Mood music: Agapimu Fidela Protini by Ghetonìa / Kalinifta by Encardia featuring Alkinoos Ioannidis / Proverbi Siciliani by Rosa Balistreri
ancient.
He often taps his fingers on the wood, earth-sallied nails devoted to an inescapable guitar tune that rhymes like a lulling chanting she had heard before, centuries ago, when she was a baby held within the warm arms of a woman who smiled as if she had survived a thousand wars and stood strong enough to fight another thousand —she glowed in gold; the rings around her fingers, the bee-earrings on her ears, the imperial helmet atop the dewy grass.
Venice.
For centuries, she waited —today, Valentina arrived in a gown of beautiful beads and an orange mask full of pearls and feathers, her excited figure plumming out of the carriage with Miss Hungary's assistance and Austria's (what an ass) sombre approval.
deference.
Japan bows before her cot and her voice falters when she catches the tremble in his tired limbs —she never understood why someone as clear-minded as him would be involved in this; money, she guesses, Have I abandoned my people, Miss Leonora? I think I have —so, please, accept my sincerest apologies for I have no other strength in me.
marauders.
Iron swords and heavy capes as crimson as spilt blood —there are whispering fragments of discomfort that shifts to great, unfathomable fear and cowering before a muscular and laurel-crowned authority; that huge man grasps her, protects her from haunting terrors and her skin still stings sometimes when she remembers how his tears drenched her as he wept before the crumbles of marble and gold and murals.
blood.
They had been little kids, staring at each other as if possessed by the auburn sheen of their thick ringlets, by the straightness and the slope of their noses, by their muscular and bearded grandfather's proud shadow.
heirloom.
Antonio helped her in the fields today, hefting the baskets on his back and twirling the green-brown seeds between his expert fingers; Your eyes are like olives, he tells her and she nods, for she had a mirror reminiscent of her childhood, of her weakness compared to the might of one teasing warrior-man, his dark flesh carrying the Eastern hotness and his mask obscuring the olive-green eyes that a wise warrior-woman in her golden attire had, that her warrior-son had inherited —how they flickered with life and inexhaustible fury, a green brighter than any olive, and his voice still rings in her ears as she remembers him whispering in a different language of how he would rebel until his final hail, o hail, Liberty.
opulence.
They have dinner in his house deep in the orchards and the fields and the leaves and of all the estates he has ever owned during these centuries, his country two-storey home is their favourite; it is large enough to be used as a safe closet for all his past treasures, from his well-loved stringed instruments to his gold-and-navy carpets to the rubies and the emeralds and the flower-potpourri his princesses wore once upon a time.
sword.
She thinks herself whole again, her lands merged together in one common soil, and she begins to understand the duality of her existence; one wary and deflecting the malocchio's dangers with a red-horn in her hands, the other aggressive as if a volcano quakes with lava inside her —she remembers feeling as if a metal made of dragon-fire had sliced through her bones, leaving no physical scar no matter the hours her fingers had spent in tracing her skin.
Salento.
Her hands weave through dark hair, as dark as the browned soil during the high of the harvesting season —she remembers bright dresses caked in mud and golden curls sticky with sweat and cobwebs; she remembers women and girls, all smiling and singing and dancing to a cheerful tune, their baskets balanced on their heads like rustic crowns; she remembers the tempo growing in intensity, the dancers' feet scorching red and their smiles foaming, teeth clashing together and eyes looking upwards in a half-alive half-dead haze.
speakeasies.
The Jazz Age had met her travelling away from her country, following the dwellers of Little Italy, Manhattan that danced upon sticky floors and tasted prohibited chemicals —America had been kind enough to get her the flapper-look essentials and a martini with a maraschino cherry.
primitive.
There was something otherworldly in the way they moved; it was mellow and soft, sweaty bodies gliding over each other and then the hairs on her arm burnt with fever and his teeth seared her flesh and her nails latched onto his broad back, feeling his scars through his shirt, and his knuckles grazed the bites on her neck and she pulled him in a bruising, open-mouthed and crimson-smeared kiss —like the savages of History, feasting on mouthfuls of skin, on centuries of life.
suave.
She was a good girl, a good student who deserved all the praises her kind Spaniard teachers dolled her yet whenever he and his merry, teenager-boyish grin would arrive, she would seal her mouth in an unbroken line; Antonio, who she spitefully addressed as Spain at the time, finally realised it was not childish shyness that clenched her fists but fear —that wars and battles and abandonments had rendered her tongue and her teeth too coarse for the smooth carefreeness the Spanish language needed.
heresy.
