Hey I feel really sorry for that sucker who tried to plagiarize my story...not.
Disclaimer: I'm a good author and I remember to put these in here. Don't own, don't sue. Ya hear?
The world around me was changing at the speed of light. Art, inventions, buildings, everything was moving, doing things, leaving the past behind.
"Messer da Vinci!" I exclaimed as I saw him on the other side of the river. He was buying paints and canvases, no doubt for his next commission. The Venetian sun shone overhead like a ball of smiling light.
(Leonardo da Vinci: Database Not Found)
The man turned around, his clear blue eyes visible from even across the river. I could see him squint in the sun. I waved, and he recognized me. "Nora? How good to see you!" he answered over the shouts of merchants. I wanted to get across, but the next bridge wasn't for another fifty meters or so. I saw two gondolas passing each other, and I bunched up my dress in two hands.
Thankfully, the gondolas were empty, and the gondoliers saw what I was doing. They stopped in their tracks and let me bound across the boats. I had lost my footing a second too soon, and I began to pitch forward…into the river. The gondoliers caught this before I had, and I was caught by two hands. I gasped aloud and scrambled to the platform on the other side. I was deposited onto the ground, the hems of my dress a little damp. I stood up and turned to face my rescuer.
He, in his bravery, had fallen into the river. I covered my face with my hands and bit back the giggles at the sight of the man thrashing about in the dirty Venetian water. "Dio mio, did I do that?" I asked aloud, earning me a couple of chuckles from bystanders, including Messer da Vince himself. The man pulled himself out of the water and shook himself off, careful not to get any water on other people. "Mi dispiace, Messer…?" I asked.
"Ezio. Call me Ezio." He laughed, pulling his soggy, wet hood up before I could see his face. He was wearing a blue cape, with the gold Venetian lion emblazoned across it. I turned back around to Messer da Vinci.
"Well. This is imbarrazzante. That did not go as well as I'd intended it to." I laughed. Messer da Vinci laughed as well.
"Ahh, I saw it coming. Clumsy girl like you, it's a wonder at all how I could paint you without you falling over!" he laughed, making my face turn red.
"I can't fall over when I'm sitting down," I said, shaking my head.
"I see you've met Ezio." He said, laughing. He looked over my shoulder at the tall, dripping man now lying in the sun.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, is he your friend?" I said, becoming more and more embarrassed by the minute.
"One of my best, if not the best." He said, staring off for a second. "So, how are you, Nora? What has my favorite model been up to?"
"Va bene. I've been better. I'm out of a job, ever since Messer Botticelli left Venezia." I'd modeled for him twice before, earning large sums of money. I hadn't heard that Messer da Vinci was in Venice until a day or two ago, and I'd been looking for his workshop for hours when I'd found him. I'd known the painter since I was very young, when my father had introduced us when we were getting family portraits. The young painter had given me a toy so I would sit still, and I still have it in my room, on a shelf.
"I just moved here on a commission from the Doge. All of my assistants are back in Firenze, and it's a hassle to hire them again. Do you think you can stop by my workshop later today?"
"I can help you now!" I said, picking up a basket of paints. It was heavier than I'd thought, so I adjusted it to the other hip.
Laughing, Messer da Vinci said, "Nora, I hope your father knows about this." My face fell.
"Mi padre caught plague not a year ago. Mi madre as well."
"I am very sorry to hear that. They were some of my best patrons." I managed a small smile. "So where are you staying now? Do you still have your palazzo?" he asked. I shook my head.
"I stay wherever I'm welcome. Mi fratinello sold it to some man named Guare. Now, my brother lives in Roma, with his wife and famiglia." Da Vinci started walking, and I followed him, the looming presence of Ezio standing behind me. I tried to ignore him.
"And you did not go with him?" Ezio spoke up from behind me. I nearly jumped at his low voice.
"No. He has seven children; I would just be a burden, he says." I shrugged and continued walking. "But I'm doing fine, as long as I can pagare the rent and have a decent lavoro." We all laughed shortly, even Ezio. I liked Ezio's laugh. It felt…rare.
(Sorry, I'm not so good with translating the Italian. But you studied it, right?)
A couple of minutes later and we were standing in front of Messer da Vinci's workshop. It was large, about a quarter of the size of a church. It was made with red bricks, and white plaster, giving it a completely homemade feel. "Come inside." Messer da Vinci said. I nodded and followed him and Ezio in. There were papers everywhere, and discarded sketches, ideas, and notes, always in that peculiar mirror script he had taught me when I was seven. "Would you like some vino? I've got some Chianti from Ezio's uncle Mario, it's magnificent!" I nodded and set the basket down on an empty table. Unfortunately, that was the only empty thing in the room, and I was left to stand there with Ezio.
