Yusuf
Near Vancouver
He had seen her. He knows he had, and he wanted to keep his eyes open to take in her appearance, because something hadn't seemed right, but his eyes were so heavy… As if they had been getting pulled down by someone.
He tries to sort through his memories, but everything seems jumbled… He could remember Ezio leaving and asking him to watch out for his lady, Sofia Sartor, while he had travelled to Cappadocia to investigate the Byzantines. He could remember the Byzantines rushing her book shop… And… The next parts of his memories are inexplicably fuzzy. What happened after the fight in the book shop?
His eyes fly open, he shoots up from lying down, and he is immediately lost in his surroundings. There is a box of light showing moving people… But so small. There is the sound of water falling but looking out the clearest window he had ever seen he sees the sun shining. He sits up and watches out the window, covered by sheer fabric, but not covered enough to stop Yusuf from seeing outside. Where the world looks more alien than ever.
"Woah, woah… Slow down…" Yusuf turns to face where the voice came from, speaking in a language he almost recognizes but doesn't really know… He doesn't know what was said, but he understood well enough. The person there is a man with shaggy looking brown hair and cool grey eyes.
"Shit… I forgot…" More words that go unrecognized as the man scratches his head, but somehow the meaning seems to gently float across Yusuf's mind, like someone whispering the meaning to him. "Uh… Old… Arabic? Oh, wait… Old Turkish?" The man stumbles a little bit over unfamiliar words in his mouth, but the last words Yusuf knows. The man sighs and then simply holds a hand up to his chest, "Zephyr." And then he points to Yusuf.
"Yusuf." He complies, slightly confused when the man nods as though he already knew that. "Where am I?" Yusuf asks in his own tongue, before realizing that this man, Zephyr, probably won't understand. The name sounds familiar, where has he heard it before? Why is everything so fuzzy in his mind?
The man's eyes grow large, and he opens his mouth to speak until the sound of the falling water stops and he closes his mouth. Then he opens and closes his mouth for another minute as though he were hunting for the words to say, before simply standing and going to the door on the other side of the room from where Yusuf is in the bed.
As he goes over to the door he scratches his head the whole way. Yusuf takes the opportunity to take a better look around the room. He is on an unbelievably soft bed, never had he ever lain on something so luxurious until now. There is also that box of light, showing the small people. Is it some kind of puppet device?
Yusuf puts his feet on the ground to stand but his legs crumple beneath him as he attempts the feat, landing him right back on the bed. He has not felt this weak in a long time.
He looks back outside seeing some trees and things that keep going by the too fast for him to get a good look at what they were. Next he looks around the room again, his mind beginning to clear and his instincts as an Assassin begin to come back. And although they were never as sharp as Ezio's he had learnt to trust them, and despite the unfamiliar setting he doesn't feel as though he is in any danger. Then the man, Zephyr, comes back around into the space accompanied by another man, this man has a burlier build, but unmistakably the same face. This man, looks at Zephyr, then back to Yusuf, puts his hand on his chest and says, "Aquilo."
Zephyr and Aquilo. Those names together chime through Yusuf's memories of his long talks with Astraea. But if these are really her brothers then… It has been a lot longer than he first realized…
"Astraea's brothers." He says in his own tongue. They both wear expressions of shock on their faces. But then they both nod at the same time, "Do you understand me?"
"That's…" Zephyr starts carefully.
"Really weird." Aquilo finishes, Yusuf noticing that the words don't sound familiar, but the meaning still comes to him easily.
"Gee… Thank you Captain Obvious." Zephyr says, the tone clearly sarcastic as his eyes roll heavily. Yusuf recalls a story Raea had once told him about the pair… And this interaction definitely lines up with the story.
"Yes… I can hear that you are not speaking a language I know, but the meaning comes to my mind…" Yusuf replies to Zephyr's statement.
"Yeah… It's almost like there's some kind of auto-translator." Aquilo says, Yusuf hears the words, but this time doesn't understand at all. The meaning he heard was something about a thing that gives translations of languages, but he had never heard of such a thing. "Did Astraea mention anything like this?" Aquilo looks over to his twin. Astraea… That was a word he didn't need to have translated, his Star, the lovely woman who always had the gentle scent of peonies.
