Hello! This is my first fanfiction in a long while, so please be patient with me as I am still learning. I have had this idea from a while ago, from a Roleplay that is still going on. This takes place in Rome, 1570, and it focuses on a young assassin apprentice that faces many troubling times and even more hard decisions.

Have fun reading it!

~ January 15th, 1570 ~

It was bitter cold; the kind of cold that worked its way under your clothes, no matter how many layers you put on. Rome wasn't freezing very often, but every once in a while, there were freak blizzards that cast havoc on the large town. There were more bodies of the poor to pick up from the sides of the streets, children, women, men... The frost did not discriminate amongst age, sex, gender, or nationality; no, it wrapped its icy claws around you no matter what, and squeezed and squeezed until there was no life left.

Rome was usually a very colorful city. In summer, there were many, many flowers brought in from other places, like pansies and orchids. But not now. The flowers were dead. The people were dying. But they... Oh, no, they would always live. They would always be watching. They would always be alive. In the streets, in the fields.

That was why everyone came to them. Oh, yes, men, women, and children all of the same. Much like the griping winter, the Creed did not discriminate. If you were nifty with your hands, if you knew how to tend to wounds, they would take you in. Even if you were good at nothing, they would train you to be good at something.

"Ebizio..?"

The thoughts of winter and of the Brotherhood were wisked away from Ebizio's head. He was comfortable here, sitting in the large headquarters, safe and warm. But the raging blizzard would not make him feel safe. The thin, slick fingers of icy cold would finger their way through the cracks in the building, much like a man would finger a woman. But the warm sounds of the giggles and gasps that the whore would give off could not compare to the loud, mournful moans that the wind howled out in the nights...

"Ebizio!"

He couldn't take it anymore. Sure, the little corner next to the small fireplace they had was cozy, but he couldn't be at peace when someone continuously called his name. Especially when they were loud "Ebizio!"s when they were supposed to be quiet.

Ebizio had had his legs drawn in, his chin on his knees while he looked at the somewhat large doors leading outside into the cold. He was wondering when the storm would end, so he could go out and do what men did: wenching, drinking, and fighting. That was what he always liked to do. Perhaps he had gotten it from his father, Ruslan Aguila, who did the same thing even when his mother told him not to.

Raising his dull green eyes, he looked up at his friend. A handsome fellow, he knew. Brunette, curly hair draped down from his scalp to his blue eyes, and he had already grown a thin layer of stubble starting from his chin. His smile was easily recognizable. "Rodrigo." Ebizio let the name play on his tongue, lifting his head and straightening out his aching and cold legs. While Rodrigo Sartor was easy on the eyes and thin, Ebizio Aguila was like looking at a wet, muddy rock. Ugly, or so he thought, and huge. Despite being four years younger than Rodrigo, Ebizio already towered over him. Citizens usually thought that Rodrigo was fifteen and he was nineteen, not vice versa as it should be. "... Why are you bothering me so early in the morning?" Ebizio mused gruffly, rubbing his head and feeling his coarse, dark gray hair under his rough mitt for a hand. "... God damn it, you fucking do this to me every day."

Sartor frowned down at him, crossing his arms. Ebizio knew that he meant to look intimidating, but even in his frown he had the air of a smirk. "You asshole." he mewed out pitifully. "... Already cursing at me, aren't you?"

"It was because I was thinking."

"'Bout whut?"

Ebizio rolled his eyes. "... Things."

With a heave of a sigh, Ebizio looked up at Rodrigo. His light brows were furrowed over his lighter eyes, and his lips pursed as he stared past his shoulder. "... I'm thinking about things too. People always think about things. But you know what kind of things I'm thinking about? Ale. And women. You can't fuck a woman in the Creed. You know why? Because then she'll be with child and you'll want nothing to do with it, and they'll whip ya. And you can't drink much either. Because they'll whip ya if you go staggering all over vomiting your innards."

"... Why do you always think about screwing around and drinking until you spew all over the place?"

Rodrigo gave a roll of his shoulders and left Ebizio without an answer. His gaze began to roam around the shelter. The Roman Headquarters was not very tall, but it was large nonetheless. Draped on the walls were the Brotherhood's insignias, white on bright red, one on each side of the room. There were tables to eat on, and areas to huddle together and play cards or gossip, but it was bleak anyway. Gray walls, gray floors. It was even grayer as the torches cast their lights on the stone, making it seem that they were in some sort of dimly lit prison. "I want to go outside." Rodrigo complained.

"Then go outside and freeze your ass off." Ebizio was sick of Rodrigo's talk, and shot up from his seat. Sartor looked at him with his wide eyes and backed away. "... I'm going to find Christi." with that, he stomped away, grumbling curses. Rodrigo is such a bother, he thought. How I became friends with him, I don't have a shilling of an idea.

