A/N: Welcome to chapter two, watch your step!
This one was hard. I couldn't decide exactly where to go. If you have suggestions please let me know!
Disclaimer: I do not own Romeo and Juliet, it belongs to Shakespeare and if you can very easily understand what I'm saying, odds are I'm not him! (I'm not)
Chapter 2:
Romeo is found sitting by a fountain in Verona's Town square fingering the ribbon given to him by Juliet when Mercutio and Benvolio walk up.
"How fare you Romeo?" Mercutio asked, as he jumped up onto the wall of the fountain and started to walk back and forth. Upon noticing the Ribbon in Romeo's hands he attempted to grab it.
"Better than words can say!" Romeo sighed, as he dodged his friend.
"What? Over Rosaline so quickly?" Benvolio jested, noticing the tone in Romeo's voice.
"What about Rosaline?" Mercutio questioned with some interest.
"What about her? Absolutely nothing! She is made a crow by my new dove!" Romeo said happily.
"Ah than I see one poison does cure another." Benvolio stated rather than questioned, happy his suggestion had helped his cousin.
"Not a poison but a sweet nectar!" Romeo replied, a bit indignantly.
"May I ask her name?" Benvolio asked, intrigued. Mercutio on the other hand looked very confused and very annoyed by this point.
"Her name I hold as sacred as my own and keep to myself, for I dare not reveal it." Romeo replied, dodging another attempt by Mercutio to take the fabric he clutched.
"I tire of this womanly talk!" Mercutio stated, no longer able to stand the topic.
"Where did you go last night that you bid us not follow?"
"I did what desperate men must do alone!" Romeo replied.
"You did not do unjustly I hope!" Benvolio asked worriedly.
"I did nothing of the sort!"
"Let us speak of more exciting things!" Mercutio interrupted once again attempting to change the subject, the ever present annoyed tone in his voice growing stronger.
"Better topic than this I can not supply."
"Not better but more urgent." Benvolio said, as he joined in the attempt to change the subject when he remembered why they sought Romeo in the first place.
"Your honor has been challenged by that fiery Capulet, Tybalt." Mercutio said, fiery himself.
"He sent a letter early this morning to your home." Benvolio supplied.
"I care not to answer it for I have no fight with him, or any other Capulet. I have found a new reason for peace." Romeo replied, in his bliss of the night before, the news not even phasing his good mood.
"Peace is cowardice!" Mercutio urged, again annoyed.
"Tis not cowardice but wisdom. You know as well as I what price we will pay in disturbing the peace!" Benvolio replied, returning to peacekeeper mode. He had never been extremely keen on the feud, but was nonetheless surprised by this sudden change in his friend.
"Came let us retreat indoors," Mercutio said in a falsely defeated tone, before joking, "the heat gets to both your heads!"
"I see it has already gotten to yours!" Romeo replied, now in a less melancholy mood then just moments before.
"Truly the heat disillusions you both making you forget it," Benvolio added.
As the jesting continued, three people in hoods, heads low, approached Romeo. As the group neared, Mercutio tripped one of the hooded figures, who, in turn, fell into the fountain dragging the other two with him. Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio each took a hooded figure by the hand and helped them out of the fountain.
"Are you alright?" Benvolio asked, pushing the wet hood from the person's face "….. Milady? Oh my!" Finding the person to be a woman, he just stared.
" Zounds! I have a name! I am called Renae!" The girl replied, a little annoyed after the fall.
"My, my, what have we here? A drowned rat?" Mercutio laughed, mocking the girl whom he'd just helped up. "Or shall I say a Capulet? Tis the same no?"
"Montague scum!" This girl seemed more annoyed at being helped, by a Montague than being tripped by one. As she removed her own hood, she testily stated, "I am not solely though proudly a Capulet, I do have a name of my own. I am called Tarra. And if a Capulet is a rat than thou are a lowly belly crawling snake!"
"Than a quicker wit and strike have I than a cowardly rat!" Mercutio replied.
"Juliet?" Romeo asked silencing the quarreling pair, as he pushed away a third hood.
"Speak softly, Romeo. Tis not proper that I'm out!" Juliet said happily, but a bit nervously.
"This is why we must accompany her, enemies roam the street." Tarra explained glaring at Mercutio.
"So this is why you would not speak her name?" Benvolio stated, smiling kindly at first Juliet then Renae, who, now less annoyed and a little surprised smiled back. As he turned to see Mercutio and Terra both facing each other menacingly, however, his spirits fell a bit. This wasn't going to be easy.
"Sadly, dearest cousin, it is. It is most certainly forbidden!" Romeo replied, his voice regaining some of the sorrow from before.
A/N: So, that's about it. Review! Farewell strangers.