Is the Law of Our Side?: Part Six

Content Warning: Click here for content warnings (potential spoilers)

"The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children."

November 20th

"De-e!" 

"She did it again, Desi! She knows your name!" 

The cheers and giggles ringing out from the nursery drew Cornwall closer. Lately, his daughter had become something of a pet to Goneril's younger daughters, Desi and Ariel. Though he didn't know his nieces particularly well, he was grateful for their attention to her. Tessa had no natural playmates in the family; the other children of her age were Hermia's or Juliette's. Plans were surely in place to eventually foster - or force - a bond between Tessa and Miralene, but Miralene would still be only one child. The fawning from her older cousins was saving Tessa from a sad, solitary existence. As far as he was familiar with the emotion, he was pleased.

But how long could this situation last? As soon as Tessa was old enough to be taught, the lessons from Regan would begin. An alliance with Miralene would be but a small, innocuous part of that curriculum. It would take a far better man than Cornwall to counteract that influence, and he felt uneasy to wish his daughter had a more neglectful mother. He couldn't make up for that. He wasn't cut out to be a father at all. He didn't know how to raise a girl to be a lady. He didn't have any wit or greatness to impart. In fact, the best thing he could do for her was try to ensure she wouldn't grow up to be like him. Slugging through the muck toward the grave was not any kind of a life.

So, he kept his distance. To be sure, he looked in on Tessa regularly, but he tried to be careful with interactions. He had overcome the fear of physically dropping her, which was the sad sum total of his achievements as a father. He could still break her in other ways. He wasn't meant to be a father, and she had done nothing to deserve that burden. Looking in on her now, when she had her cousins to distract her, was ideal. 

"Ladies." His uneasy bow was returned by his nieces in manners befitting their ages. 

Is the Law of Our Side?: Part Five

"I trust I may not trust thee."

November 17th

Surveying her courtroom, Lady Iden spotted a flock of fools.

The blustering debut of winter had been battering the roads, and sunlight grew more scarce by the day. Since yesterday morning, the conditions had been more forgiving - a slight warmth, roads that were not icy or even completely sodden - but they did not long promise to be. The sky-watchers predicted another storm would blow in after dusk. It was one thing to make the trek if one had a seat upon the floor, if present to give direct support. But to come only to watch? Lady Iden could not fathom such a thirst for drama, much less obeying it at one's own peril. There would be other, safer occasions to gawk at the Capulets.

Is the Law of Our Side?: Part Three

"When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with."

November 12th

The validity of Contessa Capulet's will was expected to dominate the second day of the trial. Goneril had concluded the first day with a cautious switch of tactics, and she had begun the second convinced that the will was invalid and thus could not be contested or consulted. She believed a favorable resolution would come more quickly if her mother's will was set aside. Afterward, Goneril would be generous enough to return her portion of the profits, that the estate might be divided up legally (which, in her view, would be just as it had been) by the Court. She had no concerns there, not when all that was due Lady Capulet would finally be hers. 

Naturally, the opposing side was against invalidating the will. Though she believed a fair hearing from Lady Iden was possible, Juliette was not so green as to not see how the court's discretion could be bent to serve other considerations. Fitzwilliam expressed all the indignation of a scholar, packed to bursting as he was with information he believed must contradict such an abuse of law. Of course, there would have been no call for indignation if he did not know that facts could be overcome. Facts were the cornerstones of their argument. If facts were overlooked in this trial, Juliette's cause was doomed.

Is the Law of Our Side?: Part One

"What perils past, what crosses to ensue"

November 10th

The first sovereign Duke of Verona had granted oversight of the law to those families who had most honorably upheld it before and during the Veronese Revolution. He had believed that the most dangerous corruption in a magistrate was the desire to keep a position that could be lost to the ever-changing whims of the powerful. A hereditary judiciary nullified that danger. It gave the law a sense of permanence, of timelessness. As his legal system had long outlasted his dynasty, the Duke's reasoning had been proven sound to the Veronese.

The Frowning Night

"The bow is bent and drawn."

