As a project for my English class a few weeks ago, I was supposed to rewrite one (1) scene from "Romeo and Juliet" as prose with modern narration but our own version of Shakespearean English dialogue. And I thought, "Hey, why not turn in Rogue One Fanfiction as well? Double whammy." It made me giggle and weep like an insane person as I wrote it at 3 AM.
Some modifications were made to the story so that it would fit a bit better. THERE IS NOT AN EXACT PARALLEL, the story is only inspired by the scene of the play, aka Act 3, Scene 1. One might want to follow along with the play as well, which can be found nearly anywhere on the Internet.
Cast:
Jyn Erso as Romeo (no, I'm not kidding)
Cassian Andor as Juliet (just go with it)
K-2S0 as Tybalt (who other than the Prince of Salt™?)
Bodhi Rook as Mercutio
Baze Malbus as Benvolio
Chirrut Imwe as Balthazar
Director Krennic as County Paris (*cringe*)
Mon Mothma and the Alliance as the Capulet House
Saw Gerrera and his militia as the Montague House
(Saw and Mon combined represent the Prince of Verona, I guess)
Jedha City as the city of Verona
Bodhi's Blaster as itself
Guest Starring Gareth Edwards as Satan
Mark Hamill as the saline taste of the reader's tears and Bystander #5
Featuring musical guest star, Shaquille O'Neal (not really, thankfully)
This is getting Ridiculous
Get out while you can….
Baze narrowed his sights on a point just over Bodhi's shoulder. "By my head, here come the cursed rebel Capulets," the assassin growled.
The pilot did not move. "By my heel, I care not," Bodhi replied somberly, doing his best to ignore the mechanical gaze burning through his back. He kicked his foot up onto the table casually.
"Gentlemen, good evening. A word with one of you," spoke the repurposed Imperial droid that followed Cassian at the heels.
Bodhi sighed and rolled his head over his shoulder, trying to hide the anxiety in his eyes. "And but one word with one of us?" he joked. "Couple it with something. Make it a word and a blow."
K-2S0 stepped forward. "You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me occasion."
"Could you not take some occasion without giving?" Baze chimed dangerously, stepping in for the pilot's struggling coolness.
"Bodhi Rook, thou consortest with Jyn Erso," pecked the droid, ignoring the assassin's interjection. The rebels standing behind him shifted, eager to send Gerrera's pilot to the ground.
Bodhi glared, whipping around. "Consort? W-what, dost thou make us minstrels? You know nothing of loyalty; your owner loves his fair, strong Jyn, and you… you object to his love out of malice for her father! Art thou jealous, droid, that which you cannot feel be thieved from your circuits?"
Baze and Chirrut stood up slowly as the group of Capulet rebels edged forward. Bodhi, now regretting his confrontation, stepped back , staring up at the droid who menaced over him.
"You push my slight patience close, Rook," warned K-2S0. "Withdraw your temper, away your inclination, or draw your blaster and face me here; either matter not to me, twould even give me glee if dead I struck you, for the best of my owner. Then the same I'll repay on Jyn Erso. For the best of my owner."
"I- I will not budge for any person's pleasure, m-machine or man or other… otherwise," Bodhi stammered.
The droid's white eyes jumped up to Baze and Chirrut, searching them over with no expression, but much intention.
"Bodhi!" called a voice from the near right.
The pilot could have sworn the droid smiled. "Well, peace be with you, sir. Here comes my woman."
Jyn was sprinting across the courtyard, an out of place spring in her step, before her pace slowed and she looked upon the scene with confusion.
"The droid? Has Cassian sent you here?" she spoke warily with a tilt of her head. "I understood Mon Mothma hath withdrawn her legions from Jedha…"
K-2S0 shoved Bodhi easily aside. "Jyn, the love I bear thee can afford- no better term than this, thou art a villain! Thou art a villain who takes wrath upon thy prey, upon my good master, making him an Imperial puppet. This fleeting truce shall not excuse the injuries you have done him. Step and draw!"
Jyn frowned for a moment in surprise and then attempted a smile. "I do protest, I never injured Cassian! I love him better than thou canst devise, and so by default, thee, as he be your friend. Settle, good Capulet droid, which name I tender as dearly as my own, and be satisfied."
"I refuse thy pleas and I detest thy lies!"
"I plead, but I do not fabricate."
"Your father's blood of treason runs in thee, witch, and my master is but means to an end. I will not let thee near him, nor near Mon Mothma, nor near our cause, for you do not truly love thy greatest enemy in planning their downfall. O, uncareful spy, I saw your betrothal to County Krennic, you wickedly align with the Empire!"
