2/4
Disclaimer: I don't own the game Assassin's Creed
I rubbed my eyes. The throbbing had turned to burning. I blinked a couple of times, wiping away where my eyes had watered. "Why'd we stop?" I asked, fighting off a yawn. I was exhausted. I had half a mind to go check for teeth and bruises.
"The Animus is getting hot. It's just for a few minutes. You'll be back in right away, it's okay." Rebecca said, standing up and stretching. I looked around, not standing. Lucy was away from her desk, looking over a couple of books in a nearby bookcase. Shaun was doing the same, but he was rearranging pins on a corkboard. I noticed his tea was still sitting on the edge of his desk. I smiled at the thought.
"Where's Desmond?" I asked, looking around for the assassin.
"He's…well, I don't really know where he is." Lucy said, turning her head only slightly. "You're welcome to go explore." She said. Shaun sighed, throwing a look her way. He put down the red pushpin he was holding and walked out the door. I stood up, following him out. We passed a door that was slightly open. Somehow it stuck in my mind; usually things like that do.
"You do realize by now that my task is to keep tabs on you, wherever you go, every day?" he asked, walking in step with me. "Come on. I'm gonna show you something cool." He sped up a bit. I kept pace with him at a jog. He went down the stairs, and turned into a door I hadn't noticed before.
It was a very dim room, accented only with the four rows of computer screens set up on a desk. On the screens, grainy black and white images were being shown through quartered areas. "This is where we keep track of everything. If you stare at these long enough, you'll see Desmond." He said, sitting down in a swivel chair. I took the one next to him. He typed in a command in the keyboard in front of him. "I'm searching for thermal readings." He hit enter, and one screen blacked out. The other three were filled with wide-screen images. "That's us." He pointed at the one with a picture of a man pointing at a screen. I turned around in the direction of the camera, finding the blinking red light instantly. "That's Rebecca and Lucy, in the Animus room…" he pointed to the one next to it, the man on the left pointing to a different screen as well.
"What about this one?" I asked, pointing to the one that was left. There seemed to be nothing going on.
"Desmond seems to be in that one, seeing as it only picks up human readings. If I'm not mistaken, that's Desmond's room." He said.
"Oh," was all I said. I looked around at the picture I was given. There was a bed and a chair, like mine, a punching bag hanging from the corner, and a dresser. "Well where is he?" I asked, not seeing anything.
"Here's the thermal image." He said. He clicked something and the screen went partially black, with the exception of an orange blob on the floor, hidden by the bed. "Oh shit, why is he on the ground?" Shaun groaned, like he had something better to be looking at.
"Can you get a different angle on the camera?" I asked, a slight part of me knowing this was bad.
"There's another camera in the hall, but it's useless unless the door's open." He said, clicking his way into a menu, and going through the choices in the options. He chose one and I saw an image of a slightly door. Shaun sighed, about to click out of it, but I made him stop.
"Wait. Zoom in, towards the floor, at the bottom of the door." I said; pointing to the area I was talking about. He did as I said, and I saw a hand outstretched in front of it, barely distinguishable in the black and white. "Oh, God." I said, standing up.
"Wait, what—?" I bolted out of the room. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong indeed. I shot up the stairs, heading for the Animus room, but turning a sharp right when I saw the door that was cracked open. Something was wrong.
"Desmond?" I asked, pushing the door open with my hand. I looked down at the floor. There was blood dripping from his head, and his eyes were closed. "Oh God." I whispered. I knelt beside him, looking around the room to see what had happened. There was blood on the corner of the dresser. "Lucy!" I called. Something must've been in the tone of my voice, because a split-second later, she was next to me, helping me move Desmond to the bed.
"What happened?" she asked, looking over the scene like I had been.
"I saw through the camera that he was on the floor, and I got this…this, I don't know, bad feeling, and I came in here and there he was!" I said, my voice frantic.
"Calm down. Shaun, can you get the medical kit?" Lucy ordered in a calm voice. I turned my head just quick enough to see a foot slip around the doorframe. Rebecca had come in as well, trying to investigate.
