"So Connor, who do you think is the hottest Assassin?"
A short-story reply to an ask on the ask blog connorfemway on tumblr. Enjoy.
Perhaps a tavern was not the best place to try to inquire about appearances.
As Dobby swirls frothy liquid about in her tankard and speaks of the close call they'd just had with an audible slur, Connor's eyes fall upon the group of men just a seat or two away.
Perhaps it was the everlasting pain in her neck that screamed at her that she had just had a brush with death, danced with the gallows, that made Connor weigh the pros and cons of each person around her as though it was the last look she'd get of them. She takes in the facial and bodily features of each of her recruits, mentally lining them up to compare.
It surely wasn't the alcohol affecting her thoughts. After the first sip of the frothy stuff, Connor had pushed her tankard to the side, face contorting in disgust.
Her observations do not go unnoticed by another woman who happens to delight in the thing Connor seems to despise. Dobby elbows Connor's arm. The Assassin turns her gaze on her recruit with mild interest.
"A bunch of louts, aren't they?" Dobby tips her tankard their way. The native watches the liquid sway in the container, fearing it might spill out and land in her lap. Luckily it does not.
"They are enjoying themselves," Connor adjusts the hood over her face, bringing it as low as it would come over her eyes. "I find no problem in that."
"Oh, that's all fine and good," Dobby takes her last drink, sets her tankard down on the table. A 'thunk' echoes in the immediate area. "But not a single one of them is properly attractive. When they drink they turn into… furry beasts."
Connor's eyes wander back to the group of men who howl with laughter, a joke exchanged. Others in the tavern have gone to join them. Dobby's assessment? Half right, perhaps. Furry beasts they were not. Attractive? Not so much, either, despite Connor's best attempts to see them as so.
"You know who is attractive?" Dobby tips her head to the side, drawing Connor's attention again. Prompted by the small noise the Assassin makes in her throat, Dobby rummages through the bag she has sitting beneath her feet.
From the depths of the messy bag Dobby removes a book, setting it upon the table in front of Connor.
"That is the book I lent you," the Assassin is as flat as a board. Dobby shakes her head, skilled fingers flicking through pages without having opened the book yet.
"Within, there is a man who takes my breath away. An Italian." Upon the cover of the book there is a faded Assassin's symbol. The pages have yellowed and begun to tear, the binding coming apart.
Dobby opens the book when she has found her desired page. Upon it is a sketched family portrait. To Connor, the page is all too familiar.
"Ezio Auditore," Dobby points to one of the young men in the faded sketch. The man can't be more than twenty years of age. His hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, a scar adorning his smiling lips. He is dressed elegantly, and carries a strong jaw and thick eyebrows.
"He was one of the best of our kind, from what the old man tells," Connor acknowledges her recruit's interest, but does not share in the enthusiasm. Dobby doesn't seem to notice, tracing her finger carefully over the paper face of the legend.
Perhaps it was the air of the tavern, the dull ache in her neck, her renewed sense of the world that made Connor place her attention on the eldest man in the sketch with interest.
"Giovanni," she mutters, leaning in a little closer to the book to get a better look at the faded face. With time, many of the lines of detail had been erased, converting the tired face of an Assassin to the youthful banker he had been assumed to be.
"The father does not compare to the son," Dobby asserts, noting Connor's renewed curiosity with a man other than Ezio. "The son inherits his mother's beauty as well."
The Assassin shakes her head. What was she even doing? Comparing the faces of two men long dead, for what purpose? They were not tangible. Their bodies had been returned to the earth long ago.
"Perhaps you are right," Connor closes the book, lifts it up from the table. It is cradled in the native's arms, finding no other proper place for it. Dobby leans her cheek against her open palm, elbow resting upon the wood.
"You don't seem convinced. Your tastes are odd," both women focus their eyes back on the group of men. Stephane seems to be in the process of convincing Duncan to arm wrestle with him, but the former priest will not have such a thing, indulging himself in his drink instead.
"I have no interest in such things at this time," is the only answer Connor can manage without further alienating herself from the only other woman in their Assassin order.