Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2015-08-14 03:54 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2015-08-14 03:54 pm
Entry tags:
Fanfiction: Visitors, Part Three (Assassin's Creed)
I'm starting to suspect I will never be free of this ridiculous AU. It continues to have no plot beyond 'these characters I like are in the same place and it's the best'.
I am absolutely kicking myself for not naming this Assassin's Creed/Sense8 crossover 'The World Made Up of This Brotherhood'. IT'S A SENSE8 REFERENCE AND IT HAS THE WORD 'BROTHERHOOD' IN IT. It was the most perfect title opportunity possible, and I missed it!
Title: Visitors, Part Three
Fandom: Assassin's Creed (I, II, III, Liberation, Black Flag, Rogue)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,600 (this chapter; 9,300 cumulative)
Summary: Who are we, who have been so blessed to share our stories like this? To speak across centuries? (Altaïr, Ezio, Edward, Haytham, Shay, Connor, Aveline, Desmond: eight people strangely bonded, able to meet and converse and occasionally attempt to murder each other across the boundaries of time and space. Inspired by Sense8.)
Part One
Part Two
“They have information I need,” Altaïr growls. “They wish to speak of it, I know. But they see me and they stop talking. Why? The scholars do not trouble them. I look the same.”
“These are the scholars?” Aveline asks, gesturing towards a passing group. She watches them for a moment. “Hmm. Show me your imitation again?”
Altaïr adopts the scholars’ pose, feeling ridiculous.
“It’s in the way you hold yourself,” Aveline says. “It is not enough to clasp your hands and bow your head. Your tension and pride show through.” Her eyes trace the line of his shoulders. “May I?”
Altaïr hesitates. He dislikes the idea of giving up control. But these men are out in the open, away from any hiding places, and they refuse to converse with him nearby, and he must know where his target will be tonight.
“Do as you must,” he says, closing his eyes.
When he opens them again he is looking at his own body from outside, but it is only from the weapons that he can recognise it as his. The way Aveline holds herself, the way she moves, there’s nothing of Altaïr in there. She has made him into a scholar, and she walks past his target’s chattering servants without drawing so much as a glance.
There are no female Assassins at Masyaf, Altaïr finds himself thinking, watching her.
Later, when Masyaf falls to him, he will remember this moment, and he will make changes.
-
“How grows the Brotherhood?” Haytham asks, brushing his fingers over Ezio’s records.
“That is information for brothers, I think,” Ezio says. “Don’t you?”
Haytham gives him a shrewd look. Ezio can see him calculating, trying to determine whether there’s any point in lying.
“You spoke to me as a brother before,” Haytham says, eventually.
“I thought you were one,” Ezio says. “But Connor has warned me of you, my Grand Master.”
Haytham smiles coldly. “Connor needs to rein in his tongue. What else has he told you?”
An interesting question. “What else is there to tell?”
Haytham doesn’t speak for a moment. “So what happens now?” he asks, eventually.
“Now?” Ezio asks. “I suppose I take other routes to discover whatever it is you are keeping from me.”
“By all means pry into my affairs, if it amuses you,” Haytham says. “I only felt our visits were the more pressing matter. Can we agree that your time is yours and my time is mine, and there’s no need for either of us to interfere?”
A truce? Ezio would probably feel more at ease without the risk that Haytham might try to control him, it’s true.
“Perhaps,” Ezio says. “But I will step in if you ever try to harm the other visitors.”
The corner of Haytham’s mouth twitches. “I will treat each of them like my own child, I assure you.”
-
There’s not much change in the sounds or the spray or the roll of the deck under his feet, but he knows in an instant that he’s visiting. It’s the warmth that does it: a glorious wash of heat that makes him wonder why he spends so much time pissing about in the North Atlantic. He closes his eyes, drinking it in.
“Another one? Let’s hear it, then.”
Shay opens his eyes. It’s someone new. Assassin cloak, of course. For Christ’s sake, why are they always Assassins? “Hear what?”
