Phew! I'm back, finally! It's been long-TOO long. I hope this can compensate.
Disclaimer: Look! It's Brotherhood! *sneaks to steal rights while everyone looks*
Patrice Desilets: au voleur!
Me: sheeeeeeit...
A month passed in Renaissance Italy like a second did in the Animus. I was walking with Ezio out in the garden, talking about whatever came to mind.
"That tree looks strong." He said, pointing to a large tree to the left side of the villa. We walked over to it, and sat on a bench nearby.
"It's been around for over three quarters of a century, Mario's told me." I said.
"Mario. My uncle." He said. He'd been having a hard time remembering who he was, who everyone was, but we stood people in front of him, and they told him who they were. Ezio played along, smiling and laughing at the things they said, but once we were alone, he told me that he only vaguely remembered some of them, and he was talking about Mario and Leonardo and Gambalto, the mercenari trainer. It was surprising how well he seemed to know his mother and sister. He still had no luck on knowing me.
"Yes. Your zio." I said, smiling at him. He nodded, happy that he was correct. "At one time, you were as strong as that tree. You were so powerful, you could probably fell that tree with your own hands if you wanted to. But at the same time, you were gentle, and graceful, and sweet." I looked down at our hands intertwined. His hands were warm, and dry. Not like they used to be—cold, sweaty, and clammy all the time.
"Will I ever be the same way again?" he asked. I looked back up at him for a moment, before smiling to myself, looking ahead.
"We'll have to see. I promised you it would be alright, didn't I?" I asked, squeezing his hand. "You're going to be just like this tree. You've just hit winter, that's all. Spring is right around the corner, if you want it to be."
"I do." He said, smiling.
Another week passed, and Ezio was beginning to remember things, like his birthday, his age, his family's names, his friends. His mind wasn't ready to remember that he was an assassin yet. It was best to just take it slow. He still didn't remember me.
There was one time, in the middle of the night, when I felt something upset my stomach. I got up to go see Ezio. He wasn't in his room again, so I sighed and slipped on some boots and went to the church. It was now opened, thanks to him and his allowance, which he was getting back gradually. I crossed myself and went in, finding him in the front of the church, right underneath the cross at the end. I sat back in the second row of pews, watching him sadly.
Ezio was crying. He was sobbing loudly, his head in his hands. He was bent double on the floor, and looked like he was in pain. He mumbled something I couldn't understand. I sat up straighter, being attentive despite the late hour. He struck the floor with his fist. "No, no, no, no, NO!" he shouted, moaning in absolute sorrow.
"Ezio…" I whispered. He snapped his head around, making his hair whip in his face. His eyes were bloodshot and filled to the brim with tears. His cheeks and chin were wet; how long had he been here?
"Why must you always be here?" he asked, his voice cracking all over the place. "Can't you see I want to be alone?"
"I cannot help you unless you want me to." I said.
"Unless you can turn back time, I'm sure I have no use for you." He spat bitterly, his body still shaking with sorrow. I could only imagine what he had just recalled—his father and brothers' deaths.
"I cannot change what happened. But I can change things you yourself couldn't see. You once told me that when your kinsmen were murdered, you were fueled by a rage so vengeful that you killed four guards just to think straight. Ezio, you did not have any time to grieve. You need to do this now, otherwise you will become something you do not want to be."
"I'd kill everyone in the world and it wouldn't make me feel better. I'd kill you, too." He snarled.
"That's not you talking." I said. I looked over at the sacramental wine spilled on the floor. "Ezio, did you forget what we all sacrificed for you to stop drinking?" I felt hurt, and upset, and disappointed. "You were hurting the people you loved!"
"I don't care." He said, his mind resigned from his body. That was rude.
"I think you do care. You care so much that you needed to convince yourself you didn't." I knew this day would come—the day when he'd gain our trust, only to knock it down like a pile of bricks.
"No, I don't care! I don't care about being me, I don't care who loves me, and I definitely don't care about you!" he sneered, his voice echoing through the church. I kept a stone face. "Did you hear me? Are you stupid? I don't care about you!" he stood up, and walked over to me, pushing me away a bit. I regained my footing, and resumed my position—I was a statue. "I hate you. I wish you'd never have come here. You're the worst thing to have ever happened to me." He pushed me back a bit more. "Why won't you react to me?" he shouted, shoving me hard. I had to grasp a pew to keep from falling to the floor. I kept my face strong. "Why won't you say anything?"
I just stared at him, my eyes unwavering from his frantic ones, my body still as stone as his shook and trembled, once with sorrow, now with anger and frustration.
