Introducing Benvolio

[keep_the_peace]

Waking up in a strange bedroom, in a strange house, was bad enough, but then when Benvolio finally made his way to the front door he was greeted by snow outside. Summer might be coming to an end, but it definitely is not snow weather yet, nor is Benvolio dressed for such, in his black silk doublet, black and blue trimmed trunk hose, and black stockings. He does have shoes on, thankfully, though he can't imagine how he would have fallen asleep wearing shoes. It's not like he's had much opportunity to celebrate to the point of blacking out lately, after all.

Regardless, he takes one look at the snow outside and decides to shut the door and instead turn his attention to the table covered in different pamphlets and papers. He has many questions.

Comments

[bymyheelies]

He will undoubtedly have several many more in a moment. Mercutio had been on his way outside with Dionysus to go check on the garden, but he stops dead when he sees an incredibly familiar figure in the entryway. It's not another event, is it? Benvolio won't be torn away from him as Tybalt was? He leans in the doorway to the hall, strangely hesitant. There is not the immediate desire to taunt and play as there was with Tybalt, perhaps because he is all too aware of what happened not so long after.

Instead, he clears his throat and if Benvolio turns, he gives him a small wave, fighting to hide the smile that is threatening to burst through.

[vineleaves]

Dionysus is chatting idly with Mercutio as they walk, but when Mercutio stops walking suddenly, Dionysus shuts up. There's a newcomer, and judging by the way Mercutio is acting, Dionysus can put two and two together about the source material for this kid. In fact, he can narrow it down to just a couple of people this might be.

"Oh, ah, hello," Dionysus says, not really sure what else to do right now.

[keep_the_peace]

Benvolio is just about to pick up a pamphlet about cultivating something or other when he hears some people approaching. He turns, ready to ask many, many questions, but instead finds he can't ask anything at all.

Standing next to an unfamiliar face is an incredibly familiar one. "Mercutio?" he manages to squeak out. "Then -- I am still asleep..."

[sporesprouter]

Tress is passing by the entrance when she pauses to see someone unfamiliar looking at the welcome table. The conclusion she comes to is fairly logical but just in case, it's best to check.

"Oh, hello. Are you new?"

[keep_the_peace]

"Oh, aye," he says. Normally he would assume this to be either a lady of the house or part of the staff, but judging by what he has read so far on the table (if any of it is to be believed), he gets the feeling it's more complicated than that. "Though -- I know not where I am, truly, nor how I arrived. I ... take it that is normal?"

[sporesprouter]

"Customary, yes. I don't know if I'd really describe anything about this place as normal. But welcome! I'm Tress, it's nice to meet you."

[kadewest]

"You look like you could use a coat," says Kade, coming through the hall and giving the new kid a commiserating look.

[keep_the_peace]

"It does seem the weather decided to skip autumn altogether and jump straight into the depths of winter," he says, by way of an agreement. "My apologies, good sir, for arriving unannounced and underdressed."

[kadewest]

"You're in luck," Kade grins. "I happen to be the local tailor."

[temnota]

Aleksander came in through the front door, brushing the snow from his great coat and stamping his boots on the mat. He caught sight of a young man he had not seen before and took in his unusual clothes and what seemed like utter confusion on his face. "Just arrived?"

[keep_the_peace]

"Aye," he says to the stranger. "I suppose so. I do not recall the journey though."

[temnota]

"I was in the middle of a battle and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was here," Aleksander said. "This place seems to enjoy doing this sort of thing. I am sorry that you've been caught in it."

[ravkanwitch]

Someone new at the welcome table! Nina doesn't think it's time for another visitor's day, so it must be so. "Hello," she says, friendly. "My name's Nina."

[keep_the_peace]

It has been some time since he first arrived (how long? great question! An Amount.) but Benvolio has wandered back to the table to reread the information, trying to make sense of any of it. It's difficult to understand, on many levels, but he's trying, and therefore no one should criticize him.

When he hears someone addressing him, he turns and smiles, giving her a polite bow. "Good day, Lady Nina. I am Benvolio, of Verona."

[ravkanwitch]

"Benvolio," she repeats to remember. "It's good to meet you. Verona, where the Capulets and... the Montagues are?" The memory is hazy. She talked about this with Mercutio when she was a different version of herself, but Nina has been trained into remembering names, especially when they're influential names.