"So…how do you know Messer da Vinci?" I asked after a beat.
"He's a friend of the family." He said, his low voice making it sound like it's never been used. "You sound like you know him pretty well."
"Yes, well, my father introduced me to him when I was six, and he was my second tutor until he left for Firenze." I shrugged. "He taught me everything I know." I said, admiring the way I could understand his writing.
"You look like you understand his writing." He inquired when I didn't look up from his outline of an agricultural invention. It seemed to aerate the fields without much manpower.
"Hmm? Yes, I can read it. I can write it, too." I smiled and looked around for a quill and parchment. I found some sitting on a desk and I wondered where Messer da Vinci was. In the mirror script, I wrote my name and the date: Nora Titanimo di Venezia, January 7, 1482.
Lucy's voice returned to me gradually, slowly. "What happened?" I asked carefully.
"I pulled you out. We can't keep you in there for more than a few hours." I looked out the windows behind her. It was getting dark.
"Why?" I asked, sitting up gradually.
"Remember the other sixteen test subjects?" I recalled her saying something about it.
"Yeah."
"That's why." She stood up and told me to follow her. I did as I was told. "It's really hard for me to explain why you're here. It'd be better if you found out on your own." She opened a door to a library. There were dusty old books everywhere. Obviously, this place was permanent.
"Whoa." I said, looking around. My old house could probably fit inside the entire library itself, it was so big.
"Shaun? Are you in here?" she asked aloud.
"Up here." A British voice said, about three aisles down. Lucy led the way through the stacks of books, and I followed. I saw a man teetering on a ladder, trying to reach for a book way out of his reach. This was not going to end well. Of course, I didn't voice my opinion. "What do you need, I'm kind of busy…" he said, missing the book by about two inches. He swayed back on the ladder, waiting for it to swing back.
"When you're done trying to kill yourself, can you find some books that fill the basics in on Assassins?" Lucy asked, looking up at him with her hands on her hips.
"There's one book for that, love. The dictionary. I'd say somewhere between assail," he teetered forward. "And assault." He reached forward, and snatched the book. He quickly climbed down and sighed at us. I could see that he had glasses, and a very sarcastic face. He gave us each a quick smile and sat down at a table.
"Very nice, Shaun, but I'm serious, here. You know more about the Assassins than we do." Obviously, flattery worked on this guy.
"Oh, fine. I'll see what I can do." He stood up, leaving the book at the table, and walked to the back of the library. I looked back at Lucy but she was gone. I tried to see where Shaun had gone, but I couldn't tell which aisle he'd slipped down. He poked his head out of one three away. "Well, come on, then." I jogged over to where he was. He was back up on the ladder. "All of this shelf," he said, motioning to the seventh one up. "Is the basic history of Assassins—where they came from, Assassins through time, our mission statement—everything basic."
"And what's the rest of the library?" I asked, examining the spine of one book. Tunguska: Volume Eight.
"Everything in between."
An hour later, I had read through two of the largest books on the shelf, and I only had fifty three more to go. They were all arranged in volumes: History, Parts One Through Eight, People, Parts One Through Three, Famous Assassinations, Parts One Through Thirty-Seven—I was taking it one book at a time, depleting each section gradually. It would take me weeks to get all of this in my head. Shaun had come back in an hour into my JFK discovery. I was about to read his planned speech when he's come in.
"Well, you've seemed to make progress." He said. I rubbed my eyes.
"Is that sarcasm? Because I really can't tell." He set a cup of coffee down in front of me. I sipped it. Eew, decaf. I drank it anyways. I got about half of it down before I started, "I don't get it. But I do, you know? All of these things are screaming the same thing: you kill people, and I get it. You don't need to write poems and speeches and…everything else about it."
"You're not seeing the big picture, love. All you're looking at is the tiny details. Look, I'll write it out for you." He began to get a piece of paper out, and I caught his hand.
"I'm tired of word after word after word after word—why am I here?" I said. Shaun just looked at me. I sipped at the coffee
"I don't really know. And I doubt the answers are going to be in these books." He smacked the cover of my next book on the cover once and stood up. "You should go to sleep. We've got a room made up for you, if you like." Much better than falling asleep on a book. I stood up shakily, blood rushing to my head, impairing my vision. "Careful, now. I'll show you where your room is." He took me out into the hallway and into another room. My watch said it was three in the morning. I wondered what the real time was.
"Now just get some sleep. Someone will wake you up in a couple of hours, so don't worry about resetting your watch." I barely caught his words before I passed out on the bed.
