a.n.: This is a two chapter work that comes hand in hand with the original story "Heroes and Thieves". It's from a different perspective, bringing some light over the past that linked Federico and Shiva. It still doesn't clarify much, but the images have been playing in my head for quite some time. To explain myself, before going on, Shiva and Federico were the ones 'meant to be'… the ones that didn't need words or acknowledge to happen.
This is why it is hard for me to decide if 'Heroes and Thieves' is indeed a romantic story. What I can assure you is that is in the least a story of acceptance.
Regardless, here is the firs and terrible short prologue….
The rancid smell of putrid wood, the hot feeling in his throat, the deafening noise in his ears….
It was the painting of the end. Too soon, too sudden, too.. unfair… there wasn't much he was leaving behind. Most of what he was holding dear was being ripped apart right near him.
The end should have never come this soon. He should have fought for his life instead of waiting for others to do things right. Things weren't getting right. The world wasn't a fair place and he knew it for a long time now. He simply had hope. Now that he looked back, it even wasn't him the one believing in 'hope'.
Somewhere, as if it was happening miles away from him, he heard his father's cry for justice. He knew it now: it had always been the hope that his father had taught him to keep. He never hoped. He never had faith in something. And now, just because he had chosen not to follow his believes, he had reached the end. His end. Maybe it was better this way. Right there, with his hands barbarically tied behind him and with the rope around his neck Federico realized something: if he was to live on he wasn't to be the man his father had wished him to. His father had been his mentor but life… life had sculpted him unpardonably: he didn't believe in morality, in justice. Those were weapons of the weak or of those with enough power not to fear the threats of people under the sign of greed and malignity. If life was to give him a second chance he might as well have turned out to be a disappointment to his father: a rightful but faithless man.
It had rained a night before. The scent of wet dirt mixed with old blood spilled under other executions was getting past his lips that carried on taking the air to his lungs when his sense of smell refused to do so. Who was he trying to lie to? He was frightened. He wasn't ready; he wasn't ready to leave his life behind. It was unfair. As if it was the hardest thing he barely managed to glance at his father and his terrified young brother. In anguish he watched the tears flowing down the boy's confused face. Little Petruccio was too young to realize the fatality of death, but that wasn't making it easier if not, the turmoil was damaging his fratellino. Back in their cell Giovanni had told the boy not to worry because everything was going to be alright; because everything was going to end soon. Federico lowered his head back. Yes, everything was going to end now; but noting was going to be alright. His father had asked him not to tell his brother the other way around and he had obeyed. But Petruccio deserved to know the truth: that everything was wrong; that they didn't deserve any of this; that they were supposed to have a life ahead of them. Oh, dear god, Petruccio was so young…. The things that were taken from him…
The things that he was leaving behind… things he wouldn't be able to finis, promises he couldn't keep, a kind of life he wouldn't come to know. Yes, at the end of his rope he had a handful of regrets. He regretted that he hadn't been telling his mother day after day how much he admired and respected her; he regretted that he had limited himself to his father's expectations and had spent life enjoying it too much, he regretted that he couldn't say a proper goodbye to his little brother, tell him 'sorry' for leaving him alone with such a grievous burden on his shoulders, for never teaching him not to be afraid of the world he was about to discover and scar his life. The sun blinded him for a moment, reflected in the amour of the guard engraved with their deaths on his hands. There was something else; another kind of rue …and someone else's life was at the other end of it. At long last he couldn't keep his word. He raised his head and narrowed his eyes to look over the roofs in the distance that he would still perceive. He managed to kill the heaviness of freedom the endless sky was pushing onto him, with the guilt of knowing that somewhere, outside the walls of this piteous Firenze, there was someone he was about to let down. There were so many things he was regretting about it. But what he hated the most was that he had worked so hard to seed hope that he was now going to grotesquely murder without even giving the chance of freeing their fates and spare the heart of the malformations his disappearance was to cause. But now there was no changing that.
He flung his left arm until the skin of his wrists burned under the tight rope. He breathed heavily before straightening his back. The inside pocket of the doublet was empty. It wasn't there. His eyelids closed heavily and he could picture the green glimmering jewel in front of the mirror. He had left it in his room. Pity. It wasn't about being romantic… it was about feeling some sort of comfort; about having something to hold onto until the last breath.
Were his eyes closed? He couldn't figure… but there was an unbroken darkness surrounding him. The noises, the voices grew stronger and in the flurry of pitches the laughs isolated until they became the single noise to reach his ears. Fires were getting closer and closer until he vividly felt them exploding over his head… fireworks… fireworks conquered the sky and colorful drops danced down into his darkness. A rhythmic song started to echo faintly into his ears. An explosion of fire suddenly brought to life everything around him. The jester bowed for his applause and the streets rejoiced under the spell of the Mardi Gras. The Florentine Tarantella danced him back into the veils of memories.
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