This is my first Assassin's Creed fan fiction. And I think it won't be the last, because I really liked writing about Flavia and Marcello.

Anyway, the title means "Christmas Lights" (that should give you a hint about what should you listen to while reading this), SPOILER if you haven't seen Embers, and Merry Christmas!

Luci di Natale

Flavia didn't know if snow would have fallen, that year.

Almost every year, the countryside was painted white as winter came, but Christmas was coming to a close, yet there was no snow on the ground.

Normally, she would have said that a Christmas without snow would never have felt like Christmas, but she could not even think it was Christmas's Eve.

Last year, at Christmas's Eve, despite the snow, Papà had pulled out the carriage and they had gone to Firenze, to celebrate in the streets, with other people, other kids. They had watched the frozen river – and Marcello had actually tried to walk on ice before Papà seizing him by his clothes to stop him.

It didn't feel like Christmas at all, even with Zia Claudia coming over, along with other friends.

She could hear Marcello's tantrums even from the upper floor.

And Marcello was the voice of reason, usually, despite what people told about gingers.

Her brother, soulless? Ha! They should have seen him when… when it had happened.

"Non voglio, non voglio dormire!" I won't, I won't sleep!

He had always refused to have a nap in the afternoon, and even night bedtime was a battle with him. At least until Papà showed up and started singing to him.

Honestly, Papà could not sing at all. But he sang anyway his own songs, songs about a man called Vieri, or another called Cesare, or a woman with lovers and brothers, Lucrezia, and their tragic adventures. Marcello would burst into laughter as he heard them… and then would sleep like a log.

Papà was used to nickname him Macello, shambles. And shambles he was, especially when he heard Papà teasing him like that!

Unexpectedly, a few minutes after the tantrum, Marcello entered the room, and he was not alone.

"Salute, zia Claudia" Flavia greeted the elder lady with him

"This little rogue should have a nap, or he won't last through the celebrations"

"Who did you call rogue?" Marcello replied grumpily

"You, Macello!"

Hearing the playful nickname, Marcello grew suddenly pale, then burst into tears.

He let himself fall on the ground, and stayed there, sitting, his face covered with his hands. Crying.

"Marcello? What's wrong?"

"Eve… ry… thing!" Marcello sobbed "Want Papà!"

"That's how Papà used to call him" Flavia explained "He… we…"

"Bambini, it's all right" zia Claudia said trying to make Marcello stand "I didn't know. Marcello, please. Stand up. Acting like that won't call your father back. You must be strong. For him. He's happy now, you know. He's with his papà. And his two brothers. And his friend Leo. He wouldn't like to see you crying"

Marcello fell silent, but didn't stop sobbing and rubbing his eyes.

"Mi manca"

"Of course you miss him, young man! I miss him. Your mother misses him. Your sister misses him. His friends miss him. It's been three months, Marcello. Dry your eyes. Do you want a story?"

"Nuh-uh. I want the Cesare song!"

"The Cesare song?"

Flavia grinned.

"Papà used to sing it to us to make us sleep" she said "But he couldn't sing!"

"He never was able to. But he wasn't too bad with instruments" zia Claudia commented "So, how was this Cesare song?"

"Uhm… there were two. The gravity one and the other one"

"Just pick one, Flavia!" Marcello said, as on his face the shadow of a grin appeared again

"Er… va bene. Cesare, o Cesare, a man of great depravity…" Flavia started, trying to remember the tune "believed himself immortal 'til he had a date with gravity"

"Oh, mio Dio!" zia Claudia burst out, almost laughing "Your father invented this?"

"Papà always told he tossed him through the air to see where he might land!" Marcello told her with a smile "Was this Cesare so bad?"

"One day I'll tell you. When you're older" zia Claudia said "But I can tell you a story about your papà. Of when we still lived in Firenze with our parents and our brothers"

"What about the Vieri song?" Marcello asked

"No, I want to hear about Papà" Flavia replied, sitting on her bed

"Va bene" Marcello puffed and sat on his bed

"So… it was Christmas, not so different from how your Christmas is now. Our father had gone to Milano for some business of his. We were stuck at home, the four of us, with no news from your grandfather, and no one was in the mood to celebrate. And there was no snow either, just like now. I thought it was going to be the worst Christmas ever, but then…"

Ezio stared out of the window, at the crowd in the streets. Many of the boys of his age now were with their families, celebrating happily.