"I DON'T LOVE YOU! I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU LOVE ME!" he shouted in my face. Even though my heart was falling to pieces before me, I kept my chin held high, even as he grasped it and yelled in my face. "You're not even pretty!" he said, smirking, trying to get a reaction out of me. I would stand here all night and take his verbal abuse if I had to. "You're disgusting. You're ugly. I wish you'd never come here. You're a mess. You look like a piece of cheap #!*% I wouldn't even wipe up a table with. You think you can stand here and just say that you're here to help?" he yelled, his voice cracking from the harsh shouting. I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but I just stared at him. "Are you stupid? I think you're stupid. There's something wrong in that stupid head of yours." He knocked on my skull with his knuckles, making me feel dizzy, for some reason. "No, everything's wrong with you. Any sane person would start screaming at me, would run out crying, would hit me, or fight back. You? You just stand there, all stupid and mindless, with your stupid #!*% eyes and your defiance. And you won't even fight back."
Something had clicked in his brain at that moment. "You won't fight back. I can do whatever the #!*% I want to do, and you'll just stand there, and you won't say a word." He twisted his head around in a sick way of examining me. He walked around me, running his hands up and down my sides like some sort of animal. "You're fat. Are you sure you're not pregnant? You might be, I mean, come on, no one is that fat without a reason." He laughed manically, and I kept my composure, riding out the wave before I got back to shore. He moved his hands up to my breasts, squeezing them tightly. It hurt, but I didn't let it show. "These? These are nothing. Nothing compared to any other girl I could have. I can have anyone. And you can't do anything about it. Because you won't fight back, you filthy little—" Ezio had raised his hand, as if to slap me down, when the most beautiful voice I could have ever imagined appeared at the door.
"Ezio Auditore." Said Leonardo. His voice was stern, and filled with an anger and disappointment I couldn't imagine him ever having. He walked over to me, where I was still standing there, staring Ezio in the eye, and grasped my arm. "I hope you're happy." Leonardo practically growled at the drunken man, leading me away from Ezio, from the church, from everything.
(That was horrible.) said Rebecca, her voice sounding kind of sick.
He took me out of the city, me still staring forward blankly. I heard him say something to the mercenaries, but I didn't catch anything at all.
Leonardo helped me onto a horse, and began to walk me out, around the perimeter of Monteriggioni. I held on with a loose, resigned grip. If someone had pushed me even lightly, I would've fallen off. Suddenly Leonardo took me behind a hill, and held his hand out for me so I could get off the horse. I took it, and I was surprised by how strong my former tutor was. He took my arm, and we walked out to a soft patch of grass. The stars above us were dull, and there was no moon.
"All right. We're safe now." He said. I started crying like I had never cried in my life. I tried to tell Leonardo what had happened, but he said, "I was there the entire time."
This made me feel even worse. I felt disgusting; used. "He keeps breaking my heart. Why does he have to do this to me?" I sobbed. I could feel my dress getting wet from all of the tears I was crying. Leonardo just put a hand on my back, and rubbed it in circles while I cried. I cried my heart out, until I could cry no more, and I threw up in a bush to the side. My sobbing turned into gasps, and the gasps turned into tiny sniffles, and by that time, the sun was beginning to rise. "I still think…" my jaw kept bobbing up and down, making it hard to talk. I took a shuddering breath, and started again. "I still think that he could be down there. Trapped. I loved that man." I said, leaning into Leonardo's shoulder. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, warm and comforting, like my elder brother would have done. But my brother was in Greece. Leonardo was the only family I had.
"You can love anything you'd like, Nora. You can love a rock, and I would still be happy for you. But when you love somebody who does horrible things like the things he did in that church, I will intervene, as you saw." And slowly, pieces of my broken heart began to crawl slowly back to me. My eyes shone with their return, and Leonardo kept talking, his voice being the mending that I needed.
An hour passed, and the sun was fully up. Leonardo helped me up and I sighed, staring him in the eye. "Leonardo, you're probably going to kill me for this, but I'm still going to help Ezio." I said, nodding to him.
His blue eyes were not surprised. In fact, they were smiling, along with the rest of his face. "Why do you want to help him?" he asked.
"Because I made a promise."
I felt myself get pulled out of the Animus quickly, almost nauseatingly quickly. I held my head once the HUD was gone, and looked over at Rebecca a second later. She had tear tracks down her cheeks. Shaun was slyly wiping his glasses on his shirt, trying to play it off like he hadn't been looking over Rebecca's shoulder (or at the Interface computer) the entire time.
