Becoming Lady Capulet, by drcalvin (T)

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Fandom: RÓMEÓ ÉS JÚLIA
Pairing: Lady Capulet/Lord Capulet
Length: 2220 words
Author on LJ | Tumblr: drcalvin | drcalvin
Author Website: fic on AO3
Why this must be read:

Lady Capulet is one of the best-developed characters in this version of canon, but even so there are many questions to answer about her. Was her marriage always a mess? What motivates her fixation on marriage as the solution to Julia's problems, when it clearly didn't solve hers? What's going on under all that brittle, fragile beauty?

In this layered little backstory, drcalvin tries to answer some of those questions, painting a picture of a Lady Capulet who is neither wholly unlikable nor wholly sympathetic, while foreshadowing both the disintegration of her marriage and her rather weird relationship with her nephew Tybalt.

When she saw the image of her husband, she knew not quite what to feel. He was handsome, not too misshapen in any way. But…

He looked kind, her mother said. He was rich, her father chuckled. He was proud, but fair, one of her distant relatives who had been to Verona knew to tell. Also, his gardens were very fine. A good match, all agreed.

She smiled at them, and thanked her father, and begged her mother for a prettier dress and tried – she did, she did – to feel exhilaration for his noble brow and straight shoulders and all the flattering details of the portrait. She tried.

"A milksop," her brother sneered, “but that should fit you. Break him in properly and you’ll have something to ride, even if he’ll go lame too fast for your tastes."

Becoming Lady Capulet

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