"I will not let you run away."
Kesegowasee´s threat unfazed Shay Patrick Cormac as he jumps out of ground level and runs up a trunk conveniently chopped down to provide a way up to the tree branches. The snow storm picks up without warning and Shay takes a moment to hold on to a branch. He can´t turn back, especially now that they decided to downright bombard the forest. The rock blockade, originally intended to cut out his escape, had in a small way delayed reinforcements and trapped them with the mortar projectiles, yet such an advantage would be short lived.
They are Assassins, trained to find a way around messes regardless of the dreadful situations or the obstacles in their path. And besides, the mortars had ceased roaring.
The storm subsides for the time being and Shay wastes no time in making use of that. He hops from branch to branch while retaining the proper balance to not lose speed as well as not fall over. A musket bullet blurs past him and Shay halts in a branch disoriented. In a feat of luck (created by him obviously) he manages to keep still and not fall down to the vegetation. Recovered from the shock, he draws one of his flintlocks, points it to the lookout on his left and fires. He didn´t kill him since that went against his nature; he only incapacitated him with a shot to the leg. He tosses the pistol to the river running some meters away from him and continues.
"Resistance is not of your best interest. You´d do best in giving up now!"
"I have to move", Shay hisses mentally.
Bullets and rocks fly high to hit him, few hitting him but fazing him. Sick of the persistent bastards, Shay closes in on a lookout post where a stationed sniper aimed at his chest with a smirk. He devises a plan at the speed of sound. He lands a tree branch away from the sniper and jumps to the right and out of the man´s sights. A wasted bullet flies out of the musket and Shay, not sparing a smirk to the enraged lookout, pushes him out of the post while planting a smoke bomb, with the lit removed and on countdown to explosion, on the man´s belt.
When the man lands on the snow and causes some men to slow down and go around him, the smoke bomb blows up, covering the ground with a large and high thick smoke cloud. Satisfied, Shay proceeds through another network of branches.
People behind him on the branches gradually catch up with him, Kesegowasee leading them, so Shay appreciates that the aerial getaway ends with a thinner branch of a fir. He hops to that branch and, in a combination of landing and leap movements, he performs the regular leap of faith he had been taught to use.
"Keep the arms stretched, flip in the air to face the ground with your back and close your eyes. If done correctly, the danger is minimal and you´ll feel free.", Achilles` advices echoed in his mind.
"I´ve got moves you´ve never seen me use, Shay. But continue to practice and you´ll get there", Liam´s face lit up in a grin in his mind.
"And you´re mistaken if any training will make you a proper Assassin. Do you even know what that means?", Shay visualized Chevalier scowling him prior to captaining The Morrigan.
Down below a large amount of leafs under a layer of snow softened the impact and Shay gains control of his memories. He barges out of the landing area and cuts through the snow to the left. The screams of authority fly with the wind but not the semi-muffled sounds of runners behind him. He throws a quick glance to his back. The brown and orange of their clothes was unmistakably coming closer to him. He grunted and kicked his way out of the gradually thinner layer of snow.
"Stop Cormac!"
"What are you doing Shay?", a particular feminine voice demanded.
Shay ignored the question from Hope, one of his closest friends, and kicks one last time to make way. His boots start to hit more stable ground and he breaks into a sprint, unsure of where to go next.
"Get to the cliff", Shay screams inwardly.
And he did, hoping that they´d stop their pursuit when he´d be out of their hands and guns` reach. He sees movement to his right side and rolls over a human projectile of orange and brown. Not losing momentum he resumes the sprint, resisting the urge to smirk at his attacker´s curse to focus on his destination. Up, up, to the end, he slows down and stops in two calculated steps nearly in the edge of the cliff, close to be able to dive and to look at its bottom. He bites his lips defeated. The cliff was high, maybe too high for someone to survive the fall and, if by chance he did, the sharp rocks would lower his survival chances to zero.
He was trapped between two monsters. Which was the lesser of the two evils?
