Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2015-08-10 08:48 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2015-08-10 08:48 pm
Entry tags:
Fanfiction: Visitors, Part Two (Assassin's Creed)
Why am I writing so much at the moment? I'm not complaining, certainly, but I wasn't expecting this!
I wasn't actually planning to write more of this ill-advised Sense8 AU for Assassin's Creed, but most of my reviews said 'hey, you should write more!' and, rather than thinking 'grumble grumble I said it was a oneshot', I found myself thinking 'actually, there is quite a lot more I'd like to see in this universe'. And then another set of scenes happened.
This has no plot whatsoever. It's just 'a load of characters from different Assassin's Creed games hang out in various combinations', because that is all I've ever wanted from Assassin's Creed.
Title: Visitors, Part Two
Fandom: Assassin's Creed (I, II, III, Liberation, Black Flag, Rogue)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,400 (this chapter; 6,600 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
He was on a roof. He was on a roof, thinking about how to strike. Where is he?
Despite Altaïr’s recent visits from strange disappearing figures, it hadn’t occurred to him that he might himself disappear. But that seems to be exactly what has happened. He’s suddenly standing in a large circular room he’s never seen before, and an unknown man is staring at him, as well he might.
“Altaïr?”
What?
“Connor told me you were one of us,” the man says softly. He wears what looks like an Assassin’s garb, although different from that worn at Masyaf, and his accent is not from the Holy Land. “I confess I did not believe him.”
“How do you know me?” Altaïr demands. “Tell me what is happening to me.”
The man kneels at once and takes Altaïr’s hands in his own, presses his lips to first one and then the other. Altaïr stares.
“I am honoured by your visit,” the man says, bowing his head. “More than can be measured. My name is Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I am striving to uphold the work you have done.”
“It is unwise to mock me,” Altaïr says, tense.
Ezio looks up to meet his eyes again. “I mock only enemies and friends,” he says. “You are something more than either. I promise I do not mock you.”
“What do you mean? What am I to you?”
“Look behind you,” Ezio says.
Altaïr is not fool enough to turn. He edges around Ezio in a half-circle, so he can keep his eyes on him, and looks up at the opposite wall. Is...
Is...
That can’t possibly be...
“Is that a statue?” Altaïr asks. He seems to have been transported out of Jerusalem altogether, and yet this is stranger. “Of me? What is this place? This is ridiculous.”
Ezio breaks into a small smile, quickly suppressed.
Altaïr catches it and gives him a hard stare. “You mock me now.”
“Perhaps a little,” Ezio admits. “But as a friend, I hope.”
-
Desmond finds himself on the deck of a ship.
Connor, he thinks. Or Haytham. That’ll be uncomfortable; he always feels like Haytham’s watching him appraisingly, trying to decide whether to put a blade through his throat or not. Maybe Ezio, but he doesn’t spend as much time at sea as those two.
He looks around. Not the Aquila.
He looks up for a flag.
It’s an honest-to-God skull and crossbones. Or... are those crossbones? It’s too high up to tell. But that is definitely a black flag with a skull on it.
Do pirates even fly flags like that? He always kind of assumed it was just in movies.
Okay. So one of his ancestors has been captured by pirates. Or maybe joined some pirates? Probably Haytham, then, although he can’t imagine Haytham would settle for anything short of captaincy.
He looks at the helm.
The captain is wearing an Assassin’s cloak.
Maybe not Haytham.
Desmond approaches the helm, cautiously. The Assassin’s hood is down, and it’s obvious that he’s a stranger, not anyone Desmond’s been in the Animus. Not the guy Desmond’s here to visit, then. One of his ancestors must be elsewhere on this ship.
And then the captain looks up, in Desmond’s direction. Desmond glances back to see who or what he’s looking at.
There doesn’t seem to be anything interesting behind him. He looks back at the helm.
The captain is looking right at him. The captain is meeting his eyes.
This stranger can see him.
“You’re one of the new arrivals, aren’t you?” the captain asks. “I don’t know your face.”
A pirate, Desmond reminds himself. A pirate Assassin (is that even possible? Can you be a pirate who doesn’t harm innocents?), but still a pirate. Probably best to stay on his good side.
It seems weird that being trained as an expert murderer actually makes someone less scary.
“Yeah,” Desmond says. “Uh, sir.”
“Try ‘Captain’,” the captain says, amused. “Or you could call me Edward. We’re all brothers here.” He gestures to the man next to him. “This is Adéwalé.”
“Hey,” Desmond says, raising a hand.
Adéwalé is frowning in Desmond’s direction. Not actually at Desmond. At a point slightly to his right.
“Captain,” Adéwalé says, “it does not instil confidence in the men when you speak to people who are not there.”
