Please don't be fooled by my daily updates, that's just because I have already written these chapters beforehand and am too impatient to not put them up here asap.
Actually, this one is the last one of those, as everything else I have are just fragments from way further down the road. So I dunno how long it will take for me to update again, might be tomorrow, might as well be in a few days, as I'm still on my holiday and use every possible opportunity to procrastinate any sort of schoolwork.
Another POV change here, but it's the last one in a really long time, promise!
1760, Arctic Ocean
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The air is so cold, I'm actually surprised I can still feel my toes.
I let my gaze wander over the open icy desert before me, looking for any sign of... Well, anyone, but preferably Haytham.
"You stay on the ship and wait until we're back.", he had ordered.
Because, naturally, he wouldn't go alone. But instead of taking me with him, he, of course, had chosen Shay bloody Cormac, Ex-Assassin and the Order's new prodigy, while good old Julie was left on the ship, slowly freezing to death.
Thank you very much.
I walk around the deck, to both keep off the cold and the dark thoughts my petty jealousy keeps sending me, which doesn't really work well in both cases.
Most of the crew is below deck, trying to warm up a bit, something that I don't need because I'm counting on my anger to keep me at a very nice temperature. I keep strolling from one end to the other, reaching starboard when the ground starts shaking.
It carries me off my feet, bumping onto the hard wooden floor of the ship. Cursing, I stand up again, clinging on to the railing beside me.
A few crew members have appeared on deck, from their looks awoken by the earthquake.
One rushes up to me, it's Henry, the cook.
"You alright there, Miss Julie? I'm telling you, that's god's punishment for us meddling with those temples. May he have mercy on us."
He crosses himself and tosses a worried look towards the icy desert, from which we hear thunderous sounds of breaking ice.
I watch it equally worried, but say: "That's not God. They've triggered something there. Master Kenway has only told me that those artefacts they're looking for are incredibly unstable. They need to get out of there before they're buried alive."
It doesn't take long, then I see two people storm out of the huge iceberg to my left, which appears to be the entry to the temple. The first men doesn't stop when he exits the berg, he continues charging in the direction to my right, running across my field of vision. The other man quickly follows him, close on the fleeing man's heels. That man is, as I can figure out from this distance, to my relief: Haytham Kenway, the human being I have been silently cursing for the last hour; chasing a hooded man, probably one of the Assassins we've been tracking for weeks.
I let him run, my eyes riveting back to the iceberg, which is now completely collapsing. In one of the upper holes in it, I detect two small figures, seemingly trying to escape the imploding building. For a second, they appear to have succeeded, then the platform they're standing on breaks down, taking the two people with it and disappearing from my focus.
Ah, so Cormac probably didn't make it. Something I don't find overly sad.
I start pulling at my eyelashes, not sure what to do now. On one hand, Haytham might need my help, but on the other, he explicitly told me to stay on the ship.
Well, but at that time he still was accompanied. With Cormac gone, he's on his own.
Determined to be at least a bit useful, I take a rope and swing myself off the deck, releasing it as my feet touch the icy ground.
I start walking towards the direction I saw the two men last, turning slightly right.
And stop after a hundred feet.
It was a direct order.
And I'm currently disobeying it.
Indecisively, I turn it in in my mind, until the decision is taken away from me.
Someone has appeared in the snowy area in front of me and is quickly coming closer.
When that someone reaches me, he tosses me a confused look.
"Where is he?", Shay Cormac asks me, ignoring my baffled expression.
"I... Uh... Haytham?", I answer in the most intelligent way possible, completely forgetting to call him Master Kenway, still staring at Shay as if he was a ghost.
He nods, slightly out of breath.
All I manage to do is point in the direction I saw the two men running to.
Shay promptly takes off again, leaving me in a state of complete astonishment.
How on earth did he survive that fall?
I stand there wondering for at least five more minutes until the report of a gun yanks me out of my thoughts.
