"How is your relationship with Haytham?"
A short-story reply to an ask on the ask blog connorfemway on tumblr. Enjoy.
The winter winds pull snow up off the ground, swirling it about in the air. Tiny flakes dance to a rhythm all their own. That rhythm is disrupted in an abrupt fashion – a woman trudging through the street, ankle deep in the fluffy stuff. The dancing snowflakes cling to her face, her hood, her shivering body.
The Assassin has never been so sure of anything in her life – that this situation was utterly wretched and because of a certain someone she'd been left to battle a horde of angry regulars and gotten thrown into a frozen river. Some of her clothing was, literally, frozen to her skin. Blood was smeared across her cheek and spotted her white robes. Drenched, freezing, teeth chattering, Connor could only place the blame on one person.
The barmaid and many of the men occupying the tavern start as the door is thrown open, crashing into the wall behind it. It bounces back, squeaks loudly, as Connor steps inside.
"Aye, lass, ye just about broke mah door!" the owner has poked his head up from beneath the bar, eyes squinted in fierce detest. He stands up tall as Connor walks up to the bar.
"Sorry," she sputters, arms wrapped tight around herself. She has to take a moment to calm her chattering teeth before she speaks again. "Haytham Kenway. Is he here?"
"Ahh," the old woman with garlic-smelling breath leans over the bar to get a good look at the native's face beneath the hood, "He's upstairs, dahlin'. I thought he was jokin' when he said-"
"I am sorry, but it is urgent," the Assassin's eyes turn to the stairs. Not a moment later she's trotting up them as quickly as she can, the old woman calling after her. One of the drinkers in the tavern gets up to close the door that stands ajar, allowing desperate snowflakes to fall onto the wooden floor just inside the tavern.
In her stubborn haste, Connor realizes she hadn't even asked which room Haytham was staying in. Luckily enough, the banging had brought tenants out to see what the disturbance was. The Assassin's father appears at the end of the hall, wearing his usual condescending half-glare.
"Where were you?" she demands in a voice far bigger than her own personality allows. It was a pivotal flaw of hers – the unbridled rage she could command, passed down directly from her mother.
"Whatever do you mean?" Haytham's accent is thick, and he narrows his eyes in a sort of genuine confusion that frustrates his daughter even further.
"You left me alone to deal with our enemy," as she pleads the case she feels is becoming more and more meager by the moment, Haytham is already scoffing. As is the usual when he prepares a sort of 'speech' for assaulted ears to hear, he crosses his arms behind his back and stands up taller. It was the only thing he could do to get an edge physically over his daughter, who was almost his own height.
"We've no business working together if you're not able to handle a few regulars, Connor," Before the Assassin can open her mouth to retort, Haytham continues on, condescending tone doubling in force, "And since I've finally found a good time for the topic, perhaps a name change is in order. Who in the world thought it would be a good idea to give you a man's name? That old lout Achilles?"
"I have assumed the role of a man for quite some time, father," it was hard to keep in line while talking to Haytham. Despite his attitude and her rage, she was determined to treat her father with the same respect she gave her mother before her death. It was one of the most challenging tasks she had ever undertaken, placing herself in the child position to humor a man of such hard verbage.
"Is that so?" to this Haytham seems surprised, "So you now tell me that you have tricked Washington and his footmen into believing such a preposterous thing? I only find myself further disappointed with them. They are far feebler than even I imagined."
To this, Connor falls silent, afraid her rage might poke through the words she wants to say. Unconsciously she paws at the blood on her cheek, beginning to feel the pain of the small cuts that mar her skin. Seeing his point is made, the Grandmaster Templar lets a moment of awkward and tense silence pass between them. It was hard to be too hard on the girl – perhaps somewhere in the depths of his conscience he found her to actually be his daughter, and not some lost puppy pawing at his heels.
Perhaps another contributing factor to his backing off of the tentative subject of her involvement with Washington was the way she was looking at him. In this moment, his daughter was the spitting image of her mother. Lips thin with displeasure, nose crinkled, a proud jaw set stubbornly in place. Those lips and nose were more his own than Ziio's, but what pulled it all together were the eyes. Those were Ziio's, no denying it. The fire of rage in those eyes and all.
It was this feature that solidified the fact that they were related by blood. He couldn't help but look upon the young Kenway girl as someone he wanted to take under his wing, despite the displeasure of the entire situation and the many criticisms he had waiting to deliver to her.
But now Connor was settled firmly on silence and he felt he had to remedy the situation, somehow. He lets his arms relax, and in a sort of leap of faith reaches forward and puts a hand on her shoulder. The thoughts preceding this action disappear when he feels the chill of her thawing clothing, finally smells the soggy river bottom which she had fallen into.
"By the gods, girl," he exclaims, looking her over. He notices the small puddle that has formed at his daughter's feet, "What did you do, go for a swim with the regulars before you dispatched them?"
"I fell in," she states flatly, "Is there more to discuss, or may I take my leave?"
The placement of his hand on her shoulder only functioned to alienate her further, somehow. Perhaps it was preference – Connor did not like to be touched. However, the native could not deny she still felt wholly uncomfortable around her father. It was hard to trust him, and hard to like him. Their relationship was tentative and at any moment could snap in half like a brittle stick.
Despite the many negatives Connor found in her father, she could not deny the fact that she wanted to be closer to him, somehow. After reading his journal as a young girl, it was hard not to expect more of the man than this. It was the only motivation she had for showing him the respect a father should deserve from his daughter.
"Leave to where?" the man scoffs, removing his hand from her shoulder to open the door to the room in which he has stayed. He holds the door open expectantly, tipping his chin up high, "You survived a mob of regulars and managed to make it here without freezing to death. I will not let you waste that by trekking out into the snowstorm yet again. Besides, we've still your name to discuss."
"My name is Ratonhnhaké:ton," the Assassin looks her father over with a high degree of caution, then into the room. As she surveys the area inside with utmost distrust, Haytham lets a grimace pass over his face. Yet another complicated name that he would not be able to pronounce. He didn't even feel like trying.
"I fancy the name Catherine. Or, perhaps, Cada," Connor now wears her own grimace. Finally she enters the room, boots squeaking and squishing with each step. As he closes the door behind himself, Haytham seems to settle on a name. "Corinna. A good name, for my daughter. Far better than Connor."
It would simply be something Connor would have to pass off, for now. Until their relationship developed further, all she could see him as was an outsider who wore the title of father, but had not earned it.