Every year Ezio Auditore escaped- not from the city guards or the countless enemies he had garnered over the years, but from the feelings of despair that arose whenever his birthday drew near.

His birthday had once been a day filled with odd gifts from his two brothers and sister, delicious food cooked by his mother and a small pouch of florins from his father who was relentlessly trying to teach him the value of money and responsibility.

Then after the terrible incident occurred where his father and two brothers were wrongly executed, birthdays no longer meant anything to him. Ezio just couldn't face another reminder of his family torn apart by corruption and conspiracy. His birthdays had always meant a day of celebration with his family, but now all it had amounted to was a depressing indication that his life ahead would only hold loneliness and more loss of his loved ones.

For years, Ezio had spent his birthdays in solitude. Whether it was standing atop the highest tower looking at the city below, or stalking an enemy that would lead him to their leader. He preferred working his missions alone, that way he didn't have anyone depending on him to save them. Occasionally, when it would be his birthday and he was in one of his missions, he would be struck by sorrow over how none of the people in the Assassin Order, people he called amici, remembered his birthday. It was a trivial thing really and as he grew older it had become petty to hold grudges against people not wishing him for his birthday. But, he had always beloved that those who remembered and wished people on birthdays, also cared about them.

To know that no one cared about him enough to wish him was disappointing but not surprising. They were assassins after all and they simply didn't have the time to celebrate birthdays.

Still, every time his birthday would come around, Ezio would secretly hope for a family of his own that would make him feel important on at least that one day and that day had finally arrived.

Ezio was an old man now. There was white in his hair, lines on his face and an ache in his joints.

It had taken a long time to get where he was, but that day had finally arrived when he had rediscovered love in a woman called Sofia- a charming Venetian woman who had given him two beautiful children.

His daughter and son loved him dearly and although he missed his parents and his siblings, he found comfort in the fact that he had a new family now, one who had gibe out of their way to celebrate his birthday.

There were tulips on the dining table that his wife had gotten for him, a plate of biscuits (partially burned) his daughter had tried to bake for him and a wooden horse his young don had tried to carve and which had ended up looking like an odd flower instead.

Still, it was the thought that counted and all that mattered was that he was around the people he loved and those who loved him back.