He wandered through the place, his soft heeled boots thudding quietly against the stone floor. Some of the others watched him. He knew it. He could feel their eyes on his back, and he had to hold himself back from spinning around and yelling at them. Ebizio hated when they stared at him. He always felt like they despised him for being Creed-born. It was known that Street-borns, or adopted assassins, gathered more respect than the Creed-borns, since Street-borns knew the suffering of starvation or the bite of cold and disease more than the pampered Creed-borns. Aguila was Creed-born; his father was the cruel Russian- Italian Ruslan Aguila and his mother was the pretty Alma Di Lello, and he was birthed within these very walls.

But Ebizio was not looking for his mother, and his father had died in another cold snap a few months ago. He didn't care. His father always abused him. Called him names. Kicked him when he was down, since the age of six. Yelled at him, touched him. Ebizio ground his teeth until they hurt, trying not to remember the uncomfortable sensation of his father's hands massaging his crotch, or groping at his rear. When he died, it was the happiest day of his life. He hoped that he was burning in hell.

Finally, he found the strange reddish hair of his mentor in the women's barracks. Ebizio felt uncomfortable going there because there were so many older women, and they were hissy at times. Sometimes men went in there in secret to sleep with women in their own territory, but Ebizio was not as cunning as that. Christi Rosato was reading a book in her bunk; strange, for not even Ebizio could read. It would be too embarrassing to tell her, so he left it at that. "... Hello, Mentor Rosato." Ebizio said in a monotone voice, but he was still polite, walking up to her and bowing. "... I am ready for my training today."

Christi turned up her hazel eyes toward him, and pouted. "... Ebizio, would you not rather wait out the storm than train in here? I do not think that the assassins would like it if we sparred in the common." those words were something that Ebizio did not want to hear, but with her voice like honey, it made his heart melt a bit. Amusement lit up her eyes at Ebizio's flustered blush, and she punched his arm playfully. "... Tell you what. If you take one of Master Xanthe's sweet breads, and bring it back, you'll prove to me that you're great at stealth. Okay?"

And so, Christi sent Ebizio off with a burning desire to impress her. He left the women's barracks and slunk over to the back of the large common, to where a flight of stairs led down into the basement. The masters and mentor slept down there in their own rooms, the lucky bastards they were. But the stairs were creaky, and Ebizio knew that walking down them would be too risky, and he would be caught with all of that noise. Bunching up his long, white cloak in his right hand, he leapt the flight of stairs, and landed at the base with a thunk. It was still noisy, but it was less than the creaky stairs...

He crept down the dark hallway, using his eyes and hands to navigate his way to the female master's room. The first room to his left was Master Anya's, he could tell from the cuts she had put in the old oak door.

"... think it's worth..."

The voice came from Master Anya's room. Ebizio paused, frowning deeper than the pout he had on his face. Of course it was Anya's voice, but she was speaking to someone.

"... course it is... in middle east... get it... easy..."

That was Castiel Savetti. He was a senior assassin with the most senior wits he knew, and he was speaking to Anya.

"... dangerous to have it there..." that was Xanthe Giannantonio. He could tell from her louder voice. "... Templars will get it before us... Too dangerous to have it there... We have to get it..."

Ebizio took a step, but the floor scuffed under his shoe. He froze. Suddenly, the three assassins in the room stayed quiet. For a moment, he thought that they had heard him. He could only think about Christi's disappointed face and Rodrigo's laughter and snarks as he was dragged from downstairs at the hands of Master Xanthe. But the voices continued after a while, however, they were much quieter. They did hear him. So Ebizio rushed to Xanthe's room and opened the door. The room was even darker, but the candle on her desk helped, and he went to the large hunk of wood. He lunged for the bowl that gleamed teasingly at him, filled to the top with sweet bread, and grabbed a loaf. His elbow brushed the table and scattered papers to the ground, but all he thought about was leaving before they caught him. So with the loaf under his arm, he left the room, closing the door in a way that it didn't make much sound, and ran up the creaky wooden stairs on his tip toes.

What were they talking about?

Curiousity nagged him as he went back to Christi, still in her bunk with the book. She gave him a toothy smile, and took the bread from his outstretched hands. "Good job, Ebizio." she told him as she sank her teeth into the sweet and warm bread. "You'll be a great assassin, one day. I can feel it in my bones." and then she ripped the bread in half, and gave him a piece. He took it without thinking about it. "But remember. There is one thing that is different about a great assassin and a great bootlicker. And that is because they take very different paths, young apprentice."

Ebizio sunk his teeth into the nutty and honeyed loaf. It was sickenly sweet and made his stomach feel horrible and his mind clouded.