A/N: Inspired by "AC: Shadows of the Past" on deviantArt, by otaku-jrock. Also inspired by "Pride of Baghdad," a 2006 graphic novel by Brian K. Vaughan. Please see the important update on my profile.
Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's Creed or Pride of Baghdad.
Shadows of the Past
Altair knew a story that he had often been told in his boyhood. In this story, a caged lion told his son what the sunrise looked like, because his son had never seen one.
"Do you remember what I told you about the sunset?" the lion asked his cub. "How the horizon eats the sun?"
"Its blood spills across the sky!" said the lion cub excitedly. "But," he continued, "if the horizon kills the sun, how does the sun rise again?"
The lion gathered his cub beneath him. "Well," he said, "all through the night, the sun struggles with the earth. When it is directly beneath our feet, it breaks free and begins to heal itself, with the help of the young ones who dream for it. But it isn't completely healed by the time it rises again. It's still bleeding, but not as badly, and it varies from day to day."
Altair remembered this story from his boyhood because it had been the one his mother had used to comfort him away from nightmares. It would distract him and make him dream of helping the sun in its fight to light the world instead.
Once, as a child, he woke up before dawn from a nightmare in which Al Mualim had become a hollow, skinny ghoul. Kadar had died, and Al Mualim's ghoul had eaten Malik's arm. Altair would not remember this dream as he grew older, but at the time, he could see Al Mualim's silver face gazing wide-eyed and transfixed as he chewed on Malik's flesh. He could see blood staining Al Mualim's chin. He woke crying from this nightmare, but his mother was not next to him in bed to comfort him like she normally was. Her blankets had been tucked up around Altair instead, and she had moved him to the center of the mattress. Upon seeing this, Altair briefly wondered if his mother was just a figment of his imagination, and if he really had lived alone all his life. But then he remembered that he idid/i have a mother, and that she should have been with him. He didn't want her to make things as though she didn't exist. So he untangled himself from the cocoon in which she had wrapped him and slid his feet to the floor.
It was dank and cold, and he felt the dirt sticking to his soles. He shivered and called, "Mama!" but there was no answer. It was so dark that his eyes couldn't adjust and his head began to hurt. He had to feel his way toward the door at an agonizing pace while his fear increased every moment. The darkness and his tears were choking him. He needed his mother to be there, to tell him the story about the lions, which he remembered and loved but could not tell to himself.
At last he found the door and pushed it open with a hand, the back of which was sticky with a film of salt and eye crust.
The moon had already set over Masyaf, and the stars were beginning to fade. There was nothing to illuminate the roads as Altair made his furtive way toward the city gates. Although he knew the way by heart, often being mischievous with Malik and Kadar, the rings of torchlight that belonged to the few people out unnerved him, and he kept to the walls and alleyways as he went. He was going to the gates because if his mother were trying to leave, that was where she would have to go.
By the time the clouds above his head were turning to surreal sand drifts, Altair had secreted himself into the shadow of Masyaf's stables. There, he found his mother's horse in the yard, a small speckled thing with good shoulders and long eyelashes. She wasn't tacked. This concerned Altair. Now instead of fearing his mother's departure, he feared her return to the house, from which she would find him to be conspicuously absent. He peeked over the stable wall in preparation to dart back into Masyaf unseen and ignored his mother's horse as she lipped affectionately at his hair.
That was when he saw the woman in the old white tunic step through the gate. She carried nothing, and faced east as though she might miss it.
The sun was now rising, and it hadn't healed during the night. Its blood splashed across the desert in the sky and turned the woman's face an alarming shade of orange. The shadows behind her were suddenly black instead of gray. For a moment, Altair thought the sun would die, and he would be flung into the darkness and his nightmares. He started to cry, because he didn't want Kadar to die, and he didn't want Malik to lose his arm, and he didn't want Al Mualim to lose his sanity, and he didn't want to be there to see it all. The world dissolved, and its colors swirled.
He didn't mean to make noise, but he couldn't help it. The woman came into the stable yard. Altair's mother's horse went obediently to her, revealing Altair behind her legs.
"Mama?" Altair whispered to the woman, sniffling. He recognized her, now that the stable was blocking the garish light.
It took a moment for his mother to realize who had addressed him. When she did, she gasped. "Altair!" she said, and gathered him into her arms. She sat down and pulled him into her lap. She kissed the top of his head. "What are you doing here?"
"You left, Mama," Altair said. "I had a nightmare and you left and now the sun is going to die."
His mother seemed surprised and then cooed her laughter. "The sun won't die, Altair, and I'll be back. I'll be here."
"But Jahi doesn't even have her saddle," Altair said. "Where are you going?"
"You know I can't tell you, habibi."
Altair looked up at her and curled her tunic in his fingers. "But Malik and Kadar's mother left and never came back!"
"I'll come back," his mother said firmly. "It's only hunting. A good lion knows that hunting is women's work." She touched his nose lightly with her thumb.
"Hunting?" Altair asked.
"For Al Mualim," his mother said. "He'll protect you while I'm gone."
"But I had a nightmare about him," Altair said.
"Nightmares don't mean anything," said his mother. "You just concentrate on growing up to be a good strong lion. Then you'll be free, and you'll see a sunrise free of blood."
Somehow, his mother convinced him to go back home that morning. The sun eventually healed, but Altair, no matter how many days went by, couldn't seem to help it. He forgot his nightmare sometime during the next year, as its horrible images never came to pass and he had more important things to do than concern himself with it. But his mother never did come back, and when he asked Al Mualim about her location, he was met with a blank stare. After that, he never saw a sunrise free of blood, and all he had were the lions of his memory.