Without considering it any further, I race off, following the now very loud male voices, which sound over the frozen area.
When I reach them, I'm greeted by a very odd situation: Haytham, his gun still in his hand and dapper as ever, is standing opposite to Shay, who's talking to the Assassin, now with his hood down, and apparently alive.
He has a bullet in his leg.
That's rather unusual. Haytham usually never misses a chance to eliminate his enemies for good.
Or to flick me one of those overly annoyed glances, like he does now.
"I told... No, I ordered for you to stay on the ship! Can you not, for once, simply do as I ask?"
I straighten my back. "To my defence, I DID stay on the ship, until things seemed to get out of control."
"Things are perfectly under control, as you can see. No further help is acquired."
"Well, good then. Although, from my understanding, triggering an earthquake does not equal having everything under control, but that's just me."
Haytham holds my gaze for a few more seconds and then turns to Shay, who has been silently observing the scene with slightly furrowed eyebrows.
"Shay, this is Julie, my apprentice. She is a good student but has very little discipline on the open field, I'm afraid."
Shay just grants me a short nod, and somehow makes me feel like a goofy little child.
"Yes, little discipline is a very common phenomenon with apprentices, I have experienced.", adds the third man now, who, until that point, had only silently examined his wounded leg. He shoots Shay a glance, who immediately adopts a very defensive expression.
I have no idea what's happening.
"Anyway, let's head back.", Haytham quickly supposes, feeling the tension between the two other man rising with every second. "We have much to discuss."
On the way back, the two men walk ahead, with me tagging along behind them like a lost dog. I can't make out what they're talking about, as they seem to be very careful not to let me hear anything of their muttered conversation.
My anger grows with every passing second.
We soon reach the ship, where we're greeted by the crew, who all voice their discontent about the cold and the earthquake by talking all at once.
Haytham, in his usual straightforward way, silences them all with one single stern glance, ordering them to prepare the ship to set sail.
Shay leaves for his own ship, which is anchoring close by, and therefore brings Haytham's attention back to me, something which, on second thought, really isn't that much of a good thing.
"Julie.", he says, eyebrows furrowed. "You need to learn that following orders is as crucial in matters of survival as mere skills. How shall I ever bear the responsibility to charge you with a mission of your own, if I cannot be fully certain that you will do as I told you without any sorts of deviations or conditions whatsoever."
I bite back my answer, staring down at my feet rather than into his eyes.
He sighs, massaging the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb.
"I fear you're growing arrogance is slowly getting the better of you. Take care of that, Julie, it can be one's greatest weakness."
He turns around without granting me a second glance and marches off to speak with the Captain, leaving me behind both crestfallen and filled with rage.
Following my sudden urge to be alone, I quickly make my way down to the main deck, passing by a few crew members, who, now that we're finally leaving, seem to be of better spirits than before.
On my way down, I grab one of the loose ropes, which are neatly stored all around the ship, ready to be used should any imminent danger occur, namely the sudden arctic storms that are not unusual in these climes, or the sometimes too heavy swell on the high seas. I wrap it around my shoulders and cross the deck to the main mast, where I stop and double-check on the rope, before I swiftly grab one of the nets attached to it and start climbing upwards, heading for the crow's nest, which is located about 50 yards above the main deck.
With every foot I ascend higher, the grip around my lungs loosens. I breathe in the fresh but cold arctic air and feel freer than I ever could on that blasted ship beneath me.
When I reach the nest, I haul myself on the platform, tying the rope first around my torso, and then the mast as well, securing it with a "Rolling Hitch", a boating knot my navigation teacher, Sir. Harry Knox, had taught me, an old, bearded Scottish sailor, who may not have been the most understanding among my tutors, but certainly taught me more useful things in an hour, than Mr Evansbury had altogether.
I lean my back against the wood, closing my eyes for a second and blending out the muffled voices below me. They all seem far away now, as far as the ground is for a bird in the air. The thought makes me smile. I had always wished I'd been born a bird, always having the option of flying away once a certain place would displease me. That's why I had chosen Martin as my last name, I thought it fitting.
