A Small Town Outside Verona, Italy, March 18

It had been three hard days of travel, and Romeo had sold near everything save his clothing and his gun to raise the costs of the trip, desperately hoping he would do something that was worth it. He wasn't sure how, but somehow everyone in Italy could tell he was an outsider, and charged him correspondingly higher prices. And then there had been the confusion over who, exactly, he wanted. Montague, it turned out, was French, an Ellis Island change; the family name in Italy was Montecchi.

After all of it, though, Romeo was here at what he assumed had to be his great-great-grandfather's home. He squinted at it; it seemed awfully ... small, smaller than he had imagined, and there was a pen of squealing pigs right next to the stucco farmhouse. Nothing smelled terribly good.

But all greatness starts somewhere, and Romeo had to assume this was where part of his family's story started. Tentatively, he knocked on the wooden front door.

( Cut for preplay )

[OOC: NFB, NFI, and a very special thanks to the_merriest for being my Angelo. OOC = love.]

A Battlefield, March 15, 1918

Some people get to live long lives.

Some don't.

Even with an extra hundred years, Romeo did not.

It wasn't a bad life, though, nor one that made him more unhappy than he would have made himself anywhere. It ended on a battlefield somewhere in Europe, on March 15, 1918.

Romeo was either 36, or 72 years from being born.

( He wasn't supposed to be armed ... )

[OOC: And the ironic thing is his birthday is armistice day. NFB, NFI, OOC = pie, my apologies for the spammage.]