I slept dreamlessly, thank God, and I woke up before the knock on my door. I noticed a pile of folded clothes on a chair by the bed. I got dressed and followed the person down the hall and into another room—the kitchen. This was probably the only room that matched the outer décor. The walls were a light honey yellow, and the counters were made of aged oak. There was a table in the corner, where Lucy, Shaun, Desmond, and another person, a woman with black hair, were sitting. "Ahh, you're awake." Shaun said, being the first to notice me. He kicked out a chair next to him and I took it, sitting down. The clothes felt cold and uncomfortable. "Have some breakfast." He said, spooning out eggs and toast.
"This is Rebecca. She's another one of the people working with me while someone's in the Animus." She nodded her head up at me once, a smile on her face.
"Hey. Yeah, I do translations and I search for any glitches in Baby." At my puzzled look, she explained that the Animus was her baby. "Built it myself." She said proudly.
"Yeah, with the help of Abstergo's memory core two years ago. Remember that, Rebecca?" Shaun said from next to me.
"That was a gift, and you know it!" she said, flicking a bit of egg at Shaun. Desmond met my eyes from across the table, and everything seemed to grow quieter for a second. Something warm yet cold, sharp yet numbing, raced through my veins. I broke eye contact with him and I started to eat, the world's soundtrack being Rebecca and Shaun's bickering, and Lucy's attempt to break it up. Desmond pushed around his food a little, before piling it onto the toast and eating it all in three huge bites.
"I'm going to go patrol." He said, no one noticing him get up but me. He put his plate in a sink, from what I could hear, and left.
Rebecca's voice seemed to slink back into my subconscious. "…So we're gonna try Baby out again today. Hopefully it'll be a better experience than the first time you were in it." I saw Lucy shove food in her mouth; most likely to keep from saying anything.
"But why me? I'm just a college student from Ohio." I said, looking down at my plate.
"Your ancestors passed their traits down to you. We couldn't use, say, your brother, or something, because the ancestors we're looking for have to be…well, similar, I guess." At the thought of my brothers, I started firing off questions.
"Where are my brothers? Where's my family? You say you don't know where they are, but I know you do." I said evenly, directing each question at a different person.
"It's true. We don't know where they are. They've seemed to disappear off the face of the planet." Lucy said, holding my gaze.
"You only counted my father and brothers missing. What about my mom? Where's she?" I asked.
"We…we're um…" Shaun stuttered, eventually giving up and sipping his coffee.
"Your mother is a Templar. She adopted you when you were very young, and she's been given orders to keep you under the radar from us. Otherwise, you would've been brought up very differently."
"My—what?" I asked. My mind whirled. My mother was one of the bad guys? I felt dizzy. I stood up. "No…you're lying." I said, stumbling back. I was adopted? Why didn't anyone tell me?
"Sit down, and we'll explain." Lucy said, on her feet as well. I shook my head and bolted out the door, making my way down the stairs and out the front door. I was having a hard time taking in breaths, but I kept running through the streets, eventually finding my way at Giotto's Campanile. I sat on a bench, running my fingers through my hair.
"What the hell are you doing out here?" a familiar voice asked, but more so demanded. I looked up. It was Desmond.
"I…" I tried to explain, but he had yanked me up by my arm, dragging me back down the street. I tried to get him to let go, but nothing was working. He pulled out his cell phone with one hand, speed-dialing someone I could only expect to be Lucy.
"Yeah, I've got her." He said gruffly, looking forward. Wow, I had run far. "Five." He said, hanging up. "Do you have any idea how easy it would be for a Templar agent to kidnap you from us?" he growled.
"How easy?" I asked, tripping along next to him.
"It was a rhetorical question." He suddenly pulled me into a shaded alley, and shoved me against a wall, his face now inches from mine. His hot breath smelled like breakfast and mint. "Listen to me. There are people out there who want you dead. Who want me dead. If I'm caught with you, we're both dead. Understand? They will lock you in that machine for days, until you get headaches so bad you'll want to kill yourself, delusions so vivid you won't need the machine anymore. You'll start seeing things, believing they're real, until one day, you walk off a balcony and break your neck. This thing you were just pulled into, it's real. Now you either grow a pair or you don't but it doesn't mean you storm off like you just did there. Are you listening to me?" he said, his words blurring into one another. My eyes must've been the size of the moon because he backed off a half an inch or two. I was scared to breathe, to move, to do anything. I nodded a tiny little nod and he let me go, only to grasp my wrist with his hand roughly. "Come on." He said, pulling me out of the alley. A group of three people or so had been watching the exchange, but they went back to their own business once we walked out of their line of sight.
"How many Templars are in Florence?" I asked.