The pursuers catch up with Shay, panting loudly from the chase. He recognizes the clinging of Chevalier´s favorite sword sheathed on his hip, the bull like grunts of Kesegowasee, and the cocking of the hammer of a flintlock.
"That´s enough!"
Liam, Hope, Chevalier, Kesegowasee and if he wasn´t imagining wrong, Achilles too, leading the pursuit. They had all come to stop the traitor to the Brotherhood from stealing the Manuscript and flee with it. All his comrades with the same objective.
Shay lowers his white hood. In his perspective it would be useless and a shame to wear it any longer. He´d die that night, looking or not like an Assassin, and he´d rather die not looking like one. He was a mass murderer of almost an entire city´s populace, the executioner of thousands of men, women and children in Lisbon, and he had done all that under the Brotherhood´s misled orders. Even touching that Apple of Eden… no, not an Apple, rather, a structure that held the world together… Even touching that darn thing had been a mistake. And with millions of deaths came the realization that it took a city to glance at a mirror and see a killer of British soldiers doing their duties and of other people, who probably didn´t deserve their fate and would do good to humanity. Most Templars, sure, but men with lives and loved ones all the same.
He had wanted to stop that from happening to another city, he had had to make amends as he had told Achilles moments ago. But what had they done to his warning? Discarded, assumed that it had come from a broken man who had failed a complex task for his inexperience on the job!
Achilles might be the Mentor, his family might be dead and he might have left scarred, but Liam had fooled himself for thinking he´d leave the matter unattended… There was no excuse for such a level of madness.
Shay turns around to face them. Chevalier with a hand on the pistol in case of need, Kesegowasee gripping the axe´s handle, Achilles piercing Shay´s soul with his authoritative look. Liam pointing the flintlock to Shay´s head with a mask of coldness, Hope next to Achilles looking uneasy. Probably the whole rest of the Brotherhood behind them, they were too many to count and give importance.
They all had their hoods up or a trait tricorn or broad hat on. United by a Brotherhood that shed blood with earthquakes and would continue to do so. It was a shame indeed for Shay.
"Give back the Manuscript Shay.", Hope begs. "I´m sure Achilles…"
Would spare him? Make it quick? Oh no. Shay knew better than that.
"I cannot.", he refuses in his ruffed voice. "I will not let this happen again! All those souls lost…"
His eyes relive the scenes he came across while fleeing the shaking city: Crumbling buildings crushing people, the fires that had raged the streets, the cracked and leveled streets lifting the city like a balance. But the people screaming in Portuguese for their families or salvation, running around for protection, was the rotten cherry in the cake. He had ruined their lives. Nothing would change that and wash the blood on his hands.
"… one more hardly matters.", the grief keeps his voice loud enough to be hearable.
He spares Liam a look. His choice was made. The lesser of two evils awaited him a dive away and only Liam had the power to stop him.
"Leave me be", He pleads with his look.
He´d miss him above all else. His best friend, often the older brother figure, his first mate in every area and the member he trusted more in the Brotherhood. Not many people had understood Shay throughout his life like Liam or given him something to live for.
Shay inhales deeply and imperceptibly, swings an arm back to make sure the book is safe on his clothes and turns around. He takes a step forward and faces his fate. He had always been a fighter and he wasn´t going to stop now.
"Shay!", Liam calls out.
"No, Liam", Shay wants to sigh.
He steps forward again and leans forward to dive. Then there´s the sound of a flintlock firing and the unbearable pain of a bullet lodging itself on the left superior side of his back. Shay can only grunt and narrow his eyes, unable to stop the force of the bullet from throwing him head on off the cliff. Instant surprise fades to be replaced with the feeling of sadness and betrayal for Liam´s action.
"Business is business, Shay. Never forget that!", Liam had stated once on a mission on Halifax.
He´s thankful for falling unconscious before the landing.
He flips twice in the air and slams in the water on his belly. Immobile from passing out, he floats away in the icy waters, gradually further away from the cliff and the men and woman watching him go. Achilles doesn´t waste time in ordering everyone to get to a rowboat and get Shay´s body back. Most scatter in multiple directions to get to the dock, others take a while longer to watch Shay drift away, like a sad Liam and Hope, grieving for the death of his friend.
