Don Karnage meets Isabella and Vincenzo
Rated PG
Okay, I wrote this in 1999, intending it to be part of a flashback fic that delved into Karnage's years in Italy with the Barzini family. I now realize I may never finish this project, so rather than let this snippet sit gathering dust in a notebook somewhere, I decided I might as well share. ;)
~ Scarlet ~
March 15, 1927
Florence, Italy
Felipe Esteban Gonzalo Andres Enrique Karnage had been in Italy for several weeks. Long enough to have picked up a few essential phrases. This foreign land was full of potential, and free of people who might report his whereabouts to his father. Here, in the one-time stomping grounds of Caesar and Mark Antony...perhaps here he would find his destiny.
At the moment, however, all he found was the underside of a shopkeeper's foot, as he was unceremoniously thrown out onto the cobblestones.
"The next time I catch you stealing, I'll call the police!" yelled the shopkeeper.
Karnage scrambled to his feet and dusted himself off, attempting to regain his precious dignity. "Fool," he sneered. "Do you know who I am?"
The door slammed in his face, its chimes jangling with false cheerfulness.
He let loose with a stream of curses in both Spanish and Italian. Finally, he decided not to waste his most creative epithets on the stupid merchant. Instead, he adjusted the old sword at his hip, straighted his loose black shirt, and stalked off down the street.
Before he had gone too far, however, a condescending female voice came from nearby. "You certainly know how to make an exit. But watch your language around a lady."
He turned around. Whomever she was, she was no lady.
A vixen of approximately his own age stood at the roadside, her long, coal-black hair pulled carelessly back with an orange string. She wore tight, well-worn leather pants and a rather revealing vest made of red, yellow and orange woven fabric. Like him, she had a sword on her belt.
He stood, taken aback by both her stark beauty and her disdain. He mustered a scowl and put a hand on his sword hilt. "Do not tell me what to be doing, woman!" he said, wishing he knew enough Italian to really put her in her place. "I am the great pirate, Don Karnage!"
"Great pirate, my rear! You just got thrown out of a bakery by a sixty-year-old lemming," she scoffed.
"He is more stronger than he looks!" he protested.
He was hungry, tired and fed up with struggling past the language barrier. "You, wench, are nothing more than a loud, ugly, uh..." He searched for a worse word in Italian, failed, and concluded, "Stupid girl!" He straightened his posture and looked away, flustered.
"Nobody talks to Isabella Barzini like that and see the sunrise intact," she said, drawing her sword and aiming its point several inches below his silver belt buckle. "Now. Care to apologize?"
He attempted to reach for his own sword but the precarious position of her blade made him stop. "I do not apologize to loud-in-the-mouth wenches!"
"If you ever want to have children you will." The blade inched closer, and he flinched in spite of himself.
"All right, all right! My apologizes, signorina...Barzini, you said?"
"Barzini. Isabella Barzini. And you?"
"Felipe Esteban Gonzalo Andres Enrique Karnage. Don Karnage to rude wenches like you!"
"Are those all your multiple personalities, or what?"
"Felipe Karnage," she growled.
"Ah. Better. So, Flippy, new in town?"
He tensed in renewed fury. "The name is Felipe Karnage!" he said, grinding out each syllable.
"And the native language is not Italian. Get yourself a phrase book or something, you little Spanish sop. And stop staring at my chest. You have about as much chance with me as you'd have of becoming the next Pope."
"I would not waste the money," he said with a sly smirk.
"Why you little--"
"Isabella!" a sharp male voice rang out. "Are you trying to pick another fight?"
The both turned to see a fox in an elaborate red uniform approaching.
"Honestly, girl, I don't know what I'm going to do with you! One of these days you're going to get yourself skewered like a cocktail weiner, the way you act. Put that sword away!"
"I can take care of myself," she snarled.
"Listen to your father," Karnage said with a teasing grin.
"He's not my father, you dimwit. He's my uncle. Now shut your ugly yap before I chop your tongue out!"
"Oh, hush, Isabella," the new arrival said, brushing aside her sword. "Now, who's your new friend?"
"If I am a friend, I would hate to see her enemies."
"All my enemies are dead," she snapped.
The uniformed fox held out his hand and Karnage shook it. "Captain Vincenzo Barzini."
"Felipe Karnage."
Vincenzo lowered a dark eyebrow. "I know that name..."
"The Karnages of Cabo Orgulloso," he said proudly.
"Ah, yes, that's it! My, you're a long way from home."
"Sí." His brow creased far more from bitterness than homesickness. "And you...you are a pirate?"
"Indeed. Why else would I be wearing this getup?" Vinzenzo laughed heartily and bowed, removing his wide-brimmed, plumed hat with a flourish. He did stand out in his gold braid, crimson uniform and jeweled scabbard.
Karnage grinned in spite of himself, but his expression quickly darkened at the next question.
"What in Triton's deep blue sea are you doing all the way over here in Italy? A treasure hunt?"
"No. I am on my own now." He didn't want to divulge any more, and Vincenzo didn't push the matter.
"Say, my boy, you look a bit down on your luck at the moment. What do you say I exercise a little honor among thieves and give you a berth on my ship for the night. Until you get your bearings, that is."
"Uncle!" Isabella protested.
"Don't start. It's my ship, and I'll invite aboard whomever I choose. You bring home enough young men..."
She gave him an embarassed, murderous look and bit her tounge.
Vincenzo clapped a hand on Karnage's shoulder and led him away, chatting loudly about every landmark they passed. Isabella stalked off in the opposite direction, one hand still on her sword hilt.