A Step Back And To The Side
A Word: Takes place in Chapter 20.
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Altair stares at the woman with Malik's face gathering water up in a basin. She doesn't acknowledge him at all and that prompts him to speak first, "Safety and peace, Dai."
The woman stands and rests the basin against her hip like he's seen women hold children. Her left arm curled around her stomach comfortably, and Altair swears again that he is wrong. That his mind has snapped and he is simply seeing things now.
"I doubt I'll find either of those things here," Malik sneers, and her voice -unmistakable and sharp- does very little to ease his mind. "If you are looking for the Rafiq, he's in his workshop. I am sure you can find your way there without me holding your hand, yes?"
She turns then and moves over to a table. The headscarf reveals Malik's short hair, but even that is not reassuring. The black locks curl around her ears and forehead. Longer than he's ever seen it before. It is Malik, it is, but Altair stands there and stares as the clothing peels off and he begins to see the familiar lines of her muscles. Interrupted by straps and buckles that takes his scrambled mind several minutes to figure out. A fake arm strapped over her shoulder securely enough that Malik has to work to ease it off.
When it clatters to the ground with the rest of the clothing Altair feels something panicked in him eases, because now he can look at her. Now he can see Malik instead of things that remind him of her. Even the sight of her left arm, clear in the light of day, does not dim the relief he feels as she washes off the blood he had not noticed. He turns and looks away when she reaches for the robes he is more familiar with, and dresses faster than she undressed.
"What?" Malik growls when she turns around, he sees her point at the clothing on the ground. "Disappointed I changed?"
"No," he says and looks down at the thin cloth and wooden arm with distaste. The image of her wearing all of it still burned in his mind. She seemed comfortable in it though, and Altair wonders how often she wears it. How often she has to wear it. "It doesn't suit you at all."
"Dressing as a woman?" Malik's smile is a trap. There is no answer he can give that will not be leapt on as an offense.
"Yes," Altair cannot help but respond anyway, because none of that suits Malik at all. "You don't belong in that sort of clothing."
Malik laughs. Sharp and bitter and her face flashing through more than he can follow. "Of course, only a true woman should dress that way."
"You are a woman," he says quickly, because there is no doubt of that for all that he's heard some try to say otherwise. "You are just," the clothing should not matter. Malik is Malik no matter what she looks like, but this disguise doesn't do her any justice. It is not what she should be wearing. "You are at your best in armor with a weapon in hand, and-"
Blood on her skin and a fierce joy in her eyes as she throws herself fully into whatever is in front of her. Altair clenches his jaw shut tight on that, because Malik is a Dai and no longer an Assassin. She will never have the chance to do that, to look that way again. And there is no one to blame for that but himself.
Altair really has no right to talk about what suits her anymore, not when he took it from her. He bows his head and takes a carefully even breath, "I waste your time, and other's. I'll talk to the Rafiq about my mission."
Malik says nothing as he turns and leaves. Guilt a familiar weight as he hoists himself up to the roof.
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