Edward raises his eyebrows and looks back at Desmond. “Oh, so you’re one of them?” He laughs. “How long did you expect to pass yourself off as an invisible crew member?”
Desmond had thought that maybe everyone on this ship would be able to see him, if this stranger could. But no; apparently he’s here to visit Edward specifically.
How is this possible? He doesn’t know Edward. He’s never been this guy in the Animus. Is he bleeding so badly that his head’s making up totally new people for him to hallucinate about? Or is Edward another guy in his genetic memories, who he’s somehow accessing early?
“Take the helm, Adé,” Edward says. “I’d like a word with our guest.”
“Captain,” Adéwalé says, obviously exasperated, but he takes the helm.
Edward places a hand on Desmond’s back – Desmond still can’t get over how real it feels whenever one of his ancestors touches him (or maybe he should start calling them ‘visitors’, like the others do, if he doesn’t know whether this guy’s a relative) – and steers him down the steps to the main part of the deck. Down some more steps. Into a lavishly outfitted cabin.
For one weird, weird moment, looking around what he guesses are Edward’s private quarters with Edward’s hand on the small of his back and Edward’s other hand loosely circling his wrist, Desmond feels like he’s about to get laid.
“What’s your name, lad?” Edward asks, letting go of him.
“Uh.” Desmond gives his head a little shake, trying to clear it. “Desmond.”
“Desmond.” Edward perches on the edge of a circular table with maps spread over it. “I won’t ask you not to visit, because I know you can’t control it and I can’t promise the same thing in return. If you don’t try to interfere with my work, I’m sure we can be cordial.”
“You’re a pirate,” Desmond says.
“And you’re evidently a master of observation,” Edward says, smiling. “Do we have an arrangement?”
Desmond considers. Is he going to try to stop Edward? Is there even any point? He can’t change the past, right?
“Guess so,” he says.
Edward’s smile broadens. “Welcome aboard.”
-
“I almost didn’t recognise you with your hair tied back,” Haytham remarks. “You look better. Less scruffy. An ordered appearance helps to maintain an ordered mind.”
“I need your help,” Shay says.
Haytham raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“I left the Assassins,” Shay says. “Something happened, and... it doesn’t matter. The point is, I left. I can see now what they’re doing.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve been working with... with Templars. And we’ve been talking about me joining. But after everything I’ve been told to believe... I don’t know. It’s a tough decision.”
Interesting. Haytham knows that Shay is skilled. He’d be a welcome addition to any Templar branch.
“And you’re asking me for help?” Haytham asks. “I’d say you’ve already made your decision. I don’t imagine you expect an impartial response.”
Shay smiles, a little sheepishly.
“The Assassins and the Templars have always been closely bound,” Haytham says. He brushes his fingers over his own hidden blade as he speaks. “Many former Assassins have found atonement in our order. Word has reached me of an Assassin in my own time who has aided our cause. I hope to welcome him into our fold soon. I’m sure the Templars in your time would be equally fortunate to have you.”
Shay inclines his head. “Thank you.”
The visitation ends and Haytham thinks little of it until a fortnight later, when the former Assassin he has been told of comes for his initiation. Haytham is standing at the end of the table, hands behind his back, aiming to look serious but not unwelcoming, when a familiar figure comes into the light and shatters his composure.
“Shay?” Haytham asks in disbelief.
Shay has frozen in the doorway. “Grand Master?”
“Lee, can you see this man?” Haytham demands. “Gist?”
“I should hope so,” Gist says. “I’ve been his first mate for some time.”
Who are the visitors? Altaïr and Ezio, centuries in the past. Desmond, centuries in the future. The only ones Haytham knows of from his own time are members of his immediate family. He always assumed that Shay lived in a different age.
Haytham strides down the table towards Shay. He feels compelled to – to touch him, to touch him, to know he’s real. But the visitors always do feel real, of course.
Which means he needs to touch Shay and hear other people react to it. It’s the only way to be sure.
Haytham pulls Shay into a hug. Immediately there’s a storm of bewildered muttering from the table behind him, and he knows.
“Jesus Christ,” Shay mutters by his ear. “With respect, Grand Master, this is terrifying.”
-
It’s disconcerting when you suddenly go from ‘explosive naval battle’ to ‘crouching in a tree’. Shay clings to the branch he’s on as he tries to get his bearings.
“I was hunting,” Connor says, aggrieved.
“Don’t let me stop you,” Shay says, managing to steady himself. “Not like the deer can hear me.”
Connor shakes his head. “I won’t be able to focus.” He slips down to the ground, landing gently, and Shay follows.
“So,” Shay says. “Any interesting goings-on on the homestead?”
