"So you believe?"
Haytham looked up , detecting Connor carefully with his blue eyes. There was a moment of silence till the lips of the older Kenway curled slowly.
They were waiting for supplies Connor's crew was going to get, sitting alone on the beach watching the waves coming nearer and nearer like curious hands.
It was dark, no sun lightning the sky, no moon, just some stars shining lonely on the dark sheet, making them look like forgotten candles.
The second month they hunted for Church through the Carribean Sea. And actually this was the first time they opened their mouth again after the talk high above on the mast.
"You are not fond of the Almighty?"
Connor did not know what to reply. His father was truly a masterpiece in sarcasm and he had no idea what to answer then.
"I don't know "him". So I can't say neither this nor that."
His father laughed.
"You sound like your grand-father."
Patiently the son waited for more. But just the waves seemed to answer in a gurgling, giggling way.
"Your father did not believe, then why-?"
"He was kind of startled when I said I wanted to become a priest. And that I am not really found of his pirate stories, that they actually scared the hell out of me."
"Why did he tell you pirate stories?"
"Because back in time, when he was a young man, freedom and cruelty were his obligation. What means he was a pirate."
"How can you put cruelty and freedom together? "
"Easily. Being free leads to cruelty."
The young Native American turned his head. Sadly it was dark. A strange urge to see his father's face fell over him like a wave in a storm. This time he did not have to wait a long time.
"If you are free to do whatever you want to do. And if there is no order that tells you what is right or wrong. If you can destroy and murder without being punished. Then there will be chaos. Anarchy. And of course: cruelty."
"Not necessarily," the young man said dry.
"Don't be so naïve, boy," the Templar sighed annoyed. "You've seen too much than to deny the incontrovertible truth."
There was a moment of silence.
"What does it have to do with belief?," the Assassin asked.
An amused chuckle by his father.
"You believe in God. God is order, structure-"
"That doesn't explain-"
"I would explain if you weren't that inpolite and rude-"
"What-"
"Connor."
His father sighed deeply and shook his head.
"Are you always behaving like that or is it just my pure existence that turns you into a rude boy."
The Native bit hardly his tongue until he tasted blood. He knew it was a rhethorical question and that an answer was not the best option. He had the feeling that if he answered it would just testify his father's statement. So he remained silent. As his father did.
Again silence.
And God, Connor hated it. He hated this silence of anxiety he only had to endure with his father. Normally silence was one of his closest friends but everytime he spent time with the older Kenway it seemed that it then showed its true form. And the Assassin did not like it.
Not just that.
Every normal human being would then easily try to talk. Well there was the other problem: talking with this father was like trying to tame a wolf. Not completely impossible but you had to be careful or the not soft paw will be slapped in your face and then your days were counted.
Talking with his father was like having a conversation with a blind man about the colour of the sky.
And deep in him, Connor had this ugly sense that not only his father was the reluctant one in their "relationship", but more him. And it had something to do with his mother's death.
And that the Native American was an Assassin.
And his father a Templar.
And that he, Connor had always imagined Templars being monsters ripping freedom and humanity of men's chest, and there he sat, quiet, polite and somehow...human.
Yeah, his father was a human being though he was a Templar.
And the Assassin's head blurred like a nest of bees. He couldn't get it. And he felt dumb because of that. Very dumb, in fact. He detected the dark silhouette of his father again. He opened his mouth.
"You miss your father?"
The older Kenway breathed out.
"I guess so. Even though I don't remember his face anymore."
"Why that?," the young Assassin asked confused and also...frightened.
Again a loud breath.
"Well, you get older. And you spent more time with other things, you don't live in the past. My mother I couldn't recall only one year after her death. And the only thing I remember of my sister is her scream when she died. My father I remembered because I became father in a very young age and I tried to remember what my father told me, what he teached me. And maybe because I spent most of the time with him."
The young Kenway was silent. His chest was suddenly tight. Fear pumped through his veins. A strange fear it was. Something he couldn't really get.
There was this feeling of understanding. Deep, deep inside of him.