“How I’m not worthy of the clothes I’m wearing,” the man says, shrugging. “How I’m sullying them in my pursuit of a livelihood. If you must know, I wear them because they’re comfortable and solidly made. They’re clothes. You can’t expect a man to sign a contract every time he puts on a shirt.”
This is stirring something in Shay’s mind. He and Ezio had a talk, back when they were on the same side, trying to determine who the other visitors were. Ezio mentioned a man who wore the cloak despite not being a member of the Brotherhood. Shay had never met him.
Not an Assassin, then. More at ease now, Shay looks about the deck of the ship he’s found himself on.
“She’s a beauty,” he says. “What’s her name?”
The man stares at him.
“The Jackdaw,” he says, after a moment.
“Mine’s the Morrigan,” Shay says. “My ship, I mean, not my name.” He holds out a hand. “Shay Cormac.”
A moment longer passes before the man breaks into a grin and takes it. “You’ll have to tell me about her,” he says. “Edward Kenway.”
“Pay a visit and I’ll show you,” Shay says, thinking. Did he say Kenway?
He glances over at the first mate – it can’t be, surely – and has to fight any expression back from his face. It is. It’s Adéwalé. He’s sure of it.
Should he ask the Grand Master about this?
It’s none of his business. For now, he’ll just be glad to have a new visitor who isn’t an enemy.
-
“It seems you and I have some common ground.”
Edward is just getting to his feet, shock making him unsteady, and he near falls off the roof at the voice. He sits again, for his own safety. A moment longer up here, perhaps. Kidd will snipe at him for being late, but Kidd just changed into a woman in front of his eyes, and Edward thinks he’s justified in wanting a moment to come to terms with this.
His visitor is Altaïr. Edward tries to remember what he just said. “Our clothes weren’t common ground enough?”
“My clothes were won through training and discipline,” Altaïr says. “Your clothes—”
“Yes, all right, I know,” Edward interrupts. Now that his mind is clearer, this isn’t the first time James Kidd has knocked him sideways; he didn’t know what to think when Kidd proved to be of the same breed as these people who keep crossing time just to lecture him. “You’re speaking of lads turning out to be lasses, then? I suppose it’s easy to hide a person’s form under one of these cloaks.”
“Not an Assassin,” Altaïr says. “And women are now free to take the cloak. But yes, I have seen this before.”
For once, perhaps Altaïr is a welcome presence. Edward could do with someone to speak to about this, and Kidd himself will probably be unsympathetic. Herself, that is. This will take some getting used to.
“Did it change your relationship?” Edward asks. “James Kidd’s friendship was not easily won. I’m loath to lose it now.”
“Our relationship was all in steel,” Altaïr says. “She was an enemy, not a friend. But I suppose it did change it, in a way.”
“In a way?”
Altaïr smiles little, but he smiles now. “I married her.”
Edward stares at him, and then he turns to stare out into the night, the way Kidd went.
“I’m already married,” he murmurs, half to himself.
-
Haytham spends some time sitting in the cave after Ziio has left, trying to arrange his dishevelled person, trying to fix every detail of her in his mind: her warmth, her scent, her roughened skin, her tongue sharp in both speech and silence. Eventually, though, he decides it’s time to address the other matter at hand.
“Desmond!” he calls.
No response. The cave is silent.
“Desmond,” he says, “I know you’re here. You have seen something extremely personal. The least you can do is apologise.”
Nothing happens for a moment longer, and then Desmond slowly emerges from behind an outcrop of rock.
“I was hoping you hadn’t noticed,” he mutters, staring at his feet.
“Had you conducted yourself differently, I might not have,” Haytham agrees. “I was rather distracted. But it’s hard to ignore when a man appears out of the air and shrieks.”
Desmond flushes. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
“It was not enough to ruin my evening,” Haytham says. “But it was impolite.”
“Sorry,” Desmond says. “Believe me, I was trying to leave. I – I kept my eyes closed.”
“Do not let this happen again,” Haytham says.
“I’ll try,” Desmond says. “I swear. But I don’t know if I can control it.”
“Do not let this happen again,” Haytham repeats, “or I may prove a danger to your friends in the future on my next visit.”