"I love the County not, therefore hold me not to blasterpoint. Wicked deeds have aligned themselves around me, but I take no part. Please, be settled. Fight thee, I will no-"
K-2S0 hit her hard in the stomach with a cold steel arm, and Jyn crumpled with a shocked gasp. Baze and Chirrut both lunged forward, but immediately tangled with the two rebels that flanked the droid and could do little to help.
"Draw, Erso, or I will kill thee a coward," K-2S0 demanded, drawing his blaster.
"Fight thee, I will not," Jyn wheezed, shaking her head. "For my love of Cassian. For my hate of the Empire. Be gone."
"Then for his love you will die by execution."
'O, dishonorable, vile submission,' Bodhi gawked inwardly. "Jyn, make your bold withal! Draw! Be not this untrue coward and defend thyself!"
Jyn only tolerated another iron kick to the stomach. And a second.
Before he realized what he was doing, Bodhi threw himself forward onto the back of the droid, yanking at the first wire his hands could find. The droid's left arm dropped, useless, but his other swung around, trying to dislodge this attacker before he could do more damage, yelling out assorted threats.
Bodhi grabbed a blaster from his belt and dropped from the droid's back, leaving the two stranded at the end of each other's weapons in a standoff.
Jyn dragged herself up instantly. Baze and Chirrut had finally struggled free of the other rebels without doing them much harm, surprisingly, sending them retreating to their ship. K2-SO and Bodhi remained alert and ready to strike.
"Draw, Baze, Chirrut!" Jyn hissed angrily. "Beat down their weapons. Gentlemen, for shame! Forbear this outrage! Mon Mothma and Saw Gerrera hath expressly forbid this violent bandying on any planet which we know. Hold, K-2S0! Good Bodhi!"
Bodhi lowered his blaster. "Be gone, K-2S0, Prince of Droids."
Jyn dragged the droid back gently. "Let fade thy hate, K-2S0."
She moved over to Bodhi, patting his shoulder. "Good man. The Force sees your courage and thanks for it."
K-2S0 fired off a shot and Bodhi twisted Jyn out of the way, then dropped to one knee with a cry. The droid turned on his heel and began to stride casually back towards his ship.
The pilot stood, stumbling away from Jyn's attempt to help him, gasping in pain. He clutched at the blaster wound and winced.
"Thou art hurt?" Baze asked, already knowing the answer but too shocked to believe it.
Bodhi let out a bitter chuckle. "Ay, a scratch, a scratch…" he heaved out in pained breaths. His humor disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced with mirthless growl. "Blast… I am sped…" he whispered. He looked up at some unknown point ahead. "A plague o' both your Alliances! Look upon thy pilot's fatality, Gerrera, care thee not?"
"Fetch a medic, Baze!" Jyn ordered.
Bodhi dropped to his knees, and she caught him as he fell forward, turning him onto his back.
"Courage, Bodhi!" she said desperately. "We can get you healed; the hurt cannot be much. Courage."
"Nay… you underestimate the aim of a droid. The frays of Gerrera and Mothma, zounds to them both, have cost another life. They hath made rancor's meat of me. A plague o' both your Alliances!"
"Us both? I didn't wish this, the Force hath mistaken your life for another. It shall be corrected, Bodhi. You will survive, I swear!"
He shook his head tiredly and sighed. "Ask for me tomorrow-" he coughed, smirking just a little, "-and you shall find me a grave man."
She looked at him, feeling the stinging of tears behind her eyes, feeling a sob stick in her throat. "I thought all for the best," Jyn whispered. "I didn't wish this."
He was deathly pale, his movements were small and weak. She took his cold hand and listened to his shattered, shallow breathing.
"Death calleth me, Jyn."
"No- you hath valor!"
One hand, slick with blood, grabbed her arm. "A plague o' both your Alliances!" he hissed mournfully. But his hand moved away and weakly squeezed hers in an attempt to comfort her.
She shouldn't have looked. She shouldn't have watched the light leave his eyes, hearing those words echo in her head. But as Jyn shook her head and cried out and begged him to hold on, her thoughts were reduced to nothing, tears and sobs racking her chest.
"No," she whispered. "No…" Her tone grew with her pleas. "Nay, Bodhi, you cannot depart from me!"
For a moment, she guarded over her friend's body, until she could no longer tolerate how still he was in her arms.
Jyn threw herself away from his body, too overwhelmed to speak. She stumbled to her feet, running her fingers through her tangled brunette hair; her breaths came in deep, borderline hysterical gasps.