Unfortunately, I'm not high enough to forget the vast amount of water around me, the sea reaching to the horizon in front, left and right of me, with only the one behind me being concealed by the gigantic icebergs we are leaving behind us, as the Brigg is slowly picking up some pace.
Sighing, I open my eyes again and observe my surroundings, as the Crow's Nest offers a great view of the scenery around me; which, again, is mostly water.
If the thought of it didn't cause me such discomfort, I might have actually enjoyed the view, the water and the ice reflecting the evening sun's light, the sound of the waves and the cries of the few seagulls that circle around the vessel, as if escorting us out of the safe shore, just to leave once we reached the open, wayward sea.
I truly hate sailing, but mostly keep it to myself. Nothing in heaven or hell would persuade me to say a word to anyone, especially Haytham, who regards any kind of unnecessary fear as a weakness, and every resulting weakness as a personal insult.
About two miles to my right, another ship, significantly smaller in size, has left the shore, presumably Cormac's vessel, named after an Irish or Celtic queen, or goddess, or both; with an Irish or Celtic name I tend to forget. A lot.
I take my spyglass out of my coat's inside pocket and focus it on the smaller ship. Through the lens, I can make out several small figures rushing around the deck, seemingly in a hurry to ready the ship for the long journey back to America. On the quarterdeck, Cormac has seized the wheel, comfortably guiding his vessel with only one hand on it, while apparently talking to his Quartermaster beside him, a fellow Templar in his fifties, who always wore a wide-brimmed hat, and whom I only had briefly encountered, never catching his name.
The tension from before has evidently left Cormac, as he now, back on his own ship, seems way more relaxed, his whole posture far looser than when he had left us.
I soon grow bored of observing them and return to my silent thoughts. The anger from before is still there but has considerably decreased, leaving me nothing but exhausted.
Still, I heard the disappointment in Haytham's voice and I know that it will take time to restore his trust in me. On one hand, I consider his reaction more than exaggerated, on the other; I see his point, although I would never openly admit it to him.
Through half-closed eyelids, I watch the sun descend to the horizon, painting the sky and the water in orange and red. Even I, terrified of deep waters, must admit the beauty of it, the water reflecting every single beam of light, causing the whole scene to look even more otherworldly.
In a month or so, when we reach Boston, I will work even harder than usually, so that maybe Haytham decides to finally grant me some action beyond the Order's training establishment, maybe even deciding to assign me to a smaller mission of my own, or permitting me to join him in one of his, or another member's.
In an attempt to shield myself from the cold wind, I wrap my coat, usually more than sufficient on that matter, even tighter around me. Sighing, I try to picture the cosy Templar quarters at the Green Dragon Tavern, where there is always a fire to warm you up and a comfortable bed to rest in, as well as the company of fellow members of our rite. I miss them: William with his endless supply of stories, never missing out on telling me one or two on his visits; Thomas and his never-ending mockery of basically everything and everyone in the world, the tricks he taught me and the pub songs that will haunt me until my very end; Benjamin and his all-embracing knowledge of medicine and cures of all kind; John, who once a few years ago had brought me a bunch of tin soldiers to demonstrate me the very severity of warfare in an unmatchable afternoon in August, which ended in my unconditional surrender, after he had slain half of my troops. Even Charles I missed, of whom I had been afraid for a very long time, always regarding me with a more or less disdainful gaze, until he had all of sudden decided it was time to teach me a bit of politics, together with some simple songs on the piano, so I could "Show off a bit, when someone asked me about it at some posh ball or alike." He granted me a great insight into the political uproars of our time and his personal views and opinions, something I considered very valuable, as he himself had made it to a General, fighting in many campaigns as well as in the present war.
A cold blast of air nearly blows me off the edge, filling the ship's sails.
Only a month and I'm back home.
I'll probably catch a cold up here.
Only a month.