"She said something about never worrying about language barriers, but… I don't really know if this is what she meant…" Zephyr answers before he purses his lips and puts his hand to his chin in thought before shrugging.
"And what of Astraea? Where is she?" Yusuf asks, knowing that she wouldn't have stayed hiding in the small room for this long. He notes how the brothers avoid his gaze, looking an awful lot like guilty Assassin recruits who had made a mistake.
What happened to her?
As his mind clears further, the worry begins to set in.
"We don't really know." Aquilo confesses.
"We went to the Abstergo facility to get you away from the Templars… And I'm sure she's okay… But we have been waiting for her." Zephyr begins.
They recount how they had found an ancient sanctuary given to Astraea by the ones she had once told Yusuf about… There a recording from one of the ancient beings, the brothers called them Isu, told her that Yusuf had in fact survived due to her power. They couldn't explain much in the way of details, only that somehow he had ended up with some amount her power that had healed him and kept him in some kind of hibernation over the last five hundred years…
It has been one week since Yusuf first woke up. And despite the fact that he had never been especially talented in learning languages— with the only not exactly local language he had ever made an effort to learn was Italian; and it hadn't exactly been easy. Making how easy it has been to learn this modern English a truly perplexing occurrence. It has been coming as easily to him as breathing. He had never had such ease in learning a new language.
But he had also never really had it that he could understand and be understood without really learning the language at all. So that likely helped. The brothers had been curious about the ability, so in the first couple of days they had tested the ability using some handheld devices they called phones. They ended up trying several languages other than English as well, and the result was always similar. Yusuf could somehow hear the meaning of what was being said without seeing any kind of translation. They even used languages from areas that hadn't been 'discovered' until after the sixteen hundreds.
During the one week since he woke up, and it had taken him about three days to be fully conscious and not ready to pass out after little more than a couple of hours of activity. And in all this time he has anxiously been waiting for Astraea to flounce in the door and remind him that she is more durable than most people.
"Hey, Yusuf? Are you okay staying this round?" Aquilo asks as he grabs a hoodie and heads to the door.
"Yes, I will just keep working at getting my strength back." Yusuf answers without stopping his exercises that Aquilo and Zephyr taught him to start building back some of his strength. The exercises are repetitive and boring sometimes, but they have also been effective. Almost to a fault as Aquilo had noted with a touch of jealousy last night after noticing that Yusuf's muscles have already regained some of their bulk.
He has also been exercising his English by only using it and trying to not depend on the strange ability to understand languages. As convenient as it is Yusuf would much rather get along by learning the language… Even if it's only half his effort to learn and half this ability holding his hand along the way. Alright, maybe it's more like a sixty-forty split between the ability and Yusuf's effort.
"Alright, I shouldn't be too long. And I'll bring back something delicious." Aquilo adds as he closes the door. They've been hiding it, but the two of them have been worried about Astraea as well. They have been alternating trips outside to see if they can track her down to get her back quicker, but they haven't had any luck yet. And now it seems that it will be Yusuf to tell Zephyr that Aquilo has left the motel.
Yusuf glances around the room during a break in his reps in one of the exercises, marveling at the amenities surrounding him. This time is so full of amazing things. And everything is so convenient. Keeping clean is fast and easy, you don't even have to heat water. There is food everywhere you turn. Night doesn't mean darkness anymore. And only a few hours with one of those phones had Yusuf's mind flooded with more information than he could contain.
It's really amazing. Yusuf finds himself thinking again before diving back into a new rep, it's a wonder that Astraea had the patience to wait to have all this back.
According to the twins Astraea had been with them and they are still expecting her back. But with each day it becomes more obvious that something hasn't gone right. Hence their excursions to find her, which Yusuf once asked to join but they explained that it would be better for him to stay in the area of the motel. With each day she is absent they get more concerned, more agitated. And while Yusuf is absolutely certain that Astraea can handle herself, he still feels worried about her. She is not indestructible…
The time when she had told him that, the information had really struck him. He had only recently found out about how long she had lived and was still learning more about her long, incredible life every day. So the more she spoke the more invincible she had seemed. She had even told him that she had often gotten between someone and a blow that would have been fatal to a normal person. He still remembers the day she had come back with four of his Assassins injured and one using her as a crutch.
