6. For Crying in the Night

As the party wound down, the faction of Montagues made a quick exit through the kitchens, making sure to avoid Lock as they went. The moment they were off the palace grounds, most of the gang collapsed in nearby bushes. The alcohol the royal family was used to was a bit much for the common stomach, and Burns and Henderson had of course decided to consume as much of it as possible.

Rick contemplated his friends' states for a minute before turning and beginning to make for the anonymity of the night. "I gotta go, guys."

Izzy called out to him before he was completely out of earshot. "Hey Rick, who was that chick you were dancing with? The one in the very nice black dress?"

Ardeth whistled, concurring with Izzy's judgment. "Hoo boy, that dress did fit particularly well, didn't it?"

"Not another word, Bey!" cried Rick, temper flaring through his already very thin patience.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Rick whirled to face his friends, throwing up his hands. "I'm in love!"

"Oh." Ardeth scratched his chin. "I don't know what to say. I suppose congratulations are in order. Let's throw a party. Let's wake up the whole damn city and inform them that yes, oh yes, Richard Montague is in love!"

"While your sarcasm is appreciated, it is really not what I need right now."

"Osiris forbid!" cried Ardeth, falling to his knees in mocking. "How dare I insult the great Richard Montague, son of the almighty prime minister. There must be a law against that, don't you think, Izzy?"

Izzy nodded. "Yep, I'm sure of it. We should make a citizen's arrest."

"Just stop it, guys. I'm serious. This girl is..." Rick paused, at a lack for words where moments before articulacy had flowed. He looked at the black mask he still clutched in his hand. "Perfect."

"Huh. Not everyday you find one of those." Ardeth clapped Rick on the back overenthusiastically. "What do you say to a round to toast your newfound love?"

"You'd get thrown out of the bar."

"No, that's usually your specialty, my friend."

Rick shook his head. "No. Toasting Capulets in a Montague-affiliated bar is probably hazardous to one's health."

"She's a Capulet?" Realization dawned on Ardeth, and he began to laugh. "Oh, no. That girl from the limo? Her?"

"Her." Rick again turned and began walking away, oblivious now to his friends' calls. He went in the direction of the main road, but as soon as he was out of sight, he made a sharp left and circled the tall iron fence that surrounded the palace. He walked for nearly thirty minutes, the grounds were that large, but finally found what he was looking for.

A garden, overflowing through its wrought-iron confines. Rick glanced around for security cameras or anything of the like, and finding none, quickly scaled the fence...

...and came crashing down to earth in a roar of cracking branches and crunching foliage. After a moment, when he had determined that he had neither broken bones nor alerted the attention of the entire palace, he picked himself up and began to quietly make his way through the shrubbery. The huge garden afforded him plenty of time to think, but most of his thoughts veered toward the very depressing. This was never going to work. If he didn't get tackled by the palace guard first, he would get lost in this vast garden and die a horrible lonely death and never see her again anyway. Even if he did somehow find her...

Rick caught sight of a second floor window and suddenly his thoughts became much more cheerful. She ran a brush through her hair, absentmindedly combing her fingers through the locks. Why had she felt the need for all that fancy make-up when without it she appeared to be the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen? Yes, the black dress had been undeniably well-fitting, but in pajamas she moved more gracefully, less self-consciously. She walked like she was just herself. She didn't know someone was watching her.

Evelyn threw the brush onto the dressing table with a clatter and suddenly seemed set on tearing about her room for no particular reason. She paced back and forth for several moments, then, growing tired of this, flung open the doors to her balcony and stepped into the cool night air. Rick leapt behind a thicket of particularly dense ivy to avoid being seen, wondering if...perhaps....just maybe....she was thinking about him, too.

Up on the balcony, a beloved young princess gripped the railings with white-knuckled hands. She half-heartedly considered throwing herself off, but after a moment's contemplation decided that would just be counter-productive.

