Constantinople, 1508

Though Yusuf had always admired boats for their otherworldly grace and maneuverability, he was very glad to step onto solid ground.

The Master Assassin waved a farewell to his ferryman and then began a trot up the pier. The port bustle had been fairly reduced since midday, cooling into a steady stream of workers and commuters on their way home to a hearty dinner. For Yusuf, the situation couldn't be more ideal; that is what bored him.

Exempting the splashing of the Bosphorus' waters, the North Imperial district was quite silent. The sun had set hours ago and walkways were calm. It was the kind of setting that put the Bursan to sleep. However, Yusuf did not have time to partake in such luxuries that evening- he was meant to meet with a group of Assassin sympathizers in Bayezid.

So our heroic adventurer marched on, stretching his neck from time to time as he made his way through Istanbul's resting streets. He barely even noticed when a hand darted out from an alleyway and grasped his wrist.

"Hey, you!" A male voice whispered fiercely.

"Hm?" Yusuf blinked slowly, eyeing his frantic caller with lethargy.

"I need your help. Can you spare a moment?"

Yusuf yawned, covering his mouth with his free palm. Then he took a moment to study his companion in more detail:

The man's face was tightly pulled into a frown. He possessed some brown stubble, but didn't seem particularly old- somewhere in his thirties, Yusuf imagined.

No, what was most striking was the fact that he was stark naked.

Well, putting it that way is a bit dishonest. His private areas were actually covered by what appeared to be a laundered sheet, freshly snatched from a clothes' line. Yusuf could tell it was stolen because it still had the pins in it.

"Er," Yusuf cleared his throat, now a bit more awake, "I'm not sure I can help with your specific set of issues…"

"It was that damned brat," Replied the indecent vehemently, "she did this to me! The witch made off with my clothes, too."

"Excuse me, but what are you talking about?"

He indicated the dark road behind him, "Down this way there's a woman dressed in a man's garb. She steals from whomever passes through the alley-"

"Wait, you knew that and you went through anyway?"

"It's a shortcut, alright?" The man cried angrily, but quickly interrupted himself in an effort to get back on course: "I met her just a few minutes ago. She said I wasn't carrying enough akce, so she took my clothes."

"That's…" Yusuf paused, waiting for the right word. "…Unfortunate." He finished awkwardly.

"Please, catch that bitch and get my dignity back!" Implored the nude one.

"Why should I? Dignity is hardly a going commodity."

His expression soured immediately, but in a second the man asked:

"How much do you want? I can offer you two-hundred coins."

"Have you anything more valuable than that?" Yusuf wondered.

His companion sighed, "Alright, the iskarta (wastrel) also took an heirloom from me. A gold pin, set with a sapphire. It is my wife's, she insists I wear it…but truthfully the thing itches like hell."

Yusuf raised an eyebrow.

"It's bound to be worth something. If you find it, you can keep it."

"Fine," The Bursan agreed, shrugging. It was hardly an attractive deal, but it was more interesting than attending a meeting he knew would end in snores. "Stay put, I'll be back soon."

"I'm not exactly going anywhere without my robe!" The exposed Turk hissed as Yusuf slipped past him.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The alley was a long one, and even a little clean due to its use. Yusuf could understand why it would be so alluring a shortcut- its length cut straight from the Imperial market to the riverside apartments. A short trip home, guaranteed. In all honesty, he was surprised only one bandit had sought this territory.

He continued along the passage's narrow road for a couple of minutes, crawling about at a casual pace. Yusuf naturally managed to appear distracted, an easy mark. It wasn't long before he felt eyes on him.

Yusuf proceeded, ignoring the prickling sensation at the base of his scalp for as long as possible. Finally he pulled to a halt and closed his eyes. A faint sound, almost like the blowing of a breeze. And then…

The Bursan ducked as a club went sailing over his head.

"Hey!" Complained a disembodied whine.

Yusuf rolled forward and turned about to face his assailant. It was as the robbed man had described: a fierce young woman, her torso draped in the wraps of an Ottoman citizen, but her legs were clad in military pants. Her feet went without covering.

She snarled and threw herself at him again, waving her blunt ended weapon about furiously. While Yusuf was far the superior warrior, this small person was a ball of energy. She left no room for a counterattack or side blow; only pressed the offensive until her opponent's defense weakened.

The Assassin tried to get around her, but it was costing him all his attention to keep that mace away from his face. Allah, she's fast, Yusuf thought to himself.

It was pitiful, really. He towered more than a foot above her, and yet this nameless woman was quite efficiently pounding him into the dirt. In truth, Yusuf was afraid of retaliating because she barely seemed older than a child.

Eventually, he slipped up. The bandit dropped to her knees and removed Yusuf's grip on solid ground with a swoop of her leg. For a moment, the Turk flew through the air. Then his back connected solidly with the dirt and his skull crashed against the earth, unpleasantly throttling his brain.

Instantly, there was a sharp instrument against his throat. A low voice ordered:

"Give me your money or I'll kill you."

Yusuf raised an eyebrow, "Why don't you just kill me and take the money yourself?"