"He seemed to have hit his head on the side of the desk." She observed, looking around. "The patterns in the rug show he tripped over something." She went on, but neither of us was listening.
"He's lost some blood, but he'll be fine as long as he rests for awhile." Lucy said, reaching for a bandage that had come almost literally out of nowhere. She turned to me once the bleeding was staunched. "You saved his life. Thank you." She gave me a small smile before turning back to Desmond.
"…The window's open, guys." Rebecca said, making my head swivel up. Lucy didn't seem to notice. I got off the bed, walking over to where she stood.
"Why's it open?" I asked, once I stood beside her.
"Because that's how he got in." She said.
"So he climbed through, tripped, and knocked himself out on the dresser?" I asked, looking around, the scene playing out in my mind.
She shook her head worriedly. "I don't think so." She said, pointing to something left on the sill of the window. "I think this is really bad." She said.
The bloody handprint was shining in the late-afternoon sun. It was fresh.
"Tell Lucy." I said, pushing her toward the blonde-haired woman.
"Lucy, let me see Desmond's palm." She said. Lucy looked up at us strangely, but pulled his hand out. Clean. The other one as well. "Shaun, I need you to run through all security footage from the last ten minutes." Again, Shaun was out the door.
"What's going on?" Lucy asked, standing up.
"There's a bloody handprint on the sill." Rebecca said, pointing it out to her. Lucy examined it for a few seconds.
"Rebecca, get a swab of this. Send it in to Headquarters." What? I thought this was Headquarters. Rebecca nodded, going out the door, in the same direction as Shaun.
"What should I do?" I asked. I didn't have encryption skills, or a degree in forensic sciences.
"I need you to make sure you don't get like this. Get back in the Animus; it's cooled down." She snapped, pacing the room. "No. That'd make us too vulnerable. Stay with Shaun. Be his shadow. You'll pick something up on why." She said, the last sentence confusing me immensely. Rebecca had come back in with a swab and a plastic tube.
I nodded and scurried out of the room, after a worried look at Desmond. Why was this happening? I thought as I walked to the room that Shaun was in. I knocked on the door; for it was closed. I heard a low grunt from inside and I entered.
Shaun's face was bathed in artificial light, his mouth hanging open slightly in concentration. I took the seat next to him. He was watching the security tapes in fast-forward. "You take those two." He said in a monotone, pointing to the two screens to the left, in front of me. Without a word, I watched both from my peripheral vision. He was watching three at once. He had the outside door, Desmond's room, and an outside camera facing Desmond's room. I was watching the Animus room and the front door.
I watched people speed-walk past the gates leading into the mansion, idle in their own minds, while we were spinning around in ours. I noticed Shaun was mumbling to himself. "Five O' Clock Shadows…bastards."
"What?" I asked. He tapped a few keys on the keyboard and the screen went back.
"This is five minutes before we came in here." He said. Suddenly, his three screens went black, and mine stayed on. "They cut our cameras for four minutes, thirty-two seconds. In that time frame, Desmond was put in the room, and he had tripped and fell." He said. I debated whether or not to tell him about the handprint. I told him in the end. "You said it was a bloody handprint, like, actual blood, or are you just playing on my accent?" he asked, sarcastically.
"Of course not!" I exclaimed. "It was gross!" I said, shaking my head. "Rebecca's sending DNA samples to Headquarters or something."
"Come with me." He said, leaving the desk. I knew where he was going before we'd left the room: the library.
He went down the aisle that had the encryption and code books in it. He went on the left side, and bent down to the last shelf. Did he know where everything was? "Shaun, were you ever a librarian?" I asked.
"Worked as one every summer until collage." He said, pulling out a book. I tilted my head so I could see the title: Ancient Symbols and Their Meanings. He began to flip through the pages, until he stopped, turning back five or so. "Here we are." He said, walking out to the tables, laying it flat on a wooden surface.