Desmond stares at him. “They’re Assassins,” he says, after a moment.
Haytham almost laughs. Desmond still believes him to be an Assassin? Where did this conviction come from? “A tragic loss, no doubt, but I will endeavour to control my weeping.”
“You don’t seem like a dick in the Animus,” Desmond mutters. “I thought you’d be friendlier.”
“I am friendly to my friends,” Haytham says. “Do we have a deal?”
-
She sees movement out of the corner of her eye. She knows she’s alone in the house. An enemy? A visitor? She flicks out her blades, just in case.
But it’s neither of those.
“Connor?” she asks, startled. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
Connor stares at her. “You can see me?”
Surely not. “You’re a visitor?”
“I did not know you were one of us.” He smiles a little. It’s an expression that sits strangely on his face, but Aveline doesn’t think there’s insincerity behind it; perhaps he is just unused to smiling. “It is good to see you again.”
“And you,” she says, smiling in return. “But this is incredible! It’s a way to test if these visits are real! We can arrange to meet, and if you don’t appear I will know they were only in my mind.”
Connor goes still. “I have met another visitor in person,” he says. “We spoke of the visits. They are real.”
“Who did you meet?” she asks, curious. There are a couple of other visitors who live at the same time as them, as far as she can tell. But they’re both Templars, aren’t they?
“I am sorry,” Connor says. “Perhaps I will tell you one day.”
She knows not to press the issue. “Well, I have only your word, and for all I know your word is the word of a hallucination. If it would not trouble you, I would like to meet.”
He hesitates, then nods. “We can meet.”
“Have you a target we can hunt together?” she asks.
“We have hunted together before,” he says. “Let us meet in peace. Come to the homestead. There are many good people I would like you to know.”
-
Desmond always feels a little awkward, meeting visitors he hasn’t been in the Animus. The Animus brings its own awkwardness, of course, especially when he meets someone before they’ve lived through some of the things he’s seen, but still. Altaïr, Ezio, Connor: these are people he feels he knows. He didn’t spend that much time with Haytham, but... well, he’s never going to be making small talk with that guy. But Edward? Aveline? Shay? He doesn’t know what they’ve been through, and their lives are so different from his he never knows where to start a conversation.
When he gets out of this situation, he’s not going to be able to make new friends unless he already knows all the major events in their lives, past and future. It’ll be tough. Maybe Rebecca and Shaun will stay in touch. If not, well, he’d better find some common ground with the people in his head.
Is he really planning to spend the rest of his life hanging out with his hallucinations?
Maybe it’s best not to think too much about the future right now.
Shaun walks by Desmond’s workstation, muttering to himself. His footsteps stop abruptly. “Is that...?”
Desmond refuses to look around at him. Yeah, maybe he’s looking at websites on eighteenth-century sailing. So what? He already knows a little from Connor, of course, but Connor isn’t anywhere near as big on sailing as Edward or Shay.
“Desmond,” Shaun says, “I think you’ll find I’m the historian here. You’ll have to write your own database puns if you put me out of a job. It won’t be the same.”
And then he bursts into song.
No, wait – Desmond is visiting. He’s on a ship, and the crew is singing heartily, and it’s freezing, which means it’s probably Shay.
“You look distracted,” Shay says. Desmond looks around to find him at the helm. “Were you pulled away in the middle of something?”
Shay looks guarded, as he usually does. It makes sense; he and most of the visitors are on different sides. In a way, Desmond still finds it strange to think of himself as an Assassin, but the Templars definitely aren’t his friends.
That’s the Templars in his own time, though. Is there any real reason he and Shay can’t get along? It seems like it’s in his interests to make friends with anyone who could potentially take over his body.
“I was actually reading about sailing,” Desmond admits.
Shay laughs at that. “Got a taste for it, have you?”
“I guess you could say that,” Desmond says. “I’m definitely interested.”
“I won’t be courted into letting you take a turn at the helm, I warn you,” Shay says. “I know when I’m being flattered. I did much the same with our pirate friend.” But his voice is warmer now. “Books have their uses, but there’s no book on sailing that compares to the real thing. Keep your blades from me and my crew, and maybe I’ll give you a tour.”
