"Madre?" I rapped lightly on the bedroom door. It was already ajar when I did, so it swung open slightly with a creak.
The scene before me did not surprise me in the slightest. My mother was kneeling before her bed, her hands clasped before her and her head bowed as if in prayer, but her eyes were open and staring, unseeing, at a small pile of white eagle feathers in front of her. I strode over and looked at the feathers with her for a moment before crouching down next to her. My eyes rested on another plate of uneaten food that my sister, Claudia, had left for her. I sighed; she didn't eat anything unless someone, usually Claudia, was actively feeding it to her.
"Madre, I part for Roma soon." I said, looking at her face.
She did not reply. She just continued to stare at the feathers before her, her brown eyes glazed. She didn't even acknowledge my presence; it was like I wasn't even there. I frowned, wondering if I should continue. It wasn't like she was going to respond to me. She had been like this for years, in a prolonged state of some sort of shock.
"I will be gone a long time." I continued, putting my hand on her shoulder and gripping it slightly, still watching her for any kind of reaction and, as usual, getting none.
I shifted slightly. I needed to leave. I needed to make Roderigo Borgia pay for what he's done, but I feel like I need to tell my mother what was happening. Not that she cared. She hadn't really been my mother for years. She had become a ghost, an empty shell of the person she used to be. She just sat there, praying, and staring at those feathers that my younger brother, Petruccio, used to collect before his death, not interacting with anyone. She wouldn't respond to me, she wouldn't respond to Claudia, and she wouldn't respond to uncle Mario. Still, privately, I held hope that my mother would come back to us one day, but as time passed, this hope slowly became dimmer and dimmer.
"I might not come back." I said, my voice wavering slightly as I told this truth, but I felt like she needed to understand this. "I may die."
Still no reaction. I turned her towards me slightly, but her eyes were as deadened and glazed as they were twenty two years ago, when my father and brothers were hanged.
"Dio mio." I muttered under my breath. Had it really been that long?
Am I any better than she? I wondered silently. My mother dealt with her grief through praying over Petruccio's old feathers; I dealt with mine through taking the lives of the people responsible for the murder of my family. Isn't it time we both moved on? They are gone. Praying won't bring them back... Nor will killing their murderers.
"Nipote!" my uncle Mario's voice shouted up the stairs, "It's time to go!"
"Coming!" I replied, shaking my head out of these thoughts. I was so close now, there was only one target left. I needed to stay focused.
I scrambled to my feet, throwing a couple of feathers I had collected while I was out onto the bed with the rest of them. There had to be nearly a hundred now. I strode over to the door, Altaïr's black robes billowing around me as I went.
I shot a quick, "Ciao, Madre! Ti amo!" on my way out the door.
Just a quick, short story. Maria Auditore always bugged the crap out of me. She was so useless. It made me wonder if there was ever a "conversation" between her and Ezio like this. I never actually got all 100 feathers. I got to about 99 before I got frustrated and stopped. I also started to play with the idea of Ezio beginning to think about sparing Roderigo Borgia's life.