Content Warnings: Click here for warnings (Possible spoilers)

July 27th

As midnight approached, the wind rattled the ornate glass windows in Goneril's study. While beautiful, the decorative glass had strategic value. An onlooker from the garden could have seen the glow of the fire in the room but not the faces of the two sisters staring into it. Nearest the window sat the lady of the house, dressed in rich reds and the silver ornament that kept her thin hair tightly pulled. She had no pretensions to beauty; she knew her sisters, her mother, and her daughters all were her superior in that regard. Finery, like the glass, was strategic - the mark of an important lady. It was also her due as firstborn and heiress of Contessa Capulet, Lady Capulet and Governor of Verona. Goneril always demanded her due.

Bid Me Lurk Where Serpents Are

"Let me still take away the harms I fear, not fear still to be taken."

March 20th

Lettice Carey was home at last.

Barely more than a hundred years earlier, Carey House had been home to a noble family. When the sea swallowed most of Lady Carey's dwindling fortune, she angled for a clean fall. Nearly all of her family was sent away, their bags laden with salable goods, to begin more modest existences in places like Port Gale and Maerdilean. What couldn't be transported was eventually seized by the Council to put toward her unpaid taxes. The Council also stripped her of her title and holdings. Only two assets remained to the former Lady Carey, and she sold them both to the Capulets: Carey House and her personal store of information. She had secrets worth more than gold and knew how to acquire more. Her middle daughter had talents for both secrets and blood. Even as the Carey name faded into obscurity, a new alliance formed.

We Scarce Thought Us Blest

"And all the clouds that loured upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried."

September 30th

Cornwall never expected the nursery to become a sanctuary.

Women Grow By Men

"Giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel."

March 6th

Kent felt sick. At the moment it happened, he had been thinking of Cornwall. It had never been right to want his sister's unwanted husband. Yet, he had sat down to breakfast yearning to be wrong. He wanted Cornwall's thimbleful of emotions back in his possession, to displace all his misery with love. He wanted to push his sister, his lifelong protector, out of her place with her husband. Those had been his thoughts as Regan rose from the breakfast table and collapsed.

Their True Qualities

"Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be."

September 10th

"Alice! Alice, look!"

She didn't. "That's nice, Aliena."

"But Alice, look! The princess is trapped on the dragon! They're going to fly into the sun!"

The Heavens Lour Upon You

"The voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries"

August 28th

Cornwall dropped his shoulders as he crossed the threshold of Middleham House. Had he followed his heart, he might have disappeared forever, but something else told him it was time to come home. The first meetings with both Regan and Kent promised to be, at best, unpleasant, and he hoped to avoid them this evening. So far, his luck had held at the gate, by the stables, and all the way across the courtyard. All that stood between him and a quiet night were two staircases.

The Night Before Christmas

December 24th

'Twas the night before Christmas when all through a duchy,

Known for its people who were often quite touchy,

Every pillow hid coins that glistened and gleamed,

A trick to help sleepers control what they dreamed

Bound More Than a Madman Is

NSFW.

"O, what may man within him hide..."

The Shotgun Wedding...

Not an IV update, but this was my submission to Dare #30 at the Maxis_Taste community at Livejournal. It's really more pic-spam than story. The little plotline is factually correct in the Verona-verse. (I did use the Maxis names in the entry in keeping with the community theme.) You can take a peek at it here, at my Livejournal.

There will be a real update in a day or two!

Here Come the Capulets

June 1515 (Three Years Earlier)

"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown"

Contessa Capulet, mother and matriarch, was admired by many in Verona. She was known as a fair and strong woman, one whom one did not need to question or wish to cross. When provoked, she acted decisively, but rarely in anger. She did not hesitate to be forgiving or harsh when it was the right course, whether in her home or the Council Chambers. The wisdom that came with age had seen her through the dark and turbulent period following her daughter's murder, and many blessed her for doing so without plunging the country into war. The loss naturally made her value peace and family more than she previous had, but she remained sharp and vigorous. Everyone, including Contessa herself, expected her to live to a ripe old age. 

As Soon Moved to be Moody

"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?"

April 4th 

Fitzwilliam Darcy's 21st Birthday

Bianca Montague was almost completely pleased with her evening so far.