-
“Beautiful and skilled,” Ezio remarks, as they watch Myriam clean her kill. “A fine woman.”
“We are fortunate to have her here,” Connor agrees. He is careful to stay a few paces from Ezio; he bears the man no enmity, but Ezio tries to touch him often.
Ezio watches her a moment longer. “I would like to speak with her.”
“What business could you have with Myriam?” Connor asks, puzzled.
“No business. Only conversation. You have never wished to speak with a woman for the pleasure of hearing her talk?”
“She will not hear you,” Connor says. Perhaps for the best; he is beginning to suspect Ezio’s intentions.
And then he finds himself standing exactly where Ezio was, looking at his own body three paces away.
A rush of fury and horror surges through him. This has happened before. Shay took over his body to attack Achilles, and now Ezio has possessed it to attack—
Not to attack, to seduce, which if anything is worse—
“Ezio, if you touch her, we will never be friends again.”
“I will do nothing untoward,” Ezio says, holding up Connor’s hands. “I will ask her how her hunting went, and then I will leave.”
“She is betrothed, Ezio!” Connor says urgently, but Ezio is already striding towards Myriam. Connor can only follow, straining to reclaim his body through sheer force of will. It worked before, but then he feared for Achilles’ life. However little he might want Ezio to speak to her through him, he knows in his heart that Myriam is not in danger.
Myriam greets Ezio brightly, believing him to be Connor. Ezio keeps to his word; he speaks to her only of hunting. But he does it as Ezio would, standing closer than Connor ever does, speaking and smiling warmly, punctuating his words with grand gestures and the occasional touch to the hand or arm. Myriam is still smiling, but she looks puzzled. Connor is so mortified he doubts he will ever be able to speak to her again.
Ezio disappears mid-conversation and Connor finds himself back in his own body. He excuses himself immediately and leaves almost at a run.
The next day, Myriam has an attack of nerves and vanishes before her wedding.
Once he’s tracked her down and brought her home, Connor swings a second hatchet into the porch pillar. He refuses to tell Achilles who he’s at war with.
Part Four
I am absolutely kicking myself for not naming this Assassin's Creed/Sense8 crossover 'The World Made Up of This Brotherhood'. IT'S A SENSE8 REFERENCE AND IT HAS THE WORD 'BROTHERHOOD' IN IT. It was the most perfect title opportunity possible, and I missed it!
Title: Visitors, Part Three
Fandom: Assassin's Creed (I, II, III, Liberation, Black Flag, Rogue)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,600 (this chapter; 9,300 cumulative)
Summary: Who are we, who have been so blessed to share our stories like this? To speak across centuries? (Altaïr, Ezio, Edward, Haytham, Shay, Connor, Aveline, Desmond: eight people strangely bonded, able to meet and converse and occasionally attempt to murder each other across the boundaries of time and space. Inspired by Sense8.)
Part One
Part Two
“They have information I need,” Altaïr growls. “They wish to speak of it, I know. But they see me and they stop talking. Why? The scholars do not trouble them. I look the same.”
“These are the scholars?” Aveline asks, gesturing towards a passing group. She watches them for a moment. “Hmm. Show me your imitation again?”
Altaïr adopts the scholars’ pose, feeling ridiculous.
“It’s in the way you hold yourself,” Aveline says. “It is not enough to clasp your hands and bow your head. Your tension and pride show through.” Her eyes trace the line of his shoulders. “May I?”
Altaïr hesitates. He dislikes the idea of giving up control. But these men are out in the open, away from any hiding places, and they refuse to converse with him nearby, and he must know where his target will be tonight.
“Do as you must,” he says, closing his eyes.
When he opens them again he is looking at his own body from outside, but it is only from the weapons that he can recognise it as his. The way Aveline holds herself, the way she moves, there’s nothing of Altaïr in there. She has made him into a scholar, and she walks past his target’s chattering servants without drawing so much as a glance.
