in games of cat-and-mouse? A smile graces her visage as a Sparrow brings her another drink, but the staunchness of her gaze is clear: from them, at least, all she wanted was a drink.

They take note and leave, hips tantalizingly swaying as they find someone else to shower with attention.

“Do you have a favorite?” the Sokolova woman asks, gaze drifting from the Sparrows slinking around their domain to the person closest to her. She leaves the question open-ended on purpose as a means of gauging how much her new companion is willing to share, if anything at all. Favorite Sparrow, favorite drink, favorite song, favorite room--Calina doesn’t care; each response will be categorized and tucked away in the labyrinth that is her mind for safe-keeping until the time comes to use it. 

[gertrudezhang]

WHEN: JANUARY 27TH 2019 WHERE: HOTEL EMILIA WHO: OPEN TO ALL PROMPT: MEASURE

Genevieve could see now that Hotel Emilia had become a microcosm of the town. Each connection of champagne glasses embodied the opulence of the elite, played out underneath two levels of nightly housing for those in need, the dining room not yet overturned in favourable of charitable endeavours. It had undergone a number of changes in the last months, though the chamber remained a memento of its former - sole - purpose that had since been expanded. The establishment’s appearance of pandering to the upper echelons meant people would disregard the operations that happened behind the scenes. the innocent appearance of pandering to the upper class concealing the scarred underbelly of the operations that went on behind the scenes.

The smile directed toward the concierge is sweet, the heel of her shoes tapping against the marble floor. They handed her a kitchen key and she passes through the entrance and further into the lobby. Her stride becomes burdened with a measure of caution once she leaves the main lobby, exchanging the bright, open, space for the artificially lighted, lesser-used, corridor, each of her senses on edge for any interruption to the usual cacophony of the hotel. Genevieve continued, further into the belly of the beast, following along her usual path until she began to feel the sensation of someone’s gaze lingering on her. It was better to be safe, the dark haired woman taking a purposeful wrong turn that left her standing in front of a utility closet, acutely aware of the feeling of her gun against her ribs. The Capobastone turned to face them, fingers hovering millimetres from the door handle.

All she greeted her company with was a sharp arch of a brow, challenging them to break the silence that she refused to.

[reginadalys]

WHEN: March 9th, 2019, afternoon WHERE: Cathedral of Verona WHO: Open WHAT: Task – PURIFY

Regina is called in at the last minute to join the choir on this afternoon. Mass is not until tomorrow, practice has not been called since Thursday, but a space needed to be filled and they could at least somewhat count on her to show up, provided she had nothing better to do. Fortunately for them, she hardly did, not when her assignments truly kicked off with the setting of the sun and Zola had already been fed for the morning. So now, she finds herself at the Cathedral, standing upon the balcony with sheet music in hand, staring down upon a series of baptisms occurring below while she hums the notes provided.

She watches the priest baptize the children, as if this water could truly purify their souls, like a casing of holy armor around the intangible thing. Regina believed that everyone was born a blank slate, neither filled with light nor darkness, that these things sought you out later in life. Darkness had found her, a willing and empty vessel. No holy water could chase it away, for no water had magical properties. It only served to purify the mind’s conscience, not the soul, for the mind, like these babies below, is an easily manipulated thing, poised to be shaped however one commands, so long as they believe hard enough. You can trick the mind into thinking almost anything, including that this stuff works. The only thing purified is one’s folly. It’s pathetic, if you ask her.

But people hardly do, as her opinions are few and far between. Certainly they would not ask her here, where her opinion matters little (she knows, in the grand scheme of things, no one’s opinion matters much at all, but here, it seems to matter less) because she is not the one holding these babes to the water, because she does not truly care about the being she sings these songs about. The only entity she knows is Death, and what comes after is of no concern to her. What comes after the baptisms, however, are happy families roaming the Cathedral, taking photos and smiling, touting around emotions Regina isn’t quite sure she will truly experience. She doesn’t feel she needs to, anyway, and so she walks by them all, her expression neutral as she sits in a pew on the far side of the Cathedral. A figure appears near her. She speaks to it. “How arbitrary this all is. I do not know if these people realize how mortal we may be.”

[hazelaccardi]

october 28th, 2018 coffee shop near the cathedral early morning | open !

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.

[offelipe]

date: april 26th, 2019

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.”