As the careful, mature eldest girl she had been, she had taken Valentina's hand in hers and together, they had knelt before the pompous robes of the fleshy-cheeked priest and had soaked up the drops of holiness that blessed them for a Christian life of piety and temperance —her sister's big eyes had widened, scandalised, for they had witnessed her spitting on the despotic, gilded cross, right on the rose-cut jewel on the very centre.
carte-postale.
She is a good photographer; sometimes she sends frames of majestic marble theatres and half-broken temples in lugubrious black-and-white to "brother" Greece, Leave them by her fayum, I'll visit during the olive-picking.
captivity.
She dashed through the gardens towards liberation only for the Great Empire himself to catch her and then the decades passed like seasons and Spain grew less disapproving of her escapes and she more intrigued, You're running slower lately —the linger of their hands in a warm embrace; how their eyes would be locked together in a heated conversation of glares, not quite out of spite nor out of lust.
roots.
She lies her ear on the soil, her palm skimming languidly over the rocks and the grass, edging closer to feel the earth's heart beating like a church-bell amidst the wilderness of mud and trees, ants and bracelets of green leaves circling her wrists and her fingertips —her land may want her back, back to the ground.
Palermo.
She walks like she is in a movie —curls dark and coiffed, lips red, dressed in black lace and clicking her heels on the pavement— and, as she passes by the Fontana Pretoria, she crosses her heart in the name of Sant'Agata, wishing for good luck; the Cosa Nostra here stand out with their bloodless, lifeless solidity and prays this meeting will end in her favour.
obsession.
Whenever he would return from his colonies, he would wear the costume made of his conquests; the blood of rubies, the gold from the caves, the feathers from the fallen men —he strutted in pride yet, from behind the shadows and the curtains where she hid, she could see the madness in his sleepless eyes, she would see the thin necklace of precious jewels upon his wealthy chest and she would fear; from whose throat did he cut it?
Mediterranean.
He would be walking with his fists behind his crouching back and she would be trailing after him with a basket full of fruits in her arms and her eyes lowered to the cracks on the pavement, disregarding the slight limp in his right leg —she swears, the wind and the sun and the sea had always been kinder on those days.
witch.
Dressed in red and with white flowers through her head, she had prayed, she prays and she shall pray for all the faithfuls roaming in her lands and her seas, be they living or be they wandering phantoms, moaning and searching for the ashes of their souls near the Churches and the town squares.
royalty.
With the brightest smile and the sweetest eyes, he stills tells her he had never felt greater joy than when he had heard her laughing happily during her coronation as the May Queen —she smiles, remembering how he had crowned her in a garland of white roses and pink carnations and had carried her on his shoulders around the maypole, hazelnuts escaping from the tiny clutch of her hands.
Esmeralda.
As a cunning child, she had this habit of sheltering within Spain's palace gipsies, who were running away from the Inquisition in the dark of the night, just to see Spain tensing up at the sight of them in his kitchens; she had been surprised for he had accepted them with an honest smile and an Arabic song that lulled the children to a beautiful sleep and instead of being angered, she had thanked him from her heart.
disguise.
Sometimes she wonders whether Spain had been deceived by the aloof, quiet child she had shown to be when she was first put before him —she laughs beneath her palm, remembering his speechless surprised when she had used words no little, proper lady-girls should use, and she figures he might have realised then that his underling knows how to hide the sinister wit Mother Greece had given her.
curse.
She is covered in blood from head to toe —her blood; the blood of her people— and she laughs in unadulterated glee, her hands dirty and quivering and rising in the air in two mighty fists, her middle-fingers proudly emblazoned before her Duce, The last time my people will hold you will be when they're mauling your corpse!
dress-code.
He wears his leader's colours of dull, lifeless green that carries shiny medals and he smiles at all of the party-comers, his chin clean of a beard, yet when he locks eyes with her smirking kohl-winged gaze —the length of her perfumed neck, the expanse of her cleavage, the capricious Cinecittá-starlet's strut of her deep-verdant gown— his mouth falls, drawing a sharp breath; Your uniform is much more pleasant than mine, Nora.
company.
The air is thick with the flags of revolutions, the gunshots of wars, and something pumping in her blood tells her Italy's turn is around the corner —he does not know of her instincts and to her miserable luck, he is too drowned in his melancholy to notice her nervous breaths; she never smiles (though she wants to), she never cries (though she needs to) and one of the few things she can do for him before waving her hand in goodbye is to speak more, sing more, dance more —anything to captivate this bastard's attention away from the gradual demise of his palace.
therapeutic.
