Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's Creed.

Prologue

Many a person called him an "old soul". A man trapped in a child. The boy would always have that strange look in his sky-blue eyes, staring at the world around him as if he would somehow find the answers to all of life's mysteries, or perhaps he already knew them. His eyes seemed to have seen things beyond the imagination of a child or a common man. None could tell. There was always that… restlessness in the boy, like he was expecting something to happen – something important that would change things – but he did not know what that something was, much less know when it would occur.

The boy 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). [1] His mother could only pray, for their little boy's blue eyes seemed to turn gold when he asked those questions. And nobody could blame her. It was a natural fear for her son, the person she loved the most in the world, seeing such an abnormality, something so strange, and who was she to declare that this golden glow was not a strange sort of witchcraft? She knew nothing of what was going on with her son and that scared her. She would avoid all questions regarding her son's unusual perks, in a vain hope that if she forgot about the problem, it would cease to exist.

The boy's father however was another matter entirely. He too was an odd man, sometimes leaving from the farm for weeks, leaving his loving wife take care of the child and the sheep on her own, however he was never absent. If nothing, his presence was something elusive, a strange air, akin to the air of a room or a bonfire when some of the old poems were recited. He would not question his child's well-being – whether mental or physical. He would do something completely different instead, obey to the boy's strange whims, often resolved with violence; throw a long stick at the boy, and let him lash out at his father. The boy always had that somewhat focused and yet glazed over gaze in his eyes when it came to that, as if he was fighting out of muscle memory he did not know he possessed. And the father did not question it, never demanded an answer. He was merely testing the waters, trying to figure the mystery of his son on his own. Then again, wasn't the boy trying to do the same in return?

The boy remembered, all of that through the eyes of others. He could remember Masyaf's training grounds, the village bursting with life underneath the great fortress, the massacre outside Acre [2], the three different calls of prayer in Jerusalem, the bustle and hustle of the merchants in Damascus, the white and blue of Cyprus. 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. The beautiful Firenze –which city everyone in the British Isles 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 –one of many names the city 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 the small town in which the boy lived. He counted the people who lived there lucky, in a way. They had seen and experienced everything, not stuck in one place and one country, like he 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.

The boy himself did not feel any real obligation or commitment to the Brotherhood of the Assassin's, but he felt it towards the Creed itself, and knew for a fact that many Templars were to be hated. The whole impression the boy had gotten from the memories of those other men was that the Templars were a whole bunch of control freaks with superiority complex who had not realized that the Crusades were over. That shady war was still raging, he could sense it. And that made him 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.

Surprisingly, the boy's "I am not going to sit in one Place." attitude did not bother his father. If anything, after they moved from their home, the father's leaves became shorter, until one day they completely stopped. The mother was brimming with happiness when he had announced that there would be no more unexpected trips, and she had failed to notice the sad look in his eyes. [3] As for the boy, he was happy that he now lived somewhere where he could see the sea every day – it was a nice change.

As the boy 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. He 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. His mother was very worried and somewhat angry, but the father showed something that could only be called pride when the boy returned home after a fight unscathed.

But the most unsettling thing of all was that the boy knew stuff, and he was waiting for a signal, he was a barrel of gunpowder that 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 note: As promished, here is the rewritten version of "The Seeker!". Any old readers, welcome back. Any new ones, I hope you will like this story! Just so you know, this fanfic is a Black Flag - Bleeding effect AU with hints os Tyranny of King Washington in it, Also, there will be a very strong presence of First Civilization elements which will become stronger as the stroy progresses, though they'll never be the dominant part of the plot. I am planning to write a completely different fanfic regarding that subject, but no any time soon.

[1] In many instances of the AC games, the player is able to view events of the past through Eagle Vision. What Edward was seeing was a vision of Darim, Altair's son, during his time in England after Maria's death (this is cannon).

[2] An actual history fact. 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.

[3] The background behind Edward's father, Bernard, is another thing that I will reveal more details about in the future. However you should know, this Bernard has nothing to do with cannon Bernard.

Next chapter: Edward meets Caroline.