"That's sort of creepy, you know?" I said, stretching myself out. Rebecca was wiping her smeared makeup away, and she tried to smile.
"That was…that..." She said, trying to laugh, but ending up just spilling more tears.
It's not like I wasn't going to cry. I was ready to just unload. Like, bring on the faucets. There was this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I looked around for a trash can.
I spotted one in the corner of the room, and darted over to it, throwing up next to nothing, and bile. I coughed violently, and I felt a warm hand on my back, and I choked out a sob. "This is ridiculous." I said, making myself laugh. I gathered what remained of my spit and attempted to clean out my mouth.
"Apparently the Catalyst is a huge sap. What happened?" asked a familiar voice from the door. I looked up.
Desmond.
"Fottiti." I said, standing up and wiping my mouth on the back of my sleeve. The taste of bile was still in my mouth, sour and disgusting. It accompanied the words I used.
"No need for that, love." Said Shaun, from behind me. I looked behind me and rolled my eyes.
"I hate your ancestor." I said to Desmond, pointing my finger right up close to his nose. "He is so evil."
"Seconded." Said Rebecca from Shaun's computer.
"And passed." Said Shaun, kicking her off.
"What'd I do this time?" Desmond asked. The way he was using possessive pronouns when he talked about his ancestors was worrying me, but I didn't know how to get him to snap out of it.
"He broke Nora's heart, and was acting like a complete dick. Did I mention he's a recovering alcoholic?" Shaun settled into his seat, smirking at Desmond.
"Can we just go through Amira and Altaïr?" he asked, sighing. I glowered at him still.
"I don't think so, Mr. Bedrest." Said Lucy, walking in right on cue. "Besides, it's breakfast time. Unfortunately, there's no cafeteria here for us to socialize, so we're eating and working. And Desmond is going to take a nice, quiet nap in the temperature-controlled bedroom he so easily snuck out of." She smiled at him, and he didn't move.
"I'm still a part of this team. Emotional support is my game." He smiled and took a hands-free headset off of the wall. I rolled my eyes again. He lounged about on the couch, before taking the guitar into his hands and playing an E chord. He motioned for me to sit in the red Animus.
"Alice was in the green Animus today, when she was having her little emotional moment." Shaun announced.
"And how did it go?" asked Lucy.
"She what?" said Desmond. Shaun ignored him and explained to Lucy that all went well.
I quickly nodded to Rebecca, who tossed me a quarter of a bagel. While Desmond was distracted, I chomped the bagel in what I expected to be some kind of record for Speed Eating in an Awkward Moment. (I'd like to thank the kitchen crew, and…)
When I was done swallowing, and the taste of puke was gone from my mouth, Rebecca slipped the needle into my arm without another word.
I hadn't spoken to Ezio in a week, but I was there. I was buying paints for Leonardo, running errands for Mario, watching the mercenaries fight. If anything, I was ignoring Ezio. He didn't seek me out for anything, and one day, I had an idea.
Borrowing some clothes from the ladri and a cap, I stuffed my hair up into a tiny knot, and covered it with the cap. I nearly scared Mario half to death when I walked into his office. "Mario. Long time no see." I said, winking at him.
"Nora?" he asked, bewildered. "What are you doing? You're supposed to be having a break!" he exclaimed.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. I was wondering if I could use the Shianova in the armory…?" I was speaking as Domenico, who even I had thought had slipped away from me permanently.
"Y-yes, of course." He nodded. "Just don't get yourself killed!" he called after me as I walked out of his office, padding lightly across to the armory. I easily solved the puzzle lock that Leonardo had invented (the password was NORA) and went in.
Everything was covered in dust. I quickly found what I needed, and blew the dust off. I exited, and locked the room back up. Guarding myself from the hot and bright sun, I walked out to the training ring silently and stealthily.
Apparently this new mercenary named Nino was quickly rising to the tops of the ranks faster than anybody anticipated, from what I heard. He had only been around for two weeks or so, from what the thieves were saying. I even heard the name "Domenico" used to compare him, but the men from all around shushed the boys that had said it, like my alias was a curse.
"There he is!" someone exclaimed. All heads turned, including mine.
A man was walking up the left side of the stairs, swaggering with pride and dripping with ego. I almost started laughing at the big shiny gold star he wore above his heart—a sign of true honor. He had a handsome face (Domenico would probably admit this out loud) and a strong body, his blue and black tattoos of dragons from the Far East showing proudly on his neck and arms.