She embalms her hands in ointments, ready, with a disturbing rumble coiling in her ribcage, to massage the pained muscles of his back, to heal with her fingertips and the pharmacist's bandages the rippling, long lines of swollen and abused flesh, only for Spain's growl of dark laughter to scare her away from her thoughts and drive her worried eyes to his perspiring, fever-lit expression, How many times have you watched me crumble, Leonora? Ah, nevermind —you should call me by my name as I call you by yours; there are butterflies in her stomach.
gentility.
When you see a person hide their tears, it is noble you pretend you didn't see them, for an Empire, he had a good and gentle heart and he never hesitated to offer his shoulder for her to cry on, and when a person comes to you in tears, it is noble that you comfort them —he knocks his head upon the gates of his lonely palace and she strokes his wails with her lips roughly as if she is bound to a promise, I'll come back.
mixology.
She is drunk on something turquoise and is sandwiched between America and Japan, both of them drunk to their marrows, and this disastrous trio is wreaking havoc in the karaoke bar where Kiku had invited them to, singing Wannabe like crazed fools and giggling every time the flamingo-pink dot gallops over the lyrics on the sunset-coloured screen.
apocalypse.
The world could be beginning or it could be its ending and she would still believe that being with her loved ones and tending to her orchards and her farms, the soils wet from the autumn rain and healthy from her care, she can be at peace.
A/N: Hello readers! I hope you're all hermits in complete lockdown and doing well —remember to wash your hands while singing your favourite song and to stay inside your house; leave only to gather necessities (food, medicine, et.c.) or get an appropriate amount of sunlight! Please, take care of yourselves and don't panic! Drink lots of warm water and warm beverages, watch quality films and series, cover your coughs and sneezes in the crook of your elbow and try to relax in the comfort of your home by reading a book or watching TikToks.
For the sake of my sanity, please read the following info, or I will become your personal sleep-paralysis demon (❁´◡`❁) :
*The songs Agapimu Fidela Protini and Kalinifta are traditional songs in the Griko/Greko dialect, which is an amalgamation of Italian and Greek, often spoken in southern Italy; Ghetonìa are an Italian band from Salento while Encardia are Greek, singing Griko songs —Alkinoos Ioannidis is a Greek singer who had taken part in a concert with Encardia. The song Proverbi Siciliani is sung by Rosa Balistreri, a prominent Sicilian singer of the 20th century, lauded for her strong timbre and depictions of Sicily through folk songs.
*Many areas of South Italy were largely populated by Greek settlers, thus South Italy earned the name Magna Graecia or Great Greece. I like to think Ancient Greece as a mother figure to South Italy, or at least Romano's/Leonora's first guardian and confidant.
*A fayum mummy portrait or simply a mummy portrait is a portrait painted on wood picturing the deceased, who was a person of the Upper Class. Fayums were popular in Roman Egypt, where it originates, and in Byzantine.
*This fic includes three Italian regions: Venice, in northeastern Italy, famous for its flamboyant carnival that was forbidden under the rule of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor; Salento, in Apulia, famous for its songs in the Griko and Salentino dialects; Palermo, in Sicily, famous for its stories concerning Cosa Nostra (also, in my country we have this game called One Night in Palermo and it's one of my favourites to play at parties; you can ask me for more info).
*Although it's not very clear, I mention the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and how Leonora understands, at the prime of Italy's Unification, why she had been feeling divided for so many centuries. Now, some of you might have heard about it before and thought: what are those?
Welp, buckle up, 'cause you're gonna go through a summed-up version of The Kingdom of Two Sicilies: One of the Many Dumbfuckeries of History (according to me)!
King Charles I of Anjou ruled the Kingdom of Sicily (est. 1130) until the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302) split the kingdom. Charles lost the island to the Crown of Aragon. Charles remained King of peninsular South Italy, which was informally known as the Kingdom of Naples and he decided to never give up the title of the Kingdom of Sicily. Complex much? We have two Sicilies: the island of Sicily under Aragonese rule and the peninsular region under Charles' rule, who, instead of naming it the Kingdom of Naples as he probably should, he went on like a jackass and kept the title "The Kingdom of Sicily", just to annoy me.
Years pass, at some point someone had the idea of calling the island "The Kingdom of Trinacria" ( a normal idea, considering Trinacria was the island's ancient name, though people literally still called it Sicily) and then on 1442 the King of the island Alfonso V conquers Naples (peninsula), becomes King of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and everyone has their happy ever after . . . bitch, u thought.