A rush of people going to the entrance of the hideout is not usually a good sign… And Raea hasn't returned yet…
Yusuf walks over to the commotion to find four Assassins all being helped into the hideout, with Astraea bringing up the rear, using her shoulders to help an injured Assassin into the hideout.
"Go get him." Yusuf orders two Assassins to help the one Astraea is bringing in, relieving her of the burden. She checks on each of them before walking over to Yusuf as though everything were simply fine. A warm and completely mind-numbingly radiant smile grows across her face; she is obviously already plotting to weaken his resolve to check her for injuries.
"My Light…" She reaches a hand up to his face placing it on his cheek, her eyes alight with that heart-stopping glow that causes Yusuf to cave in to nearly any request she makes. But he cannot let her sway him so this time.
He closes his eyes and puts his hand on hers, clasping it tightly. Then he takes her to the space deemed as theirs tugging her along behind him. Once they arrive he turns to face her, she is just smiling at him with confusion now.
"Strip." Yusuf says bluntly. She responds with a flabbergasted look, "I need to check you for injuries. Now." She just smiles warmly while chuckling a little bit. "Please."
"Are you asking only to see me? Or is it something else?" She teases as she begins to unbuckle belts and untie sashes.
"If you won't take care of yourself, someone else has to. Now, let me check you for injuries." Yusuf responds without looking her in the eyes.
"I told you before… I'm a little more durable than the average person, but today that wasn't necessary. I am perfectly okay…" She drops the outer robes to the ground and puts her hand on his cheek again, "You have nothing to worry about… See? No blood." She gestures down her mostly white base shirt and grey pants.
"Please." He takes her hand and pecks it before looking into her deep emerald eyes, she stares into his eyes for a time before she bites her lip and Yusuf sees her shoulders slump in defeat as she pulls back her hand and finishes undressing.
There had indeed been nothing to worry about… That time. But now… There is a nagging sensation that keeps bringing her to his mind. When he had first seen her, he had been confused as to why she had looked so distraught… And so blissfully happy.
He had remembered it a few nights after he first woke up in the hotel room with Zephyr and Aquilo.
He had been killed.
As promised he had taken up guarding Sofia Sartor. But Ahmet and his Byzantines had overpower Yusuf and his Assassins. The memory had come to him when he had awoken from a dream where he remembered the sensation of the dagger being plunged into his back. That is certainly a sensation he could do without remembering. But the resurfacing of that memory had explained the expression on the face of his Star. And the explanations of her brothers had helped as well. Yusuf now knows that Astraea has lived another five-hundred years since his death. Alone. But for him… It was like being asleep. It felt like a long time… But only in the way it feels to have slept well and deeply all through the night.
"Hey, Yusuf…" Zephyr says as he steps out of the bathroom patting his hair with a towel, "Did Aquilo leave, again?"
"Yes, he said he would bring something delicious." Yusuf responds brightly, standing up from his sit-up reps.
"God, I swear he is having more fun feeding you than he is helping you get back your muscles." Zephyr shakes his head as he walks over to the desk where his notebook for Yusuf rests, detailing what all Yusuf still needs to learn. Zephyr opens the notebook and flips through the pages, "I feel like there is so much to cover… You have to learn everything about this time, and the last five-hundred years, and the whole rundown update for the Templar-Assassin war. It feels unending!" He lets himself fall backwards onto the next bed over and Yusuf just sits down on the edge of it, "Oh, man! You need to have a shower… I know I showed you how to work the knobs last time, do you need another demonstration?" Yusuf laughs, bringing a smile to Zephyr's face.
"No, I'll be alright. But I suppose you are right… I should get cleaned up." Yusuf stands up and walks to the bathroom.
"Yeah, three days of workouts is not a good smell for you… You could probably sink a ship with that smell." Yusuf just makes a strange face, "Sorry, turn of phrase, kind of. Meaning you really stink."
"Well… I guess I'll have to add that to the list of things to learn… Modern humour." Yusuf jokes as he closes the bathroom door. He pulls off the clothes that are nearly sticky with sweat, then the chain from around his neck that holds the ring he had given to Astraea when they had become handfasted. He pulls his ring off his hand and places it on the counter next to hers.
