A/N: Two chapters in a day, because I was meant to write only one, but it got too long and I realised I had to cut it somewhere, unless y'all wanted to have a 5k words monstrosity in one tirade. Which, in hindsight, can be perfectly avoidable, so... Well, that, and that having such disparity between chapter lengths would irk me to no end (ironically, this chapter is almost 4k).
Apples and Second Chances
3 – A Not-So-Bleak Birthday
18 April 1493, Monteriggioni
Lucrezia Borgia awoke the morning of her thirteenth birthday to the sound of clashing steel that had greeted her most mornings for the last four or so months.
The sound in question came from her window, for her chamber had so happened to be one of the many facing the training grounds that lied right in front of the villa's portal.
Lucrezia knew well who was causing it, without needing to check. After all, if she had learned something about gli Auditore since her arrival, was that Claudia Auditore would take any and all chances to distract herself from the villa's books, training as an Assassin–and Lucrezia was still unsure if Ezio approved or even knew about it–being one of her favourite ways of doing so. Especially when her brother, like right then, wasn't around.
'To each their own,' she mused.
To be honest, Lucrezia wasn't sure of what, exactly, she had been expecting when she had set to fulfil the mission Venere had seen fit to give her. Reach Ezio Auditore, surely. Give him the message. Maybe being assassinated right after.
After all, Altaïr's Apple would have only protected 'till Venere's message reached its intended receiver.
What she had certainly not seen coming was Ezio's kindness, what with him ordering a room to be prepared for her, not far from his, and sending her off to sleep instead of interrogating her further that very night.
Being able to bathe properly, with warm water no less, and sleeping in a proper bed had been as much of a blessing as it had been a curse.
The warm water made more pronounced all her wounds–the small cuts she had endured while galloping through the woods, or the shallow cut of a knife by her side, from when she had been too exhausted and had made the mistake of leaving Altaïr's Apple in her horse's saddle–, as well as the tenderness of her flesh, from the long ride her body wasn't used to endure. The soft bed had brought horrifying flashbacks to that life she had lived and yet not, and she had awakened the very next morning panting, expecting to see her thighs covered in blood as her body, weakened by the labour that had and hadn't happened, gave up at long last.
Her mind was a mess, but then, she had known it would happen. She had felt it, before going into the chamber where Venere would reveal herself to her, where all her life as she knew it would end, sending her into a chain of events that had ended with her stealing her father's papal staff and reaching Ezio Auditore.
She had been given a mission. A hope, if one could possibly call it so, to avoid the awful life that awaited her–that would have awaited her–had Venere not seen fit to involve herself.
"I'm one of the last ones. Me, and Juno, is all what remains of our great civilisation. Me, child, and ghosts. I'm not Juno, child, nor am I Minerva, or Jupiter. I, who always loved humanity. I, who always saw in you more than the tools most of my kin thought of you as. My siblings have had enough playtime. I'm done waiting."
"What would you have me do?"
"I'll send you with a warning. For your Prophet. Hear, Lucrezia Borgia..."
The young girl knew, well enough, that she was still a pawn. That Venere, as much as she loved to feign herself above the Triad's games, was merely forcing her way into a game she had been deliberately left out of. For just as when she unleashed those two humans, Adam and Eve (and wasn't that just perfect), with an Apple of Eden, all Venere seemed to want was entertainment. Not that Lucrezia could blame her.
Ever since meeting the goddess (for as much as the woman would deny it, to her she was), eternity seemed the worst of the curses the young girl could ever think of.
When it came to those in power, if there was something the Borgia girl knew was that they thought themselves as above consequences. Above morality, above everything. She had seen the life that would have awaited her, what path she would have been forced to walk through, and as egoistical as it may have seemed, Lucrezia was glad that the goddess' chaotic nature had brought her to interfere with her life.
The last time Venere had gotten involved, humanity had been able to start a war for their freedom. It wasn't Venere's fault that the First Civilisation had been more preoccupied with regaining its slaves than with finding ways to preserve their planet.
Now the goddess wished to act again, if only to interfere in another couple of human lives, and through her, a new message would be sent, so that many years into the future, that man Minerva and Juno and Jupiter had so fixed about–Desmond, they called him–would have a third option. So that that man would then save them all.
Lucrezia would certainly not complain.
And, anyway, the goddess wouldn't have allowed it.
{xXxXx}
Lucrezia sighed, remembering the awkward breakfast that had followed, and how Ezio had kept treating her kindly all through her nervous attempts to pass on the full extent of the message she had been ordered to give him.
If she expected him to know more about the mysterious Desmond, or the Triad's plans, she found herself disappointed then and there, because he knew far less than her. But then, Venere had mentioned repeatedly that her kin tended to be far less prone to treat humans properly. So Lucrezia had soldiered on, and had told him all she had been told about the whole situation. Or so she had meant to do.
