Work Text:
Nunzio was not a man of many words. All he wanted was to perform, and perform he did.
His parents weren't around much in his life. He spent most of his days in the orphanage, and when time came for him to see his parents, they didn't do much with him anywho. Although they always swore to Nunzio, up to his teenage years, that they were away so much to pay for the house he was meant to live in, said house he only really saw once every 3 months.
He just wanted some love, not just from the parents that made him come to this earth, but from the general public. That's why he went to music.
The fiddle was the instrument he took for this passion because one of the older kids in the orphanage he, realistically speaking, lived in, was addicted to it. They always woke up, ate breakfast and went straight to playing it. Pasqua looked up to the teenager because they seemed to care about everyone there no matter what. Their passion for the fiddle let them gain an audience. An audience they knew by heart and could always answer the questions of, no matter what they were.
Suffice to say, the idea of "Nunzio Pasqua, the best fiddle player in Perugia" quickly spread. Everyone loved Nunzio's music, from children to seniors. Only some adult, self-centered critics called it "soulless", and even then they kept their opinions to themselves. Just like the kid in the orphanage Pasqua always looked up to, he loved his audience and answering questions from them earnestly. Of course, Nunzio himself was quite an introvert, so he didn't have much to say in regard for questions in general, but he still loved them.
And that was when the opportunity came. England saw his passion for music and wanted him in their country, stat.
He quickly gained popularity in England. The critics in the country were harsher and more open about their issues with his music, don't get that wrong, but he still grew in popularity. Bigger and bigger. Soon, the whole entirety of England knew him by name alone. He didn't do many tours, only really limiting his shows to Falmouth and, periodically, his hometown of Perugia, but he liked that. He liked having his shows not so widespread. Sure, word of mouth was word of mouth, but if people truly wanted to see him, they'd have to go to either of those two locations.
The reason as to why Pasqua took the sail on the Obra Dinn is purely unknown by the mass media, but to Nunzio, there was truly one reason; His long lost sister.
To his knowledge, his parents actually abandoned him when he was around 16 and fled to the Ottoman Empire to start a new family, since Perugia wasn't functioning well for them. There, they started a new family and had a new daughter, yet that daughter soon figured out the truth and now wanted to see her brother once more, face to face. Pasqua knew he needed to go on the Obra Dinn, especially since it was the only ship porting out of Falmouth to the Orient.
The voyage itself went along smoothly; Nunzio never really bothered to care about what was happening around the ship itself, especially since, realistically, it was never any of his business, and he kept sailing, even expecting a wonderful view of the Canaries from the top deck once the ship were to get to the appropriate area.
But it all went downhill from the moment his dreams rose.
He had heard the commotion, and he could have just left it be, but his curiosity killed not just the cat, but the hopes of the Obra Dinn as a whole.
As he saw Nichols fleeing the scene, the knife he was holding a minute ago deep in his chest, and one of the formosans lying unconcious right beside him, he thought;
"Mio Dio, perché.."