"I´m killing Chevalier for this.", Liam mutters. He wasn´t thinking straight, but who cared? Shay had died, a traitor, but still his friend.
"Don´t Liam. Forget it, let´s just go.", Hope has him think of the orders. "Maybe he´s just unconscious and we can save him."
Liam isn´t convinced at all. That thin hope however gets him dragging his feet to the dock with Hope at his side pushing him slightly.
If they had stayed a while longer, they would have seen a shiny object floating closer to Shay. It´s a necklace, with a golden string and a big hexagonal crystal medal depicting a man offering something to the sun. The closer it gets to Shay, the more the Box, locked in a cabinet in Achilles` room, glows and booms. The medal brushes Shay´s ear and the Box activates, sending a massive blue shockwave that shatters every window of the Manor, shakes The Morrigan and The Gerfaut anchored in the dock, creates small waves that hit the rowboats and some of the rowing crew, blows the snow off the trees… and swallows Shay out of the water and out of presence, along with the necklace.
The nervousness is general in the five rowboats, where the men exchange astonished exclamations. Achilles, trying to calm the nerves of his men, notices that the upper floor of the Manor had been set ablaze and the flames threatening to expand to the lower floor.
"Continue with the search! We must find the Manuscript!", he spots Liam and Hope running to the Manor, buckets in their hands. "Take me back ashore, now!"
The rowers of the rowboat in question turn the boat around and heads back to shore.
The rest of the next half hour is spent containing the fire and then erasing it. Achilles` room had been the origin point of the fire, more specifically the blown up cabinet with the Box in it, leaving the division with burning furniture and destroyed maps, charts and portraits. The rest of the upper floor was dealt with accordingly and eventually the fires died.
The Box had been retrieved; however, it´s state had dropped an enormous weight on Achilles` heart. Besides partially blown up, lightning occasionally cracked there and there and shocked whoever held it, in simple words, unusable. Achilles` hadn´t even started swearing to the heavens when the research groups returned and informed that Shay and the Manuscript had vanished and that, with the snow storm picking up once more, they wouldn´t find anything that night.
Achilles takes in the reports in silence and then he looks up to the moon.
"You did it Shay. I hope you´re happy now", He scraps his teeth in anger.
The void of feeling is replaced with the sense of warm air and the comfort of a mattress on top of him. He has soft sheets over him, leaving his face uncovered. His eyelids press against each other, with the burden of many hours of rest weighting on them.
"Why can´t anything go like planned?", the pained Shay grunts to himself.
He refuses to open his eyes yet. Maybe he´ll die later if he waits long enough. Unlikely, he has to concede sadly, when he realizes his chest and back were bandaged and hence, treated. Things hadn´t gone according to what Shay had planned and now he´d live with that failure for the rest of his life.
What to do next? Keep a low profile and leave the colonies for sure, but where to then? His whole life had been on the colonies and the North Atlantic seas. He didn´t know London or what to do there. His French was miserable (on that he agreed with Chevalier), like his Spanish, therefore he could exclude France and Spain. As for Portugal, well…
Shay´s left with two choices: Either go to London and make a living by sailing on one of the Commercial Companies, a good reasonable life if he kept a low profile from the Templars controlling them, or sail to Lisbon and offer his services to help the city back up. The latter felt way more reassuring even if it was the capital of Templar operations in Portugal.
But first where was he?
Shay opens his eyes and sees a room different from the ones he had been before. Throwing the sheets to his right, he leaves the bed and evaluates his body´s condition. The wound beneath the bandages ached and a rib had broken on his left side, courtesy of a rock no doubt, but he could walk. Well, limp actually. He limped to the window to see the outside and was impressed to find only the vast ocean and the rocks below.
"I´m in an island...Doesn´t bring any light on me. I know every island from the Manor to Fogo and I´ve never come here before", Shay compares his geographical knowledge with the location and the surroundings.