"About fifty." He said. "Most are in this district, but we control this district, and we take them out each day, wiping the slate clean." I looked down at the hand holding my arm. He had the bracer on, but it matched his shirt, a brown and white paisley one with short sleeves. I'd never seen anyone wear that kind of clothing, but Desmond made it look good. No! I couldn't be getting carried away! This guy almost killed me!
Once we were back inside, Desmond took me back up to the Animus room. I kept my head down as Shaun and Rebecca started talking. "No, you may get this little…this little feeling in your head, and something's gonna say 'Database Entry'. You think about it, and you can read a letter, see additional info about something, or someone, in some cases." Shaun said.
"And if you come across any weird signs or just general trouble, I'll be right there to navigate you."
"Do I come with a map, too?" I asked sarcastically, sitting down on the Animus. Desmond loomed from a corner…why did he all of a sudden look so familiar?
"The map's a bit under construction right now, but we'll find a way to get it up in one of your sessions." Lucy said from my right.
"So what am I looking for?" I asked, laying back.
"You just need to live. Just be her. And don't get killed." Desmond said, speaking up for once. I didn't have time to look at him before the needle was inserted and the world went white.
"Nora! Come see this!" Messer da Vinci said from downstairs. I sighed, setting the sketchbook down. I went down the stairs, my feet barely making any noise. "Nora!" he said, thinking I was still upstairs.
"I'm right here, Messer da Vinci." I said, making him jump.
"You're just as silent as Ezio!" he exclaimed. I hoped he wouldn't forget what he was to show me. "Look!" he pointed at the window. Sitting atop the sill was a bluebird, something not native to Venice.
"Wow…" I said, my hands itching for some charcoal.
"Don't disturb it!" Messer da Vinci warned. I could hear him quickly sketching a rough copy of it. I sat as close as I dared, and I stuck my hand out slowly. The bird looked at me sideways, and jumped on my fingers. "Dio mio…" he said, flipping a page in his workbook.
I fished out a piece of bread from my pocket and offered it to the bird. Its wide black eyes were curious. It picked at the piece, but then swallowed it whole. It began to chirp softly, a small song for me and my employer. "This is amazing…" he said, setting down the sketch paper. He leaned in close, his eyes almost as blue as the bird. He tilted his head this way and that, getting new angles memorized. "Va bene. You can let it free." He said.
I smiled. "And let waste a beauty? No, I say." I shifted the bird onto the sill again, distracting it with more bread. Messer da Vinci gave me a worried glance as I took one of the largest empty birdcages and brought it over to the window.
"Nora…?" he asked, concerned. I ignored him, taking the rest of the bread from the sill and popping it into the birdcage. The bottom was covered in parchment. I stuck out my finger again, and the bluebird jumped on. I set it on the perch in the cage, and left the door open.
"See? He can leave if he wants to." I said, going for more birdcages.
"What are you doing now?" Messer da Vinci inquired, leaning in as I took the walls off of the cages, piling them flat on a convenient empty table.
"Building a better house for l'uccello azzurre." I said, already beginning to build an outline of the palazzo I had in mind.
"May I assist, Signorina Nora?" he asked.
"Va bene. I will need your help, anyways." Two hours passed and we had built the entire thing, with a large entrance for the bird. We had even built in a couple of baskets to hold bread and other things like that. There were so many different perches for the bird, inside and out. When we were done, the bluebird was sleeping in the smaller cage. I whistled low and the bird woke up.
(How is this relevant, Lucy? It's a memory about a bird.)
(Shut up, Shaun. You'll see.)
The bird was now safely in the cage. After a bit of exploring, it went back to sleep.
"Good job, Nora. You've done well. Now, are all of your tasks done?" Messer da Vinci asked.
"I just need to run to the market and…" he cut me off.
"I'll do it; you deserve a break. Go practice your drawings." He said, exiting the workshop. I sighed. The sun was already going down. In the distance, church bells were ringing, but I didn't know for what.
I sat on the table, watching the sun set next to the birdcage. I closed my eyes for a moment, sending a prayer up to my mother and father. I hope you're safe.
I was jolted out of my daze by three loud, sharp knocks on the door. Who was it? I stood up, going to open it up, but the person barged in, closing the door behind him. "Who are you?!" I asked, picking up a scalpel I'd noticed on the table I was sitting at.
"Shh, please!" the man said. I recognized who it was.
"Ezio?" I asked. I hadn't seen him in weeks! The last time he'd been down to Messer da Vinci's workshop was when he had these scrolls, and I was told to leave the room for awhile. "What are you doing here?" I inquired, going up to him. I noticed him holding his side. Why was he doing that?
