Chapter Two

Altair sulks as he scans the crowd of his peers mingling together, eyes raking across each of their faces, looking for one specific person. He doesn't see her.

Sighing frustration, he leaps down into the fray, who immediately separate and form a ring around him. "I yield. Show yourself." he growls, eyes flicking from one point on the circle to the next.

There's a small giggle from behind him, and he turns to see her there-seeming to appear out of thin air. Her hood is down and her hair-that has been chopped short on his insistence-shines despite its unruliness. He can tell by the way her hands flutter at her sides that they want to cover his eyes teasingly, but choose not to.

"Well?"

Altair suppresses a smile-which takes much more will power than it should have. The enthusiasm in her voice is hard to miss, and easy to catch. "You did well." he says simply, and with a nod, dismisses her.

She bows respectively, and almost dances her through the crowd, and out of sight. The rest leave afterwards, save for one male who walks over and claps his hand on Altair's shoulder.

Grinning he lets out a low whistle, eyes flicking in the direction she had left. "Damn Altair, you are one lucky bastard."

Rolling his eyes, Altair cuffs him on the back of his head, and easily twists him into a headlock. "Shut up Abbas."

His best friend, and partner in crime laughs, and slips out of the headlock, dancing out of the way when Altair swings a punch at his gut. "I'm not even kidding. Getting betrothed to her? Brains, talent and body? She's an angel."

Altair scowls, despite the smile that is causing the corners of his lip to twitch. "You are a vulgar, vulgar boy." he says with a stony expression, "Besides, she doesn't have talent. She simply has luck."

Wagging a finger at him, Abbas walks back over and throws an arm over his shoulders, he steers both of them in the direction that she had went. "Man, boy no longer, my friend." he corrects, "And lucky? Tell me Altair, since when is picking up the skill of blending at that level within two days of training considered lucky? She's got talent, I'm telling you." he insists, as they walk down the pathways through the village.

"I've seen it before. One day they pick up something in an instant, the next, it takes forever to teach them a new skill." Altair insists, despite a tiny voice in the back of his mind agreeing with Abbas.

Scoffing, Abbas gives him a withering look out of the corner of his eye. "You just don't want to admit she's proved you wrong. She isn't soft."

"Please. That's-"

"Totally right."

"Ludicrous." Altair says with an eye roll.

"You're just in denial." Abbas sighs dramatically, as they make their way past the gates. Nodding at something high above their heads, Altair follows his friends gaze upwards to spy a white robed figure scaling the cliff.

He looks back at his friend, whose chestnut eyes watch the person with approval, awe, and underlying concern in his eyes. "Am I supposed to be particularly impressed? It's probably one of the scouts. Master sends them up into the cliffs to survey the area from above all the time."

"Genius, that's no scout."

Eyebrows knitting together, Altair's eyes flick back to the figure just as the wind blows their hood off. His chokes on his breath as he sees the golden hair flash in the sunlight, bright as a beacon. "What the hell is she doing?!" he chokes out, unexplained horror filling his body, as he sprints for the cliff, already searching for hand an footholds.

Abbas runs after him, and grabs his arm. "Woah, hold up."

"Orihime!" Altair bellows at the top of his lungs, ignoring him.

Abbas punches his arm indignantly. "Moron! What are you doing? You distracted her!" he hisses angrily, eyes glued to the girl above them.

Altair looks up to see that he's right, and her feet now frantically scrape at the rock face, desperately looking for a foot hold.

"T-tasukete!" he hears a faint scream from above as one of her feet kicks out and knocks several pebbles down to the ground.

"Hold on Orihime, and don't even think of letting go!" he shouts, scaling the rock, ignoring all the easy to reach hand holds, opting to jump upwards.

Sparing an instant to look up at his, (his? What did he mean 'his'? He never chose her!) damsel in distress to see her eyes squeezed shut and her knuckles white with tension. "Doushiyou? Doushiyou, Kurosaki-kun." she whimpers and a scream hisses past her teeth.

Altair pulls himself up to a ledge just over two arm lengths across from her and stretches his hand out to her. "Orihime, here. Take my hand." Her eyes fly open, and pure, undiluted terror swim in their grey depths. She shakes her head once frantically, and shuts her eyes tightly again.

"I-I can't." she stammers.

Irritation ripples through his body, but the assassin forces it down, knowing that it is neither the time, not place for it. "Come on Orihime, how hard could it be? You got yourself into this didn't you? You can get yourself out. I'm right here. I won't leave." he says in the most soothing tone he can manage. Though, thinking about it realistically, it's probably a clipped, neutral tone.

Her eyes open a tiny bit, and Altair breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the rational that has returned there. "Promise?" she whispers, and if he couldn't read lips, he wouldn't have heard get over the sound of the wind in his ears.

