Malik remembered well the day his brother died. It wasn't supposed to end the way it did. It was supposed to end with the three of them leaving with the supposed 'treasure,' the sun streaked beasts underneath them gleaming in the daylight as they rode home. The animals would whiney when they were pushed too far, but it wouldn't matter. They had succeeded, and Al Mualim would smile down at them, silently proud of their actions. Of what they had brought to the brotherhood. It didn't end that way, and Al Mualim had been dead for a year. As had Kadar.
Fate liked to play games with the eldest Al-Sayr.
It deemed fit to have Malik at the birth and demise of his baby brother. To hold the writhing baby as it screamed through teething, and then the writhing man as he screamed through his death throes. It seemed to gain a sickening glee in making Altair the killer. Indirectly, but that is just a word. Altair's idiocy meant the death, but that didn't matter either. Blaming him wouldn't bring back Kadar, nor could anything fill the gap or heal it completely.
Malik would just have to let time heal him.
The Eagle seemed to recognise that, and instead, slaughtered ten of the most dangerous men in the Holy Land. Including his master, a threat to the brotherhood he lead. It was all a physical apology to Malik; he knew Altair was doing it for him, he even told him so. That at the beginning, it was for his pride but in the end, it was all for Malik. Ten lives in exchange for a chance to prove his worth to the King Of Swords. He was the same Altair he played bed mates with all those years ago. Back when they were young and stupid, and not the cold, tarnished men they grew into.
He just went a little awry, that's all.
It had been a year since such things as the betrayal, and since then, Altair had grown to be his closest friend. As master of the brotherhood, Altair played quite the part in the brotherhood's revival. When he wasn't hiding in the village or wandering the gardens. His subordinates followed him into the dark days that followed Al Mualim's death, through the new waves of Templar agents that tried to infiltrate the "weaker" branches of the brotherhood.
They followed him because he was strong. Because of his slow ascent back to the top of the pile. Because of the adamant, pained way he discarded parts of the old arrogant carcass he used to troll around in a façade of himself. When the tenth fell, he was reborn as the Master. Every part the man that Al Mualim was meant to be. What he was, before the apple and before the war.
Tricked by a damnation masquerading in the fineries of a blessing.
Altair's new leaf was refreshing, easier. But sometimes, it was hard to digest. Malik was hard pressed to find the rage that he used to harbour for the man. He could barely remember its features now. The new Altair was nothing like the spectre that Malik watched bring disaster on the brotherhood. He was happy. He was the Altair that Al Mualim dragged from a river bed on a walk with his young apprentices.
Back then, Malik had an array of ways to keep Altair at arms length, but as the years grew on the eagle somehow built its own little nest in Malik's ribcage. That was when they were stupid kids. He had flown the nest a little while after Al Mualim made him into his prodigy. Now he was older, handsome, charming and successful. Now he knew how to get into Malik's hide. Now he knew how to make all the secrets come out. Now he was taking back his nest.
Even though he was happier as a child, he was silent. Altair was a lot more… open now. Before, he was a closed book; impossible to tell the contents. Now, to Malik at least, that book had opened itself up and even flashed him its' pages. As a bookworm, it was the most tantalising development that had come up since he was appointed the Master of the brotherhood.
Altair had become more fascinating than ever before.
He spent his days organising the brotherhood and had even appointed three advisors. One being a woman, she was the most qualified after all, and the other an emaciated scholar. The old fool said he hadn't the time to eat anymore. The work was divided between them. It still meant Altair got to bed at dawn and got up three hours later. He was the Master, and some of his subordinates needed more than an advisor to quell them.
Whenever Malik was present at one of these "meetings," he scared the subordinate away. They never came back, and the throng of people to see Altair every day dwindled until all the foolish requests and complaints were a distant nightmare. The paperwork didn't quell, however. Altair had somehow managed to half it with Malik.
The Rafiq still had no clue how he got talked into it.
He was still rather homesick for his bureau in Jerusalem, if only for the peace it gave him. And the memories. He was rather abhorrent to the idea of someone collecting his things and bringing them to Masayaf for him, since there were tonnes of things they would never find; he hid his possessions too well. And besides, the things he hid were the only things he wanted; the things nobody could find.
Unbeknownst to him until the man left, Altair was the one to collect and deliver. He knew Malik too well, and the little Dai hated the idea of the assassin going through his things more than a novice doing the deed. The assassin would find every little piece of Malik hidden in that bureau, including all of the letters Altair had sent to him during the hunt for the ten men. All the drafts he never sent. He did write back, simpler and more appropriate letters than the ones he wanted to send. Instead, his much more embarrassingly gushing letters were hidden away. The replies that Altair got were of a friend, not a lover. He kept the more… compromising of the letters. The ones that would have Altair running back to him like an animal in heat.
True to form, Altair returned smiling like a wolf.
Malik avoided him completely for the first week, and couldn't look him in the eyes for three weeks after that. Eventually, after a dance of cat and mouse, Altair cornered him in an alcove of books in the fortress' library. Any other time would have meant Malik would have objected to such a defilement of literatures' treasures. He can even vaguely remember Altair hurling objects, anything he could get his hands on, at anybody who came within earshot of them.
Malik was given a piggy back to the aviary to give him an alibi. There were a few important letters coming in, after all. He wanted to stretch his legs, collected the post himself. Altair was found in the village below the fortress, shopping for meats. They never found the couple romping in the library, though Abbas had his theories. Life returned to "normal" and it was soon forgotten. One of the main rumours was that it was a scholar boinking one of the women gardeners.
The novices petitioned for lessons in the garden, after that little escapade.
The paperwork was mortifying.