He looks up at the mirror examining his reflection again. Yep… There are definitely fewer grey hairs than I remember last seeing… And there are fewer wrinkles around my eyes… The thought flows through his mind. Although, he also notes that the scar on his left cheek is still present. Overall, to Yusuf it looks as though while underground he lost five to ten years of age. I wonder how this all came to be… He looks at his hands, opening and closing them a few times, just to make sure they are his. He isn't sure he feels completely… Human.
Yusuf shakes his head abruptly as though to attempt dislodging the errant thoughts filling his mind. Hopefully, Astraea will have some answers about what's happening, but until then there isn't much he can do… He decides to leave the thoughts for now… Hopefully those thought will leave me in peace for the time being… Yusuf worries as he reaches to close the still-damp shower curtain.
Although, amidst all this, Yusuf has found that he definitely likes the shower. The hot water at the tips of your fingers, and so easy to use. And the way it seems to be able to almost make him able to go mindless for a time, as though he were meditating. He takes a decently long shower and when he gets out of the bathroom, Aquilo has returned with something called Tim Horton's. The drink being called coffee.
And no news about Astraea.
"What? You've never had coffee? I thought coffee had been around in your time… And how didn't we think of it already?" Aquilo says scratching his chin.
"Well, I've never had this, the drink I usually leaned towards was tea." Yusuf shrugs, the drink certainly having a bitter flavour to it, but overall not unpleasant. The aroma is certainly nice.
"Yeah, you've only drank some teas since you woke up…" Zephyr comments.
"Hardly tea. The leaves were dried for too long in those strange paper-like contraptions…" Yusuf replies bitterly.
"Hmm… Let's find out a quick Google search can remedy this." Zephyr decides as he pulls his phone from his pocket, "Oh man! You barely missed it… It says here that coffee was introduced to Istanbul in the sixteenth century, during the reign of Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent."
"So Selim did become the Sultan, which led to Sulieman ruling after him… That's good, Sulieman was a good young man." Yusuf ponders the time he missed for a while and the other two just let him sit in his thoughts for a while. Until their discussion comes around to Astraea, pulling Yusuf out of his reverie.
Then a knock on the door gets all three of them on their feet. All three suddenly primed for a fight and ready to go, Yusuf reacting just as he would have in Istanbul all those years ago. A small amount of glee fills him in the knowledge that he is beginning to regain what he had lost.
Zephyr nods to Aquilo and he prepares himself for a fight while Zephyr goes to the peephole on the door and looks out. Zephyr's shoulders shudder and then slump a bit then he just looks over at his brother making a strained expression before going to open the door.
Once the door is open both of the men have slumped shoulders and apparently know the tall and rather burly man on the other side who steps into the space.
"Zephyr, Aquilo…" Yusuf notices how the man's eyes travel over the space, analyzing the area; he is an Assassin, no doubt. Zephyr closes the door and replaces the locks, "I hear you abandoned you mother and sister in a mountain." He says with a very unimpressed tone, Yusuf notices the way the two twins wince at the tone, "And I don't even want to get started on what you let Astraea do. What were you thinking?" The twins both sit down on the bed nearest the door, their gazes cast downwards to the floor, "And for what? Him?" The man gestures to Yusuf, and suddenly it hits Yusuf who he is.
"You, must be Astraea's father… Aiden, yes?" The man looks Yusuf up and down, eyes narrowing with distrust. Yusuf now noticing the similarities between the brothers and the man; like the shade of brown hair that they share and how his eyes carry a striking grey. He also notices how his nose and cheeks are similar to Astraea's.
"And how exactly have you heard of me? Are you a friend of Astraea or something?" He takes a few steps towards Yusuf, evidently this is where the height of the twins came from. Overall, he is definitely an imposing person.
"Dad? That is a really long and involved… Information dump… And to be perfectly honest I'm not qualified to give it. And neither is he…" Zephyr says while Aquilo just nods beside him.
"Oh? And just who would be qualified?" Aiden asks expectantly.
"That would be Astraea…" Aquilo says softly.
