Love and Tragedy

Summary: William’s thoughts on Romeo and Juliet after they die.

Disclaimer: I don’t own this anime, but it does have the honor of being one of the few animes that have made me cry.

The candle burned low on the table. William was half asleep again. So much had happened that day, the mysterious tree that had come up from the ground, the tree Escalus. The devastating news that they had lost both Romeo Candorebanto Montague and Juliet Fiamatta Asto Capulet, two star-crossed lovers, faithful and true to the bitter end. Oh, how he had hoped for a happier ending.

He had known her since she was but a small child, oh, he’d seen through her disguise of “Odin”, a boy who sometimes worked as a stagehand in his theater. He had been a friend to the Capulets and had often visited them at the castle, back when nobles did not look down on common folk. He remembered their small daughter and knew that there had not been any news that the cruel Lord Leontes Montague had killed the child in the senseless slaughter that had taken the lives of the Capulets.

He had watched her grow up, not knowing why she was forced to dress like a boy and taking up the persona of the “Red Whirlwind”, a champion of justice. He had about run out of ideas for his next play when life played out before him like a great theatrical play. Oh, how inspiring it was! Love between enemies, and a revolution!

After her daring escape from the castle after she’d been captured and sentenced to die, she’d told him everything. He had never felt so invigorated, so inspired to write as he had been then. He wanted them to hear her story; the citizens of Neo Verona deserved to know what had become of the Capulet’s daughter.

Romeo Candorebanto Montague. The thought of the boy made William smile. Never had there been a truly more noble man. He had always been an idealist, wanting to make Neo Verona a better place for its citizens. Only after he’d been banished from Neo Verona and put in charge of a mine did he truly understand how the common man lived. It had inspired him to try to heal the dying soil. He had sought to live a simple, happy life with Juliet. Although he had not been able to accomplish that goal, he had been faithful and true to the very end. Dying while fighting to save the woman he loved.

Juliet Fiamatta Asto Capulet, the most beautiful woman he’d known, so strong and determined, and even when she faltered, she kept on trying. When she steeled herself for her confrontation with Lord Montague, he’d never been prouder. William also knew that her love for Romeo was what gave her the strength to carry on.

From what the others had told him, she had been torn between giving herself to Escalus, and her love for Romeo, but he had risked everything so she wouldn’t have to. And when he had died, she decided to sacrifice herself so that she would save Neo Verona, while keeping her promise to him by staying with him to the bitter end. To the end of eternity. Never had there been a better woman than Juliet Fiamatta Asto Capulet.

“What I wouldn’t give that you two couldn’t be with us today,” William sighed. “Good Romeo, and fair Juliet, there were none better than you both, and you two deserved happiness, but Fate gave you star-crossed lovers sorrow and tragedy.”

He looked up to see Antonio standing in the theater.

“Thinking about Juliet, huh, William?” he asked.

“Yes, I am. The Play is almost finished.”

“Is it, the one about Juliet and Romeo?” he asked. The play had been finished the first time, but because of Juliet’s reappearance as the Red Whirlwind, it had never properly ended.

William had hoped for the triumphant, happy ending that he felt the story deserved, but it turned out much different.

“Yes, I have finally landed on a title, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Suitable, is it not? What say you?”

“It’s fine, but I don’t think Juliet would want people to remember her life and be sad.”

“Yes, but that’s not what they will remember when they see my play and hear her story.”

“Then what will they see, Willy?”

“Tell me something, Antonio. Strife, hatred, sorrow, pain. What is, that brings these things to final end?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“’Tis ultimately love, that wins the day. For Love indeed doth old wounds warmly tend. “Together shall we be, henceforth to the end of eternity.” That was their promise to each other, and they kept it. To the bitter end of the story that I write about. Do you understand now, Antonio?”

“So they’re love is what saved us, all of Neo Verona,” Antonio said. “I think I understand, but I still wish she was here.”

“She always will be here, in my play, and in our hearts. What audiences will remember when they see the story of Juliet and her Romeo is that they loved each other more than anything, and because they loved, they sacrificed for each other. It is a tale of woe, yes, but also of love, and that, is what I want people to remember her for.”

“Well, I’m going to her grave, I’ll give her your regards. See you Willy,” Antonio turned and left the theater.

William watched him leave and smiled. It was time he brings the play to a proper close. He dipped his quill pen into the ink, and put it to the blank parchment.

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings; the sun, for sorrow, will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished. For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

William finished writing the last words of his play, perhaps, his greatest masterpiece. A love story, a tragedy, but he knew that they would live on, in his heart and on that stage, they would never be forgotten.