Chirrut's hand on her shoulder elicited a sharp cry of surprise from her as she whipped around. She looked at Chirrut, then at Bodhi, then to K-2S0, nonchalantly departing from the scene to his ship. The wind cooled her tearstained cheeks and suddenly the droid seemed quite different to her.
"Is it so? K-2S0, alive in triumph," she whispered hoarsely, "and Bodhi, slain…?"
Something within her cracked and gave way, something shattered in her. Something terrible took its place.
Jyn glowered through the film of saline tears. "This day's black fate on future days doth depend. This but begins the woe others must end. Away my respect and compassion, and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now."
She snached Bodhi's blaster from the sand and broke into a sprint after the droid.
"Jyn! Don't quarrel!" Chirrut warned, running after her.
When she was within range, her rage thundered through the ground in challenge. "Capulet droid!" she yelled after K-2S0.
The droid turned, amused.
"Take the 'villain' back again!" she snarled. "Bodhi is dead at your hateful hand. That late thou hast given me, for Bodhi's soul but in the Force waits, staying for thine to keep him company!"
"And so? Speak to me, what willst thou do?" K-2S0 asked.
She pointed the blaster. "Either thou or I, or both, must go with him!" Jyn screamed through her tears, so livid that her volume nearly shredded her vocal cords, her words cracked by sobs. "Either thou or I, or both, must die with him!"
K-2S0 took his time drawing his own weapon with the arm that still worked, staring her down with a glowing white gaze.
"The sooner you join him, Erso."
Jyn fired without waiting, catching him by surprise, realizing quickly that she didn't give a damn about fair play. She pulled the trigger again and again, hits and misses ringing in the heavy air, and when her weapon was out of charge, it slid from her stiff grasp and she charged into the android with an infuriated cry.
When she had pulled everything that she could apart, when the droid lay mangled at her feet, Jyn marvelled.
It had been so easy. Saw's training had seen to that.
But it couldn't bring Bodhi back. Nothing could. And now that she had destroyed Cassian's right-hand droid, she realized just exactly what she had done. Once Mon Mothma caught wind of what had happened here, she would inform Saw Gerrera, and together they would deliver the punishment.
The punishment for brawling between the rebel militias was death, pure and simple. Yet she was the only one alive.
But she knew Saw, she knew how he worked. She knew he would be merciful, otherwise his hypocrisy might compromise him.
"Hath mercy on her!" Chirrut pleaded. "T'was Mon's droid who began it!"
"The droid struck, and Jyn would not fight back. In return, Bodhi attempted to defend her and now lays slain," Baze tried to explain calmly. "She sought to avenge your soldier."
These attempts to defend Jyn might as well have been sung to the deaf as Saw barrelled past the two in fury out to a grimy terrace that overlooked his roughhousing militia as they placed bets on a brawl and stomped about the hidden Jedha base.
"ERSO!" Saw boomed.
The room fell silent as the void of space as the extremist rebels turned to look at their leader in alarm. A few heads turned to Jyn, but she hardly noticed as her shocked and pleading gaze fell upon Saw Gerrera from below. She dared not respond or move to give away her position in the crowd.
"Wherever damnable Jyn is, may she hear this decree," Saw thundered. "Jyn Erso is banished from my militia, banished from Jedha, and banished from wherever else we or the Rebel Capulets may occupy, under threat of death! Hear me- banished, forever! Effective now!"
More eyes turned away from Saw and bore into her from all directions. Her own gaze she did not move from her mentor's for a long while until she registered the questioning looks of her former companions.
She felt very suddenly alone in the crowded room. And she was.
Jyn took a step forward, causing a part to shift in the crowd. She blinked away tears, so tired of crying in these past few hours, as she looked at her fellow soldiers, then back up at the one who had betrayed her.
Thankfully, the room was silent enough that her small, breaking voice could be heard. "Will you not spare me a life as a pariah, traded for a few months in a cell or a week of flogging?" The words seemed hopeless even to her own ears. Even she understood the lost cause behind them.
Saw glared, but it quickly turned to something not unlike pain. "If I were to lay a hand upon you, never a peaceful rest would I see again. Accept this mercy or I will be forced to take it back."
"This is what you call mercy?" she whispered, almost gasped, dejectedly. "Casting away your own kin- me, who may as well be your daughter?"
"I cast you out for your defiance. Go now, and do not return!"
Jyn shook her head, backing away a few steps before turning tail and making a beeline for the exit.
Was it kind of stupid? Yes.
Will I do more? I don't know. Maybe.
Persuade me.