Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with AC, naturally.
A/N: My first Assassin's Creed fic! Woo! ..-cough- Anyway. This is just a little idea I had.. I think it turned out alright. And for an interesting fact you didn't want to know, this was called Memento Mori until I realised there were fics titled exactly that uploaded in this category already. ..But yes. On with the main show! ^_^
Moriendo Renascor
He could not forget. That day when everything had upturned, beginnings stunned into existence and ends wrought with horrific finality.
That moment. Dawning betrayal an understated precursor, the traitorous hand gesturing and-
Split-second impact, a prolonged jolt – he could not think, he could not feel, there was nothing –
Then grief took hold.
His father and brothers wrenched away from him; gone, gone gone and not to come back while he himself had been powerless. Helpless as the day he was born!
And anger.
Newborn or not it did not matter, because something inside him had died alongside them at the gallows.
Such anger.
He could not forget it, that moment. What had been fundamental was gone, and nothing was left. Nothing made sense any more. Everything had changed as if the ground had switched places with the sky, and he was free-falling..
A baptism by fire- no, an explosion creating a cavern in his heart – but he had emerged from the ashes an Assassin.
Through madness and anguish, he had been reborn.
And yet... The anger. Raw fury remained and most of the grief gnarled into it, and the flames burned on seemingly without end no matter what he did.
Cursing did not help.
Screaming did not help.
Fighting did not help.
Killing did not help, as much as it tried to pander to that desire to take retribution broiling in his heart, and as much as he was making the world a better place by seeing the conspirators off from this Earth.
Even time did little. Years had passed and it did nought else but let the destruction carve deeper into his soul. The flames could only be kept back temporarily, or channelled into everything else.
He had learned how to take to the air, soaring over the surroundings but buoyed by fire within and out. His targets were dispatched with deadly accuracy while the molten lava flowed ever through his veins, and all his enemies' movements were sought out and seen. That one in particular – the prey which he was always searching for..
It had been over twenty years.
He still could not forget. The day would forever be seared into his soul, and now...
Would it be joined by this one?
Over twenty years.
He had waited so long.
Nothing shed but blood. ..So much anger...
So long, for this one moment.
Burning, overwhelming, Rodrigo Borgia in your grasp, his life is in your hands-
Everything culminated up to this point.
Vengeance can be yours. Do it. Do it, move your hand-
Borgia would not be escaping again.
Prolonged nothing.
..It was funny.
Drip drip drip drip..
He was the only one bleeding. An open wound he could do little to patch right now, as his vision began to sharpen once more.
It hurt.
How much pain had he felt over the years? It was all too much. He felt so hollow, so.. tired.
What was it for?
What exactly was it going to do for him, continuing this chase of his? The festering pain and driven, wild ire – what was it for? If he was hoping for something from this enemy; this man whose delusion and lust for power had rotted him long ago-
There was nothing there to find.
Rodrigo had nothing to give; nothing worth continuing to harbour this self-destruction for. This long-fostered devastation, steadily wasting his heart away just as any power lust would..
Pointless.
It had been part of him for so long, leading him up to this – this day, this opportunity. Yet.. perhaps it was finally time..
All the helplessness, the despair, the flames that burned on and on-
Time to snuff them out.
He was not going to become his enemy.
His family members dying, split-second impact into nothing... It had just been that.
But a moment.
They were flying now, somewhere.
Not to come back, and he would never forget – but what would remain in his memory most would be their lives, and the others he had improved since.. All the brilliance to be found in the gloom.
He needed to use his own wings and fly, fly fully beyond this. It was not needed. After all..
Nothing is true.
Pure vengeance was not necessarily the answer, and why not?
Everything is permitted.
He was done.
(Pay your respects to the dead.)
...Requiescat in pace.