Verona Beach, Wednesday Evening
In Tybalt's own defence, the Montague boys had really been asking for it.
It was bad enough that they'd made the mistake of driving their ugly little convertible onto Capulet turf once before, really. Tybalt, Abra and the others had done all in their power to drive them away, and it had come down to exchanging blows and wasting bullets. The Capulets and their ilk had done their damage and taken it, and blood had been spilt in the streets. But the Montagues had learned their lesson.
Or so Tybalt and the boys had figured.
This time, it had been neutral ground, owned by neither Capulet nor Montague, in an area well loved by all. More shots had been fired, tearing up sand and surf and sending peace-loving persons around Verona Beach running for whatever cover they could find in the pavilions along the shoreline. Twice, then, had the long-running feud between the Montagues and the Capulets come to a head, and twice had both families been let off relatively easily by Captain Prince, chief of the Verona Beach police, thanks to their powerful standing in society.
"Civil blood!" Fulgencio Capulet, head of the Capulet household, head of the Capulet empire, would stand to see no more bloodshed tarnishing the name of his family. Tybalt had very few people to call in order to post bail, and while he had been hoping to reach Gloria, his uncle's lovely wife, he would have to make do with the man who had arrived at the police station to grant him his freedom.
Even if Fulgencio was furious.
"We are of civil blood, Tybalt, and we must take pains to behave as such, even in the presence of such vile creatures as the Montagues!" Fulgencio was concerned only so far as these civil outbreaks affected the fall of stocks in his company, really. "I'll not continue to see thee running around and drawing thy Rapier at each instance of somebody so much as uttering the name!"
Blah, blah, blah. Tybalt was hardly paying attention, letting the words of the head of the household drone on somewhere on the outskirts of his awareness. Next time, he'd blow those Montague boys halfway to Hell itself...
"The good Prince has been kind enough to grant thee a pardon, Tybalt, on but one condition."
Yeah, yeah. Let's hear it. Helping little old ladies cross the street, or ladling out soup at the Verona Beach shelter?
"Boarding school."
"Boarding school?" Well. That managed to catch Tybalt's attention. "Better to rid himself of the symptom by simply relocating the cause?"
"He wishes to see thee rehabilitated, Tybalt, and hopes that thy time away is spent growing into a man, rather than behaving as one might expect children to. We shall see thee off this Friday, at the break of dawn, and thou wilt not charm thy way out of thy sentence, boy. We are of civil blood!"
Because, clearly, Tybalt was in need of the reminder.
Fulgencio obviously failed to understand that, in this day and age, it was civil blood which made civil hands unclean.
[Establishy and NFB for distance, naturally. OOC is love, and I will eventually beat myself into remembering that 'you' is plural when writing as Tybalt. Yes, indeed.]
It was bad enough that they'd made the mistake of driving their ugly little convertible onto Capulet turf once before, really. Tybalt, Abra and the others had done all in their power to drive them away, and it had come down to exchanging blows and wasting bullets. The Capulets and their ilk had done their damage and taken it, and blood had been spilt in the streets. But the Montagues had learned their lesson.
Or so Tybalt and the boys had figured.
This time, it had been neutral ground, owned by neither Capulet nor Montague, in an area well loved by all. More shots had been fired, tearing up sand and surf and sending peace-loving persons around Verona Beach running for whatever cover they could find in the pavilions along the shoreline. Twice, then, had the long-running feud between the Montagues and the Capulets come to a head, and twice had both families been let off relatively easily by Captain Prince, chief of the Verona Beach police, thanks to their powerful standing in society.
"Civil blood!" Fulgencio Capulet, head of the Capulet household, head of the Capulet empire, would stand to see no more bloodshed tarnishing the name of his family. Tybalt had very few people to call in order to post bail, and while he had been hoping to reach Gloria, his uncle's lovely wife, he would have to make do with the man who had arrived at the police station to grant him his freedom.
Even if Fulgencio was furious.
"We are of civil blood, Tybalt, and we must take pains to behave as such, even in the presence of such vile creatures as the Montagues!" Fulgencio was concerned only so far as these civil outbreaks affected the fall of stocks in his company, really. "I'll not continue to see thee running around and drawing thy Rapier at each instance of somebody so much as uttering the name!"
Blah, blah, blah. Tybalt was hardly paying attention, letting the words of the head of the household drone on somewhere on the outskirts of his awareness. Next time, he'd blow those Montague boys halfway to Hell itself...
"The good Prince has been kind enough to grant thee a pardon, Tybalt, on but one condition."
Yeah, yeah. Let's hear it. Helping little old ladies cross the street, or ladling out soup at the Verona Beach shelter?
"Boarding school."
"Boarding school?" Well. That managed to catch Tybalt's attention. "Better to rid himself of the symptom by simply relocating the cause?"
"He wishes to see thee rehabilitated, Tybalt, and hopes that thy time away is spent growing into a man, rather than behaving as one might expect children to. We shall see thee off this Friday, at the break of dawn, and thou wilt not charm thy way out of thy sentence, boy. We are of civil blood!"
Because, clearly, Tybalt was in need of the reminder.
Fulgencio obviously failed to understand that, in this day and age, it was civil blood which made civil hands unclean.
[Establishy and NFB for distance, naturally. OOC is love, and I will eventually beat myself into remembering that 'you' is plural when writing as Tybalt. Yes, indeed.]