“Nothing the Templars need to know about.”
Shay sighs, but it doesn’t surprise him. The first time he found himself on Connor’s homestead, he forgot himself and tried to attack Achilles. If they try to interact with the world while they’re visiting, they use the body of the person who’s physically there. He tried to make Connor attack his own mentor. Going by his talks with the other visitors, he suspects Connor doesn’t completely trust any of them, and he probably trusts Shay least of all.
Might as well make the effort, though. His time with Connor tends to fall into two categories – ‘standing still in furious silence’ and ‘Connor escorting him very quickly away from anyone he cares about in furious silence’ – and Shay isn’t fond of either of them.
“You know,” Shay says, “these visits will probably go a lot quicker if we can speak civilly.”
“I have nothing I wish to speak with you about.”
“Could talk about sailing,” Shay says. It worked as an icebreaker with Edward, after all. “Yours is the Aquila, isn’t she?”
Connor says nothing. That ice isn’t being broken any time soon.
Shay’s about to give up and resign himself to another visit of hostile silence when Connor speaks.
“You know my father,” he says. “Don’t you?”
Shay looks at him, surprised. “Well enough,” he says, after a moment.
“What’s he like?”
“You know what he’s like. You’ve met him. Visits and reality, same as me.”
Connor shakes his head and speaks haltingly, glancing away. “What’s he like when he... doesn’t see you as an enemy?”
Shay frowns. “I never felt he saw you as an enemy first,” he says. “He sees you as his son.”
Connor looks sharply back at him, and Shay sees the shock in his eyes, and then the air is full of spray and shouting and cannon fire.
Shay dwells on the visit for a long time afterwards, but he never speaks to the Grand Master about it.
-
“Ah, my lady,” Ezio says, bowing. “Why is it that there is only one woman amongst the eight of us? Life is cruel. And yet you are lovely enough to be worth many fine women.”
“My lord,” Aveline says, with the tiniest of curtseys. “You flatter me, but, alas, I agreed to marry Haytham Kenway just last week.”
Ezio laughs and dispenses with the flirtation; he knows she has little patience for it. “So how do I find you?”
“Well enough,” Aveline says. “Gérald says he has something to show me.”
“Gérald?” Ezio echoes. “Who is this Gérald?”
Gérald turns out to be a young man working with the Assassins, and plainly besotted with Aveline. Ezio cannot fault his taste, but he also cannot resist following him around as he shows Aveline her headquarters, mimicking all his lovestruck glances. Aveline is trying very hard not to laugh.
“Is, er... is everything all right?” Gérald asks eventually, looking concerned and confused.
Aveline quickly masters her expression. “Of course. Thank you, Gérald; it’s perfect. Will you leave me alone for a while? I would like to acquaint myself with this room.”
Gérald bows and retreats.
The moment he’s out of sight, Aveline hits Ezio on the arm, not hard enough to hurt. “That was cruel,” she whispers.
Ezio holds up his hands, all innocence. “I am merely concerned he might interfere with your betrothal to the Grand Master. How would I live with myself, knowing I had stood by and watched such a close friend betrayed by his wanton fiancée?”
“You’re an evil man,” she says. “I’m going to speak to Gérald. Behave yourself.”
They find Gérald testing an intriguing weapon shaped like a parasol. “Elegant and deadly,” he says, “just like my lady.”
Ezio can’t help it; he doubles over with laughter, and apparently it’s contagious, because Aveline’s composure collapses as well. Gérald turns a remarkable shade of red, stutters an apology and leaves the room, almost tripping over his feet.
“Gérald! Gérald, wait!” Aveline calls after him, still laughing. She lingers just long enough to tap her hidden blade and aim a pointed glare at Ezio’s neck before she leaves in pursuit.
-
He has intruded upon Altaïr at a private moment.
Altaïr is kneeling over a body Connor recognises as his mentor, Al Mualim. Connor intends to move quietly away and wait to be returned to his own time. Altaïr is short-tempered and stubborn, although many have said the same of Connor himself, and they often end up arguing even at the best of times. Altaïr will not want to see him now.
Altaïr looks up and meets his eyes, and for a moment they just stare at each other.
“Sit with me,” Altaïr says.
Connor hesitates, then sits down next to him, beside his mentor’s husk.
Altaïr is looking at Al Mualim again, and he doesn’t take his eyes off him as he speaks. “You have a difficult relationship with your father.”
The thought of him still catches in his throat. “I killed my father. Difficult, yes.”
“You killed him?” Altaïr asks, looking sharply at him.
“Since we last met,” Connor says. Or since he last met Altaïr, at least; he can’t be sure he won’t meet the younger Altaïr again in his future. “Yes.”
