Chapter 1: From the very start
A young, dark haired boy was sat at a desk in a school, scribbling away with his quill on a piece of parchment. His hand was well practiced, long swipes forming the cursive required even if there was a sense of immaturity about it. There was no doubt that he was trained well, even at this tender age.
He stopped momentarily only to dip his quill back into the dark ink that was situated inside the holder at the top right of the wooden desk. Tiny feet kicked back and forth rhythmically as he tilted his head, re-reading everything that he had written.
"Oh, do pay attention to what you're doing," came the cry from the other side of the room, feet now bounding towards his location.
Looking up, he took note of the bushy grey eyebrows which seemed to dominate the entirety of the man's face. "Sir?"
"Look at the mess you've made thanks to your fidgeting," he told the young boy, exasperated at the now drying smudge of ink that was situated in the upper corner of the parchment.
The young boy looked down at the parchment and frowned. His sums were illegible and he would have to start again. Attempting to hide his huff, knowing that he would only be late to return home, he gathered the parchment up in his hands and scrunched it up before gathering another one and unfurling it on the desk. Grasping the ink bottle tightly, he moved it to the upper corner to prevent it from curling up once again. The fact that he and his family could afford such luxuries as parchment and ink in the first place were something that he found hard to be grateful for. It always seemed like so much effort when slate could have been used like most children would have been doing during their tenure in education. However, the young boy most certainly wouldn't complain. It would have only earned him the cane off his father or the ruler off his teacher. It is as it is and he knew that one day he would come to appreciate it.
Pushing these thoughts from his mind, he repeated his steps again, dipping the quill into the ink and writing the date in the upper right corner: 6th February 1731
A quick glance up to the grey eyebrows that had chided him indicated that he was pleased and the older male moved to the other end of the room again, sitting down and opening the broadsheet for the day. The child was fairly certain that if he hadn't been one of the best students he'd ever taught, if not rebellious, then he wouldn't have even had a chance to look at the broadsheet although he did wonder what on earth it was that he could have found so fascinating. Perhaps it was the personals. He'd caught Edith, his nursemaid, and Emily, the chambermaid huffing and giggling over some of them in the past although he wasn't quite sure what a personal was or why they would even be remotely amusing.
Once more, his hand drifted over the paper, the scratch of the nib of the quill working along the parchment. For the most part it was a case of copying what legible answers their were and double checking that his answers were correct.
Finishing up, he noted that he was missing the most important part. His name. The quill went back into the ink and he carefully made sure to let the excess drip off before replacing it back onto the parchment once more. Scratching away at the weathered paper, he signed his name on the top left: Haytham E. Kenway.
The young boy's shoulders slumped and he placed the quill pen down in the groove at the top of the table and began to kick his legs again, this time excitedly knowing that it was almost time to go home. Tonight, if he had the chance, he would make sure to play with his toy soldiers, to revel in their battles, trials and tribulations, to ensure that the British were victorious once more. Raising his hand, he indicated with some pride that he had finished the task and he watched as grey eyebrows approached him once more. An old, withered hand came out, practically snatching the paper from the desk and beady eyes scanned over the resulting information. There was a calculated hum before the old tutor spoke. "Very good. You may leave for the day. I will take a closer look at this over supper. If there are any mistakes then we will repeat this task until you get it right," the teacher emphasised his last words, bushy eyebrows bobbing up and down as he spoke.
"Yes, Mr Fayling, sir," Haytham whispered, albeit confidently. It was very rare for him to get his sums wrong in the first instance and he knew it with some pride.
"In the mean time, do practice some more. I want to see some results in the morning when I come back then," he told the boy, shoving the parchment under his arm.
Haytham let out a sigh. He thought it would have been the perfect time for the French to overcome the British tonight, for the Commander of the British troops to lay waste to the pesky French and leave nothing more than bodies and nationalistic pride in their wake. It seemed that Mr Fayling had other ideas and grand designs on what he would be doing. "Very well, sir."
With little more to be said or to be done, the tutor left the room, the door clicking behind him and the young boy listened until the footsteps disappeared into nothing instead being replaced with the chirping of birds and the sweet laughter of girls from outside.
Slipping down from his chair, he shuffled over to the window and peered outside. Four young girls, two not too far off his own age from his judgement, were playing hopscotch. Upon further examination, he decided that they were pretty girls and he couldn't help but be entranced by the way that they jumped and laughed, taking it not one bit seriously at all. It was foreign to him, unusual, even. He was so used to treating everything like a competition, a contest to see who was the best and who would eventually be victorious, yet he couldn't help but feel a nag of desire and need. He had no friends and dearly wished to have some but his life was so sheltered and his father's disapproval over the fact that they were an MP's children only seemed to add to the fact that there would be no chance for him to ever get to know anyone around the surroundings of Queen Anne's Square.
His eyes tracked them, following one of them as they jumped, skipped, hopped, jumped again. A warm, excited feeling passed over him at the vision before him and he found himself pressing his nose up against the window, squashing it against his boyish face, unable to resist getting a closer look at what it was like to have a sibling closer to one's age and dare he say it, friends.
The youngest of the girls stopped as she reached the end of the game and turned towards him, facing him. For that brief moment, he was recognised and he wasn't quite sure what to do. A blush, unbidden and unwanted, flew up to the tips of his ears and he found that their eyes connected. With some nervousness, he raised his hand, waving haphazardly and recklessly. This was new and, furthermore, it was intriguing and stimulating. His wave continued as the other girls gathered around, giggling, some waving back and others grinning ear to ear at the thought of having made some kind of contact with the Kenway boy.
They soon stopped, turning around in some surprise as their nursemaid batted her hand at their waving ones. Lowering his own in response to that, his face fell. Like so many times before his efforts to make contact with the outside world had been thwarted.
As he slipped from the window and back to his desk, he never quite knew why his family were continually pushed away and treated as outcasts despite their social standing. It was nothing more but a dark mystery to him, something that he had no resolution on or even a hint as to why this was the way it had to be. Every time he had asked, it was filled with excuses or vague explanations and it had gotten to the point were he felt as if he should just give up and accept it for what it was: Loneliness.