[sagramore]

A few moments later, the front door opens again, and Sagramore and Szarka scurry inside, shaking off the snow that's caught in their hair, beard, and coat, respectively. Sagramore stamps his boots. "Jesu! It's really coming down out there!" he informs Benvolio, before he actually looks at him properly and realizes that he's new. "Oh, hello!"

[keep_the_peace]

Maybe if Benvolio reads everything on the welcome table five times any of this will start to make sense to him. Unlikely, but he's not going to let that deter him. "'Tis why I am inside," he replies with a grin, "as now are you. Congratulations." Then he notices the dog. "A good thing your companion here was able to rescue you from the snow, no doubt."

[sagramore]

"Aye, she dragged me in before I could succumb to death, she's my savior. Szari, sit," he adds, and she does so, plonking her bottom down on his feet as if she anticipates this conversation is going to take a while.

[chariestmaid]

Ophelia flits here and there these days like an easily-startled deer, diverting her path the moment she hears someone coming. For all that the mansion and its environs make a miniature world, to her it feels impossibly vast, as if she spent her days in Denmark only moving from her closet to the chapel to the lobby to the banquet hall, never venturing outside the palace walls. (She did.)

She could've spent her days in the woods outside her brother's house, and never seen an end to them. The winter weather keeps more people in-doors, and she can walk for hours without chancing on a single soul. She has a vintage Canon camera around her neck, and birdseed in her pocket to lure birds for closer shots. She needn't go to the main house for anything. (She did.)

Like a deer, she freezes when she sees the young man's face. "Good morrow," she murmurs. She moves to curtsy, then abruptly remembers she's wearing over-alls and snowboots.

[keep_the_peace]

“Good morrow, my lady,” he says, offering her a bow. “I am Benvolio, newly arrived from Verona.” Though he knows many here are from the heavens (and, indeed in certain cases, Heaven itself) and therefore she might not know where Verona is.

[chariestmaid]

Verona, to Ophelia, is somewhere plays happen -- far away enough to be exotic, close enough to be familiar. It's a name she might hear on the lips of ambassadors circling through court, the ones her father speaks to but bids her keep her peace around. He warned her, once -- more than once, but he he would repeat himself -- about Italianate men and their rash humors. "Ophelia, sir," she says. "Of -- the house on the lake. It does not have a name." It seems to her unfortunate, but none of the houses have names here.

[summerdude]

If and when the newcomer finds a coat and makes it outside, he will see two figures wrestling in the snow, in the wreckage of a once-grand snow fort, to which a considerable amount of waste has been recently laid. The freshly-falling snow is softening the edges of what surely must have been an epic battle, but the wrestling figures are knocking that new snow down, packing it into the ground.

One of those figures, it must be said, is a griffin, almost fully grown, screeching as she swipes her talons into the drifts. Anyone who can speak animal will understand she's yelling baby kill!! kill mama!!! fake kill!!!! The other, a sixteen-year-old twenty-six-year-old, is shouting with laughter.

[keep_the_peace]

It’s a couple of days later before Benvolio finally gets bored enough of being inside to brave the snow, but he is out on a walk, bundled up in modern clothes Mercutio helped him find (sorry, Kade) when he comes across… what appears to be a beast of some kind attacking a kid maybe a little younger than himself. This is, of course, wrong on multiple fronts, but he at least figures out that the “kid” isn’t actually in danger before he gets too close. He also realizes that the beast must be a griffin? He knows what those look like, and that’s definitely one of them. More evidence for this place being from one of Mercutio’s stories, after all.

No luck realizing Magnus isn’t actually younger than him though.

“I’m not sure this is an even match,” he says with a grin as he approaches. “Thou needest more claws.”

[georgianosity]

Blimey O'Reilly's trousers. Or rather, Blimey O'Reilly's lack of trousers, because the new bloke hasn't got any. Just those sort of poncey tights everyone had to wear when they did MacUseless in school. Oh goddy god, could it be MacUseless himself?? Georgia searches for something appropriate to say. "By the pricking of my thumbs," she offers helpfully.

[keep_the_peace]

He turns, stares, and blinks. “I — what?”