With two fingers, Altaïr traces the veins that still show in Al Mualim’s hand.
“I feel I killed my father today,” he says.
He was the one to kill him? Connor is surprised, but he does not ask why.
“I have never been good at offering words of comfort,” Connor says.
“Offer me nothing,” Altaïr says. “Sit with me and understand.”
So Connor does, for as long as he can stay.
-
She’s in a small, narrow room full of people, and it’s moving fast. “What is this place?” Aveline asks, half-laughing, grabbing a pole to keep herself from overbalancing. “Are we on a ship?” She looks out of the window. It’s too dark to be sure, but it seems like they’re indoors.
Desmond looks around at her, startled. He has his hood up. He doesn’t usually. After a moment he edges closer to her, and she knows it’s so the others around them won’t hear.
“We’re on a train,” he says, quietly. “In Brazil.”
A very faint voice Aveline recognises as Shaun’s comes from... somewhere. She doesn’t know where. It sounds like it’s coming from Desmond; she doubts she’d be able to hear it if he weren’t so close to her. “Yes, Desmond, we know. Who exactly are you talking to?”
Desmond winces and fiddles with something near his ear.
“This is our stop,” he says, after a moment. He smiles at her. “Guess you’re finally going to see somewhere else, huh?”
Aveline’s visited Desmond before, in the Precursor temple. It’s impressive, certainly, but a little gloomy, and there’s not a lot there. Besides, the ruins of an ancient civilisation aren’t exactly the future, and the future is something she’s curious about. He’s offered to show her more of his time, but the others have always prevented him from leaving.
“Even if that somewhere’s a metro station,” he says. “And then a bus. Sorry. We’re on our way back. You haven’t shown up for anything very interesting.” And then he breaks into a grin. “Actually, if you can hold on for the bus ride, you might like what happens afterwards.”
Aveline doesn’t know what Desmond is apologising for, because the bus turns out to be fascinating. It’s so much faster than a carriage, and yet nothing seems to draw it. She spends the whole journey looking out of the window, watching the landscape go by, and the strange styles of building, and all the smaller buses (‘cars’, Desmond corrects her at one point) that only carry two or four or five people.
“How do they work?” she asks Desmond. “The cars.”
Desmond laughs. “God, don’t ask me things like that. Could be magic, for all I know. I wish I could get this excited about transport.”
Aveline’s a little disappointed when they eventually get off the bus. It’s been a pleasant distraction from the concerns in her life: the tension with Agaté, the state of her father’s health, the constant need to act and deceive and play roles until she no longer knows which face she wears is her own.
“What happens now?” she asks.
“Now?” Desmond asks. “We fly.”
-
Edward is crouching in the undergrowth, edging ever closer to his assassination target, when he finds himself in a tavern. An awkward time for a visit.
He looks around. He hopes it isn’t Desmond. Desmond was his last visitor – an earlier Desmond, of course – and it was strange and sad, trying to conceal from him that he’d watched him die a month ago.
He’s wasted his hope. It’s someone worse.
It’s the man in the cocked hat. It’s Haytham. It’s his son.
He’s used to Haytham closing off his face the moment their eyes meet, but this time Edward sees something like fear there. He must know that Edward knows.
It’s haunted Edward ever since Connor told him. How did his son grow up to be a Templar?
Neither of them moves for a long few seconds. Eventually Haytham gestures subtly to the entrance of a secluded room, away from the boozing and boardgames, and then turns to walk into it. After a moment’s hesitation, Edward follows.
Haytham is standing stiffly in the centre of the room, not moving to sit, his hands clasped behind his back. Edward watches him and wonders how he could ever have failed to see the man’s mother in his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Edward asks.
“Many reasons,” Haytham says. “Some I’m sure you can imagine. We have different ideologies that I felt might cause conflict, and I had no desire for conflict with you. And...” He hesitates.
“Tell me,” Edward says. “Whatever you have to say, I need to hear it.”
“I feared it would... change your treatment of me, as a child,” Haytham says. “Knowing what I would grow up to become. And yet I know that the past is the past, and you never treated me with anything but affection.”
That surprises Edward. He loves his son, he doesn’t think anything he learns about his future could change that, but he’d assumed... “You weren’t unhappy?”
Haytham looks at him for a moment, without speaking.
“There are unhappinesses in every life,” he says, eventually. “But I loved you, and knew I was loved in return.” He gives him an odd, regretful smile. “You’re certainly not the poorest father in our family.”
Edward lets out a long breath.
“I thought you must have hated me,” he says. “I thought you joined the other side to distance yourself as much from me as you could.”
“I am a Templar because I believe in the Templar cause,” Haytham says. “The Assassins are my enemy, but I have never hated you. I swear it.”