"Oh, I see… And where is she then? Oh, right. You up and left her in Abstergo's stinking claws. Not even just Abstergo but that slimy Zachariah Moore's grubby mitts. What were you thinking? She has barely been aware of all this for more than a month now! And you thought, what? That you would just launch a three-man rescue into an Abstergo controlled tower and carry out a prone person?!" He gestures harshly at Yusuf.
Damn… This guy's no joke… No wonder Astraea was always so stubborn.
"Pardon… Did you say that Astraea is in the hands of the Templars right now?" Yusuf has that information all click and then the other two make startled faces.
"Yes. Yes I did say that. Astraea has been taken by Abstergo to a remote facility north of here."
"So let me guess this all straight… Or rather, let's get the small amount of information you've deigned to give me straight." Aiden says while seated in the creaking, wheeled office chair, holding his head between his hands while massaging his temples, "You are the Yusuf Tazim, who led the Brotherhood in Istanbul… In… The seventeenth century…" He puts his hands flat together with his fingers at his chin, "And, for reasons you all deny me, you are alive and kicking… Apparently." His hands move slowly but they never stop moving as he uses them to enunciate his words, "And, for more reasons that you all seem to know and are also denying me, my youngest… Your sister… Is somehow involved." All three of the men nod, "And this is all related one way or another to the Isu site that Aurora was excavating, new memories discovered in Ezio's genetic profile, and—somehow—your sister's accident in Italy two years ago…" This explanation had taken seven hours—punctuated several times by Aiden needing to go take a walk to let himself cool off. It is now completely dark out, and the group hasn't even gotten to how Astraea was captured in the first place yet. If anything, Yusuf has been able to confirm, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these people are most certainly Astraea's family. She had told him so many stories about them, and now he can see it all laid out plainly before him. These are exactly the people she would once talk about for hours into the night. The stories that would leave her smiling sadly, laughing uncontrollably, or sobbing in his arms.
"Yep… That about covers it…" Aquilo says trying to bring some humour in but earning a sharp gaze from his father which has him settle down instead.
"And you both refuse to tell me what exactly possessed you to leave your sister, who is essentially barely a recruit to our order, at that Abstergo tower." Aiden irately states. It is plain to see that Aiden deeply loves Astraea. She had told him that after she had stopped taking the extra classes they had wanted her to do they had drifted apart… That her father had seemingly become distant from her, but seeing him now, Yusuf can tell that the love he feels for his daughter hasn't gone anywhere.
"Well, that's where I'm confused too…" Zephyr starts, earning his own sharp gaze, but he forges ahead anyway, "She should have been able to handle that…" The sentence earning a baffled look from Aiden that Zephyr ignores to finish, "There has to be something we're missing. All she had to do was buy some time for the tranquilizers to wear off and bolt…" Zephyr puts a hand to his chin in thought, Aiden takes a breath to comment—a comment surely related to his deeply perplexed expression—but Aquilo just shakes his head at him, "There has to be something we don't know yet…" Then Zephyr's phone rings, he picks it up looking at the screen and answers it, "Zeph here. Hmm… Okay, well Lio and dad are here too… As well as—Yes, he's present… Well we decided we need Raea for that, she has only failed once at explaining this news to someone and that was maybe mostly my fault…" Zephyr scratches the back of his head guiltily, "Hmm? Okay—Are you sure you can't just email it? Oh… Alright, I'm putting you on speaker Rebecca." He pulls the phone away from his face and taps the screen.
That is so amazing, floats through Yusuf's mind again, we can talk with people far away so easily!
"Hey, everyone! And Yusuf! Big fan. Loved how you welcomed Ezio to Istanbul." Yusuf remembers the moment fondly.
"Yes, I did enjoy that… But I never did tell—" He clears his throat, cutting himself off realizing that Aiden is not yet aware that Astraea had also been present then, "Anyway, it sounded like you had news…" He clears his throat and fiddles with her ring on the chain around his neck.
"Yeah… Uh… Not exactly good news… Do you guys have a computer? Please tell me you have a computer." The faceless voice asks before pleading.
"Yeah, but it's Raea's and she has that thing on lockdown… There is a password, and I can't even find another way in… Maybe you can, you are a much better hacker than I am after all." Zephyr says.
"Does it give you a hint? Anything we can use? You're her family, shouldn't you know what she'd use for a password?" Rebecca prattles off a string of questions on them.