Did he really have to be so unlucky to spend the Christmas stuck at home, with his father away?

He wasn't anymore so young he could ask for his father, yet those were the times in which he would have liked to be seven instead of seventeen. A man like him wasn't supposed to complain like a baby.

Even his mother was worried, and usually she was the one who kept calming them down.

She had gone to the Duomo, for the midnight mass. Ezio and his siblings didn't feel like going there: he and Federico got bored easily, Claudia had had an argument with her friends and didn't want to see anyone, and Petruccio… well, he was hardly allowed to go anywhere but his room.

"We should have gone, maybe"

"Shut the hell up, Federico" Ezio muttered staring out of the window

"There's no use waiting for him. He told us he wouldn't have been back before New Year's Eve"

"What do you know I don't?"

"Nothing I'm allowed to tell you, I'm sorry. But I know he'll come back as he always did. Father can defend himself much better than you think"

"What makes you think so?"

"Hey, I wasn't taught by zio Mario, you know! Oh, and it's Christmas, anyway, you shouldn't swear like that"

"I didn't say fuck, did you notice it?"

"Well, now you did!" Federico resolved "Anyway, we should have gone with Mother, I mean. Your mood can't get but worse if you stay stuck over there like a dormouse"

"I didn't feel like. I don't feel like"

"Io nemmeno. But waiting for something that won't come won't fix anything"

Ezio leaned against the window again. Federico was damn right. Father wouldn't have come back soon, and waiting was a waste of time. But anyway, he didn't want to… well, celebrate as he had always done.

"Hey, what about a walk?"

"A walk?"

"Sì, the four of us. To Santa Maria Novella and then back here. At least we'd go out for a bit"

"Mother will kill us if she finds out we're taking Petruccio outside"

"He'll never want to stay in if we go out. You know how he is. He's like we were at his age"

"Hoping he lives to be like us now" Ezio said, leaving for once his place near the window "Let's go. And tell Claudia to cover him well, even take a blanket if she can"

In a few moments, the four siblings were outside, the smallest of them bundled up in every thick garment his brothers had managed to put on him, and quickly joined the crowd in the streets.

The road for Piazza Santa Maria Novella wasn't long, and one of the first thing they spotted were a few older boys playing calcio, despite the shouts of protest of some monks around.

"Next year I want to see you on the field, Ezio. You're almost old enough, and our team needs men like you" Federico said with a grin

"You'd be the best" Petruccio puffed through his scarf

"Well, don't flatter me now" Ezio said taking a few candles out of a pouch

"What do you want to do with those?" Claudia asked

"Try to guess!" Ezio answered climbing the church walls

"You little idiota!" Federico shouted behind him, and by the sounds he made, Ezio realized he was after him.

"Aspetta, Federico, me too!" Petruccio peeped behind them

Federico's noise grew fainter, but he approached again, this time slower. He had heaved Petruccio on his shoulders for sure.

Oh, that would have evened the odds: Federico was way faster than him.

They arrived on the roof together, Federico put Petruccio down and Ezio pulled out a tinderbox and lit one candle, then made the wax melt and stuck the three candles he had brought on the roofing tiles, then he lit them.

"Lighting a candle in a chapel was too mainstream, wasn't it?" Federico asked him with a grin

"I'd better not tell you what I'm thinking about you" Ezio said as the bells struck midnight "It's Christmas, bro. By the way, merry Christmas to you both"

He hugged his two brothers, then waved at Claudia, who was still in the square.

"Vi voglio bene, you know, right?"

"Marcello?"

"Hm"

"Marcello!"

"Hmm?"

"Wake up. NOW!"

Marcello sat up yawning and grunting, and Flavia could hear him uttering a curse or two of the ones he had learned from Papà.

"No swearing. It's Christmas"

"Not yet. It's still Christmas's Eve" Marcello yawned

"Papà didn't swear on Christmas's Eve"

"I was sleeping!"

