#which twists the tragedy of his death into something that was inevitable and lessens the weight of that loss

[martyrbat]

monstrilio – gerardo sámano córdova

[TEXT: Our son died before the dogwood pushed out its first flower, a bloom so simple with four white petals and a burst of yellow-green in the center—a beginner’s flower. I believed that flower was my son reincarnated. One believes the stupidest things in grief. I spoke to the flower and called it my son. And then I laughed because how ridiculous—how cruel, really—it would have been if my son was reincarnated as something so ephemeral, frail, and beautiful. I killed that first bloom with one swoop of my hand. Dead again, my son could become something else: the shell of a tortoise, strong and ancient, or a hideous fanged creature deep in the sea where he’d see wonders even he could’ve never imagined.]

[diveronarpg]

In fair Verona, our tale begins with HARRIET D’ANGELO, who is THIRTY-FIVE years old. She is often called HERMIONE and is NEUTRAL. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.

TW: DEATH

When a PRINCESS is born, we all know how the story goes. She grows up in a castle that reaches up to the peaks of Heaven, with all that she desires at the tip of a bejeweled finger and the entirety of the world posed outside a gold-plated window; conquered and left for the taking. The princess embraces it all as she leads a happy, star-streaked childhood – but then she flourishes into cynical adulthood, and happiness becomes nothing more than a myth. Her castle in the skies turns into a prison buried within the depths of the earth, and the world outside her window becomes nothing more than an unattainable dream. And then the rest of her journey fades into a haze of rebellion and rage – because it can’t possibly end any other way, could it? Stories like these are abound in cities like Verona. You can almost see their scripts written over blood-soaked cobblestones and drawn across dusty, boarded up windows. And so, it’s only natural for one to FORESEE this story and claim to know how it unfolds without even sparing its text a glance. But there could be no greater mistake when it comes to the story of Harriet D’Angelo for it is not one that speaks of princesses and dragons and noble heroes. It simply speaks of a girl who loved and lost and LIVED to tell her own tale.

Harriet wasn’t born a princess, and she didn’t grow up in a castle – but she certainly came close. The D’Angelo family was not in the ruling class towards which the likes of the Du Ponts and the Vernons belonged, but it was esteemed in its own right. And so, Harriet received the BLISSFUL upbringing that could be expected for any child born onto the glamorous, gleaming pedestal of aristocracy. She received the greatest education, dressed in the finest silks, and hovered within the brightest social circles. However, while some would fill themselves up with such blessings until they reached the pinnacle of gluttony, Harriet merely took what was enough and looked no further. She possessed an uncanny sense of HUMILITY, despite being born to a mother who hungered for influence and a father who thrived on the opinions of others. Her eyes never sharpened with disdain as she looked up at her superiors, and her nose never wrinkled with disgust as she looked down at her lessers, either. Her sights were limited to what was before her; her heart tethered to the bright, sunlit slice of the world she found with her family – because for all their faults and flaws, they loved each other, and to Harriet, that was more than enough.

Even when that love was tested beyond its bearings, it was still ENOUGH for her, although it took her a tremendous amount of time and patience to reconcile with that belief. After all, no amount of faith could prepare anyone for the prospect of being shackled by the very people through which they sought freedom and safety – and that was exactly what happened on the dreary day when her parents made her an unprecedented, unwanted, offer of betrothal. It was from an established young man who, in her mother’s words, had hymns sung to his name around every corner of the city – but not even that description was quite as appalling as the story he spun. A chance encounter had apparently set him on Harriet’s unwitting path, and indeed, just like that, he wished for her be his. It was at that point that Harriet decidedly shut her ears to the rest of her mother’s honeyed words, eyes brimming with enraged tears and lips clamping shut against the protests that struggled to break free. But then her mother began to speak of how impactful such a marriage would be for their family name, holding Harriet’s hand in a feather-light grip as her lips curved with a smile that sparked stars into her eyes and dug the tenuous doubt into Harriet’s mind that perhaps this was indeed a venture worthy of her SACRIFICE. Her mother would have moved on to ensure her that she was under no obligation to do this – but before her tongue could even roll around the words, Harriet said yes. Even then, she would have still said yes. Even if asked to jump off a precipice and give her life away for her family’s sake, she would have still said yes. LOYALTY was as rigid and firm in her blood as a pillar of steel, and if anything stood true to Harriet, it was that.