"Nora, please, be quiet." He said, leaning his head against the door.
"Where did he go?" I heard guards on the other side of the door. They were in the streets, from what I could hear.
"I've lost sight of him." Another said.
"You! Did you see a man in white run through here?" a third guard asked.
"No! I didn't!" a frightened person answered. I looked up at Ezio. His hood was white. Wasn't it green last time—?
The guards walked away, frustrated. I was standing about two meters from Ezio. "Ezio? Are you alright?" I asked, noting the obvious.
"Yes. I just need…is Leonardo here?" he asked. I shook my head.
"Messer da Vinci just ran out to the market. Can I help you with anything?" I asked, wishing I hadn't.
"Can you treat wounds?" he asked. I felt my face blanch, but I nodded my head. "Bene." He said, walking down the stairs toward me. I backed up a couple of steps when I saw the glint of a Shianova, a butcher knife, and a bag full of knives on his belt.
"Prego?" I asked, pointing to the weaponry. "What is that?" I asked incredulously.
"Just ignore them." Ezio said, pulling off various pieces of clothing and equipment until he was half-naked in front of me.
His body was incredibly perfect, save for the scars that marred his torso. The wound was shallow, but incredibly bloody. "Hold on." I told him, rushing to get bandages. I'd always wondered why Messer da Vinci had them in the workshop; he never got hurt or anything. Now I seemed to understand. Pulling them down and bringing a cloth and bowl of water, I got to work. "How did this happen?" I asked, wiping away drying blood with the cloth.
"It's better that you don't know." He said, lying back on the table.
"Non farlo!" I exclaimed, making him sit up again. "You'll stretch the wound." I said, stopping the bleeding. I got the bandages out, and started wrapping it up. "You mystify me, Ezio." I said, as I tied off the bandage. "Only you."
"Grazie, Nora." He said, slipping his robes and equipment back on. I nodded once and helped him tie off the sash around his middle. I had to duck under his cape in order to do so.
"Be more careful, next time. I don't want you coming round with a giant gash in your head." I warned, pushing him out the door.
"Arrivederci, Nora." He said, running off into the night.
(Okay, we're pulling you out now, just stay calm.)
The world went white again, and I was no longer Nora. I was the present-day me. With a rush of energy, I was put back into the world. Blinking my eyes against the overhead lights, I sat forward, rubbing my head. There was a slight pain behind my eyes, something I couldn't decipher. "Are you alright?" someone asked. I couldn't tell who's voice it was.
"I'm fine…" I said, getting up. I walked forward a bit, trying to find my way.
"Desmond, can you take her to her room?" someone asked. Suddenly a strong, leading hand led me down the hall and onto a bed.
"Just sleep. Don't dream…don't dream…" Desmond said, his voice drifting off into nothingness.
Here's the complete story:
I post the first three chapters of this on ff dot net two days ago. Today, I open up my email, to see if I'd gotten any reviews. I did, from my beta reading it. I go and make sure it's real (paranoia--not good) and I go back out to the full AC story archives. I see that there is another story marked as "Anticipation", and I say, "hmm, how interesting. It must be a completely different story...until I look at the summary. The summary was the exact first line of the first chapter. I start to hear both alarms and the Twilight Zone theme go off in my head. I notice that there are three chapters uploaded, and the story is finished. I get really suspicious and I click the link.
Sitting right there was the first chapter of my story, word for word, minus the Author's Notes and the Disclaimer. I frantically go through the other two chapters, and they were exactly the same. Someone had raped my art. My work. My soul. If you've read the poem on my profile, this is what I mean. Just because I write for you people doesn't mean that you have to go and steal it, making it look like it was your own. I was supremely pissed, and heartbroken, that some loser had copied my story. They were a loser because they didn't think to change the title, or use disclaimers. I came across a poem on deviantArt today, called "Plagiarism Is Murder". Go search it, it's by green-beanie-girl. I was in a rage all day, messaging my friends through IM and the phone, telling them what had happened. I immediately reported the non-author, as I called them, the first time I'd ever, EVER reported anyone, and I've seen a lot of things worth reporting.
After a long while, justice was served. Their copy was deleted, and my heart was partially mended back together. There are still cracks in it, from where my soul's work was violated. I can barely take a deep breath without thinking about what had happened to me. It's rude, disrespectful, and WRONG. I hope you all understand, dear readers, the consequences of plagiarism, and what will happen to you if you give in to the horrible deed.
And I may just be dramatic, but this is really, what it felt like. You may call me over-the-top, and exaggerated. But this is how it was for me. For an author. For a person with a soul.
Review if you think plagiarism is a sin against fanfiction.