There was a picture of a red hand, on a door. Shaun read the passage next to it. "'The Red Hand of Death originated circa 3000 BC, by Egyptian Pharaohs and kings. It is a sign of death and evil, and the family's door that was marked with it would be banished to the deserts, being forced to starve and shrivel without food or water.'" He closed the book. "That's all I've ever seen on that. But somehow, information sticks with me, you know?"
"You have a photographic memory?" I asked. He nodded. "So…what does this mean?" I asked.
"Something bad. Someone wants to banish Desmond, or, more likely, you, to an unbelievable hell." He said, biting his lip and shrugging before going to put the book away.
"What the hell!" I said. "Is it so much to ask for a life where no one sends cryptic messages to you through their blood?" I asked, following him out. Shaun didn't answer. "I didn't ask for this! I'm not an Assassin!" I said.
"Listen very closely." He said, turning around. This was the first time I'd heard him sound this serious. "You are an Assassin. Not now, but you will be. Now, some people believe that you're the key that will unlock some sort of ancient past for us, something that will give us leverage over the Templars. This is why they're trying to kill you. They don't want to kidnap you, like they did Desmond and Subject 16. They know something we don't, and it's not good. You're going to help us," he sighed. "Or you're going to die."
I swallowed, trying to take in his words. "So I...you're basically saying I'm going to have to save the world?" I asked, shaking my head and looking down.
"The world is already saved, love. It's you who's going to help us reclaim it. But you won't be on your own when you do." He smiled warmly, adjusted his glasses, and walked into Desmond's room.
"Anything?" Lucy asked.
"No. They cut the cameras before we could see what had happened." He said. I caught how he had said "we". But I wouldn't say anything. "And that little handprint you've got over there, that's a mark of death." He said. I walked in.
"You're kidding." Lucy said sarcastically.
"It's Egyptian. We've never seen Egyptian before." He said. I leaned on the doorframe. Desmond was now cleaned of blood, and he had a white bandage on his forehead. He seemed to be stirring, though I was the only one to notice. Rebecca was nowhere to be found.
"I have. Sixteen had ancestors in Egypt as well as almost the rest of the world." Lucy said. Shaun scoffed and I gave him a look. "Well, it looks like we've got little left to do here. Shaun, can you help me carry Desmond into the Animus room? We should continue, but keep an eye on him as well." I wasn't quite paying attention at this part. I'd seen a pure white dove fly onto the now-clean windowsill, and it seemed to look me straight in the eye. I took a step toward it, but it took fright and flew away, leaving a stick in its place. I picked up the stick, examining it. Olive branch.
"Are you ready to go?" Shaun asked. In the time I had spent engrossed in the bird and the olive stick, they had carried Desmond out and gotten the Animus to start. I put the stick in my pocket, and nodded. The comfort of having something in my pocket again was good. "Come on." He said, already out the door. I left the room, suddenly uncomfortable with being alone.
When I sat down in the Animus, Rebecca hesitated to stick the needle in my arm. Lucy started talking. "Now, since we've hit the three-day marker, you'll be seeing things change. In your personality, in your way of thinking, in your abilities," she said. I nodded. Was this the Bleeding Effect? "In a way, a part of you will become Nora. It's nothing to be worried about. Gradually, we're going to bring you up to speed, through the Animus."
"So it's like a virtual library." I said, glancing quickly at Shaun, who seemed to be ignoring what I'd said.
"Precisely." Lucy said, taking a seat at her desk. "That's all I wanted to tell you." Something pricked my arm and I fell back into the endless void of the Animus.
(This memory takes place two years after the one you had last time.) Lucy said all around me.
(You're in Monteriggioni, Ezio's uncle Mario's villa. Some things to look out for are the thieves, courtesans, and mercenaries. They'd do anything for money, but since you're close to Leonardo and Leonardo is close to Ezio, they shouldn't do anything too drastic to you.) Shaun said. (You're currently Leonardo's model, assistant, and apprentice. But you know this already.)
(Monteriggioni is in Tuscany, so you'd be around a lot of fields and farmers. Just…expect this.) Rebecca's voice faded off into the distance as I became Nora Titanimo once again.