She had awakened to sunlight in her face, tucked into the bed she had slept in the previous night, wearing only her undergarments–her own, for she had only bothered to put on a servant's outer dress, its undergarments far too itchy for her sensitive skin–, a new dress to borrow set by the bed. The corset had been thankfully loosened, not that it had been tightly tied in the first place, and after a brief moment of panic, she felt the bag with Altaïr's Apple (would she ever stop considering it Altaïr's?) still between her legs, and as she took it out of its bag, she thanked her stars for having put it under her undergarments. If someone had seen it and tried to take it away...
"Another has paid for your second chance, Lucrezia Borgia. But just as she paid, you must as well. This Apple will grant you great knowledge, but hear: your soul is now bound to it. Take care not to have it taken away from you. The consequences for you then would be... Don't let it be taken from you."
She had planned to tell Ezio about the Apple that night. But then, she had not planned to fall asleep, and part of her was horrified of having showed such weakness in front of Ezio, of all people. By the time she had been ready to get out of her room, Apple safely in its bag by her legs again, the Assassin had left again, and she chose to wait 'till his return.
She certainly wasn't going to admit to Claudia that she could be killed off–or worse–that easily.
More than four months had passed, however, and the Assassin had still not returned.
It was her birthday and no one knew or seemed to care.
Her mind was a mess of her actual life and the one that could have but wouldn't be.
Lucrezia Borgia rose from her bed, and readied herself for the day.
She wasn't Claudia Auditore. Knifes and swords were not her style, not really. Even that other-her had preferred... more subtle methods. And anyway, under Ezio's protection or not, it would be a cold day in hell when Claudia allowed her, a Borgia, access to weapons of any kind.
She didn't mind. The Apple continuously promised to offer her great knowledge, if at a price, and so Lucrezia had set a goal for herself, for her new life. If her family was doomed to cause death, and pain, and destruction, then she would learn to bring life, and heal, and create.
There was a doctor, in Monteriggioni, and Lucrezia, under the guise of Lucrezia Cattanei–she told herself that using her mother's family name was perfectly fine–had become his apprentice, more or less.
She had to start somewhere, after all, and a prolonged use of the Apple left her in pain and exhausted, so she told herself that learning from the dottore was good enough for starters. She would take meticulous notes, to later use the Apple and find other ways to do those things she considered needed an alternative. Eventually, she would find herself using the Apple to get the dottore to improve his treatments and medicines, just as she had used it to get him to accept her as his apprentice in the first place. But right then, she limited herself to learn, learn, learn, as much as she could.
If a part of echoed in high enough doses, that which cures can kill, no one needed to know. After all, the Apple had shown her multiple times that when it came to medicine, those who knew how and why the body failed, were those who better learned how to heal and recompose it, if not taken by bloodlust and cruelty.
So she went to the dottore's store, and set herself to start the day, taking notes and helping with selling the vials of medicine as well as those of poison, as well as with the most minor of cases. Domenico Goretti, il dottore, had just gone to tend to a woman during labour, leaving her to tend the store for a while, when none other than Ezio Auditore approached the store, in need of both medicine and poison.
It took him an instant or two to realise that it was, in fact, Lucrezia the one tending the store, instead of Domenico, just as it took an instant or two for Lucrezia to realise that the new customer was, in fact, Ezio. Telling who was more surprised would have been hard, but when the silence lasted long enough to become painfully awkward, Lucrezia gathered both the medicine and the poison vials and set them orderly on the table, for the Assassin to take at his leisure.
"These will be on the house, I think," she said at long last, eyes fixed in her fingers as she fidgeted in place.
He was staring at her, of this she was sure. She felt his gaze on her in a way she couldn't fully understand yet. She also felt the blush that his focus on her invariably caused, and damned not for the first time, and surely not for the last, both what the Apple had identified as hormones and the memory of a kiss that had and hadn't happened.
'Focus, Lucrezia, focus.'
"... Lucrezia?"
His tone alone was enough to imply the question. She took a deep breath, told herself to focus again, and decided to act as normally as possible.
"Ezio."
He had implied a question. But it was her birthday, and as much as it would surely pass unremarked by most, she was determined not to show her nervousness. Learning medicine, after all, was all she had as properly hers nowadays. If he wanted to know more, he could at least bother to ask properly. She was determined, and–
"Would you come in? I think we should have this discussion inside."
Well. Apparently her mouth had decided otherwise.
At least Ezio had finally taken the vials, putting each in its proper place, somehow without needing to take his eyes away from her. She opened the door for him, set the warning bell in the table, and guided him inside.
{xXxXx}
"Il Dottore had to go attend a woman in labour. The house its nearby, if you wanted to know, but the woman had a rather complicated pregnancy and il dottore thought it would be best not to move her."
"Lucrezia... What are you doing here?" He said, and she would have felt offended if not for his next words. "It could be dangerous! Did something happen at the villa?"
'He's... He's... Concerned?'