He watched in satisfaction as she blinked and then steadied herself. Apparently, such a thought had never occurred.

"Because your body is too cumbersome to dispose of."

"Really? I would think the risk is worth the reward. After all, you can help yourself to everything I'm carrying. And bodies get dumped into the Halic all the time."

She was silent for a moment, and he could see her eyes considering his proposal. But she quickly shook her head and replied:

"This is my operation, Gerizekalı!(moron) Stay out of it and you'll stay alive."

Yusuf chuckled. In the end, she was only a child, following the incompetent example of the idiots who came before her.

"I'm afraid it's too late for me to back out now. Do you mind getting off, though? My shoulders have been bothering me lately-"

"Hey, I'm serious!" The bandit assured him, pressing her dull blade back against his throat, "Hand over all of your akce right now or I will kill you."

"We've been through this," Yusuf rolled his eyes, "You're a terrible highwayperson."

Her eyes narrowed irately and her cheeks burned red.

"Honestly, my twelve-year-old nephew is more professional…"

Yusuf smiled as the metal left his skin and instead a small fist gripped his collar, hoisting him from the ground.

"Listen, you-" She began in an infuriated hiss, but was suddenly cut off by the sounding of armored footsteps.

She froze, her face going slack as the Ottoman guard became more pronounced.

"…Do you hear that?" She asked, cold fear lining her voice.

"Yes, that'd be the guards," Yusuf agreed, "You can get off of me now, and we can both get away before they arrive."

However, unfortunately for the Master Assassin, his assailant appeared to have entered some sort of hypnotic trance. She stayed where she was, completely unwilling to move. Her eyes turned wide and glassy, and her weapons fell to the dirt with a clatter.

"Excuse me? Are you alright?" He asked, slowly sitting up. She slid off of him as he rose, petrified. The jangle of metal boots became more pronounced.

"Hello?"

Her skin swiftly lost its color and she began to murmur: "Loud, loud, loud, loud."

Yusuf watched worriedly as she continued to mumble to herself. The guards were growing closer, and he didn't care to be caught in these circumstances.

"Come on, we have to get out of here." He told her, climbing to his feet. She stayed kneeling on the floor, shaking her head. Her lips quivered in some unimaginable terror.

Great, Yusuf sighed, a perfect lunatic this is.

Still, he could not abandon her. As deranged and confused a young woman she might have been, Yusuf couldn't bring himself to surrender her to the torture of an Ottoman dungeon. That, and she'd proven herself quite a fighter. He imagined that with some discipline, she could be a credit to the Order.

An Order now retired, Yusuf reminded himself bitterly.

"Haydi," (Come on) he grunted as he pulled her up by her forearms. "Time to leave now."

"Stop, stop, stop." She answered, though she didn't seem to be speaking to anyone in particular.

It astounded him how someone with so much spirit could be broken by the clinking of armor.

"Who is there?" A call echoed down the alley, "Identify yourselves!"

"We're escaping now," Yusuf muttered in a singsong tone as he took her by the wrists and dragged her through the alley. She stumbled behind him, whimpering strangely.

Just when they were about to reach the mouth of the passage, something incredibly peculiar happened:

The girl started to wail.

Now, how Yusuf had even gotten involved with such a madwoman, the Assassin could no longer say. But the fact of the matter was that there would be no more yanking her away and no more evading the Ottoman guards.

"Hey, hey," He attempted unsuccessfully to relax her. He gripped her shoulders and smiled nervously, as one does with a shrieking baby. "Maybe you shouldn't cry right now, you know?"

She only continued to sob as though an unspeakable agony was ripping through her heart.

"There!" A shout from their pursuers.

It seemed there was no other way. Yusuf inhaled and uttered an apology beneath his breath. He then grasped the young woman's head in his hand and rammed it against one of the alley's narrow walls, effectively silencing her.

"Üzgünüm, tekrar," (sorry, again) Yusuf groaned as her body rebounded into his, now entirely limp. It was fortunate that she was so petite, as he was easily able to lift her into his arms and run from the scene. They swiftly found haven with the nearest Assassin Den.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It was late when he returned, but fortunately the Den Master always kept a candle burning in the entrance chamber. Yusuf closed the door to the shelter and nodded at the Assassin who came to greet him.

"Any luck?" his student asked.

Yusuf responded in the negative, and the two walked to the back of the room, a rest area for injured or fatigued members of the Order. The young bandit who'd accosted Yusuf that evening lay sleeping under a blanket of soft pillows.

After depositing her with the Den Master, the Bursan had returned to the scene of the attack. Despite his profession, Yusuf was a man of his word: he searched the entire alley for his 'employer's' clothes, coins, and heirloom. However he was not able to recover them- the Mentor suspected he took too long in retrieving the man's items and so he called the guard.

The forty-one-year-old Turk sat down beside the slumbering girl, sighing. His student stood across from him.

"Do you have any idea why that happened?" Yusuf asked after recounting the incident to the Den Master.

