Just a word of warning to anyone reading this, I am by no means an expert on Italian. Everything in Italian came straight from Google translate, so I am aware that it very well might be incorrect. On a similar note, I do not plan to include translations so if you are truly curious as to what's being said, please pull up a tab so Google translate can be your best friend.

...And please feel free to review/critique! I'm not only writing this to please the fandom but also to challenge myself as a writer. I have an idea of where I want to go but I'm not entirely sure how to get there, so I'd be happy to have some ideas bounced off me as well. :)

Surrounded by three alluring women, courtesans of the finest selection, Ezio was not satisfied. Having returned to the brothel immediately after his assassination of Marco Barbarigo, the newest Doge initiated by the Knights Templar, of course it was natural for a man to desire release. Racing across Venetian rooftops and barreling through crowded streets was not considered an easy job by any means - even the most adept assassins had their physical and mental limits. Catering to his body's desires, he had accepted the courtesans' pleasure with more than just open arms, edging them on in more ways than could be considered subtle. At the time, he had wanted everything the courtesans had to offer him, and he had gladly taken it.

Though his physical needs had been met, however, the women had failed to fulfill the second layer of his being - his mind.

"Mi scusi signoras, but I think your work here is finished."

The courtesans whined in unison. The seductress in red began trailing her fingers down his bare chest.

"Are you sure, maestro? There's still a long night ahead of us - there's still so much fun to be had." He felt her fingers nearing his crotch. Ezio jerked her hand away roughly, but realizing what he had done, he covered it up with a kiss to the hand.

"Si, I need some rest. Ma grazie."

"Oh, but we should be the ones thanking you. It's not so often we have a man such as you grace our beds," the yellow vixen cooed.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

The women giggled like children as they gracefully slid out of the bed and through the doorway. Before she shut the door, the crimson courtesan peeked her head back in to offer Ezio one last invitation.

"If you change your mind... all you need is ask."

"Molto bene allora."

She shut the door and the giggling faded away. Ezio let go a sigh of relief - now he could have some time to focus in on himself.

Tired of lounging around on a straw mattress, he swung his legs over the side of the bed to pull his pants on. Tying them at the front, he made his way over to doorway leading out onto the balcony. A breeze ruffled his hair as he breathed in the night air.

What was wrong with him? He slid his palm, frustrated, down his face, his elbow supporting him as he stood against the banister. Here he was, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, now a skilled assassin, gazing off into the romantic city of Venice. Though his hometown of Florence had its own rugged splendor to it, it couldn't even compare with where he stood now - a stunning costal city, populated with some of the loveliest women he had ever set his eyes upon. Yet nothing, the women or the majesty of the architecture, seemed to satiate the unsatisfied feeling that gripped his heart. When he first began his foray into this chaotic puzzle of Templar schemes, the feeling had been fleeting, but as time went on, it increased in intensity and duration. This was the strongest he had ever felt it - it was embedded in his gut, as if he was forever falling from a building into a cartful of hay. He couldn't quite place the sensation, but he knew for sure that it was an unpleasant one. A void seemed to exist in his being where not even he could venture.

Ezio also felt as if he were about to explode, a simmering sexual frustration that seemed to latch onto him every night he shared his bed with a mistress. Yes, he desired their company, he desired their bodies and what they could offer him. He lusted for them. But no matter how beautiful or how skilled they were, he always ended back at square one - dissatisfaction. Why did he even allow this spiral to keep happening? Ezio supposed it was because he felt a draw to the rush of the moment, the rush of his blood coursing through his veins and the building tension that would lead to his final release. However, that's all it seemed to provide him - physical release. Every time he would make love to a woman, somewhere in the back of his mind Ezio would feel completely and utterly alone. There was no love to the act - just animalistic hunger for the sensation. At best he might be friends with the woman beneath him, but that actually made it worse in the long run because it was a definite act of him taking advantage of her.

In his mind, Ezio didn't even know what the true definition of love was anymore. For ten years his life had been fueled by nothing but vengeance for his father and brothers who had been ruthlessly murdered due to the seemingly infinite Templar conspiracy. Though his retribution may have originally been fostered by the love for his family, the base emotion itself had been twisted so much that he no longer recognized it. Ezio felt as if he was slowly losing his humanity, his inner and outer demons pulling him ever further into a realm of no return.

The assassin was forever treading a line between chaos and order. The level-headedness he presented his comrades with every day was, to a certain level, a facade - it required complete mastery over what emotions he opted to share with the world, a skill he had learned gradually over the months following the murders of his family. In the beginning it was quite common for him to duck away from his uncle Mario during his training days at the villa so that he could hide his visible emotions and muster up enough effort to conceal what he really felt. However, over time he had mastered his feelings so that he could hide them as well as he could veil himself from the city guard, to such a degree that he found it hard to express himself. Because of this, the tension forever building inside his mind could never be extinguished, merely quelled. It was a constant battle that could never be won.

Ezio lifted his eyes towards the celestial black sheet above him. He watched as the stars were slowly overtaken by a black mass of clouds - a storm was on the horizon. Frustrated that he could not even escape his inner turmoil in the face of nature, he stomped his way back into the room and threw himself onto the bed. Sleep, he wanted sleep - anything so that he could escape the shadows that cast themselves over his soul. He turned onto his side and closed his eyes, trying to force himself into his subconscious. Once he had finally given way to silence both inside and outside his mind however, Ezio heard a rhythmic thumping beyond one of his walls - Antonio must still be at it. He laid there for a few minutes before the thumping gave way to raucous laughter. Ezio groaned - tired or not tired, three courtesans or none, he needed peace and quiet if only for a few hours. Ezio hastily dressed himself and gathered what few things he traveled with as thunder sounded somewhere in the distance.

It was time for yet another visit to Bottega di da Vinci.