Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Assassin's Creed games, products or storylines.
Chapter I
In the end, Edward Kenway decided, most of his problems derived from the fact that he was not entirely human.
That sentence might need some explaining.
Edward remembered. He could remember Masyaf's training grounds, the village bursting with life underneath the great fortress, the massacre outside Acre [1], the three different calls of prayer in Jerusalem, the bustle and hustle of the merchants in Damascus, the white and blue of Cyprus [2]. He could remember the constant noise of the markets, the dry heat and the scent of filth, the sound of at least four different languages in his ears. He could remember the merchants selling their products – carpets, flavourings and precious stones mostly – women chasing after people begging for money, other women walking around with pots on their heads – and that was really an impressive feat of balance – preachers saying whatever it was that they were paid to say in front of the crowds, the guards – with swords and bows instead of muskets – being harsh to everyone. He could remember middle-ages European armors and Muslim getups in the same street.
But the Holy Lands were not the only place that he could recall. Edward could say proudly that he knew Italy like the back of his hand. The beautiful Firenze – he could not understand why everyone insisted on calling the city Florence – with her hopeless romantics, the stinky, dark and mysterious Venezia, the bright and ancient Roma, the nice-little-town feeling of Monteriggioni. He had also found Constantinople – seriously, that city did not need all those names it had been branded with over time – to be very similar to Acre; only bigger, brighter and happier. Strange for a city that had just been conquered. The people of all those cities seemed happier, the place full of alluring courtesans, crafty thieves, overly polite merchants, holier-than-thou nobles, the Jesus-so-bloody-annoying minstrels, and the perhaps not so creepy doctors.
Both of those eras are completely different from each other, and from Bristol in which he lived in. He counted Altair and Ezio lucky, in a way. They had seen and experienced everything, not stuck in one place and one country, like Edward was. They had both suffered unspeakable tragedies and murdered far more people than anyone cared to – or could – count, but they had lived their lives to their fullest. They were the core of the chaos, the center of the war between Assassin's and Templars in their respective eras.
Edward himself did not feel any real obligation or commitment to the Creed and the Brotherhood, but he knew for a fact that he hated Templars. The whole impression the Edward had gotten from Ezio and Altair's memories was that the Templars were a whole bunch of control freaks with superiority complex who had not realized that the Crusades were over. Based on what he remembered, that shady war was still raging. And that made Edward restless. Something was itching in him, it made his blood – oh, his blood – a little hotter and pressuring the veins in his wrist in the place where a hidden blade should have been, like a warning from the old gods whose blood he shared; something was going to happen, and soon. And Edward as sure as hell was not going to be sitting around Bristol when that happened.
Edward's "I'm not going to be stuck in one Place." attitude did not sit well with his parents. They were not Assassins like Altair or Ezio's. They were sheep shepherds. And that did not bode well with Edward's restlessness. In fact, the whole reason the family had moved from Whales to Bristol was in order to calm Edward's raging spirit. But that did not help. Not at all. Something about Bristol made the ten years old boy – was he really that young? – even more jumpy.
Edward was a mystery to his very own parents. He used to ask so many weird questions when he was but a toddler, why did those people were glowing blue and why red, why did the bushes and haystacks glow white, why was that ghost dressed do strangely ("He must have been a Foreigner.", decided the boy and dropped the subject) [3]. Edward's parents could only pray, for their little boy's blue eyes seemed to turn gold when he asked those questions.
But as Edward grew older, his abnormality stopped manifesting in strange visions and became something much more alarming. He had become shockingly mature for his age, asking his elders pointed questions on difficult subject, like he was trying to prove himself a point. And as if that was not enough, he had developed an interest for weapons. His mother felt her heart almost stop when she had caught her thirteen years old son throwing knives on a wall and ALWAYS hitting dead center. Edward was an unnaturally skilled fighter, like he had years of experience under his belt, unafraid of facing anyone no matter what the odds, because he knew he could win.
But the most frightening thing of all was that Edward knew stuff. There was no secret that could be kept from him. And that, deep deep down, terrified his parents. They loved their boy more than anything in the world, but they were scared. Just like everyone else was. Edward was looking for something, he was waiting for a signal, he was a barrel of gunpowderthat could be ignited at any given moment, a restlessness that only the eldest of men knew, like the teenager was awaiting for orders to get to the battlefield.
His name is Edward James Kenway, and he was the fourth of Adam's line. He was the Seeker.
Author notes: This fanfic is heavily influenced by the fanfic "The Bleeding Effect" by Captprice. The credit for the idea goes to him.
This fanfic has the form of oneshots and drabbles in chronological order. The updates will be irregular and there is chance I drop this project at any given time.
For anyone who knows me as an authoress from the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom, I have not abandoned my fanfics (Reactor's Children, The Royal Court, Parallel thoughts) but there are some HUGE plot gaps and therefore I won't be updating any time soon.
English IS NOT my first language.
Direct speach and thoughts will use capital letters in every noun, just like the Black Flag game.
[1] The Siege of Acre happened just a few weeks before Altair's first in-game visit in Acre. William of Montferrat handed over a whole bunch of hostages from both Acre and Saladin's army to King Richard, who executed them all and dumped the bodies outside the walls of Acre. This is an actual historical fact.
[2] After Altair killed Al Mualim, he chased after a rumor concerning Templar activity in Cyprus. For full details watch the walkthrough for "Altair's chronicles". (WARNING: the graphics are HORRIBLE)
[3] The ghost is Darim, Altair's son. He went to England after Maria's death because he could not stand his father drowning himself in the Apple.