"No, we couldn't find a clue and we tried everything we thought it might be… Between Lio and I… Well, except… Huh." Zephyr sits and thinks a moment.
"Well, try putting the phone next to the computer, at best I might get in, but maybe at the very least I could find a hint somewhere in the code of the lock…" Zephyr complies placing the small device next to what Yusuf deduces that this must be the laptop. Which if his memory serves is a larger version of the phones.
"Why can't you just tell us this news?" Aquilo asks logically, a question Yusuf had been playing with in his mind.
"This… Is not the kind of news I want to share, so showing you is going to get my… Point across quicker." Rebecca says ominously, Yusuf can hear some kind of clacking sound behind her voice, "Alright, well, I suppose this is to be expected of an expert hacker's device," Aiden narrows his eyes at his sons and they both avoid the look, "but the best I can do is a little hint… Uh… Doesn't make sense to me so I hope at least one of you can sort this out."
"Well, lay it on us." Aiden says abruptly, it seems to Yusuf that with each minute Aiden's patience has been waning… And now it seems to be wearing thin indeed.
"Alright, the hint I found is… 'What I once was to him'… Like I said, I can't think of anything it's way too vague for me. And I never got much chance to really talk with your sister." Maybe for her and— Yusuf looks around the room— Aiden, Aquilo, and Zephyr, who all seem to be thinking rather deeply…
"Him? That could be any of us…" Aiden starts, "Except maybe the five-hundred-year-old Assassin." Then Aquilo and Zephyr both gasp and look up at Yusuf, then each other.
"Do you think it could be that?" Aquilo breathes.
"Seems more likely than any of us to be honest…" Zephyr shrugs, "And what could it hurt…" Zephyr looks at his father who is just eyeing him suspiciously then turns his gaze over to the ancient, not-so-ancient Assassin, "Alright, Yusuf… What did you call her?" Yusuf raises his eyebrows at Zephyr.
"Oh, come on Zephyr, you're asking like he should know who this 'him' is… When it is more likely one of us— you know, the only men in her life?"
"Oof… Dad… That's harsh." Aquilo says.
"You know it as well as I do that she's never had a boyfriend. Not that it's a complaint from me." Aiden shrugs, and Zephyr just bites his lip while looking at Yusuf, and Aquilo grimaces at Aiden.
It seems he knows a vastly different Astraea than I met… Yusuf's thought floats through his mind as he remembers how flustered she got when he brought Ezio home with him.
"Are you sure you want me to answer that question?" Yusuf asks of Zephyr.
"Well… We apparently need to see this, and this is the only computer in our possession right now. So, yeah, lay it on us. I'm sure it isn't a totally cheesy pet name like 'muffin' or 'sweetums.'" Yusuf just laughs for a minute at the comment.
"No, I'm sure she would have pitched me off of Galata Tower if I had called her something like that." Aquilo snorts before breaking out in a full-on chortle, "I called her 'Najmay,' it means 'my star' in Arabic… I had always liked the sound of it, despite my mother tongue being Turkish."
Zephyr goes over to the computer and hovers his hands over the keys for a moment.
"Do you think that'll be in anglicized Arabic or the English meaning?" He stares at the keys while deliberating.
"I would say anglicized Arabic." Yusuf says, remembering the sheer bliss that had been on her face when he said that to her in his moment of clarity during their escape.
"Here it goes." Zephyr types it in after a quick search on the spelling.
"Come on… Zeph, you don't really think that's her password do—" Aiden starts but stops as Zephyr presses enter and the computer opens to them.
"Great, you're in. I'm going to link up now," Rebecca says over the phone before Aiden can say anything more, almost as though she can feel the tension in the room as it skyrockets over the connection of the phone call, "Alright, just please remember to not shoot the messenger." Some more clacking sounds from the phone before a video appears on the screen. Yusuf doesn't recognize the place, but he can see Astraea standing with her back against a sort of cage blocking a glass wall.