There are no female Assassins at Masyaf, Altaïr finds himself thinking, watching her.
Later, when Masyaf falls to him, he will remember this moment, and he will make changes.
“How grows the Brotherhood?” Haytham asks, brushing his fingers over Ezio’s records.
“That is information for brothers, I think,” Ezio says. “Don’t you?”
Haytham gives him a shrewd look. Ezio can see him calculating, trying to determine whether there’s any point in lying.
“You spoke to me as a brother before,” Haytham says, eventually.
“I thought you were one,” Ezio says. “But Connor has warned me of you, my Grand Master.”
Haytham smiles coldly. “Connor needs to rein in his tongue. What else has he told you?”
An interesting question. “What else is there to tell?”
Haytham doesn’t speak for a moment. “So what happens now?” he asks, eventually.
“Now?” Ezio asks. “I suppose I take other routes to discover whatever it is you are keeping from me.”
“By all means pry into my affairs, if it amuses you,” Haytham says. “I only felt our visits were the more pressing matter. Can we agree that your time is yours and my time is mine, and there’s no need for either of us to interfere?”
A truce? Ezio would probably feel more at ease without the risk that Haytham might try to control him, it’s true.
“Perhaps,” Ezio says. “But I will step in if you ever try to harm the other visitors.”
The corner of Haytham’s mouth twitches. “I will treat each of them like my own child, I assure you.”
There’s not much change in the sounds or the spray or the roll of the deck under his feet, but he knows in an instant that he’s visiting. It’s the warmth that does it: a glorious wash of heat that makes him wonder why he spends so much time pissing about in the North Atlantic. He closes his eyes, drinking it in.
“Another one? Let’s hear it, then.”
Shay opens his eyes. It’s someone new. Assassin cloak, of course. For Christ’s sake, why are they always Assassins? “Hear what?”
“How I’m not worthy of the clothes I’m wearing,” the man says, shrugging. “How I’m sullying them in my pursuit of a livelihood. If you must know, I wear them because they’re comfortable and solidly made. They’re clothes. You can’t expect a man to sign a contract every time he puts on a shirt.”
This is stirring something in Shay’s mind. He and Ezio had a talk, back when they were on the same side, trying to determine who the other visitors were. Ezio mentioned a man who wore the cloak despite not being a member of the Brotherhood. Shay had never met him.
Not an Assassin, then. More at ease now, Shay looks about the deck of the ship he’s found himself on.
“She’s a beauty,” he says. “What’s her name?”
The man stares at him.
“The Jackdaw,” he says, after a moment.
“Mine’s the Morrigan,” Shay says. “My ship, I mean, not my name.” He holds out a hand. “Shay Cormac.”
A moment longer passes before the man breaks into a grin and takes it. “You’ll have to tell me about her,” he says. “Edward Kenway.”
“Pay a visit and I’ll show you,” Shay says, thinking. Did he say Kenway?
He glances over at the first mate – it can’t be, surely – and has to fight any expression back from his face. It is. It’s Adéwalé. He’s sure of it.
Should he ask the Grand Master about this?
It’s none of his business. For now, he’ll just be glad to have a new visitor who isn’t an enemy.
“It seems you and I have some common ground.”
Edward is just getting to his feet, shock making him unsteady, and he near falls off the roof at the voice. He sits again, for his own safety. A moment longer up here, perhaps. Kidd will snipe at him for being late, but Kidd just changed into a woman in front of his eyes, and Edward thinks he’s justified in wanting a moment to come to terms with this.
His visitor is Altaïr. Edward tries to remember what he just said. “Our clothes weren’t common ground enough?”
“My clothes were won through training and discipline,” Altaïr says. “Your clothes—”
“Yes, all right, I know,” Edward interrupts. Now that his mind is clearer, this isn’t the first time James Kidd has knocked him sideways; he didn’t know what to think when Kidd proved to be of the same breed as these people who keep crossing time just to lecture him. “You’re speaking of lads turning out to be lasses, then? I suppose it’s easy to hide a person’s form under one of these cloaks.”
“Not an Assassin,” Altaïr says. “And women are now free to take the cloak. But yes, I have seen this before.”
