Editing DbS (section)

== TWENTY ==
⚇乂⚇

'''WE EAT THE CHEESE AND GET PHILOSOPHICAL'''

ROMEO WAS UP BRIGHT AND early the next day, and I had no idea what he was up to. That being said, I had a few theories.

The first time I’d woken up, I’d rolled back over groggily. ''He’s probably out on a walk,'' I’d thought.

The second time, Romeo still wasn’t back. ''He’s taking the horse on a walk and it’s taking a while,'' I theorized. 

A third time. ''He’s eating breakfast.'' 

And a fourth. ''He’s feeding himself and a legion of horses food.'' 

Finally, about the fifth time, I was out of bed, dressed when Romeo came moseying on in through the door, more refreshed than I’d seen him in a while. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” he said nonchalantly, giving me a glance. I looked up from the travel guide. 

“Mhm,” I said, looking back down. There was a long pause.

“Hamlet,” Romeo said carefully as if considering all his options as to what to tell me. “I’m going out.”

My first thought was to ask if he had found another girl, but I knew that couldn’t be the case- surely Romeo still loved Juliet?

“... it may be beneficial to you to go about and look around the town. Y’know, seeing as we’ll be here for a while.”

I tuned in right as Romeo finished up his explanations. His voice sounded off… but I had no time to think about this because once again, my thought process had gotten in the way of important plot developments. Of course it had. 

Romeo was halfway out the door before he turned back to me. “Hamlet,” he said, addressing me in a matter-of-fact way. “You cannot go anywhere if you do not first go.”

This was an oddly philosophical statement. “Riiight,” I said, getting up from the chair and carefully placing the parchments into my bag. ''I may need them yet…''

Romeo nodded, eyes downcast. He was grieving still. ''Bereaved'' would be a better word- meaning that feeling of loss you get when you’ve lost someone you loved. 

And so, we set off. The town we had arrived in- which was not called Mantua, by the way, as Mantua was, like, the county province thing- was smallish. It was expanding, sure, but it was small. 

There were maybe a thousand people in the town, but I wasn’t sure there were even that many. The buildings were nice, though, the ones with the dark wood and the whitewashed walls that reminded me of Jamestown or some other colonial settlement.

Not a whole lot happened. We did a couple of things, Romeo and I talked some, always avoiding the topic of Mercutio and death, ate some cheese, and then we were pretty much done. 

Of course, something odd did happen near the beginning of our adventurings in the small, unnamed town. 

Romeo had just ducked out of a store, looking down, seemingly trying to put a mask over his emotions. 

He stopped just short of me, giving me boots a close inspection. They were hand-me-downs, from Romeo, and were a little small, but would work. I had scrubbed at them, spot-cleaning with some medieval soap, but to no avail. The stuff on the tips of them would not come out.

Romeo looked like he wanted to cry, aquiver with emotion, the full blast of memory and feeling having hit him full blast, I reasoned, causing him to almost tremble. 

I looked down. The tips of the boots I wore had small smatters of mud on them- a side-effect of the more-than-normal rainy weather the town had been experiencing. The mud covered darker stains, reddish in color, which, an hour after the fight had been near-impossible to rid the boots of. They were stubborn things, blood stains. 

Romeo could not speak. So I did. “Mercutio,” I managed, trying to explain, the name foreign on my tongue. I had said it before, but it felt different… alien, almost. 

Romeo’s face gained a determined look about it. I wondered what he was thinking. He said nothing at my explanation, starting back already, leaving me behind to reason out for myself exactly what he was thinking.