Then a crowd of people dressed in black point what Yusuf has learned are guns at her. Then she looks up at someone off the video who appears as he descends the stairs there, Aiden's face flares up with disgust meaning this must be the uncle the twins had told Yusuf about before. He stops approaching her when he is standing about ten feet away from her. They talk for a while, but even over the grainy video, Astraea was obviously analyzing the space around her. She likely already had her way out planned when a blur drops in from above her landing right next to her. She turns to the person but doesn't react like an enemy has just shown up behind her. Then she turns her back to this person again; this must have been someone she truly trusted.
"Wait… Is that Mesonyx? If Nyx was there too then there's no way they—" Aquilo begins to say, but then the new person stabs Astraea in the neck with something causing her to hop a few feet away from the person, Astraea holding one hand against her neck.
"Is that a syringe?" Zephyr cautiously says. Then Astraea wobbles a little before falling forward and being caught by the person who gently lays her gently down on the ground. Then the man points at a few of the people in black who pick her up and then they leave.
"Wait… Did Mesonyx help them take her? That can't be right." If Yusuf's memory serves, Mesonyx is Astraea's eldest sibling… And she very obviously just acted directly against Astraea in favour of the Templars.
"Like I said… Don't shoot the messenger… Anyway, I'm sure there is a very lengthy family discussion about to happen… So I'm going to sign off here… I'll email or text any updates I find." Rebecca says before a beep on Zephyr's phone shows the call has ended.
"Well… That certainly seals that." Aiden says, with his hand to his temple, releasing a long sigh.
"You say that like you were already suspecting something…" Zephyr narrows his eyes at his father. The whole atmosphere of the space has shifted, before it had been more the twins hiding information from their father, but now it seems like Aiden had been hiding something himself.
"As sharp as ever Zephyr… I have been monitoring Mesonyx's movements for a while now. There was a while where she had gone dark. So I tracked her down while she was hunting for any signs of Juno Cult activity. I have been tracking her for a couple of months now, but I never found any solid evidence that she had been working with the Templars… Until now that is." Aiden confesses.
"And now? That's pretty damning if you ask me." Aquilo hisses as he points at the computer's screen.
"Yusuf?" Aiden addresses him directly, "Would you mind giving us a little privacy?"
"I don't mind at all." Yusuf quickly escapes the room where the tension has grown heavier than a boulder. Yusuf leaves and just takes a stroll around the motel's outside.
It's dark enough now that he can't see the mountain behind the motel, but in the other direction just through a gap in the towering pine trees, he can see the core of Vancouver. The brightly lit towers acting as beacons in the night with little red lights blinking at the tops of the shining towers. He looks up but finds so little. Zephyr had explained to Yusuf that having so much artificial light at night drowns out the light of the stars at night. Light pollution he called it. He had said that now, there are few places where the view of the night sky would look as he remembered it. Perhaps that's why Astraea had so often stared at the night sky… To imprint it upon her memory, knowing that it wasn't going to stay that way forever.
Yusuf sits down on a bench in the courtyard of the motel and closes his eyes. He can tell he is different than before. He can feel it deep down that he has been changed. He puts his hand on his chest and breathes deeply, feeling the expansion of his chest with the breaths. And his heartbeat.
He is alive… And yet, somehow, it feels as though he is changed.
He sits on the bench watching the dark night sky, where only the light from a handful of the brightest stars is peeking past the light pollution of the large city. His eyes occasionally follow the blinking lights of the marvel that Aquilo explained are airplanes. Yet another miracle of this time, a large metal creation that truly flies through the sky. Incredible.
He loses track of time until he hears approaching footsteps and Zephyr comes around the corner. He comes and sits down next to Yusuf. He has a plain leather backpack with him and a couple of drinks, one of which he passes to Yusuf. To Yusuf's pleasure it is the one that he had taken the most liking to, iced tea. A chilled sweet tea that is often flavoured. His favourite variant so far has been a raspberry flavoured iced tea. Although, the flavour is absolutely nothing like the tea he once drank in Istanbul.
"So… That was… Intense." He says to Yusuf as he opens one of the fizzy beverages that is definitely also enjoyable.
"Yes, I suppose it was…" Yusuf answers the statement plainly breaking open the tea and taking a satisfying first sip.
"I'm sorry to have put you on the spot like that… As soon as dad had said it, it had clicked that the 'him' in her hint was almost certainly you. She didn't mention everything right away, but… We had used something called the Animus. It lets us see the memories of our ancestors. And for people like us, from long lines of Assassins, it's a great tool. It can help us learn the skills our ancestors learnt or find information they had… All in a fraction of the time it took them."