[benvoliosantodomingo]

when: april 5, 2019 where: outside of to tame a soup  with: open to all  prompt: decay 

since the capulet party, bellamy’s sleep becomes less a matter of hours, and more a matter of minutes stolen away from the larger context of his days. 30 minutes on his desk at work. 20 on his couch while a cooking show played like white noise in the background. 50 exactly in his own bed, before he woke up shaking. 10 at the table of the coffee shop he’d taken to going to, in an effort to avoid people he knows.

he knows what waits for him behind his own eyelids. it’s a toss up as to what hurts more--seeing it all play out again like some kind of awful movie playing in a theater he’s locked inside, or the feeling of watching himself start to slowly decay.

he takes walks, instead. long, meandering paths through the city with no particular destination in mind. the day after, he walks by the santo domingo villa--he is half tempted to go inside, to beg his mother and his father, to beg each of his brothers, for their forgiveness. i understand it now. he would say. i was wrong to think i could do any better. the night after that, he walks by roman and marcelo’s places in turn, but the thought of knocking on either door, of trying to explain to the two people who know him best of all that he isn’t sure he can be the person they know anymore, scares him into moving past. he walks by the library, the roman arena, the hotel emilia--by the time nearly a week has passed he’s certain that he’s traced every montague boundary with the soles of his sneakers, and yet he cannot convince himself that any of it will ever be worth dying for.

some nights it’s bad enough that he runs. hard, like he’s trying to outrun something--valentina’s ghost, the rising sun signifying a new day, sometimes it’s even himself, the version of himself that had been so certain.

on this particular night he runs hard enough that he’s forced to stop and throw up an alleyway--only after he’s finished does he realize that it’s the alley between to tame a soup and the building next to it. let them try and re-open it now, he thinks to himself, as cruelly as he’s capable of. it wouldn’t be the first time they took a piece of me with them without knowing it.

he wipes at his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie, heaves out a couple of painful breaths. he doesn’t really feel any better than he had before he’d expelled the contents of his stomach, which is just about par for the course. he turns to walk away, but his steps are halted by a figure--a kind soul stopping to check on him when he would rather go unnoticed. also just about par for the course. “marathon training.” he lies, with a shrug of his shoulder.

[julianaxcapulet]

date: march 25th 2019 location: the twelfth night time: late morning task prompt: rattle (i used ‘rattled’, okay? don’t @ me) status: open to all!

She’s seemingly made a habit of coming to The Twelfth Night on her mornings off. She strolls through the gallery pausing every few moments to linger in front of her favorite pieces. There’s a modern piece she quite loves, tucked away in the corner of the gallery. Untitled it’s called, it’s name bearing no clues of it’s subject. There’s something courageous about it anonymity, something fearless in the brushstrokes that rattled her in the most alluring way. It was as if the piece itself was asking her to confront her own fears and face whatever tumultuous changes were bound to come her way. 

In some ways, change unnerved Juliana-- it forced her to chart unfamiliar territory and face the unknown, but was that not the very nature of art as a whole? That is, art as something inexplicable. If she could appreciate it within art, that perhaps she could learn to appreciate it within life. 

She is so swept up in her viewing of the painting that she barely registers when another figure steps into her periphery, “Mi dispiace,” Juliana apologizes, “Didn’t mean to block the view...”

[priam-taravella]

Date: May 21st Time: Late afternoon Place: Some upscale restaurant in Verona Status: Open to all

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.”

[paoladamasco]

march 17 at 2 p.m., at a hospital in verona. OPEN TO ALL.

She can barely remember the last time she was ever in a hospital. Ten years old with a broken leg from falling out of a free, she had been more frail bird than girl. I just wanted to see if I could see what was beyond Rome, she remembered telling the nuns. She still remembers their response: There is absolutely nothing for you there, child.

Sitting on a hospital bed with a book in her hands and her mind eons away, Paola wonders if they meant it. She might have thought it was true a few months ago — when she was just an abandoned woman searching for the ashes of a love she could never have again. Scavenging among the living for a skeleton that smelled like home.

Slowly, she is learning to disentangle herself from the name Gabriele. Slowly, she is becoming Paola again. Shot in the shoulder and recovering from a bullet wound — and still, surviving. I’ve survived quite a bit, Paola thinks to herself, a small and proud smile settling onto her lips, Who’s to say I won’t survive this, too?

She’s returned her attention to the book in her hands — Il nome della rosa — when she senses a presence looming over her. Looking up, Paola looks up and offers a tentative smile. “Hello.”

