**A/N Just some philosophical shit I thought up when I actually thought hard about the Assassins recruits. If you think about it, the game shows us that most of these recruits would have had nothing left to live for. They would make excellent killers and Assassins, but a life without purpose is no life at all.**
Ezio sighed.
His nose had the smell of pigeon dung in it, and it covered the board he was crouched on. He could feel his robes next to his skin, and the various weapons that made him good as his trade. But he wasn't going to use them this time.
Below him, a wild-eyed man was holding a Borgia guard hostage with a cheap sword to his throat. Two other guards menaced the man, and for al his desperate bravery, the man was dead unless Ezio intervened and saved him.
Ezio gave the poor man one last look, and took in the sunken eyes, spittle-flecked lips and stretched skin. This was a man with nothing to lose. He had seen it so many times before, and he had learned to hate them.
Ezio stood and walked away from the disastrous scene. As he traversed the building's roof, he heard a scream and the clash of swords. He shut his ears, no, not another one. He had enough devoted acolytes that would have thrown their lives away in an instant, to create another one would bring him no more satisfaction, only pain upon the recruit's eventual death.
Ezio promised himself that he would not recruit another Assassin from the oppressed citizens of Roma, they deserved better. Instead of arming the people and using them as soldiers in war against the Borgia's forces, he would cut of the head of the snake. Rodrigo Borgia needed to die. His corrupt guards needed to be shown that they could no longer persecute the people to a point where they would gladly throw their lives away for the cause of 'freedom'.
Ezio didn't hate his recruits. His recruits were his Brotherhood, they were the continuation of the Assassins. He did hate the characters that became his recruits. He didn't pity them, he could sympathise, at one time, he had lost everything too. He had nearly thrown away his life in a needless display of violence. Maturity had brought a new view of the world, one that showed Ezio how futile it was.
Maybe once the Borgia line was extinct, he would be able to stop saving these people. He would be able to stop their inevitable death. He wouldn't have to see the pathetic look of gratitude they gave him as they pledged their lives to his cause. They were empty shells of people, men and women with nothing left to lose. Some of them found purpose, some of them decided to make their lives mean something, but only a few. Most of them were condemned to try and become Assassins before their lust for vengeance against the world overwhelmed them and they wasted their lives.
He hated that look that he had seen on the man. Who knew what horrors the bastards had performed on him. Maybe they had slaughtered his family, killed his daughters. No-one would ever know, and his death was just another nameless event perpetrated by the Borgia.
The look though, disgusted him. That man would have killed and killed just to try and find peace. And when he didn't, and he realised that nothing would stop his desire to kill just to try and justify his existence, he would take on odds too high, and he would lose. People like that could never find peace, except in death.
When he had realised what he was doing, he had been disgusted at himself. He was using these pained souls to further his ambitions. By sending them against the Borgia, he was fuelling their fire. Stoking their need for revenge. They fought better, but only because they had an eternal need for peace. Even when their revenge was spent, they kept fighting, because they knew that true peace of mind with themselves. Was something they could never achieve.