"Was I meant to remain at the villa doing nothing? I'm Lucrezia Cattanei, here. Like my mother. I've been learning medicine with il dottore. It took some convincing, but eventually he accepted to teach me, as long as I promised to take my duties seriously. I thought... I told Claudia, before taking up this, since you weren't... well."
He was looking at her, as if she was a puzzle he needed to solve. Not for the last time, she wondered why he of all people always managed to break through her poise. With him around, her composure seemed to vanish, and it was as baffling as it was annoying.
"You're learning how to heal, then?" He said, his tone again light and charming, as if she being a doctor's apprentice was the most usual happenstance in the world.
'Wait. The Apple. He's back, I can tell him about it...'
"Indeed. I... Ezio, there's something I must tell you," she said then, because as much as she would like to make idle chatter, she would rather not have it look as if she had been trying to keep something from him. So she took a deep breath, and took the bag with her Apple out–which was in itself an awkward manoeuvre. She kept it within the bag, fiddling around with it for a moment as she gathered her strength to say what she wanted to say.
'Stop stalling, Lucrezia.'
She stared into those mesmerizing eyes of his, took a deep breath and said at last: "Within this bag... Within this bag lies trapped my soul, Ezio Auditore."
The whole ambient seemed to have shifted in less than a second. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she suddenly felt naked, more vulnerable than ever, as she finally took the Apple from the bag, and with two steps, placed it on his right hand.
In a way, giving him the Apple–if only for a moment–was infinitely more dangerous than having one of his hidden blades by her neck, and she couldn't even attempt to step away, or let his hand and the Apple go. Her whole body trembled, and she could feel her tears falling regardless of how much she wished to keep them from doing so.
Finally her legs gave out, and she would have most certainly fallen to her knees had Ezio not caught her on time, holding her closely before sitting again, mindful of her abrupt emotional breakdown.
"I meant to tell you, Ezio," she said as his warmth calmed her. "Venere gave me a chance to avoid the path that had been set for me. But it had a price, beyond merely being her messenger. I can't part with that Apple. I can't, I can't, because it holds my life within."
He had known about the Apple. Looking at him now, so closely, she just knew. And maybe he had expected some kind of treachery, but she was honestly unable to. Not against him.
She saw her life passing in front of her. Every betrayal, every loss, every failure.
It was painful.
So painful.
But then she saw another life, another chance. Another purpose.
The kind caress of a goddess on her cheek.
Ezio, Ezio, Ezio...
"You'll be a beautiful love story, my child. Just you wait..."
She spend an indeterminate moment just there, in his arms, enjoying maybe for the first time in these new life of hers a simple comfort that had not been tainted by those other memories.
And then he maneuvered her towards his chest, just to put the Apple back in its bag, before handing it back to her. Lucrezia stared at him, not fully aware of how to react, because somehow a part of her kept expecting him to kill her. To punish her, for the crimes her family had committed, for the crimes they would yet commit. For the crimes of that other-Lucrezia, or the ones she had done, on her way to him.
He didn't. There was no animosity in his eyes, as he helped her to get back to her feet and politely turned around so she could put the Apple back in its place, only the tie of its bag peeking from her skirts as she tied it firmly by her waist.
"So, tell me, have you done any operations yet?" He said, once they were both again seated and she had regained some of her poise.
As if it was merely a friendly conversation.
As if she hadn't just given him the perfect way to destroy her.
'But then... He never really tried to destroy me, now, did he?'
Maybe, after all, they could be friends.
Maybe Ezio Auditore would truly protect a Borgia. Or maybe, just maybe, she could become someone worth protecting.
"These are your first steps, my child..."
"Oh, by the way, Lucrezia," he said much later, after hours of easy–dared she say it?–, even friendly conversation. He had gone for a moment to the tailor's shop while she attended some customers, just to come back with a small leather pouch. "Happy birthday," he said, handing it to her, quickly disappearing before she could do more than thank him offhandedly.
Within it lied a beautiful necklace, with a black velvet cord and the Assassin symbol etched in silver, holding within a lonely dark pearl.
A/N: In case y'all haven't realised, Lucrezia's abrupt meeting with her post-Brotherhood-self left her... Not alright. Worry not, she'll get better. Also, yeah, Venere doesn't really care about saving the world. It's more of an excuse to meddle as much as possible. Because she's bored and if Juno and Minerva can meddle, so can she.
Yes, in this 'verse, Venere was the one that helped Adam and Eve escape with an Apple of Eden (since she had already had several children with humans that she had freed and left hidden away). That got her trapped in a great Temple, ala Juno with the one in USA, but Venere's was built by her then husband, Vulcano, specifically to trap her there forever, because her actions kickstarted the war between the Isu and the Humans. The first catastrophe (the one Minerva, Juno and Jupiter were ultimately unable to avoid) loosed it enough for her to be able to meddle somewhat with humanity, especially thorough those who have even just a little of First Civilisation DNA.