[ronanivarsson]

when: march 23, 2019 where: the back loading dock of lamberti tower with: open to all prompt: tend 

contrary to what those like battista tahan might say or believe, ronan does have interests that extend beyond the sphere of his role with the montagues. he is nothing if not a constant gardener, and every sphere of influence in verona is his orchard--and while he has been busy nurturing the delicate branches of his own power within the world of the mafia, there are other trees that are nearly or currently ready to bear fruit, that he must now turn his attention to and tend carefully with his own two hands. 

or not so carefully--the bones of a city councilman require much more force to break than the limbs of a fruit tree. 

he doesn’t do the dirty work himself of course--he doesn’t have the strength and it’s much easier to claim plausible deniability if he doesn’t actually touch any of the mess--he merely watches with increasing disinterest as the man he hired does his job, from his position of leaning against a brick wall. he’s already paid off the staff of the club inside, so there is no danger of getting caught--he almost wishes that there was, so that for once he could feel like he was actually being tested--the entertainment value of screaming and crying and begging for one’s mother loses its charm after the first few minutes. 

“it is a pity you won’t be there for the vote tomorrow, alessandro.” he drawls, with a shrug of one shoulder. “but you understand, i need this motion to pass, and its much easier to do that without someone spouting off lies and wholly unfounded gossip about me.” he tucks his hands Into his pockets and steps closer to the barely conscious councilman, toeing the man’s shoulder so that he’s forced to roll over and look ronan in the eye. “of course, you know all this, darling. it’s just politics.” 

he’s about to instruct his hired help to get the whole thing over with so they can get rid of alessandro romano on a more permanent basis, when he hears footsteps approaching from behind him. a figure, walking down the alleyway. he holds up a hand and a finger to his lips, before he starts walking to meet the unwelcome intruder. “can i help you with something?” ronan smiles, pulls the collar of his coat closer in an effort to do something to obscure his own features. “you seem to be lost--the fun is inside, la mia amico.” 

[cuorepietoso]

Monday, 25 March 2019 Stazione Verona Porta Vescovo 0935 h / 9:35am Closed for @alvafae

     He’s getting pretty handy with the damned crutches, ten days later. Pulling the stitches out this morning had been a chore, but the stinging still biting at the nerve endings in his leg can’t dampen his mood. Battista can put more weight on his leg, now. The crutches are mostly to help him get up stairs, and keep his balance. He’s healing, he’s reassured himself. He’s healing well. 

     Perhaps that’s why he’s quiet enough to sneak up on Alva, when he tracks him down at the metro station mid-morning. He doesn’t mean to do it, doesn’t even think about reaching out for their shoulder when he approaches from behind, his voice hardly more than a whisper of “Fae,” in greeting.  He hasn’t seen the kid in almost a month.

[rafaellacapulet]

DATE: March 20th, 2017

TIME: 10:00 AM

LOCATION: Caffe Filippini

WITH: @gertrudezhang​

    She had taken to wearing sunglasses to hide the shadows of her eyes and donning long sleeves, pants, and boots so as to hide her wounds behind a veil of perfection. There was nothing, though, that could be done about her hollow cheeks or the tremors of her hands. Her nails were still growing back so she had elected to wear gloves that Orion had bought her, fine and gentle -- lovely for the horrors that they hid. Despite it all, though, she had found a semblance of a routine and was beginning to tediously piece her life back together. The occasional doses of ambrosia that Ivan (beautiful, devoted -- heartbreakingly so) was able to provide her. Absentmindedly, her thumb rubbed the crook of her arm, where Henry’s needle had sunk deep. Or, just deep enough. 

    Even so, there was still satisfaction that she could take in this all. Though Henry had won the battle, there was no doubt who between the two of them would declare victory in this war. Already, she was beginning to sharpen her teeth, was ready to sink her canine’s into someone’s throat -- but she would be more careful this time. She wouldn’t let her passions carry her away, no, she had learned her lesson and learned it well. Rafaella was going to take her time with these vengeance, just as she would methodically and systematically dismantle the Montagues from within. Then she would offer the ashes that would be left to Juliana and Vivianne. The first step? Making sure that Henry had ruined himself as much as he’d ruined her. At the very least, shaken her. Orion had, after all, promised her that she was not ruined, and she never doubted him. 

    “Zia Zhang,” Rafaella greeted, a smile on her lips as she peered at the woman who had cared for her as a child -- when she was running rampant with Henry, Hector, and the others. “I was so glad to hear from you -- I hope Damiano wasn’t too upset by my sudden leave. Although I know Henry was. He must miss me.”