In doing so he flexed his left arm and rolled his shoulder tensely, flaring up the pain on his left side. Shay winces faintly and bites his lower lip.
"Ah, you´ve woken up.", a male voice, along with the creaking of the door, startles Shay.
He turns around so quickly that the pain grows stronger and he nearly collapses to his knees. Hurried steps towards him echoed in the room and seconds later, a pair of hands steadies him. Straightening up, he studies the man´s features: Middle-aged if not fifty, bald, with a blue tattoo of an arrow going from the back of the head to the forehead, pointy black beard and mustache around the chin, gray eyes with a hint of blue, and an attire consisting in a yellow shirt and pants and a red cape large enough for his width and big enough to touch the floor.
"Don´t tell me I washed ashore in a monk community!", Shay exclaims post-analysis. One thing he had learned painfully is that religious communities were extremely boring to stay in.
"Go easy, young man. You´ve been ill for weeks now and it´s natural that you´re not fully recovered.", the monk recommends whilst leading him back to the bed.
"W-where am I?", Shay asks through a sharp breath. He sits in the bed as the man walks backwards to give him space.
"You´re in the Air Temple Island, home of the winged ring tail lemurs and the sky bisons. I´m Tenzin and I reside here with my family.", the man explained, hiding his hands in the large sleeves of his shirt.
"My name… is Shay Patrick Cormac.", Shay introduced himself holding out a hand. "Thank you. For saving my life, I mean."
"Pardon me, but did you say winged ring tail… lemurs… and sky what?", Shay repeats as Tenzin shakes the offered hand.
"Sky Bisons and yes I did say winged ring tail lemurs.", Tenzin confirmed, not holding back the pride. "It´s the only place where you can find them."
Shay stares blankly at Tenzin.
"Those are animals, right?", he blinks.
Tenzin´s eyebrows shoot up.
"Come now, surely you have heard of them.", he frowns.
"I haven´t sir. Might be animals that inhabit your island only and I´ve never been here before. That reminds me…", Shay tries to get up but Tenzin doesn´t allow that. "…is this in River Valley? Where´s the nearest settlement?"
Now it was Tenzin´s turn to look blankly at him.
"Are you jesting me?", He asks serious.
"No sir, I´m not. Although judging by your reaction I know I´m not.", Shay sighs.
A small uncomfortable silence falls between the two.
"So can you tell me more about this place?", Shay politely asks, half annoyed for being taken as a fool.
Tenzin agrees but requests Shay to wait for him while he´d find him suitable clothes. He leaves the room, non-repressed confusion twisted in his features, unnoticed by the more puzzled Shay. Left to wander the bedroom and face his inner conflicts, Shay gives it a complete search. He walks into a white adjacent room and finds it oddly weird, with the exception of the mirror on the wall.
Shay looks at himself in the mirror. His appearance had suffered a big chance since the last time he saw himself on the mirror. His normally long black hair had been cut and it was now only his pinky´s size; a cut near the chin had been stitched; the beard, that he liked to keep around his chin, had grown to cover his jaw in totality; checking his fingernails, he finds them cut; and most noticeable of all, he had a scar.
Every Assassin and smuggler doing business by Davenport Manor took pride in brandishing his or her scars to others just to show off. Acquiring a scar, especially like his own now, was considered respectful, the mark of a warrior and a challenge. Shay´s scar started by the right eyebrow, continued down over the right eye and stopped some inches away from it. He runs his fingers along the scar, disbelieving. A mental scar and a physical one to mark his failure, just what he needed. A growling sigh escapes his throat when he retreats his hands and grips the basin. An idea gains form in his brain and he latches on to it immediately. He looks at the basin and picks up a razor-blade. Twirling it in his hands to check it´s condition, he begins to shave the beard in steady moves, starting with his face and then moving to the neck.
When he concludes and the basin is filled with facial hairs, he takes in the fact that he looks like a new person and that the Shay persona that had attempted to commit suicide in Davenport had disappeared. And it sure does not look bad on him as well.
"Shay, are you in the bathroom?"
Tenzin.