"Said the boy who wouldn't have slept"

"Anyway they haven't called for us yet. Why did you wake me up?"

"A-ha?" Flavia said, pulling out some candles from behind her back

"So what?"

"Can't you climb a wall?"

"What wall?"

"Mamma's right. You're andato, like Papà was before he met her"

"Hey, who's hopeless?"

Flavia grinned and shrugged as Marcello stood up, went to a bucket of water in a corner and washed his face and got dressed.

"Ready?"

"Ready. So, which wall are we climbing? And don't tell me I have to do it, the idea is yours and we have to do it together"

"But…"

"No buts. Remember what Papà always said. We do it together"

"Marcello…"

"Hey, you can borrow my spare trousers if that's the problem. The funny girl had trousers, remember?"

"She has a name, you know? Shao Jun"

"Who cares about her name? She won't come ba… ow! What was that for?" he almost shouted when Flavia hit him

Flavia didn't answer. She had grown to like the stranger that had come for a few days at home, but in the days after she had gone away, she had had a terrifying thought: what if whatever had happened at home while she, her mother and her brother were at zio Niccolò's, had actually provoked what… had happened after?

Apparently, Marcello had regained his voice – of – reason role, because Flavia had barely the time to notice he had noticed her sadness, before Marcello hugged her.

"Ti voglio bene, you know, right?" he told her standing back "Let's go now. Get my spare trousers, wear them under your dress and let's go up"

It took some time for the two kids to get on the roof, despite the high number of handholds and footholds on the wall, and it was the first time Flavia climbed, so Marcello had to stop a few times to help her out. But eventually, they did it.

"I hope you haven't forgotten to get a tinderbox from the kitchen" Marcello said as Flavia passed him a candle

"You little man of little faith" Flavia said handing him the tinderbox "Come on, light up one"

They lit one, then two, then three, then four and five. They melted some wax and stuck them on the rooftop.

Probably, no one had noticed. Probably, no one would ever have.

But it didn't mean a thing.

The most important thing now was they were there, together, in their Papà's footsteps.

Flavia put an arm around Marcello's shoulders, and her little brother did the same.

Maybe it wouldn't have been the best Christmas ever.

Maybe they would have remembered it as the worst.

But Flavia, for the first time after many days, felt happy.

She had had a loving father. She still had a loving family.

She had an extraordinary little brother.

There would have been time to think about the uncertain future just in front of them, but it wasn't now.

They just were together, standing for their last tribute to a man who had meant the world in Flavia's eleven years and Marcello's ten.

No one could have called Ezio Auditore back home, yet for one night, Claudia, looking at her nephew and niece from the backyard, realized her brother had not gone away for once.

Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.

So, it's done. Anyway, the italics sentence in the end is taken from the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie. No better quote than that

Anyway, I imagined Marcello to be ginger-haired because if I'll ever write a long story, that will be a key element.

Anyway, Merry Christmas again.

A bit of translation for whoever doesn't understand Italian.

Papà = Dad (informal)

Zia = Aunt

"Non voglio, non voglio dormire!"= as in the story, "I won't, I won't sleep"

Macello = shambles, in this case. As you noticed, it's a pun on the name of the youngest Auditore and the mess he makes when he complains about something

Salute = greetings. Yup, Flavia has respect for her aunt.

Bambini = children

Mi manca = I miss him

Oh, mio Dio = Oh my God

Va bene = okay

Zio = Uncle

Io nemmeno = Neither do I

Calcio = football. I would have written football, but this kind of sport (calcio fiorentino) is not the football or soccer we know today. It was far more violent, and that would also explain why seventeen-years-old Ezio wasn't allowed to play in a team yet. (and that should also explain the complaining monks.)

Idiota = idiot

Aspetta = wait

Vi/Ti voglio bene = I love you, meant as "family love" (yeah, in Italian there are two ways to say "I love you"). "Vi" is used for more than one person, "Ti" for one.

Mamma = Mum (informal)

Andato = that would mean gone, but it has more translation depending on the case. In this case, "hopeless".