Alfonso kicks the bucket and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies is divided *sigh* again and in later centuries, island and peninsula are under Spanish rule (18th century = the French House of Bourbon enters the scene in the throne of Spain) but with decisive involvement of the oui oui baguette nation.
The late decades of the 18th century and the early 19th pretty much means a lot of Napoleon Born-2-Party, whom everyone greatly dislikes. The Bourbons? Napoleon hates them so when one of his generals captured Naples, the original King was dethroned and in his place sat Napoleon's brother, Joseph, who was later replaced by a dude with very luscious hair, known as Joachim Murat. Remember when I said that everyone greatly dislikes Napoleon? I wasn't kidding; The Sixth Coalition (Austria, Prussia, Russia, UK, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, some German states and Jesus Christ) stood against France and Napoleon, leading to his defeat. After a series of very boring events (Murat led a weakling-failure-of-a-war and was executed, lol), the original King of Naples was restored to his throne and, in 1816 occurred the union between the two Kingdoms; the God-forsaken Kingdom of Two Sicilies, yay!
1816-1848 —it wasn't only Napoleon who hated the Bourbons and thus shows the numerous revolutions and popular revolts that took place on the island against Bourbon rule, motivated by the people's wish for independence. The events culminated with Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 and the Siege of Gaeta in 1860-1861, which put an end to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Thank God [The Narrator exits, pursued by a bear and a bunch of angry Italians].
~ In Naples, one can find an amulet of a red bull's horn, called corno/cornuto/cornicello, which is said to vanquish the malocchio (evil eye) that harms mothers, milking animals, fruit-bearing trees and the sperm of men —namely, it harms anything that relates to fertility and regeneration and it's still an amulet worn by scared, little man-boys who don't want to lose their genitalia.
~ Sicily is characterised by a significant seismic activity and has three active volcanoes: Etna, Stromboli and Vulcano.
*About Japan —I think I saw somewhere that nyo! Japan considers nyo! Romano a respectable woman so I thought yeah, might as well include him!
*About America —many Italians immigrated to America by the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Also, Romano/Leonora in 1920s clothes? breathtaking.
*Let me tell you a little story;
Once upon a time, a girl went to the fields to gather wheat, as she did all the days before and as she would do again tomorrow. So focused on her work she was, she didn't sense the spider that approached her nor its tiny bite on her ankle —the poison's essence began its wicked way beneath the fragile skin and soon, all that the birds on the trees and the sun on the sky could hear were the gasps and the shouts of the wheat-gatherers who had found the girl shaking and twitching on the ground of grains. They managed to move her to the Church's basement where the town's priest lied a white cloth on the floor for her yet the girl could not remain still; she walked and she murmured and the villagers grew worrier and worrier. The girl's parents cried for help from the doctor, the teacher, God —only a musician answered, picking his violin and calling for more and more instruments to join him in a bright, cheerful melody. Despite the folks' early weariness, they watched in surprise as the girl turned her convulsing limbs into a merry dancing rhythm, her arms flying around her and her feet jumping off the street as of the cobblestones burned. Finally, she collapsed from exhaustion and the next morning found her in her bed, a glass of cold water by her nightstand and her mother's order to not return to the wheat-fields for the day.
This dance is called Tarantella and it's very popular in South Italy, originating from ancient times. I recommend you listen to the song Santu Paulu by Encardia and pay attention to the very informative video clip.
*Hail, o hail Liberty is a verse from the Greek National Anthem; my headcanon is that Romano/Leonora and Greece were/are close because of common history.
*Did you know that during the Spanish Inquisition, amongst the ones hunted for practising witchcraft were gipsies (hence Esmeralda), Jews and Muslims? Other groups included Lutherans and other religions (like polytheistic religions) and the persons who had committed incest, sodomy, rape, bestiality (and many more crimes of sexual nature), smuggling, tax fraud, espionage and treason. Honestly, at this point, I don't even want to know what was going on inside their heads.
*Cinecittá Studios or Cinema City Studios, based in Rome and founded by Benito Mussolini (a.k.a. the Duce, the Leader of Fascist Italy during WWII, was tortured to death as he deserved), used to be a popular movie productions studio that rose to international fame after its postwar reconstruction; its fame has lessened in recent years. The particular story-prompt is set during the 1960s and Spain wears the Francoist military uniform while Leonora follows the fashion trends like a Queen.
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I hope the best for all of you and your families!