“Good,” Edward says. He swallows. His throat is tight. “That’s good.”
Part Three
I wasn't actually planning to write more of this ill-advised Sense8 AU for Assassin's Creed, but most of my reviews said 'hey, you should write more!' and, rather than thinking 'grumble grumble I said it was a oneshot', I found myself thinking 'actually, there is quite a lot more I'd like to see in this universe'. And then another set of scenes happened.
This has no plot whatsoever. It's just 'a load of characters from different Assassin's Creed games hang out in various combinations', because that is all I've ever wanted from Assassin's Creed.
Title: Visitors, Part Two
Fandom: Assassin's Creed (I, II, III, Liberation, Black Flag, Rogue)
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,400 (this chapter; 6,600 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
He was on a roof. He was on a roof, thinking about how to strike. Where is he?
Despite Altaïr’s recent visits from strange disappearing figures, it hadn’t occurred to him that he might himself disappear. But that seems to be exactly what has happened. He’s suddenly standing in a large circular room he’s never seen before, and an unknown man is staring at him, as well he might.
“Altaïr?”
What?
“Connor told me you were one of us,” the man says softly. He wears what looks like an Assassin’s garb, although different from that worn at Masyaf, and his accent is not from the Holy Land. “I confess I did not believe him.”
“How do you know me?” Altaïr demands. “Tell me what is happening to me.”
The man kneels at once and takes Altaïr’s hands in his own, presses his lips to first one and then the other. Altaïr stares.
“I am honoured by your visit,” the man says, bowing his head. “More than can be measured. My name is Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I am striving to uphold the work you have done.”
“It is unwise to mock me,” Altaïr says, tense.
Ezio looks up to meet his eyes again. “I mock only enemies and friends,” he says. “You are something more than either. I promise I do not mock you.”
“What do you mean? What am I to you?”
“Look behind you,” Ezio says.
Altaïr is not fool enough to turn. He edges around Ezio in a half-circle, so he can keep his eyes on him, and looks up at the opposite wall. Is...
Is...
That can’t possibly be...
“Is that a statue?” Altaïr asks. He seems to have been transported out of Jerusalem altogether, and yet this is stranger. “Of me? What is this place? This is ridiculous.”
Ezio breaks into a small smile, quickly suppressed.
Altaïr catches it and gives him a hard stare. “You mock me now.”
“Perhaps a little,” Ezio admits. “But as a friend, I hope.”
Desmond finds himself on the deck of a ship.
Connor, he thinks. Or Haytham. That’ll be uncomfortable; he always feels like Haytham’s watching him appraisingly, trying to decide whether to put a blade through his throat or not. Maybe Ezio, but he doesn’t spend as much time at sea as those two.
He looks around. Not the Aquila.
He looks up for a flag.
It’s an honest-to-God skull and crossbones. Or... are those crossbones? It’s too high up to tell. But that is definitely a black flag with a skull on it.
Do pirates even fly flags like that? He always kind of assumed it was just in movies.
Okay. So one of his ancestors has been captured by pirates. Or maybe joined some pirates? Probably Haytham, then, although he can’t imagine Haytham would settle for anything short of captaincy.
He looks at the helm.
The captain is wearing an Assassin’s cloak.
Maybe not Haytham.
Desmond approaches the helm, cautiously. The Assassin’s hood is down, and it’s obvious that he’s a stranger, not anyone Desmond’s been in the Animus. Not the guy Desmond’s here to visit, then. One of his ancestors must be elsewhere on this ship.
And then the captain looks up, in Desmond’s direction. Desmond glances back to see who or what he’s looking at.
There doesn’t seem to be anything interesting behind him. He looks back at the helm.
The captain is looking right at him. The captain is meeting his eyes.
This stranger can see him.
“You’re one of the new arrivals, aren’t you?” the captain asks. “I don’t know your face.”
A pirate, Desmond reminds himself. A pirate Assassin (is that even possible? Can you be a pirate who doesn’t harm innocents?), but still a pirate. Probably best to stay on his good side.
It seems weird that being trained as an expert murderer actually makes someone less scary.
“Yeah,” Desmond says. “Uh, sir.”
“Try ‘Captain’,” the captain says, amused. “Or you could call me Edward. We’re all brothers here.” He gestures to the man next to him. “This is Adéwalé.”
“Hey,” Desmond says, raising a hand.
Adéwalé is frowning in Desmond’s direction. Not actually at Desmond. At a point slightly to his right.
“Captain,” Adéwalé says, “it does not instil confidence in the men when you speak to people who are not there.”