"You know, I often told Astraea that she was a natural born Assassin. She always denied it, saying that her skills had come from her years of experience and training. But I could tell there was some level innate talent. The way she picked up new skills was amazing." Yusuf reminisces.
"Oh, she has always been like that. Even when we were kids, she always learnt everything faster than the rest of us…" Zephyr chuckles a little bit, "Except one thing." Yusuf looks over at Zephyr.
"What was that? I can't imagine anything being hard for her to learn." Yusuf encourages Zephyr to finish.
"History." Yusuf scoffs at first, but then looks over at Zephyr who is nodding at him barely containing his grin, the pair laugh loudly for at least five minutes.
"History? That is terrible." Yusuf finally is able to say past his laughter wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.
"I know, right! And ironic! The person whose only learning weakness was history ends up living through most of it… Hilarious! And terrible."
"But hilarious." Yusuf agrees causing Zephyr to laugh again. Once they calm down Zephyr hefts the backpack onto his lap.
"She actually didn't tell me about you right away, it hadn't been until after Aquilo was going over Ezio's memories of entering Istanbul that she told me about some of her time with you. Once they had gotten the Animus set up to properly see all of Ezio's memories regarding her, she actually left. She said she couldn't bear to watch the memories of her from before you. She called herself 'dead inside' at that point. And that you had brought light back into her life." Zephyr conveys to Yusuf.
"Wait… So this machine, you can only see your own ancestors through it?" Yusuf asks for clarification.
"I think that Layla— another recent-ish Assassin—has developed one that you can see others' memories through… And Abstergo can use pretty well anyone's DNA to access memories, but the one we used was a little more traditional. So yeah, we could only have seen memories from our own ancestors." Zephyr confirms for Yusuf, making the suspicion click in his mind.
"So… You're descendants of Ezio?" He asks for more clarification.
"Yeah, Ezio and Sofia Sartor went on to have two children after they left Istanbul when Selim took the throne of the Sultan. Our line comes from their younger child, their son. Marcello." Zephyr says, but Yusuf seems to have his mind on something else entirely, "Why? What's on your mind?"
"Well… When I first brought Ezio to our hideout in Galata, Astraea had acted so strangely I had to ask her what was wrong… She confessed that she and Ezio had…" Yusuf trails off.
"Yeah… That has come up… Suffice it to say, if we had maybe told her that we were all Assassins and had perhaps gone over our… Ancestry with her… She probably wouldn't have done that…" Yusuf's eyes just blink a few times processing the information that was coming in.
"That is truly the strangest occurrence I've ever heard of… And you are correct if she had known that she probably would've avoided any interaction with Ezio at all. As well as any other Assassin." Yusuf theorizes, suddenly glad that she hadn't been told. It had been enough of a chore to get her to stay with him in the first place, even though it had been obviously what she wanted.
"Hmm… You're probably right… Anyway, I wanted to show you this… When she left her apartment she only grabbed what she thought she needed, and these were among those things." He passes the backpack to Yusuf and right at the top is a little wooden box he already recognizes.
He pulls it out and opens it to see the small painting he had brought her to do. He gently glides his fingers over the surface barely feeling the paint, it had obviously aged, but it also looks as though she's had it restored more than once. Next thing in the bag is her hidden blade that Yusuf had gotten made custom for her after their handfasting to pair with her ring. Again, he could see how much care she's put into keeping it in such amazing condition for five hundred years. The rest of the items inside are obviously hers, as her scent of gentle peony wafts up from the contents.
"Thank you, Zephyr… This means a lot…" Yusuf places the items back in the bag before closing it.
"Dad hasn't seen this yet, but it's only a matter of time. I just hope we can get Astraea back soon, then she can help us explain everything." And then Zephyr stands up, "And you'll have to break it to him that his little girl has in fact had a boyfriend before."
"Hmm… I admit. I never did think I would have to do this part… So I have not prepared for it." Yusuf confesses nervously.
"I'm sure it'll be fine…" Zephyr gestures for them both to go back to the motel room, "Probably."