"I heard he traveled in the Orient." Said a man from behind me. "He trained there, too." I scoffed as the man vaulted himself into the ring. People around him 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed. Please, I learned that my second day in the Florentine gilda. But mercenaries were trained for strength and strategy, and thieves for their movements and speed. I remembered the third major group—courtesans. They were trained in the arts of deception and illusions, were they not? I remembered that Ezio had all three of these things. He should probably be taught by not just one person, but by many. But this was for some other time.
"I once heard that he—" whatever the gossip was going to be, it was cut off by the man himself.
"Please, please! Stop talking as if you know me!" he laughed, looking around. I noticed the courtesan in pink staring oh-so-very interestedly just then. She had been hiding in shadow. Again, the art of deception and illusions. "I will fight!" he exclaimed. The crowd roared, but I stayed still, my lips turned up into a smirk.
"I will fight you, Nino!" a man cried from the left of me. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Ezio, but he was slight. He looked to be about twenty, his young boyish features beaming as Nino called him into the ring.
"What is your name, boy?" Nino called.
"Luca." He said, raising his sword. I rolled my eyes. You always bow to your opponent before you go into combat with them. Apparently neither of the men knew anything.
Within forty seconds, people were helping him out of the ring.
I had noted Nino's blind spots—his left hip, his right shoulder, and his footing. I could outpace him in a running contest. He had a strong swing, but it was uncontrolled, and his rookie skills mainly composed of his stature and his muscular build. I assume he must've lived on a farm. I watched him go through three others, at each one asking their names, strangely, before I felt that familiar twinge in my stomach that meant it was my turn.
"Are there no other combattadore?" he shouted, his face red and gleaming with sweat. I pulled myself over the fence, and the crowd silenced. I was way shorter than this man, but what he didn't know was my expertise. I held his gaze confidently. "And you, boy? What is your name?" he asked, leaning over to meet my eye level.
"I believe most of the elder mercenari know my name…and my reputation." I smiled, catching the eye of Gambalto. He nodded, and grinned in realization.
"Gambalto, is this boy good enough for me to waste my time on?" I breathed out evenly through my nose, smirking on one half of my mouth.
"It's best you watch your mouth, Nino. And your back. This boy is quite the little spitfire, and not who you think at all." The man laughed from the side.
I unsheathed my Shianova, and bowed to the man in front of me. "What is he doing?" Nino asked the crowd, laughing a little. He wasn't echoed, or even answered. When I stood back upright, he had taken out his sword as well. I let my face draw blank, my heart hammering in my chest. Basic form and counters ran through my head in the seemingly eternity of silence.
I watched the enormous mercenario carefully, keeping myself balanced on the balls of my feet, probing at his defenses with my blade, watching him carefully for any sign of a coming strike. We circled each other, each step placed carefully, with the crowd watching every second of our slow dance silently, waiting eagerly for the first move.
One of the watching crowd, the woman he was with before, blew a kiss at us, and the hulks eyes shifted, distracted by a pretty face, and I struck. Off balance for a split second, he waved his sword wildly, fending off my strikes with more luck than skill. He quickly regained his balance though, planting his feet and swinging in a nasty upward arc, forcing me to jump back out of range.
He had made a mistake, and he was angry. He charged at me, swinging in short, brutal arcs, making it all but impossible for me to get closer. One of his swings took him off balance enough for me to dive to his left, letting me come up behind him. He turned quickly, bringing his blade around at chest level, but I was already crouched on the ground, and as I felt the tip of my cap cut off, I rose, bringing the tip of my blade up with me, and rested it just below his Adams apple. He sputtered and tripped over his own feet, falling onto his #!*% .
For a moment, everything stopped, the crowd was silent, and the big apes face was fixed in that moment between bloodlust and shock.
"Who are you?" he asked, breathing hard.
"My name is Nora Titanimo! Though some may recognize me as Domenico." I said, taking off my cap, shaking my hair out. The crowd around me gasped, and some started clapping and cheering. Nino seemed to have this look of recognition in his eyes, along with something else—something dangerous I couldn't place. I smiled at him and offered my hand up. He took it, still wearing that strange look. When he was up, I bowed to him again, and turned around to exit the ring.
I smiled, feeling the elation of another victory course through my veins, raising my arms to the crowd, drinking in their cheers. Even as I exulted in the adulation of the crowd, I felt troubled, remembering that look in his eyes, even as I had him beaten...
I felt, more than saw, him leaping at me, and dove to the side as he flew through the space where I had been standing just a moment before. He held a knife in his hand, with some kind of white paste [1] smeared into the shallow grooves running the length of the narrow blade. The crowd around the ring was too thick to try to jump out, and like a fool, I had leaned my sword against the wall.