For once, perhaps Altaïr is a welcome presence. Edward could do with someone to speak to about this, and Kidd himself will probably be unsympathetic. Herself, that is. This will take some getting used to.
“Did it change your relationship?” Edward asks. “James Kidd’s friendship was not easily won. I’m loath to lose it now.”
“Our relationship was all in steel,” Altaïr says. “She was an enemy, not a friend. But I suppose it did change it, in a way.”
“In a way?”
Altaïr smiles little, but he smiles now. “I married her.”
Edward stares at him, and then he turns to stare out into the night, the way Kidd went.
“I’m already married,” he murmurs, half to himself.
Haytham spends some time sitting in the cave after Ziio has left, trying to arrange his dishevelled person, trying to fix every detail of her in his mind: her warmth, her scent, her roughened skin, her tongue sharp in both speech and silence. Eventually, though, he decides it’s time to address the other matter at hand.
“Desmond!” he calls.
No response. The cave is silent.
“Desmond,” he says, “I know you’re here. You have seen something extremely personal. The least you can do is apologise.”
Nothing happens for a moment longer, and then Desmond slowly emerges from behind an outcrop of rock.
“I was hoping you hadn’t noticed,” he mutters, staring at his feet.
“Had you conducted yourself differently, I might not have,” Haytham agrees. “I was rather distracted. But it’s hard to ignore when a man appears out of the air and shrieks.”
Desmond flushes. “I wasn’t expecting it.”
“It was not enough to ruin my evening,” Haytham says. “But it was impolite.”
“Sorry,” Desmond says. “Believe me, I was trying to leave. I – I kept my eyes closed.”
“Do not let this happen again,” Haytham says.
“I’ll try,” Desmond says. “I swear. But I don’t know if I can control it.”
“Do not let this happen again,” Haytham repeats, “or I may prove a danger to your friends in the future on my next visit.”
Desmond stares at him. “They’re Assassins,” he says, after a moment.
Haytham almost laughs. Desmond still believes him to be an Assassin? Where did this conviction come from? “A tragic loss, no doubt, but I will endeavour to control my weeping.”
“You don’t seem like a dick in the Animus,” Desmond mutters. “I thought you’d be friendlier.”
“I am friendly to my friends,” Haytham says. “Do we have a deal?”
She sees movement out of the corner of her eye. She knows she’s alone in the house. An enemy? A visitor? She flicks out her blades, just in case.
But it’s neither of those.
“Connor?” she asks, startled. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
Connor stares at her. “You can see me?”
Surely not. “You’re a visitor?”
“I did not know you were one of us.” He smiles a little. It’s an expression that sits strangely on his face, but Aveline doesn’t think there’s insincerity behind it; perhaps he is just unused to smiling. “It is good to see you again.”
“And you,” she says, smiling in return. “But this is incredible! It’s a way to test if these visits are real! We can arrange to meet, and if you don’t appear I will know they were only in my mind.”
Connor goes still. “I have met another visitor in person,” he says. “We spoke of the visits. They are real.”
“Who did you meet?” she asks, curious. There are a couple of other visitors who live at the same time as them, as far as she can tell. But they’re both Templars, aren’t they?
“I am sorry,” Connor says. “Perhaps I will tell you one day.”
She knows not to press the issue. “Well, I have only your word, and for all I know your word is the word of a hallucination. If it would not trouble you, I would like to meet.”
He hesitates, then nods. “We can meet.”
“Have you a target we can hunt together?” she asks.
“We have hunted together before,” he says. “Let us meet in peace. Come to the homestead. There are many good people I would like you to know.”
Desmond always feels a little awkward, meeting visitors he hasn’t been in the Animus. The Animus brings its own awkwardness, of course, especially when he meets someone before they’ve lived through some of the things he’s seen, but still. Altaïr, Ezio, Connor: these are people he feels he knows. He didn’t spend that much time with Haytham, but... well, he’s never going to be making small talk with that guy. But Edward? Aveline? Shay? He doesn’t know what they’ve been through, and their lives are so different from his he never knows where to start a conversation.
