Wind sweeps by, rustling the wispy, dry stalks of grass, and Malik realizes that he has never quite seen a place like this before. It's beautiful, a picturesque place of rolling, steep hills covered in emerald fur and sweet flowers. He inhales, but can't smell a thing. It's in his mind, the smell. Sweet, soft. The wind doesn't blow him at all, but in his mind he can feel it, he knows it's there. It almost seems like...
And then he notices the figure ascending the side of the hill, regards the white robes, the red sash belt, the dark head with increasing clarity. Like a telescope, his vision focuses, and blue eyes look up at him from beneath their lashes. Malik... the figure whispers. Hairs prickled on the back of his neck, Malik knows suddenly that he can't breathe from the sorrowful weight crushing his chest. It consumes him, drowns him. His entire world flutters, and it's almost like he's about to be sucked away, but Kadar-yes, it is Kadar-reaches out for him quickly.
"Stay, Brother," Kadar says, and the voice is inside of his head, not on those young lips. Malik knows he wavers unsteadily, feels the unique burn at the back of his throat when water pours into his eyes.
"Kadar..." and he can't even hear himself say it out loud. Regardless, Kadar smiles at him.
"How are you, Brother?" asks Kadar, stepping closer, wrapping those (it seems like to Malik) small arms around his middle. His brother nuzzles him, brushes a cheek along the white undershirt, fingers the dark-blue robes of the dai.
He is unsure of how to respond to that. Terrible, he wants to say. In pain every single night when I shut my eyes. Agony in the morning when I open them, when I remember. To tell Kadar that, however, would be a travesty. He opts for a barely whispered, "Well."
"That's good," Kadar says cheerfully without missing a beat. "I am well, too, Brother. Ah," and Kadar sighs, turns around in place while lifting his arms. "Look, Malik," he says. "Look at it, isn't it wonderful? Not like Masyaf at all..."
Maliks sees, when he turns his eyes, the view he had taken in when he first could remember. Afraid Kadar would vanish before him, he quickly snaps his gaze back to his brother, the one facing him again with a smile.
"It's all right," murmurs Kadar. "About everything, I mean. Malik." And when Kadar reaches up, when the palms touch his face, there but not there, tears flood his eyes without a chance of ceasing. He is ruined, torn asunder as parchment when too wet with black ink.
"Kadar," Malik breathes. He doesn't know what to say still-there is so much, yet it is so hard to pull from within him. "I miss you," is all he gets out.
"I miss you, too," says Kadar. "You and Altaïr." Malik's heart clenches. Him and Altaïr. "I am fine, though. Here. It is peaceful, and I am not angry... I'm not angry at you, Malik, my brother. I could never be. I am not angry at Altaïr either. Here, there is no place for anger." Kadar places a palm against Malik's chest, keeps smiling. "Here, too, there is no place for anger."
Malik turns away, and then quickly turns back again, once more frightened that his brother may vanish into thin air before his eyes. "There is no hate," he repeats, the voice echoing in his head is hoarse. "Not anymore."
Kadar strokes Malik's cheeks, thumbs away what he assumes to be the tears that had coated them. "Good," says Kadar. "I am safe, Brother. I am happy, and you will be happy, yes?"
He can only nod.
"Yes, you will be," says Kadar, all-knowing, now haloed in a warm, brilliant light. "Altaïr will protect you-Dai now, is it?" Kadar's laugh is like a low bell, resounding all in Malik's head. "I'm proud, if my death played a great part in this liberation. Together, you both will re-make Masyaf, our old home." Kadar's hands lower, and Malik almost whines for their heated touch again. "I must go, Brother. As do you. The sun wakes with peace on your horizon."
The parting scene wrenches a ragged sob from his chest, one he has held back the entire time. Smiling Kadar, still his little brother from back then, descending back over the hill through the green grass. A hand, offered in a wave to him. A brightness that he can't even begin to call the sun, flooding the land, flooding smiling Kadar out of view, flooding his vision. A voice: I love you and then there is nothing left but momentary darkness.
Gasping, Malik snapped his eyes open, and their focus in the shadows of the bureau took a moment to gain orientation. His chest heaved, body tensed and quivering, quivering to match the flutter of his racing heart.
The jerk stirred Altaïr, and the Assassin lifted his head to regard the dai. He registered the bodily language, but was more surprised to find the streaks of water staining the man's face. "Malik?" Altaïr questioned softly.
Malik moved to roll over, to roll away, but Altaïr caught him and turned him back. The Assassin wrapped both arms around him, reached up to thumb the streams away from his eyes. "Kadar..." and it was all that Malik could whisper. Altaïr didn't have to hear more to understand.
Saying nothing, Altaïr pulled Malik close, rested the dai's weight against his own form in an act of comfort. His hands brushed up through the other man's dark hair, brushed the neck on the way back down. "I'm sorry," Altaïr murmured after a while, and the words slipped off his tongue easier now as Grand Master than as rising Assassin before. It had been ages since Solomon, yet his friend's dreams were still haunted by his mistakes. He wondered when there would come a last time, if that was possible at all.
The two laid there silently, save for the inhales of sorrow Malik tried to stifle, unmoving among the pillows, tangled together as one. Above, the sun rose up against the lattice, its rays dribbling down the stone walls and showering the two men, after a while, in a pool of safety and peace.