"Just a moment.", Shay cleans his neck of any facial hair left and walks out of the bathroom.
He finds Tenzin by the door with a folded set of clothes on his hands and the air rifle wrapped in a white blanket on top of them.
"Unfortunately your clothes were torn and bloodstained. Besides Pema and Acolytes` best efforts they could not remove them or stitch them up. Yet, my wife has a good eye for sizes so I believe these should fit you nicely. Try them on.", Tenzin hands over the clothes to Shay and keeps the air rifle with him.
Retreating once more to the bathroom, Shay unfolds the clothes and looks separately at each one of them. There was a beige shirt of foreign design, a brown jacket with buttons, a high collar and pockets on the bottom, in each side, grey pants accompanied with the belt of his Assassin outfit and fingerless gloves. Shay liked that last detail.
"Did I have a book with me?", Shay asks as he picks up the shirt. It´s about time he worried with his belongings.
"Yes, you did. I´ve kept it in my study to hand it to you. Your weapons were delivered to the Police for protection but we´ve kept your strange long object.", Tenzin answers.
Shay peeks out of the bathroom.
"You gave my weapons to your Police?!"
"We didn´t know if you were a troublemaker or if you carried them for safety. We played safe. In time I will return them to you, rest assured.", Tenzin assures. He thought he noticed Shay´s eyes darken at the response but waves it off.
"Fine. Do rest assured, I don´t want any trouble with you or your family.", Shay puts on the pants and ties them with the belt. "For how long have I been under your care?"
"Today makes two months since you washed ashore and my children found you. You were burning up and evidently in need of medical care.", Tenzin explains, looking at the trigger of the air rifle. "We treated your wound but you have remained unconscious until now."
"I can´t thank you enough, sir.", Shay thanks while limping out of the bathroom.
"Much better than when we found you.", Tenzin commends looking Shay up and down.
Shay smiles faintly at the complement. His eyes drift to the air rifle in his caretaker´s hands.
"If I may, sir?", Shay asks nodding to the air rifle. Tenzin hands the rifle to Shay by holding it by the reloading mechanism. "This is an air rifle. Unlike the regular muskets the British and French use, this one makes no sound and fires darts instead of bullets."
Shay flips the rifle down to see if a dart would fall out. It didn´t and so Shay feels like he can´t demonstrate much without one.
"Who are the British and the French? What´s a musket? How did you get the scar? What´s your name?"
The voice surprises Shay again and launched another round of pain in his side. He looks at the source of the voice, a small boy smiling widely at him and wearing a super smaller size of Tenzin´s attire. His hair was shaven and his eyes were paler than Tenzin´s, leaving no doubt that the kid was Tenzin´s son.
"Meelo, go back to your bedroom please.", Tenzin scolds the boy.
"Sorry daddy, I heard you going to see the pirate and I wanted to meet him.", the boy, Meelo, has his smile grow wider. "What´s your name? Where do you come from?"
Shay takes a second to keep all the toddler´s questions in his mind.
"My name´s Shay Patrick Cormac and I´m from New York."
Meelo snorts.
"Your name is weird, Shay.", he comments.
"Is that so…? Meelo, right?", the boy nods. "Yours is weird too now that I think about it." Shay snorts at the boy, who sticks out his tongue to Shay after that. "Anyway, I´m sorry to tell you but I´m not a pirate. I´m a…", he stops to think of a good word to describe himself. "I´m a privateer."
"…Are you sure you´re not a pirate?", Meelo inquires.
"I´m privateer.", Shay corrects.
"But you walk around with a sword and a dagger, you have, wait, had a black beard and talk funny! You have to be a pirate!", Meelo pouts crestfallen.
Shay can´t help but laugh. He kneels to face the boy in a position that doesn´t sparkle any more pain.
"Aye, I do talk funny, blame it on my father. I might not be a pirate, but I do sail around in a big ship, looting the British´s vessels until they´re dry.", Shay rests a hand on Meelo´s shoulder. "My Morrigan is the best Bret-O-War you can find in the Colonies, scout´s honor!"