When he gets out of this situation, he’s not going to be able to make new friends unless he already knows all the major events in their lives, past and future. It’ll be tough. Maybe Rebecca and Shaun will stay in touch. If not, well, he’d better find some common ground with the people in his head.
Is he really planning to spend the rest of his life hanging out with his hallucinations?
Maybe it’s best not to think too much about the future right now.
Shaun walks by Desmond’s workstation, muttering to himself. His footsteps stop abruptly. “Is that...?”
Desmond refuses to look around at him. Yeah, maybe he’s looking at websites on eighteenth-century sailing. So what? He already knows a little from Connor, of course, but Connor isn’t anywhere near as big on sailing as Edward or Shay.
“Desmond,” Shaun says, “I think you’ll find I’m the historian here. You’ll have to write your own database puns if you put me out of a job. It won’t be the same.”
And then he bursts into song.
No, wait – Desmond is visiting. He’s on a ship, and the crew is singing heartily, and it’s freezing, which means it’s probably Shay.
“You look distracted,” Shay says. Desmond looks around to find him at the helm. “Were you pulled away in the middle of something?”
Shay looks guarded, as he usually does. It makes sense; he and most of the visitors are on different sides. In a way, Desmond still finds it strange to think of himself as an Assassin, but the Templars definitely aren’t his friends.
That’s the Templars in his own time, though. Is there any real reason he and Shay can’t get along? It seems like it’s in his interests to make friends with anyone who could potentially take over his body.
“I was actually reading about sailing,” Desmond admits.
Shay laughs at that. “Got a taste for it, have you?”
“I guess you could say that,” Desmond says. “I’m definitely interested.”
“I won’t be courted into letting you take a turn at the helm, I warn you,” Shay says. “I know when I’m being flattered. I did much the same with our pirate friend.” But his voice is warmer now. “Books have their uses, but there’s no book on sailing that compares to the real thing. Keep your blades from me and my crew, and maybe I’ll give you a tour.”
“Beautiful and skilled,” Ezio remarks, as they watch Myriam clean her kill. “A fine woman.”
“We are fortunate to have her here,” Connor agrees. He is careful to stay a few paces from Ezio; he bears the man no enmity, but Ezio tries to touch him often.
Ezio watches her a moment longer. “I would like to speak with her.”
“What business could you have with Myriam?” Connor asks, puzzled.
“No business. Only conversation. You have never wished to speak with a woman for the pleasure of hearing her talk?”
“She will not hear you,” Connor says. Perhaps for the best; he is beginning to suspect Ezio’s intentions.
And then he finds himself standing exactly where Ezio was, looking at his own body three paces away.
A rush of fury and horror surges through him. This has happened before. Shay took over his body to attack Achilles, and now Ezio has possessed it to attack—
Not to attack, to seduce, which if anything is worse—
“Ezio, if you touch her, we will never be friends again.”
“I will do nothing untoward,” Ezio says, holding up Connor’s hands. “I will ask her how her hunting went, and then I will leave.”
“She is betrothed, Ezio!” Connor says urgently, but Ezio is already striding towards Myriam. Connor can only follow, straining to reclaim his body through sheer force of will. It worked before, but then he feared for Achilles’ life. However little he might want Ezio to speak to her through him, he knows in his heart that Myriam is not in danger.
Myriam greets Ezio brightly, believing him to be Connor. Ezio keeps to his word; he speaks to her only of hunting. But he does it as Ezio would, standing closer than Connor ever does, speaking and smiling warmly, punctuating his words with grand gestures and the occasional touch to the hand or arm. Myriam is still smiling, but she looks puzzled. Connor is so mortified he doubts he will ever be able to speak to her again.
Ezio disappears mid-conversation and Connor finds himself back in his own body. He excuses himself immediately and leaves almost at a run.
The next day, Myriam has an attack of nerves and vanishes before her wedding.
Once he’s tracked her down and brought her home, Connor swings a second hatchet into the porch pillar. He refuses to tell Achilles who he’s at war with.
Part Four