#grace daly

[moviemosaics]

Bring Them Down

directed by Christopher Andrews, 2024

[archiveddvrpg]

In fair Verona, our tale begins with GRACE DALY, who is THIRTY-TWO years old. She is often called GONERIL by the MONTAGUES and works as their SOLDIER. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.

She was UNEXPECTED, as prophets and disasters often are. A raven-haired beauty brought into the world a little too soon, she was remarkable only for her insistence, for the way she stubbornly clung to life with too-small hands. She was a girl not quite ready for the world, a bird born with paper-thin wings, but like all resilient things, she grew—into something beautiful, something TERRIBLE, an angel with a halo that burned in the unholiest of ways. Her parents nurtured her like they would a rose, handled her so delicately that they hardly felt the sting of her thorns, but even if they had, they’d have loved her all the more for it. Their darling, their miracle, their baby—she was perfect in their eyes, immaculate when looked at in the right light. But Grace Daly has always been better-suited to the dark, to the shadows, and it was there that she became unrecognizable, a girl grown ROTTENfrom her parents’ sweetness. They created a monster when they loved her into ruthlessness, when they put her on a pedestal even God himself couldn’t aspire to, and everyone would come to see theMISTAKE they’d made—everyone but them.

As for Grace, she made none. Every move she made was calculated, every strike meticulously aimed; she wore her lipstick like war paint and made her laugh her battle cry, terrifying and shadowed and raw. RUTHLESSNESS—it was carved into her bones like an ivory title, aching and yearning and immortal—the conquering of an empire all her own. She only became crueler as she aged, conditioned to believe for all the world that it revolved around her. The only thing her father never gave her was her infamy, red-hot and burning, and she earned that herself, by taking lives and spilling blood that was never her own. Grace Daly was a wicked slip of a girl long before she broke into the Capulet ranks, all light eyes gleaming dark envy and a smile hiding sharp teeth, but she became something more dangerous once she’d fought her way into the fold: BRUTAL. She was everything her sisters were not—silver-tongued and brass-knuckled, a hurricane in high heels, but she embraced the difference because it served her, for the black sheep gets REMEMBERED.

But being remembered was hardly enough—not when her not-so-darling little sister could achieve the same recognition without anyone ever learning her name, so she looked elsewhere, as spoiled children who’ve found themselves suddenly deprived tend to do, and whether by a stroke of luck or a nod from fate, she stumbled upon initiates of a specialized group of Montagues. They were a crew unlike anything she’d ever seen, an assortment of puzzle pieces without a proper place strung together to make something DANGEROUS. But strange though they were, and seemingly ill-matched, they were a well-oiled machine, fueled by fear and hunger and the ichor of ambition, and she saw potential in them—she saw the destruction. She wasn’t the first turncoat to join their ranks, she’d come to learn, and she certainly wouldn’t be the last, but the Daly woman was unique in that she was not taken in like a stray puppy scratching at Damiano’s door, a sinner begging for absolution from a man generous enough to give it. She was INVITED in, given a hand up—not in cruel kindness or pity, but in a sort of challenge—and sensing that Verona was on the cusp of a new age, she accepted, tossing her share of the current regime in with those who sought to tear it down. Treason looked good on her—she liked to think everything did—but a CROWN would lookbetter.

It’s become her crowning glory, this name she’s built of her own volition, this throne slick with blood. WICKEDNESS—it’s etched into the scarlet curve of her smile, every bit a warning as it is an invitation to a reckoning—yours. Desire is impatient—is terror when it’s kept waiting, and her ascension has been years in the making, a slow rise hastened by treason, by BETRAYAL, by knives in the backs of all she held dear. An empress in the making, she’ll build her kingdom on the ruins of the families she once served and do what all girls raised to believe they are princesses so love to do: she’ll rule. The world should know better than to write off a ravenous girl as a dreamer, a long-legged Icarus destined for the fall, for the sun’s not the villain in this story; she is, and queens aren’t born, they’re  MADE.

CATHERINE & REGINA DALY: Sisters. They’re beneath her, not merely in age, but in every way that matters. She’s never paid either of them much mind, too jealous of the attention they stole from her as a child to extend any sort of olive branch and too busy making a name for herself as an adult to tie herself to theirs, but she knows enough about them to be glad for the distance between them. Catherine, the baby, is about as contrary as the Daly girls come, with her blonde hair and heart of molten gold, and Regina, the bridge between the eldest and the youngest, is lacklustre at best. They’d infuriate her if she gave them the courtesy of consideration, but she’s never been so generous with her attention. She’d like to forget they ever shared a home.

BORIS KOVROV: Rival. She’s convinced that the only advantage he has over her is time. She’s heard the stories about them and has done research into it herself. He’s every inch the traitor she is, and—which is more—he was fallen when he crawled up to Damiano’s doorstep in search of acceptance, whereas she’d had the grace and dignity to knock. The door has been opened to them both, two turncoats from opposite sides of an age-old war, but old habits die hard, and it’s in her nature to want with reckless abandon what others have already claimed. He beat her to the punch; she’ll admit it, but he won’t ever have the chance again—not if she’s still breathing.

VIVIANNE SLOANE: Bad blood. It’s strangely fitting and wonderfully hypocritical for a woman who thrived only after she’d abandoned her own son to curl her lip at betrayal; if Grace were more inclined to be preoccupied with anyone’s dilemmas but her own, she might stop to appreciate the irony. But alas, she simply doesn’t have the time. Besides, watching the Sloane woman stew in her own rage is infinitely more fun. Her former underboss has cursed her name lower than a dog’s, but the Daly woman merely laughs, knowing damn well she’ll have the last one. Good captains always go down with their ships, but great ones know when to jump.

IVAN RAHAL: Partner-in-Crime. He was there when she pulled her first trigger and was there to bask in her euphoria of the whole thing. Since then, they have been a fixture in one another’s lives, tied together by spilled blood – which is far more preferable to her than shared blood. Far more damning for it, too. When the two of them get together she knows that all of Verona quakes in fear of these hellions that are likely to tear the wings of angels, to make God Himself blanch at their uninhibited apostasy. But there can only be so much honor among those who think of themselves as companions of the devil – and that is why she has his casket picked out for the day he dies – and an alibi ready to go, too.

Grace is portrayed by KATIE MCGRATH and was written by BREE. She is currently TAKEN by RACHEL.