"I know you and your father don't seem to get along - at all. But, has there ever been a moment where you and your father seem to have connected, or been at peace in each other's presence?"
AND
"Have you and your father ever gotten along?"
AND
"Has your father ever displayed affection (even the slightest) towards you or shown that he may truly care about you?"
A reply to THREE asks on the ask blog connorfemway on tumblr.
I go to answer one ask and end up simultaneously answering two or three lately, since I've got a lot of asks in the box waiting to be answered. As an extra - I listened to Fresh Pair of Eyes by Brooke Waggoner while writing this. I recommend it.
Enjoy.
It sat upon the desk, a nuisance that nagged the back of the brain. A curiosity that could not be tapped, an item that could not be touched.
Well, that wasn't true. Nobody had outlawed it. For all Connor knew, the book could be just like any other. A work of literature instead of what she had in mind for it.
Brown eyes follow the wall to the door that stands closed. Upon a rack nearby, hung by the hood, is her overcoat. She sits backwards in her chair in her faded white button-up shirt, red sash, and brown pants. The metal Assassin's insignia glitters around her waist. Her arms fold over the back edge of the polished wooden furniture.
That door must stay closed. Her eyes find the book again, a brown and black and red book that sits upon a polished desk. A quill sits in an inkwell not far away. A piece of slim silk marks a page near the end of the book.
The sun shines in through the window, illuminating Connor's coffee colored skin and dancing off of her curious lips. They remain parted with her breathing. Eyebrows are furrowed just slightly in observation.
It was by his instruction that she be here at this time. He could step into the room at any moment, then, since he was late.
It was a chance the Assassin was more willing to take the longer she thought about it.
If this book were a journal, there was no keeping the girl away from it.
With caution and the aim of silence, the Assassin rises from the chair. Her bare feet aid in her silent steps across the hardwood floors, the wood barely creaking beneath her rough heel.
One hand is pressed to the polished desk, the other hand stretching out its fingers to rest upon the cover of the book. The tips of these extended fingers run across the cover, noting each small detail.
A small part of her childhood is revived before her eyes. Nostalgia makes her hand's slow movements quicker as she moves her fingers from the top of the book to the bottom, easing it off the surface of the desk. Both hands work the book to straightness in her grip. The essence of a smile appears on her lips.
A finger is used to part the pages, the book spreading itself out in the safe grip of Connor's palm. The smile becomes true when she notices that the writing within the book is the same as from her childhood. It is the same as the journal she had spent many hours with.
The girl can hardly bring herself to read with the dull excitement of the moment. Instead she opts to thumb through the pages, the smell of an old book filling her nose. It takes her back home. The warmth of the fire she might sit by for light is felt upon her skin.
The Assassin stops thumbing through the pages halfway into the section of the book in which Haytham has written. The hand moves up to brush her bangs out of her eyes.
With age, Haytham's handwriting has become messier yet more refined. The worlds are smaller, and there are more of them upon a page, but the strokes of each word are dashed in longer strokes. It seemed Haytham did not have much time to sit down to write, a fact that was no surprising to the Assassin.
Her eyes settle upon a passage halfway through the page.
The woman's stomach does a flip seeing that the first word is, in fact, her own name.
Brown eyes nearly pop when a pair of hands appear. They snap the book closed, palms pressed to the front and back covers. A gasp passes her lips not a moment later, and those brown eyes are closed tightly with guilt.
"I hardly think it wise to meddle with the possessions of another," Haytham's voice is low. The book is balanced into one palm and the arms that encircle Connor for only a brief moment come apart. Haytham's footsteps are heavy on the wooden floor now, different from the much quieter steps he had managed moments before. The door now stands ajar.
"I... am sorry," she states, eyes following her father as he moves to the other side of his desk, replacing the book in the same spot where it had sat before. Despite the circumstances, Haytham did not look bothered.
"I hardly blame you," the man doesn't even glance at his daughter as he eases into a wooden chair, pulling it up close to the desk. He removes his tricorn hat and sets it upon the polished desktop, "Curiosity is hardly something we as people can deny, even if it crosses certain boundaries."
The bashful woman wrings her hands, arms bent. Her eyes move to rest upon it's cover yet again.
"It is a journal?" she inquires, not yet ready to give up on the book.
It is now that Haytham looks at his daughter, wearing a somewhat amused expression on his face.
