Heyo, ladies and gentlemen of Nerd Cactus-landia! C here, fully recovered from our night of party hardy-ing together last night! (I go hard, y’all! A whiskey sour and Lobster Bisque! AND fried mac and cheese! BOOM!)
Well, A and I are well into the second round of edits of Killing Mercutio. To be fair, it’s mostly looking for “trouble” words right now: seem/s, that, was, adverbs ending in -ly, etc. You know, all the stuff that was shiftily seeming to damage our words. Stuff like those words. And I figured all those edits means it’s time for another snippet. Last time, we introduced you to Romeo and Team Montague (for lack of a better room). This time, let’s go Capulet.
So…an official, spoiler-free snippet of Killing Mercutio, featuring Tybalt and Lady Capulet.
“You have caught the eye of every woman in the room, dear Tybalt,” Lady Capulet said, green eyes crinkling as she smiled. She would not have liked to hear she had developed crow’s feet as she advanced into middle age, but Tybalt rather liked them. They reminded him of his mother, dead all these years from shame.
“None as bright and clear as yours, my lady,” he replied, swallowing his disappointment and nodding reverentially, knowing this would please her. “Why are you not dancing?”
Waving her mask in a gesture around the room, Lady Capulet shook her head. “There are far too many people on the floor for me this evening. And I prefer to watch rather than bring the color of too much strain to my cheeks. But you are a fine dancer, Tybalt; why are you not out there?”
Tybalt shrugged, lips thinning into a small smile. “I made my way up here hoping to dance with Juliet, but it seems she has already decided to find herself a partner.”
“My daughter is determined to be the belle of the evening,” Lady Capulet replied, voice tinged with jealousy. Vanity like hers was only gratified if the center of attention, and Juliet far surpassed her mother in all the ways that mattered. “And her father is just as determined to put her there.”
“She is a beautiful young woman, Lady Capulet; perhaps your husband sees it as an investment for future gains.” Tybalt picked a grape from the cluster in front of him and popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly and spitting out each seed as he came to it.
“Yes. I do believe my Lord is in negotiations with the Prince regarding marriage. It seems there is a cousin…”
Tybalt choked. “Not Mercutio!”
“No, you fool,” Lady Capulet replied, “Paris. As if Capulet would ever consent to give his heir to a common tutor, no matter his relation to the Prince. The Houses of Escalus and Capulet have always been close; it seems now they shall be bound even more firmly.”
Yeah. We kept the Juliet/Paris thing. We were pretty adamant about keeping a lot of details from the play. It lends an authenticity to the story we were really keen on keeping. Respect for Shakespeare and all the years of R&J inspiring so many people. It’s not our favorite play, but we still love a lot of it. Doing our best to be respectful was really important to us.
Anyway…I hope you enjoyed this. Nothing too plot-heavy…but why did Tybalt’s mother die for shame? Dun dun DUUUUNNNN!
OK. A will be back tomorrow for something silly! I’ll see you on Monday!
–C
Nerd Cactus 
Hahaha. This is good fun!
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Thank you very much, Jason! Fun is what we were going for!
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