"I promise."

Orihime's right hand relaxes its iron grip on the rock by a fraction, then snaps outward to latch onto Altair's hand. The swiftness of the motion takes him off guard and he almost falls backwards.

"Good. There. See? Not that bad, right?" he says, after regaining his grip and balance. "Okay, now you have to let go with the other hand and push off to me."

"I have to let go?!"

"Orihime! Do you want to be an assassin or not?! If getting stuck climbing is going to stop you now, you will die in an instant if it happens on an assignment!" Altair shouts, and with a shrill shriek, Orihime jumps to Altair's ledge. He wraps a protective arm around her torso, and she clings to him like a small child. Her shoulders rise and fall in rapid succession, leaving Altair to simply wait again for her to calm down. When her shoulders still, then resume a calm breathing pattern, Altair deems the moment to right he moves his arm from around her. "Everything fine now?" he asks.

Orihime glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "Y-yeah."

"Can you climb?"

"I-I can."

Altair snorts at the lame excuse for a lie and with some skillful one handed juggling on his part, he manages to get her clinging onto his back. After taking a moment to make sure she's holding on tightly, he scales up the rock face and with one last heave, he reaches the top of the cliff.

Breathing heavily, he sets her down, before squatting down to give his leg muscles a breather. They feel unusually tense. "Imbecile! What were you thinking?!" Altair explodes, rising up to his full height, easily dwarfing the girl who cringes slightly at the venom in his tone. "You could have DIED. Don't you know that only scouts and experienced assassins ever scale these cliffs? There's a REASON for that! Honestly, do you have a DEATH WISH?!"

Altair feels small twinge of guilt when he shrinks back, as if his words had true weight and were crushing her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, gomenasai Altair-kun," she says in a rush, her hands fisting in her loose pants. Her head bows down, and her shoulders quiver, but Altair's rage prevents him from caring.

He takes a deep breath and composes himself before continuing. "What were you even doing?"

Blushing sheepishly, she unclasps the font of her cloak slowly. Immediately, Altair whirls around, a breath hissing through his teeth. "What are you doing?!" he demands, still facing away from her.

"Ne, relax Altair-kun, I'm not doing anything inappropriate, just look." she says, and judging by the slight waver in her voice, she knew that he thought she was stripping.

Slowly turning around, Altair's eyebrows rise upwards in surprise, and his jaw (almost) drops open in surprise as he sees that under her cloak tucked snugly between her chest and shirt is a young wild cat. Before he can yell in protest, she frantically holds a finger to her lips. "Shhh, she's a sleep."

"She?!"

Orihime nods. "I found her with a wounded leg at the base of the cliff a week ago. I'm pretty sure that I saw her mother up along these cliffs. She's all better now, so I figured that I'd bring her up here."

Altair opens his mouth to lecture her again, when he abruptly snaps his mouth closed. "Do as you please. I'll hold no responsibility if it attacks you."

As he turns around, he senses Orihime bristle. "She has a name you know, it's Panthera."

"Panthera? Why would you name her-it that?"

"Because she has the same blue eyes as Jeagerjaques-san." Orihime explains, as the wild cat stirs in her arms, opening its maw wide in a yawn.

In an instant, a dagger appears in his hands, "Orihime. Set it down now." he growls, as the cat starts squirming and mewing.

"Kowai ka? Relax Altair-kun, she won't bite." Orihime reassures him, but she gently puts the cat down and goes to stand by Altair's shoulder.

The cat stretches and opens its maw and yawns. Blinking in the light, Altiar inhales sharper than usual, when he sees the cat's eyes are a shocking blue.

"Ohayo, Pantera-chan. O-geniki desu ka?" Orihime coos softly, crouching down as the cat slinks over to her, a soft growl rumbling through its throat. "Aw, she's…she's…" A frustrated expression appears on her face. "Eto…I don't remember what to word for gorogoro is." She blushes in embarrassment.

As this is going on, Panthera bounds away, as a deeper yowl echoes towards them. Orihime waves until the cat is out of sight. Turning back towards Altair, she hesitantly wraps her arms around his. "Gomen. Did I really worry you?" She asks.

"Tch. Course not. I was more worried about the trouble I'd get into if you broke your neck-ow! What was that for?!"

Orihime huffs and walks over to the cliff edge, turning around and disappears from view as she scales back down the cliff. Altair just mutters to himself and follows suit.

Okay. Well, I hope you liked the chapter! Just to be clear, (and if you haven't already noticed) I'm taking some artistic liberties with this fic. Being honest, I'm more familiar with Ezio than anyone else, but since the two stars are Vega and Altair (Orihime and Hikoboshi in the Japanese legend) you can tell why I couldn't choose him as the main character.

So what did you think? Don't forget to leave a review!

-Moony