The man considered for a moment and then replied, "I have been reading about rare medical conditions as of late. A doctor who's set up shop outside the Den lent me a treatise about them."

"She isn't sick," Yusuf protested with a frown, "This Ufaklık (pipsqueak) came flying at me so fast she nearly ripped my arms off."

"That isn't what I meant, Mentor." Explained the other Assassin, "Illness of the senses. While her spirit and body remain perfectly healthy, she perceives the world differently than we do."

Yusuf made to answer that he didn't understand, but at that moment their guest sneezed. Both men turned to watch her eyelids fluttered and revealed grey irises.

"Hello there," the Bursan smiled, "How are you feeling?"

The girl cleared her throat and squinted up at Yusuf. Then she said, "I remember you. You're the idiot who got me caught."

"Saved your life, actually," Yusuf corrected.

"W-what do you want with me?" She countered, previously gentle eyes turning hard and narrow. She sat up and scooted away from the Assassins, swaying slightly.

"Sakin, sakin, (calm down)" The Den Master spoke gently, moving to support her as dizziness threatened to fell her, "You took a heavy blow to the head."

"Uh," She blinked slowly, confusion rolling across her face.

"I have a question for you, if I may," Yusuf began curiously, capturing the Bandit's attention. "Do you remember what happened before waking here?"

"Er, evet," A nod, "I'd just made off with that rich sod's robes and enough akce for a week. Then I ran into you, there was a fight, and…"

Yusuf watched her carefully, beckoning her to continue.

Tears suddenly formed on her lashes and she began to shake again. The Den Master took of note of this with much interest.

"The guards came, right?"

The Bandit slapped her hands over her ears and quivered.

"The noise, the noise. I keep hearing it in my head."

"I don't understand," Yusuf told her, brows knitting together out of bewilderment and concern, "What do you mean? What noise?"

"Ah, Mentor!" The student proclaimed, placing a hand on his teacher's shoulder. "It all makes sense now."

"What makes sense?" The Bursan growled, nailing the Den Master with a harsh glare.

The Assassin ran from the scene, dashing up the steps to the Den's second level. Yusuf could only sit there perplexedly while his companion prepared to launch into a second panic.

Fortunately, the Master returned soon. He had with him a jug of water and a cup. Yusuf watched blankly as he sat himself next to the girl and poured the water.

Miraculously, the Bandit ceased her sniveling and turned towards the cup keenly. The Den Master smiled and returned to liquid from the cup to the jug, then back again.

"What in the name of Istanbul are you doing."

"Look," His student whispered. The girl seemed to be in a trance, "See? She likes the sound of the water."

"Sound? You're saying this whole thing relies on sound?"

"Yes," confirmed the Master, "It's caused by sound. You see, Mentor, the treatise I read contained a case very similar to this one.

"It was labeled, 'hatred of sound'. Apparently, a man was brought to the doctor who wrote the account kicking and yelling. No one could understand what had happened to him. They said they'd found him like that outside a tavern."

"That hardly seems unusual." Yusuf replied skeptically.

"No, it doesn't, but listen," the Den Master continued, still pouring the water. By now the young woman was positively serene, smiling happily. "The doctor poured some water for the patient to drink, but instead he only stared at it. For some reason, the pouring of water made the man calm down immediately. But, whenever the doctor tried to drink something himself, the patient would fly into a rage, throwing whatever he could find."

"What are you trying to say?"

"The sound of a person swallowing is what drove his patient mad. Apparently, certain sounds, even ordinary sounds, can cause a person to suffer immensely."

Yusuf was going to argue further, but he suddenly remembered the footsteps they'd heard. The Bandit had seemed completely fair-headed until she'd hear the jingling footsteps. Perhaps footsteps were her trigger sounds?

"I see now," He relented, brushing his beard with a curled index finger, "Is there anything to be done for it?" He still wished for the girl to join the Order. She was too good a fighter for him not to try…

The Den Master shrugged and put down his water jug.

"It's not a condition that we understand. That case was the only one of its kind in the entire book. However, it might be possible for the affected individual to control their fury, at least for a little while."

Yusuf sighed.

"It's true what he says," the Bandit spoke quietly, "whenever I hear footsteps, something just comes over me…"

"It's alright," Yusuf told her, though he could not hide his disappointment. "Though perhaps you should consider a change in career."

"Yes," She agreed full heartedly.

"You know," The Bursan began hopefully, "you are a very skilled warrior."

She tilted her head slightly, intrigued.

"Would you consider training? It would a pleasure to take you on as my pupil."

"Training?" The girl seemed shocked, "I…but what about my disability?"

Yusuf smiled warmly, "I think with a bit of help and guidance, you could get around it. You have a very fierce mind- what you lack is discipline."

Surprise still lingered on her face, but it was slowly changing to pleasant surprise.

"Yes, I would very much like to train in the art of fighting."

"Very well. Galata tower at the break of dawn." Yusuf concluded and climbed back to his feet. He was about to turn and walk away when he stopped himself:

"How silly," he laughed, "we still have not been introduced. I am Yusuf Tazim."

The Bandit grinned, "Shabira."