Edward raises his eyebrows and looks back at Desmond. “Oh, so you’re one of them?” He laughs. “How long did you expect to pass yourself off as an invisible crew member?”
Desmond had thought that maybe everyone on this ship would be able to see him, if this stranger could. But no; apparently he’s here to visit Edward specifically.
How is this possible? He doesn’t know Edward. He’s never been this guy in the Animus. Is he bleeding so badly that his head’s making up totally new people for him to hallucinate about? Or is Edward another guy in his genetic memories, who he’s somehow accessing early?
“Take the helm, Adé,” Edward says. “I’d like a word with our guest.”
“Captain,” Adéwalé says, obviously exasperated, but he takes the helm.
Edward places a hand on Desmond’s back – Desmond still can’t get over how real it feels whenever one of his ancestors touches him (or maybe he should start calling them ‘visitors’, like the others do, if he doesn’t know whether this guy’s a relative) – and steers him down the steps to the main part of the deck. Down some more steps. Into a lavishly outfitted cabin.
For one weird, weird moment, looking around what he guesses are Edward’s private quarters with Edward’s hand on the small of his back and Edward’s other hand loosely circling his wrist, Desmond feels like he’s about to get laid.
“What’s your name, lad?” Edward asks, letting go of him.
“Uh.” Desmond gives his head a little shake, trying to clear it. “Desmond.”
“Desmond.” Edward perches on the edge of a circular table with maps spread over it. “I won’t ask you not to visit, because I know you can’t control it and I can’t promise the same thing in return. If you don’t try to interfere with my work, I’m sure we can be cordial.”
“You’re a pirate,” Desmond says.
“And you’re evidently a master of observation,” Edward says, smiling. “Do we have an arrangement?”
Desmond considers. Is he going to try to stop Edward? Is there even any point? He can’t change the past, right?
“Guess so,” he says.
Edward’s smile broadens. “Welcome aboard.”
“I almost didn’t recognise you with your hair tied back,” Haytham remarks. “You look better. Less scruffy. An ordered appearance helps to maintain an ordered mind.”
“I need your help,” Shay says.
Haytham raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“I left the Assassins,” Shay says. “Something happened, and... it doesn’t matter. The point is, I left. I can see now what they’re doing.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve been working with... with Templars. And we’ve been talking about me joining. But after everything I’ve been told to believe... I don’t know. It’s a tough decision.”
Interesting. Haytham knows that Shay is skilled. He’d be a welcome addition to any Templar branch.
“And you’re asking me for help?” Haytham asks. “I’d say you’ve already made your decision. I don’t imagine you expect an impartial response.”
Shay smiles, a little sheepishly.
“The Assassins and the Templars have always been closely bound,” Haytham says. He brushes his fingers over his own hidden blade as he speaks. “Many former Assassins have found atonement in our order. Word has reached me of an Assassin in my own time who has aided our cause. I hope to welcome him into our fold soon. I’m sure the Templars in your time would be equally fortunate to have you.”
Shay inclines his head. “Thank you.”
The visitation ends and Haytham thinks little of it until a fortnight later, when the former Assassin he has been told of comes for his initiation. Haytham is standing at the end of the table, hands behind his back, aiming to look serious but not unwelcoming, when a familiar figure comes into the light and shatters his composure.
“Shay?” Haytham asks in disbelief.
Shay has frozen in the doorway. “Grand Master?”
“Lee, can you see this man?” Haytham demands. “Gist?”
“I should hope so,” Gist says. “I’ve been his first mate for some time.”
Who are the visitors? Altaïr and Ezio, centuries in the past. Desmond, centuries in the future. The only ones Haytham knows of from his own time are members of his immediate family. He always assumed that Shay lived in a different age.
Haytham strides down the table towards Shay. He feels compelled to – to touch him, to touch him, to know he’s real. But the visitors always do feel real, of course.
Which means he needs to touch Shay and hear other people react to it. It’s the only way to be sure.
Haytham pulls Shay into a hug. Immediately there’s a storm of bewildered muttering from the table behind him, and he knows.
“Jesus Christ,” Shay mutters by his ear. “With respect, Grand Master, this is terrifying.”
It’s disconcerting when you suddenly go from ‘explosive naval battle’ to ‘crouching in a tree’. Shay clings to the branch he’s on as he tries to get his bearings.
“I was hunting,” Connor says, aggrieved.
“Don’t let me stop you,” Shay says, managing to steady himself. “Not like the deer can hear me.”
Connor shakes his head. “I won’t be able to focus.” He slips down to the ground, landing gently, and Shay follows.
“So,” Shay says. “Any interesting goings-on on the homestead?”
“Nothing the Templars need to know about.”