"Can't seem to let it go, can you?" condescending in tone, Connor decides it is best to give up on the endeavor. A 'huff' passes her lips as she turns away from the desk in favor of the window. Her bare feet slide along the wood of the floor as she moves over to it. Outside, the streets of New York buzz with the life of summer.
Haytham taps his fingers on his desk, leaning back in the wooden chair. It creaks it's protest to the movement. His gaze is settled firmly on his daughter's back.
"I assume you slept well?" he inquires after a period of silence, the drum of his fingers upon the desktop not enough to quell his need for some sort of communication.
When only a nod is given as answer Haytham continues, opening a desk drawer as he speaks.
"It is a modest home, I suppose. I wish only that I could spend more time within its walls as opposed to outside of them. Such is the life we lead," A sheet of paper is removed from the drawer. The quill is taken up from the inkwell and the scritch-scratch of writing fills the air.
It is unusually pleasant to Connor's ears. Curiosity is the drive when she opts to watch her father write instead of keeping her eyes planted upon the building across the street.
A few moments pass like this. The native woman sits upon the windowsill, leans against it, as she watches the movements of the quill upon paper. Every so often Haytham stops his writing to dip the quill back into the well. All of this is done with precision, and he acts as though he is the only person in the room in these moments.
"You are far more curious than either I or your mother," the man mentions offhandedly once the paper has been filled with writing. It is set aside so that the ink might dry, the quill replaced in the well. His scrutinizing gaze falls upon his daughter who tries to read what is written upon the page from this distance, "I cannot yet tell whether that is a blessing or a curse."
"What would you know of blessings or curses, father?" the daughter inquires, focusing unconscious attention on picking at her chipped fingernails.
"When you have seen as much as I have seen, you come to realize that blessings and curses are rather important," he retorts with fresh lips, "It has much to do with perception, something you seem to lack."
"You seem intent, always, to ridicule me. Perhaps you are too used to perceiving things as curses rather than blessings."
The daughter's eyes flick up from fingernails to paper to her father's own eyes. The expression he wears is hard to decipher, but it appears the man in conflicted with something inwardly.
"I ridicule you because nobody else seems capable of doing so."
The daughter snorts loudly.
"Perhaps I should introduce you to Achilles, then."
Silence passes between them as Connor lifts her knees up, lets her heels sit upon the edge of the windowsill. She folds her arms over her knees and sets her chin upon her right forearm.
Haytham's fingers tap on the desk in rhythm. He is spending time examining his daughter as she examines him.
Where they stood even now? It was very hard to tell.
"Perhaps you are right... for once," the man admits, raising his brows. His tone is only semi relenting, but it is hard to tell if it is sarcasm or not.
"That is a start," the corner of her lips tip upwards.
Haytham can only scoff, shaking his head.
"Do not grow accustomed to such. Most commonly, you are wrong. Maybe, soon, you might learn the error of many of your ways, leading you to be right."
The smile grows slightly wider and a sarcastic chuckle is held back behind closed lips. Haytham's gaze seems to soften in the slightest of ways.
But suddenly his brows furrow, unbeknownst to Connor who places her gaze on a small beetle that makes its way across the floor near the desk.
The tapping of his fingers on the desk ceases.
"You..." he begins to say, but stops himself. Connor looks up at him, smile now faded into a look of simple relaxation. It was the first time Haytham had made her feel somewhat content, despite his words.
Her brows twitch downwards as she turns her head to eye him. To this, Haytham scoffs.
"I can hardly look at you," he exclaims, adjusting the way he sits in his chair to face the desk. The paper from earlier is taken up in his hands, a thumb brushed across one of the words on the page. Ink now dry, Haytham begins to fold the paper into thirds.
"Does not even my appearance please you?" Connor feels the sense of relaxation begin to drift away. Her appearance had always been such a big issue to everyone except for herself.
"Oh, do not give me that tone," he shoots at her, smoothing out the edges of the folded paper, "It was not meant to insult you. You declare so often that you are so like a man in behavior, yet you grow offended as quickly as any woman."
Haytham produces a box of matches from a drawer and lights a candle that sits upon a stand on his desk. Once enough of the wax has melted, it is dripped onto the paper. A stamp is pressed onto the wax and the paper is set aside yet again.
"Do spare me that look, Connor," Haytham stands up from his chair and brushes himself off, referring to the scornful gaze his daughter now wears. The father steps over to the window and sets a hand upon her shoulder, thumb resting on the side of her neck. The Assassin lifts her head from where she had rested it on her forearm. A moment of silence passes before Haytham speaks again, tone much tamer but seemingly exasperated, "You have your mother's smile. In fact, your likeness to her extends farther even than that."