"Nora! I'm out of blue!" Messer da Vinci called up the stairs. He was making a commission for Messer Mario. From what it seemed to be, it was a painting of the Villa Auditore. I only expected that he was using a far bigger canvas than usual, so it was to be assumed that he needed more of everything.
I was staying in the Villa with Messer da Vinci, in my own room on the left side of the house. I sighed, putting down my studies for trees and plants. I brushed my skirt off, and walked down the stairs. "Is there anything else you need, Messer da Vinci?" I asked, not walking into the room.
"No, just blue." He said. I nodded to no one as I went out the door. I took in a deep breath; I hadn't been outside all day. The air was sharp and sweet. I could smell the wheat and grain fields just outside of Monteriggioni. I went down the left side of the stairs, heading for the Art Merchant.
"Ahh! Nora! You're back so soon?" the merchant, Luigi, greeted me with a smile, his sun-beaten face glowing. I knew this was a practiced look, but since I was close to being the only customer in the entire village, he encouraged me for my patronage.
"I need to pick up more blue." I said, fishing out ten florins. Ten florins bought the large paint bag. You never knew with Messer da Vinci.
"Ahh, yes." He disappeared through a door leading into storage, and I played with the coins on the wooden countertops. It was high noon, with the sun beating down on all sides of me, making it hard to see. Luigi came back a few seconds later with the paint. I handed over the florins, wishing him well. I began to walk back to the Villa.
Something bumped into me roughly, something tall, made of metal, and determined. I stumbled forward, looking around to see what had pushed me. The glare off of the display from the blacksmith blinded me momentarily, so I had to step forward a bit to properly look around. Squinting, I managed to see a few people, but nothing looked like a walking wall of determined metal.
Instinctively, my hand went to my purse. It was gone. Infuriated, I vowed to have a word with the leader of the Thieves' Guild. I stomped up the stairs. As usual, the mercenari cat-called to me, whistling and making obscene gestures. I whirled on them, clutching the paint in my hands. "Va al diavolo!" I snapped at them, stomping into the Villa. I turned right sharply, to go into the room where Messer da Vinci was painting. He was patiently waiting on a stool, staring at the canvas. The canvas was blank. What had happened to the commission? "Here's your paint." I mumbled, handing it over.
"Grazie, Nora." He said, still looking at the canvas. I noticed someone talking with Claudia, Ezio's sister, at the desk. He was tall, taller than anyone I'd seen. He had a cape on his left shoulder, emblazoned with the Auditore Crest. Was that Ezio? I turned back to Messer da Vinci, to ask, but I could see that he wasn't going to give an answer anyway.
"Nora? You seem upset." Suddenly, my head snapped up, to look at Ezio. It was him! He looked much older now, by his height and build. I was speechless at how tall he was. How long had it been since I'd seen him? A year? I realized I had to answer.
"Ugh, some cretino stole my purse a couple of minutes ago. Probably a new ladri." I scoffed, shaking my head. I couldn't help but notice the faint tinge of pink in his cheeks, and the metal armor he was wearing. I said nothing, waiting for him to spit it out.
"Hmm. What a horrible crime." He said. He knew I knew he was lying, but I was still waiting for him to say something.
"Are you going to be in Monteriggioni for long?" I asked.
"A week or so. I have to ride to Forlì soon." He nodded, glad of the change of subject. "Will you walk with me?" he said, holding his arm out. I nodded slowly, looping my arm through his. He led me out of the Villa, chattering aimlessly about his travels. I nodded absently, thinking about the grass and the trees and the stones. We turned the corner and I was pushed back against the wall. Ezio's face was inches from mine. "I've missed you so much, Nora." He said in a whisper before he kissed me.
(Whaaat? When did this happen?)
I kissed him back equally, my hands wrapping around his neck, pulling his hood down and untying his hair from the leather band holding it in place. It fell like two curtains around us, and I was still kissing him. His hands slithered up my back, pulling my hair from the braid it had been in.