"Sneaky little #!*% , aren't you?" I grinned, despite the grave situation. I threw a look at Gambalto, but he was talking to somebody beside him.
He rushed at me again, swinging the poisoned blade wildly, (obviously not used to fighting with a smaller blade) and I dove to the left, rolling over the dry, dusty earth. As I rolled to my feet, I coughed, my throat irritated by the dust, but then I smiled, because I'd hit upon a plan.
As the brute charged at me again, and I quashed the urge to shout Ole, and dove again, and scooped up a handful of the dry dirt as I rolled away. I taunted him, "When I'm done with you I'm going to shove that knife so far up your—" I was cut off when he charged at me, screaming obscenities as he came, and I threw the dirt in his eyes, blinding him. He kept coming, and I stepped aside, tripping him as he passed me.
He hit the ground hard, his breath knocked out of him by the impact, and the knife skittered away from his hand. It was only then, as I bent to pick it up, that I noticed the Templar cross etched into the steel.
"Templar." I said, tossing it to Gambalto. He found the cross and stabbed the wood with it, anger flooding his face.
"In Monteriggioni?" he asked, gripping the railing hard.
"They're here for me. I was attacked a couple of months ago." I said.
"Horatio, go get Mario." Said Gambalto, looking up at me. The boy he had been talking to before darted off into the Villa. "I heard about the attack. Mario sent you the letter about your bounty, right?" I nodded. He wanted to say something, but wouldn't.
"You know more than you're telling me." I stated, searching his eyes for something, anything, to give him away.
"What's going on?" roared Mario from the top of the steps. Faster than I'd thought possible with him, he ran down to us, and hopped into the ring. "Who is this bastardo?" he demanded.
"He says his name is Nino." Said Gambalto.
"What is your full name, rotinculo?" he growled, crouching down. Nino attempted to spit at the man.
"Antonio Banderato." He snarled as Mario held a knife to his neck.
"A Spaniard." I said, recognizing the accent he dropped. "But the nickname places him from Roma."
"You work with the Borgia." Said Mario, snarling a bit.
"The Master told me to kill you." Nino said, looking straight at me. I crossed my arms.
"I'm flattered." I mumbled angrily. Gambalto was shooing a bunch of young mercenaries and thieves away from the scene.
"Did your Master happen to tell you why?" asked Mario.
"She will ruin everything!" he screamed. "She will end the world, and everyone will fall at her feet, she will die, or we will face the conse—"
"I've had enough of this." Said Mario, stabbing the man in the throat. I closed my eyes and turned my head away, the sound of blood burbling out of the man's throat making me feel uncomfortable. A strong hand grasped my arm, and I was tugged out of the ring. I gave a cry of alarm as this was being done, for I had not felt anyone come up behind me. My eyes flew open, and I shook myself out of the person's grip.
I whipped around, and stared into the face of Ezio. I straightened my back and bit my tongue from saying anything nasty. "I'm sorry." He said.
"What?" I asked, a little snappishly and rudely.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for calling you all those things, and I'm sorry I said I don't love you. I didn't mean any of that. Nothing at all." He had tears in his eyes. I felt some spring to mine, despite the smell of blood that hung fresh in the air. He embraced me tightly, his arms shaking. "Nora, I remember you."
[1] Paint was usually made with arsenic compounds, and women would use white paint sometimes to give themselves a pale complexion, hence the term "drop dead gorgeous" or this could be due to the blood letting... who knows, they did some funky stuff back then... anyway, that is why the smeared paste is white.
HUGE thanks to my buddy Camilo, who wrote the fight scene for me.
I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything, okay a LONG while…and I'm sad to say that I have no excuse for you all besides classwork and all that jazz. I hope to post sooner rather than later, and get some more Amira chapters too!
Also as a side note, go check out RAINBOW26V's fic series, Truth: Altaïr: We Share The Same Sky. It features bits of references from this story, and you'll see some of Amira in it too! R26Valso has a follow up to that story called Truth: Ezio: Vox Populi, which follows around another girl from Ezio's time. The plots and themes are EXTREMELY closely related (actually, R26V had asked me if she could borrow some of the ideas, and I was so flattered by how she had actually ASKED [see plagiarism issue, Chapter 4] that I, in fact, encouraged it!) and I can't wait to see the outcome of it.
Okay, I hope you're all excited! Now express it in a review! Even if your review says 'OMG THAT WAS SO HORRIBLE EZIO ISN'T THAAAAAT MUCH OF A #!*% BAG' I still encourage it. Reviews are love 3