The curious goofy expression returns to Meelo´s face. "Can I try your thing?", Meelo reaches out for the rifle but Shay draws it away.
"Maybe later, lad.", Shay playfully winks at the boy.
Shay´s stomach chooses the occasion to rumble loudly.
"Um… can I have something to eat?", he asks embarrassed to Tenzin.
"Come with me. Pema is sleeping with the kids and they should only come down later."
Shay rises and follows Tenzin to the kitchen located floors below the current one. Meelo accompanies them by asking a multitude of questions to Shay, to which the latter tries to answer as evasively as possible. Some catch his attention, like "Are you a firebender?" and "You´re a non-bender?". He is surprised to know that the kid has never heard of New York or even places like Halifax or Alabama, only of "Republic City", wherever the hell that place was, and that he didn´t know the Seven Years War had been going on. Even Tenzin joined the conversation at that point to hear more about it. Thinking they lived in an isolated community that by some miracle hadn´t had outside contact for God knows how many years, Shay´s feeling of misplacement increased. When they reached the kitchen, he asked for Meelo to find him a map and the boy ran off through the same way they entered.
Tenzin waits until Meelo is out of hearing range to openly express his opinion:
"I´ll be honest with you, Shay. You tell some stories that I´ve never heard one tell and the fact that you were armed with rudimental weapons like those makes me uneasy about your mental condition."
"I´m not mad or lying if that´s what´s on your mind.", Shay freezes and calmly counters. "I´m speaking the truth even if you don´t believe me."
"In that case answer me this question: How did you come by this?"
Tenzin´s right hand goes to a pocket in the pants and removes a crystal necklace with a golden string. Shay cocks his head to his side, unrecognizing the thing.
"I don´t know what that is, sir. All I remember is being shot at and falling off a cliff. Could have come in contact with the thing while I…"
Shay´s justification halts as his brain thinks more clearly. Davenport manor was far from River Valley, so there had been no way he could have ended up there, with or without snow storm. His argument is backed up by the fact that he would have had to be found by someone sailing in the night and brought him there, or otherwise he would have never survived the weather and/or the Assassins.
"You said you found me washed ashore. Are you sure no one brought me to your care?", Shay asks suspiciously.
"No, like I said, my children found you. There was no one with you and no identification. Now back to my question. How did you come about this?", Tenzin brings the conversation back on the original track.
"I´ve never seen that necklace before.", Shay repeats firmly, clearly annoyed.
Tenzin stares at him a bit longer before putting the necklace back in his pocket.
"This is the Spirit of Peace, an artifact from the time of Fire Lord Sozin that was recently stolen from the Museum. The thieves were on the run for a week until they were caught. Yet on the interrogatory they neither gave the whereabouts of the necklace nor which man hid it."
"And because you found me with it, you have reasons to suspect I had something to do with the theft.", Shay concludes sitting on the chair. "How can I clear my name?"
"For now you´ll rest here until your condition has improved. When I deem you up to it, we´ll find Lin Beifong, the Chief of Police, and you´ll give your accounts on the matter.", Tenzin prepares a cup with cereals, fetches a spoon and puts them on the table., "Now eat."
"Escaping death to face another problem. Way to go, arsehole", Shay grumbles.
Shay takes the spoon and tastes the breakfast. He likes it and, in hungry spoonfuls, he devours the cereals, drinking the milk when he´s finished. Tenzin makes him company while eating his own breakfast, often asking about Shay´s life. Shay, who had accepted that he´d have to tell the truth sooner or later, answered with a detailed tale of his life.
"And those cities, Haiti and Lisbon, are destroyed because your former colleagues don´t know what they are doing with those artifacts?", Tenzin leans forward to better hear Shay´s narration as he tells of the memorable 1st of November of 1755.
"Aye. I tried to make them see reason but they didn´t listen. Achilles might be the Mentor and his family might have died, but such level of madness was inexcusable. I had to do something.", Shay rubs his eyelids tiredly.
"The Assassins and Templars you speak of seem to be a danger to the populace. I shall inform Lin to keep an eye out for them.", Tenzin meditates over the reports.