I'd missed him so much. It'd been way too long since he'd last visited, and letters only did so much. I wanted to join him in the cities, but he told me he'd be jeopardizing my safety. I could take care of myself, I said.
"You didn't have to steal my money to get my attention, amore mio." I laughed between kisses. He had to stoop down to reach me. Curse my lack of height.
"I don't know what you're talking about." He mumbled, holding me close. The armor smelled rank and of blood.
"You're only here a week?" I asked, like I had said he was going to leave in five minutes.
"Ten days." He said, stroking my hair. "I have some things I need to do here anyways, so I have a ready excuse if I need to stay longer." He said, his throat rumbling against the top of my head.
"And I'm not reason enough?" I asked, mock-pouting.
"You know I don't like rumors." He said. "Besides, people can get jealous." He said, pulling me closer.
(Shaun, leave the room.)
(You didn't do th…with…)
"I can take care of myself. I can take care of you as well. How many new scars do you have now? I asked, lowering my hands to his back. He shivered, despite the warm day.
"Too many to count." He said, pulling away slightly. He cupped the sides of my face in his hands, stroking the long white scar on my cheek with his thumb. "This is the only one I regret." He said, leaning his forehead against mine.
"Ezio, stop worrying yourself." I said, leaning back. I took his hands from my face and led him back inside. Quietly, we walked up the stairs, hand in hand. He pulled me down the right side, and walked down the hall towards his mother's room. I stopped at the door, looking in on Maria Auditore praying by the window. She had gray hairs sprinkling her scalp. A year ago, she wouldn't leave the bedside. Ezio crossed the room, placing eagle feathers in a box for his brother Petruccio. I talked to Maria often, about her family, about her life before her husband's trial. He knelt beside his mother, exchanging a few quick words and a kiss on the cheek before returning to me.
"Let's go." I said, pulling him to my room. Once we were inside, he swooped down, kissing me on the lips. I smiled into them, and pulled away. "First things first." I said. "Armor, shoes, clothes. Off." I instructed, but half of his weapons and his shoes were already on the floor. He knew the drill. I smiled, getting a cloth and the basin of water from the vanity. He leaned against the vanity, clad only in his breeches and the leather necklace with five silver beads on it.
His perfect, scarred body stood next to me, bathed in golden light from the sun. I sighed. There were more scars than last time. A year does that to people. I took the arm closest to me, washing it until I got to his shoulder. I washed him in silence, enjoying the way his skin seemed to brighten up when I was done. With a dry cloth, I dried him off, suddenly tired. The lazy days in the country had caught up to me. He held me against his toned body, his honey-olive skin against my face. "And what of you, caro mio?" he asked, his body shifting underneath me. I breathed against him. "Has your friend Domenico come around lately?" he asked. I felt my face get hot.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Who is this Domenico of which you speak?" I asked, looking up at him, eyes wide. His hair framed his face. I resisted the urge to brush the snarls out of it, but that would be for another day.
"I've heard rumors of there being a better swordsman in Monteriggioni than zio Mario. He shows up at the most random of moments. I hear his fights are legendary." Ezio whispered against my head. I held my breath. "I heard he has a scar on the small of his back, for when he was going up against three of the strongest mercenari in all of la Toscana."
"I've never even heard of this Domenico that you speak of. I'm sure that if he did come to Monteriggioni, you'd be the first to go and fight him. Though I doubt you'll win." I smirked into his torso.
"Maybe if someone got a hold of this Domenico," his hands began to slither down my back. "That can be proven." I could hear the smile in his voice.
"Maybe someone knows him in town." I said in a whisper. I could hear the floor creak from under me. "You can go find him there."
"Then I will go seek him out." Ezio said, pulling away from me, and reaching for his clothes. I swatted his hand away from the pile of black, pulling him with me toward the bed.
"That can be for later." I said, pulling him down on top of me.
The world flashed white and I felt a quick surge of energy.
(Shaun, you're allowed back in now.)
(God, what took so long?)
(Shut up.)
Yay! An explanation of why we don't see sex!
