In fair Verona, our tale begins with ARMAND GIORDANO, who is THIRTY years old. He is often called AJAX by the MONTAGUES and works as their SOLDIER. He uses HE/HIM pronouns.
He was never supposed to have been born, and Armand would never have known if not for his sixteenth birthday celebration. The night was dark and the streets were rowdy with strangers as drunk as he was when a woman stopped him in his tracks and SPIT in his face. I know who you are, she said, You have your father’s eyes. She told him his origin story with each blow, fist upon cheek and nails digging into skin. His father, Armand learned, was a Capulet emissary who turned his back on his true famiglia for a few nights of pleasure and the kiss of an undeserving Montague. We killed them both, she hissed into his ear as he groaned and spit up blood, and the only reason we did not kill you was because you were a babe. But you are grown now, and you should forever sleep with one eye open. But Hercules did not BOW to his mortality before the wrath of the gods, and neither did Armand. He slept with both eyes shut like a man in perfect peace, but his dreams were of glittering blades and shattered glass. They were of clasped hands and kissed knuckles turned to blood-stained palms and infected wounds.
His fathers agonized over the sudden change in their darling boy. They adopted him as a babe and never stopped adoring him; the Verona sun never left the sky until it heard Armand’s fathers tell him how precious he was. Armand’s fathers tempted the truth out of him with promises of understanding, gentle questions, even outright pleading and begging at his feet. Each time, Armand turned his cheek in stoic silence. How could he tell the two people he loved most in the world — and the two people who loved him most in the world — the truth? His blood was TAINTED from the beginning, and his bones sang of war and betrayal. He wanted to be more than his past; perhaps he wanted to run away from it, too. Armand was never a brilliant boy, but he made up for it with his kind and open heart; he didn’t realize until he turned sixteen that it made him a TARGET too, so Armand made strength and might his new god. The gym became his temple and his holy altar and his anger and fear grew in tandem, until he could hardly recognize one from the other. He was all brambles and thorns, and no heart dared prick itself on his sharp edges to reach the boy who wondered if his birth parents would have loved him, had they LIVED.
That boy DIED when his fathers were murdered. It was an accident, they told him, straightforward and without question. But Armand knew. He knew that he had not slept with one eye open, that he let the Capulet woman leave his bruised and bloody body on the streets without ever studying her face. There was not a soul in Verona who could convince Armand his fathers were not murdered by the Capulets, or that he was not to blame. He had abandoned his own story for fear of facing the prologue; and his fathers were dead for it. NEVER AGAIN. Never again would anyone draw his blood and live to tell the tale. He would hold all his pain and the entirety of his treacherous spirit inside him, until Armand could no longer bear it and found solace in the taste of copper and new bruises on his flesh — just to feel ALIVE.
The boy who slept with both eyes closed was gone; the boy who could look love in the eye was DESTROYED. In his place was a man who broke his own mold to become the perfect soldier: relentless, ruthless and ready for all that came his way — all to become a Montague. He marched up to Roman years ago when the prince still seemed more boy than heir, and with one sentence secured his ranking amongst the Montagues: I could kill you right now, but I won’t if you let me become one of your own. He was honored to be Roman’s personal bodyguard and earn the title of Montagues’ most coveted and FEARED soldier. All of Verona know the name Ajax, and still, very few dare utter the name Armand. They whisper that he is no human; he is a creature built by the Montagues, without a beating heart and without a human name. He’s glad for it; Armand died with his fathers. Like a tortured and godless phoenix, he rises from his own ashes and abandons his humanity — as Ajax, and Ajax alone.
ROMAN MONTAGUE: Charge. Long live the king who deserves the throne. There is a reason Armand chose to pledge his allegiance to Roman from the very beginning, and it’s the same reason Armand stays quiet in Damiano’s presence at all times: because Damiano is not Armand’s future. In the rare moments that Armand is honest with himself, he knows Damiano is not the Montagues’ future either, or even Verona’s. That belongs to Roman, to the boy who is born into more strife and turmoil than Armand can even imagine and still finds beauty in his dreams. Perhaps in the beginning, Armand thought Roman was a fool; now, he understands the boy who may just become a great man and a great king — and he will do anything to make sure Roman’s potential is realized.
MARCELO ROSSO: Mirror. There are greater terrors in the night than being tortured by an enemy or dragged through the mud before the city; Armand will gladly choose either of the two before he allows himself to be seen and understood. Marcelo is exactly the person he might have been. Did he not lose everything, too? Did he not also love his fathers and was he not loved in return? Yet Marcelo is everything Armand might have been and chose not to be: hellbent on vengeance, a tornado on fire. It scares him, bewilders him and interests him all at the same time; it’s a dangerous mix of emotions, so Armand stays away when he can and silent when he cannot.
HAZEL ACCARDI: Soft spot. When Armand was a child, his fathers told him a story of a princess who lived on the moon and longed to see the world like the sun: dazzling and bustling with light, instead of shadowed in the dark. He’s convinced Hazel is the princess his father spoke of. He pities her, perhaps because he sees something of himself in her that he thought had long withered away. People like Hazel are not taught to see around the corner; how can anyone so loved and lovable know not to walk through life with their palms wide open to catch all the pain and horror that falls from the sky? He sees in Hazel the sister he begged for as a child, and though no one’s asked it of him, he’s accepted the honor of being her protector as she pays off her debts to the Montagues.
CASTORA AGUILAR: Weakness. She hardly knows him — Armand knows this, and is relieved for it. If she were to come too close, Castora might see it in his eyes: the deep admiration that’s blossomed in his chest like flowers in spring in her name, the silent wanting for the woman who is stronger than he can ever hope to be. It’s her power that draws him to her. There is a determined gleam in her eye, a fighting spirit that Armand cannot resist. What began as a distant respect has fumbled out of his control, and he dreads the day she notices it. The two train together often, thanks to his reputation amongst the Montagues as an ideal sparring partner: tough to beat and patient in teaching. He may pin her to the ground every time, but she is the one who holds the cards in her hand. Castora makes him weak and he ought to hate her for it, if he is to live up to his reputation — but Dio help him, he cannot stay away.
Armand is portrayed by DUDLEY O’SHAUGHNESSY and was written by MINNIE. He is currently TAKEN by MINNIE.