"It takes more than just keeping an eye out, frankly. Assassins, like me… like I was, are trained to hide in plain sight and to never compromise the Brotherhood. Even if you can catch one, he´d rather be made a martyr than give away his secrets.", Shay enumerates the hard chances of finding one. "As for the Templars, those bastards are highly influent people, the sort you´d never think are involved in those businesses."
"Shay! I have the map!"
Meelo enters the kitchen at full speed with a rolled map on his hands and slides to a stop in front of Shay. Shay took the map in his hands as Tenzin told Meelo not to scream when his mother and siblings were sleeping. Unrolling it, Shay runs his eyes over it, immediately preoccupation seeping into them.
"Meelo, are you sure you brought me the right map?", he asks nervously without looking at the boy.
"Yep, it´s daddy´s special one.", Meelo confirms while sitting on a chair himself.
Shay swallows saliva, flabbergasted. The map didn´t have neither the continents he knew, nor the known symbols and names he had been used to work with. No Americas, no Europe, no Asia, no Africa, just a huge island painted in white, a set of volcanic islands to the left painted in red, an island in light blue on the top of the map and another on the opposite side of a darker blue, a thick lane by the north coast of the white island in dark gray and scattered mountainous mini-islands. He tries to read the huge characters that pinpoint the islands` names but he can´t, as they are in a different language.
"I can´t read anything in here. Would you mind translating these, please?", Shay requested Tenzin offering the map.
"You can´t read?", Meelo gasps with wide eyes.
"Well, I can, just not this language. Is it Chinese?", Shay takes a guess.
Tenzin nods and instead of taking the map, he goes around the table to be with Shay and Meelo.
"These are the Bending Countries and they consist on the North and South Poles, the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. Then there is the United Republic of Nations", Tenzin points to each country on the map. "Currently we are here, near its capital, Republic City. Where in this map can we find Lisbon and Haiti?"
"That´s just it. They´re not here. This map is different from mine!", Shay exclaims.
"What do you mean?", Tenzin cocks an eyebrow. "You´re not making sense now."
"Hang on. Have you kept my pouches?", Shay questions. Tenzin confirms. "Take me to them, please."
The adults and Meelo leave the kitchen, go up a flight of stairs, and enter a corridor. Walking (limping in Shay´s case) some meters ahead, they enter the fourth door to the left, to a room that Shay can only presume to be Tenzin´s study. He watches silently as Tenzin opens a drawer on a writing desk and removes his leather belt. Shay had crafted it on his way to Lisbon to spend the time while not sailing the ship himself, with the intention of having as much tools at his disposal as he could. It has four pouches: one for the Rope Darts, two for the ammunition and one where he kept the notes of assignments or a spare map for emergency. Like now for example.
"Open the one to the right.", Shay instructs.
Following the command, Tenzin takes out a yellow colored paper, folded to create a square the size of his hand, and as he unfolds it, he doesn´t keep the curiosity of his face.
"Now let´s see… Shay, was it you who drew this?", Tenzin looks at the map.
"I bought that map on New York on a brief stop there. As you can see it´s very different from yours.", Shay clarifies, running a hand on his hair. "Don´t take this the wrong way, but have you had any outside contact over the years?"
Tenzin completely ignores him. He removes the same necklace out of the same pocket, mumbles incoherent words incredulously with his back turned to Shay and then he brings Shay closer to him by the elbow.
"I may know how you came here."
"Do tell.", Shay´s own inquisitiveness peeks.
"The Spirit of Peace, while a beautiful piece of the time of the Fire Lords` reign, is also the center of a legend that goes back to the times of Avatar Roku. I´ll explain who he is later.", Tenzin adds at the sight of Shay´s frown.
»"The Spirit of Peace was crafted by a blacksmith two centuries ago, from crystal extracted from the Lovers` Cave and by using gold offered by a nobleman of the Earth Kingdom. It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry people had seen and news of it flew from mouth to mouth throughout the news of the existence of the necklace, made of such fine materials, caught the attention of an earthbender, a brutal thief of fierce reputation. Seeking to steal it, he attacked the village where he had last learned of its location single-handedly, looking to steal it and pillage the riches. Avatar Roku had been traveling close to the village and noticed the distress of a passing elder who related the assault on the village.