Her marriage only lasted a handful of months, and when it finally sputtered away, it left behind a waning, war-torn GHOST of who Harriet had once been. The man she had gifted herself to turned out to be nothing more than a cruel, conniving monster who took away her life and then dared to take away the one thing that would have brought it back; feeding her lies of redemption and change upon the adoption of their child, only to walk away and leave her in the dust mere months later. Her son was the breath of life her heart had starved for, and it was in the wake of his blessed arrival into her life that Harriet found the will and the strength to gather her ashes and RISE from them. Years passed in blessed peace that she and her son joyously shared – right before it was ripped from them; right before he was ripped from her. The twist of fate couldn’t have been more random, or more cruel. Another vicious link had erupted in the chain of war harnessed by undeserving Capulet and Montague hands, and her son fell victim to it. A casualty was the exact wording in the tabloids, but there was no describing the loss or the AGONY that it brought forth. Once again, she crumbled; only this time, Harriet had to learn how to pick herself up. This time, she let herself soak up in the ashes in the hopes they would leave the scar on her heart even a little bit faded by the time she was back on her feet. This time, she taught herself how to stand alone, and how to seize that loneliness and turn it into strength. Now, she has risen, and rather than wait and pray, she has stolen a slice of peace and made it hers. And even with her heart torn in two, even with her happiness incomplete and unfulfilled, she was determined to protect what little of it she’s managed to earn. In Verona, the cost of PEACE is bloody and heavy, but make no mistake; she is willing to PAY it.

ODIN BELLO & MATTHIAS WARREN: Demons. Othello and Malcolm. Two accursed names that have haunted and tormented her from the moment they poked out of the retelling of her son’s death like twin blades. Out of the drawling, monotone slew of the police officer’s words and straight into the core of her gnashing heart. Harriet doesn’t wish to find them, but she knows that her path will inevitably collide with theirs. After all, no two strings of fate ever went untangled when pulled by the hands of tragedy – especially in a city like Verona. But just as her story is not one that centers around a princess-turned-queen, it is not one that is driven by a force of vengeance, either. She doesn’t seek to harm them or punish them—but that doesn’t mean she isn’t seeking to condemn them with every untarnished inch of her heart.

DELILAH BELLO: Reflection. She’s heard the scathing whispers tacked onto Delilah Bello’s name, and the dreary tale that follows in its wake. It’s one that undeniably parallels her own, with the only difference being that Harriet was leashed by the chain of devotion while Delilah was caught in the snare of love. But in the end, is there truly that much of a difference between the two? Harriet isn’t too keen on figuring that out, but she is intrigued by Delilah’s story and the struggle she must find in her ceaseless attempts to regain control of its narrative. Perhaps it will help Harriet regain control of hers. Perhaps it will help her learn that such is a goal that she should have aspired for many years and losses ago.

SANTINO GALLO: Lost soul. The vision of the man struck her heart the moment she laid eyes on him, although at the beginning, it was merely due to the pitiful state in which she found him. Huddled up in a dark alleyway, one hand pressed against his stomach and the other gnarling against the grimy pavement as he retched. Her immediate impression was that he was a drunken fool who wasn’t worth the waste of her time, but despite the thought, something kept Harriet’s feet rooted to the ground. Perhaps it was mistaken judgement or perhaps it was something far more intrinsic than that, but she decided to help him. Took him home, laid him on his couch, brushed his sweat-slicked hair from his forehead with a gentle hand, then bid him farewell with a glass of water and one last wondering glance. Somehow, Santino was able to track her down later on and demanded that she let him repay her for what she did—and strangely enough, she let him. Something about Santino tinges her tongue with the bitter taste of loss; sears her mind with the weighted question of whether or not her son would have wound up on a similar path of condemnation had his life not been cruelly ripped away. She seeks only an answer from Santino, but she might be in for a lot more than she bargained for.

MONA CHEN: Kindred spirit. Mona Chen is the last person she would have expected to befriend in the years following her son’s death. Before then, yes, Harriet would have been compelled to unravel the mysteries enshrouding the renowned Lady of Whispers—but now, the fire of her curiosity has been doused by the icy blades of mourning, and thus she should have avoided Mona at all costs. After all, her son’s precious life was ripped away at the hands of ruling figures such as Mona. But as much as it sometimes feels like a betrayal to that crucial missing piece of her heart, the sentiment only lessens with each day that she spends in Mona’s company. She’s a woman who keeps her cards close to her chest, but in turn, Harriet has no cards of her own—and perhaps that is why Mona’s let her in as much as she has. There is a lot that eludes her about the infamous woman, no matter how close they’ve grown over the years, but that speck of distance, while it may be significant to others, is of no consequence to Harriet. She shares a kinship with Mona that she hasn’t found with anyone else, and that’s all that matters to her.

Harriet is portrayed by JENNA TALACKOVA and was written by JEN. She is currently TAKEN by EMMA K.