Shay sighs, but it doesn’t surprise him. The first time he found himself on Connor’s homestead, he forgot himself and tried to attack Achilles. If they try to interact with the world while they’re visiting, they use the body of the person who’s physically there. He tried to make Connor attack his own mentor. Going by his talks with the other visitors, he suspects Connor doesn’t completely trust any of them, and he probably trusts Shay least of all.
Might as well make the effort, though. His time with Connor tends to fall into two categories – ‘standing still in furious silence’ and ‘Connor escorting him very quickly away from anyone he cares about in furious silence’ – and Shay isn’t fond of either of them.
“You know,” Shay says, “these visits will probably go a lot quicker if we can speak civilly.”
“I have nothing I wish to speak with you about.”
“Could talk about sailing,” Shay says. It worked as an icebreaker with Edward, after all. “Yours is the Aquila, isn’t she?”
Connor says nothing. That ice isn’t being broken any time soon.
Shay’s about to give up and resign himself to another visit of hostile silence when Connor speaks.
“You know my father,” he says. “Don’t you?”
Shay looks at him, surprised. “Well enough,” he says, after a moment.
“What’s he like?”
“You know what he’s like. You’ve met him. Visits and reality, same as me.”
Connor shakes his head and speaks haltingly, glancing away. “What’s he like when he... doesn’t see you as an enemy?”
Shay frowns. “I never felt he saw you as an enemy first,” he says. “He sees you as his son.”
Connor looks sharply back at him, and Shay sees the shock in his eyes, and then the air is full of spray and shouting and cannon fire.
Shay dwells on the visit for a long time afterwards, but he never speaks to the Grand Master about it.
“Ah, my lady,” Ezio says, bowing. “Why is it that there is only one woman amongst the eight of us? Life is cruel. And yet you are lovely enough to be worth many fine women.”
“My lord,” Aveline says, with the tiniest of curtseys. “You flatter me, but, alas, I agreed to marry Haytham Kenway just last week.”
Ezio laughs and dispenses with the flirtation; he knows she has little patience for it. “So how do I find you?”
“Well enough,” Aveline says. “Gérald says he has something to show me.”
“Gérald?” Ezio echoes. “Who is this Gérald?”
Gérald turns out to be a young man working with the Assassins, and plainly besotted with Aveline. Ezio cannot fault his taste, but he also cannot resist following him around as he shows Aveline her headquarters, mimicking all his lovestruck glances. Aveline is trying very hard not to laugh.
“Is, er... is everything all right?” Gérald asks eventually, looking concerned and confused.
Aveline quickly masters her expression. “Of course. Thank you, Gérald; it’s perfect. Will you leave me alone for a while? I would like to acquaint myself with this room.”
Gérald bows and retreats.
The moment he’s out of sight, Aveline hits Ezio on the arm, not hard enough to hurt. “That was cruel,” she whispers.
Ezio holds up his hands, all innocence. “I am merely concerned he might interfere with your betrothal to the Grand Master. How would I live with myself, knowing I had stood by and watched such a close friend betrayed by his wanton fiancée?”
“You’re an evil man,” she says. “I’m going to speak to Gérald. Behave yourself.”
They find Gérald testing an intriguing weapon shaped like a parasol. “Elegant and deadly,” he says, “just like my lady.”
Ezio can’t help it; he doubles over with laughter, and apparently it’s contagious, because Aveline’s composure collapses as well. Gérald turns a remarkable shade of red, stutters an apology and leaves the room, almost tripping over his feet.
“Gérald! Gérald, wait!” Aveline calls after him, still laughing. She lingers just long enough to tap her hidden blade and aim a pointed glare at Ezio’s neck before she leaves in pursuit.
He has intruded upon Altaïr at a private moment.
Altaïr is kneeling over a body Connor recognises as his mentor, Al Mualim. Connor intends to move quietly away and wait to be returned to his own time. Altaïr is short-tempered and stubborn, although many have said the same of Connor himself, and they often end up arguing even at the best of times. Altaïr will not want to see him now.
Altaïr looks up and meets his eyes, and for a moment they just stare at each other.
“Sit with me,” Altaïr says.
Connor hesitates, then sits down next to him, beside his mentor’s husk.
Altaïr is looking at Al Mualim again, and he doesn’t take his eyes off him as he speaks. “You have a difficult relationship with your father.”
The thought of him still catches in his throat. “I killed my father. Difficult, yes.”
“You killed him?” Altaïr asks, looking sharply at him.
“Since we last met,” Connor says. Or since he last met Altaïr, at least; he can’t be sure he won’t meet the younger Altaïr again in his future. “Yes.”
With two fingers, Altaïr traces the veins that still show in Al Mualim’s hand.
“I feel I killed my father today,” he says.