»Avatar Roku put a stop to his travel and headed to the village, where he battled the earthbender and won, expelling him from the Earth Kingdom, under the penalty of being killed if he stepped foot ever again there. In gratitude for his services, the villagers offered him the Spirit of Peace that Roku at first declined. After insisting however, and not to cause a scandal, he accepted it. When he put it on, he was engulfed in a bright light and he mysteriously vanished from sight. For a whole day no one saw him and the searches were fruitless, hence the assumption Roku had been taken to the Spirit World.
»The agitation was short lived, however, as at the next day´s dawn he returned, unharmed but looking different. Instead of the Fire Nation´s attire, he wore a metal armor over a white uniform with a hood, arm bands from where concealed blades were ejected, speaking a foreign language and claiming that it had been five years since he had left. Visibly sad, Roku resumed his journey over the Earth Nation, spending them writing in a journal his reflections over the journey he undertook.
»The villagers took that as a sign that he had traveled to the Spirit World through a method different from meditation, and from that day on, it was established that the necklace would pass from Avatar to Avatar as a symbol of status. When Roku died twenty years later, Raava, the spirit that merges with humans to give control over the four elements, was reincarnated in my father, Aang. He was trained to succeed in being the Avatar but fled the Air Benders community when he found out his destiny, not wanting to give up his old life with friends over a nomadic life.
»Fire Lord Sozin, that at the time controlled the Fire Nation with an iron hand, feared that the Avatar would stop his rule and invasion plans and ordered the extermination of the Air Benders. My father was the only survivor, having frozen himself below the water, and the Spirit of Peace was taken as a prize.
»The necklace never again gave passage to the Spirit World, neither to the Fire Lords, nor to anyone else. My father stopped Fire Lord Sozin`s grandson, Ozai, restored order and balance, and the recovery of the Nations began, which originated the creation of the United Republic of Nations. And on the course of the years, it never activated. On Republic City, sometime after my father´s passing, a Museum was built and over the many relics that were bought or acquired for exposition, Zuko, the son of Ozai and one of my father´s best friends, donated the necklace, where it stayed until the theft.
»Now we have your story that implies that the necklace activated and crossed dimensions for the first time in so long. You might have confirmed one of the oldest legends there is, Shay."
Shay opens and closes his mouth at least a dozen times. The many questions that his mind tried to hold on were just too unbelievably ridiculous.
"Do you think the necklace ´teleported´ to my world and brought me to ´your world´?" Shay decides to start slow. "That sounds loony."
"It´s a possibility. My father himself told me that on a conversation with Roku, he heard him reference about his adventure on a country called Italy, in a time far more advanced than his own. He claimed to have travelled to 1500 and worked alongside a man named Ezio Auditore along with his secret society of Assassins in overthrowing a powerful tyrant family, leaders of a Templar Order."
Shay does a double take on that.
"Ezio Auditore? You mean, THE Ezio Auditore, Mentor of the Italian Assassins from 1509 to 1512? The man is a legend as great as Altair! I worship the man!", he all but screams with an excited chuckle.
"Yes, that´s right. So you are from the same world as him but from another time. By the Spirits!", Tenzin gives the map to Shay. "If I may ask you this, could you tell me more about your home world?"
Shay´s grin splits his face in two.
"With pleasure. Will you join us Meelo?" He asks the small boy, who was looking at the two not understanding a thing.
"Yay! Story time!", the little man runs out of the study room.
With that said, the two left the study and returned to the kitchen, Shay already talking about the story of the Brotherhood.
"But wait. How did that Roku fellow return?", Shay interrupts his storytelling.
"No one knows how. Even Roku was clouded with doubts about that subject.", Tenzin says.
Shay gulps and slows down, zooming out of Tenzin´s questions.
"I´m stuck here?"