Free of makeup, dressed in her most comfortable pajamas, she felt like Evelyn. Just Evelyn. Of course, she was more conflicted than she usually was. She turned from the inky black view dotted only with the sparse light of tiny stars and wandered back into the warmth of her room. A white mask lay forlornly on the trunk at the foot of her canopy bed. Evelyn picked it up and turned it through her fingers. Nothing special, just a regular dollar store party mask, the fiber slightly frayed around the edges and the string nearly shot. When she looked at the mask, she could see his face. She could see his eyes, burning blue, guiding her through a life in which all other corners had darkened.

Evelyn had heard the stories, of course. Rick Montague, sole man involved in the Hamunaptra political system who was not trapped under the prime minister's thumb. A rebel, a troublemaker, a menace to the community. He drank, dated numerous notorious women, and ran around town with gun-toting gang-member friends. She'd heard stories about murders, pregnant girlfriends, shady business deals, drugs. She'd heard it all, and she'd never seen his face.

Now, somehow, she knew without a doubt that none of it was true. Well, probably some of it was true, maybe even most of it, but in his eyes she had found the real truth. He was a good man, she was sure of it. Everyone did things they regretted, everyone acted out from time to time. Except maybe Evelyn, who hard as she tried could not really remember doing anything wrong in her entire life.

Until tonight.

She'd listened patiently as her father explained the importance of the masque, of the necessity to make a good first impression on the Duke's son. She'd stood there for hours making the most uncomfortable small talk of her life with a man she despised upon first sight. She'd even let him dance with her a few times. Her father's words just kept ringing in her ears, over and over when she'd wanted to bolt...

"An alliance with the Parrises will reestablish the Capulet family as the true rulers of Hamunaptra," intoned the king. "Once we regain the power of the days of old, the Montagues will have nowhere to turn. We'll run them out of New Verona, once and for all."

Aaargh! That name!!! If not for that name, and if not for her name, right now she could be happily and willingly announcing her engagement to her mysterious dance partner, no longer so mysterious but now doubly tempting. A man whose only sin was being born into a family that had hated hers for ancient, manifold, albeit now forgotten, reasons.

Speaking of sinning, she was sure if she told anyone about the misguided make-out session that evening, she'd be in more trouble than was possible even for Rick. Thank Osiris that Lock had only seen them dancing. Rick would probably be dead by now if Lock had caught him making a move on his darling, innocent, naive cousin Evy.

Darling, innocent, naive?!?! Nobody knew who she was, not at all! Nobody except her mother, and now Anck would be forever silent at her daughter's pleas for advice, lost somewhere in the great forbidding beyond of the afterlife. Imhotep came close to being her only true friend, but it was rare that he ever had much time for her. Basically she was utterly, completely alone...

Except for a few precious moments that evening, when Rick Montague had looked into her eyes. In those moments she had felt as though they were the only two people there. The way he looked at her made her feel that she was the most important person in the world, loved for all time with a single word, like he needed her as much as she needed him. Loved. There was no other word for it.

Evelyn threw the mask to the floor, disgusted with herself. She was basing her entire life's happiness on a silly scrap of fabric, picking out curtains based on a simple glance, a simple touch, a simple kiss. Even if her dream hadn't been impossible, who was she to know what he thought of her? Upon learning of her identity, whatever love or lust he had felt would surely vanish in the face of common sense. And if he had none of that, only bravado and conceit, if the stories were true, then she wanted nothing to do with him.

Her first love, so what? A fleeting romance she could remember fondly in fifty years, wondering whatever happened to that charming young man who had stolen her heart with a dance. Her first heartbreak. Her first wake-up call. This was how the real world worked; people did not marry for love, only money and title. Love was a myth, an ephemeral fantasy in the minds of young people who hadn't yet been taught life's cruel lessons.

And what a cruel lesson it was. For though in her mind she strived to forget him, to chalk it up to girlhood whimsy given way to harsh reality, in her heart stirred an emotion so frenzied it scared her...

She'd die without him, she was sure of it. If she could not have him, the world stopped. And she knew, in her heart, he felt the exact same way about her.

~*~*~*~