He was the one to kill him? Connor is surprised, but he does not ask why.
“I have never been good at offering words of comfort,” Connor says.
“Offer me nothing,” Altaïr says. “Sit with me and understand.”
So Connor does, for as long as he can stay.
She’s in a small, narrow room full of people, and it’s moving fast. “What is this place?” Aveline asks, half-laughing, grabbing a pole to keep herself from overbalancing. “Are we on a ship?” She looks out of the window. It’s too dark to be sure, but it seems like they’re indoors.
Desmond looks around at her, startled. He has his hood up. He doesn’t usually. After a moment he edges closer to her, and she knows it’s so the others around them won’t hear.
“We’re on a train,” he says, quietly. “In Brazil.”
A very faint voice Aveline recognises as Shaun’s comes from... somewhere. She doesn’t know where. It sounds like it’s coming from Desmond; she doubts she’d be able to hear it if he weren’t so close to her. “Yes, Desmond, we know. Who exactly are you talking to?”
Desmond winces and fiddles with something near his ear.
“This is our stop,” he says, after a moment. He smiles at her. “Guess you’re finally going to see somewhere else, huh?”
Aveline’s visited Desmond before, in the Precursor temple. It’s impressive, certainly, but a little gloomy, and there’s not a lot there. Besides, the ruins of an ancient civilisation aren’t exactly the future, and the future is something she’s curious about. He’s offered to show her more of his time, but the others have always prevented him from leaving.
“Even if that somewhere’s a metro station,” he says. “And then a bus. Sorry. We’re on our way back. You haven’t shown up for anything very interesting.” And then he breaks into a grin. “Actually, if you can hold on for the bus ride, you might like what happens afterwards.”
Aveline doesn’t know what Desmond is apologising for, because the bus turns out to be fascinating. It’s so much faster than a carriage, and yet nothing seems to draw it. She spends the whole journey looking out of the window, watching the landscape go by, and the strange styles of building, and all the smaller buses (‘cars’, Desmond corrects her at one point) that only carry two or four or five people.
“How do they work?” she asks Desmond. “The cars.”
Desmond laughs. “God, don’t ask me things like that. Could be magic, for all I know. I wish I could get this excited about transport.”
Aveline’s a little disappointed when they eventually get off the bus. It’s been a pleasant distraction from the concerns in her life: the tension with Agaté, the state of her father’s health, the constant need to act and deceive and play roles until she no longer knows which face she wears is her own.
“What happens now?” she asks.
“Now?” Desmond asks. “We fly.”
Edward is crouching in the undergrowth, edging ever closer to his assassination target, when he finds himself in a tavern. An awkward time for a visit.
He looks around. He hopes it isn’t Desmond. Desmond was his last visitor – an earlier Desmond, of course – and it was strange and sad, trying to conceal from him that he’d watched him die a month ago.
He’s wasted his hope. It’s someone worse.
It’s the man in the cocked hat. It’s Haytham. It’s his son.
He’s used to Haytham closing off his face the moment their eyes meet, but this time Edward sees something like fear there. He must know that Edward knows.
It’s haunted Edward ever since Connor told him. How did his son grow up to be a Templar?
Neither of them moves for a long few seconds. Eventually Haytham gestures subtly to the entrance of a secluded room, away from the boozing and boardgames, and then turns to walk into it. After a moment’s hesitation, Edward follows.
Haytham is standing stiffly in the centre of the room, not moving to sit, his hands clasped behind his back. Edward watches him and wonders how he could ever have failed to see the man’s mother in his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Edward asks.
“Many reasons,” Haytham says. “Some I’m sure you can imagine. We have different ideologies that I felt might cause conflict, and I had no desire for conflict with you. And...” He hesitates.
“Tell me,” Edward says. “Whatever you have to say, I need to hear it.”
“I feared it would... change your treatment of me, as a child,” Haytham says. “Knowing what I would grow up to become. And yet I know that the past is the past, and you never treated me with anything but affection.”
That surprises Edward. He loves his son, he doesn’t think anything he learns about his future could change that, but he’d assumed... “You weren’t unhappy?”
Haytham looks at him for a moment, without speaking.
“There are unhappinesses in every life,” he says, eventually. “But I loved you, and knew I was loved in return.” He gives him an odd, regretful smile. “You’re certainly not the poorest father in our family.”
Edward lets out a long breath.
“I thought you must have hated me,” he says. “I thought you joined the other side to distance yourself as much from me as you could.”
“I am a Templar because I believe in the Templar cause,” Haytham says. “The Assassins are my enemy, but I have never hated you. I swear it.”
“Good,” Edward says. He swallows. His throat is tight. “That’s good.”
Part Three