Of course he would recognize his mother the very moment she stood in front of him. If she stood in front of him...
But of course she would never stand front of him. Because she was dead-
And he couldn't recall her anymore. Neither her voice nor her face.
Sometimes he saw her in his dreams and he was pretty sure she was it, she looked exactly as in his childhood. But these were just dreams and when he woke up he couldn't remember anything but colours.
Of course there were memories. Of course … sometimes a certain smell, or light footsteps on whistling leaves reminded him of his mother.
But in the end there was this certain realisation.
He had no picture of his mother.
Her face he would forget.
He had a picture of his father.
His face he would not forget.
Once during a hunt, he fell into a deep hole. He had no possibility to breath then, there was just nothing in his chest, no oxygen at all. He had been laying there maybe minutes, maybe hours and still this barely moving chest, moving and moving desperately to get anything.
Connor closed his eyes, then breathed once deep in and out.
"What did you think about, young man?"
The Native opened his eyes, stared at the dark waves giggling and splashing softly.
"I thought about how I already forgot my mother's face, but you I won't, can't forget for I have a picture of you in my basement."
The waves muttered loudly and the wind tickled Connor's skin. Then everything got interrupted by the Templar's laugh.
"Oh my dear Lord! You truly have a picture of me in your house? May I be honest? I never understood why Assassins horted pictures of their victims. By the way Achilles truly has a sick humour when he thought I would be his next victim."
The younger man was for a moment totally startled, then slowly a small smile appeared on his lips.
He was glad it was dark.
"You know what I always wondered about? My family I forgot so easily, but still I see my wife's face as clear in front of my eyes as the day I married her."
A light glimpse of blue glimmered on the horizon. Did they talk that long?, the Assassin wondered.
"How did she look like?"
Although he couldn't see his father, Connor knew the older Kenway smiled.
"She was a Scottish woman, so she had red locks, white skin and green eyes."
"I bet she was charming."
His father shook his head in amusement.
"Not at all, she mostly smiled in her dreams, barely talked friendly and had a rough temper. But she was truly a lovely mother."
"You two fitted well together."
Haytham did not respond and his son took it as a "yes".
The Native American sighed deeply to cover a yawn.
"You were close with him?"
The Templar narrowed.
"May I ask whom you are talking about?"
Actually Connor didn't know if he really wanted to kill his own father but in moments like that he imagined the older dying with his knife in his British throat. He had to get used to this humour and behaviour and god he tried.
"Your father," he answered dry
The older Kenway layed his head on the right and watched the sun rising.
"The last three months of his life I was yes."
"And before?," the son asked curious.
"He was scaring the hell out of me."
"And why later not?"
Haytham put his forefinger on the tip of his nose. Connor recognised this. It was a pose he often did himself. He tried not to think too much about it.
"Because he didn't tell me pirate stories I guess. Because he was very nice and almost overprotective over me. Because I shared a room with him..."
"You weren't rich as a child?"
The Templar turned his head for the first time at his son.
"I was utterly rich as a child, I think in fact I never was that rich ever later."
The Native American opened his mouth but got interrupted by his father.
"Three months before my father's death, he had an argument with my mother, so he did not move into the guestroom as every normal human being would have done but instead moved into my room and slept with me in one bed. Why? Good question...I guess he didn't want to be alone for he had cruel nightmares."
The Assassin nodded slowly.
"It runs in our family it seems."
Hatyham narrowed curious.
"How do you come to this idea?"
The son answered dry.
"Well, you didn't sleep the first week on the boat and my sleep is limited to some hours maybe. And you want to deny the truth?"
The Templar chuckled and stood up, the blue eyes fixed on the risen sun. He sighed deeply, muttering something. But Connor understood the words.
"What did my father like to say again? Nothing is true..."
A little story for my sweet Edward is coming out and for I love these two that much I thought about also remembering the old Assassins who seems to get lost for our new sexy Assassin pirate comes out this thursday. But I am with computer so of course I have to wait a BLOODY MONTh to finally hold it in my hands!
Anyway, tell me your thoughts, I love to read them!
Bye!