I do want to thank you all for reading this. Thank you for being patient with me, and thank you a million times over if you commented! I love comments!
(Nope. Checks self all over. Still not Shakespeare.)
My friends pulled me along, all of them awestruck and panting. I tried to look back at the damage but they refused to let me see, pulling me back into an alley off of the square. We flung our backs against a wall, breathing heavily. No one spoke until I finally demanded. "'Twas mortal?"
Petruchio's ghostly face clashed with his red lips as he trembled, hesitating to tell me that which I already knew. "Aye," he whispered. We had seen enough fights to know by now.
I felt the little hope left in me drain away, collapsing against the wall, feeling as though I might be sick.
Petruchio licked his lips and said in a very choked voice, "But does not matter if he live or no . . . thou fought. Thou art dead."
"But Tybalt be not a Capulet!" someone pointed out quickly to my defense. I was too desperate for a reason to see the insult.
Yet even I knew there was no hope in it. "The Prince looked expressly at me as he issued that decree," I explained.
He tried again, his eyes wet, "But Mercutio be not Montague!"
"The Prince's kinsman!" Petruchio closed his eyes and slammed his fists backwards against the wall. "Of all men to kill! Tybalt! Tybalt, thou art doomed!"
I felt like I was going to melt. My entire lower regions had gone numb and I was now soaked with sweat. I was shaking like a madman. My uncle was right: This was my undoing. My uncle.
How could I face him? How could I face the entire family? Was I to flee home and expect them to hide me? Would they face the Prince in my defense? Would they challenge his law, challenge him?
No, not for Tybalt; not for one not even a Capulet. My uncle would hear my tale and I would be cast out on the street with no hope of my defense. I would be found within the hour by the Prince's men, brought to old Free-town, and executed by this time tomorrow—most likely in public disgrace. It would be ideal: Tybalt, infamous Tybalt, scapegoat of the notorious brawl, the epitome of the villain. First, I would be forced from the house of Capulet in disgrace—then, I would be executed to shame the entire Capulet line.
It was all Romeo Montague's fault. Because of his family, his entrance to the party, his wooing of Juliet, his scoff of my deul—I was going to die, and die as the lowest of the low.
Not if I could help it.
I swallowed hard and stormed out of the alley. Petruchio cried after me, "Stay! Where art thou going?"
"To slay the Montague!"
No one followed me.
I was a desperate man. What was there to gain? I could either kill Romeo or be killed by him. The other alternative was simply not an option.
The square was clear again. Romeo and Benvolio were crouched just as I had left them, Mercutio gone from their midst. I was glad he was gone; I needed no reminders to cause my distraction.
They heard me. Benvolio turned his tear-streaked face towards me and glowered, speaking to Romeo. "Here comes the furious Tybalt back again!"
Romeo peered my way with a similar countenance, though not as shamefully disgraced by tears. "Alive in triumph, and Mercutio slain!" He drew his sword and faced me. "Away to heaven, respective lenity, and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!" I reached him and he addressed me. "Now, Tybalt," he spat at my feet. I merely looked down mildly, too numb to even feel the rush of blood to my face, "take the 'villain' back again that late thou gavest me, for Mercutio's soul is but a little way above our heads, staying for thine to keep him company. Either thou, or I, or both must go with him!"
It was my thoughts exactly. I would die achieving my kill or die trying. There was no other way.
"Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here, shalt with him hence," I drew my sword and let fly my final insult.
His eyes narrowed and bored into mine. "This shall determine that," he whispered. Then he sprung at me.
We flew into a duel, one wilder than any I had ever encountered before. Romeo was not skilled, not nearly so much as Mercutio or I, but his fire and fury compensated greatly. I was so used to being stopped after one round that I was unprepared for the weakness I felt having just fought another. It affected me greatly, and I felt my breath growing heavy in my chest, my sweat growing to a gluey paste all over my hot skin. My eyes glazed and I moved as if in a dream, the square still blurry with the afternoon sun. All that I could focus on were Romeo's eyes, dark brown, clear, and intense, flashed with the occasion glint of silver sword.
They were angry, those eyes. The Prince's accusing stare. My uncle's bulging eyes of his angry purple face. Juliet's glacial frown. Mercutio's wide-eyed horror and gasp at death.
The anger turned to triumph and shock. The eyebrows flew up, the mouth dropped open, and suddenly it all became clear to me, as clear as the pain that seared across my abdomen. I did not need to look down to know that it was all over.
The world swirled a little and I felt the ground rise up to meet me. I could hear the startled voices of shouting people worlds away. There was chaos, crying, running, but not for me.
Tybalt Niccolini—not a Capulet—had fallen at the hands of Romeo Montague.
FIN.