Connor turns herself so she can look out the window with her father, allowing the hand to remain on her farthest shoulder from him. The rest of his arm does not touch her, despite behind behind her head.
"Your appearance, it seems, is the one thing I cannot find fault with," Haytham raises his own eyebrows in expression of his surprise, but his tone changes back to his usually condescending tone, as though his previous statement in good nature had him on-edge, "But as we have discussed, there are blessings and curses to all things. While you are, dare I say, beautiful, like your mother, you also attract an unhealthy amount of suitors, and you have gone and chosen to place your affections on the worst of them all."
The half smile returns to Connor's face. To find herself complimented by her father was something that she could even consider to be heartwarming, at its best. But, of course, she had little time to think on that, since he had shifted so quickly into his common ridicule.
"I have placed my affections nowhere except for with my people," the hand is removed from her shoulder finally. Haytham stands with his arms crossed behind his back, chin lifted up high, "You might find reassurance in that I plan to wait before I settle down with any man, father."
"I find no reassurance in that. It would reassure me if you renounced all knowledge or interest in that fool of a doctor you seem to be fond of. It would reassure me if you opted to wear a dress for once in your life, even. Or maybe if you learned proper manners required of a proper woman. Maybe then you would attract the right kinds of men."
This time a chuckle stirs from Connor's throat. It's here where she gives up in trying to convince the man of anything other than what he seems to be set so firmly upon.
For once, the air between them is slightly friendly despite their conversation topic. That relaxation felt before has returned. It was the only time, she was sure, that Haytham would bother to display any affection. A compliment was enough. The comparing of herself to her beloved late mother was enough. Connor looked up to her mother in many ways. To know she was living up to some of what her mother had been was refreshing.
Now that her thoughts were on her mother, there was one thing Connor couldn't help but point out.
"Mother wore pants beneath her dress. She said that the 'manners' of the ladies of the colonies were foolish and not useful. She seemed to be fond of you for some time, for reasons I do not correctly understand. You were fond of her as well, despite these negatives which you have so constantly ridiculed me for. You make it seem as though any man to fall for women like us are lesser."
Haytham's expression reflects how stuck he is with these statements. It takes him several moments to formulate his answers.
"There are reasons we did not remain together, Connor," his tone is regretful at its worst, "She thought very differently than I did concerning many things, and in that way I was not best for her."
"Why, then, must you regulate what I do, when I am apt to do the same as she did?"
"Because you are my daughter, and that means that I am responsible for how everyone else sees you. You are not only a Mohawk but a Kenway, and we have a standard to uphold."
"You expect me to traverse the treetops and rooftops in a dress, then?"
A grimace falls onto her lips and face. Connor side-glances her father, gaze inquiring an answers. Haytham's eyes fall onto his daughter, and he tilts his chin up a little farther. It's a sign that he is unwavering in his opinions.
"Once you take to a dress, I would expect you to never need to run through the treetops or upon the rooftops again," this image is wholly displeasing to Connor. It was like Haytham was hoping that she would give up an essential part of herself in exchange for frills and fanciful 'suitors'.
"I will make it my goal to remain distant from dresses, then," there is some challenge hidden in her eyes and smile.
Haytham's displeased scoff is followed by simple words: "Your mother once said the same thing."
New York is alive outside. As women and men walk arm-in-arm with strings of children following after them, as men parade horses and mules and wagons to their destinations, as children play kickball, Connor watches with a sense of contentment. It is the first time ever that she can keep her back turned to Haytham Kenway without feeling some degree of caution or danger.
Business that brought them together in this room has been set aside, long forgotten, as Haytham thumbs his way through the pages of his journal. It is opened upon the desktop, and the quill is taken into his fingers.
Connor's back is observed from where Haytham sits. His usual look has dominated his face, but it is more at-ease than the regular. As his daughter opens the window to allow the morning breeze into the room, Haytham begins to write. And when he has written all that he feels he can write, he begins to sketch.
The scritch-scritch of the quill on paper dominates the air, relaxation melding with nostalgia. Both father and daughter have only the late and absent mother to thank for this momentary peace, where the two are father and daughter instead of Templar and Assassin.
For a few fleeting hours, there is only peace and nothing more.